Dear Diary,

The cycle reset. Avi and I are in a party with Kimi and Y, like we planned. It's going well so far.

Avi kept a marble crossbow as his weapon this time, so he's been practicing with that. He's run out of marbles a couple times, and when that happens he focuses on illusions. I never realized how useful it could be to make things that aren't really there. Like walls or bear traps or fireflies. As long as it's something that the enemy looks at instead of focusing on the real threat, it's useful.

Y suggested making bear trap illusions. If the enemy is a person, like a goblin or kobold, they recognize what it is and try to avoid it. They become more afraid of the thing that isn't there than Kimi, who is running at them with a couple daggers. Things like wolves and spiders seem to be able to recognize that the pointy circle thing isn't actually there, and run right over it.

Either that or they don't know that a real bear trap can hurt. Probably that one, honestly.

But they do react to walls. Putting a brick wall in front of a spider will make it stop dead.

And sparkly flashing fireflies are useful to distract things when someone is going for a sneak attack.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It's good we're learning all these things.

But there's still an undercurrent of… I don't know, resignation? Annoyance? Belligerence?

Avi isn't flinching when he hurts someone any more. Which would be good, but instead he's mad. He's angry about having to do this. And if I say anything, he gets mad at me.

So… yeah.

I just kinda wish none of this had happened. I wish we'd never become players. I wish we'd never gone to the last floor. I wish… No, I can't wish Staab had never figured out how to get onto our floor. I'm glad we met the kobolds, and the Sams, and even the weird yetis.

But I was happy, as a simple catgirl. So much has changed, and a lot of it's been fun, but this is almost too much.

It'll be over soon. Hopefully. We'll find out on Cycle 60. I just have to wait it out.

In the meantime, I can hide behind Y when Avi gets annoyed. Avi respects Y, more than anyone else. He'll argue with Kimi and me about stuff, but never Y.

I think it's partially because Y used to be a professor. He knows how to say things in an authoritative way that no one can argue with. Well, Kimi can argue with it, but that's because she has no respect for authority and would argue with the Admin if she wanted to. Avi, though, is mildly terrified of authority.

Maybe I need to learn to talk like Y. Just learn how to do a self-assured, "I'm in charge and you will listen" type voice. That shouldn't be too difficult, right?

…It would be.

I don't know, I need sleep. I just felt like writing, I haven’t in a while.

Goodnight, Dungeon…