Insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again while expecting different results.

Well, whoever said that has obviously never watched competitive marble racing. Or been stuck in a dungeon on a time loop. Or watched competitive marble racing in a dungeon on a time loop.

I’ve done both. Many, many times. Because seriously, there’s not much else to do down here, and apparently one of the early loot drops includes a bag of marbles, so lots of people try to pay us in them.

Bags of marbles are also good for bashing in giant ant heads.

But anyways, yeah. My name is Nikki. I live on lvl 93 of the Doom Dungeon, where I run a burger shack. We also have ice cream. Because health potions are all well and good, but after being on a murderous rampage for a couple months or so, what everyone wants is something they can sink their teeth into (and don’t have to cook themselves). I was reincarnated into a catgirl here twenty cycles ago. Apparently catgirls are the only thing safe from being instantly murderized by dungeon crawlers.

Which makes sense, if you think about it.

There are a couple shops here on lvl 93. It’s the last “safe” floor before the big run to the finish. On lvl 100 is a big green button that resets everything and one back to zero. Except us, because why bother with the help, right? I’ve made so many burgers and fries that I’m now a lvl 100 chef, yay me. Mika, who runs the armor repair shop, is a lvl 100 blacksmith. Kimi, who sells the armor which needs to be repaired, is a lvl 100 merchant. She also sells potions. Aya, the information broker and announcer to our marble games, is a lvl 100 spy. Lilly, who can level up spells and give people new ones, is a lvl 100 mage.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

And then there’s Dorothy. We… We don’t talk about Dorothy.

So yep, that’s our little club! Or, group-of-people-being-held-here-against-our-will. Same difference. We tried to break out once, on the first cycle when we’d been sitting around for a couple weeks and the most interesting thing to have happened was when a rock fell in Aya’s ear and we spent a full day trying to get it out without damaging her brain or something. Cat ears are weird. Those were the dark days, before we discovered the magic of marble racing.

There are going to be a hundred cycles, in order to find the top five best dungeon crawlers of all time, who will then be sent off to do who knows what. If it means getting off this floor, I don’t care what happens next.

The current cycle (21) has been going on for about a month, my marble (Momo) is in second place in the standings, and we expect the first of the players to be here any day now. Kimi had journals added into her inventory this morning, so of course we all got one. Mine is covered in lime green glitter, because my color is lime green. The icon in the shop is just plain black, tho, so that’s kinda… disappointing… I’d like something I own to not be lime green. Oh well.

At least us being color-coded makes there be no arguments in the marble races about which marble is whose.

Anyways, that’s all for now. Goodnight, dungeon!

----------------------------------------