Somewhere, there was a dungeon core. It wasn’t anything interesting, having just manifested, but it could be. The core had done just fine on its own; Choosing an affinity for itself, creating some basic monsters to protect itself, that sort of thing. But one day, as the core was making another basic spider monster, an adventurer accidentally dropped a flaky jelly donut into the dungeon.
…And then, the dungeon grew a sweet tooth.
It - No, that didn’t feel right anymore, He - felt like he just learned something new. Although dungeons cannot exactly ‘taste’, he knew that he enjoyed the makeup of the treat. It was something... fresh. It was composed of something sugary and sweet, something that the random mice and bugs that wandered the dungeon were attracted to. Maybe adventurers were attracted to it too? As such, He began to ponder a different path.
Adventurers had treats that other adventurers liked. The more adventurers in the dungeon, the more magic for the core. Injured adventurers give more magic, but dead adventurers can’t give anymore magic.
Would it really be that bad to stop killing them, and to start… enticing them? The magic they brought in wasn’t as much as it was when they died, but then they don’t give more magic. Besides, adventurers love goodies. Maybe, just maybe, he could start making defenses similar in construction to the ‘treat?’ Maybe that would both entice more adventurers, and get him more magic! More magic, more monsters, more adventurers!
The idea began to grow on him, similar to the sweetness of that delectable treat from that adventurer. If he made it so that the invaders liked him, maybe he wouldn’t need to fight so much! Maybe if he made the new monsters ‘cuter’, less ‘deadly’, and more ‘edible’, there wouldn’t be those few invaders that wish to shatter his core!
Plus, a small part of him enjoyed the idea of not needing to kill them. In an odd way, he enjoyed having them around; Sure, they caused messes and made everything worse, but they were endearing in their messes! Like when his spiders accidentally make webs in the wrong places, innocent mistakes.
Yes, a fantastic idea. A wonderful idea! He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t thought of such a fantastic idea sooner. No adventurer will feel bad for a snake with 5 heads, or a spider with human legs. But a monster similar to the ‘dogs’ the adventurers occasionally brought, with an appearance similar to that of a tasty good, that would make them like the dungeon! Probably!
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Well, that seemed a bit farther off… He didn’t really know how those dogs worked. Brushing that idea off, he made a plan. He would make some kind of spider variant made of sweets - And maybe, if he learned more, he would do it to all his insects - and then see how adventurers react to that. If things seem positive, he’d make more!
With a plan in core, he decided to do one last thing before executing it. Adventurers gave many things names. His - as of right now - was the ‘Insect Dungeon’. But… with this plan, he won’t be that anymore. He’d be different, sweeter, probably not deadly anymore. Some adventurers didn’t like insects whatsoever, fearing them. He didn’t like feeling his spiders get a little disappointed or sad when an adventurer was too scared to fight.
Curious, he idly wondered what his new name would be. Something similar to sweets, perhaps? He’d heard adventurers speak about their favorite treats while killing his defenses before, and one of those stuck out to him. At least, he was pretty sure it was a sweet or treat of some kind… He wasn’t fully sure.
‘Lemon meringue.’ That had a nice ring to it, but it felt longer than ‘Insect Dungeon.’ How about… Lemri? Lemrio? Yes, yes, that would work, and it sounded more like an adventurer name. They’d probably like him more if he knew how to tell them who he was!
With that done, Lemrio knew his grand plan would begin today, or at some time later today! He may have been jumping to ideas too fast, but when he had a core feeling of rightness at it, he just had to follow. That instinct never led him wrong before when it wanted to make spiders first instead of anything else.
The first thing to do? Obviously, it’s to remove some of his defenses and put a ‘maintenance’ sign on the entrance. Whenever the odd human that came did that, people didn’t go in. It shouldn’t be hard at all. The entrance - a wooden arch in front of the cave he called home - had a hook specifically for the sign.
Copying the design of the sign he remembered and telling one of his strongest spiders to hang it on the entrance, Lemrio felt happy. Excited, even. This was new, this was something new! It’d been a long time since he got a bout of inspiration like this; Maybe it would get him enough magic to make another floor. He, er, only had 2 at the moment, but he knew that would change soon!
What’s the worst that could happen if he took a little breather, anyways? He’d seen adventurers take breaks all the time, at the edges of his awareness. Some part of him wondered why he felt all of this now, but figured it must’ve been because of just how new it all was.