*Knock, knock*
Ugh… I wake up to the sound of somebody knocking on my door. Who is it? Who is disturbing me so early in the morning?
*KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK*
Whoever it is, knocks again. This time stronger than the last.
It’s Sunday morning! Please! Can’t you let me sleep as much as I want!?
“Just a little bit more.” I murmur while putting the pillow on my head to muffle the knocking noises.
The knocking stops.
Finally! I can continue sleeping unti… But something interrupts my sleepy thoughts.
“Andreeeeu!” Somebody shouts my name. From inside my room. And then…
*Gofu!* Something big falls on top of me, on top of the bed.
Startled and forcefully awakened, I immediately look around and see my little sister Clara. She is on top of me. So I assume she just jumped on me, while I was sleeping… How cruel can you be?
“Hey, Andreu! Good morning! Did you forget what day’s today?”
Good morning? You call this a GOOD MORNING!? After being awakened as rudely as you did? Really, this girl…
“Isn’t today Sunday? That’s why… let me go to sleep again.” I say as I cover myself with the blanket and close my eyes.
She starts to hit me with weak punches. I say weak, but it still hurts quite a lot.
“You jerk! Today’s my birthday! My BIRTHDAY! So wake up already! You promised we would spend my birthday together!”
Covered by the blanket, I try to recall what she says. My brain’s still half asleep. Your birthday…? Yeah, I vaguely remember something like this to exist. But was it today?
“Happy birthday, Clara!” I say in a sleepy voice. And then cover myself with the blanket once more and proceed to sleep again.
Finally, she loses her patience and starts shouting. “Aaaaagh! Wake up you stupid lazy brother!” At the same time, she grabs my blanket and pulls it away.
I immediately start to shiver.
“It’s cold! Return the blanket right now!” She then glares at me. Oh my god, if glares could kill… I decide it’s better to surrender, just in case. “I’m waking up, ok? So return it unless you want ‘brother ice cream’ for your birthday! And leave me alone so I can get dressed!”
“Uuuu…” As she returns the blanket, she pouts for being reprimanded. “Ok… but if you take longer than ten minutes to get ready, I’ll come back. And this time with a cold water bucket!”
Is that… a death sentence? Please spare me from this torture!
Clara leaves, and I quickly get out of the bed and get dressed. Sunday? Sleep until late? No way I’m going to even consider it when a cold water bucket is on the line. If I’m sure of one thing right now, is that she WILL bring the water bucket if I don’t leave the room in less than five minutes.
She said ten minutes, so why five? There’s no way she’s gonna wait for the whole ten minutes. So better be faster to avoid ending as an ice statue.
What am I going to do with you, Clara? Today you are 18 years old, but you still behave like this…
‘Can’t you see you are making your big brother cry for treating him so badly?’ I think, while feigning to cry. ‘My sleeping time! Where’s my sleeping time!?’
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Today, we had a party with all the family in the morning, followed by a family lunch. It’s a special occasion since it’s Clara’s 18th birthday: the day she becomes an adult.
Officially, I mean. Because she’s still behaving like a kid, at least in front of me…
She got lots of presents, and was congratulated by the whole family.
Clara got good marks in the last exams before her birthday. So, as promised, I convinced my parents to buy her Dungeon Masters Arena for her to play.
I was kind of expecting her to spend the afternoon and night with her friends, but… She says she doesn’t have any and wants to start playing DMA instead.
I don’t know if this is true or if she had a party yesterday while I was at the barbeque. And I don’t care. It’s her life, so she can do as she pleases.
But… Right now, inside my own room, Clara is pestering me to show her how to play the game. I already expected it to happen, taking into account how she usually behaves.
“Hey, hey, Andreu! Let’s play already! Teach me everything I need to know for playing the game! Come on, start! Don’t make me wait!”
“Ok, calm down a little. So, what do you want to know before you start playing?”
“EVERYTHING!”
Are you serious? You want to know everything, but also want me to be fast? Are you kidding me?
“Hahaha… no way I can explain everything right now. How about this, I explain only the most basic things and then you select the faction you want to play and create the first dungeon… And after this we talk again?”
“Owww…. Ok…” She agrees. Nice! “But then, won’t I make some mistakes that I could have avoided by listening first to your advice?”
“Don’t worry, unless you want to optimize everything you do in this game, like someone I know very well (let’s call this hypothetical person Ricard, for no particular reason), you can’t really make any huge mistakes. You can fix everything later on. I mean, I started with the worst faction for first time players, and I’m still having lots of fun with it.”
I try to convince her. Please, leave me alone for some time already!
“Fine… So, what should I do first?”
“Well, when starting the game for the first time, you can only create a new dungeon. And the first step is selecting the faction you want to play as.”
“Aha! And what faction do you think is the best? Which one should I pick? Which one did YOU pick?”
“Hey, not so fast! Calm down! I picked the Flesh Monstrosities. One that allows me to create units, or dungeon mobs if you prefer, by using the units from other factions. But I don’t recommend it to you because it’s very hard at the start. In any case, feel free to pick it if you really like it.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Yeah, I would prefer if she picked some other faction. I don’t want to see my sister creating gross looking units like the ones in my dungeon.
“I believe you should pick the faction you like the most, regardless of what their strengths or weaknesses are. Read how they work and pay special attention to their ‘special resource’. Or you can simply choose the faction that you like the most based on how the units look. For example, you can pick the Primordials if you want to have lots of elementals, or the Iron Shield if you like the humans.”
I hate myself for recommending the human faction. I mean, they do have higher average stats than other units from similar cp cost, but… not having innate skills sucks.
But this is for my little sister, and for my little sister I’m ready to do anything, even if it means hating myself for it.
“Uhh… humans? Why should I pick them? They are shit in all games.”
“Hahaha! Totally agree! Then don’t pick them, just pick the faction you like other than the humans!”
I like that she hates humans too. Who likes humans? Nobody should. Not even humans should like humans. In my opinion, at least.
“And after selecting the faction comes the champion creation. Follow the game’s recommendation and pick a unit between 100 and 200 cp for your champion. The champion is going to be the unit you are going to play as, so better pick one that you like… otherwise you are going to regret it until you can create extra champions…”
She puts her finger on her mouth and tilts her head. Awww, cute! “Ok, then I pick a cute one, right?”
“Uhh… why not? Just pick whatever you like!”
You are the cute one, Clara! Nothing you could pick could compare. Unless you pick a fairy, maybe?
“And finally, the last part is the creation of the dungeon. I recommend you to use only a little of the cp on the dungeon layout and use most of the remaining cp on monsters. Oh, and don’t save any cp for later, because it’ll be lost!”
“You have been talking about the CP. What’s it? Some kind of money from the game?”
“Ooooh, yes, sorry for not saying that before! My bad… It stands for Creation Points. And it’s the in-game money you are going to use to buy everything.”
“Ok, so in summary, choose the cutest faction, a cute champion and then fill the dungeon with cute mobs, right?”
If she says it like this, the image that comes to mind is her playing as some kind of Fairy Queen and ordering little fairies to do her mischievous deeds. Is it just my imagination?
“Aha! You got it right.” What do you want me to say? I don’t want to talk her out of this.
“Now I’m going to create the dungeon then! Don’t peek ok, Andreu?”
“Ok!” I answer.
As if I could peek at her even if I wanted. You are alone during the dungeon creation phases.
Ahahaha! Finally! Some time alone! I know it’s your birthday, but I’m not your plaything, ok? I also have other things to do! Like doing homework or preparing for the college exams. And I didn’t have time for them this weekend!
So I open my college’s notes and start to study. It’s going to take a lot of time for her to finish everything. I hope so. At least I did take a lot of time.
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“Booooo!”
Somebody shouts right next to my ear. Shit! I almost dropped what I was doing to the floor!
“Hahahaha! What a jump you made! You were so funny! Hahahah!”
Clara starts laughing at my reaction. But what the hell are you doing, Clara? Shouldn’t you be creating your dungeon?
“Ha, ha, ha. How funny.” I say in a sarcastic voice. “What are you doing? Weren’t you busy creating the dungeon? I’m trying to study for my exams while you create it, you know… so don’t disturb me and return to it!”
“But, I already finished! I selected the faction, created the champion and even filled the dungeon!” She says, while striking a ‘praise me’ pose.
Wow, that was fast. Maybe I wasted way more time than I thought studying? Time sure flies when you are focussed on something!
So I look at the clock. Only a little less than an hour passed.
“Hahaha, don’t lie to me, Clara. It’s impossible that you finished in less than an hour! Please return to the game and leave me so I can study…”
She pouts and makes an angry face. You know, if you pout, even if you make an angry face, it only looks cute to everyone.
“But it's true! I already finished everything…!”
“Ok, ok! I believe you! So, what faction did you pick? Did you pick a cute one as you said?”
In my mind, the clear winner in the ‘cute race’ is the fairy faction. Followed by the elves faction, and then the elementals. For some reason I don’t understand, some people find the dryads from the elvish faction very cute. And the same with the low-level elementals, because they are short and chubby.
“I picked the Abyss faction!” Clara says.
I must have misheard. It’s not possible that I heard the Abyss faction here. Definitely not attached to the word ‘cute’.
“Sorry, I didn’t hear it properly. Can you repeat?” I ask her.
“I said that I picked the Abyss faction!”
“The Abyss faction, you say… But weren’t you going to pick a cute faction?”
“But I did pick a cute faction!! Aren’t they all very cute? With all those little tentacles? They are like small and wiggly fingers!”
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!? Something with lots of wriggling tentacles, and excessive mouths and eyes (and all other kinds of appendices) is cute!? CUTE!?
Somebody! Somebody please bring me a dictionary! I don’t remember the definition of the word ‘cute’ and need to look at it again!
I don’t understand my sister anymore… How twisted one must be to think that cthulhu style creatures can be cute!? Their appearances aren’t called mind-shattering for nothing! They are supposed to be so horrendous that your sanity collapses by simply looking at them! How can you call something like this ‘cute’!?
“Wait a moment, Clara, please. Your brother is having some trouble understanding the meaning of life right now…”
“Ahahaha! How stupid can you be sometimes! And do you guess what Champion I picked? Can you guess it?”
This one is a difficult question. The Abyss faction has a very little amount of humanoid creatures to choose as Champions. And I suppose that the few they have it’s only because they needed humanoid units for the players to play as champions. For dizziness and player comfort, and to avoid problems like the one I had when I transformed into a rat.
So with so little amount of humanoid units I should be able to guess easily. But I don’t know the faction that much.
“If I remember properly, there was only one humanoid unit between 100 and 200 cp… It was something with lots of tentacles…” I start muttering. The tentacles part is just a guess, but being a unit from the Abyss faction is almost sure it’s going to have tentacles.
“You are getting close! But you didn’t know the name, so it’s a failure! Hahaha! It’s called Hullesh. And it’s so cute with so many tentacles!”
Oooh, yeah. Now I remember. That… ‘thing’. I shudder. That thing can turn into one of your worst nightmares if you see it in real life. Who am I trying to fool…? It can turn into a nightmare even if you see it inside the game.
It’s a vaguely humanoid mass of wriggling tentacles, and can extend them as a means to attack the enemies. What’s even worse: most players give them skills to drain HP and MP. So you are drained to death, literally.
The basic structure is like a human… made of tentacles. The tentacles twist around themselves and create the human’s arms, legs and head. I think they don’t have eyes? How are you going to see, Clara?
“So what do I need to do now? Can you help me again?”
I’m still trying to recover from the shock. I didn’t expect her to consider the Abyss faction as cute.
“Now… You just need to play the game… Yes, play the game. And if players dive into your dungeon, you can get extra cp and experience. Before we can play together, you need to level up to level 3.”
“Then, this means you are now going to dive into my dungeon, right?”
She makes puppy eyes while looking at me. But I don’t pay attention. My brain is still trying to recover from the unexpected blow.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you want, Clara.”
“Yaaay! Thank you! I love you, Andreu!” She says, at the same time as she leaves my room.
A weird and dangerous feeling wakes me from the shock. Hmmmm… wait a moment. I just agreed to something, right? What was it…?
I think I just agreed to dive into my sister’s dungeon? Wait, my sister’s dungeon!?
“No no no no, why did I agree to this!? Oooohhh, shit… I’m going to have nightmares today… Goodbye to the relaxing weekend and hello lack of sleep for the next week!”
“Hahaha! Hahahahahahaha!” I start laughing. Without any reason.
Somebody, please kill me (in the game) already! So that I have an excuse to not dive into my sister’s dungeon…
[https://i.imgur.com/ZGSK4Pl.png]
There are lots of players who don’t like diving into dungeons from some factions. The most common reason is because they can’t obtain the specific resources for their factions. As an example, this is the reason why most undead players don’t dive into other undead dungeons.
But there are certain factions that players avoid for other reasons. The most avoided faction of all is the Abyss faction. For obvious reasons. This doesn't mean they don’t get players diving into their dungeons, though. Some players get obsessed with diving into them because of the ‘thrill of the scary parts’.