“Screw... You.” David breathed. His hands shaking he reached down and picked up one of the nine spare 1.25 litre bottles of water that he kept for just such an emergency. The water felt like it had been left to simmer on a stove but it felt so good going down.
Having just drank half the bottle, David closed his eyes. Meanwhile, the voice in his head grew agitated.
No. Don't sleep. God damn... Oh shit.
***
Memories rushed into David and he just knew. He had felt the crushing exhaustion, the pain, and confusion of hearing a voice in his head. He also gathered the knowledge that if he didn't do something that he was probably going to die.
What was happening to him? What was going on? Was he dead or dying?
That was when David realised that he hadn't been alone. Something was in the cave with him and it wasn't the fat guy in the car.
A thumb-sized humanoid creature with butterfly wings growing out of her back appeared in front of David. She was tiny and wearing a green dress that appeared to be made out of tree leaves. The tiny supermodel smiled at the ghost like she was the smallest beauty pageant queen in history and was about to get her crown.
Her voice was like a wind chime, “Greetings Dungeon, I am...”
Before this bullshit could go one step further, David raised a finger at the midget lawsuit just waiting to happen, and said “No.”
The fairy halted from giving her introduction and looked remarkably confused, “Excuse me?”
“You're excused, now fuck off.” David had played enough games to have instant dislike for anything that dealt with fairies. He had also read enough indie books to get sick of the idea of a cute little sidekick. Why did authors even link their main characters to fairies anyway? You couldn't have sex with them, not unless you were hung like a mouse. There was no reason that they hung around underground labyrinths. You couldn't even use them as a relevant plot device.
“But I'm...”
The dungeon pointed at himself, “Do I look like a two year old girl?”
The fairy, obviously not used to the angry man's foul language looked about ready to cry, “No,”
“Then go pester Walt Disney’s anti-Semitic arse.”
Tears ran down the fairy's face and David felt slightly guilty about being a dick, but he stood by his decision. He didn't have time to have a coma, or dream, or whatever this was. He had to get that tower fixed, and he possibly needed to call the police, or at least the local animal control office.
The fairy stood straight, not daring to show tears in front of the mean man. She turned around as if she was going to leave.
“Wait… wait,” David said. The fairy immediately spun around, hope in her blue eyes. “Tell me how this thing with my body goes? Am I going insane or something?”
“Oh, um.” The fairy looked down at David's sleeping body and another wave of uncertainty hit her. “I um. That's really odd. Usually your soul has to be in a soul stone for you to be a dungeon.” She flew to the Beast and gave it a tap with her tiny fist. “What is this? I’ve never seen this before. What world are we in? Are we in Alora?”
“Woah woah woah.” David held up his hand. It was starting to look like he got the slow kid in fairy school. The fact that she didn't know what a car was, was telling in itself. “Okay, next question. Is this the typical mouse trap scenario?” The fairy looked at him blankly and he let loose another frustrated sigh. “I build a dungeon, create monsters, and lure and kill adventures for magic or something?”
“Oh,” The fairy perked right up, “Yes, yes. I have to say you are getting this all very fast. Have you encountered a few dungeons? Are you a dungeon expert?”
“Sort of,” During his down time the trouble shooter had read a few litRPGs and Japanese mangas where the main character turned into a dungeon. At the beginning they had been interesting stories but they got ridiculously samey over time.
The problem was that magical dungeons don’t exist in the real world, and if they did nobody would be stupid enough to go inside one. There were no adventures, there were no monsters, and there were no swords and shields. Also, in the real world if you set up a death trap with a lot of mutants inside people in planes bombed it repeatedly.
David held his head. Okay, I'm dreaming that I am a dungeon master. Okay. Just stay calm David. You hit a roo and you are dying. No problem. Just wait it out. Hey, maybe if this thing continues you can see Tinkerbell, Cinderella, and Uma Thurman in a three-some.
“Okay. Now this is very important, so stick with me for a moment. How do I change the GUI?” David said.
“The goo-eee?” The fairy said slowly, not understanding the reference. “Do you want to make slimes?”
Seeing that he was dealing with a computer illiterate, David decided to try something else. For some unknown reason he wasn't freaking out about all this. It probably had something to do with being close to death or that he thought that this was one grand hallucination. He probably did have a concussion and this was just his mind working out the problem. He decided to get as much out of the fairy as he could.
First was the dungeon itself. There were no pop-ups or quests, just instinct. The fairy seemed utterly confused with anything that was game related. Also, he couldn't just magically make rooms; he needed monsters to do the hard part. The fairy seemed to be holding out on him, but from the gist of things this was starting to feel like the most retarded mining tycoon game in history.
A bit boring, but hey, who didn't want to let loose a full-on Minecraft death obstacle course on an unsuspecting world? The problem was that setting up a gauntlet wasn't going to help David's current condition.
“Okay, so how do I make like... enchanted swords and shit?” David asked. In the very slim margin that this wasn't a dream or he wasn't insane, the dungeon could make a hell of a decent living selling flaming swords out on eBay.
The fairy shook her little adorable head and gave David a smug smile, “That's it. No more freebies. You make a contract with me and I'll tell you everything.”
David considered the proposal for a moment. “And besides the tutorial, what can you physically give me and what do you get out of it?”
“You give me a home and I help you.” Seeing that the flying fat man wasn't convinced she spoke up, “I can go outside of your domain and get herbs and flowers. You. You can't do anything outside.” she said this like it was a challenge, forgetting that David's real body, while pretty much buggered, was still functional.
Outside of novels and cartoons, not many people were dull enough to care what a fairy did after they finished giving Peter Pan a back alley handjob. In the books they were there for the cute aspect, they didn't really do anything. Dungeon fairies, imps, and the whole midget thing was to tell the audience a slim tutorial.
As far as David was concerned they were a LitRPG author being lazy with explaining things, and they drew focus away from the main character. So, fuck that. If this was a dream he wasn't going to have Clara Oswald pissing in his Wheaties.
“Alright,” David pointed at the exit, “go outside and tell me how you feel about it.”
The fairy looked outside like it would suddenly eat her. “Um, okay. That should be easy.” she then zoomed out of the cave and headed straight for the Australian outback.
David had enough time to go to the truck before the extorting little shit came rushing back.
She pointed her finger out the cave entrance, “What is that? It feels like a desert but there are trees out there, there are dragons the size of dogs and one of them almost ate me. It's hot, and there are flies everywhere, and it's hot.”
“You said hot twice.”
“Because it's hot!” The fairy