Candyland - From the Upcoming Rogue Dungeon Anthology

                                                                             Candyland 

                                                                          by DJ Bodden

Nibblet was breathing hard by the time he reached the lowest level of Candyland. The dungeon wasn’t very deep—only eight levels—and Nibblet had jumped into the secret well that went straight from level three to level five and landed in a pit of blue and white sprinkles, but even so, it was a long run from the entrance when one was only two feet tall.

Still, he ran. His trotters scraped and bounced on gumdrop pavers. He barreled past pools of lime, raspberry, and cherry soda, wove through the candy cane forest, and huffed and puffed his way past the fierce gummy bear guards who protected the sanctity of his lord and master’s chamber. His trotters sank into the jet-puffed marshmallow spread that covered the room like snow.

“Your majesty! Your majesty!” Nibblet squealed.

There, on a magnificent throne made of shards of red, green, blue, and yellow sugar glass sat Candyland’s dungeon keeper, the Frosted King.

“Nibblet?” he said, raising his venerable head. “Is that you?”

“Yes, your majesty! Please forgive my intrusion!”

The Frosted King waved an oven-mitted hand. “Don’t be silly, dear friend. We are glad to see you, and there is so little to do in Candyland these days, we do not fault you for coming down here for a gab.”

“A gab, your majesty?”

“A palaver. A yak. A tête-à-tête. You know, a chat?”

Nibblet felt so agitated he might snort. “I’m not here for a ‘chat,’ your majesty! It’s terrible! Candyland is under attack!”

The Frosted King’s crumbly waist crunched as he bent forward to take a closer look at nibblet. “There are no more children in Hearthworld, Nibblet.”

“I know that, your majesty.”

“Not since the Cataclysm.”

“Yes, your majesty,” Nibblet said, at the edge of his patience.

“What was it called?”

“The peegee-thirteen, your majesty. It made all the children go away, but it doubled the amount of adventurers.”

“We remember it well, dear Nibblet. When we forget, the frost maidens remind us because of their back problems.”

There was a roar outside the chamber as the gummy bear guards engaged the encroaching humans.

“What is that noise?” The Frosted King asked.

“Please, your majesty!” Nibblet said, on the verge of tears. “Adventurers are here. Teenage adventurers. They haven’t come to have fun, or to enjoy the candy. They’re farming us.”

“That’s nonsense, Nibblet,” the Frosted King assured him. “Now, stand behind the throne, and watch me handle these ‘Adventurers’ the Candyland way.”

Nibblet scurried behind the sugar glass throne just in time to watch the party of adventurers enter the room. [CokeAndBragger], a young human woman with two daggers and her face hidden in shadow by the hood of her cloak, swept the room with her eyes, her footsteps light. Behind her came a massive rog, [MeatMasheen]. He was clad in black iron armor, carrying a short sword and a tower shield, and his red eyes gleamed behind the visor of his helmet. [MaGiCshz], an elven wizard was not far behind, with fair hair and clad in lavender robes with a high purple collar. She looked as if she found the whole dungeon to be amusing. [EMSdude], a dwarven healer came in last, surly and leaning heavily on his crooked staff.

“Welcome, Adventurers!” The Frosted King boomed, standing up from his sugar glass throne, “You have braved the eight levels of Candyland. Now, come closer, and let me share with you—”

The elven mage raised her palm and lightning arced across the room, blasting the Frosted King’s head from his shoulders. It landed in the frosting by Nibblet, the frosted eyes and mouth so wide they were perfect Os, the king’s gingerbread flesh already a pale tan from the loss of his gooey center.

The little piglet bit down on his lower lip to stop from screaming.

“What the fleap, Jeanice?” the rogue said.

The elf wizard giggled. “You said ‘fleap.’”

“It’s a no-swearing zone, you glitch.”

The rog warrior put his weapons back into his inventory. “We were supposed to fight him together.”

“He was gonna talk forever. I just wanted to skip the cutscene,” the elf said. “Besides, I didn’t get any loot or XP for it.”

“Really?” the dwarf said. “That’s lame.”

“No,” the rogue said. “What’s lame is I don’t even like candy. Let’s go back up to the surface, start a campfire so I can cook, and wait for the dungeon to respawn.”

“Again?” the elf said. “I just one-shotted the dungeon boss. Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Like where?” the rogue said. “The Cruel Citadel? Getting griefed and having to start a new character is the reason we had to come to this Roald Dahl rip-off of an amusement park. The XP is good, even if the loot sucks,” she said, raising her fist with three lollipops wedged between her fingers. “Get it? The loot sucks?”

“Whatever,” the dwarf said. “If you guys don’t take damage, I can’t heal you, and I don’t get XP.”

“Don’t say ‘guys,’” the wizard said. “This party’s half girls.”

“Young women,” the rogue corrected.

“Yeah, well, you’re the majority now, ’cause I’m out like a trout.” The cleric unfurled a scroll, which disappeared in a puff of smoke, and he stepped through a purple rift in the air.

He was gone.

“Come on, ladies,” the black-armored rog said. “Let’s go back to the entrance. I need to go AFK and take a fish.”

The elf girl snorted. “You mean, go potty?”

“Ugh!” the rog said, stomping out of the room.

The others followed him.

They left Nibblet all alone with the Frosted King’s body.

Before the peegee-thirteen swept across the lands of Hearthworld, Candyland was a happy place. Children under the age of ten, sometimes accompanied by their parents, could come to the candy dungeon and have a real adventure. Nibblet the talking piglet had been there to guide them. They’d solve candy puzzles, eat candy that would never make them fat, and find clues about Candyland’s history on the inside of the wrappers. The more adventurous kids could throw gumdrops at marshmallow men, climb licorice ropes, fence the frost maidens with candy cane swords, and try to talk the gummy bear guards into giving them laughter filled rides. The adventure always culminated in story time with the Frosted King, where they’d sit around the throne and be told stories that were filled with compassion, friendship, and the satisfaction of a job well done.

But that was in the past.

Peegee-thirteen had taken that all away.

But while the children were gone, the lights of the puff-lillies were dimmer, and the frost maidens’ clothing had shrunk overnight, some things had stayed the same.

The Frosted King would not respawn. In the event someone damaged or killed him, Nibblet was supposed to give the children a quest to gather the ingredients and bake the Frosted King anew as a lesson in empathy and the consequences of violent actions.

But there were no children, and the adventurers heading to the entrance seemed uninterested in compassion or stories. They just wanted to pick up XP and loot from Nibblet’s dead friends.

“My liege? Are you—” The frost maiden’s words were cut off by a gasp. Chocolotta, the youngest frost maiden, stepped into the room, covering her mouth with her chocolate brown hand. She had cocoa nib freckles and black licorice hair. Vanilla extract tears traced down her cheeks and spattered on her ample bosom.

Nibblet stepped out from behind the throne.

“Nibblet! You’re alive!”

“I couldn’t stop them,” he said, feeling completely worthless. He held his front trotters behind his back.

Chocolotta wrapped her arms around him and pulled him to her chest. “I’m so glad! I thought I was the only one left!”

“But… the king…”

The youngest frost maiden sniffed and shook her head, setting him down. “That’s not important, now. I’m sure you did your best.”

Nibblet hung his head. His best wasn’t much; he was only a little talking piglet.

“What do we do?” she said.

Nibblet looked up. “You’re asking me?” he said in surprise.

“Well, of course!” she said, as if he’d asked a silly question. “Frostie always said you were the most important person in Candyland.”

Nibblet couldn’t believe it. “But, I’m just a little talking piglet.”

Chocolotta crossed her arms. “That’s not true. You know all of Frostie’s stories. You guided the children through the dungeon. You made sure they had fun, and that they didn’t get hurt or scared. I even remember you scolding an adult, once.”

“He called his daughter stupid. It was wrong.”

“Yes, it was,” Chocolotta said. “And you weren’t afraid to say so. Frostie used to say you were Candyland’s voice, and its heart, too. He relied on you, and I do as well.”

Nibblet took that in. It was true that the Frosted King had always taken the time to listen to him, even to the point of changing Candyland’s layout when Nibblet suggested it. He’d allowed Nibblet to move the dungeons residents around if a child was afraid of the butterscotties or the red vine rattlers. Nibblet didn’t think much of it, because he was just following the king’s order to keep the children happy and safe.

“So what do we do?” Chocolotta asked.

Niblet tapped his trotters together. “The adventurers are going to come back in less than two hours, when everybody respawns. We won’t have time to warn the others. They’ll get killed before they can defend themselves.”

“We could hide,” Chocolotta said. “That’s how I survived the attack. They’ll get tired eventually.”

“That might be true,” Nibblet agreed. “But maybe more adventurers will come. This wasn’t just about us. I heard them talking about problems with another dungeon, and something about getting ‘griefed,’ whatever that means.” He looked up into Chocolotta’s 100% cacao eyes and said, “We’re going to have to defeat them ourselves.”

“But they have weapons, and spells!” Chocolotta exclaimed.

“We’ll make our own,” Nibblet said, feeling increasingly sure this was the right choice.

“You don’t even have opposable thumbs!”

“That’s true,” Nibblet said in a small voice. “I am, after all, only a little talking piglet. But with you helping me, we’ll find a way.”

A grimoire appeared before Nibblet’s eyes and opened to a page near the end.

╠═╦╬╧╪

Everybody Needs a Hand to Hold

Let’s face it, dolphins are probably the smartest creatures on the planet. Why aren’t they ruling the world? Because they’re busy fleaping, eating fish, and living their best lives! Oh, and opposable thumbs.

Objective: Find a way to grab hold of your destiny. Literally grab hold.

Reward: Become the new Dungeon Lord of Candyland, command and deploy Keep mobs, create and alter the layout of the Keep, gain access to the Dungeon Lord’s Blessings, 50,000 Experience.

Failure: Leave the throne room and allow this opportunity to slip through your trotters.

Penalty: No respawn.

Restrictions: None.

Accept quest? Yes/No

╠═╦╬╧╪

He accepted the quest and placed a trotter on Chocolotta’s arm and gave her an encouraging smile.

She smiled back.

“Now, help me get the oven mitts off the king,” he said, waving his other trotter at the body.

Chocolotta frowned. “Isn’t that kinda gross?”

Nibblet shook his head. “The Frosted King is more than gingerbread, icing, and gumdrops, Chocolotta. He’s the spirit of goodness in each one of us, and I don’t think he’d mind if we borrowed them.”

“If you say so,” she said, and she knelt by the body, careful not to touch the pool of raspberry filling. “It’s hard to get off,” she said, tugging at the mitt.

“Try with both hands,” Nibblet said.

She leaned forward and tried pulling from a couple different positions, and suddenly, it popped off. Chocolotta handed it to him. “Here. I’ll get the other one.”

“Thanks,” Nibblet said, brushing a little stray frosting from the mitt’s red exterior before shoving his right foreleg into it.

He looked up in time to see Chocolotta fall back into the marshmallow spread. A little gob of the stuff had somehow landed on her nose, but she had the second mitt in her hands. “Are you okay?”

“It’s fine,” she said, sounding annoyed. “It’s been this way since the peegee-thirteen. I have a permanent debuff that makes me clumsy when performing routine tasks.”

“What’s it called?” Nibblet asked.

“Fan service.”

“Huh,” Nibblet said. “Are you going to be able to fight?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, smiling and wiping herself off. “It actually gives me a bonusto strength and dexterity when enemies are around, although it reduces the durability of clothing and armor. Go figure.”

She tossed him the second oven mitt.

Nibblet caught it in his arms, and shoved his left foreleg into it. As soon as he did, the oven mitts magically resized to fit him, and he opened and closed his hands—including opposable thumbs!

“How does that work?” Chocolotta asked.

“Fireproof gloves of grasping,” he said, feeling a bit better already. “Allows anyone who wears them to hold hot objects, even me!”

“I guess you don’t need thumbs to rule a dungeon,” she said, looking down at the Frosted King’s body.

“What do you mean?” Nibblet asked. He looked down at his headless ruler, the body lying in a mound of marshmallow spread, and saw that the king hadn’t had thumbs, either. In fact, without his oven mitts or his throne, he looked a lot like a giant gingerbread man. Nibblet shook his head. Some things were just too mysterious for a little talking Piglet to fathom.

“Can you help me up into the throne?” he asked. “I’m too short to make it by myself.”

“Sure,” Chocolotta said.

They walked over to the sugar glass throne together, and she put her soft, warm hands under his armpits to lift him into the seat.

[Congratulations! You have ascended to Dungeon Lord of Candyland!

All hail the new Dungeon Lord!

From the Dungeon Lord’s Throne, you may command and deploy Keep mobs, create and alter the Keep’s layout, purchase resources or upgrades for the Keep, and access the Dungeon Lord’s Blessings.]

At the same time as the Dungeon Lord’s Grimoire appeared before him, with ribbons marking the sections for Floor Design, Troop Management, Blessings, and Boons, Nibblet received the 50,000 Experience for completing the Everybody Needs a Hand to Hold quest, and the most beautiful, tingliest, awesome golden light filled him from curly tail to moist snout.

╠═╦╬╧╪

╠═╦╬╧╪

[You have reached Level 8! You may now choose to Evolve into a Pig, Porc, or Swine!

Warning: Piglet Evolution is irrevocable. Once a Primary Evolutionary Path has been selected, a Piglet cannot change to another Path.

Select Level 8 Pig, Level 8 Porc, or Level 8 Swine.]

Nibblet looked at the Evolution tree, his little eyes filled with wonder. He’d never leveled up before, let alone gained eight levels all at once, so he’d never put thought into who he would be when he grew up.

Chocolotta looked at him with concern. “Is something wrong?”

“I just gained eight levels. I can Evolve, now.”

“Really?” she said, surprised. “That’s a lot of growth all at once. Are you sure you don’t want to take this more slowly?”

Nibblet chewed his lower lip. It’s true he would have liked more time, but with the Adventurers waiting outside to raid them in less than two hours, it felt right to skip over some of the more time consuming steps of his growth. “I wish we had time for that, Chocolotta, but our minions and the Frosted King are counting on us to protect them. We might still die, but if I Evolve now, at least I’ll stay at level eight until they get tired of fighting or we chase them off.”

“Ourminions?” Chocolotta asked, cocking her head.

Nibblet blushed. “Just for a little bit, until the Frosted King is baked together again.”

Chocolotta nodded slowly, but it seemed like there was something she wasn’t saying.

Nibblet focused on what he needed to accomplish. There were three Evolutionary Paths available to him, and he was immediately drawn to become a Pig. After all, turning into Pigs was what Piglets were supposed to do. Constitution was the primary attribute recommended, and as a level 8 Dungeon Lord, he could already jump to becoming Some Pig, charming his enemies and inspiring his friends. At level 12, he would learn the secret languages of beasts, able to speak to and direct the actions of groups of barnyard animals. At level 16, he would become a Prize Pig, and his size and charisma would boost the reputation of the entire dungeon as well as make him immune to normal weapons. Finally, as a Sheep Dipper or a Spider King, he would be able to summon Celestial Rams or Barn Spiders to defend Candyland, and even send them out on visit nearby towns during special events called “herding competitions” and “county fairs.”

Before the peegee-thirteen, it would have been an obvious choice, and he imagined happy children coming to visit a dungeon full of fantastic beasts, once they knew where to find them.

But those days were past. He looked at the Porc Evolutionary Path, but the names confused him. They seemed to be an elemental specialization, and relied heavily on Intelligence.

Carolina was focused on fire and acid magic, while Kansas City seemed to be more about crowd control, with molasses-based slow spells, and pain spells that used peppers as reagents. It also came with a variety of side spells to augment and customize the main effects. Memphis dealt with dehydration spells and buffs that could be applied to large numbers of minions, while Texas would soften up tough opponents while swarms of minions ripped their flesh right off the bone.

The Porc Path made him a little uncomfortable, and yet hungry at the same time.

Finally, there was the Swine path, and Nibblet knew it was the antithesis of everything he and the Frosted King had wanted Candyland to be.

A Swine’s main attribute was Strength, and he used debilitating curses and taunts to drive enemies into ambushes and traps. At level 12, he would become a Wallower, able to roll himself in various disgusting substances to create an armored shell. At level 18, he could summon several rapid pigs and paralyze enemies, consuming them and drawing power from their screams. At level 26, his group of pigs would grow to become 30 – 50 Feral Hogs, and he would be able to attack other dungeons and towns as long as he led them. Finally, at level 36, he had the choice between militarizing his porcine force as a Major Boar, using advanced tactics and siege powers to destroy the enemy, or to drive the brothers of the Pi Iota Gamma fraternity into a wild frenzy and send them tearing into enemy lines.

“It’s okay, Nibblet,” Chocolotta said. “Whatever you choose, I’ll be here by your side. I know you’ll do your best.”

Nibblet nodded. He felt thankful to have such a loyal friend with him in such a crucial moment of his life.

The time for laughter and fun was over. He would have liked to have reached this level with the Frosted King on the throne, and with Candyland safe from Adventurers, but that wasn’t how things had turned out. Because of that, he was forced to make a different choice.

He split eight levels of attribute points between Strength and Constitution then, with a heavy heart, chose to become a Swine.

Magical currents lifted him into the air, and at first Nibblet was enraptured by the swirl of colorful lights.

Then he squealed in pain as his lower vertebrae cracked, rotating to bring his hips into alignment. His chest swelled, and his fuzzy pink tummy hardened into a tight six-pack. His forelegs lengthened like a primate’s, shoulders sliding back to align with his collarbone, and his trotters split and split again inside the gloves, giving him two long fingers and twoopposable thumbs on each hand. His calves, thighs, biceps, triceps, and neck all doubled in size. A pair of boar shorts materialized low on his hips, and a pair of designer sunglasses coalesced out of the coolness of the air and came to rest on his snout.

“Hey babe,” Nibblet said, dropping back into the throne.

Chocolotta swallowed and fanned her face. “Did it just get hot in here?”

“It’s cool,” Nibblet said with a wink. All of Candyland’s mobs were in cooldown after the Adventurers’ attack, so he brought up the Floor Designsection of the grimoire and got to work.

He seen the Frosted King alter the dungeon’s floorplan before. His ruler had even allowed the small talking Piglet to sit in his lap while he did it, making recommendations to improve the safety and enjoyability of Candyland. All in all, the first floor allowed for 100 design points worth of rooms, furnishings, and ornamentations, and the Frosted King had used all of them.

Nibblet had felt, at the time, like making the changes himself would forever be beyond him, but he wasn’t a small talking Piglet anymore. He was a Swine, and he felt more confident and strong than he ever had in his life.

The first thing he did was clear out all the junk. All the whipped cream, marzipan, chocolate sprinkles, and chopped nuts got tossed out. Same for the candy cane wind chimes, the spinning spiral lollipops, and the white chocolate garden gnomes. He stripped the dungeon down to bare floors. That gave him back 60 design points.

“What are you doing?” Chocolotta asked, her hands clasped behind her.

The Frosted King’s throne was more than big enough for both of them. He scooted over and patted the seat next to him, and she hopped up beside him.

“Our first problem is their numbers. We need to find a way to separate the Adventures.”

“How do we do that?” she asked, her shoulder pressed against his.

“We have a couple things working for us. For one, they’re teenagers, so they’re inherently selfish,” he said with a wave of sudden insight. Perhaps his evolution had changed him in ways more than just physical. But there wasn’t time to dwell on that—not with deadlier raiders, posed to strike in just a matter of hours. “We could probably just nail a clock to a wall and they’d stare at it for hours until they got hungry.”

“A clock?”

“They love the tick tock,” Nibblet said. “For two, they’re each a different kind of Adventurer. The rog is strong, the human is nimble, and the elf is smart. That also means the rog is clumsy, the human is weak, and the elf is a bit of both.”

“So if we set up obstacles on multiple paths that play to their individual strengths, and dangle the appropriate bait at the end of it, they’ll chooseto split up.”

Nibblet flashed her a grin. “I knew you weren’t just a pretty face.”

Chocolotta’s cheeks flushed.

With a thought and a few flicks of his wrist, Nibblet made the required modifications. He left the first room and second rooms alone, but he placed a small side room midway between them, branching off from the connecting hallway. It was only two feet wide and four feet deep, but that was more than enough for what he intended. He sealed the room with the most complicated magic puzzle door he had access to. It cost him a full ten design points.

The third room contained the stairway to the second level, as well as the Floor Overseer’s throne. Nibblet couldn’t afford to trap it well enough to interest a rogue, but levers, tripwires, and trap plates were cheap. He shoved the throne into a corner, and he placed a lever by the stairs in plain view of the doorway across the room. Then, he placed two dozen trap plates around the room, then linked them together at random, tying tripwires to the trigger rings. He scattered a few magical runes across the room for good measure, to discourage the thief from attempting to disarm them. Finally, just in case the thief didn’t take the hint, he painted the lever with glowing orange “tutorial” paint—whatever that meant.

Another twelve points gone.

“I see what you did there,” Chocolotta said.

“Oh?” Nibblet asked.

“It’s not going to work if the tank just charges through.”

“We’d better give him a better option, then,” Nibblet said.

He used most of his remaining points to create a fourth room catty corner to the third, and moved all the floor’s soda pools to the back half of it, making sure they were at least six feet deep. He built a small island at the back of the room, and then chose the cheapest shrine on the list and placed it near the back wall. Nibblet scrolled to the decorative armaments section and selected the flimsiest, flashiest, gold-painted tinfoil sword, adding it to the shrine as if it was a piece of legendary loot. Finally, he laid down a flimsy wooden plank between the island and the shore.

“Fancy,” Chocolotta said. “What’s stopping the rogue from just jumping over the moat and snatching the sword?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Nibblet said. He tabbed over to the greenery section and filled the empty half of the room with holly bushes with razor sharp leaves.

“Ouch,” she said, and Nibblet grinned.

He used the last of the design points to coat the rooms with a thin layer of whipped cream. The coverage wasn’t as good or layered as the Frosted King’s original layout, but Nibblet hoped it would be effective.

He closed the grimoire and it disappeared.

“All done?” Chocolotta asked.

“As ‘done’ as it’s going to be, at least with the Floor Design,” Nibblet answered. “We’re heading to the armory, next.”

“Candyland doesn’t have an armory, Nibblet.”

“It’s not called an armory,” Nibblet said, “but we should be able to find some weapons there all the same.”

He slid out of the throne. Since his Evolution put his snout at the level of Chocolotta navel instead of just above her knee, he offered her his hand, and she took it.

***

Nibblet approached the great bronze doors and pressed his right oven mitt against the seal. Recognizing their Dungeon Lord, the doors swung open.

“I’ve never been in here,” Chocolotta said, looking around the workshop.

It had taken them ten minutes to make their way up to the fifth floor, where the candy workshop was, which left them just over an hour and a half to prepare for the next raid.

The workshop had always been one of Nibblet’s favorite rooms, but whereas before he saw it with a sort of love-filled awe in the presence of the Frosted King, now he saw the tools to enforce his will on the Adventurers. Cauldrons of molten chocolate stood ready to be poured, a candy cane production line waited to be activated. There were amphoras filled with different candy layers for making jawbreakers, molds for shaping and cooling sugar glass, and a variety of burners, steamers, blast chillers, sanders, power hammers, rotary saws, and drills—powered by steam from deep below the dungeon, of course—to shape the most marvelous confections for happy children from all over the Hearthworld.

“You’re a fencer, right?” Nibblet asked.

“Just with candy canes,” Chocolotta said with a half grin. “I don’t think those would do us much good against an armored adventurer.”

“Only one of them was wearing armor, and I have a plan for him, too,” Nibblet said, patting her hip. “What’s your favorite kind of candy cane?”

“You want me to fight magic and steel with sugar?”

“Trust me,” Nibblet said.

Chocolotta looked him in the eyes and considered it, which Nibblet thought was fair. He was, after all, asking her to risk her skin and any levels she’d gained on his say so. She pursed her lips, and said, “Cinnamon, with black stripes.”

“Clockwise or counter-clockwise?” Nibblet asked with a grin.

“Counter!” she said with a giggle. “A fencer isn’t a fencer without a good riposte.”

Nibblet nodded and walked over to the candy cane control panel. He selected the extra fiery cinnamon, added the black stripes to it, rotated a dial to set them to counter-clockwise. He punched up three canes in the queue, then hit the “start” button.

Gears clanked into motion, steam hissed, pipes popped. Chocolotta’s mouth dropped open in wonder as various lights and pistons lit up or started moving, and it plucked a chord in Nibblet’s broad chest.

But he had work to do. While the candy cane assembly line warmed up, he grabbed a sugar glass mold, the kind he’d used in the past to make replacement crystals for the Frosted King’s throne, and he set it under one of the smelting cauldrons. “Can you help me with this?”

“Of course,” Chocolotta said, dragging her eyes away from the assembly line.

Nibblet grabbed a sixty pound bag from a pallet and tossed it onto his shoulder as if it was a beach towel. It was good to be a Swine. “Can you get the smelting furnace going? It’s that lever over there.”

“Okay!” she said, smiling brightly.

Nibblet chuckled and climbed the ladder to the smelting cauldron. He ripped the top of the bag and poured it into cauldron.

“What is that?” Chocolotta asked.

“Sugar sand.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope,” Nibblet said. “We used to make sugar glass with regular sugar, but it didn’t last very long. This is more durable, though it’s still too brittle to fight with.”

“What are you going to use it for, then?” she asked.

“You’ll see,” Nibblet answered, lowering his snout to look at her over his designer sunglasses.

Chocolotta blushed again, and Nibblet found he liked that a lot. Leveling up, being a Swine, and even being his own Dungeon Lord was growing on him.

Heat was already starting to build up under the cauldrons. Nibblet climbed down and made sure the mold was centered on the pour zone.

“Am I doing the pouring?”

“If you feel comfortable with that.”

“Are you kidding? I love fire. I’d fight you for it if you said no,” she said, giving him a wink.

Nibblet watched her walk over to the cord suspended from the smelting cauldron. He waited until he could see the glow of molten sugar sand on the ceiling vents, then he said, “Go ahead.”

Bright white molten sand splashed down into the mold from the crescent of the crucible above. It was like the frost maiden was pouring starlight from the moon. As it approached the fill line, Nibblet lifted his hand to get Chocolotta’s attention, then said, “Stop!” and she release the pour without spilling a drop. Without waiting for anything to cool, Nibblet grabbed the mold’s clay top and pressed it down on the liquid sugar sand, squeezing the excess out through the runnels.

“Isn’t that hot?” Chocolotta asked.

“Magic gloves,” Nibblet said, although they didn’t protect his body. He felt overheated, and thought about how nice a good wallow would feel. Nibblet paused and frowned. He’d never wallowed in his life. Was this part of his Evolution from being a Piglet to being a Swine?

“Are you okay, Nibblet?”

He grunted. “I’m fine. My body’s just going through some changes.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Chocolotta said, looking him over, and Nibblet laughed.

The conveyor on the candy cane factory stared up, and Nibblet heard and felt three loud stamps. Three perfectly formed deep-red and black candy canes with three-foot-long poles slid out of the machine and came to a stop near the end of the line.

“Those are perfect!” Chocolotta said.

“For candy canes,” Nibblet said. “Let’s see if we can improve on the design.”

Chocolotta tilted her head, but he resisted the urge to ruin the surprise.

Aside from being the dungeon greeter and the Frosted King’s pet Piglet, Nibblet had won Candyland’s candy carving contest three years in a row. He just needed to wait for the sugar glass to cool past the strain point.

Fortunately, the strain point for sugar glass was much higher than regular glass, or he might still have been waiting when the Adventurers stormed the dungeon. As it was, he picked the hot mold up with his gloved hands, walked it over to a quenching barrel, and plunged it into the water. Steam flashed up from the room temperature water. He withdrew the mold and brought it over to the table. He removed the top, and used a soft tap with a mallet to pop the two pieces of the mold apart.

“Those are beautiful,” Chocolotta said, leaning over his shoulder and rubbing the back of his neck. It made his tail twist into a tighter spiral.

Nibblet cleared his throat. “Sugar glass knives have always been my favorite, but they chip easily so they’re not ideal as weapons.” He lifted the two blades from the mold.

“The suspense is killing me,” she said. “What does this have to do with the candy canes, or killing Adventurers? Because after all this work, I’m in the mood for a proper blood bath.”

“Anticipation’s half the fun,” he told her with a confident smile, and she smiled back.

“I’ve heard that, too.”

He brought the twin blades over to the steam powered tools, and used a drill to put two holes into each tang. He grabbed a dowel, cut a three inch piece off it, and used the rotating saw to cut it in half. Then, he used a pencil to mark where the holes in the tang were on the dowel halves, drilled the holes, and tightened them using a pair of barrel nuts for each knife. Finally, he sanded the handles into a proper grip and scored it.

“Where’d you learn to do all this?” Chocolotta asked.

“I had a lot of time on my trotters since the peegee-thirteen. I used to sit on that stool and watch the Frosted King work,” he said, waving the right knife at a little red stool.

Chocolotta looked at the child-sized stool, and her face looked a bit sad. Come to think of it, it probably had been sad, Nibblet thought. But he’d been happy watching, even if he didn’t think he’d could say the same after evolving.

He tucked the sugar glass knives into his belt.

“My turn?” Chocolotta asked.

“Your turn,” Nibblet said with a nod.

He walked over to the candy canes and picked the first one up before bringing it back to the tools. He used the saw to chop off most of the crook, leaving only a slight curve at the end for the handle. Then he mounted the shorted can on a rotating lathe, using a chisel to thin the front thirty-two inches of the cane into a slightly less than one-inch-wide rod. He unscrewed it, broke off the cap, and used one of the glass knives to whittle a flat, pointed blade.

Chocolotta looked like she was going to ask something, but she didn’t.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” she said with a frown.

“The blade’s too fragile to stab someone with. It would never get through leather armor, and it would only be good for one or two stabs into bare skin.”

“I know that. But it’s like the sugar sand. If you just wanted candy canes, you would just generate them from the throne room instead of taking all this time to craft them.”

Nibblet nodded. “Even steel will shatter if it’s just cast into shape. It’s the layering that makes it strong.”

“The jawbreaker jars.”

Nibblet looked at her in surprise. Chocolotta was bubbly, and pretty, but she was also observant and clever. “I didn’t spend much time with them before I… changed. Are your sisters as smart as you are?”

Chocolotta blushed. “Mary has a terrible temper, and Sue… I wouldn’t call her lazy, but she’s a bit of a slob.”

“So, you’re perfect?”

“I’m told I snore,” she said apologetically.

Nibblet oinked. “I hope to hear that some day.”

Chocolotta gave him a sharp look. It wasn’t hostile, just appraising.

He turned his attention back to the candy cane, whittling away a pistol grip with fast, smooth strokes. He flipped the candy rapier over, pinching it near the base of the blade, and said, “See how the grip feels.”

Chocolotta slid forward, her motion far more fluid than it had been before, and for a split second Nibblet wondered if he hadn’t poked a tigress thinking she was a cat.

“Gently,” he said, as she closed her hand on the grip.

“It’s perfect,” she said softly.

“I’m glad,” Nibblet said, deciding the best thing to do when you had a tigress by the tail was hang on.

He took the candy rapier over to the jawbreaker amphoras and started with the most flexible of the coatings. A more springy interior would make it less likely the blade would break. The material quick dried in a layer so fine it was barely noticeable, and he plunged it into the amphora again. “Can you take over?” he asked.

“Sure. What am I doing?”

“Six plunges per amphora, including the guard,” Nibblet said. “Make sure it dries first before putting it back in.”

“I can do that.”

Nibblet handed her the candy blade. With two layers of the flexible material, it was already far less likely to break. Besides, they’d already established Chocolotta was competent, and probably more dexterous than he was since she favored light blades.

With Chocolotta continuing the process of laminating her blade, Nibblet retrieved the second candy cane and sawed off the hook entirely. He placed the pole on the lathe and thinned it into something he was comfortable gripping. He took the shaft over to the amphorae and started dipping it the same way Chocolotta was doing with the rapier. “How are we doing on time?” he asked.

“We have twenty minutes,” she answered, dipping the rapier in the second to last mixture.

It was barely enough time. Nibblet would only be able to do half the number of plunges she had.

As he worked, Nibblet thought of his past life, of learning at the side of the Frosted King, and of their shared dream of what Candyland could be. He was nervous he’d somehow lost that, but it was those doubts, and the outrage he felt at the Adventurers’ pillaging, that made him hopeful that although he was a Swine, there was still just a little talking Piglet inside.

He was on his twenty-fifth layer when  Chocolotta pulled the rapier from the last amphora. “Done!”

“Great. Switch with me.”

“Same number of layers?” she asked.

“Make it three each. We’re running out of time.”

They traded weapons, and Nibblet opened a hatch in the blast forge as he passed. He shoved one of the iron pokers in, then moved over to the sanders. He used the high grit belt to set the bevel of the blade, then finer and finer belts to sharpen the hardest, outer layer to a razor-sharp edge.

“Done again!” Chocolotta said cheerfully. She seemed to enjoy the work. He made a note to give her free access once the Adventurers were disposed of.

“Come on over,” he said, pulling a drawer open and retrieving some steel wire.

“Is that for a better grip?”

“No, it’s for balance.” While the rapier was well made and sharpened, the balance was still about an inch in front of the guard, making it harder to maneuver the tip. Nibblet wrapped several loops of steel wire around the handle, tight enough to bite into the candy. It made the blade heavier overall, but as he overshot and then trimmed the cable back to the perfect counterweight, the blade went from a pretty, sharp stick to an extension of his arm. He handed it to Chocolotta.

Her eyes widened. “Nibblet…”

“You like it?”

“It’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever given to me.” She bet over and kissed him on the snout.

Nibblet grinned.

“Are you fighting with a quarterstaff?”

“I was thinking of using a maul, or a really big scepter. I’ve got a lot more muscle since I leveled up, and I want to put that to use. Can you hold the shaft?”

Chocolotta raised a perfectly groomed dark chocolate eyebrow.

“Wow,” Nibblet said.

“Yeah,” she said, smirking. “But I’d be glad to.”

Nibblet blinked, and Chocolotta stared back, giving him nothing. “Right. Well, as you can see from the amphorae, jawbreakers were something of a hobby for his former majesty.” He walked over to a cabinet that sat closer to the door and opened it. “He was always trying to see if he could make the perfect one.”

Reaching up to the third shelf, Nibblet pulled out a jawbreaker the size and weight of a bowling ball. He walked back over to Chocolotta and clamped it in a vice.

“We’re only going to get one shot at this,” he said. “I’m going to melt a hole into the jawbreaker, and then we need to stick the shaft in.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that much responsibility,” Chocolotta said. “How about I hold it, and you put it in.”

“Okay, that’s probably smarter,” Nibblet admitted. “Ready?”

“If you don’t hurry up, I’m going to take care of it myself.”

There was enough tension in the air you could cut it with a sugar glass knife.

Nibblet pulled the poker from the blast furnace and used the red-hot tip to melt a hole to the center of the jawbreaker. He pulled it out and tossed it into a quenching barrel, then he and Chocolotta slid the handle into just the right place without taking it too far.

“Thank you for your help,” he told Chocolotta. “I never could have done all this without you. I’m lucky you were here.”

“You’re very welcome, Nibblet,” she answered. “I’m glad I could help. You’re the nicest Swine I know.”

***

MaGiCshz wasn’t actually a teenage girl. He was a forty year old male accountant in the real world. He was a team player, diligent to a fault, and sometimes missed gaming sessions because he was working weekends. He also limited his play time to spend it with his wife and daughter. In Hearthworld, though, like in most of the VRMMORPGs he’d tried, he role-played a magic-using, young, lackadaisical elf girl who never crunched the numbers, and that was what allowed him to be the man he needed to be every other minute of the week.

“I’m bored already,” she said as the team approached the candy-themed dungeon.

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” MeatMasheen said, his black iron helmet grinding against his breastplate as he turned his head.

MaGiCshz stuck her tongue out at him.

“I’ve got to go work on my homework after this run,” CokeAndBragger said, drawing her daggers. “Can we just speed through this?”

“Whatever,” the elf girl said, touching the shaved side of her pixie cut. “I could probably clear it on my own.”

“But you’re not going to, because we’re a team, right?” the rog warrior said.

MaGiCshz batted her eyes at him but didn’t answer.

The tank made a show of sighing and equipped his short sword and tower shield. The elf girl wasn’t fooled, though. MeatMasheen liked playing hero for the ditzy girl, especially if she got herself into trouble.

They walked through the rainbow colored archway that led into Candyland.

“Anybody see that pig that was here the first time?” CokeandBragger asked. “The one that ran off.”

“Nope,” the rog said. “Don’t remember killing it either, unless Shizz turned it into bacon with one of her spells.”

“I don’t remember a pig,” MaGiCshz lied. She was very detail oriented, and some things you couldn’t just turn off. “You think it’s some kind of easter egg or something? Catch the pig, get the secret loot?”

“That’s be cool,” the rogue said. “The loot kinda sucked on the first run.”

MeatMasheen had stopped up ahead.

“What’s wrong?” the elf girl said, walking up to wrap an arm around his bicep. CokeAndBragger made a rude motion with her mouth and the pommel of her right dagger, but MaGiCshz just smirked back.

“The dungeon’s changed. It’s the same layout, but the scenery’s… crappier.”

“You think it’s something like what happened at the Cruel Citadel?” the rogue asked.

“I doubt it,” MeatMasheen said. “Frontflip put out a bug notice about the CC and the Vault of the Radiant Shield. If there was something wrong with Candyland, they’d have said.”

“Maybe we’re the first to find out,” the rogue said. CokeAndBragger was often suspicious of small details. She reminded the elf girl of an auditor, but MaGiCshz didn’t want to think about that. This was her time to play.

“Stay behind me,” MeatMasheen said, his voice so deep it vibrated through his armor.

MaGiCshz looked at CokeAndBragger and pretended to swoon.

They moved through the first room carefully, but there was nothing amiss. The decorations were crappier, like someone had downgraded the number of rendered objects to keep their framerate up, but the same fluffy marshmallow creatures as the first run spawned and tried to hug them. MaGiCshz tried a couple different spells, just to keep things interesting. She burned one with a fan of flames, then crushed another by folding the floor shut under it, like a book. She used a combination of fire and water magic on the third, melting it into the whipped topping in a blast of steam, but it just stood there smiling at her while she slagged it.

The XP was good, though, and soon they’d be able to go to a proper dungeon with a little more flair.

“Let’s go to the next room,” MeatMasheen said.

“Sure,” the elf girl answered, keeping her eyes open for anythingfun, even if it was CokeAndBragger’s mystery pig.

About halfway down the hallway leading to the second room, the ran across the door.

“What is it?” the rog warrior asked.

“Treasure vault,” the human rogue said authoritatively.

“Magical treasure vault,” the elf wizard said. “Look at the runes around the door frame!”

“Can you get it open?” the warrior asked the rogue.

MaGiCshz cleared her throat and wiggled her fingers in front of her face. “It’s magic. I call dibs.”

The rogue looked at the warrior and shrugged. “Yeah, I can’t do anything with this. There are no hinges on this side, and there’s no keyhole. Can you break it down?”

“I can try,” the warrior said, to MaGiCshz’s annoyance.

“Fleap you guys,” she said, and both the rog and human grinned at her. “Oh, I get it. Let’s troll the wizard. Why don’t you two get out of here while I get this open?”

“You sure you don’t want us to stay with you?” MeatMasheen asked.

The elf girl waved him off. “It’s a puzzle door. It’s going to take me a little time.”

“Okay,” the rog said.

He and CokeAndBragger took off, leaving MaGiCshz alone with the door.

It didn’t seem overly complicated. There was a ball of orichalcum sitting in a track, as well as a few gates and sliding sections she’d have to manipulate using telekinesis to get the ball through. Once the ball reached the end of the maze, the door should open.

MaGiCshz got to work.

***

MeatMasheen wasn’t a teenager either. He was a twelve year old boy. When he was ten, his father started spending more time at home and his family had to move to a different neighborhood. His mom got a job, which she said was a great thing, even though she would have liked to spend more time with “her little man,” and MeatMasheen switched to a public school because his mom didn’t want him riding a school bus all the way across town.

He was teased mercilessly for the first few weeks, but he’d always been an optimist, so he smiled, and he ignored what he could. The other kids started to come around.

But one kid, another fifth grader who was eleven because he’d had to repeat third grade, decided to escalate the teasing to violence.

“Here we go,” he said, stepping into the second room.

“I’ve got your back,” CokeAndBragger said.

MeatMasheen liked Hearthworld. He couldn’t afford a paid membership, but he was glad to put in the work to level up and find gear on his own. In Hearthworld, he could be big, and while the snow hares in the second room tried to bite and kick him, they couldn’t do any damage through his shield heavy armor. Here, he had friends, like CokeAndBragger, MaGiCshz, and EMSdude, even though the elf girl was a little weird, sometimes, and the dwarven healer didn’t join them half the time.

Clank! He blocked the last snow hare’s kicks while the rogue hit it from the side with a combo of dagger strikes. “Nice one, Coke!” MeatMasheen said.

She gave him a thumbs up, and the simple exchange was everything he appreciated about the virtual world.

With the snow hares taken care of, the rog warrior led the way toward the last room—except it wasn’t the last. “There’s a new room,” he said.

“The way to the second level is this way,” CokeAndBragger said.

“What if there’s loot in the new room?”

The human rogue took a look inside the new room and shook her head. “I can’t make it through those holly bushes. You’d be fine, but I’d get all scratched up.

MeatMasheen’s shoulders slumped.

“I’m sorry, Meat. I really need to do my homework, and the stuff on this level is probably junk.”

“You’re right. I just think I see a shrine back there, but I can come back afterward.”

“Thanks,” CokeAndBragger said, punching him in the pauldron.

The rog warrior followed her into the room the first boss would spawn in, and almost ran into her when she stopped after taking two steps into the room.

“Fleaping bell,” CokeAndBragger swore.

“What is it?” the rog warrior asked.

“There are more traps in this room than I’ve ever seen. There are runes on them and everything. I don’t even think I can disarm them.”

“There’s a lever near the stairs,” MeatMasheen said, although he couldn’t see any traps. “Maybe that turns them off?”

“I bet you’re right,” CokeAndBragger said with a big smile. “It’s going to take me a minute to get there. You want to go back and check out that shrine?”

“Yes! You’ll be okay?” the warrior asked.

The female thief shooed him away. “I need to focus, and you wouldn’t be able to help me until I turn off the traps, anyway.”

“I’ll be back soon!” MeatMasheen said enthusiastically.

“Sure, sure,” the rogue said, sheathing her daggers.

He was glad she was having fun.

MeatMasheen turned back and went into the mysterious new room. The front half of it was full of holly bushes, but that didn’t bother him much, and he could see a golden glow on the far wall. He put his short sword and shield away so they wouldn’t snag, then pushed his way into the prickly bushes, his armor and heavy weight allowing him to push through like they were made of felt. It was a little claustrophobic, and the scratch of leaves on metal a little loud, but he soon made it to the other side and stood on the edge of the soda moat.

The shrine wasn’t much to look at—mostly twigs and bird feathers rather than a proper reliquarium—but the sword resting on it looked awesome. It didn’t look that sharp, but it was covered in gold, and if MeatMasheen knew anything about games, it was that gold items were always super elite loot. Coke and MaGiC are going to kick themselves for not coming with me, he thought. There was the slight problem of the moat—with all his armor, MeatMasheen would sink like an iron ingot. He put one foot on the flimsy plank bridging the gap.

It seemed solid.

Holding his arms out, he slowly stepped across, almost falling in a couple times, and he thought he heard rustling from the holly bushes. But after a minute of careful balancing, he reached the other side.

The shrine was just as crappy as he’d imagined. He took hold of the sword, but it was disappointingly light, like it was made of plastic, and bits of the gold paint had chipped off. CokeAndBragger had been right. Level one stuff was always junk.

He turned around and saw a pig in sunglasses and board shorts withdrawing the plank bridge from the other side.

“Hey!” he yelled.

The pig set the plank against the wall. “What?”

“What are you doing? I need that to get across!”

“That’s the idea, nimrod,” the pig said. He picked up a massive mace with a round candied head and a red and black shaft. “You stay here while I go take care of your friends.”

“No!” MeatMasheen shouted, but it was too late. He’d let his friends down. The pig pushed his way back into the holly bushes.

***

MaGiCshz was almost done with the magical lock. She’d had to restart twice, because if the orichalcum ball touched the bumpers, it teleported back to the start of the maze. But now, with a quick twist of her left wrist and a swipe with her left hand, the little blue ball clicked into place.

The door slid to the side.

A gorgeous woman with an ample chest took a quick step toward him with her arm raised.

MaGiCshz blinked her right eye. Her left eye wouldn’t close. It took her a few more seconds to realize she’d been impaled through the eye with a long, thin blade and the pain inhibitors had kicked in.

Her Health bar reached zero, and her body collapsed, sliding off Chocolotta’s rapier.

***

CokeAndBragger had already made it halfway through the interlacing wires when she got the notification that MaGiCshz was impaled on the end of a candy rapier. “Huh,” she said to no one in particular.

Then a message came in from MeatMasheen: Look out! He’s coming for you!

CokeAndBragger immediately dropped into stealth, vanishing from plain view, and just in time. A four foot tall pig wearing board shorts and sunglasses, with what looked like a giant lollipop slung over his shoulders, walked into the room like he owned the place. He was kinda buff, maybe even hot if not for the pig’s face.

He was followed by a tall, slender [Frost Maiden] who carried a rapier with a red guard and white blade. Her skin was perfectly smooth and the color of caramel, and her shoulder length hair appeared to stir in an unseen breeze. CokeAndBragger hated her, because life was unfair, and doubly so when men designed female bodies in video games.

“We know you’re here,” the pig said. The tag [Nibblet] floated above his head—a named monster on the first level, no less.

The human rogue didn’t move a muscle. Just because they knew she was there didn’t mean they could find her. Her body was contorted, her muscles would eventually cramp, but every minute she delayed was a minute MeatMasheen had to get to her, and they could face this Nibblet thing together.

The pig looked at his companion and nodded.

The Frost Maiden tucked her rapier in her belt and went over to one of the trap plates. To CokeAndBragger’s surprise she lifted the tripwire from the trigger hook easily, then moved to the next. Was her trap disarm skill that high? And what use did a monster have for disarming traps in her own dungeon.

The Frost Maiden did it three more times before it dawned on the human rogue that she’d been fooled. That they weren’t traps at all. She was upset about that, but by the time she realized what the real danger was, the Frost Maiden had over ten tripwire ends wrapped around her fist.

CokeAndBragger’s eyes widened, but it was too late.

The Frost Maiden sprinted for the back of the room, and CokeAndBragger was pulled off balance as ten tripwires pulled her into still-attached tripwires, and she got tangled. The monster continued to curve around, coming up into a three-step wall-run on the back wall, then sliding under the attached wires on the right-hand side. The voluptuous monster stood up, smiling triumphantly, and yanked on her fistful of tripwires, pulling CokeAndBragger off her feet like she’d been cocooned by a spider.

CokeAndBragger was actually the only teenager of the group. She was sixteen, but she’d skipped two whole grades so she was in her first semester of college. She wanted to join the FBI when she graduated and hunt serial killers, not because a family member had been murdered or because she’d lived on a farm with her uncle—she’d led a remarkably sheltered suburban life. CokeAndBragger thought serial killers were cool, and while she didn’t want to kill anyone—except if a suspect came at her—she thought that hunting them down would make her cool, too.

Now that she was wrapped in a trap these two monsters had apparently concocted, she thought that maybe hunting predators wasn’t such a good idea. I mean, sure, most of them are traumatized and maladjusted, so pathological in their desire for attention they always get caught. But—

The pig smashed her head to pulp with his candy maul.

“Noooooooooooooooooooooo!” MeatMasheen yelled from the door.

The pig turned to face his new opponent.

***

Nibblet’s plan had gone as well as he’d had a right to hope. The only way it could have gone better would have been if the big armored warrior had tripped into the soda pool and drowned, but a Swine couldn’t expect things to just fall into place for him.

The rog warrior stepped into the room, shield and short sword ready, eyes blazing. “You killed my friends,” he said.

“You killed mine. I guess that makes us even,” Nibblet snapped back. He glanced at Chocolotta, and she drew her rapier. Nibblet raised his blood-covered mace and circled to the left, mindful of the tripwires that were still attached.

The rog warrior set his shield in front of him and charged.

Nibblet dodged to the side, but the warrior caught him with a backswing of his shield, knocking Nibblet into the wall and snapping several of the tripwires. Chocolotta aimed a series of thrusts at the juggernaut’s back, but the thin blade skittered off his armor in a shower of sparks.

The warrior slammed his shield on the ground, knocking Chocolotta back.

“If you’d been so fierce defending your friends, maybe you could have saved them!” Nibblet shouted, using his Swine class power to Taunt.

“What?”

“They must hate you. You just wanted something shiny, and you left them to suffer on their own.”

Nibblet hefted his maul, ready for the inevitable charge.

And yet it never came.

The rog warrior dropped his shield and short sword, and he sat down with his back to the wall, hugging his knees to his chest.

The Swine in him made Nibblet want to Taunt him again, but Nibblet kept himself in check. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Leave me alone. I don’t wanna play anymore,” the rog warrior sniffed.

“He’s just a sore loser because we beat him and his friends,” Chocolotta said.

“You didn’t beat us!” the rog said. “You cheated!”

Nibblet put his hand on Chocolotta’s forearm. “He’s just a kid.”

“What?” she said, surprised.

“I am not!” the rog warrior said, on the verge of tears.

“He is,” Nibblet said. “I know we thought there had been no more children since the peegee-thirteen, but maybe we just didn’t see them.”

Chocolotta’s face softened. “I’m so sorry. What’s your name?”

“MeatMasheen,” the kid sniffed. “My friends just call me Meat.”

“It’s nice to make your acquaintance, Meat. I’m Chocolotta, and this is Nibblet.”

The rog looked up. “But you’re monsters. You don’t have names.”

Nibblet smiled. “Maybe we always did, and you just didn’t notice.”

The rog took his helmet off and looked them over carefully. He had a kind and open face, for a rog. “So, what now?” he asked.

Chocolotta looked at Nibblet.

“Believe it or not, Candyland was made for people like you,” Nibblet said. “We used to make things for our little Adventurers. You enjoyed finding that shrine, right?”

“Yeah,” Meat said. “But it was fake.”

“We can make better ones,” Nibblet said. “We were just worried you were going to hurt our people and destroy our home.”

“We didn’t want to break it. We were just trying to grind some levels.”

Nibblet nodded. Individual gains versus the needs of the many. He was sure that conflict played out in many universes. “What if I gave you a quest that didn’t involve fighting my people, but rebuilding my king, instead?”

“It’d be okay, I guess,” the kid said. “My friends will want to fight stuff, though. It’s kinda what we do.”

“You could fight in other dungeons, and protect the monsters here. That way you’d always have somewhere you would be welcome and safe. You’d always have a home.”

The rog warrior nodded. “Okay.”

Nibblet saw the kid’s eyes go distant as he received the quest, and he accepted it.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Meat,” Nibblet said. “I’m just going to tell the other people here not to attack you, and we’ll work on baking the Frosted King together. You just wait here, okay?”

“Okay!” the kid said, cheerful once more.

That was one thing Nibblet always liked about children. They were forgiving, and resilient at the same time.

“Are you okay?” Chocolotta asked as they walked down the stairs to the second level. “This place was basically yours, and now you’re going to have to give it back, and do things to make Adventurers happy.”

“Yeah, but that’s okay,” Nibblet said, reaching up to take her hand. “I’d rather be a little talking Piglet who makes things better than an awful Swine any day.”