The table laughed as Iron Bear held a cob of corn in the side of his cheek and mimed being Elf Wood. Meanwhile I clicked on the description for the new summoning skill I’d learned.

[SUMMON LEAST CREATURE: ARACHNID – CREATE LEAST INSECT – 1 MANA PER HOUR OR 1 DUNGEON POINT FOR PERMANENT CREATION]

Cool I said while immediately spending two of the three point six five DP I’d acquired by going on an insect killing spree. Two spider Star Trek transporter-beamed into existence before me. THEY. WERE. BEAUTIFUL.

Life! I’ve created life! I yelled whilst raising my nonexistent hands toward the heavens and cackling madly. Finally, my own tiny murder machines! Well, two more additions to my army of tiny murder machines anyway.

Yes, yes, very good. Very very good. I shall call you Manny One and Manny Two in honor of the fallen Manny the Spider- actually no, Manny Two and Manny Three. No one could ever compare to the bravery and verve of the original Manny; but worry not my creations! You will ever be at the forefront of my mind. With your strength as my vanguard, we shall rule this land with an iron pedipalp! Verily, these realms inside my belly shall be a merciless stronghold, and I shall slaughter any bug or other non-sentient within me at my very whim!

The Mannys looked at me with far more intelligence than I would have expected from arachnid-based monster babies. Showing off the effects of their, I clicked, four points of intelligence.

Ooh, just look at you guys, all smart and stuff. Manny Two waved his feelers at me. Oh really? I replied, interpreting his probable meaning. Wow, your first words are “X gon’ give it to ya?” Pretty world wise for such a little guy. That’s it, no more B.E.T. for you. B.E.T.’s still a thing, right?

For the first time in either of my lives, I saw a spider roll its eyes at me.

Manny Three stood on six legs and waved his two front feet at me in a motion that looked suspiciously like the opening movements of the Macarena. Sensing me giving him some serious side-eye, he winked just one of the facets of his dozens of compound eye segments. Wow, that’s super impressive. That’s for sure got to be at least an uncommon ability little Mannykins!

I was pretty staggered by the sheer level of ocular control it must take to single out one tiny chunk of eyeball, or well, eyepolygon. By the looks of it, somewhere in the vicinity of an eyehexadecagon.

At best I could move my eyes back and forth and blink, like some kind of chump. I even let my dog lick my eyeball after his chemo once as a kid to see if I would get radioactive eye powers, but all I got was pinkeye and a small, but deeply abiding, sense of shame.

That is an excellent point Manny Tres, it is a bit weird to be a one room dungeon!

Ooh! I said to myself; what direction are we going? Labyrinth? Dark tunnels opening suddenly into a staggeringly beautiful hidden valley? Speaking of Hidden Valley, do you think there will be Ranch Dressing in this world? I can’t remember any Ranch recipes that don’t require mayo, and who the heck knows how to make mayonnaise from scratch? There’s all kinds of artisanal shit, but I've never seen artisanal mayo. To be fair, you’ve never been to Brooklyn or any other hotbed of unreasonably fancy condiments, but yeah, I've never seen any either.

Huh, that’s so weird. Maybe if we ever get to go back to our original world for a bit of light haunting, we should pass that on as a spooky message from the beyond. All ‘maaaaaake faaaaaacyyyyy maaaaaayyyo! Maaaayyyybe caaaaalllll iiiiitttt meeeeeooownaissse aaanddd haaaavvve a touchhhhh offffff tuuuuna flavvvvvvoooorrrrr...’

Well. It's day one and already we’re getting a little loopy here.

Come on, you of all people know that this is pretty much who we’ve always been once you scrape off the thin veneer of normalcy. True. I can’t even deny it, but never mind all that, what were you saying about fixing our layout? We should definitely do that. I believe Manny Trois was saying it, but yeah, it would be hella cool to not be a giant boring square anymore. Hey, that was Dad’s yearbook quote. Ha, no way he ever said the word hella.

Ok, time for some reconnaissance. I interrupted Bouncing Boat and Lapping Wave who were telling a story about the time they conceived their second child in a hurricane and listed the storm as a third parent on the birth certificate because of its, um, “assistance” in the motion of the boat if I know what they mean, which I truly wish I didn’t.

“Hey, what are the dungeons like around here?” I asked.

Mayor Drifting Cloud glanced at the other with a hint of a smile, and something else I couldn’t quite place, and he received several slight nods. Among the group I noticed a few twitches at the corners of mouths, a few solemn expressions, and, most worryingly, flashes of pity and sadness on the faces of Sleeping Willow and Iron Bear.

Drifting Cloud lifted a fork into the air and recited “tearing time and moving space, take me to another place!”

I watched as my other self disappeared from the restaurant.