(Curator Pov)

... Another try, another book ruining blunder. Dp-based ink slinking of the page.

At least it comes off cleanly. No, stain whatsoever! I can practice as many times as I like without worrying over materials. Although the ink degrades in quality every wipe. Wonder if this’ll do well as a filler item? The drop pool could use some filling out.

Seriously, bricks? I had to really reach deep for that. Poor souls, it’s a miracle anyone even considers going deeper with rewards like this.

Baby steps. Pushing the magically bound ink into a bottle for later disposal into the drop pool, I squeeze more ink from my residual reserves out of the air.

Reimagining the tip of a pen. My thoughts methodically scrawl themselves on the blank page. Intensity, penmanship, consistency are all things I have to consider, requiring my utmost attention. A single slip means redoing the page.

That maneuver I pulled in that plant bosses’ body did wonders when starting out. Spike, pen, might as well be the same thing.

A few attempts and one complete page later. “This should be good enough.” Basking in my first successful attempt, was an opening record. A prelude outlining the facts of Flowering Night. Sparing no detail on the tragedies caused in its wake.

Perhaps due to the ink’s magical origins, I sensed power solidifying within my newly minted project. Similar to the text in Alice’s tome, with a slight difference. Unlike the store and reclaim nature of hers, this one sought to maintain and record. An empty reel, waiting for an image to be forever seared into its being.

Power within words... “Hey, Alice. Can I have a look at your tome?” Without question, she opened up to the first page.

Still dedicated to the potion we initially experimented on. Briefly outlining the glass and cork before moving on to a more detailed description of the potion itself. A little bit of Dp is all it takes for the words to coalesce into an inky sphere before dripping away to reveal my item. It’s a potion alright. But for whatever reason, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s different somehow.

Maybe I could chalk that up to a shaky memory, but. Looking upon the stash, (fairies hoard do not touch!) sprawled above it in some language. A (considerably huge) little pile of stuff scavenged from the dead and living within the dungeon. Although that’s a story for another day.

Retrieving a potion from there, the differences become clear as day. The bottle and brew from the book were of noticeably lower quality from the one I took out of the hoard. Varying in both aspects. The glass was severely degraded, while the potion was only a smidge murkier.

Interesting. So it’s not a hold and store as we first thought. The process is closer to copy and pasting, using the original as fuel...(?).

Of course, this potion may have been shoddy to begin with. And it’s just my sleep-deprived mind going on a bender.

But a quick test proved my initial guess correct. The hoard potion dissipated into words, recorded onto the page. Pulling it back out resulted in a similar reduction in quality.

No matter how many times I store and retrieve them, either potion refuses to degrade any further past this point. That still leaves a few questions floating, like what if I used something that was shoddy to begin with? Sadly, no adventurer would bet their life on a bootleg item.

But if I’m correct, a potion of similar quality to these two test subjects will remain the same. As though the tome can only record so much information at once regardless of how... How many... Pages.

Hmmm. Ink shouldn’t factor into the degradation coming from the item itself. So it must be the paper.

Only way to find out is to make this damn book.

As for acquiring the necessary material, I find killing my own actors distasteful. So, rummaging through the hoard, it is. You wouldn’t believe the things that end up here. In this case, it would be paper that was forgotten or neglected by adventurers.

Shadow paper from boogey beasts and parchment from dokkaebi. These should work. Also, writing on shadows, ain’t that a kicker.

A sheaf of robust parchment wrapped in soft a veil. Throwing myself into the process blindly, no way am I gonna destroy a book just to figure out how to make one!

---------------------------------------------------------

Guided by Granny and the boggarts, little buggers are surprisingly adept at the arts, I looped the last stitch.

The end result was a hefty tome wrapped with a cover of night, constantly shifting between pure solidity and transparency. Light blue ethereal threads crossed its spine, binding the book together.

Once more, I pen the tale of woven webs and unexpected storms, of lost woes and found companionship. Not only words but imagery conjured from my consciousness suffused itself within the pages, filling it up like a tank.

Uncounted time later, doting the last period, shutting the book. Power flowed through my newly published creation. Akin to a clog that had just been released or a machine that has just been turned on.

Not bad if I do say so myself. And with this being a prototype, there’s bound to be ‘oodles of things to improve on.

On top of that, this book has taken on qualities of both boogey beast and dokkaebi. Rendering it incredibly resilient to physical attacks while also being able to turn transparent.

I pity the fool who tries to vandalize this.

Welp, I’ve procrastinated long enough. Should finally get going on dungeon management.

In full, at least. I’ve been keeping a side-eye on the place. Our golden girls seem to have welcomed the purple stray into their midst... Even if she isn’t the most-

*Blreg* God, I’ve been writing for too long. It’s starting to affect how I think.

Anyways, blingo blango, one update on the dungeon later. While I was wrapped up in book-making, the golden girls were getting their dungeon legs back.

And going at it, they fought Bad... The results were questionable. Ehhh. Scratch that, downright puzzling.

Grandma’s cottage buried in ruin! Left in a bloody charred ten-meter wide, somehow doughnut-shaped crater! Alice had to halt passage to the next floor while waiting on me to repair it.

Luckily she had the mind to set up a one-way corridor for anyone stranded on the third floor.

Just wish I could have been here to see the fight, must’ve been something.

Moving on. Grandma’s cottage fixed, a lump of DP spent in the process. Nothing has particularly changed. Exploration was still at a snail’s pace, with many prodding the castle grounds. Oh, there were those particular adventurers. Who looked the part of professional divers scoping out the three ponds.

Should prepare something for that eventuality. And maybe figure out how to waterproof my creatures along the way.

As the last adventurer called it a night, I sealed my entrance.

Shifting gears, here comes the part I was dreading most. Rechecking the dungeon.

The first floor, a land of perpetual spring, bathed in an ever-faithful soft afternoon caress. Thickets of trees dominated the grassy plains with thicker patches, alive with shrubbery and undergrowth interspersed throughout.

By now, adventurers have rutted out a trail from beginning to end. Snaking to the east, wrapping around the closest pond from the entrance, then back to the center where the second pond rested. Then back east, running through the sinkhole garden where the youngest little pig’s straw hut, now iron fortress stood. Running northwest to the pedestal.

The reasoning for the asinine pathing was pretty simple. It circumvented all of the fairies’ usual hunting(play) grounds. A simple precaution born through trial and error.

I could have erased or reverted the floor back to its original state. But word of mouth would have achieved similar results anyways. Sides the paths are a nice aesthetic touch.

Other than that, the entire top right of the first floor remains largely unexplored, with it the third and furthest pond from the entrance. Save for a couple oddballs like wolf boy.

Oh, him... he’s been rather distraught. Seeing as his friend, the deformed wolf, has vanished without a trace. Unaware the wolf has shed its shell, becoming a prince.

As a footnote, I can one-hundred percent say that this floor is tamed. The adventurers manifesting the fuck out of their destinies, to say. Numerous rest-stops dotted the path, making it hard for me to just up and plop something new down.

The line-up for this floor consists of the ever-reliable wolves, the fae, the three little piggies, and Guardian.

A good start for new adventurers to learn and grow. For all their bravado, the wolves are the incarnation of death by a thousand cuts. Swinging their admittedly light weight around easily. Truly paper tigers, uhmmm, wolves.

The fairies represent an obstacle that can’t be overcome with conventional strength. While the piggys introduce the concept of ‘quests’ to people.

And Guardian doubles as a quest boss and roaming idiot test.

All in all, I feel it’s a nice mixed bag to acquaint people with how things work. From there, they should be set for any trial I have in store for them.

After all, each new book represents an increase in my DP reserves. That being said, I should squeeze in more quests.

Tch. The golden girls still have the first copy of The Three Little Pigs. I can sense the power that book has absorbed, seeing as she even brought it with her to Felschonheit.

Moving on. The second floor is a replica of the first. Anything that happens to the first floor happens here, but not the other way around.

Notable landmarks include the ember wolves' den, located where the littlest pig’s iron fortress would be. Dokkaebi's ssireum ring, which has spread, flourishing into a culture in of itself. Hell, more people come seeking to challenge Dokkaebi rather than try and pass him.

Similar to that was Enmah’s archery range. Garnering a similar reputation as a place to challenge, train, and learn. Even if the dokkaebi himself gets a little grumpy at the visitors.

And I don’t know how this happened. But the youngest of the three has earned himself somewhat of a title as a connoisseur of food, with people actively bringing dishes for him to eat than critique.

So this is a thing... The second floor is being converted into a gym with each passing day. I can’t unsee the ember wolves' den as a sauna anymore!

Also, can’t forget the Grand Prix. The Boggart Union has been overseeing that. We’re on the third one now, I think?

Whatever the number, humans have been trying to participate in it with varying success.

Oh, my poor, poor should have been a horror-themed floor. Haaaa, at least the third floor remains unchanged. Lamentations aside, putting what I’ve learned in G’s dungeon to use, I think the floors can use a bit of a touch-up.