With one last swing of his great ax, Ox killed the spinosaurus. It fell, groaned, and vanished. In its place was a nice pile of loot.

Ox and Larissa went to see what there was, but Tig stayed alert.

“What’s wrong?” Larissa called. “You don’t want any of this?”

“There used to be four raptors,” Tig said. “Now there’s only two.”

“So?” Larissa asked, picking up an enchanted sword. “There were only two last cycle, too.”

“Yeah…”

“The Admin changes things on occasion,” Ox shrugged. “He probably put them on a different floor.”

Tig frowned, shrugged, and took a step towards the loot.

*****

Dear Diary,

I miss cooking every day. Cooking is relaxing. And you get to eat yummy food when you’re done. Sure, the catgirls let me use their diner kitchens, but that’s only once every other day at most. I miss being able to cook for my friends every meal if they want. I miss being able to experiment.

The velociraptors seem to prefer fish to meat, so I made some fishballs. They weren’t the best, I know I could do better if I had my kitchen and time. But Arby and Kelly ate them all super fast. With not-people I usually equate speed of eating with enjoyment. People like to enjoy food, they savor it and eat things in specific orders. But people also can tell you that they thought the food was super yummy. Animals can’t do that. Usually things they like to eat, they either eat faster than other things or grab it and run away from the group with it.

In other news, it’s hard to hear things as a human. I’m used to big ears that turn super easy, and pick up every little sound. Human ears are so tiny, and they don’t hardly move! I can wiggle mine a bit, but nowhere near what I could do as a catgirl.

Getting through floors is easier now. We aren’t exactly going faster, since the floors are still big and it takes a long time to walk through them. And then it’s always like fifteen minutes to go through the stairs down to the next floor. But we’ve made a lot of friends, so they just wave and let us through. Or else come and ask for food.

Well, Aya calls them acquaintances, not friends. Which, I can see why. We don’t really know them, we just say hi and feed them. But I want to call them friends, so I will.

I think next cycle everyone will be used to us having velociraptors with us. Right now they’re less surprised than last time, but still not sure what to do about it. It helps that we gave the raptors collars. Having a collar makes something officially a pet. And having a leash attached to the collar means they can’t attack everything that moves.

They try, but they usually can’t reach it. Which helps. Saying “I want to be your friend, here’s a pizza!” and then having your pet eat that person… sends mixed messages.

Lily suggested we find a pet that isn’t carnivorous, but honestly there aren’t a lot of herbivores in the dungeon. And not kidnapping a random animal and claiming it as a pet is just too much to ask.

Besides, who wouldn’t want a velociraptor as a pet?

No one. That’s who.

Goodnight, Dungeon!