Manual Not Included (Dungeon Building, LitRPG, Isekai)

Colt stood, pulled a knife, and leaned over the table to take the huge chocolate cake, plate and all, in one hand while he cut a huge piece. He didn't say anything as he took up a fork and shoved a huge bite of gooey frosting and luscious cake into his mouth. Lacey worried for what he would say. He'd been in such a mood since Kat was ejected from the dungeon. She was tiptoeing around his temper. She wasn't afraid of it, but she didn't want to inadvertently hurt him more by saying something wrong. Adam sniffed the air, catching Colt's attention.

"You want some?" Colt offered to the goblin chief, waving a hand at the rest of the cake.

"I'll take a piece," Karma tried.

"Me too," Lacey chimed in.

Colt sent a look to Karma, but Lacey was just happy that it wasn't a withering glare. She was sympathetic with his angst over Kat and Dom, but Lacey also wanted to keep her job. Karma had been nice so far, but she didn't have to be. Lacey saw Karma wince just as Lacey did when Colt slammed slice after slice onto china plates, shoving them at people in a way that would make his mother scold. Karma shared a small, forced smile with Lacey as Colt handed the final plate to Adam, who ignored the fork and dug in with more teeth than manners.

"So, uh, how much do you hate me?" Karma asked around a small forkful of chocolate.

Colt took a large bite of cake and chewed rather than answer. What was his problem? Lacey didn't want to undo whatever it was that Colt was trying to do with all this posturing, but she liked Karma and basically sympathized with the woman's position. Did she hate her for dumping them into the same system that had traumatized her? Not really. Monty and Hughe had been awful, but it seemed like Karma was the one responsible for all the perks like pizza parties and trips to Colt's mom's for Sunday dinner.

"Dammit!" Colt dropped the plate onto the table a little harder than necessary, making Karma and Lacey flinch a little. "I want to hate you," he snarled and then deflated, "but I can't."

"I don't hate you either," Lacey nudged Colt's plate more onto the table than off of it.

"You don't?" both Colt and Karma asked at the same time in slightly different ways. Colt was shocked, but Karma looked unsure.

"Uh, no," Lacey admitted, not really sure of herself. "I mean, I think I probably don't understand a lot, but that seems like its par for the course with this whole thing." And she waved her hand around to indicate the dungeon in general.

"There is that," Karma gave a chuckle that felt like comradery. "I would have taken you to dinner outside the dungeon, but I didn't want to ambush you when you were off work. Honestly, it's not like we have protocol for this, any of it."

"Wait, you're not mad?" Colt sat quickly to be eye level with Lacey.

"Uh, a little, I guess," Lacey admitted with a shrug. "But this place is basically awesome, for all the challenges."

"But Monty and Hughe," Colt pushed the cake away.

"This place has a vicious learning curve," Karma said softly. "I did what I could to temper it, but it's all pretty new to all of us."

"I think I understand that," Lacey smiled at Karma.

"I was trying to protect you," Colt said softly, his hand gentle as it touched Lacey's on her knee. "You were so beaten up after the Monty stuff. I've got to admit that I was worried."

Lacey looked down at her plate of chocolate cake and it said something about their relationship that neither of them was eating it. Colt, in any other mood, would have demolished most of the stuff on the table with Lacey right beside him. Her gaze went back to Colt's hand on hers on her knee and she let out a quiet chuckle.

"I'm okay," and Lacey was surprised to find that it was true. That Colt would go to bat for Lacey even if it meant losing the best job they'd ever dreamed of having and a girlfriend that got him in ways that Lacey hadn't seen for Colt before, it meant a lot. It meant everything actually. "Aren't you mad, Colt?"

"Uh, well, I," Colt stammered, looking deeply into Lacey's eyes before letting out a huge breath. "NO! This," his voice rose in excitement as he waved his hand about this time, "this stuff is fantastic! I'm having the time of my life!" Colt's tone softened to careful. "I just didn't want to admit it in case you didn't want it."

Lacey tilted her head to the side. "Aren't we a pair?" she laughed out.

"You two are as good together as Kat said you were, not that I haven't seen the results of your teamwork all along this project," Karma leaned back in her chair, cup of tea in one hand and the saucer in the other. "Does this mean you're taking the job permanently?"

Lacey and Colt exchanged looks quickly, then turned and nodded enthusiastically as one.

"Great!" Karma set her teacup down and made to stand.

"Wait just a minute," Lacey interrupted the move with a raised finger.

"Yes?" Karma leaned back again with a patient look.

"I think maybe we're in a position to negotiate a bonus?" Lacey raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," Colt jumped in. "I mean, if what you say is true, we've created a system for you and your company. And we like the pay and all, but we're hardly back at our earthly address to enjoy it."

"And we appreciate all the perks in here, but," Lacey shrugged, letting the sentence trail off.

"What do you want?" Karma leaned forward with a grin.

"I'm thinking a vacation in Disneyland," Colt shot for the moon.

"Would a month do, or would you need longer?" Karma shot back easily, and Lacey's eyes widened.

"All expenses paid," Colt doubled down, meeting her unblinking gaze.

"How would you like to borrow our RV, camped out at the official Disney World campground for a period of one month, complete with resort passes?" Karma countered, as if she was lowering the deal instead of increasing it. "It'd be a great place to spend some of your wages, which are piling up in a bank account making interest."

"Wait," Lacey stopped Colt's mouth from spurting out something else. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly serious," Karma gave a curt nod.

"How?" Lacey stumbled over the word to ask, when what she really wanted to do was find the catch in there somewhere. "Why?"

"Yeah, how are you making all this money that you keep throwing at us?" Colt was more capable of articulation than Lacey.

"Well," Karma sighed and picked up her teacup again. "That all goes back to Fizzybutt. And it's a bit of a long story that has actually already been written. In fact, you read it. That's where we found you."

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"Nemesis Quest," Colt snapped his fingers as he remembered.

"That story on Royal Road?" Lacey frowned. "That was just a story."

"It was and it wasn't, but I won't bore you with all that since you've already read it," Karma took a sip. "What you don't know is that Fizzbarren was old, very old. And he had magic in the real world. It's how he created all this."

Karma gently waved her teacup at the room and continued as Lacey and Colt picked up their plates and dug into one of the richest and most luscious cakes Lacey had ever tasted. It turned out that Fizzbarren, the one Karma had defeated to gain the engine that was running all this, hadn't just been a terrible, failed, and frustrated fable-writer. Fizzbarren had been an inventor. He'd created kneaded erasers, something all artists knew about and loved. They were these erasers that were flexible like silly putty. They also seemed to soak up charcoal residue like magic.

The reality was that they had a little magic in them. Those erasers, when made by Fizzbarren's patented formula, sucked out the overloaded creative anxieties of artists and their excess chalk, graphite, and angsty residues. They also gently erased without ripping paper in a way that all artists liked as much their therapeutically playdough consistency. That patent paid out to Fizzbarren's former residence and all of his descendants, which consisted of anyone who lived in his house for more than 30 days. Magically.

This wasn't done generously on Fizzbarren's part. It was a survival thing, as he was over 2500 years old and had to blend into a society that was becoming more and more paperwork-driven. And there were dozens of such patents. None of them were earth-shaking discoveries that history recorded. Instead, they were little magical stuff that no one really understood, like lubricating strips on razors and color-changing thermal inks.

"We got our first patent payments a few weeks after we defeated Fizzybutt," Karma set down her empty cup. "We've been reinvesting it into the engine and these worlds, hoping to bring people like you out of the hideous real world and into something that can be less… well, awful. We have, admittedly, only partly succeeded."

"What happened to Fizzbarren?" Lacey let her curiosity out.

"He's been shelved," Karma's eyes got hard for a moment, and for the first time Lacey saw the steel under Karma's charm. Karma blinked and Lacey thought she might have imagined it. "That is to say, he's been inserted into a book where he lives out a more fantasy life than a reality-based one. That book has been given its own server that is physically disconnected from this engine. And the book sits on a shelf in the real world, where all of us are safe from him."

"Anybody else shelved?" Colt asked and Lacey admired his bravery.

"One person," Karma admitted reluctantly. "And his family, but I assure you that they requested the process, mostly."

"Really?" Colt pressed and Lacey kicked him a moment too late.

"After having experienced the engine before I ever got there, he wasn't particularly well-suited to the real world anymore," Karma chose her words carefully. "He and his family have retired to a nicer, if more boring and older version of the engine. It's a bit like a permanent LARP. You know, like those civil war reenactors, renaissance faire folks, or DnD LARPers."

"I've heard of those," Lacey mused. "I always thought Colt would like it."

"This is kind of like larping," Colt agreed, neither of them particularly offended by the idea.

"It beats a psych ward," Karma's smile was thin, but then she smiled. "But we were talking about Disney World and how I can afford to send you there for a whole month. Have I reassured you?"

Lacey looked at Colt and they had a whole conversation there for a minute without saying a word.

"Can Kat come?" Colt said by way of an answer.

"If she wants to," Karma spread her hands. "Would you like to ask her?"

"Is she mad at me?" Colt worried at the thought.

"It's a bit hard to not mix business and family in this place, since my whole family has taken to running the place as more of a mission than a job," Karma tilted her head to the side. "I'll say this about it. I don't interfere in my daughter's love life like her father has in the past."

"Uh, about Dom," Colt started to say something, but Karma held up a hand with an indulgent laugh.

"The facts are that Dom is thrilled with the new dungeon creation engine and would love to run your dungeon during your vacation," Karma might have meant to sound reassuring, but her words made Lacey frown. "Now, I know what you're thinking, but Dom wasn't here to mess with Colt or you, Lacey. He and Kat have issues, but he has earned that relationship, I assure you. And it is best for all involved to stay out from between them when they are fighting.

"Dom really was here to test the dungeon, and he and Cliff are working as we speak to see if we can reproduce the results, either with you or others," Karma continued. "I was going to ask you about training someone new, and I was hoping you'd let me pick your brains on how to rub out some of the rough edges of the system we all built together. We want to see if maybe there's a better set of scenarios for the beginners. I mean, we know there's a better way, one without people like Hughe, but I'm also having a devil of a time screening people for joining us."

They spoke late into the night, the dungeon and engine quiet behind them, and the amount of food that Karma could produce from her pockets endless. They talked about Cliff and how he took care of the computer systems that bolstered up the magical processes, Royal Road and how comments and reviews fed the god card system, and the failing but fun publishing venue of Fizzbarren's estate. At one point, Colt left Lacey and Karma to discuss some ways to streamline the minion and dungeon creation process. Once his temper had cooled and his future was less ambiguous, he'd taken on making up with his girlfriend.

Epilogue

Lacey tagged along behind Colt and Kat as they queued up Kali River Rapids for the fifth time that day. Colt and Kat had agreed that since they were already wet, they might as well do it again, and again. Lacey was okay with it, but with it being the third week of the Colt and Kat show, she was feeling more like a third wheel than a part of the group. The first week had been rocky with all the time they spent together, but it had settled down into an almost homey routine in the RV that was slightly too domestic for Lacey's taste.

"Weren't you here yesterday?" a male voice asked from behind her in the line.

Lacey turned to look up into the silkiest brown eyes she'd ever seen. Lacey wasn't the best at social encounters, so she bristled a bit, but the guy's smile was relaxed. He was trailed by a small group of tweens that gabbled so loudly that his comment didn't get overheard by Colt and Kat.

"Sorry," he looked down bashfully, and damn if he wasn't just charm on a stick. "It's just that I was here yesterday and saw you over at the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. My sister and her crew are here for her birthday this weekend, but my family has season passes. I thought maybe you did too, since I think I've seen you another day too."

"We're here on a month's vacation as a bonus for work," Lacey answered. "I think they did get us season passes, though."

"It seemed like we're both kind of stuck as the chaperones," he joked, poking a thumb at the girls behind him while giving a nod to Colt and Lacey in front.

"Not a chaperone," Lacey hedged with a small laugh. Cute and funny. Between his mop of shaggy brown hair, slightly damp at the collar from the heat, and his boyish grin, Lacey was up for the flirting he seemed to be throwing her way. "But that gaggle of girls. That's got to be the worst of our jobs."

"Nah," the guy shrugged some nice-looking shoulders. "They pretty much take care of themselves unless we get close to the stage where the boy bands play." He leaned closer to whisper conspiratorially, "though my sister insists that she's too old for that stuff now."

"Didn't I see Marko T-" Lacey started, only to have him dart a hand out toward her mouth.

"Don't say it," he warned in a stage whisper.

"Say what?" one of the girls behind him perked up, just as Colt turned from Kat to notice the guy. For one horrific moment, Lacey found herself the center of attention for a gaggle of girls and Colt and Kat. She squirmed.

"Yeah, what can't she say?" Colt glared at the newcomer.

"Nothing," mystery guy and Lacey said together with a shared look of innocence.

It took a few minutes of silently edging forward in the line for Colt and the girls to go back to minding their own business. There was a series of shared peeks at each other until they were both sure that the others had lost interest, or in the case of Colt, had pretended to lose interest. It didn't escape Lacey's notice that Colt had turned Kat's back to Lacey so that he could keep a watch over Kat's shoulder.

"That was close," the guy said, then stuck out his hand. "I'm Haze. Nice to meet you."

Haze was as tall as Colt and had the same kind of easy charm that Colt had but that was where the similarities ended. The guy had a nerdy air to him, not that Lacey minded.

"Hi, Haze," Lacey responded by taking his proffered hand in greeting. "I'm Lacey. That's an interesting name."

"Nickname," he didn't let go of her hand.

"Sounds like some mysterious entity you meet on a dark night when you're out somewhere you shouldn't be," Lacey let him keep her hand a moment longer than necessary to shake hands.

"Nothing so romantic as that," he smiled, giving her fingers a light squeeze before letting go. "More of skateboard park nickname that I prefer to my real name. I haven't been skateboarding in ages, come to think of it, but I've been busy at college."

"What college?" Lacey asked, instead of what she really wanted to ask, which was whether he was into DnD, video games or larping.

The chit chat and flirting continued until they ended up stuck in the same boat and got drenched together, much to his sister's delight. It was summer, so he was out of school, a senior at UCF. He came back the next day to help Lacey feel less like a third wheel, and then again a few days after that. It was a good summer break for all involved.