Red, The Dreading Dungeon

Chapter 2: Dungeons, Doors, and Dread

The string of expletives that came out of Red's mouth would have made the dwarves of Igdolin blush, though he didn't have nearly half of their curse words in his repertoire at the moment. He waved his hands frantically through the cloud of flies, trying to swat them despite his incorporeal nature. He was trying his best to destroy the foul little things, but had no success between his gusts of inconsequential effort and the crawdads attempting to pinch the fast-moving insects. The five crawdads were sitting on top of the pillow, using their weight to make sure no flies could wriggle under the fabric.

Though the mud bugs were keeping the flies from advancing, they were slowly but surely getting worn down. A point of health was being removed from them whenever multiple flies landed on their carapace. Red was about to curse the heavens again when suddenly a chain of lightning sang through the air. The electricity killed half of the swarm in an instant. The second jolt finished off the rest of them. He gave a sigh of relief as he turned to see the source of the dynamic energy.

Floating in the air was a single sphere of blue light, glowing and casting shadows about the modest room. As Red stared at it, the shine abated and made it possible for him to see the silhouette of a small woman. His face pulled closer, to where his nose almost met the torso of the figure. In front of his eyes was a small humanoid, though to say she looked human was a bit of a misnomer. Her skin was a bright azure, with tiny freckles that were a deeper shade covering her face and shoulders. Cotton candy pink locks danced down from her head into a flow of hair reaching to the small of her back. Her modesty was secured by blackberry leaves sewn together with pond-reed fibers. Her wings danced behind her, the glittering darner wings seeming to be covered in flakes of stardust.

Red wasn't able to see her lower half due to the inappropriate movement of his head that it would require. He was snapped out of his observation as the beautiful little fairy leaned forward and gave him a gentle kiss upon the tip of his crystalline nose. "Well, aren't you just the cutest little fairy in the swamp?" he asked with a chuckle as he looked at her, reaching one of his hands up and giving her a pet on the head with a single finger. She gave a fussy look as her hair was disturbed by the finger but gave Red a smile.

"Well? Are you able to speak?" he asked with a smile as he looked at her, having to keep his head within range of her bubble of magic in order to see her. She looked at him, tapping her chin slightly in thought as her eyes turned upward. She gave a happy nod to him, confirming that she could, in fact, speak if she chose to do so. "Well... will you?" he asked with a bit of confusion, getting a mischievous grin from the fairy as she shrugged her shoulders.

"Right... a real comedian. Well, you're very pretty, and you're blue in coloration." he muttered, making sure not to finish the sentence on the color of her skin. He didn't feel his creatures deserved haphazard names like he had given himself. "You're also dangerous if used the right way... so in honor of the blue lotus, I'll name you Lotus!" he said happily to her, the fairy beaming with a wide smile and her hands on her cheeks. A bluish blush was across her features before she paused.

The bright glow from her form flickered out as gold dust began to trail off of her. Before Red could make a comment about pixie dust, she was enveloped in golden light. After the light faded, she floated before Red, smiling in a new lotus flower dress that she swished from side to side. She gave a clap of her hands as a name appeared above her head in white letters: Lotus.

Red pulled his head back and rubbed his chin, considering her for a moment. "Alright, not sure what that was about, but it seems like your new name changed something about you," he said with a small chuckle as he realized what the cause had been. He wondered if the system was following his understanding of video games, and that named monsters usually had more powers than the regular variety.