-Robert Fayn-

It’s been little over a month since the Harbingers of the Black Skies tried to invade Historie Pastoria Sweets just to end up failing, leaving behind a bunch of dungeon cores and Mita Orono who became an underling blackzone manager. For the most part, additions in my Enigma have been slow between setting aside a lion’s share of generated reserves to working off the loans, Ras’s adjustment of the environment for a more robust connection to the Obscurus System and readying for it to properly make use of proxy services, and then Mita and I making it so you could have actual reception while delving or living here. We’ve also been doing a lot to improve the situation of the sweet tooths, scanning all their mandalas for cheap with the help of a shell company that Eris helped set up on Reagan’s suggestion and then making sure everyone got a Contracted Cake-Eye-Ball feature mandala, even splurging on extra class specialty sets for the ones who didn’t have a matching class specialty for it, as a sort of Halloween treat. Of course I picked up my own little treat for myself in the form of an extra class specialty set for Nutrient-Implement and a lesser spell specialty, Fortifying Potions while Mita picked up an extra class specialty set of Daemon-Familiar and his own lesser spell specialty to go with it. Somehow we even ended up gaining fifteen new sweet tooths, mostly ex-cultists that Mita vouched for except for a trio of Glyirians that Ras brought in to balance things out: we did take a bit of a hit to our reserves but hey it’s called a long-term investment for a reason.

“Playing with your eyeballs again?” asked Mita as I lazily commanded ten cake-eye-balls to fly around in complex patterns. One of the mandalas researchers that made the Contracted Cake-Eye-Balls feature mandala ended up getting obsessed with the monsters and made a sub-feature mandala called Lesser Contracted Cake-Eye-Balls for the Enigma. Naturally I gratefully accepted it and added it to the potential drops of the cake-eye-balls, but not before attaching three of them to my Contracted Cake-Eye-Ball feature mandala. I wasn’t anywhere as good as using them for fighting like Minerva was, but since I also splurged a bit to buy a feature mandala called Share Sense (Aberration) and attached it to my Temporal Horrors, they now made for great scouts.

“Yup, figure I’d pass the time while waiting for the butterflies,” I replied, stretching a bit.

“Did you buy more of those Terrafisimo lottery tickets? Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to save up to make the dungeons on our own?” Ever since Lucilla told me about these lottery tickets, I couldn’t help but squirrel away from the dungeon-mana resources allocated to me so I could buy one or two every once and while. I mean the jackpot was huge! A free Interconnection with another Enigma that is likely to be friendly towards you anywhere in the metaverse plus an expansion to go with it. I mean we are talking about potentially short cutting months worth of saving up resources, not to mention months worth of needed research to make sure you didn’t make an Interconnection to someone who was just going to stab you in the back.

“Yeah but it’s not as fun.”

“If you keep this up, you’re going to break your bank, man.”

“But it’s not going to break the Enigma’s bank.”

“That is a horrible excuse,” interrupted Sous as my cake-eye-balls noticed three fluorescent blue, green, and pink butterflies shimmer into existence. “And the uptick of rogue monsters appearing since you’ve started buying those tickets is mildly disconcerting.” 

“It’s not like we've been seeing a bunch more rogue boss monsters, besides it’s more potential mana for us and free diversity for the delvers.”

“We’re probably going to need to start investing in anti-rogue monsters at this rate aren’t we?” asked Mita with a sigh, now noticing the butterflies as they neared my penthouse’s balcony.

“That would be advisable, best to prepare defenses against them before they can sour the ecosystem we’ve been building,” replied Sous, obviously making sure I heard. Rolling my eyes, I allowed the two to continue chatting as I waited for the butterflies to land on the railing. As Mita mentioned something about Wlogwa suggesting the creation of rogue wards and magnets to control the flow of rogue monsters into our Enigma, the first fluorescent multi-coloured butterfly landed in front of me: crossing my fingers, I gently tapped it.    

A small poof of shimmering lights, the butterfly faded away and left me holding a slip of paper: yet another mundane white slip with the word ‘dud’ written on it. Two more butterflies, come on Terrafisimo, Robert needs a vacation venue! I half-thought to myself half-pleaded to the blackzone god as I suppressed a frown. Tapping the next two glowing butterflies as they landed, all I ended up getting was two more duds. 

“You know man, you really shouldn’t be gambling away resources like that,” quipped Mita, leaning against the railing and looking down at the three slips of paper in my hand. “You honestly have pretty shit luck when it comes to gambling, and well most things in general.”

“Can’t a guy dream a little?” I complained before pushing off the railing and pacing around a bit.

“Yeah a man can dream. A man can also spend two weeks worth of dungeon-mana reserves on lottery tickets made by a whimsical blackzone god. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing.”

“You’ve been keeping track?”

“You did make me the accountant of the Enigma, I’m just doing my job. Plus Ras is really pushing about being informed about this sort of stuff.” 

“Ugghh… he knows that I spent that much?” I asked with a sigh. I’m about to get chewed out by Ras now aren’t I?

“He knows you’ve spent a week’s worth. I’ve been trying not to tell every time you buy one of those tickets. You know, for your sake.” 

“Aka trying to kiss up to the both of us as much as you can?”

“If you want to put it that way, pretty much,” replied Mita with a slight smile and shrug. “Also I thought you only bought three tickets this week, not four.” Turning around, I noticed a fourth glowing butterfly, casually flapping it multi-coloured wings next to Mita.

“Lucilla must have sent me another one,” I replied walking back over to the railing so I could pop the butterfly.

“She does love giving out gifts doesn’t she? Those oranges of her are to die for.”

“I know, she’s so much better than Daphne.” Gently tapping the butterfly, I waited for it to disappear into a small burst of glitter, but instead glitter and lights started to cascade out of it. Lucilla you freaking lucky saint! I laughed in my head as the cascade turned to grow and become even more colourful.

“Congratulations for winning the grand prize of my lottery!” chimed an overly cheerful voice as the cascade started to finally sputter out and a golden rainbow-hued slip of paper drifted into my hand. “Tehe, feel free to redeem your prize at your leisure!” 

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Mita, staring down at the slip in shock with me.

“Yup,” I replied as I tried to process what exactly was going on: I mean I wanted to win the grand prize of Terrafisimo’s lottery, I just didn’t expect I’d actually win it!

“So you… oh man…”

“Yup.”

“Should I go grab Ras?”

“Yup,” I replied, before realizing what grabbing Ras right now meant. “Wait! Don’t tell him about this just yet!” But it was too late, Mita had already moon walk bounded over the railing. There goes my chance to be the only person that decides how the grand prize is going to be used.

“You do realize you could just put your foot down? You are the head chief of the Enigma,” inquired Sous as I fiddled with the slip of paper in my hand, feeling it thrum with power.

“Yeah but I don’t want to be a dick about it.”

“And hiding the fact you can now make an Interconnection and expansion anywhere in the metaverse will make you less of a dick?”

“Well… kind of? Oh come on Sous, let me have this one.”

“I’d rather you get ahead of this and ask for his help. He is going to find out before Mita gets to him anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“All the system assistants received a message from Terrafisimo when you received the grand prize and Pattissoria was very giddy about it, like a kid in a candy shop.” 

“And you didn’t tell me this before Mita ran off?”

“Just because I am your system assistant and sous chef does not mean I have to relay to you everything that happens between myself and the other system assistants.” Sighing in frustration, I bounded over the railing and made my way toward Final Cut Caketopia’s apartment teleportation pads. In the distance I saw Harper leisurely flying around and keeping an eye on our Enigma, I really needed to figure out what I wanted to add to our aerial defences cause the cake-eye-balls simply weren’t good support for the raid monster harpy, and she couldn’t be everywhere at once. But now wasn’t the time to think about that, I had to meet with Mita and Ras about the grand prize now.

A quick teleportation and a few dozen flights of stairs later, I found myself sitting with Mita in Ras’s artisan wood covered penthouse: standing next to the counter, Ras was looking down at his Bow of Glyiria and pinching his brow ever so slightly. 

“So you won the grand prize?” he asked, turning around and looking at the golden rainbow-hued slip of paper still in my hand.

“Yeah, I told you these lottery tickets were worth it,” I replied, still feeling blissful from actually winning the freaking jackpot.

“I guess so. It’s definitely going to help with paying off the loans. Mita, do you think you can divert some more of our savings toward paying off the loans?”

“Sure thing,” commented Mita as he had Wlogwa conjure up some translucent screens and started to type away. “So Robert, what are you going to do with the grand prize anyway?”

“Honestly, I was thinking of using it for finding a place for vacation,” I answered, rubbing the slip of paper.

“Is that even possible?”

“Well it is a blackzone god-sponsored lottery with a grand prize that gives you an Interconnection anywhere in the metaverse,” commented Ras tactfully, walking over to sit down across the silverish wooden coffee table and examining the slip of paper. “It makes sense, even if it is a bit selfish.”

“Come on Ras, I need a vacation,” I retorted and stretched back for emphasis. “And on the plus side, I’m netting us two new dungeon cores.”

“Can’t deny that. All I can really ask is don’t be stupid and please have the Interconnection be toward an Enigma in an Origin Land.”

“Just an Origin Land? Not one in Glyiria?”

“That’s something we can do without your grand prize.”

“Fair point…” I replied, feeling the thrum of power in the slip of paper build as it readied itself to be used. Looking at Mita and Ras, I readied myself and activated the spellcraft in the grand prize: thousands of thoughts and images filled my mind. With everything swirling around inside my head, I focused on what I want: someplace in an Origin Land, good locale for a vacation, and somewhere I won’t have to worry about being killed or kidnapped. In an eruption of small rainbows that scattered like slinkies, the overly cheerful voice of Terrafisimo rang out again,

“Your request has been heard! You shall receive your Interconnection and expansion within the week.”