I am the first creation of my wonderful Master. Well, the first monster, at least. I was born with a certain natural understanding about my world, my home, my Dungeon. It doesn't have a name yet, it is still very young, but it definitely feels more mature than it should be. I'm not certain why I know that, but I do.

  I am an Imp, and it is my duty to protect my Master. Keep their core safe from threats. However that is where my duty becomes a little... muddled.

  There is this... not denizen. Not Dungeon Monster. Intruder but... not intruder?

  My instincts tell me that if something is not Dungeon, but is inside the Dungeon that it is an intruder but... this one seems... odd.

  It has been here since the Master woke up, and it had the opportunity to destroy the Master, but it didn't. It didn't seem right to return such mercy with wrath.

  Imp spent much of it's time just watching the little red squishy, learning about it and just observing it. Imp actually learned quite a bit from it. The squishy was blind, and deaf at the very least but it DID react to loud enough sounds or heavy movement.

  Usually by quickly hiding and pretending to be a rock. It was pretty good at pretending to be a rock, enough that if Imp didn't look at it directly Imp wouldn't notice. However when being watched directly, it just... didn't look right. Sometimes the rock moved just a little, or looked a little transparent when it shouldn't be.

  Imps little wings fluttered as it hovered in the air before finally landing on its clawed toes.

  Imp really wanted to pet the squishy. So it did. It reached out and touched the squishy and was delighted by the feel of it. It was all soft, warm and jiggly. It wasn't slimy or sticky at all!

  Imp smiled as the little red squishy had a different reaction than usual. It seemed to... jolt? Stutter in surprise. Or however that translated to the little ball of warm squishy.

  Imp smiled it's wide sharp toothed smile at the squishy and reached down with both hands to pick it up. The warmth was nice... though now Imp could feel the little squishy was shaking. Like a little vibration... it was frightened.

  Imp frowned and petted the little red squishy.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "Imp friend squishy." Imp said aloud and rubbed at the creature as Imp took flight again, deciding that it liked the thing.

  It was only after Imp picked up Squishy that it got an alarmed feeling from it's Master. There was an intruder!

  A real one!

  Imp flew through the halls of it's Masters home to respond to the threat, being guided by it's Master. This place was large.... larger than a Dungeon the size of it's Master should have. Castle was the word in Imps mind. Though that didn't feel quite right. It had the feel of old to it, and small... and such a strong feeling of....forgotten.

  Imp found the intruder after a few minutes, tangled up in one of its Masters traps. Such pride Imp felt at seeing the string trap it's Master had placed, a simple thing, little more than a string across the hall, but loose enough to tangle an upward intruder.

  This creature was loud and angry, claws and snarling, and stupid. It struggled and twisted and snapped at the string which only tangled it up worse and worse.

  Imp put the squishy on its head right between it's tiny horns before throwing a flame spark at the struggling invader. The flame spark ignited the string and the intruders fur. Imp felt... actually a little bad at the cries of pain it heard.

  It patted the squishy on its head in thought. Squishy had been giving Master a lot of Mana since Master had awoken... just by being here. It didn't attack, it didn't fight. It just explored.

  Imps instincts said to destroy invaders for Mana to help the Master. Though even Master seemed to... feel bad about the creature.

  Imp waved and made the fire go out. With the string burned up,the creature cried and ran away, two clawed feet flattering against the stone floor as it fled with some bald burned patches in it's fur.

  Once the creature left the Dungeon, Imp felt the warm surge of mana and smiled, feeling a sense of victory.

  Then Imp patted squishy and had an idea. Master always got a little bit of mana whenever squishy ate something, so Imp picked up squishy and put it down on the remains of the fight, some ashes, burned hairs, and the ruins of the trap.

  The squishy held very still for a few moments while Imp petted it gently, before it felt around. After a few minutes of confusion it began to eat up the scraps left over and Imp felt a warm trickle of mana flowing out off the squishy.

  Imp felt happy that it was right. Yes, the squishy did make mana!

  Imp was praised by Master for this discovery, and felt Master pour some mana in to it as a reward, making it stronger and also spawning two lesser Imps as well.

  With these new lesser brethren, Imp became the Scion. The leader of it's Imp brethren, thus was given a name by Master.

  Imp was now Smiley. Apparently Master liked it when imp... Smiley... smiled.

  Smiley waited for squishy to finish cleaning up and then picked it back up, placing it back on top of its head with a grin, "Good squishy. Smiley keep squishy safe! Squishy make more mana for Master!"

  Such was the start of a friendship between Smiley and squishy.

  After some time passed, Smiley felt a little tired, so it went over to it's Mastera core room and laid down, holding Squishy in it's arms and just... rested. Dungeon monsters didn't need to eat, or sleep or any of that, but they did get bored and sometimes rested.

  As days passed, Smiley took good care of the little red squishy. It would play games with it, though the games were difficult to think of at first, Smiley found one that it could play.

  Smiley would take a few rocks and carve simple symbols on the rocks, and then show them to squishy. Then it would show squishy one specific rock, and then hide all the rocks. Then squishy would go find the one rock.

  Another game they played was Smiley trying to see what squishy could pretend to be. Round rocks were easy, so Smiley looked for other stuff. Sticks were harder for squishy and didn't look right. Smiley found this square thing with soft sheets inside two harder sheets...

  Squishy seemed to like it! He crawled right up on top of it and blobed all over it. After watching Squishy play with the weird thing suddenly it just... popped! Like a bubble!

  Smiley could tell Squishy didn't eat it. There was lots of little bubbles when Squshy ate something as the thing for smaller and smaller and then vanished.

  Smiley was about to investigate further when he heard an alarm from his Master.

  More intruders!!