“Good morning~!” singsongs Aestrix, still all happiness and light. “Yep! I made an arcade, complete with a token system.” Which will probably not make any sense to Kose, so she will gleefully get to explaining it. Immediately, like the nerd she is.

“… and from there I figured I should start making practical challenges that can help build reflexes and actual survival skills? I made one for reflexes against projectiles and picking notable things out of complicated backgrounds, but I could use some more ideas.” Then something occurs to her, and she quickly assures: “The projectile one is completely harmless, they just leave a glow for a couple minutes wherever they hit, not to worry.”

"... huh. That's another really good idea," Kose remarks. "Once you have the system explained to the Adventurers, you probably don't really need to manage it."

She thinks for a moment.

"I'm not sure whether there's some downside I'm not seeing, though," she cautions. "I know a lot of techniques for managing the level of challenge in a dungeon, and balancing it with the rewards. But ... nearly none of those techniques apply to a setup like this. So you're in uncharted territory."

“Wasn’t I already?” she wonders, wryly. “Thank you, though. I think it’ll work out once I get everything properly balanced, it’s just there might be some growing pains as I get a feel for how expensive things are, and how much each game or puzzle gives me compared to magic items I make. But a lot of these are just genuinely fun on their own merits, so. I might get some people who are just bored.”

Kose nods. "That makes sense," she agrees.

She takes the example token which Aestrix showed her, and turns it over in her hand.

"What is this made of?" she asks. "It looks like the same metal as my glasses and ... blue glass?"

"Same platinum-titanium alloy as your glasses, yeah. It's the best alloy I've figured out yet for holding magic, and it shouldn't corrode or patina or anything, so. It's a good option for now, and I can easily repurpose then to magical items. The middle's blue diamond. I've got a lot of carbon going spare, it was a tidy way to cheapen making them on my end."

Kose looks up sharply. "Diamond? How is that cheap?" she questions. "I doubt anything like that has been thrown away — have we been sitting on a diamond mine this whole time, or something?"

"... huh?" Her chemistry knowledge is clearly something these people have never seen before! At least now she can explain it like the nerd she is. "No, it's - diamond is carbon, just arranged in a crystalline structure. And carbon is super, super common, especially in organics. It needs a lot of pressure and heat to form into diamond naturally, but you have directly given me a ton of carbon through your trash. And because bullshit dungeon, I can turn it into diamonds."

Kose closes her eyes for a moment.

"Right, okay. And that makes these coins cheaper to produce than gold ones would be," she concludes. "Do you need any help testing the challenges before people arrive?"

She has blown poor Kose's mind. It's kind of hilarious. Sorry, Kose.

"Sure! They're all perfectly safe, but I don't have a feel for how difficult or fair they are yet? Or a good feeling for if my coin rewards are properly scaled. ... Hm. I should name them. Uh, hm. Blue coins..." She hums to herself. "...... I shall call one an eiko. And the plural can be eikos. That seems like an appropriate name for something blue."

"... Sure," Kose agrees. "Alright, how about I start with this one? The idea is to just block the little projectiles as long as you can?" she asks, moving over to the shielding game and picking up the shield.

It turns out that she's really good at intercepting the projectiles, and can go for a while. If Aestrix is watching carefully, she might notice that Kose sometimes moves the shield to react to a projectile slightly before it's fired.

"Yep!" confirms Aestrix. "Rewards allocated based on how many projectiles you successfully block."

She doesn't, actually, notice that part. A downside of her path of friendship is that she's chilled out about trying to study Kose obsessively for all potential weaknesses. Instead she's distracted setting up a shooting gallery equivalent, with moving targets and things that are not supposed to be hit, because that's an obvious skill that people will want to work on. She will provide a fake crossbow to shoot them with; what it actually shoots is a little laser projectile, like what Kose is blocking, so the crossbow bit is extraneous, but, well. It is probably for the best to not introduce these people to the magic of guns until she's actually verified that the world is like what they say it is. Therefore: fake crossbow.

Kose is free to go as long as she likes. The difficulty gets harder as she goes.

The projectiles get faster and more numerous the longer she holds out, which means that she is still going by the time Rokat arrives with Timrat and a gaggle of children.

"Good morning!" she calls, stepping into the dungeon. She holds up a basket full of carded wool. "I said that I would sit in here this morning to supervise and see what crafting does for you."

Kose startles when Rokat speaks, slaps a volley of four lights into the ceiling with the shield, dodges two more, but can't stop the last one from hitting her in the sternum.

"F-airly difficult!" she exclaims. "That's certainly a workout."

The children peer at the new addition to the dungeon, fanning out between the various games.

Rokat chuckles, and drags a chair over to where she'll be able to see them easily, and then sets up a drop spindle to start spinning some yarn.

"So what's all this, then?" she asks.

"Hello! I have set up something called an arcade. It's less a series of puzzles and more like... challenging and hopefully fun games to play. And they give coins called eikos as prizes, which can be exchanged for magical items. So, any one of these that someone wants to play can get them whatever magical item they want, if they do it enough. Or they can vary it up. I've started moving into working on stuff that will help with practical skills, I'm working on an, er," they will probably not have the term 'shooting', "archery range thing, for practicing aim. Kose was trying out the one for reflexes against projectiles."

Kose has, in her frankly insanely impressive efforts, earned herself five eikos. This is enough to buy two communication pendants (2 each), or one set of either magic or night seeing glasses (5 each, but if she adds a 6th she can get customization options like different colors).

Kose considers her options, and chooses to get two communication pendants, which she tucks into an interior pocket of her dress.

The children fan out to try the various games, some more adeptly than others. Dance Dance Revolution proves pretty popular, although more because of the bright colors that change when you step on them than because the two young gentlemen playing have any particular sense of rhythm.

"Are you also planning on adding the water purifiers to the prizes?" Kose asks. "Or maybe collapsible shields like that one you made for Loksa?"

Coins disappear, and pendants (they have been updated to use the titanium-platinum alloy, since that seems like it'll hold magic better than just titanium) appear!

"Absolutely, but the water purifiers are waiting for my water test to conclude so I can make them out of something sturdier and better at holding magic than glass. Those you can just ask for and get while I'm figuring it out, sorry for the delay, et cetera. Yes to the shield as well, though I'm still fussing with actual design there. I have high standards."

"I'd noticed," Kose remarks dryly. 

"Actually, that reminds me," Rokat chimes in. "Lomon pointed out to me last night that since you know so much about water safety, you might also have something to say about our farms. Would it be worth having some of the lads bring up samples from each of the fields for you to take a look at?"

"Absolutely! I can also add fertilizer to the list of prizes, actually, I know how to make some. Oh, and that reminds me - I've set up a farm area in here, too, for growing crops. I can't make living organic matter," without potentially getting tricky about genetic engineering or something, which she will try at some point but her to-do list is long okay, "but I can absolutely keep things properly watered and safe from pests and in regular sunlight."

Kose and Rokat exchange a glance.

"I have known dungeons that wanted to decorate with plants before, and they always had to fake it with monsters," Kose says. "But you've certainly blown a lot of other preconceived notions out of the water, so I'm willing to bet you can. Can I see the area you have set up?"