That was what he believed, at least, though it was easy to say that before someone slams on your door begging for help. He had assumed the smokestack from the chimney would attract people, but he had never expected a guest so soon. He focused and unlocked the door, the mechanism clicking as he allowed the person in. He had figured something out during his previous lives. The system prevented a dungeon from completely isolating itself, but a lock was just a puzzle for thieves. That also meant the dungeon itself could solve the puzzle whenever it chose to do so. Red believed that a whole crawdad's worth of mana was reasonable for the small mechanism.

A little girl rushed into the shack and quickly slammed the door behind her, turning the deadbolt and panting as she pushed her back to the door and slid down. “Thank you… I’ve been running for so long.” She panted with her eyes closed, unable to focus on anything but oxygen. Red squatted down to look at her. The crawdads were lining the bed, facing towards the little girl in mock of a cavalry charge. Red held up his hand behind himself, making sure that neither the crawdads nor Lotus and her newborn sister, would cause any damage to the girl.

New Sentient Being Detected: Addison Cloudwatch von Zinglemeyer!

A box appeared, but Red quickly brushed it away. He had no time to deal with system notifications when there was a scared child in his dungeon. When she finally opened her eyes and brushed the silvery hair away from her face, the girl gasped in shock. For a moment, Red believed she could actually see his crystalline form and all the creepiness that it undoubtedly held. However, following her line of sight, he realized that she was looking at the two fairy commanders at the head of the crawdad army.

"They aren't going to hurt you. Are you alright?" Red asked with a frown as he looked over at her. He blinked when he saw one of his pop-ups appear in front of her. He leaned forward and glanced at the words, realizing that they were what he had just said.

"I-I'm okay... Are you the fairies?" she asked in a very hushed tone, her hands gently petting a long lock of silvery hair. She was nervous and scared, no doubt worrying that his fairies were the kind from fairy tales that stole children.

"Those two are fairies, but they listen to me. I'm the dungeon you're currently in," Red commented, though he rolled his eyes as he could almost feel the fairies sticking their tongues out at him. They were young, and he hoped that they would listen to him a bit better with age.

He could see the girl stiffen more than when she had entered the house. It was clear she understood what it meant to be in a dungeon. "Don't worry, I'm a young and nice dungeon. I've only got the one room, and you seem far too strong to handle my bugs," he commented with a smile, and the girl seemed to give a small smile at the compliment. However, as Red was about to say more using his speech-to-text magic, a sudden thud came at the door.

"What were you running from?" he asked firmly, the text appearing bolded in the box. The girl was shaking, tears pricking at the edges of her beautiful violet eyes as fear returned to her. "The-the-the caravan was attacked by undead. It's been chasing me for hou-hou-hours!" she sobbed as tears began to stream down her face, clearly overwhelmed by both exhaustion and the relentless pursuit.

Red frowned upon hearing that, knowing that he didn't have anything holy enough to put a quick end to undead. He had his infinitely burning fireplace, electric and poisonous lotus, as well as whatever abilities the new fae possessed. He also had to consider that undead were unintelligent, meaning that the system would regard them as intruders. If they somehow managed to touch his core, it would be the fastest death of all.

However, even as he thought about that, he couldn't help but let out a soft sigh. The girl was cowering, her face red and tears streaming down her scratched-up cheeks. He couldn't just cast her out with no care in the world, especially not after she had fought so hard to survive this ordeal. Some minor kinship bloomed in his chest as he thought about how difficult it must have been for her. Though he shook off those thoughts as he looked back at his forces.

"Kid, hide under my bed. I'll deal with the monster." the font of the box that appeared was bold and rigid, reflecting the malice he felt towards the creature that made Addison cry. She sniffled and gasped as she crawled her way under the ratty old mattress.

He noticed a notification stating that a guest, the word quickly changing from sentient being in the notification, had discovered his hidden mushroom patch. One problem at a time, though, as he heard the creature on the other side of the door banging and clawing at the improved wood. He figured that the creature was too dumb to try the doorknob; otherwise, it would already be jiggling the handle under the lock. This thing was an unrelenting killing machine and it was not going to stop just because of a door in its way. It would either wear down the door until there was nothing left or wait until Addison died of natural causes.

"Lotus, take your sister and float above the door. Crawdads, assemble on either side of the door," Red said firmly as a plan began to formulate in his head. If he was going to have to fight this thing, then he would treat it as an invasion. He would scramble the military and the air force, giving himself full room supremacy against this invading army. He waited as his forces assembled, turning to look at the door as a splinter came across one of the boards.

He examined the door closely, analyzing its parts and contemplating what he could do with it using his limited pool of mana. The magic from Addison being in his dungeon was slowly ticking up his energy, but that wouldn't be more than a few points with the girl doing nothing but cowering. He let out a sigh of relief as a notification popped up, offering just what he had been hoping for. He looked over at the little girl, smiling as he gave her one message before the battle began. "Don't worry... I'll try my best to protect you," the box said, and Red focused on his own notification box.

Put iron hinges in storage?

Cost: 1 mana per hinge