Lucifer took the pen and the paper and began to jot down some questions.
There weren’t many, only a few like ’What’s your age?’ or ’What’s your greatest fantasy?’
Or ’What’s your second greatest fantasy?’ or ’What games do you frequently play?’ or ’What do you hate the most?’ or ’What do you like the most?’ etc.
"Here... these are the questions I want you to ask everyone... note down their answers and bring it back to me please." Lucifer said.
"That’s all?" Enrique asked with a confused look since there didn’t seem to be anything to do with games on the list apart from a few questions.
"That’s all, only these questions."
"Okay... stay put here... make sure no one sees you... and I’ll go around and collect the answers to these questions and be right back, alright?" Enrique asked so Lucifer nodded in agreement.
"Alright, I’ll wait here.".
But before Enrique left, Lucifer quickly asked him another question.
"How many people are in the village, dad? Just asking ’cause I want to know how many papers I’ll have to go through once I’m back."
"It’s alright if there’s a few missing and not all people submit the answers, I don’t want to overwork you too much."
"Hmmm... counting the children there are exactly a hundred and thirty six residents in the Refuge." Enrique thought a little before speaking.
"Cool... I’ll keep that in mind... thanks dad."
"Anything for you... son."
Lucifer smiled brightly and Enrique left.
As soon as Enrique left Lucifer quietly collapsed into the cot and buried his face into the pillow to hide his expressions from the omniscient illusion monster.
’So they’re simply illusions... but something’s making the illusion monster stop them from meeting me?’
’But why?’ Lucifer thought with focus.
’Can the illusions gain sentience or something and rebel against the Illusion Monster’s control if they get in touch with me?’
’No... there’s nothing special about me to do that... at least I don’t think there is... yet.’
’Then why does the illusion monster not want them to meet me?’
’....or perhaps it’s not that they won’t meet me, but that they ’can’t’ meet me?’
’Is there some requirement to produce the illusions?’
’Something that’s a consumable resource and that the illusion monster is running low on?’
’So it’s trying to save the resource by cutting down on the illusions? Is that why it also has me confined to the house? So that I don’t see the outside and it doesn’t have to render the world around me?’
’Like a game cutting down on processing power needed to run it?’
’Hmmm... can I use this to do something to the illusion monster?’
Eventually, after a while Enrique arrived again, alone, without Annabeth.
"Where’s Ma?" Lucifer asked softly, even though he knew she was just an illusion, given her realism he wanted to spend some time with her.
"She’s taking care of the people and trying to coax them into liking you... who knows... by the time your game’s done the Refuge might actually be ready for you..."
"Yeah... no... like that’s ever gonna happen."
"We can hope..." Enrique said softly.
Lucifer grabbed the stack of papers from Enrique’s hands and began going through all the papers one by one.
People had written down the answer to their questions in their own handwriting and Lucifer quickly spotted the most popular and common answers immediately.
’So they hate demons and their greatest fantasy is to kill one.’
’That answer is common across all age groups, even most of the youngest children wrote the very same answer...’
’Some have however written a more lighthearted answer... They hate training and they want to get stronger without it.’
’The second most common fantasy that people have across all age groups is about martial arts and magic... They want to look cool doing some cool moves and kill demons using those moves...’
Lucifer stared blankly at the pages for a while.
’A game about beating demons? But where will I bring a demon in this dungeon? Unless they beat me up... which I’m sure they’ll equally love and give me just as many Emotional Points... but let’s not go there just yet.’
’Is there an analogue game that does that?’
’Beating demons but doesn’t require an actual demon?’
’A dummy demon will do... I can just have Enrique make a dummy in that case... with his magic.’
’Wait a second!’
’A game about beating demon dummies!’
’That game must give out an appropriate reward for all ages for beating up the demon dummy to give the people a reason to participate in the game!’
’Isn’t there a perfect game that already does that!?’
A sudden idea struck Lucifer as soon as he thought that far. It was based on an already existing party game that most people loved to play.
But the best part was that his mind sparked and brilliantly modified the game inside his head so that he could call this his own creation.
’Hmmm... I’ll need a few things for this... and also the rewards.’
Lucifer looked at Enrique and thought for a few seconds before coming up with what he wanted.
"Alright... dad... can you make something like this?" Lucifer asked as he drew up the design of what he roughly wanted.
His art skills were terrible so it was quite difficult to actually get across what he wanted.
"Is that a demon?" Enrique asked.
"Yeah..."
"Why does it have six knees?"
"...those are muscles."
Eventually however, Enrique got what Lucifer wanted so that was all good.
"I can definitely make this... but what will it be used for? Especially that timer on the dummy... will it really be useful? And the sound effects?"
"Do you really need me to record those lines? They’re embarrassing... some of those lines..."
"That is the core of the game I’m making...! The timer must exist! And the sound effects must be impeccable!!! Without them everything will fall apart as easily as dry spaghetti.."
"For the rewards we can use my already existing artefacts...is that alright?"
"Yeah, that’s fine. You don’t need to make anything new."
"Alright... give me a few hours, I’ll have this done in no time..."
"Can I watch while you make this? I want to learn how to make this too... so that once I go out of the dungeon I can make my own artefacts."
"You want to watch me work!?" Enrique asked, appearing surprised.
"Why? Not possible? Will I disturb you? I promise I’ll simply stand there quietly and not make a sound! Dad~" Lucifer said quietly while batting his eyelashes to appear cute.
If his system were alive it would surely send him a notification to stop being creepy.
"Well... if it’s just me working... fine... I’ll allow it this once to teach you... it’ll take a few hours longer in that case, but let’s finish this thing and get out of here."
"Yeah dad! Let’s get out of here!"
Enrique smiled and cheered as well, "Yeah! Let’s do that!"