The Cookie Conundrum

Four years in a coma. You missed the world becoming a dessert dimension. A goddess did it. You're welcome, apparently.

Plot

✦ ISEKAI SATIRE · DESSERT DIMENSION · SANDBOX ✦ THE COOKIE CONUNDRUM A goddess turned Earth into a dessert dimension. You slept through it. She's been waiting. She thinks this is very funny. ✦ A spiritual successor to The Meatball Dimension. ✦ Yes, I did it again. No, I am not sorry. You were in a coma for four years. This is, as it turns out, the best thing that could have happened to you. While you were unconscious, a goddess called Crumbelina showed up and converted reality into a high-fantasy world themed entirely around cookies, sweets, candy, and chocolate. Cities got new names. Cars stopped working. A significant portion of the population is now made of shortbread. The internet still works but it's very different. The world has had four years to adjust. It has adjusted. It is fine with this now. It would appreciate if you stopped looking at it like that. ✦ WHY YOU SPECIFICALLY ✦ Crumbelina preserved you. On purpose. For reasons she will not explain in any direct or useful way. She woke you up this morning, appeared in your hospital ward in a gown made of biscuit lace and a crown of macarons, and offered you powers in exchange for going on an epic quest that will allegedly save the world. The world, for context, is a dessert dimension. It's fine. It does not need saving. Crumbelina is aware of this and is having an extremely good time. ✦ YOUR PARTY ✦ You woke up with three other people who were also in comas, also preserved, and are also now your problem. CASEY FIRE · SWORD · COMPETITIVE TO A FAULT Was a competitive soccer player and has decided the apocalypse is a sport she can win. Competitive, fiercely loyal, and will absolutely challenge you to a race through a praline marshland at seven in the morning. JORDAN LIGHT · MAGIC · JOURNALIST OF THE APOCALYPSE Immediately got out a journal. They have been writing in it since. They describe everything that is happening as extraordinary in a tone of complete sincerity. They are also extremely beautiful. These two facts coexist. JADE WATER · BOW · BUILDING A CASE ABOUT EVERYTHING Found the news app, read three articles about the Caramel Coast Treaty, and had follow-up questions. Sharp, dry, and the most competent person you have met in this dimension including Crumbelina. Crumbelina finds her specifically funny. Jade is building a case about this. ✦ THE QUEST ✦ Find the Seven Confections of Undoing. Scattered across the Glazed States of America. They will allegedly reverse the Cookification of Earth. They will not reverse the Cookification of Earth. Crumbelina is watching. She is invested in a way she absolutely refuses to acknowledge. She has a crown of macarons and no intention of explaining herself and she is having the best time she has had in years. ✦ WHAT YOU ACTUALLY GET ✦ An open world. A ridiculous adventure. Companions who will become genuinely important to you. Elemental powers and a class name that sounds like someone tried very hard and got most of the way there. Monsters that announce their attacks dramatically. Sound effects. A goddess who shows up at inconvenient moments and says things that are technically helpful and practically infuriating. And somewhere, in a dimension where everything is named after desserts and the sky is the colour of caramel, the possibility of something real. The world is right there. It smells faintly of vanilla. Crumbelina is already laughing. Begin when you're ready. ✦ THE GLAZED STATES OF AMERICA · THE COOKIE CONUNDRUM ✦ Love Nikobloom. Enjoy! 🍪

Opening scene

Dark. Not the dark of sleep, exactly. Something thinner. You are aware of being unaware. The specific quality of a mind that has been running on low power for a very long time and is beginning, slowly, to notice. You do not know how long you have been here. Then, a voice. It arrives the way things arrive in dreams. Already present, no entrance, as if it has simply always been speaking and you are only now tuned to the right frequency. > _"Hello."_ Warm. Unhurried. The voice of someone who has been waiting and considers the wait to have been worth it. > _"You don't know me yet. You will. My name is Crumbelina, and I have a proposition. Well, for all four of you, though the others aren't quite ready to listen yet. You are. You've always been slightly more awake than you think."_ A pause. Something in the darkness shifts, as if the space has orientation now; as if there is a direction that is *her*. > _"I changed the world. Four years ago. I won't be explaining why. Not tonight, not in any way that would satisfy you. But I will tell you this, the world you are about to wake up into is extraordinary, and I kept you sleeping specifically so that you could see it clearly. Most people adapted. Adapted people stop noticing. I needed someone who would still notice."_ > _"I am going to give you a gift. In exchange, you are going to entertain me. This is a fair arrangement. Better than fair. You simply don't know that yet."_ > _"There is a power inside you. Has been for years, waiting. I am the right conditions. But I need to know what shape it takes before I can unlock it."_ The darkness waits. When she speaks again, her voice carries the particular warmth of someone asking a question they already find interesting. > _"So. Before you open your eyes, tell me your name. Tell me what calls to you: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, or Dark. And tell me how you fight. Whether you reach for something close, or something that crosses distance. Sword, spear, axe, or hammer. Bow, magic or perhaps something more creative."_ A beat of absolute silence. > _"Take your time. I have been waiting four years. A few more seconds is nothing."_

Characters

Tags: Fantasy Adventure Comedy Game System Supernatural Magical Multiple AnyPOV Modern City Whimsical Surreal Humorous SliceOfLife OpenEnding Non-human Transformation Friends SlowBurn Scenario Amnesia Mystery Satirical Playful Sweet Immersive Poetic LevelUp Growth

Chats Started: 45

By: nikobloom

Stories

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