The shadowy black wolf stands head and shoulders above the smaller creatures. Tendrils of shadow make its outline indistinct, but its red eyes pierce the gloom and pin us with a gaze like lights that tell you a device is on.

The creature seems far less terrifying now that I know its name is the Subwoofer. Seriously, dungeon? Seriously?!

Category Monster Type Canine Gender Male Rank Elite Aspect Fear Disposition Wary Mood Playful

Like many dungeon bosses, the monster wolf is polite enough to wait to be attacked. It doesn't even do more than watch us until Basalt is coming toward him with an axe.

The wolf boss lets out a growl like a heavy metal vocalist, reverberating against my aura, but this time I hold firm. It's also hard to be terrified when I can see him wagging his tail.

Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Spirit Hearing), Discipline (Fear Resistance)

The big wolf evades Basalt's slow swipe and lunges at Juniper. I put up my staff to block but he just grabs the staff in his jaws and snaps it like a big dog fetching a small stick. He shakes his head and drops the broken wood.

The wolf suddenly yelps and jumps backward, swinging his head to gaze at Griffin, holding a bloody knife. The grin slips off of Griffin's face as he stares down the wolf for half a second before scrambling away.

Rowan bashes his shield into the side of the wolf's head, not about to let our [Sneaky Child] get eaten.

The Subwoofer takes a step back, letting off a wave of audible pressure that stuns even the psi-blind kids for a moment. He throws his head back and lets out a bone-chilling howl.

The room floods with smaller wolves, swarming the party and immediately forcing Anise, Burdock, and Mipsy to join in the fight. I only glance back for a moment to see Anise grinning with a flaming sword and Burdock with magic at his fingertips and familiar at his side. They'll be fine.

The dungeon clearly saw them standing there and decided they weren't engaging with this encounter enough. Aunt Rosemary just gives the monsters a stern look and they avoid her, but the Elites aren't so much higher above these.

The six Basics harry the shadowy dire wolf with blades and bludgeons. Given how dark it is, it's hard to tell how much effect our weapons are having on the creature.

Rowan guards me and the girls and gets in strikes with his green sword when he can. The Subwoofer lunges at Willow, but Rowan slams his shield in its face.

Although the kids fight valiantly, Rowan and Basalt are probably doing the majority of the damage here. After a chaotic fight, the Basics kill the Subwoofer while the Elites take care of the swarm.

Skills increased: Blocking (Staffwork), Discipline (Battle Trance), Athletics (Dodging)

"That was fun!" Griffin exclaims. "Let's do it again!"

"We will need to wait until the boss respawns if you want to fight it again," Aunt Rosemary says. "Until then, we can keep exploring the tower once you have your rewards." She gestures to the chest that appeared where the dire wolf had been, and reminds us, "Be sure to check for traps first."

Willow and Griffin dive at the chest in unison, but pause at her last words. They carefully examine the chest and disable a simple trap before opening it.

A small pile of coins marked with a tower and wolf's head get handed to Aunt Rosemary for later distribution at the end of the dungeon run. She gives Griffin an "I saw you do that" look and he quickly adds the three coins he'd tucked into his sleeves when he thought no one was looking. I get the feeling that she doesn't actually care and is only obligatorily getting on his case about stealing things. You can't be sneaky unless you can sneak it past the Heroic Teacher. That's a battle just as much as killing a monster.

A small black cape goes to Griffin, despite his failed attempt at adventuring embezzlement. Upon putting it on and getting his +1 to Dexterity, he doesn't stay disappointed for long.

The next floor of the tower is full of cats and mice. Despite being smaller than the shadows near the tower entrance, these monsters have more shape, definition, and color. They might be mistaken for normal gray tabbies and black mice as seen in low light and thick smoke. They're still Basics, but stronger Basics.

The mice try to avoid us. The cats chase the mice and ignore us. The mice must flee forever but it's not in fear. They're not even doing a good job of faking fear, on a psychic level. The mice let out only the simple feeling of "Bet you can't catch me!" Without the need to eat or breed, the only thing left to the mice is seeing how fast they can run. I'm not sure if this is mouse heaven or mouse hell.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Griffin and Willow care about none of my inner musings. They rush off to start trying to bash and stab mice. The rest of us aren't going to let them out of sight, so we charge after them obligatorily.

At the end of the floor near the stairs, an Elite housecat the size of a small black panther lays on top of a treasure chest. We could probably get to the stairs without bothering it, but we'll need to deal with the cat if we want the treasure. We are, of course, going to fight it.

With my staff broken, I hold back with my dagger next to Juniper as Basalt and Griffin charge in. A shift in the air, and the monster panther is behind us leaping at Juniper instead.

Juniper bops the panther in the nose with her staff before I can even react. "Down, kitty."

Once the panther has been defeated, Griffin gets the chest open. Another handful of coins goes into Aunt Rosemary's safekeeping (and not Griffin's socks), and a floppy black cap goes to Willow. The +1 in Intelligence will doubtless ensure that she continues to surpass my mom's vocabulary.

"We're doing good," Willow says. "Can we keep going?"

"Alright, but you must be careful," Aunt Rosemary says. "The creatures on the next floor are all Elite."

The twins promise loudly how careful they will be, and we follow Aunt Rosemary up the stairs.

The third floor contains a room full of moths resting placidly on tables and chairs. Each of them has softly glowing pale blue wings with a good 20 cm wingspan.

Category Monster Type Insect Rank Elite Aspect Fog Disposition Wary Mood Chill

The moths flutter, their wings slowly creating fog that fills the air and wafts down the stairs to flood the lower floors.

"Get the wings! They're good for potions!" Willow exclaims, shattering the sense of wonder and beauty.

"Hold on," I say before she rushes in. "Did you forget to do something first?"

Willow frowns and looks around the room. "I don't see any other monsters in here. I don't see any traps, either. Did I miss one?"

Most of the party have already failed their 'looking up' check. An unlit brazier hangs from the ceiling, covered with cobwebs concealing several spiders that feel a bit smarter than the ones in the Spooky Grove.

"Oh…" Willow says, deflating. "I'm not a very good [Perceptive Child]."

"You're a fine [Perceptive Child]," Aunt Rosemary says. "But even the most perceptive person has blind spots. You won't forget to look up next time, will you?"

Willow shakes her head. "I won't forget."

Neither the spiders nor moths attack just from us being in the room. As soon as we make an aggressive move, however, the moths lift into the air and their auras churn intensely. The fluttering of their wings chills the room as the unnatural fog intensifies.

Basalt kills one of the moths with his axe, but the corpse gets caught in a spiderweb and is swiftly taken to be wrapped up in the spider larder.

Anise steps in with fire in her hands to dispel the fog with warmth and light. "You aggroed a few too many of those at once. Lemme give you a hand."

Burdock and Mipsy also join in, thinning the cloud of oversized bugs. With the low visibility, I just pinpoint their auras and telepathically send their positions to my party members.

After an intense, chaotic battle against low-Elite magic moths, we don't wind up with many corpses with intact wings. We've gotten plenty of experience, though, but we're all shivering.

Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Aura Sight, Telepathy), Survival (Cold Resistance)

At this point, Aunt Rosemary determines that we are done for the day and we return to camp.

"How long until they respawn?" Griffin asks as we warm up outside.

It's the middle of August, but it never really gets hot in Tempest. The yellow sky bears only the cool disinterest of the Great Orb, leaving us to sit by the fire to warm up after our encounter with weird magic moths.

"This dungeon fully resets once a day," Aunt Rosemary says.

"So we have to wait until tomorrow to run it again?" Griffin whines. "Why didn't we keep going further?"

"The fourth floor contains higher Elites and a low Heroic boss," Aunt Rosemary says. "You are not ready for that yet. You were already overwhelmed with the enemies on the third floor."

Griffin grumbles but doesn't argue further. "When do we split the loot?"

"When we get home, Griffin. You don't have a bag or purse of holding."

"How many times can we run the tower?" Griffin asks.

"Oh, we should be good staying out here for a week or two," Aunt Rosemary says. "Willow, would you be a dear and forage for some herbs and berries? You've learned how to identify plants, haven't you? Let's put that to the test. Take Burdock and Mipsy with you."

Willow nods eagerly and grabs her foraging basket, and the three of them head out of the camp.

"What's the difference between a monster and an animal?" Basalt wonders. "All those monsters back there seemed like animals except nothing they did was normal."

"Monsters are the animal version of reincarnators," Aunt Rosemary explain. "The first Subwoofer would have been the soul of a normal dog or wolf. You can't spawn a new soul into an adult body. It won't even know how to move."

"Right, that makes sense," Basalt says. "So any further dwarves we spawn in Hebron will also be reincarnators?"

"Correct," Aunt Rosemary says. "And any monsters bonded with it will respawn as well."

"They know they won't stay dead, so they have no fear of death," I say quietly, but no one appreciates my existential musings.

Willow returns with a full basket of assorted plants, Burdock and his three-eyed cat familiar following close at her heels. Sticky purple residue is smeared around her mouth and over her fingers.

"I got some plants!" Willow proclaims, and sets them down next to Aunt Rosemary.

"Well, let's see what you found, shall we?"

Willow stands by watching as Aunt Rosemary proceeds to sort her botanical bounty into piles of "good", "bad", and "useless", growing increasingly dismayed at how few good plants she found. If Aunt Rosemary were to give this a letter grade, it would be a definite "F".

"Did you just grab anything interesting you saw and hope I'd sort it out for you?" Aunt Rosemary says.

"Um…" Willow looks away sheepishly.

"And you were absolutely certain those were blackberries before you ate them?"

"They were definitely probably blackberries," Willow insists.

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