A group of twenty adventurers made their way through the dungeon known formally (and soon to be formerly) as the Tower of Obedient Minions. The dungeon got its name for a few reasons.

First, it expanded in the wrong direction. Most dungeons went down. This dungeon built itself on a mountain next to the coast. Going down would have just caused it to hit the water table immediately. Thus “Tower”.

Second, many of the drops were related to beast taming, summoning, and soul binding spells. All dungeons tended to have a specialty, a set of items and spells that they are most likely to give out. This dungeons spells were all loosely related to controlling minions. Thus “Obedient Minions”.

Thirdly, the Dungeon had for some strange reason decided to call itself Tom. No one talks with dungeons, but when all of the unique dungeon drops are emblazoned with things like “Tom’s superior beast collar of taming” it becomes pretty obvious what the dungeon thinks of itself. Thus, the acronym for the dungeon is T.O.M.

In the adventuring group there were 9 wizards, 4 witches, 3 melee specialists, 1 mage, 2 clerics, and 1 archer. It was pretty normal group of adventurers except for the 13 wizards and witches, that wasn’t normal.

What brought the wizards and witches (or witzies for the non-gender specific term) out of their hiding hole at the local witzie academy of Schweinwarzen was a new spell that the dungeon had begun dropping only one month ago. It was a spell for taming dungeon cores. It required a circle of at least 13 witzies to perform a group spell. Each person would have to bring a list of spells and items to sacrifice. Once these items and spells were sacrificed the dungeon could begin creating more of those items, or casting the spells provided.

These items would be major investments for all of the witzies, and the payoff seemed dubious given the rather complex nature of the spell they would be casting. Most witzies are basically a mix between nerds and lawyers. They make their livings by producing useful items and one off spell scrolls for other people. When making one-off spell scrolls they need lots of concentration, ink, and knowledge of arcane symbols. They can do spells in the field, but it requires precise hand movements with a wand and usually some perfectly remembered chanting. Witzie adventurers are rare since concentration and precision are hard to muster with a monster right in front of you that wants to eat you alive. That is why they have only the bare minimum of 13 even though there are couple thousand students and teachers at the academy. These 13 witzies, despite the glasses, impractical robes, and body types that range from skinny and malnourished to chubby with a beer belly these are some of the bravest (and possibly stupidest) that the academy has to offer.  

Mages on the other hand are the meatheads of the magic world. They just will things to happen. It's not very mana efficient, but it is much more conducive to an adventurer’s lifestyle. After all it's really easy to want the giant nasty spider things to burn alive before they get near you.

All of this is why the 13 witzies in the group are standing behind the adventurers as they systematically clear this dungeon. Jerry, the mage of the group is acting as a ranged damage dealer by throwing solid iron balls at enemies and then magically assisting the balls to travel at tremendous speeds. Jerry looks like most men that come from this dungeon town, tall (around 6ft), darkish/tan skin, with black hair. He had a simple leather jerkin on, and a satchel slung over his shoulder that jangled with iron balls.

The first floor looked little different than just a cave, with slimes dotted around the cave, the only challenging thing on this floor was the slime boss at the end, but it was easily dispatched by the group of veteran adventurers.

The next floor also looked like a natural cave formation, but had clear signs of habitation by goblins. Occasionally they would run into groups of 3-6 goblins, and they were easily taken care of. The first real challenge of the day came as the group enters the boss room for the floor and they are swarmed by two dozen goblins. The melee fighters at the front break their main charge. The melee fighters are each heavily armored with full body height shields, and short swords for stabbing around the shield. The goblins are armed with rocks and sharppened sticks. Two goblins are immediately cut down by the melee fighters up front, a third taking a nasty wound on the arm.

The goblins are all screaming and trying to bang on the shields with their rocks. Any words that come out from behind the shields are also attacked by the goblins. With the three melee fighters blocking the passage behind them the two groups are at a stalemate.

Some of the goblins get frustrated enough to start climbing on top of one another so that they can jump over the shields. As soon as the first goblin body peaks above the shield an arrow sprouts from its chest. The goblin falls forward the shaft of the arrow breaking over the shield as the rest of the body slumps down the front of the shield. 

The half elf archer calls out "Jerry, you take these ones, I don't want to waste any more arrows."

Jerry steps forward pulling out an iron ball about two inches in diameter. As another goblins peaks above the shields jeryy lobs the ball at it. Midway through the air the ball suddenly accelerates faster than the eye can see. The goblin's shoulder explodes showering the other goblins with blood and an extra limb. The goblins scream even louder. The melee fighters curse as the goblin starts spurting blood over their shields and onto their heads.

"Fuck Jerry! Keep it clean."

The next goblin that popped up was struck by a metal ball on the head, it collapsed immediately with a dent in its face.

The goblins had gotten wiser, instead of just one popping up five of them were suddenly trying to scramble over the three shields. Every half second another metal ball would leave Jerry's hand accelerate in the air and smash into a goblin, each one breaking bones. The goblins were trying to bring down the armored front line by banging rocks against their helmets. Three of the goblins that had climbed over were already dead from Jerry's metal balls. Another group of five seemed ready to make another attack over the shields.

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One of the clerics shouted in the divine tongue [Empower]! The three melee fighters glowed with a golden light that seemed to shine from within their armor. All three of them surged forward through the pack of goblins, using their large shields as plows. Some goblins went flying breaking legs as they landed, other goblins were curshed under the heavy books of the three warriors. Most of them wound up in a heap on top of each other. Any stray goblins that had managed to dodge to the side were being blown apart with the metal balls, jerry had stopped holding back.

Before the heap of goblins could recover and untangle themselves the three melee fighters moved in and began thrusting swords in the pile, killing the goblins on top and trapping the ones below. 

Jerry doesn’t notice the dirty looks his team are giving him for the mess of gore he had created. Because he had already turned to the only female witch that hadn't shown outright disgust from the last battle.

“So, what did you think of that, pretty cool huh? Our team is known as one of the fastest dungeon clearers in the city. At this point it is almost too easy, I almost feel bad for these goblins, they didn’t stand a chance”

“Oh, is that what they were. Yeah it was really amazing how fast they all fell, I can’t even cast a spell before all of you wipe everything out.”

Cassie was genuinely impressed at how fast all of the blobs had fallen down, and mostly unaccustomed to the positive male attention she was receiving. She thought it might have been more impressive if she could have seen what he had actually done, but that was impossible without wearing the large pair of glasses she had left behind.

Cassie had been holding onto her friend Melany to avoid tripping. But after this latest battle Melany had lost her breakfast. Cassie decided to latch onto Jerry instead. Jerry looked back at her, but it was a little too dark and Cassie was still a little too blind to make out his face, so she just smiled at him. 

Jerry wondered if he had maybe been misjudging witzies this whole time. This witch Cassie didn’t seem to have her head stuck up her own ass. Her pale skin, freckles, and frizzy hair made her pretty exotic around this part of the world. 'Maybe shes single?' thought Jerry.

… …

About 6 hours later the party had made it to the dungeon core and defeated the stone golem that guarded it. Jerry had been here many times, this room contained the best loot. The room was massive, there was a vaunted stone ceiling 50 feet above them, the room went back 200ft from the entrance, and was about 100ft wide. The walls were covered with glittering stones, some in geometric patterns, others in the shape of animals and people riding those animals. In the center of the room were 15 stone monoliths in a 40 ft wide circle around the dungeon core.

The dungeon core was a blue 3 foot tall octahedron. It floated about a foot off the ground slowly spinning, and it pulsed dimly every few seconds. The core itself was basically indestructible. Jerry had once tested it by throwing an iron ball with all his magic behind it. The ball had shattered from the force, but the dungeon core didn’t even have a scratch, it just kept spinning.

Cassie and Jerry had gotten much closer during the rest of the trek through the dungeon. Cassie was explaining the details of the ritual to Jerry. Neither of them were paying attention to the ritual. Cassie was nervous because this little date of theirs would be over once the ritual was complete. Jerry was planning on asking Cassie on a second date, but was having trouble figuring out where. The only nice dining establishment he knew doubled as a brothel, so that had never worked out the past few times he had invited women there. They got along great in the dungeon. But past experience also warned him away from that, letting your date die and be resurrected was not the way to a woman’s heart.

‘Oh well, maybe she knows a place’ he thought before interrupting her rambling speech about item sacrifices being unheard of for beast taming.

“Hey Babe, how about after this we go grab something to eat together? You pick the place.”

Cassie’s heart fluttered, which had started happening every time he used one of his nicknames for her, but this time she felt like the butterflies were crawling up her throat. She looked up at the tall strong blob standing over her as she prepared the ritual. Her mouth was open but no words were coming out.

Jerry misinterpreted her silence, “Well there is this one place I know, it has great food, but its not usually where I’d take someone on a first date because it has a brot…”

“Yes I want you.”

“Huh”

“Err Uhh i mean, yes, i want to get good with you … get food with you I mean”

Jerry winked at her … before remembering she had terrible eyesight. “Alright, catch me after ya’ll do your little circle dance thing.”

Melany cleared her throat, “Everyone else is ready Cassie, I hope you haven’t forgotten what we came here for.”

Cassie sighed, Melany was being a bitch, but Cassie could hardly blame her after how many times she had dry heaved the last few hours. “Yes I’m ready”