Jeremy wandered through the outskirts of the sunlit, peaceful town of Dungeonville. Despite his quest to clear monsters from the town police station, neither monsters nor the police station were in sight. He passed a store with a large sign saying Dungeonville Bakery. He stopped, entered, and found the store's shelves were empty with not the slightest scent of baked goods. The woman at the counter smiled and waved.

  “I don't suppose you have any donuts?” he asked. In his life pre-dungeon, donuts were his family's Sunday breakfast. He craved them like a fish craves water.

  The woman's response was to smile and wave again.

  “Can you speak?” he asked.

  She smiled and waved.

  “I guess that's a no.” He left the store with a sigh and kept walking.

  Jeremy passed several empty stores staffed with non-talking townspeople before he found the police station in front of the Dungeonville School playground. Children, both younger and older than him, were running around the playground, playing happily. A huge modular jungle gym in the middle of the playground towered over its surroundings. Horizontal and vertical metal bars ran through it, joining each other every few feet, forming hundreds of cubes inside the jungle gym for kids to climb on. Standing on top of it would give him an excellent view of both the school and the police station's roofs.

  Curious, he climbed to the top of the jungle gym, but aside from the pleasant view of the surrounding town, he saw little of interest.

  Like the rest of the townspeople, the children smiled and waved, seeming friendly enough, but were incapable of speech.

  A large man waited near the door of the Dungeonville Police Station. He was large, both in size and in excess fat. In fact, in the real world, he would be described as a heart attack waiting to happen. It was easy to see this was Officer Bobo due to the name on his blue police uniform. He didn't appear to have a gun; instead, he swung a large club as he paced back and forth.

  Unfortunately, the police station had nothing even resembling windows, so he couldn't tell what was inside.

  The police officer stopped when Jeremy stood in front of him.

  “Uh, Officer Bobo. Sir? Can you speak?” Jeremy asked.

  Officer Bobo shook his head. He pointed at the police station and pantomimed a monster holding his fat fingers out to resemble claws. He made a whining sound and looked miserable.

  Apparently not. “I don't suppose you could help me at all? You could swing your club at the monsters while I shoot them with my bow and arrows?”

  Officer Bobo shook his head and made another whining sound.

  “Okay, great,” Jeremy put on his spider silk cloak, activated Sneak, went to the door of the police station, opened it a tiny crack, and snuck away.

  It was a good thing he did, because the door burst open and there were padding footsteps behind him, RARR RAR RAR RAR RAR RAR!

  Jeremy ran, feeling monster dog breath on his back as he did so. He didn't look behind him until he was climbing the Dungeonville School's huge jungle gym. There were screams as the Dungeonville children ran away.

  RARR! A huge body slammed into the jungle gym, nearly knocking Jeremy off.

  Pre-dungeon, he'd never have been able to stand on top of the jungle gym's narrow bars, but now he did so easily. Officer Bobo had vanished.

  The monsters in question were a four-eyed, six-legged monster dog pack. Ten smaller dogs followed a truck-sized alpha dog monstrosity.

  The alpha leaped up on the jungle gym and tried to bite Jeremy, forcing him to drop into the jungle gym for safety, using the hundreds of approximately three-foot cubes for protection. The rest of the monster dog pack slammed into the jungle gym as well, shaking it so hard, he was afraid it would fall apart.

  He grabbed his bow. Pulling out the poisoned charmed arrow he'd used earlier on the monster cockroach, he fired the arrow directly into the alpha dog-monster's eye. It whimpered, then went back to jumping up and trying to bite him. Teeth missed him again and again, and Jeremy held on to the inside of the shaking jungle gym. A few minutes later, the giant alpha monster dog curled up next to the swing set and died.

  So you could reuse the poisoned arrows. Good.

  Jeremy had gained a level.

  The death of their leader enraged the other ten dog monsters. They were smaller than the first, but had Jeremy been foolish enough to get on the ground next to them, his head would come up to their shoulders.

  I hope I have enough arrows, he thought. He climbed back to the top of the jungle gym and took his time, careful to make each arrow count. He gained another level of archery.

  By his last arrow (aside from his last two charmed, poisoned arrows that he was saving), there were two dog-monsters left. One was wounded, the other unharmed. It was late in the day, and he was tired, but by now he'd gotten this down to a fine art. “Here, boy. Din din!” he called out. Both leaped up, trying to get at him. He shot the unwounded dog monster in the eye. Then he pulled out his sword, jumped to a lower location on the jungle gym. Holding onto a bar just out of the monster dog's reach, he stabbed the remaining dog-monster in the face whenever it came close enough, until it couldn't jump anymore. Jeremy dropped on top of it, driving the sword as far as he could into its neck. He held on until it stopped struggling. When it finally died, he breathed a sigh of relief and started collecting his healing potions and arrows. He'd made over 2000 dc.

  Flint appeared next to him. “While I would have killed them in a much quicker, smoother fashion, you did very well by your standards. Congratulations.”

  “Sure,” Jeremy said, retrieving the last of his arrows that weren't broken.

  Officer Bobo still paced up and down in front of the police station, and Jeremy hadn't received a quest completed notice.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Jeremy groaned. “There are more inside, aren't there?”

  Officer Bobo whined and pantomimed a monster again.

  “Great.”

  It was a good bet that he faced more monster dogs, and considering these dog monsters must have superior smell and hearing, his spider-silk cloak of invisibility wouldn't help. He got out his bow and arrows, activated Sneak, and crept into the station.

  The first room was empty. The waiting room was scratched and torn apart, but uninhabited. He kept moving. In the back, there was a holding cell, a heavy iron bar cage surrounding two beds. Curious, he tried his gold Key in the lock to the cell door. The heavy iron door opened with a click. He searched the holding cell but found nothing. He searched what remained of the front room—also nothing.

  A partially opened door led to a large flight of stairs going down into a cellar. The smell and sounds coming from the bottom made it obvious that the monster dogs were there.

  He got his bow ready and crept down the stairs. Halfway down, he could see the cellar's inhabitants. This dog monster was huge, at least as big as the first one, and she was nursing a litter of puppies. Why did there have to be puppy monsters? He supposed they'd respawn, but he didn't feel good about killing them. He hadn't enjoyed killing baby spider monsters from the first floor, and they were spiders.

  The dog monster somehow sensed Jeremy, and with an angry roar, stood up and charged up the stairs. Jeremy shot her with the same poison arrow he'd used to kill her mate and ran back up the stairs into the iron-barred holding cell, pulling the cell door closed as she hit the bars with a deafening bang, leaving a huge dent. Jeremy fired arrow after arrow into her as she slammed into the door again and again. The cell bulged inward, and bars came out of the floor with the screech of metal.

  He'd put ten arrows into the dog monster before she got her jaws through the bars, forcing her way inside. He shot her in the eye and dove underneath one of the heavy iron frame beds to hide. The bed frame was so close to the floor that he barely fit underneath, but that worked to his advantage as she tried to get at him and failed. Her snarls turned into whimpers, and she collapsed from her wounds and poison.

  He waited until she died, collected his arrows, and found that his good, charmed arrow was broken. Only two charmed arrows left now. He returned to the stairs. “Do I have to do this?” he asked his surroundings. “Couldn't I tame one? It would be my monster dog best friend.”

  "I would strongly advise against it," Flint said, appearing next to him for the first time since the fight began. “They will not stop trying to kill you. And good work killing those monsters today. You were not a complete idiot.”

  Jeremy walked down the stairs, sword in one hand and the other outstretched, like you would meet a dog for the first time.

  “Here, monster monster monster.”

  “I wish to retract my earlier statement,” Flint said. “Those monster puppies will attempt to kill you.”

  “Shut up.”

  The first puppy waited for him to get close, then attacked, bowling Jeremy over and nearly taking off his hand. Jeremy crawled up the stairs on his back, frantically stabbing the monster puppy's neck as he did so. The other puppies rushed up the stairs, fighting each other to get at him.

  “Sorry, puppies.” Jeremy kicked the first monster puppy back down the stairs while backing up to the top. From there, using the doorway as a bottleneck, he killed the rest of the monster puppies as they came at him.

  QUEST COMPLETE!

  Searching the police station's basement, he found a gun inside an attractive hardwood box. It was the first pistol he'd seen up close. It looked different from those in the movies. For one thing, it had many gears and dials of unknown function. Also, it was a lot bigger, heavy and awkward to hold, even with Jeremy's strength. The barrel was wider than any gun he'd seen, and the bullets the cylinder held must be the width of large shotgun shells. From the size of the pistol grip, it must have been made for hands smaller than Jeremy's. He fiddled with it, pulling the hammer to cock the pistol and trigger to release the hammer. He figured out how to move the cylinder to the side so it could be loaded and found an empty place inside the box that looked like it should hold five large bullets. The same number of chambers in the cylinder.

  The box also had something made from metal and wood that screwed onto the back of the pistol. After a bit of scrutiny, he figured out the metal/wood piece was a rifle stock for a being much smaller than himself. There was a second metal piece that screwed into the bottom of the pistol that elongated to form a tripod, presumably to support the heavy gun. The gun was a hand cannon for a being half Jeremy's size.

  Using Identify told him nothing. Like the other high level items, all he got was:

  Charmed object.

  Jeremy searched the entire police station but was unable to find anything resembling a bullet. Even with his limited experience with firearms, he knew a gun was pretty much useless without bullets. He did find a huge room across from the basement full of catapults, giant crossbows, and heavy armor, all of which Identified as police property, don't touch, and resisted his efforts to move them. With some effort, he moved a crossbow that looked slightly out of place and revealed a doorway to a smaller secret room.

  In the secret room, he found a large knife next to a heavy longbow.

  Superior quality, elite, military grade, child's knife. Charmed edge, durability.

  The heavy bow radiated power and came with a quiver of twenty arrows. The bow Identified as:

  Superior quality, elite military grade child's longbow named Dragon Slayer. Too much of a bow for you to handle.

  The arrows were

  High quality, military grade, armor-piercing child's arrows.

  Jeremy stashed the items in his pack. He'd sort them out later. He curled up in a corner of the police station and was out.

  When he exited the police station the next morning, Officer Bobo seemed much happier. The large policeman was waddling around the school playground, banging the playground equipment with his club and glaring at groups of unhappy schoolchildren, clubbing any child who got too close.

  What was his problem? Jeremy had watched the children earlier, and they weren't doing anything wrong.

  He pulled out his Child's Guide to the Dungeon and started reading.

  There was a picture of a child standing over what could have been three of his dog monsters, if they'd been the size of ordinary dogs.

  QUEST COMPLETED!

  You have killed the monsters infesting the police station! Officer Bobo can once again bring law and order back to the community. Good work, adventurer!

  Your relationship with the town's police has gone from Neutral to Friendly.

  You have made money, gained experience from killing a few low level monsters, and received a gun! If you wish to gain bullets for this gun, you will have to complete the other two quests.

  He hated this dungeon; however, it wasn't like he had anything else to do. It would be at least a week or more before he could return to the dungeon maze without getting killed by orcs.

  He turned the page.

  SECOND QUEST

  The town's bank has been infested with monsters! With the help of your friends—you do have friends, don't you? Clear out this monster infestation so the bank may go back to serving the community's banking needs.

  Reward. Satisfaction of helping your community, experience, monster loot... and 10,000 dc.

  Do you accept this quest?

  Yes/No

  He selected Yes.

  QUEST ACCEPTED

  Congratulations! You have accepted your... fifth quest. Yay.

  He pulled up his stat sheet.