Early one morning, on a frosty day near the end of the chilly season, Rengar got out of bed, looked out of the window of his little cottage, and saw that the sky had turned a vibrant shade of green.

     "Nuts," he said. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. There was still so much left to do; the grapes and winterberries in his backyard were almost ready to harvest, the store of firewood had to be replenished, and his cottage was due a top to bottom cleaning. He had put that off for far too long, as he had realized when he was dusting the cobwebs from the kitchen shelves and encountered one that had an ancestral graveyard around the back. They had built a little mausoleum and everything.

     Rengar stood up and stretched with a tired groan. Although he was a man of only forty two summers, he had lived enough for several lifetimes, and his body bore the scars and aches from many an adventure.

     He scratched the salt and pepper stubble on his cheek and stared out the window. The clouds had abandoned their normal random accumulations and had gravitated toward a center point way in the distance, far beyond the trees of Rengar's home, where they were circling like tepid water down a drain.

     "Seems like the damn thing happens earlier every year," muttered Rengar as he pulled on his pants. He staggered out his back door and down a little dirt path to the cottage's well, scratching himself and complaining under his breath.

     "Radda radda tower..." he said, turning the well's handle. When the bucket had been drawn up, he took a long drink from a ladle floating in it.

     "Radda radda curse..." Back inside, he put on his shirt and boots, and buckled on a belt covered in knives and a baldric with an empty scabbard. "Radda radda dark magic..." He began to turn his cottage upside down, searching through each room with increasing frustration. "Radda radda SWORD! Where is it?" Outside, the circling clouds had darkened to an angry gray. A sharp bolt of lightning lanced through the sky, accompanied by the booming of thunder.

     "I know, I know!" Rengar said. "I'm trying to find my damn sword!"

     Eventually, he found it propping up a desk that was covered in scrolls and leatherbound books. He replaced it with a broom handle and sighed as he noticed that there was a light dusting of rust along the blade's edge. When he picked it up, the words 'Longsword of Tetanus +5" flashed across his mind. That had started happening after he read a scroll about identifying magical objects, and it had never stopped. It only happened with certain items, but it meant that he had to tolerate "cup of tea" and "slice of bread (toasted)" and "fried egg (1)" every time he had breakfast.

     Another bright flash of lightning made him pick up his pace, and he hurriedly buckled on his bracers and filled a pack with food and supplies. He made his way out to the stable by the cottage, where his old dappled mare stood munching hay.

     "Jennifer," said Rengar. "It's time once again, old girl."

     Jennifer looked at him with the expression that all horses possess; one that suggests either that the wheel is spinning but the hamster is dead, or that the animal is smarter than you, is aware of this, and this might be the time it decides to eat you. She chewed a lump of hay in a thoughtful manner.

     Rengar, who never could quite tell what her expression meant, approached her slowly. He draped her saddle over her and began to fasten the straps. She didn't appear to mind. He attached saddle bags filled with various rations and healing items. She continued to chew. He leaned down to inspect her horseshoes. The ones in front seemed fine. As he bent down behind her to look at her back legs, she lifted her tail and sent a cloud of noxious gas into his face. He stumbled backward, waving his arms furiously, and got the definite impression that he had just suffered a minor case of poisoning.

     "Dammit!" he swore, and Jennifer made a noise not unlike laughter.

     After determining that that was the only shenanigans that Jennifer intended to get up to, Rengar made sure that he had everything he needed and the two set off into the forest.

     Three days passed. Long, arduous days of riding and tense, nervous nights of sleeping with one eye open. The woods were never particularly dangerous except this time of year; there was something about the magic in the air that drew out the creepy crawlies which dwelled deep amongst the trees. Rengar emerged from the treeline, bags under his eyes and thick stubble covering his face. This time had been exceptionally bad. He had run across swarms of evil pixies, carnivorous plants, a ghast, and just the night before had almost been ambushed by a large pack of goblins. If the ground hadn't been soft from the rain the previous night, he might never have noticed their footprints. It had still taken him half an hour to kill enough of the little buggers that the rest ran away.

     There was the tower, finally. The cavernous opening carved like a demon's head, the rough hewn black stone, the darkness that sucked at the eyes, and on top of it all, almost too high to see, the crystal spire; lancing into the sky and piercing the dark, angry clouds.

     Rengar dismounted and approached the group gathered at the entrance.

     What have we got this time? he wondered, trying to assess the crowd. The eerie green light cast a grim pallor and made the gathering seem almost sinister.

     When Rengar got close enough, he was greeted by a cheer. They clapped him on the back and called his name as he made his way through, until he stood between them and the tower. He scanned the crowd, noting faces fresh and old alike. Some were younger than he would have liked, and some faces were missing altogether. That was to be expected. This was a tough gig.

     "Alright, everyone, settle down." Rengar crossed his arms and took a wide stance. "I know we're all excited to get started, but I see a lot of folks I haven't seen before so we'll go over some ground rules first. I know you probably saw them in the quest advertisement, but nobody pays attentions to those past the bit about the reward." He used to make them introduce themselves and say an interesting fact about them to start off with, but that practice ended when he realized that a lot of them wouldn't make it out alive. It was easier to deal with if he didn't know their names. "My name is Rengar. Some of you know me, most of you have heard of me. For those of you that don't fall into either category, I'm the guy that's going to lead the party through all the insanity contained in the hundred levels of bullshit behind me." That got a laugh, which was good. That usually meant the group would work well together.

     "Rule number one: nobody gets left behind. Not if they're still alive, anyway. If you and your pal Greg are fighting a skeleton and suddenly it becomes thirteen skeletons, you both run away and regroup with the rest of us. If I hear later that you left Greg to face the bony horde alone, I will personally break your legs. An addendum to that rule is that if someone dies, and I'll be honest that it's probably going to happen, leave their body. Seriously. They aren't in it any longer and I don't want to deal with you whining about how he ain't heavy, he's your brother. Another addendum to that rule is if you see them later on and they've risen as a ghastly undead monstrosity, you either kill them without hesitating or find someone who will. For the reasoning behind that, see addendum one. They want to eat your face, not come back home and play backgammon." Renger began to pace back and forth, like a drill sergeant addressing new recruits. "Rule number two: if it glows, don't touch it. That applies to weapons as well. Rule number three: if you see a naked, distressed woman calling out to you from a long way away, turn and run in the other direction. There's such a thing as sirens, people, and there's also such a thing as dying horribly because you were an idiot. Rule number four, and this is the most important one by far: do whatever I say, whenever I say it, regardless of how you feel about it. You want to make it out of this alive and so do I, so don't give me a hard time. I don't want to hear 'but Rengar, it's so shiny!' or 'but Rengar, look at all of that gold!' or even 'but Rengar, it's my wife slash husband slash child who died three years ago and is now magically in this evil tower filled with monsters even though there's no logical reason for them to be here!'!" Rengar stopped talking and looked over the mob of expectant faces. "Everybody got it?" In response, there was much enthusiastic nodding of heads. "Alright. We all know the goal here: fight the monsters, get the treasure, defeat the sexy sorceress casting the spell that's making the sky look like a swamp behind a midden. So with all that being said," Rengar reached behind him into his backpack and pulled out an Everlit Torch (Amaze your friends! Frighten the creatures of the night! Plumb the darkest depths of any dungeon! Only three copper pieces!), which burst into cheery flames at his mental command. The damn things were only good for two or three uses and tended to go out if shaken too hard, but it was easier than carrying regular torches. "Let's do this."

     The first couple of floors were easy; but they always were. A few goblins, a handful of unarmed skeletons, a lone orc here and there. That was just a warmup, and Rengar knew it. If the ride through the forest had been any indication, the sorceress was really flexing Her magical muscles this year.

     The group performed admirably on the next floors, where they were taken by surprise by swarms of chihuahua-sized spiders that crawled out of the walls. Thanks to mandatory leg armor mentioned in the quest advertisements at Rengar's insistence, very few of the group were bitten. They rested on the stairs between floors and chatted while vials of antivenom were passed around.

     The tenth floor was firebats. It always was; which made it even worse that Rengar always forgot about it until the swarm was upon them. They were small, weighing only a couple of ounces, but they were fast and liked to go for the hair. Rengar could almost hear the newbies' expressions of surprise when the ceiling suddenly grew thousands of wings and burst into flames. Rengar called for everyone to run for the staircase on the far side of the room while he frantically swatted at the air.

     The floors continued to increase in danger as the group progressed. The fifteenth floor held ghouls. The twenty first floor had walls that were covered in wicked-looking spikes and giant fans. The twenty eighth floor contained a single cyclops, eighteen feet tall and swinging a club made out of a giant bone. There was nothing on the thirtieth floor, suspiciously, but instead of walls it seemed like the room contained the entire night sky, stretching on into eternity. The air whispered threatening, distressing things at the party as they scurried through.

     It was as Rengar had feared; the sorceress had given it Her all this year. Water monsters on the thirty fifth floor. Banshees on the forty second. Giant, disembodied hands and feet dropped from the ceiling on the forty seventh. The forty ninth floor held a pack of tiny, snarling monsters that bore the faces of dead loved ones and screamed like children when they were cut down. The fiftieth floor was empty so the group took a rest, ate some rations, and counted their numbers to find that they had lost six members.

     Rengar wiped the blood and ichor from his sword as he sat, lost in thought and slightly drunk. The group was doing better than he thought they would, and certainly better than he had dared to hope. This was an annual occurrence, scaling this tower of horrors. For some, it was a way to make some gold and impress the folks back home. For the old timers, it was a duty that had to be upheld. For Rengar, it was a sacred journey; a penance that must be performed but nevertheless dug deeper and deeper scars with each passing year. Even if Rengar had known what PTSD was, he still would have pressed on in this yearly nightmare. It was too important not to.

     On the fifty fifth floor, they fought thigh height earth golems who liked to go for the kneecaps. The sixtieth floor held a goblin shaman and her brood of rabid offspring. On the sixty seventh floor they battled a horde of undead warlocks amidst a pit of bones. The eightieth floor was inhabited by a tall, impossibly thin humanoid who begged for them to kill it even as it tore at them with ragged talons. There was a pair of giants on the eighty sixth floor, and a dragon on the eighty ninth. The ninetieth floor was another empty chamber, so they took a well deserved sleep. Not for the first time, Rengar pondered his circumstances.

     The floors were long past fatal; it was hard to tell whether it was the monsters or the rooms themselves that were the more dangerous. Pits filled with fire or spikes or bubbling acid, ceilings that descended much too quickly for comfort, floors covered in water through which darted black, many legged shapes.

     They crested the landing on the ninety eighth floor to see a room filled to bursting with treasure. Jewels the size of a child's head, gold coins piled to the extravagant chandeliers, ruby encrusted suits of armor, treasure chests big enough to swallow a man whole.

     Rengar held his arms out, stopping the group's forward momentum. He could taste their eagerness.

     "I don't trust this," he said. "Touch nothing."

     A collective of mild complaining started. They had been through a lot together, was it not just that they should get a reward?

     "I'm serious," Rengar said. "I've never seen-"

     "Come on over!" One of the treasure chests shouted suddenly, cutting Rengar off. "I'm totally safe, and as an added bonus I contain fabulous riches!"

     "Okay, yeah," Rengar sighed. "Nobody go near that."

     "Boy howdy," another one of the chests announced. "I'm just filled to the brim with treasure!"

     A gargoyle holding an enormous ruby proffered it with a wicked grin. "Go ahead, take it."

     Rengar rubbed his forehead. None of the others were still complaining. Slowly, carefully, they picked a path through the treasure to the other side of the room and breathed a collective sigh of relief when they reached the door.

     The ninety ninth floor was the last floor before the very top of the tower. Just like a few of the other levels, it was a constant among the ever changing, tumultuous danger of the rest of the floors. This was the one that really tested their mettle. When they cleared the portal, the heavy wooden door slammed shut behind them, and what should rise from the stone underfoot but versions of themselves; each party member represented in a distorted, savage mirror image with wild eyes and a murderous look. It took nearly everything that they had, but finally the last one fell to an axe stroke and they were left staring at the final door.

     "Well, this is it." Rengar squeezed a bruise on his ribcage where an orc had caught him with its mace, forty floors earlier. "We made a valiant effort, folks, and now there's but one more trial left to face. Some of us will make it home in more pieces than we were before," he looked upon the adventuring party, now bearing significantly fewer teeth, eyes, and fingers than they had at the start. "...and some of us will never make it home at all. But I can promise you this: All of us, and I mean all of us, will be heroes. And we will live on in the hearts and minds of our friends and loved ones. We've made it this far, and victory is close enough to taste...so let's get in there and taste it!"

     A cheer rose from the remaining party members, and Rengar made a mental note to work on his phrasing. They threw open the door, rushed the staircase, and took their first steps onto the hundredth floor.

     The air was suffocating with magic; it crackled along the adventurers' skin and whispered in their ears and tingled along their gums. The chamber pulsed with a purple glow and strange, eldritch creatures flitted in and out of the group's vision. The room was open to the air and a balcony wrapped around the perimeter, allowing them to witness firsthand that they were inside the dead center of the swirling, tempestuous stormhead. The center of the room housed a triangular crystal, as tall as a man that was more or less six feet tall. A beam of light shot from the crystal and into the sky. Observing the magic at work was the sole purpose of the group's quest; the sorceress. She was reclining in an old armchair, the kind that someone's grandmother would have. It was green with a pink flower pattern. At the sound of footsteps, the sorceress turned Her head and smiled. Behind him, Rengar felt his group tense up.

     "Steady on, lads," Rengar said, "And ladies," he added, not wanting to ruffle any feathers.

     "You're here!" The sorceress stood up and opened Her arms in a welcoming manner. "Oh, this is my favorite part! It's very boring up here, you know." She frowned a little bit. "Is it just me, or did it take you longer than normal to get up here? It wasn't too horrible, I trust?"

     "Harder than usual, I think," Rengar replied.

     "Oh, I do apologize." The sorceress tutted. "But you are here, and I'm simply overjoyed. You know how much I enjoy seeing you, my love."

     "You have a funny way of showing it," said Rengar shiftily.

     "Come now, dear," the sorceress pouted. Rengar had almost forgotten how adorable She was. "Don't be like that. We all have our part to play in the great game of life." She raised Her hands.

     Rengar felt pensieve. At the start of this he wanted to rush, to simply get it over with so that he could go back to his regular, quiet life in the forest. But something was different this year. Now that he and the woman were face to face, he found that he wanted to keep Her talking, if only to spend more time with Her.

     "I, uh..." he said, cutting in to her dramatics. "I see you still have that chair."

     The sorceress turned Her head to the armchair. "What, mother's favorite? I know how much you despise it, but it's so comfy."

     "It's not so much the chair that I had problems with..." Rengar said.

    The sorceress gave him a stern look. "Don't be facetious, Rengar. Mother only ever wanted to look out for me."

     "To look out for you, and to put my head on a spike." Rengar crossed his arms.

     "I've told you a hundred times before; I'm done discussing this," said the sorceress.

     "We're not done discussing this," Rengar replied. "We'll probably never be done discussing this. We'll just go back and forth and back and forth forever, until both of us are dead."

     "I can't die, love, you know that." The sorceress examined Her perfect fingernails.

     "Until you're a litch, then," said Rengar. "And I'll probably be a skeleton warrior or some garbage like that." Rengar could tell this was going nowhere fast. He decided to try to end it before it went south too badly. "Look, can we just get this over with? I have a lot of things to do. I've got to clean the cottage, I've got to harvest the berries, I need to dust the figurine collection..."

     "My love, you really need to just get rid of those," said the sorceress. "They only take up space and you hardly ever take them out or look at them or anything-"

     "I can't get rid of them, they belonged to my mother and she asked me to look after them," Rengar said testily. "And that's only the millionth time I've said that-"

     "They aren't even good looking," murmured the sorceress. "Just take them to market and get a couple of coins for them."

     "It's not about the figurines, it's - no, no. Forget it. We're off topic here, and you're embarrassing me in front of the adventuring party."

     "Oh, the party!" The sorceress clasped Her hands in front of Her and looked past Rengar to the others, smiling like a hostess unveiling a new line of tupperware. "And how are the dears faring?"

     "We've been stabbed, beaten, poisoned, half-drowned, brutalized, and scorched," Rengar replied. "You've really outdone yourself this time."

     "Nothing but the best for you, my love!" the sorceress exclaimed happily.

     Rengar felt the adventurers shifting behind him. They were growing impatient. Much to Rengar's chagrin, they had to get a move on.

     Rengar unsheathed his sword. The sorceress, smiling, held Her hands out like talons, aglow with magic.

     The fight was on.

     Black pits opened in the tower's stone and from it rose armed skeletons. The party fought back to back, more undead rising with every passing minute. Soon, demons and goblins joined their ranks until the group was surrounded, desperately fighting for their lives. Rengar took the first opportunity to slip away, dodging past monsters, blade singing while he cut a swathe toward the sorceress.

     Lightning had always been Her favorite spell and so it was still, but to Rengar it seemed that the bolts were a little slower than they used to be. Her aim didn't seem quite as true as past years, and the sting of every landed hit was a little less. Ethereal blades sprung to Her grasp and the two clashed, rusty steel against solid magic, locked in a dance of graceful violence.

     They turned, pirouetted, swung, riposted. She cast fire from Her fingers and he turned it aside, using it against the slowly thinning horde of nightmares. She called forth blades made of ice and they exploded against his sword, flying slivers of cold magic cutting his cheeks and face. As they danced, he saw a certain look in Her eyes. It was pleasure, certainly, but not the sharp, predatory kind he had grown accustomed to. This was soft, more like a kind smile than red-fanged ecstasy.

     Rengar parried a thrust and swung in a circle, sword whistling as it cut the air. She held Her swords up to block and they shattered under the force of his blow, scattering fragments which skittered across the floor. He turned his blade at the last second, striking her with the flat. She fell against the stone with a cry, and every monster in the room hissed into black smoke and disappeared.

     She gazed up at Rengar with liquid eyes as he approached.

     "Most well fought, my love!" She coughed and winced in pain. "Strike the final blow and end the spell, and I shall see you again in a year's time."

     Rengar hesitated.

     This whole thing had been Her idea, broadly speaking. Over the years, nuptial bliss had turned to simply tolerating each other, finally giving way to tense atmosphere and brief, harsh encounters. Finally, at Her wit's end, She had suggested they see a couple's counselor. A Relationshiek, the sign over the office had said. The old crone on the other side of the desk had taken note of the unusually strong personalities facing her and come up with an unconventional solution. Anger cannot be pent up without consequence, frustration cannot be dammed indefinitely. What better way to relieve the tensions than to let them fly free?

     The witch's spellbook was thicker than Rengar's forearm was long, and covered in the cobwebbed dust of the ages. As she chanted, the candles flickered out. The sky grew dark, the wind howled, and suddenly Rengar stood at the base of the great tower, magic sword in hand, eyes aflame and soul filled with a berserk rage. Those first few years he had ascended the tower alone, vorpal blade snicker-snacking the whole way up. Their fights were brutal and violent beyond sense. He felled every horror She summoned, took in stride every spell She threw his way. Her power rent the heavens and tore the foundations of the earth and still he came, countering Her with sharp steel and white hot determination.

     His anger dulled as his aches grew, until he found himself getting on in the years. He put out the word for help, and found that stout adventurers came to aid him in battling Her evil abominations. He made many fast friends and lost a great number of them, and now found himself old beyond his years and tired beyond his wont.

     Now, his anger spent and his blade dulled, he realized that all he wanted was...well, it damn well wasn't this.

     He studied Her face while She smiled sadly at him. Maybe it wasn't only him who felt the spark of change this year.

     He kneeled next to Her, placing his hand against Her cheek. She put Her hand over his and met his gaze.

     "Come home, Nyella," he said quietly. "Come home to me."

     Tears welled at the corners of her eyes. "Oh, Rengar." She squeezed his hand, savoring the feel against her cheek. "But we're taking the chair with us."

     Rengar pursed his lips and sighed. It was good enough for a start.