The wolf was back. It had re-generated about thirty minutes after it had died. One moment the blue globe was floating around in the lair, the next the wolf was alive and sleeping. No fanfare. No mess. Just magic casually reanimating a dead creature from nothing.

The men changed their tactics. Instead of coming in all at once, they started running in individually. Clearly the youngest fastest men were chosen, and they would race inside, grab the herbs they could, and run back out before any of the creatures could stir. This worked great, in terms of not killing anyone. The men didn't gather all the herbs, but they got plenty. As the day and evening progressed, the young men got bolder, shouting and whooping, stopping to wave at the creatures (without actually entering their lairs). It didn't take long for one to poke his head into the potato room, and then another ran through and scooped some potatoes to take home. The young raiders stopped coming at nightfall.

None of the creatures were particularly distressed or animated by the young raiders. They seemed to know that they were supposed to fight determined groups of human killers, not individuals counting coup.

Fred knew he wanted more warning about the humans coming in, so during the night he dug small tunnels under the surface, radiating outward from the main entrance in a fan-shaped pattern. This gave him the extra visibility he wanted, and also confirmed that no new or interesting plants were down-slope from his domain. He was able to see that the humans had posted a watch near his entrance; children or young adults would take two hour shifts to stand near a tree 200 spans from his entrance, clearly watching to report back, should anything interesting happen.

However, in the hours before morning, the next visitor came from higher up the mountain, and it was big. It was a huge, waddling humanoid, over 3 spans high, wearing mold-stained mis-matched furs on its forearms and around its groin. Its face told Fred that it was too strong and angry to bother with thinking, and people who disagreed with that just made it angrier. Fred saw bloody wounds and blackened burns all over its body, and an arrow shaft sticking out of the back of its neck. It had a huge spiked club made from a tree with lots of fur strips tied around it. The added spikes (tied on by the fur) looked like they could fall off at any moment. The shoddy construction wouldn't be comforting to anyone that actually got hit by the club, Fred thought.

The monster bent down at the entrance to Fred's domain, took a big sniff, and let out a godzilla roar that shook everything. All of Fred's creatures wisely stayed inside their lairs.

Look at that, Fred. An ogre. A mighty beast indeed. Your domain is getting bigger and better.

"Will it fit?", Fred asked. The ogre answered him by pushing into the tunnel, scraping the walls and ceiling as it went. The ogre seemed to have no problem pushing through, bent over, and it headed directly for the big round room Fred had found the 108 stones in. As it pushed through the passage, it turned red, and when it entered the big round room, it turned yellow, and approached the neatly stacked stones Fred had left in the center. This seemed to enrage it, so it screamed and shoved the stacks until they were scattered. It sat on the pile of stones for a few minutes, quietly grumbling about its lot in life (Fred assumed). Then it suddenly raged again, rushed at the walls, and started punching them. While its fists quickly became bloody, the dirt and stone also shattered and spalled off, until the walls were covered in bloody dents, and the floor was covered in a thin blanket of rock shards and dirt. The ogre looked around at the now bloodied and disheveled round room, emitted a thundering fart, and turned green. It wandered back to the central pile of stones, kicking rock and dirt as it went, clearly determined to remove any sense of order from its lair. Then it flopped on its belly, as though the stone pile was the softest bedding, and started to snore.

"Do I want this guy in my domain?" Fred asked.

Yes. Better here than raiding human settlements and eating babies.

"Shit, they do that?"

Yes. So, may I point out that the ogre only showed up after you'd made a room that was reasonably sized for it? And that it barely fit through the door? What does that suggest to you?

"That if I want bigger monsters, I need bigger rooms and bigger halls. I get it."

Good. I know these humans have been fun to watch, but they're not the future. More and different humans will come, with better skills, equipment, and purpose.

In the morning, Jim was proved very right. As the sun peeked over the horizon (Fred loved sunrises now) a new group of humans showed up. Four people, leading two pack horses. They seemed road-weary and grimy. Looking closer, Fred saw a man in shiny armor, another man in dark leathers, a woman in black robes, and another woman in a white dress with big symbols embroidered on it. Somehow he realized he knew of that pattern; the fighter, the thief, the mage, and the cleric. He didn't understand the particulars, but he knew that such a group of four adventurers was supposed to be a tired old trope. So he decided to call them the Four Tropes, to himself.

As the Four Tropes approached the entrance, they were intercepted by a larger group of the villager humans, and a loud conversation ensued, with much hand waving and stamping of feet. The curious children zipped around getting underfoot. Fred thought the Tropes had better watch their wallets. And where they stepped.

While watching and listening, Fred busied himself repairing the damage the ogre had done to the main hallway. Nothing major, just fixing cracks in the stone, and sweeping up stone shards that had been knocked loose. The conversation seemed to be coming to an end, and the Tropes seemed to be preparing for battle. The cleric was praying/chanting, the thief was helping the fighter secure his armor, and the mage was consulting an absurdly large book. Fred didn't need to be a genius to surmise that the Tropes had battled and chased the ogre here. He wondered if they planned to kill it now, and what they decided to do about all his other creatures. "I guess we're about to find out", he muttered.

The tropes grabbed a couple of torches from their horse packs. The cleric and the thief lit them and carried them, and they all moved into the entranceway carefully. The fighter was in front, of course, but the thief slipped ahead on quiet feet to check out the potato room. Then they were at the wolf's lair, and the wolf stood up and growled.

ZAPPP!!! The mage shot a bright lightning bolt into the wolf, and it immediately fell over dead. It sounded like a thunderclap to Fred. "Can any of them hear anymore?" he wondered. As they moved along to the bear's lair, it came out to greet them. ZAPPP!!! Another lightning bolt lashed out, burning and shocking the bear. The fighter easily moved up and stabbed his longsword deep into the bear's heart. The boar came out of its lair, and screeched. The thief pranced in front of it, and the boar took the bait, rushing out at the thief. The thief dodged aside nimbly, and the boar smacked head on into the wall. ZAPPP!!! The boar got the lightning treatment, and the fighter and thief had no problem finishing it off. First one, then the other of the lizards skulked out of their lair, and were handily dispatched by the Tropes. "These guys mean business! They work like a team."

Now the main entrance was clear, and the tunnel led back to the ogre, the man-bat, and… "Shelley! What if she gets hit by lightning??" Fred shouted to himself. He immediately moved stone to cover the main hole he'd made into her nest. Looking in, she and her family seemed unperturbed. "Good. If they'd hurt Shelley, I'd drop a rock on 'em."

The Tropes continued to move carefully, with the thief checking every corner. Eventually he peeked inside the entrance to the ogre's lair, where the ogre was sitting up, watching warily. He made a mistake then, turning to whisper at his team, and the ogre whipped a stone at his face with shocking speed. It was one of the runed, special stones, easily a hundred pounds, and while it didn't hit the thief exactly dead-on, it caved his face in and threw him against the far wall. "I think that guy's dead", thought Fred. But the fighter dropped his sword, scooped up the thief, and the Tropes ran outside as fast as they could. Fred watched them as the fighter lay the thief down, and the cleric began chanting and hand waving. The fighter and mage stood watching the entrance, waiting for the ogre to come out, and Fred wondered if the cleric was doing any good at all. But the ogre was already fast asleep again, and eventually the thief started coughing and sitting up. Then he vomited all over himself, and sat spitting and breathing raggedly for a while.

The villagers came back, and the shouting and gesticulating happened again. The mage used a curious water spell to hose off the thief (the children thought that was hilarious), and they got him back on his feet and on the back of one of the horses. Then they left, presumably to tell everyone about the horrible ogre that lived here now.