Delving 101 - Chapter 6

"Now what?" asked Jody as the pair reached the end of the entrance hall. It was a t-junction, the left path descending, and the right ascending. The torches were less prevalent here, making Zeb's sword the primary source of light, clothing the intersection and the adventurers in a flickering red light.

"Not sure," admitted Zeb as he peered down the left corridor. It descended at a low angle, going down only about a foot and a half in a fifty or so feet before it curved sharply to the left, cutting of Zeb's sight. The light of his sword barely illuminated the walls at the bend, the pale yellow flicker from further down the passage mixing with the red for an orange tint. "There is another torch down there, but I'm just not sure. Any other tidbits of delving wisdom I missed in class?"

Jody bit her lip as she looked up the right passage. It was really just a set of tight spiral stairs going up clockwise. "Nah, at least, not about this. There's always the anecdotal 'left is the path of the unwary', but I don't think it really applies." She leaned forward, resting on the stairs, and looked around the curve of the stairs. "This goes up at least another level, if not more. Being stairs, I'm guessing we're going to encounter less people this way."

"Less people is good. As much as I love combat, that's not what we're here for."

Jody turned and looked at Zeb. Her face was awash in shock and awe, "Wait, you're telling me Zachary Eric Barter, top swordsman in his class, grandson of the greatest delver the Dragonspine Mountains ever had, doesn't want to fight?"

Zeb rolled his eyes, "It's Zeb. And, well, considering it's just the two of us, I think it would be best if we didn't have to fight. Just get in, get the Scroll, and get out."

"I'm just kidding you," said Jody, lightly punching Zeb on his left arm, above the buckler. "But, you've got to be ready for a fight."

Zeb smiled.

Jody shook her head, "Men." She turned back to face the stairs, took a deep breath, then cautiously began to climb. Zeb followed a few steps behind.

They got about halfway around the stairs when Jody raised her arm, elbow bent, forearm vertical, fist clenched. Zeb immediately stopped.

"What's the…" began Zeb before Jody whipped her head around and glared at him. He smiled apologetically, then began to back down the stairs.

Once they were down the stairs, and a few feet down the corridor, Jody broke the silence, "Drums."

"You sure? I can get rather loud when I'm climbing."

"Yes, I'm sure. Too quick to be from us climbing. I'm guessing at least half a dozen drums, which means half a dozen drummers. Plus whomever is around to hear them."

"Damn. I was hoping…"

Jody rolled her eyes, "No you weren't. You've been wanting to bang some heads since Professor Torbin announced that the final was going to be an actual delve."

Zeb looked around, then let out a long breath, "Well, at least as close as they can get at the Academy."

Jody patted him on arm, "It's okay. I'm pretty sure this is it. Let's get ready."

Zeb smirked, then stepped back from Jody into the middle of the entrance hall. He tapped his sword against the center of his buckler. It quickly grew, expanded, and stretched from a small eight-inch bronze circle to a large three foot bronze circle. The center of the shield was emblazoned with the crest of the Kingdom of the Northern Dragonspine, his homeland.

As he did that, Jody kneeled down, removing a small medallion from under his armor. It was a circle about two-inches across, made of steel, with a six-pointed cross cut out of the center. "Gods of my ancestors, heed my call. Bless us this day, as we journey into battle. Bless us that we may survive. Bless our enemies too, so that they may find their just rewards. For all the kingdoms of the world are subservient to you, and we are all just servants."

She then stood, and tucked the now glowing medallion back under her armor.

"You ready?" asked Zeb as he raised his head from his chest and removed his hand from his heart.

"Yeah," replied Jody as she gestured towards the stairs, "after you."

Zeb nodded, "Let's hope it's not just the band gearing up for a concert."

"Ha, ha," said Jody sarcastically as they began, once more, to scale the stairs.

The City of Auraria. The State of Jeffereson

One hundred forty-nine years and eleven days ago, on the First of November, 1858, the town of Auraria, in Kansas Territory was plated, three weeks before Denver City was plated on the other side of Cherry Creek. In the contemporary timeline, a year and a half later, Auraria, due to it's founder returning to Georgia to fight in the civil war, was absorbed into the growing Denver, and referred to as West Denver. A year before that, a referendum that would have created a draft constitution for the "State of Jefferson" was rejected, though nearly the same area was created as the Territory of Colorado in February of 1861, two months before the aforementioned absorption of Auraria into Denver.

Well, in my metaverse, it went differently.

Instead of returning to Georgia, William Russell decided to stay in Auraria. By staying in Auraria, the referendum for the State of Jeffereson, eventually accepted as the Territory and and then again the State of Jefferson was passed in October of 1859. The Capital was assigned to Golden, renamed to Jefferson City. Although Auraria didn't hold the seat of the Jefferson's government, it did become it's largest city, absorbing Denver in 1862.

History didn't change much, a name here, a different center of the grid system there, a relocated downtown district. Eventually a large change came about in the 1950s, when the origin point of the Interstate Highway system was assigned to the Atlantic Northeast, rather than the Pacific Southwest. Then, during the 1970s, the Metric system actually caught on, though certain elements of the older Imperial system stayed around in the common vernacular. A third nationwide warehouse store chain, Save-Co, and it's parent company, Save-Corp, which diversified from a PMC with the chain in the 1980s.

Oh, yeah, and the superheroes. Can't forget them.

Josefer Martin - Turning Point - Chapter 3

"Well," began Ms. Studney, leaning forward in her chair, "now that we've gotten that taken care of, let's get on with why we're all here."

She reached out and pressed a red button projected onto the surface of the debriefing room table. That button activated the room's custom AV suite, most of which, at least now that I had replaced most of the older parts, designed by me. The upgrade allowed for a, if you pardon the pun, more intuitive use of the room.

The lights dimmed, and the table's surface transitioned from black to the various files that Ms. Studney had collected for the debriefing. First, she called up a satellite image of downtown Auraria. Colfax and Broadway were immediately obvious, as was Cherry Creek and the South Platte. I-74 ran North-South along the west side of the image, with I-35 running along the southern edge, the Mousetrap marking the south-west corner. A window popped up over one of the buildings on Colfax, marking it as the First Jefferson Bank building.

"At 1217 today, APD received a silent alarm at the FJB building on the 900th block of East Colfax," Ms Studeny narrated as the satellite image zoomed in, evolving into a 3-D hologram of the building coming out of the table. It was ten stories high, and occupied the southeast corner of the intersection. The other buildings around it were shown on the map that now occupied the surface of the table, but only the FJB projected above it. "Within five minutes five more calls, three from inside the building itself, were received. None of the calls made mention of any Paranormal activity, so the APD contacted BARCOG," which she pronounced as Bar Cog. "We were the on-call team for today, so at 1225, the four of you were called down to my office for a briefing."

I hadn't noticed it before, but as she mentioned the times, subtle changed occurred with the hologram. I was impressed, most of the time she didn't animate the hologram during the debrief. She must of gotten my memo about the new software upgrade I did last week.

"By 1235," and as she mentioned the time, a holographic helicopter appeared, hovering a scale three hundred meters above the street, "we had arrived on scene. Insertion was executed per SOP." Five holographic windows opened in mid-air above the table, with extensions pointing to where their vantage point was. Four of them were ours, and fifth being the belly camera of the helicopter.

Four holographic figures jumped from the helicopter. The four of us around the table all 'oohed' softly as we watched our holographic selves free-fall towards the alley pavement, and the surface of the debriefing room table.

The hologram then zoomed in once again, showing the four of us stop two scale meters above the alley pavement, then drop softly to the ground. The belly camera window winked out of the hologram as the helicopter was cropped by the ceiling.

The windows continued to play the full-color video feeds from our uniform mounted cameras as our holographic selves moved on the surface of the table.

"Unfortunately, that's when SOP was thrown out the window, it appears," she chided. The playback paused. It showed me pointing to the holographic representation of the bank and the storage room behind the alley wall. "Breaking established protocol, the Lead opted to cause damage, luckily not damaging the stability of the building."

"Won't insurance cover it?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied curtly, "but that's not the point. You broke protocol by not using your team's abilities."

"Jessica's teleport is limited to two other people, forcing her to potentially fatigue herself prior to encountering the hostile targets, limiting the team's effectiveness in combat, even with normal humans."

"Yes, but you shouldn't have gone through a wall."

"Did it damage the stability of the structure?"

"No."

"Did the bank have insurance to cover it, or would ARCOG have covered it?"

"Yes, on both counts."

"Exactly. I figured that was the easiest way in. Plus, it played to the team's strengths."

"Okay, but next time, could you please make a smaller hole?" she asked.

"My bad," remarked James, an ounce of sincerity mixed in with a pound of sarcasm.

Fort Save-Co - Chapter 7

Robert shook his head as he left Melissa Eldridge behind and ventured, for the second time that day, into the Save-Co. It seemed that everyone was gathered around the TVs, and not knowing what else to do, walked over.

It wasn't just the two-dozen or so people from the parking lot, but also the employees of the Save-Co that were gathered around the TVs. As Robert saw that the TVs were showing the news, he huffed, "Entire communications network my ass." As he got closer, he began to hear the murmurs of the crowd as the customers and the employees mixed.

"An invasion."

"Zombies."

"Fucking bullshit."

"Who are these people?"

"Corporate stooges."

"End of the world."

"Right out of the movies."

"What's with the guns?"

"Mercenaries."

"Nukes."

"Is this happening everywhere?"

"What about my kids?"

"But I've got work tomorrow."

"I've got work tonight."

"Why aren't the phones working?"

"But the TVs still work."

"Where are the Heroes?"

"Electricity?"

"Water?"

"Police?"

"War?"

The conversations jumped from topic to topic. Robert listened, gathered the information, sorted it, but did not say anything. He was already forming plans in the back of his mind. Already scheming to go home. To his dogs.

Then, from behind him, at the entrance, he began to hear conversations on another topic.

"The perimeter is nearly secure. Four more minutes and the fences will be complete."

"Good, once the fences are up, get all the cars inside the perimeter, use the fork lift."

"But what about them?"

"It'll all become clear, but only once the perimeter is secure. And don't forget about the roof emplacements."

"Yes ma'am."

The conversation was between Melissa, the administrator, and one of the black-clothes men. Like the one that had collected Robert at his truck minutes before, maybe even the same one. The only ones he had actually identified were Melissa and Jessica. The other twenty-five were just faceless soldiers.

Robert looked back to the civilians, the group that had expanded in his mind to encompass both the employees and the customers. They had grown silent. He looked at the TV screens. It showed the infamous podium at the White House, where the President spoke.

He walked on-screen, and the blue background flashed white as the press began to take pictures. He stepped behind the podium, and cleared his throat. The flashes died down, but did not stop.

"My fellow Americans. I address you now in an hour of grave terror. Approximately one hour ago, though means that we are still unsure of, groups of creatures, which resembled fictional monsters such as zombies or ghouls, began appearing in cities around the globe." As he spoke, the upper-left corner of the screen began to show similar scenes of grey-skinned people amassing in such landmarks as Times Square, outside Westminster Palace, under the Eiffel Tower, Saint Peter's Square, Mecca, The Taj Mahal, Tiananmen Square, and others.

"Right now they do not appear to be violent, but their sudden appearance has caused panic. I came to you now, to assure you, the American people, that you are safe. This invasion, whatever it may be, will be stopped by our brave men and women of the Armed Services." Now the upper corner showed file footage scenes of Army soldiers, Marines, Navy sailors, and Air Force airmen going about their jobs.

"So please, return to your homes. Let our brave soldiers do their jobs in containing this invasion. Thank You all, and God Bless America."

The TV then changed shots and showed an arial view of Civic Center Park in Downtown Auraria, and the assembling National Guard troops bolstering the existing Police officers surrounding the park and the horde. The horde was stationary, and wasn't doing anything except standing there, close together, and appearing to be rotting.

"Kill 'em," shouted someone in the assembled civilians around the TVs. "Kill 'em all."

Just then, the camera whipped around and showed a lone man attempting to break though the ring of soldier and police. He wore older camouflage fatigues and his beard was long and grey. He struggled forwards, and then, in a split second, pulled a rifle from one of the soldiers and fired it into the horde. The camera focused on the target, who was now missing a shoulder. The horde didn't appear to react at first, except when the camera refocused on the gunman. The zombies closest to him were now pushing against the soldiers, tearing at their uniforms and guns, reaching for flesh, and ripping any they found.

Then, the drone of the helicopter was broken, but not by anyone in the warehouse, but instead, but the reporter in the helicopter. It was one word, but it echoed through the Save-Co.

"Fuck."

Fort Save-Co - Chapter 6

"Lockdown?" asked Selma. "What do you mean 'Lockdown'?"

Ms. Eldridge sighed, "I'll explain it when everyone is here. Hand me a phone, put it on the intercom." Selma walked over, grabbed the phone, and a slight click resounded through the Save-Co as Selma walked the handset over to Ms. Eldridge.

"Here you go," Selma said, matter-of-factly. The microphone in the handset picked up a bit of it and it echoed through the store, resulting in a slight squawk.

"Attention Save-Co employees. This is Ms. Eldridge, Save-Corp District Supervisor. All employees please report to the electronics department. I repeat, all employees please report to the electronics department."

Ms. Eldridge passed the handset back to Selma, a shocked expression on the photo tech's face. She then shook her head, and rushed the handset over to the phone, forgetting to release the connection. The resulting squawk was not only louder, but echoed back and forth throughout the store. Selma looked up and saw both Ms. Eldridge and Rupert glaring at her, "Oops."

Less than a minute later all of the employees were gathered in the electronics department, a call from corporate management causing all of them to rush. Half of them were out of breath, but they were all there.

Selma, along with Rupert, stood at the front of the group, closest to Ms. Eldridge, and the bank of HD TVs behind her.

"I'm sorry to call you all out here on such sort notice," began Ms. Eldridge. "As of right now, this store is on lockdown. We've escorted all of the customers that were in the parking lot to the entrance. In about a minute, we're going to be letting them in. Now, the circumstances of why my team and I are here will become evident shortly. For the next few days, if not longer, we will be administering the facility. Once the situation has stabilized, we, and I mean all of you, all of the customers, and my team and I, will come up with a solution then. I'm going to go talk with the customers. Once they come in, I'm going to need all of you to calm and reassure them. They will be scarred, and as Save-Co employees, and representatives of Save-Corp, you will need to be brave and support them."

Ms. Eldridge then nodded, and made her way around the assembled employees. Selma looked to Rupert, "Wait, what does she mean by 'situation'?"

Rupert shrugged.

The rest of the employees began to mumble amongst themselves, but were suddenly silenced. Selma turned and looked at the bank of TVs. On it was a live news broadcast.

"This is Ronald Simms, with Channel Eight News. We're live above Downtown Auraria," came the voiceover. The TV showed a shaky camera shot from above of a large park. The bottom third of the screen pronounced that the shot was of "Civic Center Park". The park was full of milling bodies. The shot zoomed in, showing the face of one of the people in the park.

"This," Ronald stuttered, "This is out of horror movies. I never thought I'd see this in real life."

As the shot focused, the employees behind Selma gasped. The woman in the center of the screen's face was pale, eyes white, but that was not the horrific part. Her jaw was missing.

"Holy Shit," exclaimed Selma, "Fucking Zombies."

Renaming The Fort

Well, I decided to rename my "Fort Costco" stories "Fort Save-Co". That way I don't have to use trademarked names and can instead use my own name.

Fort Save-Co - Chapter 5

Selma quickly looked around for a manager, leaning on the counter so that she could look around the end of the photo department and down the side aisle. She didn't see any, and there weren't any customers nearby. So, she slipped her left hand into the pocket of her slacks, and pulled out her cell phone.

"No signal?" she said to herself. She was sued to getting crappy reception. She worked in a big concrete and steel building. The radio waves that made cell phones work had a bitch of a time making it in. It didn't help that the Save-Co was one of dozens of stores, including another warehouse store, two home improvement warehouses, two office supply stores, and two or three dozen smaller stores and restaurants served by the same cell tower. But usually it was just one or two bars of service and a crappy connection, not and outright outage.

She tucked the cell back into her pocket and walked around from the counter to the photo printer. She removed the roll of negatives she had just printed, and swapped it out for a fresh roll. She quickly looked through all the pictures, smirked at the nearly pornographic nature of some of them, then left the machine to print in peace.

She looked beyond the photo counter now, out onto the sales floor of the Save-Co.

Like most warehouse stores it had all the high ticket electronics right next to the entrance, with a large open area in the center of the store for rotating clothing and media sales, and two large areas of shelves on either side of the center area. The photo counter was just off the electronics department, and so, if she stood at the farthest corner of the counter, could get a good view of the banks of high definition TVs that the Save-Co sold.

Right now all two dozen of them, at least judging by the dozen that were facing the photo counter, were playing through the generic loop that showed the various features of HD over the old standard-def TVs. It was something that she had seen hundreds or more times since she started working in the photo department a few months earlier.

As she looked, her gaze wandered to the other areas of the store, and she stood of straight. For the first time since she worked at the Save-Co, there wasn't any customers to be seen. Even when they were closing there was usually a straggler or two that had to be reminded of normal business hours, but never in the middle of the day.

"Hey, Rup," she said, addressing the greeter at the door. Rupert was an older man, working a job to pay for her retirement. Selma liked him, as they wold talk during the slow times of day, like they were now.

"Yeah Selma?" replied the greeter.

"You seen any customers?"

"Nah, last ones just left," he replied. He then gestured with his right hand, which was holding a simple thumb-operated counter, "Unless I missed one coming in."

"Never," Selma sarcastically replied. She then leaned on the counter, "I wonder where they all are. Maybe the world ended and nobody told us." She chuckled, then shuddered and a tingle ran up her spine.

Just then Selma could see a black SUV pull up in front of the entrance. And then a black cherry picker, like the phone company uses, pulled in front of it, blocking the entrance on the side of the liquor store, but leaving the side next to the tire center open.

"Whoa," Selma remarked. "Who do they think they are?"

As she said that, the doors on both the SUV and the cherry picker opened, and out stepped what looked to Selma like a a dozen ninja-mercenaries.

One of them, obviously a woman, walked from the SUV towards the door. She was wearing a black mask over her face, but as she reached the door she pulled it off. She was old, though not as old as Rupert, at least in Selma's opinion. She strode with authority, and reached into one of the pocket on her vest as she walked into the store.

"Welcome to Save-Co," said Rupert. "I'm going to have to ask you to put your gun back in your truck. We don't allow them inside the store." Always the professional, Rupert addressed the heavily armed woman like she was a customer not wearing any shoes, another thing not allowed at Save-Co.

The woman held out a plastic card, which had her picture on it, and the Save-Co logo. From her vantage point, Selma thought it looked like an employee ID card. "Melissa Eldridge, I'm from corporate. Can you get your manager?"

A man dressed in black like Ms. Eldridge walked past her and into the store. Rupert, knowing management when he saw it, let the man pass without comment. Selma watched the man walked towards the checkout lanes, and then towards the front wall. Only when the man stopped did Selma realize what he was doing. He was hitting the emergency shutoff for the gas station at the other end of the parking lot.

"Why did he do that?" Selma asked out loud.

"Because," commented Ms. Eldridge as she waited for the manager to arrive, "we're going on lockdown."

Delays

well, I may or may not be able to post a story today. If I can't, then I'll do two stories on the morrow. (So, Fort Costco gets postponed, and Delving will be up tomorrow either way).

Josefer Martin - Turning Point - Chapter 2

"Nice of you to finally make it," scowled Ms. Studney as I walked into the debriefing room after leaving the theatre where Mike and Zelda left me. She make a production of looking at her watch, then at the others around the table. "Ten minutes late, Mr. Martin. And that's ten minutes after you were already late. We called up to Ms. Delarosa five minutes ago, so there's no excuse there." She put her hands on her hips and glared at me, "So, what's your excuse?"

I smirked, and tossed my goggles onto the table. They spun around until they stopped in the middle. "That a good enough excuse?" I asked as I slipped into my chair beside Jessica.

Ms. Studney was about to say something when the goggles flew through the air and into Melissa's hand. "Wait, did Mike and Zelda take these when you two were in the vault?"

"Yeah," agreed Jessica reluctantly. She then looked over at me a look of concern.

"Explain Mr. Martin," commanded Ms. Studney, "Now!"

I remained seated, and leaned back in the chair. "Mike showed up in the theatre."

"What?" exclaimed Ms. Studney. Jay looked surprised, but neither Jessica nor Melissa looked surprised, which wasn't surprising considering.

"After our confrontation in the vault," I began to explain, "he and Zelda shucked their disguises then teleported here. With the anti-eavesdrop spells Zel's come up with, I'm not surprised security wasn't alerted. He was reviewing old mission tapes in the theatre. I was surprised, and he forced me to watch. After a few minutes, he turned around, returned my goggles, and then offered for Jessica and I to join him."

"So," began Ms. Studney, inquisitively, "what did you say?"

"I said I'd think about it," I replied. "I didn't say no, and I didn't say yes." He looked to Melissa, "Can I have my goggles back?"

She slid them to me, a centimeter above the surface of the table. I reached out to grab them.

"Joe," Ms. Studney began, and I knew I was in trouble. She then continued, calmly, "I'm sorry, but until we are sure that Ms. Moonfire or Mr. Schultz hasn't compromised the security of your father's goggles, we're going to have to keep them in quarantine." She then reached out her hand.

I looked to Melissa, silently pleading to her to give me the goggles. She looked from me to the principal, and back, my goggles floating midway between her and I.

"Mel, please, give me my goggles," I pleaded.

"Melissa," said Ms. Studney tersely.

Then, something totally unexpected happened. Well, actually, two completely unexpected things. First, Melissa fainted, dropping the goggles. Second, the goggles stopped less than a millimeter from the tabletop, and floated over to Jessica. She grabbed the as if she hadn't expected it to happen, and then handed them to me.

"Jessica?" Ms. Studney said in surprise.

Looking back on the previous ten minutes, I don't know why i was surprised. Every time Mike had made a statement as declaratory as he had in the theatre, he wasn't wrong.

"Jess?" I said, tucking the goggles into a pocket of my pants.

"Joe, what just happened?" she asked.

"Jess, I think you're a PDP," I replied, echoing Mike's statement earlier. "It makes sense. Telepathy and teleporting aren't very related."

"But that's what I was born with," she exasperatingly said.

"Yes, but what if it's just because the telepathy part of your package was weak enough to appear at birth."

"But what about her acrobatics?" asked Melissa, now conscious again. I guessed she was annoyed that she wasn't the only PDP on the team now.

"Body control," stated Ms. Studney. "Many PDPs have been shown to exhibit a large amount of control over their bodies with their PK with little effort. I guess Ms. Martinez just assumed that all she had was the body control, her acrobatics." She looked over to Jessica, "Once we're done with the debriefing, you'll need to report to my office so we can schedule a time for you to get your powers re-tested."

I reached over and help Jess' hand, which she was resting on the table, "It'll be okay Jess. You got through the Zener cards fine last time. What's a few more tests?"

She turned her head and looked me in the eyes, "But the movie? Our date?"

I chuckled, "Honey, Jess. We can see a movie afterwards."

She continued to focus on me, ignoring that other three people in the room. James was comforting Melissa, and Ms. Studney was calling someone, probably the state's Paranormal Regulatory Department, her bosses, about scheduling Jess' tests, and probably Mike and Zelda's intrusion as well.

"Joe," she said, sobbing a bit, "I've been training to be an acrobat telporter with telepathy, not a PDP teleporter. What if I'm no good at it?"

"Jess," I said, looking her in the eyes, my hands cupping her jaw, "It's going to be okay. Look at how good you are at acrobatics. If that's any indication of your PK, then you're a Grade Four at least. At that level, just like with the acrobatics and my intuition, it just comes naturally."