Earth is dead. Our pretty blue sphere floating elegantly in a quiet corner of the galaxy is no more. The silence has ended. Our great overlords preach evil, violence and death. There will be no cease to the onslaught.

[A sponsor drops a wet wipe.]

[A sponsor drops a wet wipe.]

[There is a diaper waiting in your inbox.]

Single wet wipes fluttered to the ground behind me like a trail of clues for a hygienic predator. They fluttered like rose petals thrown by a passive-aggressive altar boy unhappy with his station. Or the best man at a wedding decided it would be hilarious to hire a phony flower girl to usher in the germaphobe groom.

Like a general, on a battlefield, ignoring the bodies, blood, and groans of the injured, I entered the HQ with a purpose. The interior was scrambled, but not as discombobulated as the outside. It was basically a war room with a large table acting as the centerpiece. Three doorways led to different adjoining rooms. One on the left for the watchtower, one on the right for the comms room, and a final archway with an ajar door for the officer's quarters.

I snagged a few relevant documents off the war table that may be useful before checking the rooms. There was a ladder leading to the watchtower; Specs was already climbing down. Seeing Zoey playing in the comms room, I entered the officer's quarters just as Mei, Aaron, and Alice dragged in the barely breathing body of Lucas.

Shutting the door, I barred it behind me. I doubt they wanted my filth around anyway.

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Pacing around the desk, I bent down and searched it for my deserved loot. It was at dwarven height; I wasn't so much as bending as I was kneeling to get into the drawers. I banged my head into the underside.

"Get him on the table. Find some alcohol or disinfectant."

"Wet wipes?"

"Aaaagh!"

The muffled scramble going on outside was distracting. If only Lucas would die more quietly.

Rubbing my head, I managed to push Lukos' death rattle out of my mind. I didn't find the runestone I was looking for, just a bunch of papers.

I glanced through them to see if they would tell me anything about the treasure I searched for. Most of the writing detailed information the dwarves were gathering on humans. This was their Third Reckoning, as they called it. I assume the first was their own and the second was referring to these... Croati. Frog-like fish men by the inane doodles of dyslectic dwarves. The Croati were pacifistic by nature and practically incapable of violence. Their game had been short and the administrators caught a lot of flak for it.

Funny. The world was filling in a lot of information I didn't cover.

They referred to the Croati as slime broods while denoting us as fat elves. They described us as weak, like cornered rats.

The rest of the documents were mostly scribbles and dick jokes, so I resumed my search of the desk for something useful. I practically tossed it inside-out but what I wanted couldn't be found.

When I was on the floor, rummaging, I moved a few fallen papers aside to see a small latch. It wasn't locked, just difficult to find unless you knew it was there. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier. Dwarves first instinct since the Second Age was to dig deeper. Of course the safe would be in the floor.

Scooting the desk aside I got a good grip on the latch and threw it open. Darkness greeted me, stretching downward, obscuring the bottom most rungs of the rope ladder.

"No fucking way."