Family Rinn
June 21st, 2028, Catalina Island, USA
We all three took the time to change into the new gear we were given and made sure our firearms were safe inside our rings and accessible if we needed to use them quickly. We all practiced drawing our firearms and melee weapons in and out of our spatial rings so we would be more proficient when it matters. My armor and helmet fit so well I could barely notice I was wearing them, the helm though allowed me to examine, people, creatures, and things. I examined my Hammer.
GRAVITAS – Warhammer Ancient (Legendary)
MATERIALS- Mithril, Adamantium, Celestium, Infernium, Gravitonaim, Gold, & Golden Flesh of Yggdrasil
LEVEL – 1
ABILITIES – Return to Sender
Gravitational fluctuation
Gravitas is an ages-old weapon of power, crafted for one of the most powerful beings known in this dimension. As gravitas grows with its new owner, new abilities unseen for millions of years will become available. Flight, invisibility, superhuman strength, & the ability to control ALL of the known Elements, will all be capable to the true user of this magnificent Hammer.
We all took time to acclimate to the Aether Bikes and how they maneuvered over the water, Hillary was already familiar, as she is an avid jet skier and also rides dirt bikes. My wife and I took a bit more practice, but once we were up it was much easier to control than I had initially thought. We decided to ride over to Malibu as it wasn’t any further and let us skip going back into the city, which was probably just a mess, and we were trying to get back to Talos as soon as we could.
The drive by Malibu was interesting, the ocean was completely empty of human activity, the only boats we saw were sunk or sinking, the oil derricks were all on fire and looked like they had suffered gigantic explosions, it was very disheartening to see the amount of oil in the sea. As we landed in Malibu.
It was about 10:00 am, the Aether bikes were the best way to travel I’ve ever experienced, honestly, they looked like the speeder bikes from a movie I remember watching when I was a boy, only sleeker looking.
They were completely silent, they accelerated quickly, and there must have been some sort of gravitational field around my seat, because there was no g-force when you punched the throttle or when you slammed on the brakes.
We decided to take the 101 up through the grapevine and into San Louis Obispo, we cut back over to the coast and hit highway 1 up through Santa Cruz. Then over the mountains and through the Palo Alto area, we can hit the training hall at Stanford. When we are finished there, we will head across the Golden gate bridge up to Vallejo, then we cut over to Sacramento and up to Mt. Shasta. It sounded like a great plan……
Plans are great, but, the real world had other ideas for us unfortunately…..
We have had the most jarring trip up the coast. We were at the interchange in Santa Cruz going into the Santa Cruz Mountains the first time a group attempted to attack us. We had just started driving through the beautiful redwood forest of the Santa Cruz mountains, when I noticed that someone was shooting at us. The bolts were actually bouncing off of my nano-armor. We stopped our bikes, and Julie and I drew our pistols, when the young men in question saw my giant gold-plated Desert eagle .50, they looked like they were going to shit in their pants. I just smiled and shot a tree that was about 25 feet away, when the round impacted the tree, it exploded violently. The tree came crashing down with a loud boom, and the roadside bandits scattered into the nearby woods. We waited for about 5 minutes, just in case, and then we were back on the road. We did stop once we got to Palo Alto. I found a self-storage facility a few miles off the freeway, and we put our bikes back into our blue rings and went up into the middle of the building to find a safe place to sleep for the night. After a bit of looking, we found a unit with clean looking furniture and to sleep my girls went.
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June 22nd, 2028, Palo Alto, CA
2:30am: Julie woke up with Hillary and forced me to go to sleep…...
7:30am: After some much-needed sleep we cleaned up our mess, put the furniture back where we found it, and we were off to Stanford to find Dr. Kevin Smith. Hillary, Julie, and I all sped through the small town as quickly as possible, there were more people here than they had encountered on the trip up. It also seemed like people were getting more and more curious about how we had working vehicles, the next conflict was only a matter of time. We finally found Junipero Serra Blvd, then after turning around about 600 times we found the Fairchild center where the training hall was supposed to be located. As we approached our destination, I had an overwhelming urge to stop. So, we did.
“Ladies, I am getting a strange feeling from my Situational Awareness. Let’s stash the bikes in our rings and get some high ground so we can put eyes on the target before we go running in blind.” I mentioned it as I stopped and put my Aether Bike into its special ring. We went into an adjacent building about two blocks away, walked up to the roof and had Julie stealth her way out and take a look at the entrance to Dr. Smith’s training hall.
“Babe, I think you may want to come over here and take a look for yourself.” Julie smiled.
Standing directly outside of the entrance to the building, stood 5 Dark Black Elves with white hair and black leather armor, that looked like it was made of living tar that kind of moved around on their bodies. They were all brandishing various weapons, one was wielding dual scimitars, another had an enormous war hammer, another still had a halberd, the other three all had crossbows of various sizes. The one thing all of the weapons had in common was that they all had a dark purple, almost black luminescence. I figured we were far enough away I should set up my Barrett and even the odds before walking into a trap.
My initial volley took two of the Drow warriors down with head shots and the third was now missing his left arm and would bleed out in seconds. The last two on the other hand were much more capable. The warrior with the Warhammer covered the distance between us in the blink of an eye, I suspect it was some sort of Aether technique and it probably drained most of his stamina to cover that great distance so quickly. Which was why he probably did not notice Julie firing round after round into the side of his head as he came at me blindly.
The final Drow warrior, the one who was swinging the dual scimitars came within about 6 feet of me before Hillary, my sweet little Hillary, put two rounds right in the back of his head. All said it took about 1.5 min for us to clear out the whole bunch. As we all came back together, we walked over to where the closest body lie, and we looked more closely at it. As we did, we heard someone clapping… clapping and laughing. “Hahahahahaha... 90 seconds. I can hardly believe it myself!
Julie dear sister, won’t you please sell this man beast to me? He seems to be so well trained, he protected both you and your offspring, and clearly has an affinity to Magick. Name your price dear, I simply must have him.”
We heard from a woman who appeared directly in front of Derrik, she was also a Dark Elf. She was about 6 feet tall with pitch black skin and snow-white hair pulled back into an elegant broach, she wore gold and platinum embroidered robes that barely held in her ample assets. She also brandished an obsidian staff with a red glowing gemstone set in the top, the staff pulsed power. “I don’t know who you are, and to be honest I don’t care, Derrik is mine. I will not sell him to you or anyone else for any price!” Julie said with fire in her eyes.
“Julie, dear, it is the least you could do. You did just murder five of my favorite playthings. One, human man beast, is hardly too high a price to pay.” The Scary woman exclaimed. “Murdered? Palo Alto is not within your land leased territory, you can only expect a shoot first and ask questions later policy. Especially after we encountered your Crowganaught in LA. I’d call it self-preservation, not murder. Therefore, I owe you nothing, and suggest you move on before you can’t. My big dumb man beast has been known to act all by himself and do things you might not like too much!”
“Oh? Is that your recommendation? You definitely have the fire and grit to become a Matron Mother who could be a great power within the Drow network of worlds. Unfortunately for you, you will sell me this man. Derrik? Can you hear me? Please tell your wife, tell her you wish to be with me and the only option she has to survive in this world is to give in and relinquish control of you and accept payment.” The Drow matron said.
“Julie, you should put two in her head, call it a day. Because I’m sure that big crow thing is lurking around in the trees.” Derrik Said. “Impossible! There is no way that your stupid little monkey brain could resist my Aether mind manipulation technique!” the Drow woman bellowed.
“Derrik, is…….. special.” As Julie said that I made my hammer appear in my hands and lifted it up quickly enough to slam the Drow Matron right under her chin with the celestial side of the working end lifting her six inches off of her feet.
As quickly as she appeared she vanished. “Julie Rinn, you will be coming home to us, and we will be taking both your man beast, and your daughter. You both have the blood of the Drow, and as a result of that you are both property of Mistress Lolth, our mistress will have what she is due. Mark my words little Drowling, we will be seeing each other very soon!!”