62)

Around a conference table in an infinite white space.

The mystery woman wearing the tactical uniform with no rank tabs simply began her briefing with out any attempt to inform anyone that she was starting. Seeming to simply assume that they would either pay attention or could go screw themselves. That I liked.

For the most part she had already had most of the soldier’s attention, at least the men’s, simply by the way the well built Hispanic woman filled out her uniform.

Not me, I was paying attention to her due to the fact that she was a civilian and had been put in charge of my hand picked response team as the last minute. That I didn’t like.

“I am Special Agent Lucia Muerta. You don’t need to know which three letter agency. Here you may call me Special Agent, in the field you may call me Lucia since I’m the only one of those here and getting my attention may be time sensitive.” She gave the assembled soldiers a warm smile, but there wasn’t any warmth in her eyes.

She waved a hand in my general direction. “Captain Addams will be in command in the field, but he will be carrying out my directions while I advise”

As she gave me a challenging look, and some of my people turned from their seats on the crates of military gear over at me, I gave her an affirmative nod, which she returned with a slight smirk.

“Five days ago a man whose name isn’t important reported witnessing a group of two foot tall lizard people fighting an owl.” She paused. “The lizard men won.”

“Naturally no one believed him, but his name did go onto the long list. Then he submitted a sample of blood to a DNA testing clinic that contained DNA similar to the Zug Island entity. At that point his name went on the short list.”

“At ten hundred hours this morning a pair of agents were dispatched to his home to ask him some further questions. After which the agents deployed a ground penetrating radar which detected an impenetrable rounded surface eighty foot across nearly sixty feet down. Three times the size of the “Dungeon” previously encountered.”

That got an exchange of looks and some whispering until I cleared my throat.

The Special agent continued. “We are estimating at least three levels to the structure due to the height of the entity’s nest because of it’s spherical nature rather than the disk shape of the Zug entity. There may be up to three lower levels as well, but the core of the entity is expected to be in the widest eighty foot wide section.”

Corporal Zucker, our Porter, raised his hand. The Special Agent nodded for him to speak. “Do we have any idea of what’s inside from the radar Special Agent?”

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She shook her head. “The outer shell is impenetrable to Radar, but some small seismic charges should give us a better idea of the layout of the interior once we toss a few inside. We do know there will be small reptilian humanoids which have been dubbed “Kobolds”, and there should also be monstrous versions of the local wildlife similar to the ones found in the Zug entity. We can only hope the acidic slimes were unique to the other entity due to the industrial pollution in which it nested.”

The alarm on my watch beeped. “Five minutes to wheels down Special Agent.” The agent gave me a nod and held her hand up for one more moment. “To finish up, I wish to emphasis that our goal is to capture the central body of the entity for study. If we can get close enough to destroy it, we will also be close enough to take it.”

With that I gave Zucker the nod, and the rest of the team their orders “Prepare to return to normal space!” My team all stood up. Then I gave Zucker the nod and an outline of a door rose up abruptly from the floor. Through it came the sight and the sound of the dedicated Boeing Globemaster, the “Gygax”

There had been some objections since a guy named Arneson had equally contributed to the whole idea of raiding a “Dungeon.” But apparently Gygax was the man when it came to “Hack and Slash” Dungeon raiding.

“Proceed through the exit!” The team and Special Agent Muerta filed out with Zucker coming out last behind me since the room was only accessable by others while he was in it.

Myself and Corporal Zucker had already had a heart to heart conversation since he knew he could get away with a lot since he was one of the Highest leveled Porters in the world at Copper five. However I managed to convince him that if his antics got any of my people killed in the field, he would also not be returning from that mission.

We had other, even if lower level Porters available.

Even after waiting for Zucker to emerge from the doorway that instantly vanished behind him, I still managed to get strapped in before the Special Agent. Who in fact, didn’t seem to be bothering with the safety harness at all.

When I gave her a look, she rolled her eyes and managed to strap in just before the plane’s wheels hit the ground.

From there my team boarded a touring bus still painted from some local politician's run for governor. I was less interested in if she had won then the nearly black windows Zucker was making faces through while the others started joking about the comfortable seating.

A police escort got us to the state national guard cordon with an excited crowd including a group of badly dressed cosplayers talking to a news crew. Three blocks of hastily evacuated homes past that and we came to a somewhat weathered little house surrounded by an entire company of Army reservists complete with machine gun equipped guard posts behind protective barriers of sandbags.

Zucker quipped. “I guess those midget lizard guys might be more dangerous than you said Lucia.”

“Shut up Bag Boy.” The team gave him the name, not me.

The Special Agent gave me the time to get Lieutenant Kolwalski, my second in command and also our Healer, to start checking everyone’s loadout before the agent jerked her head for me to follow her.

“The woman inside that house is named Iris Deslover, a former mixed martial artist. She claims she was in communication with the entity and called it Tark. Her, a EMT, a teenage boy from the neighborhood and her niece had been risking their lives in the nest and leveled up a few timed before we became aware of the nest.”

“They haven’t been able to get much out of her about what we’re facing, but since we’re actually going in, she may be more forthcoming to us.”

Inside the house, an older woman in workout clothes with her hands zip tied behind her back was sitting in what had to be the most uncomfortable chair they could find. With both her legs zip tied at the ankles to the chair as well. I figured that the massive bruise covering the left side of one her guard’s faces may be the reason for that.

The woman with the steel gray hair was fairly fit, and she was also fairly alert since she noticed me looking at the injured guard. “He got a bit personal when they searched me. You got to buy me dinner first for that kind of contact.” The guard sighed.

“She jumped up a good three feet sir. While yelling “Spin Kick”. Knocked me on my ass with me three times her size. She must be at least Copper four.”

The old woman smirked. “Three, Copper three big boy. Skills count too.”

Then she looked at me. “So, I’m guessing you volunteered as Tribute.”