Mother In Laws House

“I swear to God Tanya, it’s not worth it to have henchmen anymore. Has Amazon put out an actually useful, commercial robot that can hold a machine gun yet?”

“No, Kurt, they haven’t. Why are you ticked off at the henchmen this time?”

“They’re bitching about their living quarters again!”

“Kurt, you make them live in trailers off of Facebook marketplace that you’ve parked in the Las Vegas storm sewers. I’m amazed they aren’t bitching about bed bugs!”

The Dark Vector talking to his lovely assistant Stiletto Queen shortly before adding apartments to their lair design due to a bed bug outbreak.

"If you are seeing a house, then yes I am seeing what you’re seeing? Why is there a random house sitting in the middle of a jungle in a super villain dome base on the bottom of Lake Superior?" Ryan deadpanned. "On top of everything the hell else we’ve already had to deal with?"

Emilia chuckled. “It’s not in the middle, to be fair. It’s really more in the back. Or front, I’m not sure how to call this.” She pointed in a slightly different direction. “If you look over there, I think that is the first tunnel we came through, the trees and that big rock hide the original entrance elevator we came down from. Considering placement, I’m betting is the garage access point, or at least it should be in there!”

"He put a villain den connected to his garage, and placed it in his lair? I'm not sure what spectrum that means this guy was on, but he was on some sort of spectrum."

"I’m choosing not to think about it too hard. Why don’t we check to see if there's defenses around this place, before we get the people who can't dodge as well as us?"

“Sounds reasonable, they walked carefully, with eyes and ears open, towards the house. Emilia paused, movement catching her eyes. Looking towards the huge rock in the middle of the supposed yard, it had an odd smooth spot on it, which was covered by small lizards and geckos. She reached out and touched the surface with her fingers. “Ryan feel this rock. It’s hot and covered in house geckos.”

"Yeah, it's warmed." He frowned and looked around. "And there's a large airlock over there, though it looks like it’s been welded shut. Want to bet this was the dragon's warming rock early in its life?"

“Sweet of him to have a comfy rock for his massive abomination. I bet Davy is going to love this.” She rolled her eyes, then looked around. They were near the front steps and had seen no signs of any defenses. “I’m not seeing any traps, you?”

"No, no trip wires or pits and nothing moving in response to, or pointing at, us. I do see at least three of the rhea pit traps, but I'm betting that's as much to keep the birds away from the house as anything else."

“I’m sure he wouldn’t want them messing up his porch.” She walked up the stairs, pausing with each step onto a new stair. “walk carefully. While they aren’t trapped, the stairs feel squishy. I think the wood is rotting.”

"Yeah, it's a bit old, but the concrete underneath looks pretty darn pristine. I bet the whole house structure is concrete in a decretive cladding.” He knocked on the wall, the dull thunk seeming to be evidence of that truth. “And look at the door. That's a pressure door with a facade on it." Until they'd gotten close it looked like a conventional front door, but there was something more like a battleship door painted with the facade. "I would bet this is designed to remain dry even if the dome floods."

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“This doesn’t feel like Miss Manors. It feels more cheerful. I wonder if he had someone else come in to do this. She looked in a window inside were cream colored stucco walls, with exposed beams and what looked like a red ceramic tile floor.” She walked across the porch still on high alert. The grasses of the lawn were not as overgrown as they should have been. It was shaggy. But inconsistently shaggy. Looks like another fishing pond over there”, she pointed to a an area fenced off with ‘wooden’ posts she was pretty sure where painted concrete. In the middle was a knocked over bench and a pond.

"Yeah, I'm getting a definite bunker wearing a trench coat vibe. Wait," He looked around. "The house is in the center of a circle. The yard, for lack of a better term is a large, flat circle I mean. Could this be an older base, and he expanded later? He just built around it?"

Emilias eyes went wide as she saw what he was pointing out, looking around herself. Following the lines, she noticed the house was on a rise. “I think you are right. None of the bigger trees are in this yard. It is just the grass and bushes. Then the basking rock.”

"Which is outside of one level, and there's a tier like a wedding cake. The feet of an older double dome? Holy hell, I bet something happened to the first dome, but the house survived, and he got Manors to build the new one."

"Well, that explains the chef’s kitchen and the huge bed for a bachelor. The guy just wanted his dome fixed so he could have his comfortable den, and she was thinking super villain love nest. Manors was a pushy bitch."

“He was Columbian, this was his slice of home.” Emilia said, pulling at the door, which wasn’t locked, “Of course, why would it be locked, it’s in the middle of a massive jungle filled with dangerous birds and poison frogs.” She muttered

“What was that?”

“Thinking out loud. Should we go get the others?”

"Yeah, I think so." He agreed. "This is a good rest stop location, even if we haven’t found the garage access, and we can lay Carl down for a while. get him some comfort from the leg. I’m sure it’s in that lovely throbbing with every heart beat phase of living hell."

They turned away from the house and down the slight rise to dive quickly back into the jungle to fetch the other two trapped adventurers. Ryan raised a hand when they came into view. "Hey, we found his Den."

“That’s great! Is it at the garage like we thought?” Carl asked.

Lisa nodded. “Did you see a way out?”

"We didn't go that far or enter at all for that matter. However, the two of us are pretty sure we found evidence that we’re essentially standing in the insurance rebuild of his original base."

“I didn’t think insurance covers lairs” Lisa was confused. “Well damn it, I’m going to have to look that up. Still, why do you say that?”

“This place is his second lair?” Carl asked curiously, just as confused as Lisa. Ryan helped him up and Lisa shook Davy who wasn’t ready for his nap to be over.

"You'll see what we mean, and why we got that impression." Ryan promised.

As quickly as reasonable with the injured man, they moved back down the trail, returning to the strange little house. "Holy crap. I see what you mean." Carl said, shaking his head. "Looking at the size, the original base was probably built on the footprint of a bridge footing. Something a tailor could have gotten on the cheap after a major building project. Early and mid-century that would have been easy to do."

Lisa nodded. "Makes sense. The rest of this just demands pure supertech to pull off, even now. Using bridge building techniques to sink a foot, drain it, and build on 'dry' ground would make a lot more sense, and there's not enough boat traffic out here for people to necessarily notice, or wouldn't have been back then."

Carl pulled up the camera filming as he hobbled towards the house. Lisa walked around seeing a cute little fence and pond. She blinked. “Oh my god! Are those giant turtles? Look! She pointed to what Emilia had thought were large rocks in the field, where in fact turtles, huge turtles that where slowly and happily munching their way through the greens. “Oh man, these are amazing! I’ve never seen so many of them!”

"Looks like several species, if their markings mean anything. I thought they were rocks, since they weren’t moving much.” Ryan said. “This entire forest is probably filled with them, by now. This sure looks like a breeding population to me."

Emilia nodded. "Likely some hybrids unique to here, too, considering who owns the place. Or who did, anyhow."

“So, this place is now also a habitat for endangered turtles, how the hell to cover that in the disclosures” Lisa said though she couldn’t help but smile at the turtles. “I always wanted to ride one of those when I was little,”

"Some of them are damn near big enough to do it now."