Finished Basement

“You basement dwelling troglodyte! You dare to challenge my greatness!”

“Basement dwelling? Jackass, we’re in your base! Which is a basement! That you live in!”

“This is not a basement! This is a subterranean… Damn it, yeah. Okay. It’s a basement. But at least it’s not in my mom’s house!”

“Your mom owns the building, jackass.”

A shockingly common argument between a Hero and a Villain.

Lisa moved towards the glass wall, looking into the forest. “More of those little lizards.” She said then gasped as she saw a bright green snake, and what looked like a miniature ostrich nibbling some greens. “Wow.”

"So that's not going to be a small area." Ryan scanned the forest as best he could, with the powerful mag light he carried. It penetrated the gloom reasonably well, but the greenery was dense. “Look, those aren’t normal lights up there.” He said, pointing towards the top of the outer dome. “And they’re on, but dim. Sunlight simulators?”

“I guess?” Lisa shrugged. “I just, even my wildest imagination didn’t come up with something like this.”

Emilia tapped his shoulder, and pointed towards the next door, and the glass near it. “There’s another dome a few yards from this one, some sort of connecting tube between them, and in the distance, I think I see a third vaguely visible through the underbrush.”

Ryan looked. The two domes he could see clearly seemed to be linked by a short tube, which were raised off the ground by about ten feet, meaning things could pass under them too. "Got to give him credit. This has style."

“Oh man.” Carl said walking around videoing everything. “Dude, this is a Streamy in the bag. This might be worth cutting into a documentary for the film festival circuit. Hey Emilia, Ryan can I get first reactions?” He tightened the shot on their face man.

"Yeah, my first reaction is, well shit. We're stuck in a fucking underwater lair, and we broke the elevator." Emilia said, her glare split between the elevator and the cameraman.

"There's an escape route. There's always an escape route. Villains put at least three in any place they set up. I swear, give a villain a budget, and a volcano base could pass OSHA inspections." Ryan assured her. "And I have to admit, this is way more interesting than the average underground bunker or reworked penthouse craziness. At least this guy had some sense of flair."

"Yeah, but the odds of something lethal being down here just went up by a factor of ‘oh crap’ with that biosphere out there." Emilia growled.

Lisa shivered. “And he was a splicer, so that something lethal is probably not natural. It looks like there is only one door other than the elevator, so there is only one way to go.”

"Yep. I'm going first." Ryan said. "Like we discussed, Emilia is taking anchor. You in the middle, Lisa." He drew a pistol and moved towards the door, looking it over and finding the button to cause it to slide open in the same place as the last door. It whined a bit, but slid open completely, the next barely making that much protest as it opened at the end of the short tunnel, revealing something out of Better Homes and Gardens, were that magazine to be edited by color blind lunatics, or people in the seventies. .

Carl, behind him, groaned. "Oh my god, it's filled with shag."

“Orange shag.” Emilia said, just as despondent. “This is almost worse than being under the lake.”

Lisa giggled in spite of her fear as she walked into a room that was almost a poster for the seventies sense of home décor excess. The huge round room was covered in a thick bright orange shag, with an art deco wall off to one side with a bar attached, the back filled with liquors.

Padded stools matching the carpet were nestled by the bar, and the piece de resistance was a huge conversation pit, carpeted in more orange shag with hunter green and cream cushions and pillows, sunk into the middle of the room with absolutely no rails to keep drunk idiots from staggering into the hole.

Above that was a gorgeous collection of frosted white and gold pendulum lights. “Oh god. It’s so bad it almost circles back to good.”

“You and I have very different understandings of circles.” Emilia deadpanned.

All around the room, outside the dome, was more jungle, like being in a vivarium in an old Bond movie. That almost made the décor tolerable. Lisa looked up to see the dark waters of the lake, a bass swimming by.

"Oh god, this is wild. Why did he put plush furnishing in a death pit?" Carl asked, almost stumbling into said pit.

"I'm pretty sure that's the lounging area.” Ryan said, catching his friend. “And the bar is still fully stocked. The opened stuff is garbage at this point, but some of this might have rested well, still sealed. Well, if we're stuck here come night, we can drink ourselves to sleep."

“It’s called a conversation pit, they were really popular for a while, but everyone in the eighties bitched about taking them out, because renovations dealing with them is all sorts of a pain in the ass.” Lisa said finding the stairs into the pit, then stepping down to photo it. “ Plus, they are a huge tripping hazard, as you noticed. Lawsuits aplenty.” She chucked. “This is the first time I’ve seen one in real life.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Yeah, the shag continues even down there. I mean, this stuff is thick."

“It’s meant to be soft to sit and lounge on. She tested the cushions on the couch. “It’s an eyesore but it seems comfortable.”

Ryan let them talk as he walked around the room, shining his flashlight out the window. There were two more domes, with the door going towards them hidden behind the bar. He was trying to estimate, but he thought there might be as much as ten acres of space under the larger, primary dome. And his light caught animals, insects, and flowing water as well as land and trees, revealing a very complete terrarium that they were, effectively, inside of.

The next door slid open more easily than earlier examples, revealing a bit of a crossroads. A glassed in, square room with a door going to one of the domes to the left, a different door without the added barrier going to the right. Like earlier tunnels, these weren’t transparent, forcing them to use the barely functioning lighting and their flashlights.

"Okay, that looks like an airlock going that way, so that's going to be a lab, I would bet you." Ryan said. "So do we go to the lab, or what are probably more living areas?"

“The living area is probably safer right?” Lisa said tucking the cooler in on the wood floor around the bar. not wanting to drag it across miles of shagg. “Wait, which is more likely to get us back to the surface?”

"Either or, to be honest, though, why is there a smaller door in the full sized doors?" Emilia asked, crouching. Pressing it, the small door opened, though small was relative. “Is this a pet door?”

Carl glanced at Lisa. “Em, Mister Lizard was a beast slicer. What slicer doesn’t have pets.”

“Oh shit.” Lisa said, “What pet did he have that need doors big enough for a small child!”

"Considering his reptile theme, could be Komodo dragon, alligator, larger iguana, fire breathing dragon. He's a splicer, so no idea how weird it could get." Emilia grumbled.

"Well, that's comforting. I am leaving my boss and opening my own offices." Lisa groaned.

They opened the larger door to the right, and with weapons drawn in all but Carl’s case, they stepped into the next room. This one had wood parquet flooring, with a long dining room table, another but smaller bar, and a kitchen area, open concept and all dark wood and copper and steel. Even the pots and pans were copper.

“Okay, nice kitchen. I wonder if it works?” Lisa said, walking towards the stove. She blinked as another house gecko looked at her from above the fridge. She turned the knob on the range and the stove's electrical coil clicked to life. “Well dinner got easier.” She opened the fridge, this one hunter green, blinking to find it full of glass coke bottles and canned dog food. “Well, I know what side of the cola wars Mister Lizard was on.”

"Apparently so. Dog food, hmm. Must have been for his pet lizard. Or lizards."

Emilia was peeking in drawers. "This is so mundane. Just kitchen stuff."

“Well, we are seeing more theming.” Lisa said. The cabinets all had lizards and snakes as pull handles, most of them in a vaguely South American style. The table legs were four chameleons standing on their hind legs, their tails curled around their feet, their upper claws holding up the top of the table, which was also carved with intricate scales painted with orange and green, Topped with glass. Sitting on the glass top of the table was a chubby cartoon crocodile salt and pepper shaker set. An elegant set of silver candelabras with snakes, and a vase painted with geckos finished out the table decor. The flowers were long dead, but more little house geckos had laid eggs in the dead flowers.

"Well, this guy was in Slytherin, if we didn't already know that." Emilia muttered, watching as a few house geckos ran around the roof. "I think I know why there's not spiders everywhere."

"I mean, they're cute for lizards." Carl said. "And they aren't causing a mess, that I can see."

Ryan chuckled. “Looks like we have two doors in this dome, one in the kitchen area, and one in the back of the dining room.”

"That one looks like it goes to the dome we think is a lab. Following the pattern, the next room going the other way would be an office or bedroom, maybe? Or bathroom?"

“So, we go deeper into the house?” Lisa asked. She was relaxing a bit so far there hadn’t been any death traps.

"Makes more..." They heard a clang, like if the smaller door opened. Ryan brought up his pistol, and even Carl's hand rested on his shotgun as they looked around. It hadn't been close, and they didn't hear another sound, so they eased off. "That wasn't comforting."

“No, no it wasn’t.” Lisa looked out at the jungle dome around them, images of Jurassic Park dancing in her head. “It sounded like it came from the lab direction.” She said softly, hoping nothing could hear her. “So, keep to the home path and hope for an escape route, right?”

"Yeah, I think that's wise." Ryan agreed. "Go ahead and leave the food here, for now. I think we might want to be able to react, just in case."

Ryan and Carl opened the next door, heading through the short tunnel and deeper into the living quarters. This one revealed a bedroom, rather expansive and with sitting areas as well as the large four poster bed, though there was no canopy.

More accurately, the arms of the bed rose up to a large pane of glass, supports the dome and allowing someone laying in the bed a wonderful view of the lake, and flickering light above. "Okay, this is wild."

Carl nodded, “This bed is huge.” He crawled on the bed wanting to get the view from lying in the bed, rolling to flop on his back. “Ouch!” He yelped, reaching down and pulling up a huge white tooth. Oh shit.” He said holding it out to show Ryan.

"Yeah. That's a bad sign." He looked up as the girls, who were looking around the edge of the room, looked over. "We um, found a tooth."

"A large tooth." Carl added, slipping off the bed, then peeking under it in fear of an ambush might come at him. He found nothing but particularly surly dust bunnies.

“Wow. That is big.” Lisa said “Didn’t you say Mister Lizard attacked Empire Statesman with a huge white crocodile. How long do crocodiles live?” Emilia said.

Lisa shook her head, “I don’t know. I haven’t had a signal since we came down the elevator, but I think most reptiles are kind of long lived.”

"From my understanding, croc's can live a long time." Carl said, looking around him. "I mean, not tortoise long, but I feel like it could still be alive."

"Yeah, but it’s the Lake Superior Dragon now. It’s too big to get in here. I think this is probably not the Dragon’s, but who knows what other pets he had. Just keep sharp, and don't hesitate to shoot if you think you need to."

“We have a door that seems to go nowhere from what I can tell. Maybe out to the biosphere? And two more doors going to the side.” Emily moved to the first door along the wall, next to a large bronze Medusa oil fountain, the snake woman standing like in a bath, surrounded by the dripping oil. She opened the door then yipped and jumped back as a bunch of rocks, old beer bottles, bongs and worse fell out. “I think I found one of the back doors, looks like the elevator was crushed by nearly 50 years of teens getting rid of evidence and rocks.”

"Found a hole and started tossing crap into it." Ryan grumbled, helping to force the trash back into the door, sealing it. "That's just annoying. And too filled with crap to escape through. So that's one escape route out. "

"Well, that leaves the car, which I suspect is down here somewhere, and maybe one other escape route. I haven't seen the classic escape ball type thing, and I'd think there'd totally be an ‘Oh Shit’ escape boat somewhere." Carl said.

“Here’s to hoping.”