Toby shows me to the kitchenette break room so I can get some food. When we arrive it's clear their ‘stockpile’ is actually just the remains of a party. A half consumed cake sits neatly cut into pieces within its clear plastic cover. Several bottles of different drink types sit on a counter, along with some bottles that were clearly emptied and repurposed as spare water storage next to a sink. Various other party foods sit covered on a table on the side, including chips and salsa, two closed boxes of pizza, and a half eaten large bowl of m&ms. Over on the counter top I see a half empty case of water bottles, a loaf of bread, and some assorted snack baggies. A piling of plastic silverware and paper plates at the end of the serving completes the party setup.
I think I’m starting to put together the timeline, given that this office is absolutely plastered with their company logo when you know where to look. Like the mugs on the desks of the offices around here. They were holding an out of hours office party, and when the alarm triggered they had enough of a vantage to see that trying to go to the bunker was a bad idea and stayed put. But that doesn't answer the question of where they hell they got all the guns? Whatever, I’ll try to figure it out later. Right now, having all this food in front of me has reminded me of just how hungry I am having not eaten in like over twelve hours.
“So, I can just eat what I want?” I ask Toby.
“Yep, take what you want. If we need to ration it odds are we're fucked anyways.”
I don't need any more prompting, walking over to the side table and grabbing a plate while moving to flip open the lid of the closest pizza box. Anchovies Aloof is a weird name for a pizza shop, but that's what I read on the lid as I grab it and flip it up. To my utter horror though it's not regular old cheese or even anchovies that awaits me. Sitting in front of me is a half a pineapple pizza, complete with no other toppings aside from what is clearly extra pineapple, just dried. I stand corrected, no way in hell one of these guys isn't a cultist. And it's whoever ordered that pizza.
Putting my lament of others poor dietary choices aside, I close the box and open the other one. Much to my relief I find two slices of pepperoni waiting for me, and I eagerly snatch them up onto my plate. Next I pop the plastic top off the cake, only to realize I don't have a fork or knife. I quickly reach over and acquire a plastic fork, then use it as an impromptu saw to carve out myself a nice large slice of cake. The cake is a basic grocery store kind that seems to be half plain and half chocolate, but I wouldn't care either way. I pile the overly large slice onto my plate, but it's so big it ends up smearing some icing on my pizza slices. Oh well, it's all going to the same place anyway. I grab a fork for my cake and take my plate over to the center table. Toby is just standing at the door, staring at me with an amused look as I loot their food and sit myself down. He goes to say something but stops as I shovel literally half a slice of pizza into my mouth, making it fairly clear conversation is out of the question.
To both of our surprise though, I demolish the pizza bite in mere seconds, before quickly jamming the rest into my mouth to avoid conversation. The second slice follows just as quickly, and suddenly I'm shoveling fork loads of cake into my mouth as fast as I can.
“Damn slow down, you're gonna choke if you eat that fast.” Toby says from off to side.
I ignore him in favor of finishing off the cake. Within a minute the cake slice is gone, and I shovel the crumbs onto my fork before gobbling them up as well. When I realize I've completely cleaned my plate I get up and acquire myself another slice, grabbing some chips and a water bottle on my way back to the table.
“Damn, were you starved or something before all this?” Toby asks.
“No, guess I burned a lot of energy doing shit yesterday.” I reply between mouthfuls.
Near the end of my second helping I manage to slow down my pace, taking a few minutes to finish of the cake and chips instead of like, two. At the end I'm still a bit pecking, so I snag a bag of trail mix and another bottle of water before making my way back towards Toby, who is looking at me with a mix of awe and amusement.
“Done clearing our kitchen?” He asks.
“Hey, I only ate some.” I reply curtly.
“Yea, more like you ate half the cake.” He says while pointing at the remains of the cake, which I failed to recover in my haste to eat. The two slices I took must have been bigger than I thought, because sure enough the cake is only half as big as it was before.
“Oh….” Is all I can muster in reply.
“Whatever, it needed to be eaten anyway. Now you need a private place to regenerate your mana right?” Toby asks, moving along before my embarrassment can burn a hole through me.
“Yea, preferably somewhere with no windows either.” I reply.
“Hmm, we got an office like that in the middle here. We were clearing it out cuss the last guy to use it got fired so it's pretty empty.”
“How'd he manage that?” I ask.
“Dude was accepting kickbacks and uh, favors under the table and whatnot. Once the CEO found out the dude got sacked faster than a quarter back without a defensive line.”
“That's an odd, but descriptive way of putting it.”
“Yea well, they spent like three days tearing that office apart after they walked him out. I don't know the full details but there was always someone in that office looking through papers and shit. I think they were trying to figure out just how far back it went.”
“Damn, did they report it to the police?”
“Oh yea, I don't know when he got picked up exactly but they did eventually grab him. What an idiot, we aren't millionaires but getting two to three percent commission on almost million dollar commercial properties still rakes in the dough. And until last week those properties were getting tossed around like hot cakes.”
“What the hell, that'd like twenty to thirty thousand right? And that was per building? No wonder my dad bitched about price gouging agents every time my mom wanted a bigger house.” I say, getting a small chuckle out of Toby.
“I mean that's fair. Houses don't go for that much, though we usually charge four to five percent on residential stuff. Still a good chunk of change, anyway here is the office.” Toby says while pushing a door to an office open.
The door swings away from the frame to reveal an interesting room. It looks half pristine, like it’s brand new, and half like a tornado came crashing through the place. Some shelves were empty of everything, including any dust or wear marks. Other shelves however were loaded with piles upon piles of papers, books, folders, binders, anything business related, its strewn about somewhere on the shelves. The desk has been moved from the center to the back of the room recently, judging from the marks on the carpet. Said desk is also covered in papers, binders, and more in addition to the monitor, mouse, and keyboard pushed off to the side. Strangely there is no computer attached, or around anywhere, maybe it got taken as evidence or something.
“It's got a lock on the door so no one can disturb you. Though it's gonna be pitch black if you shut the door. Are you sure you want an office with no windows?” Toby asks
“Yea, it's perfect. Now I'm gonna get to work, the sooner I start the more mana I end up with.” I say as I grab the door and slowly start closing it. Toby thankfully gets the message and says his goodbyes as I close and lock the door, pressing my thumb in on the button on the knob.
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Fucking finally, the only thing worse than dealing with people is dealing with people is being a demon dealing with people in a demon zombie apocalypse with limited mana. Ok, maybe not the only thing worse, but pretty high up there. I practically teleport my shirt off, almost pulling the poor thing apart in the process. Once that's gone and on the floor I reach down and shimmy my pants down just a nudge, leaving just enough room for my tail to spring free as I let my transformation drop.
My tail twitches around, curling and stretching around as if it has a mind of its own and is looking for trouble. My wings separate from my back, and flap slightly as I stretch them out, creating a small gust of wind that knocks some papers around. Crap, I’ll clean those up later. One of the joints even pops, sending a nice tingle along them for a moment. My horns grow out, restoring a sense I'm surprisingly happy to have back. While my eyes start to give off the usual orange glow, providing just enough light to see in the darkness. But not enough for a human to see by I think, maybe I have enhanced vision or something.
First thing I do now that my mana restrictions are lifted is heal myself again. I gather the green ball into my hand, creating enough light to bath the room in a strong green tint, before crushing it and feeling the warmth surge through me. The rest of my aches and pains washes away, and even my wings feel better than before. I wonder how long I can hold a spell for? If it's a long time, a weak one might make a good impromptu light source.
Mana: 397/20,416
Ah well that figures. Good news is it's already going back up, at a fairly decent pace too.
Mana: 398/20,416
.
Mana: 399/20,416
.
Mana: 400/20,416
One point a second isn't that bad, at that rate I'll have… hour and forty left ish, so one hundred minutes, time sixty for second… About six thousand mana. Fuck thats actually not a super huge amount to work with. Well, I have to evaluate my options here then. I wanted to save mana surge for an emergency, and because it might do permanent damage with too much use. But shit, if this situation does not qualify as an emergency then what does? So I can save it for later if I need it, or use it now preemptively to give myself more options. Honestly, giving myself more options seems like the better option right now. If I use mana surge I can then build up a healing crystal, which would be a huge boon, then I can use the remaining time to top off my mana. Then I'll have full mana to keep my disguise up while screaming at cultists, zombies, and whatever other shit currently infests this city.
New and improved plan in place I activate the spell, and immediately regret my life decisions. A hard pain shoots through me, bringing me to my knees as I cough up blood, my vision goes blurry, and the world around me dulls. Thankfully it lasts only a second, and my senses slowly start to return to normal as the sharp pain is replaced by deep aches in every part of my body. Ok, do NOT use manasurge more than twice in a row. I don't want to find out if it's just worse because I was injured recently, or if it stacks with rapid repeated use. I should probably heal myself too.
Mana: 20,416/20,416
I should probably heal myself too….. actually, now might be a perfect time to test out the healing crystal. With that in mind I don't slack about, starting up the process of making a new crystal. Mana flows up my arm and out my hand, coalescing in a similar, but slightly different fashion than when I made the mana crystal, weaving itself before my eyes. Before I know it, five minutes is up and a crystal identical to the mana one, except being red, connects to me as it drifts off my hand to join its blue colored sibling in rotating around me.
They orbit in a twelve-six format, seemingly wanting to constantly be on opposite sides of me. A quick test reveals this to be the case as I hold the red one in place for a moment before letting go, causing it to zoom back to its position. The same thing happens when I hold the blue one as well. I guess it's to minimize the risk or collisions, or something.
Either way questioning the eccentricities of magic itself is beyond my pay grade. So I instead look around the room for something else to entertain myself with. Guess I'll start by picking up the papers I sent flying.
I scrunch my wings close to my back to keep from creating any more wind as I reach down and start trying to pick up and make sense of the papers. I quickly discover that I can read most of them if I hold them close to my eyes for better illumination. Unfortunately being able to read them doesn't mean I understand them, and I end up having no idea what should go where despite the actually fairly descriptive labeling around the room.
I end up just stacking them all in their own pile on a corner of the desk, before creeping back across the room to investigate some funny looking folders and binders labeled ‘evidence’ on one of the packed shelves.
By this point I'm feeling better, almost one hundred percent actually. At least what I think is one hundred percent, so I check my mana to figure out how long it's been.
Mana: 16,427/20,416
Let's see, it was five thousand for three crystal, that put me at fifteen thousand, so one thousand difference. Thousand seconds divided by sixty is sixteen minutes and some change. So I'll round up and say it's been eighteen minutes-ish picking all this up. Not bad on the new crystal.
I grab a binder off a shelf and crack it open, fully intent on being a nosy bitch because I'm bored as fuck. Only to quickly discover that I have poor knowledge of business documents. I can make sense of most of them if I look long enough, but few documents purpose and meaning alude me. Like this one talking about the water table for somewhere, filled with diagrams and charts, all of which make no sense to me. The only reason I know it's talking about a water table is it's named water table chart.
Not the most indulging read I've ever had but the documents get the time to pass. Eventually I swap to another binder, just to discover similar documents except for a different property. A quick check reveals that most, if not all the binders are like that. Curious, I decide to check what's in the manila folders, since the binders seem to be all property oriented. What I find are lots and lots of business documents. Some of the folders are dated with years, others are just blank but filled with seemingly random documents. Some are invoices, sales closings, refunds, and even the odd agreement.
I can't quite figure out what it's all about until I realize that all the documents are signed by a Timothy P. They did say they were still investigating the guy who last worked here, guess that's his name. So these are probably all the compiled records of everything he ever touched. I'm about to call it quits, because even I can only be so much of a nosy bitch, when I notice a particular binder that gets my attention, because it's labeled with an extra notation. 5632 Dreamfield North Plaza (Central Bunker property).
Interested, I grab the binder and crack it open. I'm not surprised these guys worked on the property the central bunker sits on, it was built only a year-ish ago. But still, what are the odds? The binder contains all the usual documents about property value, dimensions, connected utilities, etc. But it also contains a bunch of extra stuff because it was a future bunker site. Specifically a lot of documentation regarding soil, rocks, water table, charts of nearby underground pipes and cables. No info on the bunker itself, just the property it sits on.
Given how this shit show half originated from the central bunker I decide it's a good idea to read up all these documents, carefully. Most of it is boring or useless, the soil quality around the bunker properly won't help us at all. But one thing in particular catches my eye, one of the surveys speculates that there is a fairly large cave system deep underground near there. Almost directly under where the bunker itself is actually placed if my guesstimates are correct.
I don't know if the caves were untouched by construction or not, but if they weren't they might be infested with cultists and demons. Which means there might be even more of those assholes running around, fuck!
Unfortunately, the documents don't contain anything else, the rest is just Financials and other garbage. My eyes almost bug out of my head when I read the final sales price, more than I'll ever see in my lifetime that's for sure. I slap the binder closed and throw it back on the shelf, double checking to make sure I've left everything back where I found it. It would be rude to leave their office a mess after all, even if this place will probably be wiped off the map after this.
Suddenly a massive blast shakes the entire building so hard I fall over. Binders, folders, and documents fly off shelves, the stacks on the desk flop over onto the floor, getting everywhere in the process as I flail towards the floor. For a moment I fear the building is going to collapse, until the chaos stops as suddenly as it started. I open my eyes to papers settling to the floor around me, the once semi organized office now a calamitous mess of business records thrown about the room. I push myself up, thankful that the building didn't actually collapse until I notice the new big ass crack running through the roof of the room. OK maybe not as uncollapsed as I thought.
I immediately put my wings and tail away, annoyed that my peace and quiet was interrupted early, but honestly not surprised at this point. How much mana did I get back at least?
Mana: 18,023/20,416
Eh, better than nothing. Sure enough moments later I hear someone charging up the hallway, and they throw open the door just as I finish shifting my eyes and horns and throwing on my shirt.
“Lucy, are you OK?!” Karen basically screams as she practically jumps into the room.
“Not dead, so what’s trying to kill us now?” I ask in response while giving her a shrug.
She seems a bit peeved and lets out a huff, but ultimately seems satisfied enough with my answer. “They made another attempt on the shield, but were only partially successful.”
Her answer gives me both hope and goosebumps at the same time, what does she mean by partially successful.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask, moving forward to head out into the hall with the intention of rejoining the rest of the group. They will probably want to move out soon, if not right now. Not that I can really blame them this time, I have a sneaking suspicion this building isn't exactly structurally sound after getting rattled around so much.
“I… I think they broke through the first shield, but a second one immediately came up. The thing is… I think Robert could explain it better.” She says, following me into the hallway and back towards the conference room. Oh boy, more complications, because this shit wasn't already bad enough. Feels like the Rubik's cube of survival bullshit and rows just keep getting piled on. My suspicions are proven correct by the cracks in the wall and ceiling, as well as the clearly deformed door frame across the hall. We’re lucky this whole damn building did not drop with us in it.
We get a few feet down the hall before Karen speaks up again. “I see you’re moving a lot better now. How are you feeling?” she asks.
“Almost as good as new! Aside from the whole trapped in a shit hole demon zombie apocalypse thing!” I retort back cheerily.
“Well that's good. I suppose it has something to do with that new red gem of yours?”
“Yep! It should help with any bruises or paper cuts.”
“Well that's good, we need all the help we can get.”
Before the conversation can continue, we get close enough to hear shouting coming from the conference room. Sounds like George and Robert are having an argument, more like George is trying to argue with Robert, who is putting his foot down.
“This is a horrible idea! We shouldn't give her one! I’m against it!”
“Noted, but I don’t care. You, and everyone else will have one as well, even Greg. So if anything happens you’ll have one too.”
“I won't use a weapon Robert, we’ve been over this. I know, that's why you’re carrying the gun bags, since the rest of us will need our hands free in case something happens.”
“OK, but I don't see how that means I'll be armed.”
The conversation is interrupted as I walk into the room, followed by Karen. Robert looks over from what seems to be weapon preparation with a borderline confident expression, barely failing to disguise the concern and worry peaking around his features. George looks over with his usual scowl, followed by a sneer. “I am not giving her a gun.” he says, not even trying to hide his disdain. As he continues to stuff magazines into his pockets.
“Good, didn't want you to.” Robert says, walking over and holding out the one of the guns he just finished loading.
“This is a forty five caliber Westscott Defender. Ten rounds in the magazine, safety is on and its not chambered. You know how to use a gun right?”
“Uhhh, I’ve played a super realistic shooter VR game before.”