Judy O’Riley and her reluctant sidekick and cameraman Roger FitzGerald were in Portugal to cover the latest surfing competition. They had been asked by their network to find out why alone of all the resorts around the world it had been free of shark sightings. Then a guy from one of the intelligence agencies had asked them to include one of their agents as an electronics tech and gopher. So now they had Jason – call me Jas – Sandowski in tow.
They flew to Lisbon and took a taxi to their hotel. From there they proceeded, once again by taxi to the local terminal of the countries new transportation network. A couple of members of the GNR were performing guard duty at the door. It was ridiculously easy to use, they showed their passes joined the short queue at the exit gate and just stepped through the doorway into a large circular hall. They were then ushered to another gate that led to the hotel. Roger filmed the scene noting the few cops present. It looked like Portugal had more or less taken control of the network.
Judy was impressed with the hotel, it had a large airy bar, and the booze was good and not too expensive. Roger found the rooms impressive but despaired at being able to keep Judy sober enough to work. Jas just noted everything and recorded whatever he could.
Judy was soon networking with like-minded journalists in the bar, they all felt that their current assignment was a severe letdown and should have been left to the spots guys. They more than proved their points by ignoring several champion surfers and other celebrities with links to world sport.
For their part many of those celebrities were quite pleased at being allowed to get on with their business in peace after giving a private press conference to the resort’s PR department and a handful of polite local reporters.
Roger managed some spectacular footage of the competition and noted that several people expressed surprise that it had not even been interrupted once due to the appearance of sharks or one of the new maritime predators.
Jaz, who had received an invite to accompany a friend on a helicopter and was witness to a brief, rather one-sided fight two kilometers out to sea when three huge squid took out several sharks. He later shared a copy of his film of the scene with Roger much to Roger’s delight.
The whole competition was an immense success for the Hotel Luso the publicity was priceless, especially the constant harping by the press on the lack of sharks and the like.
* * *
Antonio admired his new avatar, due to circumstances beyond his control he went with an avatar that looked like him before his transformation, he did decide to shed a few years and settled on how he looked aged fifty.
Then after things settled down after the competition he invited all his family for a visit.
He did get collared by one of the few reporters that were still hanging around who asked him why the squid was helping keep the beaches safe.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Antonio smiled, “but Jezebel is a good friend, we enjoy each others company, we often chat together, I find she has such an amusing sense of humour. So why wouldn’t she help out especially as she finds shark tasty.”
He used Judy’s bemusement to slip away to meet with Simon Termador and Helen Gabriel his two new hires. Simon was a somewhat battered semi-retired stuntman and Helen a just graduated special effects technician.
Antonio ushered them into his office, introduced them to Felicia, “my PA.” And to Galiana, “representative of the Midgard branch of the Adventurers Guild.”
Then he smiled at Helen, “I am truly glad to meet you Helen, I greatly enjoyed your module the Caves of Duran Dor.” Helen started and blushed while Simon looked blank, “it followed on nicely from hunt for Duran Dor, and personally I think your obvious love of RPGs will be a great help in what I’m attempting. As for you Simon, your knowledge of stunts and the safety necessities associated with them are going to be vital to the project.
“You see, I have found it necessary to create a ‘dungeon’ for want of a better word. It will have monsters and traps, and yes treasure too. We will charge an entrance fee and give our guests a reasonably safe experience. We don’t want deaths but we do want to ... appear to endanger the participants.
“As for you Helen, I want a story not just hack and slash.
“I have arranged for the guild to provide four memory stones showing four adventurers experiences while delving in different dungeons on other worlds for reference. Also, you will have free run of the caves and chambers that currently exist on the mainland, currently there are four levels above the water level and one level that’s submerged.
“So are you up to the challenge?”
“A real live dungeon, you bet!” enthused Helen, “um... will we be able to change the layout?”
“Not really, but extra chambers are possible so kind of,” clarified Antonio. Helen beamed.
“So what’s my part?” asked Simon.
“Trying to ensure that enough safety features are present behind the scenes to minimize the danger element. I know that sheer stupidity will get a few of our guests hurt despite your best efforts but it would be nice if they didn’t die. We will have magical healing on hand.”
Simon looked down for a while then nodded, “OK, I’m in.”
* * *
A few days later in Washington DC Mandy Carvalho swiped her ipad and checked her notes. She looked up when her partner Marcus Smith ushered Ashes Erickson and her father into their meeting room.
“Mr Ericson thank you for coming and for fetching your daughter, some of the material we have to show you has a rather high security clearance and we’d rather not allow it out of this building.”
‘Or rather we didn’t feel like leaving Washington!’ thought Mandy to herself.
About two hour later the Ericksons had been shown a great deal of video. The hotel, its rooms and public areas, the transport hub and the gates to Lisbon and the hotel, the reproduction temple of Bastet, the squids takedown of the sharks and of something that resembled a giant sea turtle from hell, Antonio Rodrigues Muñoz’s statement of friendship with a squid and even some surfing scenes.
Ashes licked her lips, “they killed a dragon turtle – Wow! – Jezebel must be a roving boss, a really powerful one. That’s a dungeon, a really big dungeon. The gates look like what I’ve heard described as a dungeon portal system. They’re not normal gates they’re always on, dormant maybe but on. The local Adventurers Guild must know about it, they must be worried too.”
The discussion went on for another hour before the agents thanked the Ericksons for their help and arranged transport to the airport for their return flight to Kansas.
“So now we do a Fox and Mulder and go talk with the weird guys at the Guild,” sighed Marcus.
“Don’t you mean a Scully and Mulder moment? But yeah!” agreed Mandy.