7/24

Outside the Hollywood Sign Dungeon

12:45 PM

Dungeon breaks could remix the monsters in new ways. For the last 2 hours and 45 minutes the Navy, local cops, a handful of Minute Men and three Pathbreakers had been fighting ants that would die and then come back as zombie ants. Killing them twice was proving to be a major drain on resources, and there were still about 26 hours to go on this dungeon break.

Quins fired another Acid Arrow. "I was 'oping to go give Jun and Mers a hand but doesn't look like that's in the cards, eh?" The Upcycled arrow turned entirely into acid upon hitting the target. The triangular arrowhead would usually punch into the foe, then melt, dropping acid both inside and outside of the puncture. Against the ants the wounds ended up being about the size and depth of a microwave. Each ant's head was about a meter across, so that much acid was very necessary.

Ivy had been blasting through the Black Sabbath discography, pumping everyone up significantly. "I can totally do this forever!" she shouted over the portable amplifier her Zune was plugged into. Since she was providing buffs to dozens of combatants, she was getting levels and a ton of proficiency points.

Odysseus wasn't doing nearly as well. His SMITE! cost him Faith Points, his heals cost him Faith Points, his gun used bullets. His Memory stat improved his FP recovery, but it wasn't even 100 yet. He just had too many stats he wanted to improve. He shouted back, "I've got to take a rest after this wave!"

Ivy gave him a devil horns hand sign, head banged in his general direction and continued to play tracks.

A SEAL with a grenade pistol finished off the last ant zombie. There were giant insect parts everywhere. Nobody wanted to waste time, energy or resources on wiping the bodies, so they just piled up. There were over 200 of them.

Since the first dungeon break months ago, the scrub land around the sign on Mt Lee had been scrubbed. It was now a barren, crater-pocked desert slope. The four homes closest to the sign, to the south, had been claimed by the Navy. There was a radio and cell tower facility right behind the big sign, but the troops ignored it because its only toilet was broken and it didn't have air conditioning. Besides, the monsters exclusively ran south, down the mountain and towards civilians. The firing line had to be set up there.

Odysseus cleared his retreat with a Navy CO, who replaced him with another healer. Odysseus trudged the 200 feet into one of the homes, opening the sliding back door.

Inside, half a dozen support troops sat around a kitchen table staring at laptops and talking to others over headsets. Three Navy guys were on the couches, in full gear, watching the Great British Bake Off. Odysseus moved in and headed to the bathroom.

Odysseus washed his face. He slipped most of his equipment into his inventory. He used the toilet. While washing his hands he looked himself in the mirror.

It was a rugged face, no doubt. He still had the long scars from the R-32 explosion years ago. He'd dropped a few points into Charisma so they looked smaller and cleaner, but they were still there. Still constant reminders that he was a soldier first, before anything else.

He was alright with that. Sure, he wanted more, but this was where he belonged. Fighting shoulder to shoulder with the best of the best.

A knock and voice came at the door. "Hey old guy, I gotta piss real bad!" Odysseus shuffled his large frame around the younger soldier and moved back into one of the bedrooms.

It was a kid's bedroom, painted blue. A hockey uniform in the corner, twin bed, marks on the wall from roughhousing. Odysseus and his brothers used to roughhouse all the time when they were kids. Odysseus smiled as he remembered punching a hole in the wall with his baseball bat. His older brother Mitch had tacked up a comic book page over the hole and their mom hadn't found out until years later.

Odysseus sat down on the small bed. Much too small for him now. He'd grown 4 inches and not known why at all. He'd checked his logs, checked his stats, checked his classes. Nothing. He'd just gotten bigger over the last two months. Maybe he'd ask Gwen L'Ronge about it. She knew all the obscure stuff about the Dracosys.

A blare of gunfire outside signaled the next wave of monsters. Odysseus lay back and closed his eyes. Twenty years he'd been a soldier. Most of it spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sound of distant gunfire soothed him to sleep so often that he felt relaxed. He lay back on the kid's bed, his legs dangling off.

Odysseus closed his eyes and found party messages. The party system just let you send messages to other people. It was usually pointless, but with the group spread out, they'd opted in, for once. The party chat got messages through a dungeon's typical signal interference.

Jun: Killed nazis. It's always a good day to kill nazis.

Mercy: it's the only murder I endorse.

Quins: what about people who don't put all the pieces back in a board game?

Mercy: You already know that I will kill them all.

...

Jun: three levels left.

Ivy: hard to type in bran. Brain. You guy do it alot?

Jun: normally it's just for dad jokes between me and Mercy.

Mercy: I keep a lot of those on my computer, in a dad-a-base.

Quins: Bloody hell no.

Jun: You find dad jokes fishy? I can cut them trout.

Ivy: fuck off and kill things

Mercy: ants are next.

Quins: we've had 3 hours of zombie ants so watch the corpses for undead.

Jun: Gotcha. Burn it with fire.

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...

Jun: got one level but the ants have a literal fortress this time. It's a massive dirt castle. We're exploring. Already found some magic loot.

Quins: just let me know if you need me.

Mercy: We're saving the jets for you and acid arrow rain.

Odysseus knew these kids were different from him. Ivy and Mercy, of course, they weren't military. But Jun and Quins were oddballs, not typical military. Odysseus, he was typical military. He liked being typical military. He got orders, fulfilled orders, went back to base. He was good at it.

Gunfire in the distance. Probably 200 to 300 feet out. American rifles, mostly. Every once in a while he heard the sharp crack of a heavier weapon. One of the snipers had a CheyTac M200, which fired .408 rounds. Odysseus wanted one, but they were on back order.

-----

Odysseus opened his eyes. His Faith Points had recovered. Had he fallen asleep? He checked his watch and it said it was 3:32 PM.

He checked the party chat.

Jun: 2 levels left. Got a pretty cool magic staff. Anthony's Gravity Bomb Staff. Anyone have access to gravity magic? You have to have access to gravity magic to use this thing.

Quins: I have weight increasing arrows, that count?

Jun: no. I will refrain from explaining the difference between mass and weight.

Ivy: have a debuff that ups grav on monster. Count?

Jun: maybe? We'll try it.

...

Mercy: is OD OK? He's not posted here.

Ivy: big man took a break. Ran low FP.

...

Quins: ha Odysseus is passed out on a tiny child bed. I can't include a picture here, can I? I took one.

Jun: one level left. Quins, you want to acid melt some jets?

Quins: oh yeah mate, we just killed some nazi robots real quick. Should be good now.

Odysseus opened his eyes to see Quins's smiling face looking down on him. "Heya, OD. Fancy giving ol' Ivy backup, eh?"

Odysseus sat up, pushing off the bed, and pulled his gear out of his inventory. "Yeah, I'm good."

"You, eh, okay, mate?"

Odysseus pulled on his armor and checked his rifle. "This place, surrounded by soldiers and gunfire, feels like home, I guess."

Quins looked down at the abandoned hockey jersey and several well-used pucks. "Don't think the original occupants would agree."

Odysseus strode out the bedroom. On the couch was now just one soldier, a bloody tourniquet around his right thigh. "Take peace and healing with you, and walk once again." Odysseus's incantation formed softly glowing yellow lights around the wound.

The soldier pulled off the tourniquet. "Thanks, sir. You're Corporal Grant?" He wobbled to attention.

Odysseus nodded. "Anyone else need healing right now?"

The soldier said, "Sergeant Windsong gets us mostly healed. She conserves her points by getting us out of the woods and then letting us pull out."

Odysseus admired the logistics of that strategy, but he was ready to pull his weight. "I've got magic to spare right now. Show me the other injured."

Quins waved to Odysseus as the two men parted ways. Odysseus went to the next house and started getting soldiers back into the fight.

-----

7/24

A suburban street, Los Angeles

3:55 PM

Oswin loved being leveled. He loved being able to walk around a poor, crime-riddled neighborhood and know that he was completely immune to every ill this place might impose upon him. He loved knowing his tweed three-piece suit couldn't be pierced by bullets. He loved that his Constitution made even the 30.5c temperature hardly noticeable. He loved knowing that, should he wish it, he could kill everyone in this downtrodden facsimile of a real city.

Oswin was looking for just the right spot. Just the right location for the package. All he had to do was take it out of his inventory and leave, but that was pedestrian. And yes, he noted the irony of thinking that while walking. Oswin Pierce hadn't inherited his father's business acumen. His brother Desmond had cornered the market on that. What he had instead was his mother's taste in art. He knew how high the standards of fine art should be, and how strongly avant garde art should make one feel. This, this disaster he was about to trigger, it should be an event.

Some place that spoke of the American ills. Someplace in this cess pit that showed how rampant capitalism only bred inequality. Someplace... Like that.

He opened the door to the convenience store. The smell of dust and burned frankfurters filled his nose.

"You need help, mister?" said the old black woman behind the counter.

"I do apologize for the inconvenience," Oswin said in his crisp British accent. "But might you have an open loo?"

"Uh whut?"

"A lavatory? A WC?" He sighed the exasperated sigh of a man who had to demean himself to be understood. "A rest room."

"If you buy something first." She eyed him suspiciously from behind her bullet-proof plastic window.

"Charming. I'll have... This chocolate bar." He pulled out a card from his wallet.

The woman glared at him and pointed to a handwritten sign scrawled on loose leaf paper, then taped to the bullet proof plastic.

$5 OR MORE FOR CARD PURCHASES!!! NO EXCEPTIONS.

Oswin smiled sickly sweet at the woman, who must be thirty years his senior, and slid four more chocolates next to his first. She smiled in return, and finished the transaction. She slid a small brass key to him through the gap in her plastic protection. It had a large wooden spoon attached to it. The spoon had a smiling face drawn on it with markers.

"Door's over there," she motioned to a place between the shelf of crisps and the jugs of Mountain Dew.

"Many thanks," Oswin said, continuing his most insincere smile.

He opened the bathroom and gagged. He held his handkerchief over his mouth and nose. He didn't want to be in the wretched place any longer than he had to, so he climbed up onto the sink, pushed aside the foam ceiling tile and placed the briefcase inside. He pressed a red button on its side. The briefcase beeped once.

4:08 PM

He didn't bother to slide the ceiling back into place. This didn't seem like the kind of place that cared. Not judging by the orange... Substance inside the toilet.

Oswin scrubbed his hands in the sink. Of course the only soap to be found was a bottle in his own inventory. Likewise, he used his own towel brought from home.

Oswin exited the loo, then the store, leaving the sugary American chocolates on the counter. He checked his watch. Not long now.

A trio of young men in white undershirts approached Oswin. The oldest couldn't have been more than 13.

One of the youths spoke. "Yo, professor, you got cash for us hard up students?"

Oswin raised one dismissive eyebrow. "No."

The same young man questioned Oswin. "You fucking crazy, man. What you doing out here? You know where you is?"

"Let it go Wilt," said a younger looking boy. His hand alighted upon Wilt's shoulder, only to be petulantly swatted away.

"Nah, this guy's got money and I need money. Just call me Robin Hood."

Oswin raised an eyebrow. "You seem to be lacking the emerald garments and fletching."

The youth, Wilt, raised an fist, threateningly. "What you say to me, punk ass bitch?"

The youngest of boys finally spoke up. "Robin hood dresses in green and has a bow and arrow. He's not using the term fletching right because that only means the feathering on the arrow. So he's just some arrogant old guy trying to sound smart. Let's go, Wilt."

"Kareem, I told you to stop with that Dee and Dee shit!" Ralph reprimanded his younger ally.

"And mom told you to stop with the 90s gang banger shit," the middle boy bemoaned. "Nobody does that crap anymore. It's so cringe I want to yeet you though the window."

"Kobe, I don't know your dumb TikTok words!" Ralph bemoaned.

The three boys, clearly siblings, devolved into argument. Oswin, having been entertained by them, decided to be generous. "Boys, in fifteen, no, fourteen minutes, this location, and everything nearby, will be reduced to rubble and ash. If you run now, you may avoid instantaneous death."

4:10 PM

The three boys burst into laughter. Wilt, suddenly amenable, said, "dude, the monsters are up north. The Navy takes care a them. You're cool here."

Oswin considered saving the three boys. He considered it, but then remembered that soon the entire Americas would be taken by the eldritch, as should have always been. These boys would die today or a day later. There was no way for Oswin to give them mercy. Merely a stay of execution. And really, was that of any use?

"I shall take my leave, then." With that, Oswin pulled a delicate paintbrush from his pocket. He slashed the air next to him and a two meter tall oil painting of Pierce manor appeared in the air. Oswin stepped through, and as soon as he was gone the paint splashed down onto the concrete sidewalk.

The three boys, not for the first time, ran for their lives.

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