Day 6 – 3:00am
Brinsley walked through the door and into a tunnel, in one hand holding a stick with a bent paper clip stuck to the end, and in the other holding a rock on a string. As he walked, he kept the rock bouncing off the floor and walls in front of him to trigger any traps, while periodically scraping the paper clip across the wall. For some reason, the walls were constructed out of a peculiar alloy that could be made to resonate in a way that disrupted nearby electronics. Brinsley assumed it had been chosen because it could resist the acid in the lake, by why the inside of the tunnel was not padded by something was a mystery.
As he approached the security station his opinion of the security dropped a notch – there was only one guard, and he sat staring obliviously at computer monitors. The room was so well shielded that he hadn’t even heard the sound of the rock bouncing down the corridor. Brinsley continued his walking pace until he was right up to the window and waited. A few minutes later, the guard finally looked up from the monitors for a moment and nearly fell out of his chair in surprise, hitting the alarm button on his third attempt. A pair of minions burst out of the door, quickly enough that Brinsley assumed they had been about to go out on patrol, but they were not prepared for a warrior of his caliber.
“I’ve often heard it said that you shouldn’t bring a blade to gun fight” he said as he tumbled between them, cutting the chinstraps on both helmets as he went past. “Unfortunately for you that goes both ways.” As the guards spun around he grabbed the barrels of both guns and twisted, causing the two men to hit each others’ now-unprotected jaws. They both went down. “A rifle is not a close-combat weapon” he concluded as he spun in through the door.
The remaining guard at the security station, rifle still leaning against the wall, stared in terrified amazement and quickly complied when Brinsley pushed him out into the tunnel and locked the door. A quick check through the security system revealed that it was limited to this tunnel, as Brinsley had assumed. He was surprised, however, to note that the inside of the tower showed none of the artistic touches of the outside. Once past the walls the impression of dark stone was abandoned, replaced by a décor that resembled a cross between a luxury hotel and an office building – all light plaster walls and modern lighting.
Day 6 – 4:00am
Brinsley continued to walk through the corridors, expressing his professional distaste at the operation of the Tower of Doom. “There’s too much unused space, I’ve gone ten minutes now and not seen anyone. Everything in a building should have a purpose, all this empty space just uses up energy and cleaning staff, and gives infiltrators like me a place to hide. I’ve seen three different auditoriums and a whole variety of laboratories and workshops, but none of them are in use. They don’t even look abandoned, it’s like no one has moved in since they were built. The security is also atrocious – clearly whoever set up the external system had no input on the internal one. Whoever built this place clearly did not plan on anyone getting this far. I’d expect a trap, but it’s not even set up well enough for that. The architecture is all wrong for ambushes or cut-offs. I expect to find more activity as I go higher – at the very least there has to be a floor for all these guards to live on and a prison floor, and they’ll probably be next to each other.”
His suspicions where confirmed a short while later, and when he discovered that the prison floor was unguarded he decided to stop and take a look. “No guards again, in keeping with the running theme of heavy overkill with no follow-through. It’s like serving hundred-year-old wine as a lead in for a meal of dehydrated beans. The doors are state-of-art and nearly escape proof, but if anyone did manage to get out the only thing to stop them or even sound the alarm is a motion sensor at the hall entrance, and even that turns off with a single button from the other side.
“The really alarming thing is that there aren’t any prisoners either, which means that all of those abducted villagers are either dead or someplace else. I hope they’re alive, but I’d better not be dealing with a slave trader; I have trouble controlling my temper around them. Wait, here’s someone, way in the farthest back cell.”
Brinsley pressed the large red button marked ‘Open’ and was mildly disappointed when it, too, turned out not to be a trap. The sleeping man inside opened one eye, then abruptly sat upright.
“You’re not a guard” he said.
“Not last time I checked, no.” Brinsley responded. “Brinsley Sheridan – adventurer” he left off the traditional statement of rank that should have accompanied such an introduction.
“Not the Brinsley Sheridan?” the man exclaimed with a doubting stare.
“No, just a Brinsley Sheridan” Brinsley responded, and when the man seemed to accept this Brinsley was reassured that his decision to avoid an alias had been correct.
“I’m Laurie, archon 1st class.” That spoke volumes about his identity, Brinsley knew. Archon was another type of SENTINEL classification – while adventurers traveled the Planes looking for adventures (hence the name), archons were ordinary people who had acquired a travel license for their own personal activities. Most were entertainers, politicians, or merchants. The ‘1st class’ designation, rather than a measurement of skill as with adventures, indicated the limitations on cargo and guests that could be transported – 1st was the lowest. The fact that he had not given a last name meant that he didn’t want his identity known at this point.
“As for what’s going on” Laurie continued “I can tell you a fair amount, because I’ve been nearby since this whole thing started. Volere Darchon operates a very tidy operation. He’s done everything by the book – bought the land fair and square, even the villages. He pulled some shady business with ‘misdelivered’ eviction notices to give him the legal cover to start abducting people before they had a chance to move out, but he’s been careful to make sure that no one official can touch him. Here’s the funny thing, though: all the people he took were released shortly afterwards, just not back to their homes. He’s been taking families one person at a time and giving them free passage to any country on the continent, with the only condition being that they can’t tell anyone what happened or contact anyone still here for any reason. It’s like he wants to create the perfect image of an evil overlord without actually doing anything wrong. Assuming he keeps his promise, and I have no reason to suspect he doesn’t, the people that are sent out get a pretty luxurious set-up at their new location as compensation.
“There’s one other thing, though. You’re not the first adventurer to come through here. Five others just this week have been through, offered to rescue me, kept going up, and never returned. Since minions keep showing up to feed me, I can only assume that business is still going on as usual. Several of those adventurers seemed really competent, so I can be fairly sure that there’s some kind of really impressive trap up ahead. My theory is that this whole place is set up to attract and then capture or kill adventurers for some reason.”
Brinsley smiled, this was more like the kind of adventure he had been hoping for. “So why are you still here?” He asked.
“Well, I don’t entirely know. As soon as they saw my Archon ID they stuck me here by myself, and I haven’t gotten any of the cushy offers everyone else took. I didn’t go with any of the adventurers who stopped by because the first two didn’t offer and after that I knew better. I think I’ve got an escape plan figured out, but I don’t want to risk it without a distraction. And, I’d like to become an adventurer, so I keep hoping one these times somebody will make it back from going upstairs.”
“Well Sir Laurie,” Brinsley noticed a slight wince at ‘sir’ and filed the information away for later “I am that somebody, and you are quite welcome to go adventuring with me. I will return shortly. Do you want the door left open?”
“Closed is fine, if it’s open the guards ask questions when they bring dinner. Good luck Brinsley, many others have said the same, but I hope you’ll be different.”
Brinsley got the impression that Laurie had said that before, but he appreciated the sentiment. He tipped his hat to Laurie, and spun out of the room with a dramatic flourish. Humming under his breath, he returned to the stairway and set off upwards towards the promise of greater excitement.