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Description
Chapter 3
Borken surveyed a scene of absolute carnage. He had to stop driving through the canyon when the bodies became too numerous to avoid driving over them. Crows and vultures squared everywhere and flew up in great waves as he approached them. The stench of. burned fuel and flesh hung heavy in the air. It's sickly odour stuck in his nostrils and throat. Tools, he needed tools. Borken could see a donor vehicle overturned a few hundred metres away, but he would need a chunky spanner to change the wheels. One of the APC's would have a kit, he was sure. The sauren made his way over to a vehicle that looked relatively untouched by the violence.
He stopped, he has stepped in something soft and smiley. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth. With a feeling of infinite dread he looked down and opened his eyes. He had stood in the endtrails of a young gnoll. It looked as though she had been almost torn in two. A feeling of cold horror spilled down his spine as he thought he saw the head turn slightly to face him.
"shhsssss..."
It was more an expulsion of air than a word. But for a terrible moment Borken swore he saw a sorrowful glint of life in her eyes before they glazed over in a stare only the dead can make.
He ran to the vehicle he had spied out, keeled over and vomited and cried in big, heaving sobs.
"Come on Borken. Pull yourself together. You've seen death before. Just never in such a large amount. " He took a few moments to compose himself.
"Ok, ok. Just get inside and have a look about."
Borken staggered upright, pulling himself up on the frame of the APC. He braced for a couple of seconds, waiting for his stomach to settle. Then he went inside and began to search.

Within the hour he had fitted out two new wheels and attached a spare couple to the back. He had also filled a satchel with equipment and another bag with food, water and medical supplies. A few boxes of ammunition and a couple of guns had been taken too.
Borken took a final long look back over the battlefield and final resting place of so many young lives. A gust of cool wind blew and he shivered. It fluttered the clothing and rustled the fur of the fallen gnolls. There was a screech and metallic clang as a door rocking on its hinges was slammed shut causing a cacophony of startled birds to flood the otherwise quiet canyon and echo off of the walls for a good time after.
He loaded in the last of the spare fuel drums he had collected and jumped into the buggy, swinging it into reverse and driving out of there. Before he left he thought he saw the slumped body of Juno, but I couldn't be sure; the birds had been pecking too much.
It wasn't until he was out of the dreaded canyon again that he finally began to relax and a new feeling of annoyance and anger and guilt spread through him. They did this. They took apart the convoy and killed all those people just get him and his artefact. His artefact that he had spent months researching and days scrambling in and around a derelict and half-collapsed underground facility to get. He wasn't going to give it up now.
"Right then Mr Brown-Suited-Man. I am going to get my thingy back." He thought, before quickly pondering about how the hell he was going to track him down and somehow get around all the thugs he no doubt had backing him up. He traced his tracks out into the open plains until he found where they stopped and others lead off in a perpendicular path.
"Ok, let's see where you went you slimy bastard."
He swung the buggy around and began driving down the trail left by the other tracks.
The path they made seemed to be curving around and up the back of the cliffs that made up one side of the gorge. Something told him to stop now and take a look. He turned off the engine and took out a scope from a sniper rifle. He didn't bother taking the rest of the rifle as his aim was not steady at all. His left hand twitched occasional- the result of an injury he sustained a few years ago.
He trained the scope up to the top of the rise and looked through it with one yellow, reptilian eye. Up on the plateau at the top he spied a couple of men in similar garb to those that had attacked last night. Now, would not be a good time to go an investigation. Better to hide until it gets dark and sneak in then.

He recalled the dark, dusty and menacing corridors or the Dagger Falls Research Facility. It was a major challenge to find the place, let alone a way in. The Dagger Falls basin was an area of several thousand square miles of sweltering rain forest. Borken spent a week traipsing through steaming swamps, solid forest undergrowth and across muddy streams and rivers. But by using the remaining GPS satellites on a battered receiver unit. The humidity was not kind to it and he did spend two days travelling back the way he had come before he realised.
The facility was well hidden. the main entrance, disguised as a mine shaft entrance had all but collapsed. The only other path in would be through one of the maintenance ducts that let air in and out. A half days extra travel lead him up the side of a precarious cliff to reach an air unit that was practically overgrown and invisible. Some collapsed metal work was the only sign of human activity in the area. His compact burner made short work of the vent covers and he secured a rope and harness before climbing down the slippery and corroded ladder. The duct thankfully ended in a distribution area big enough to stand up in, though there were a few inches of stagnant water at the bottom. He cut through one side and stepped out into what must have been a maintenance area.
Water had penetrated down here and small stalactites of slime hung from the ceiling. The light was dim from only a few functional lights that were covered in grime. The facility was run from a small nuclear reactor somewhere in the bowls of the mountain. The reactor was an automated affair and would have enough juice to run for a few hundred years, at least if nothing dramatic had happened to it. The place was silent but for the constant dripping of water and continual low level groaning and whining like from a stricken submarine as the framework shifted subtly with the million tonnes of permanently damp rock and earth around it. Even though his reptilian eyes were quite at home in the low light conditions of this place he turned his head lamp on anyway because looking at any of the light sources or the areas around them would have ruined his night vision.
He got out his tablet and studied the maps of the place, trying to find where he was. Not too far down he guessed. Then he found it. Level 4 air cycling facility. He wasn't sure where the artefact would be exactly, but a thing like that would have to be stored in a pretty top secret place. Technically the whole place and everything in it was top secret and classified but he needed the most protected area. This was located at nearly the deepest part of the facility, some 15 levels down from where he was.
Although Borken knew what he wanted and he usually did when he went in runs like this, it paid to take his time and nose around because there was no telling what treasures he might find. Though there was always the danger that something might find him. He plugged in the Geiger counter and air toxicity analyser to his chunky tablet that hung at his side. Another plug then went in and to a mono speaker headset. A few beeps came through registering the equipment coming online. They each issued their own tone which conveyed important information to Borken. He stalked the dripping dank corridors and rooms. It looked like an ordinary office set up, except for the absence of windows. There wasn't that much to look out at this far underground. His tablet even picked up a wireless network signal. It was weak but somewhat stable. There was no point trying to connect to it now, the security was probably too strong. He would try later when he made camp.
After a few hours of looking, diverting around collapsed stairwells and diverting around those diversion he managed to locate a server room that was dry enough for the equipment to still be on and functional. A few drips had landed on some of the server stacks rendering them cold, dark and covered with a green slime that seemed to grow on every damp surface.
This would be a good a place as any to set up a base camp from. He set down his back pack and produced a few more pieces of equipment. One used to test some of the electrical outlets that seemed free from damp. Once a working set were found he plugged in a laptop and a large antenna array. A cable was also plugged into one of the switches in a server stack with many other cables emerging. A quarter of an hour later he was hooked up into the network and ten more minutes gave him access to the outside world.
He updated his online log with progress and a few pictures taken from his compact digital camera and then set to work decrypting the wireless network access code and searching the systems he could access to clues for the work done at the facility and any other interesting data. The outside connection was surprisingly strong. But then again, this would have been a critical facility and redundancy would be key. It would be hard to isolate the place. He made use of this by uploading all useful data to his personal cache back in his lab. Later he secured the room, ate a modest meal of dried meat and fruits and went to sleep on a rolled up mat.
The next day was spent in much the same way; scouring the building, exploring huge halls and auditoriums, labyrinths of maintenance sectors and offices. He climbed defunct lift shafts and carefully explored server rooms and labs. The hulking forms of odd experimental machines and half-collapsed steelwork formed huge, eerie and silent forms that lurked out of the darkness. The corridors twisted and turned on for miles. He passed the wide, humming mass of the reactor. It had a hall all to itself which encased a rounded steel dome, gantry cranes and control rooms. The generators were housed in another hall too. Most still running and turning with great speed causing a constant and disconcerting rumble in the floor and walls. His Geiger counter picked off a few more rads than normal down here but it was all within acceptable limits.
Finally he reached the lowest levels. The ones with the highest security, and by the looks of i, the least damaged by damp and age. After prising open a door almost half a foot think he was presented with white, sterile corridors. The lighting was intense as well, almost blinding. This lead to a large entrance hall and several surprises.
"PERSONEL DETECTED IN RESTRICTED AREA. THIS AREA IS IN A LOCK DOWN PROCEDURE. LEAVE NOW AND REPORT TO YOUR SECTION HEAD FOR DEBRIEFING. NON-COMPLIENCE WILL RESULT IN LEITHAL ACTIONS BEING TAKEN. LEAVE NOW AND REPORT TO YOUR SECTION HEAD FOR DEBREIFING."
There voice was loud, forceful and pre-recorded. Borken became immediately terrified. He had seen such protection mechanisms before but usually in bad states of disrepair. The one functioning one he had seen opened doors for armed guards to pass through. Only a skeleton had fallen out. There was no doubt in his mind that the defences here would be fully working at top efficiency.
"THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING. LOCKDOWN ENFORCEMENT PROCEDURES WILL BE DEPLOYED IN 10 SECONDS."
The voice thundered, echoing around the large hall. Borken could already see discrete tiles on the ceiling shifting. He dived behind a pillar as the voice began its inevitable countdown. The sound of whirring motors and ominous metallic clicks became louder as large automated gun systems emerged from those shifting tiles.
With a scramble for life and limb he unhooked his tablet and brought up a few terminal windows and the keyboard. He had given himself full administrator rights to the system, using one of the functioning mainframe systems to crack the administrator's password file while he slept. He needed to search out the correct interface and commands used to control this automated defence system. He looked through the command list. There were many systems like this located throughout the facility and they each had their own access system. They all had meaningless codes for names too. This was going to have to be a brute force attempt.
The first two systems were examined very slowly as the sauren tried searching out identifying information to find out what they were.
On the 3rd system he stumbled across a video feed. Ah hah! He only needed to check the video feeds to check for the system he had activated.
"TWO… ONE"
There was a sudden increase in the motor whines as they sped up, then all hell broke loose. The concrete of the column he was hidden behind exploded as bullets were slammed into it from multiple sources.
"Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods" He cried as plaster and concrete splinters rained down on him. The chatter of the guns and whistling of the bullets were almost deafening. He had picked up the pace considerably now. He calculated he had about 30 seconds before the column gave in and riddled his body with about 45 pounds of lead, which didn't leave much room for those bits considered vital for continued life.
He worked down the list in a fever.
"Come on, come on, come on" He muttered in a kind of mantra as if begging the gods of computer processing and network transmission to lend him a gift of extra speed in this dire situation.
Then he found it. Just over half way down the list. The image he pulled up was of three guns training their considerable firepower on an alarmingly small section of concrete. With terror threatening to overtake him he ran the little password cracker on the defence system. There was nothing he could do while he waited for it to complete its progress and there wasn't even a guarantee that it could do it. The little progress bar drifted across the screen at a leisurely rate as if it had all the time in the world. Borken slid further down the column, feeling the chilling sensation of a slug flying inches over his head and embedding itself 3 inches into the concrete of the wall opposite.
Finally he was in! He quickly navigated the awkward menu system and found the override controls. The guns rattled to a sudden silence. Broken plaster and concrete continued to clatter on the tiled floor and the ring of discarded brass casings continued for a few more seconds and then there was silence. Hard, deafening silence. He looked around the interface more, ensuring it was entirely shut down and reset the turrets back into the ceiling.
Borken stood up, covered in concrete dust and shaking. He leant against the wall and tried to calm his breathing. He looked at the remains of the column. It was paper thin and a tentative kick sent it crumbing to dust.
He then sat himself on the reception desk in the centre of the hall and began going through each and every security system he could find and shutting each one off. It took the best part of an hour but he was relatively secure in the knowledge that sudden automated death would not wait for him in the rest of the facility. Despite this Borken was still rather shaken by the encounter and didn't want to hang about this area more than necessary. I abandoned his plans to search the place as thoroughly as the rest of the floors and instead try to proceed as directly as possible to the artefact that brought him here.
The network in this area was mostly separate from the rest and so he had to break in again to find clues as to the location of the object. Sector 7B was apparently where the lab was. The door mechanisms mostly worked here. He hardly had to resort to his burner. The destination lab was a large round room. There were many decaying remains of plant and animal specimens arranged around it. Eire light played across the room as lights shone through a fish tank. Its residents skeletal and half buried at the bottom. He couldn't make out the ceiling of the room, it was lost in darkness. Large cables and pipes draped down to a large central column. Mysterious gauges and lights blinked around the column and the control panels arranged around the outside of the room. A small panel glowed around the edges in the dim light.
Very cautiously Borken crept up to the central column of machine and computer equipment. He looked at the panel. There was a small handle on the side. He reached for it and pulled, and dashed back. The panel hissed and a cloud of cold air billowed forth. Yellow-green light spilled out and lit up one half of the room. The panel lifted to reveal a cavity. And inside that cavity was a somewhat round and very technical looking machine. Its surface was shiny but jet black and made up of many small tiles. A thick ring of bare metal ran around the orbs equator . There was a slight projection on the bottom where it was connected to the rest of the gear. Once again Borken crept forward. The machine looked malevolent, dark, sinister. Small crackles of blue sparks broke over its surface. Another monitoring device of Borken's started to beep frantically and even more so the closer he got. This sensor didn't measure for any of the normal dangers one could face when exploring underground ruins. It was very expensive, more than any of the other equipment he had put together and had been a real pain to get hold of considering the elves weren't exporting the vital components for these devices any more. What it detected was the presence of magic. And there was a lot of it around this device.
As he watched the device rotated and raised itself slightly out of the cavity. The huge cable joining it at the base was pulled away and it was held out by the machine, waiting for it to be taken. This was a potentially very dangerous operation so He pulled on some fairly chunky gloves, snapped some goggles over his eyes and pulled a sack from his pack, made of the same odd material as the gloves. It seemed to shine like an oil spill on water, though it had the texture of a metallic burlap. This was Arcord- or arcane cord. A special material prized for its magic insulation properties. Very carefully he slipped the sack over the proffered ball and picked it up. He then pulled the cords on the sack and tied them up. It seemed so light. Surprisingly light considering the amount of technology and computing power that was crammed inside the little ball. But then again it did make heavy use of magic too. Almost anything was possible with that stuff. Which was as much a curse as it was a blessing. More so if you didn't fully understand what you were doing. Without apparent ceremony Borken slipped the bag into his backpack, took off the gloves and goggles and proceeded out of the facility.

The heat was stifling, even in the shade. Borken lay under a makeshift tent next to the buggy. He lay hidden I behind a sand dune, out of view of the bandit camp. A technical manual lay open on top of him as he dozed. It was a boring read and covered such areas as engine maintenance, oil changes and spark plug inspection. It was the only thing to read and Borken had already read it twice.
He was startled several times as gangs of vehicles came hammering down the slope and off into the distance. Some even came near his hiding place but through one way or another he remained undetected.
Eventually nightfall came. Flickering light spilled out over the edges of the cliff as with the distant sounds of music. It was time, Borken had no idea what he was going to do but it would be done with extreme alacrity whatever it was. He climbed into the buggy, started the engine and drove off.
As he approached the camp he could see that there was a second overhang of rock just above it, not visible from the ground. It cast a large area in darkness too. With careful manoeuvring he managed to drive up the incline and park up behind the overhang without anyone noticing him. He then proceeded to climb to the higher ground and then crawl on his front to peek over the edge. There were far fewer bandits up here than he saw before. They had been leaving in their gangs after getting their payment. What was left seemed to be the core gang of the ringleader of whatever had happened. There were by the looks of it 40 or so individuals decked out in armoured vests and overly large weapons. He saw a number of figures apparently chained up in the darkness beyond the area lit by the camp fires and artificial lights. The apparent leader was taking aside a figure that was revealed to be the man that had stolen his bag earlier that day. They were coming towards him, shifting into the darkness and relative privacy provided by the overhang he was hiding on.
Borken craned out his neck to listen intently to what was being said.
"I should take this wretched thing to the elf as soon as possible. He said I should get to the Dawning Star. I don't like that place. It's too big and there are too many places to hide. That's why you are coming with me."
"The Dawning Star..." Borken thought to himself, "It's no wonder you want protection, that place is creepy."
"We'll leave in the morning while my right-had man, Mug is organising this rabble. I don't want a breath of this reaching the men." The leader figure growled.
"You don't need to tell me King. But why would he want to meet in that forsaken place?" asked the other.
""King! King of the wastes?" Borken thought, alarmed. If he was involved with him in a fight he had been lucky to escape with his life. What the hell was he still doing here no?
"I suspect he wants to make sure I come with as few people as possible Mr Brown. We have a few NBC suites but not enough for any sizable force. " King sighed and took a long drag on a cigar, expelling the smoke in a big cloud.
Taken by complete surprise Borken ended up inhaling a breath of stinging smoke and coughing hard. The two men looked up. Mr Brown dashed around the side of the rock and climbed up. Borken suddenly felt himself lifted off the floor and held by his neck over the edge of the overhang.
"It's you again isn't it? Do you have a death wish, lizard?" Mr Brown snarled
"N-no" was all Borken could choke out. The man's large hand was restricting his airway significantly.
"Who is it?" Asked King from bellow.
"It's that lizard that had the artefact. I should have killed him when I had the chance." Mr Brown spoke back, his loud voice booming in Borken's ears. The man reached down and took out an elegant looking pistol and aimed it at his head. Borken closed his eyes and waited for the end to arrive.
"Wait!" King yelled, "He's a scientist right? That's what his papers said. Could be a decent ransom for him. Put him with the others."
Mr Brown looked disgustedly at Borken who was grinning with the relief of not being killed but with the nervous edge that he was not going free. He was dropped and landed hard on the ground below, stunned. King called a couple of men the size of horses and he was picked up bodily by each arm. He tried to make an attempt at walking with them but he felt a stab of pain from his left ankle and resigned himself to being dragged. Borken was vaguely aware of chains being attached around his wrists when he was sat down. He looked around and saw eyes staring at him.

Description
Chapter 3
Borken surveyed a scene of absolute carnage. He had to stop driving through the canyon when the bodies became too numerous to avoid driving over them. Crows and vultures squared everywhere and flew up in great waves as he approached them. The stench of. burned fuel and flesh hung heavy in the air. It's sickly odour stuck in his nostrils and throat. Tools, he needed tools. Borken could see a donor vehicle overturned a few hundred metres away, but he would need a chunky spanner to change the wheels. One of the APC's would have a kit, he was sure. The sauren made his way over to a vehicle that looked relatively untouched by the violence.
He stopped, he has stepped in something soft and smiley. He closed his eyes and grit his teeth. With a feeling of infinite dread he looked down and opened his eyes. He had stood in the endtrails of a young gnoll. It looked as though she had been almost torn in two. A feeling of cold horror spilled down his spine as he thought he saw the head turn slightly to face him.
"shhsssss..."
It was more an expulsion of air than a word. But for a terrible moment Borken swore he saw a sorrowful glint of life in her eyes before they glazed over in a stare only the dead can make.
He ran to the vehicle he had spied out, keeled over and vomited and cried in big, heaving sobs.
"Come on Borken. Pull yourself together. You've seen death before. Just never in such a large amount. " He took a few moments to compose himself.
"Ok, ok. Just get inside and have a look about."
Borken staggered upright, pulling himself up on the frame of the APC. He braced for a couple of seconds, waiting for his stomach to settle. Then he went inside and began to search.

Within the hour he had fitted out two new wheels and attached a spare couple to the back. He had also filled a satchel with equipment and another bag with food, water and medical supplies. A few boxes of ammunition and a couple of guns had been taken too.
Borken took a final long look back over the battlefield and final resting place of so many young lives. A gust of cool wind blew and he shivered. It fluttered the clothing and rustled the fur of the fallen gnolls. There was a screech and metallic clang as a door rocking on its hinges was slammed shut causing a cacophony of startled birds to flood the otherwise quiet canyon and echo off of the walls for a good time after.
He loaded in the last of the spare fuel drums he had collected and jumped into the buggy, swinging it into reverse and driving out of there. Before he left he thought he saw the slumped body of Juno, but I couldn't be sure; the birds had been pecking too much.
It wasn't until he was out of the dreaded canyon again that he finally began to relax and a new feeling of annoyance and anger and guilt spread through him. They did this. They took apart the convoy and killed all those people just get him and his artefact. His artefact that he had spent months researching and days scrambling in and around a derelict and half-collapsed underground facility to get. He wasn't going to give it up now.
"Right then Mr Brown-Suited-Man. I am going to get my thingy back." He thought, before quickly pondering about how the hell he was going to track him down and somehow get around all the thugs he no doubt had backing him up. He traced his tracks out into the open plains until he found where they stopped and others lead off in a perpendicular path.
"Ok, let's see where you went you slimy bastard."
He swung the buggy around and began driving down the trail left by the other tracks.
The path they made seemed to be curving around and up the back of the cliffs that made up one side of the gorge. Something told him to stop now and take a look. He turned off the engine and took out a scope from a sniper rifle. He didn't bother taking the rest of the rifle as his aim was not steady at all. His left hand twitched occasional- the result of an injury he sustained a few years ago.
He trained the scope up to the top of the rise and looked through it with one yellow, reptilian eye. Up on the plateau at the top he spied a couple of men in similar garb to those that had attacked last night. Now, would not be a good time to go an investigation. Better to hide until it gets dark and sneak in then.

He recalled the dark, dusty and menacing corridors or the Dagger Falls Research Facility. It was a major challenge to find the place, let alone a way in. The Dagger Falls basin was an area of several thousand square miles of sweltering rain forest. Borken spent a week traipsing through steaming swamps, solid forest undergrowth and across muddy streams and rivers. But by using the remaining GPS satellites on a battered receiver unit. The humidity was not kind to it and he did spend two days travelling back the way he had come before he realised.
The facility was well hidden. the main entrance, disguised as a mine shaft entrance had all but collapsed. The only other path in would be through one of the maintenance ducts that let air in and out. A half days extra travel lead him up the side of a precarious cliff to reach an air unit that was practically overgrown and invisible. Some collapsed metal work was the only sign of human activity in the area. His compact burner made short work of the vent covers and he secured a rope and harness before climbing down the slippery and corroded ladder. The duct thankfully ended in a distribution area big enough to stand up in, though there were a few inches of stagnant water at the bottom. He cut through one side and stepped out into what must have been a maintenance area.
Water had penetrated down here and small stalactites of slime hung from the ceiling. The light was dim from only a few functional lights that were covered in grime. The facility was run from a small nuclear reactor somewhere in the bowls of the mountain. The reactor was an automated affair and would have enough juice to run for a few hundred years, at least if nothing dramatic had happened to it. The place was silent but for the constant dripping of water and continual low level groaning and whining like from a stricken submarine as the framework shifted subtly with the million tonnes of permanently damp rock and earth around it. Even though his reptilian eyes were quite at home in the low light conditions of this place he turned his head lamp on anyway because looking at any of the light sources or the areas around them would have ruined his night vision.
He got out his tablet and studied the maps of the place, trying to find where he was. Not too far down he guessed. Then he found it. Level 4 air cycling facility. He wasn't sure where the artefact would be exactly, but a thing like that would have to be stored in a pretty top secret place. Technically the whole place and everything in it was top secret and classified but he needed the most protected area. This was located at nearly the deepest part of the facility, some 15 levels down from where he was.
Although Borken knew what he wanted and he usually did when he went in runs like this, it paid to take his time and nose around because there was no telling what treasures he might find. Though there was always the danger that something might find him. He plugged in the Geiger counter and air toxicity analyser to his chunky tablet that hung at his side. Another plug then went in and to a mono speaker headset. A few beeps came through registering the equipment coming online. They each issued their own tone which conveyed important information to Borken. He stalked the dripping dank corridors and rooms. It looked like an ordinary office set up, except for the absence of windows. There wasn't that much to look out at this far underground. His tablet even picked up a wireless network signal. It was weak but somewhat stable. There was no point trying to connect to it now, the security was probably too strong. He would try later when he made camp.
After a few hours of looking, diverting around collapsed stairwells and diverting around those diversion he managed to locate a server room that was dry enough for the equipment to still be on and functional. A few drips had landed on some of the server stacks rendering them cold, dark and covered with a green slime that seemed to grow on every damp surface.
This would be a good a place as any to set up a base camp from. He set down his back pack and produced a few more pieces of equipment. One used to test some of the electrical outlets that seemed free from damp. Once a working set were found he plugged in a laptop and a large antenna array. A cable was also plugged into one of the switches in a server stack with many other cables emerging. A quarter of an hour later he was hooked up into the network and ten more minutes gave him access to the outside world.
He updated his online log with progress and a few pictures taken from his compact digital camera and then set to work decrypting the wireless network access code and searching the systems he could access to clues for the work done at the facility and any other interesting data. The outside connection was surprisingly strong. But then again, this would have been a critical facility and redundancy would be key. It would be hard to isolate the place. He made use of this by uploading all useful data to his personal cache back in his lab. Later he secured the room, ate a modest meal of dried meat and fruits and went to sleep on a rolled up mat.
The next day was spent in much the same way; scouring the building, exploring huge halls and auditoriums, labyrinths of maintenance sectors and offices. He climbed defunct lift shafts and carefully explored server rooms and labs. The hulking forms of odd experimental machines and half-collapsed steelwork formed huge, eerie and silent forms that lurked out of the darkness. The corridors twisted and turned on for miles. He passed the wide, humming mass of the reactor. It had a hall all to itself which encased a rounded steel dome, gantry cranes and control rooms. The generators were housed in another hall too. Most still running and turning with great speed causing a constant and disconcerting rumble in the floor and walls. His Geiger counter picked off a few more rads than normal down here but it was all within acceptable limits.
Finally he reached the lowest levels. The ones with the highest security, and by the looks of i, the least damaged by damp and age. After prising open a door almost half a foot think he was presented with white, sterile corridors. The lighting was intense as well, almost blinding. This lead to a large entrance hall and several surprises.
"PERSONEL DETECTED IN RESTRICTED AREA. THIS AREA IS IN A LOCK DOWN PROCEDURE. LEAVE NOW AND REPORT TO YOUR SECTION HEAD FOR DEBRIEFING. NON-COMPLIENCE WILL RESULT IN LEITHAL ACTIONS BEING TAKEN. LEAVE NOW AND REPORT TO YOUR SECTION HEAD FOR DEBREIFING."
There voice was loud, forceful and pre-recorded. Borken became immediately terrified. He had seen such protection mechanisms before but usually in bad states of disrepair. The one functioning one he had seen opened doors for armed guards to pass through. Only a skeleton had fallen out. There was no doubt in his mind that the defences here would be fully working at top efficiency.
"THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING. LOCKDOWN ENFORCEMENT PROCEDURES WILL BE DEPLOYED IN 10 SECONDS."
The voice thundered, echoing around the large hall. Borken could already see discrete tiles on the ceiling shifting. He dived behind a pillar as the voice began its inevitable countdown. The sound of whirring motors and ominous metallic clicks became louder as large automated gun systems emerged from those shifting tiles.
With a scramble for life and limb he unhooked his tablet and brought up a few terminal windows and the keyboard. He had given himself full administrator rights to the system, using one of the functioning mainframe systems to crack the administrator's password file while he slept. He needed to search out the correct interface and commands used to control this automated defence system. He looked through the command list. There were many systems like this located throughout the facility and they each had their own access system. They all had meaningless codes for names too. This was going to have to be a brute force attempt.
The first two systems were examined very slowly as the sauren tried searching out identifying information to find out what they were.
On the 3rd system he stumbled across a video feed. Ah hah! He only needed to check the video feeds to check for the system he had activated.
"TWO… ONE"
There was a sudden increase in the motor whines as they sped up, then all hell broke loose. The concrete of the column he was hidden behind exploded as bullets were slammed into it from multiple sources.
"Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods" He cried as plaster and concrete splinters rained down on him. The chatter of the guns and whistling of the bullets were almost deafening. He had picked up the pace considerably now. He calculated he had about 30 seconds before the column gave in and riddled his body with about 45 pounds of lead, which didn't leave much room for those bits considered vital for continued life.
He worked down the list in a fever.
"Come on, come on, come on" He muttered in a kind of mantra as if begging the gods of computer processing and network transmission to lend him a gift of extra speed in this dire situation.
Then he found it. Just over half way down the list. The image he pulled up was of three guns training their considerable firepower on an alarmingly small section of concrete. With terror threatening to overtake him he ran the little password cracker on the defence system. There was nothing he could do while he waited for it to complete its progress and there wasn't even a guarantee that it could do it. The little progress bar drifted across the screen at a leisurely rate as if it had all the time in the world. Borken slid further down the column, feeling the chilling sensation of a slug flying inches over his head and embedding itself 3 inches into the concrete of the wall opposite.
Finally he was in! He quickly navigated the awkward menu system and found the override controls. The guns rattled to a sudden silence. Broken plaster and concrete continued to clatter on the tiled floor and the ring of discarded brass casings continued for a few more seconds and then there was silence. Hard, deafening silence. He looked around the interface more, ensuring it was entirely shut down and reset the turrets back into the ceiling.
Borken stood up, covered in concrete dust and shaking. He leant against the wall and tried to calm his breathing. He looked at the remains of the column. It was paper thin and a tentative kick sent it crumbing to dust.
He then sat himself on the reception desk in the centre of the hall and began going through each and every security system he could find and shutting each one off. It took the best part of an hour but he was relatively secure in the knowledge that sudden automated death would not wait for him in the rest of the facility. Despite this Borken was still rather shaken by the encounter and didn't want to hang about this area more than necessary. I abandoned his plans to search the place as thoroughly as the rest of the floors and instead try to proceed as directly as possible to the artefact that brought him here.
The network in this area was mostly separate from the rest and so he had to break in again to find clues as to the location of the object. Sector 7B was apparently where the lab was. The door mechanisms mostly worked here. He hardly had to resort to his burner. The destination lab was a large round room. There were many decaying remains of plant and animal specimens arranged around it. Eire light played across the room as lights shone through a fish tank. Its residents skeletal and half buried at the bottom. He couldn't make out the ceiling of the room, it was lost in darkness. Large cables and pipes draped down to a large central column. Mysterious gauges and lights blinked around the column and the control panels arranged around the outside of the room. A small panel glowed around the edges in the dim light.
Very cautiously Borken crept up to the central column of machine and computer equipment. He looked at the panel. There was a small handle on the side. He reached for it and pulled, and dashed back. The panel hissed and a cloud of cold air billowed forth. Yellow-green light spilled out and lit up one half of the room. The panel lifted to reveal a cavity. And inside that cavity was a somewhat round and very technical looking machine. Its surface was shiny but jet black and made up of many small tiles. A thick ring of bare metal ran around the orbs equator . There was a slight projection on the bottom where it was connected to the rest of the gear. Once again Borken crept forward. The machine looked malevolent, dark, sinister. Small crackles of blue sparks broke over its surface. Another monitoring device of Borken's started to beep frantically and even more so the closer he got. This sensor didn't measure for any of the normal dangers one could face when exploring underground ruins. It was very expensive, more than any of the other equipment he had put together and had been a real pain to get hold of considering the elves weren't exporting the vital components for these devices any more. What it detected was the presence of magic. And there was a lot of it around this device.
As he watched the device rotated and raised itself slightly out of the cavity. The huge cable joining it at the base was pulled away and it was held out by the machine, waiting for it to be taken. This was a potentially very dangerous operation so He pulled on some fairly chunky gloves, snapped some goggles over his eyes and pulled a sack from his pack, made of the same odd material as the gloves. It seemed to shine like an oil spill on water, though it had the texture of a metallic burlap. This was Arcord- or arcane cord. A special material prized for its magic insulation properties. Very carefully he slipped the sack over the proffered ball and picked it up. He then pulled the cords on the sack and tied them up. It seemed so light. Surprisingly light considering the amount of technology and computing power that was crammed inside the little ball. But then again it did make heavy use of magic too. Almost anything was possible with that stuff. Which was as much a curse as it was a blessing. More so if you didn't fully understand what you were doing. Without apparent ceremony Borken slipped the bag into his backpack, took off the gloves and goggles and proceeded out of the facility.

The heat was stifling, even in the shade. Borken lay under a makeshift tent next to the buggy. He lay hidden I behind a sand dune, out of view of the bandit camp. A technical manual lay open on top of him as he dozed. It was a boring read and covered such areas as engine maintenance, oil changes and spark plug inspection. It was the only thing to read and Borken had already read it twice.
He was startled several times as gangs of vehicles came hammering down the slope and off into the distance. Some even came near his hiding place but through one way or another he remained undetected.
Eventually nightfall came. Flickering light spilled out over the edges of the cliff as with the distant sounds of music. It was time, Borken had no idea what he was going to do but it would be done with extreme alacrity whatever it was. He climbed into the buggy, started the engine and drove off.
As he approached the camp he could see that there was a second overhang of rock just above it, not visible from the ground. It cast a large area in darkness too. With careful manoeuvring he managed to drive up the incline and park up behind the overhang without anyone noticing him. He then proceeded to climb to the higher ground and then crawl on his front to peek over the edge. There were far fewer bandits up here than he saw before. They had been leaving in their gangs after getting their payment. What was left seemed to be the core gang of the ringleader of whatever had happened. There were by the looks of it 40 or so individuals decked out in armoured vests and overly large weapons. He saw a number of figures apparently chained up in the darkness beyond the area lit by the camp fires and artificial lights. The apparent leader was taking aside a figure that was revealed to be the man that had stolen his bag earlier that day. They were coming towards him, shifting into the darkness and relative privacy provided by the overhang he was hiding on.
Borken craned out his neck to listen intently to what was being said.
"I should take this wretched thing to the elf as soon as possible. He said I should get to the Dawning Star. I don't like that place. It's too big and there are too many places to hide. That's why you are coming with me."
"The Dawning Star..." Borken thought to himself, "It's no wonder you want protection, that place is creepy."
"We'll leave in the morning while my right-had man, Mug is organising this rabble. I don't want a breath of this reaching the men." The leader figure growled.
"You don't need to tell me King. But why would he want to meet in that forsaken place?" asked the other.
""King! King of the wastes?" Borken thought, alarmed. If he was involved with him in a fight he had been lucky to escape with his life. What the hell was he still doing here no?
"I suspect he wants to make sure I come with as few people as possible Mr Brown. We have a few NBC suites but not enough for any sizable force. " King sighed and took a long drag on a cigar, expelling the smoke in a big cloud.
Taken by complete surprise Borken ended up inhaling a breath of stinging smoke and coughing hard. The two men looked up. Mr Brown dashed around the side of the rock and climbed up. Borken suddenly felt himself lifted off the floor and held by his neck over the edge of the overhang.
"It's you again isn't it? Do you have a death wish, lizard?" Mr Brown snarled
"N-no" was all Borken could choke out. The man's large hand was restricting his airway significantly.
"Who is it?" Asked King from bellow.
"It's that lizard that had the artefact. I should have killed him when I had the chance." Mr Brown spoke back, his loud voice booming in Borken's ears. The man reached down and took out an elegant looking pistol and aimed it at his head. Borken closed his eyes and waited for the end to arrive.
"Wait!" King yelled, "He's a scientist right? That's what his papers said. Could be a decent ransom for him. Put him with the others."
Mr Brown looked disgustedly at Borken who was grinning with the relief of not being killed but with the nervous edge that he was not going free. He was dropped and landed hard on the ground below, stunned. King called a couple of men the size of horses and he was picked up bodily by each arm. He tried to make an attempt at walking with them but he felt a stab of pain from his left ankle and resigned himself to being dragged. Borken was vaguely aware of chains being attached around his wrists when he was sat down. He looked around and saw eyes staring at him.