The Original Beefcake

It was a clouded night and gusts of wind moved over the small island in northern Scotland. It was a quiet night, but foremost it was a damn boring night. Thomas yawned and stretched his muscles. This posting was generally not bad at all. Protecting the portal to the ginghi was important, and over the day there was always something going on. People and products moving through the portal, even the Titan showing up a few times, but at night it was just deadly boring.

Thomas sighed and started his next patrol, when he saw unexpected movement at the portal. A person had stepped through and now stood a few meters away from it. From the looks of it, she was a tall, slender woman, but her features were hidden beneath a long, hooded, royal blue cloak. Far more visible was the beautifully crafted spear with a silver tip that she held in her right hand.

"Identify yourself!" Thomas shouted, and his Soul Weapon emerged without any effort. He walked closer to her and several of the other guards were closing in, too. The woman dropped her hood and revealed an attractive green face with short dark hair. "My apologies ambassador!" Thomas said on the spot, and gave a signal to the rest of his team to calm down. "We weren't informed you were coming," Thomas said and the woman smiled. "That is quite alright," she said, and Thomas didn't like the way she said it.

"Could I ask you why you are here, and where you intend to go? It is protocol, even for you ambassador." Thomas said, with a dry mouth. "I am not going anywhere. I am waiting for somebody," Azaa said, and Thomas started to get really worried. He thought about asking who she was waiting for, but his instincts told him that this would be useless. A soft sound moved through the night and was nearly covered by the wind. Thomas looked up to find the source, and saw two people floating 20 meters above him. One, he instantly recognized. It was Rin from Cerberus, she had often brought Marcus Freimann to the portal. The other person though was covered in outrages heavy armor, of the likes Thomas has never seen before. Red and golden colors covered a design that left no doubt that it was cutting edge technology.

The newcomers descended and protocol wanted Thomas to apprehend any unidentified people close to the portal. But for some reason he couldn't muster the will to act. Like the rest of the guards he just stood there and watched Rin and the unknown person softly land. Four thunderclaps shattered the silence violently and Thomas instantly raised his head to the night sky once more. In the twilight over the base he could see no less than twenty heavily armed people rushing towards the portal like a swarm of hornets. A second later a Plasmaball impacted close to Rin and Thomas reached for his emergency alarm button. A series of weird, fleshy popping sounds made him look back up again and he wished he hadn't done that.

One after the other the attackers exploded in a spray of blood. Pop, pop, pop, pop… the sight was so unreal, he couldn't take his eyes off it. Something hot and wet hit his face and his armor. It was raining blood and other less nice things. In seconds the sky was clear again and the ground looked like something right out of a horror movie. "We will be leaving now," the ambassador said, and guided the person in the heavy armor towards the gate. This was against the rules! He should stop them, Thomas thought.

"Have a good day," Thomas said mechanically, and tried to ignore the torn arm next to him that was still holding on to a fine looking blade. The ambassador nodded and moved through the portal with the unknown person. Rin vanished with barely a sound seconds later and left the base personnel in complete confusion about what just happened.

Standing in a pool of blood, Thomas felt a great heat inside his chest and he soon found that he had gained four whole levels. The horrifying implications of that fact filled him with dread, even days later.

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At the same time, far away from Earth, a group of class holders prepared to dive into the nearby ruins. It had been only a few hours since the deadly fight with the wyrm, but nobody was willing to wait another day to get going.

"What is this?" Janette asked suspiciously, as Marcus offered her a special item. Her peerless eyes carefully inspected the object. "This is the last double chocolate, extra caramel chocolate bar. Why are you giving it to me?" She asked, with squinted eyes. "A thank you for saving my ass back then," Marcus said. "But if you don't want it…." Her hand moved instantly and Marcus watched her devour the snack with great pleasure. The sight filled his heart with warmth and he couldn't help but smile.

Rita rolled her eyes, "If you two are done, we can move out. Hammond, Carlos you two hold the fort. If things go wrong, don't hesitate to use the turrets and call us." Janette finished her snack and licked the last bits of chocolate from her lips before she grabbed a heavy machine gun and led the group towards the ice tunnel. Marcus was right behind her and tried to ignore the suppressed laughter from the rest of the raid team. Even Alistair and Candis were whispering and chuckling.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

By the time they had reached the ice tunnel everybody had put their game face on again. Their torches illuminated the path down and Marcus took the lead, after Janette confirmed no monsters were nearby. The tunnel was over fifty meters long, steep and unnaturally smooth. They slowly descended and against expectations nobody slipped and fell until they had reached the end. The metallic outside of the ruins had been torn open eons ago, and a large room behind the entrance was the obvious lair of the wyrm. "No gold in here," Janette said disappointed, as the torches illuminated the room.

There was some kind of nest made up from various objects, Marcus found. The remains of many types of prey were piled up in the corner of the room. At least Malcolm found this to be a treasure and instantly wanted to inspect the pile, but Grace ordered him back. "There will be time for that later," she said, and the class holders continued to lead the way. They passed through the room and found several damaged and bent metal doors. "This is rather unusual," Bianca said, and let her torch wander over the walls and ceiling of the room. "In contrast to most ruins, the walls, ceiling and floor are all made up from metals or advanced materials. No sign of any kind of stone or other mineral based materials," she said, and Marcus followed her example with his own torch.

Unclear what the meaning of this discovery was, they moved on, after Grace had cut one of the doors open with Channel Light. The inside of the ruin was in comparably good condition. They followed a corridor that branched into different directions and had several doors. The first door they breached looked like a storage room and it still held various boxes with half deteriorated technical equipment. "There is writing here," Alistair pointed out, and the scientists eagerly inspected the find. The wall had some writing and a short analysis with known alien languages revealed it was a new language. "No a great surprise," Carmen said.

Marcus also took a look. Xeen do you know this language?

No, which should not be a surprise. I have been away for a long time and there are many species in this universe.

It was worth a shot.

The next few rooms looked not much different than the first, but they found remnants of electronic tablets and other devices. "They are beyond repair, I think. Still, the builders were at least on our level or more advanced. That is good news!" Alistair said, and the mood improved after that. "Any monsters, Janette?" Grace asked, as they advanced, but she shook her head. "This feels like one big building. All the rooms are next to each other. Given the technology we have already seen, this might have been some kind of research base," Marcus thought out loud. "A corpse!" Janette announced and they quickly secured the body that lay in the middle of the corridor.

Malcolm and Carmen inspected the corpse briefly and made some pictures and notes. "Pretty similar to humans. Size, expected weight, this one was most likely a male, given the bone structure," Malcolm said. "Cause of death?" Grace asked and Malcolm sighed. "This isn't a net-series. The only thing I can tell you is that there are signs of damage to the bones, the head definitely got a heavy hit," he explained, and Grace was happy enough with that.

They soon found more corpses and they too showed signs of physical damage. "Can you give us an estimate how old these ruins are?" Alistair asked Bianca as they checked a room with remnants of technical equipment. The woman thought for a moment and said, "There are many variables, but pretty young I would guess. The influence of the cold and relative isolation through the ice makes it hard to be sure though." Marcus smiled about her answer. Nothing is certain until it has been measured to death. "We might want to spread out a bit. Let's go in teams of two and one scientist," Grace said, and the raid followed her orders.

Purely by 'coincident' Marcus ended up with Janette and Carmen. They moved through the ruin and eventually found stairs and elevators. "Up or down?" Marcus asked, and they chose down. One level deeper, things looked very much the same. Given the reports of the other teams and their own findings, a lot of people had died here. "Something is off with this place," Janette said eventually and Carmen agreed.

"This is different from any ruin I have seen until now," Carmen said and added "Even the Grave of Dreams was mainly constructed out of stone." Marcus turned to her and furrowed his brows. "Grave of Dreams?" He asked and Carmen nodded, "The large underground city you explored four years ago. I spent a lot of time there, a truly remarkable find." A lot of memories came back to Marcus. "You remember, dead city, hell bats, big scary monster, the arm of an Undead?" Janette said with a smirk, and Marcus gave her a smile that wasn't true to his heart.

They moved on, but Marcus was focused on his invisible companion. Xeen, are you alright?

Of course I am. Just mentioning it will not make me blow up.

I have had a different experience on our journey.

I am very sorry for what happened back then. I was completely unprepared to learn that Khor was still alive, and worse, that he knows about humanity. Undead! Seriously.

It was a horrifying revelation for me, too. Do you still think it is for the best that we don't tell anybody about the real nature of the Undead?

Yes, the only hope humanity and the ginghi have, is that Khor shows no interest in them. Any hint humanity might have some knowledge about his true nature would lead to total annihilation. As it stands, ignorance might actually be bliss.

Still, I want to inform at least some people, in time.

We better be extremely careful with that. You have seen how quickly secrets spread.

Before he knew it, Marcus ran into Janette, who had suddenly stopped. A large, very sturdy door blocked their path. As Carmen stepped closer to inspect the door, a screen came to life and a message in an alien language together with blinking symbols appeared. "There is still juice in here?!" Janette exclaimed, while Marcus took a closer look at the message. "Don't know what it says, but this is a danger sign if I have ever seen one," Marcus said and looked at the red blinking symbols. "So... we shouldn't break it open by force?" Janette asked with a grin. Carmen and Marcus turned as one. "NO!"