Night of the Dammed

-Snowfall Island, late afternoon-

Wearing all-white clothing rated to withstand the cold and polarized goggles on her face with a backpack of supplies on her back, Victoria had arrived on Snowfall Island four hours earlier and she had spent all four hours walking. Her goal was to find a dam on the island that was once connected to a military base that had been decommissioned roughly thirty years ago. Once she found the dam and gained access to it, she was to investigate the inside of the base for strange activity.

Victoria was granted permission to explore the base by the Magic Council and by the government of Snowfall Island because there were rumors that a militant dark guild had fled to the frigid island and was trying to set up shop in the decommissioned base. Her objective was to investigate the inside of the base for any signs of activity from the dark guild and put a stop to it. Her secondary goal was to find any documents or other evidence of their activities the new occupants had left inside the base and collect it for the authorities of Snowfall Island.

Victoria was not sure whether the rumored dark guild was composed of former Nightmare members or was just a small operation that had decided to set up headquarters in a remote area to avoid detection by the authorities. She would find out once she got there. Having walked up a steep hill, Victoria reached the top of it and looked down a frozen lake with frozen land on one side of it. A gust of cold wind blew and made the brunette shiver despite her protective clothing.

Victoria looked through the scope of her Silenced Sniper Rifle and spotted the dam looming in the distance. That was where she needed to be. Victoria put away the weapon and began to walk down the long strip of frozen land that led to a hill that connected to the dam. It would be a long walk to where she needed to go, but she had already come this far into the interior of the island, so she would walk for as long as was necessary to reach the dam and get inside of it. She put one foot in front of the other and began the long trip to reach the man-made structure that dominated the frozen lake.

-The dam, one hour later-

Victoria had braved the frigid wind and ankle-deep snow to reach the hill that she needed to climb to get onto the dam itself. She took a breath of cold air and stretched her legs, then began the arduous walk up a nearly forty-five degree incline. Thankfully she did not have far to go, but her legs and feet were tired from the constant walking required just to reach this point. It was a short but rough climb to the top, but once she reached the top it was a quick walk to the top of the dam.

Victoria dropped down from the hill onto the cold concrete of the dam. Now all she had to do was walk on top of it and reach the far side to enter the base. First she needed to take a break because her feet and her legs were screaming at her to stop. She figured that she had just enough time before nightfall to rest before entering the decommissioned base.

The Dam:

[Word Count: 575]
[Total Word Count: 575/12,500]

-On top of the dam, thirty minutes later-

Having taken a thirty-minute break on top of the dam by taking shelter behind the pillar of one of the towers before sitting down, Victoria stood up and stretched her legs, then looked around her in case the dark guild had seen her coming and were scrambling people to stop her before she entered their base. She had seen no other living person since she had left the main city of Snowfall Island behind several hours ago and she did not see any living people now. Maybe the decommissioned base was really abandoned after all.

The approach to the dam was wide open and Victoria had no cover to hide behind except for a tiny island in the middle of the frozen lake. Even though she was wearing white camouflage clothing that could blend in with the snow, any movement would have immediately given her away. With those factors working against the mage any sentry who was not blind could have spotted her almost immediately and had a welcoming party waiting on the dam... if she even got that far. A sniper paying attention to the frozen lake could have put a hole in her head long before she got within sight of the dam.

As it stood, Victoria was still alive and no small army of dark mages was scrambling to stop her, so she continued to walk along the dam and look at the beauty all around her. The frozen lake with a light cover of snow on the ice was beautiful in itself; she had never seen anything like it other than in the Silent Glacier region, but the delta was not frozen over like the lake. The area had been minimally altered by mankind and Victoria could appreciate that despite being someone who normally paid no more attention to nature than what it took to get through a job.

The cold wind howled around her head as the brunette continued to walk towards the open door of a building that housed an elevator. The closed silver doors caught what little light was left and the gleaming metal served as a beacon for the Sabertooth mage. She homed in on it and quickened her walking pace because nightfall was almost upon her. A few minutes later and she was standing in front of the doors to the elevator. To the right side of the door was a silver control panel with two arrows; one pointed up and the other pointed down.

Victoria tapped the down arrow and the elevator doors opened with a soft DING. After stepping back and checking to see that the elevator was empty, the brunette got on board and looked to the right. Inside was another control panel with numbers 1-6, an Open Door Button, a Close Door button, an Emergency Call button, and a grill for speaking to whoever answered emergency calls.

Victoria looked to the upper right near the ceiling and noticed that she was currently on the sixth floor of the base. She wanted to get to the bottom of the base, so she tapped the 1 button and watched the silver doors close with a soft DING. The elevator began to move downward and the brunette hung onto the railing inside the elevator with both hands until it came to a stop on the fifth floor. The doors opened onto a fully lit corridor with a metal door at the end of it. While that was nice, she wanted to skip to the first floor, so she tapped the 1 button again.

The elevator dinged and refused to move any further. An impatient Victoria pressed the 1 button again. Again it dinged and the doors did not close. Victoria just gave up and decided to look around the fifth floor for a stairwell or clues about the activity going on here. The power had not been on for thirty years, so someone had to be using this place. She stepped out of the elevator and onto the fifth floor.

-Inside the base, Fifth Floor-

It had not even been ten seconds since Victoria stepped off the elevator when the doors closed and the elevator went down to her intended destination. That was more than a little creepy, but there was nothing that could be done about it now. Victoria walked down the corridor helpfully labeled with a giant white 5 in the middle with a giant white arrow pointing to the elevator she had just left behind. The corridor was absolutely empty; there were no crates, no barrels, nothing to suggest that anyone was using it. She walked all the way to the metal door and opened it.

On the other side was a room full of pipes running along the wall and a giant hole in the pipe closest to the door emitting a continuous cloud of steam. Victoria walked inside and shut the door behind her.

-Inside the corridor-

Victoria took off her goggles and head covering since the room was so warm a head covering was not necessary. She then took off her backpack and put on her Bandolier. She carefully walked down the hallway since there were stacks of metal crates as high as an average man was tall and enemies might be hiding behind them. The brunette kept her hands held in the position to fire a Hand Cannon in case enemies were hiding in the area. She swept the area around each crate and found no one standing or crouching behind them, so she continued on her way until she got to an opening to the left and walked into it.

Inside was a small room with a red wheel connected to some pipes. She brought her hands out of the Hand Cannon position and gripped the wheel on both sides, turning it to the left until it refused to turn any further.

"Steam pressure decreased by 50%." A prerecorded male voice announced.

[Word Count: 1,000]
[Total Word Count: 1,575/12,500]

Once the steam pressure had decreased, Victoria released the red wheel and turned away from it to continue her exploration of the dam. She had just taken five steps away from it when she noticed a standing metal shelf with some supplies sitting on the shelves. A closer look showed that the supplies consisted of black metal flashlights and batteries for them. She was overjoyed with the unexpected discovery because she had forgotten to bring her own flashlight yet again. Her joy turned to disappointment when all of the flashlights failed to work... the batteries must have been old and had lost their charge.

The flustered brunette tried all of the dozen batteries on the shelf and found that none of them worked. She sighed and set down the worthless batteries but kept the flashlight because its heft made it a good improvised club. She left the side room behind and returned to the main corridor to find the other valve that controlled the steam pressure. Speaking of steam pressure, the pipe at the end of the corridor was still spewing steam, but at a slightly slower rate. The steam was still blowing fast enough and hot enough to badly burn the mage should she try to get by without turning it off, so she needed to find that other valve.

A little bit of walking later and she found the side room that led to the other valve. She put the flashlight into her pocket and put both hands on the red wheel, then turned it to the right until the pre-recorded voice sounded in the room and in the corridor.

"Steam pressure reduced to 0 percent." The male voice announced.

Now that the steam was gone, it should be safe to go through the door. Victoria turned away from the valve and found another standing metal shelf of supplies. She spotted more metal flashlights and more batteries, so she took the flashlight out of her pocket and twisted off the cap at the end, then began putting batteries into it to see which pair worked. She tried five pairs of batteries and none of them worked. It was down to the last pair; she dropped them in, screwed the cap back on, and pressed the button.

Victoria sighed because these batteries were every bit as useless as the batteries before them. She twisted off the cap, took the batteries out, and closed the flashlight again. Without the ability to produce light, all the flashlight was good for was use as an improvised club. The brunette sighed, pocketed the flashlight, and walked back into the corridor to go through the door that had been blocked by a billowing steam cloud.

She walked up to it and pulled right on the handle. The metal door opened without any issue and the brunette peered through the doorway to see what was on the other side. She saw a stairwell that she could use to get to the other floors. Victoria walked through the door and shut it behind her.

-Inside the stairwell-

Victoria faced an open stairwell with basic metal handrails on both sides for safety. On the right side of the room was a large number 5 to mark which floor she was currently on. She glanced around the room for hostiles and did not find any, so she walked over to the stairs and gripped the left handrail with her left hand before beginning the walk down the concrete stairs.

She walked down the stairs and listened to her footsteps echo in the empty stairwell. She had not seen signs of any other people in the base, something that was starting to make her worry. There were no signs of life and no signs of prior activity aside from the flashlights and batteries that had been found earlier. Those had likely been left behind by the base's personnel when the place went out of business over thirty years ago. She descended until she reached the fourth floor.

-On the fourth floor-

Victoria walked down a short corridor and found an empty metal shelf stationed exactly in the middle and against the wall. She saw traces of black powder residue on it, which likely meant that it once held weapons or ammunition. Both weapons and ammunition were long gone, but the black powder remained as a silent reminder of the base's previous purpose. She walked by it and found another concrete staircase with more handrails. She took the left and began the descent to the third floor.

She looked in the stairwell for any signs of human activity and did not find any, not even a scuff mark from where someone had tripped up the stairs back when the facility was still in use. She was the first person to set foot in here in over three decades. That was something the brunette was keenly aware of as she heard her footsteps echo in the stairwell until she reached the third floor.

-On the third floor-

Victoria walked through the short corridor until she felt intense heat slap her in the face and cause a mild burn. She shrieked and stepped back from a cloud of steam pumping through a vent. There was no other way around it and no place where she could fix the cause of the steam pouring through the vent, so she got on all fours and crawled under it until she was clear of the burning steam. She got up and found herself facing a pair of elevator doors. Maybe this time she could use the elevator to skip the walk to the bottom floor.

Victoria walked over to the elevator control panel and tapped the button to open the door. The elevator DINGed but the doors did not open. She pressed the button again and the doors still refused to open. She wondered what the deal was. She did not have any trouble using it to get to the fifth floor when she first started her exploration of the facility.

About to lose her patience again, she pressed the button one last time and failed to get the doors to open. Victoria threw her hands up and walked away, opting to go down the stairs instead of dealing with the obstinate elevator any longer. The stairs were a safer bet anyway.

[Word Count: 1,060]
[Total Word Count: 2,635/12,500]

-On the second floor-

The right side of her face still burning from the earlier steam vent, Victoria stepped out of the stairwell and onto the second floor. It was devoid of anything; not even a metal shelf was there to look at. The brunette continued to walk through the corridor and turned right at the stairwell that led to the first floor. She went down them and was soon on the first floor, which was where the elevator she had intended to take ended.

-On the first floor-

Victoria got down on all fours and crawled under another steam vent, then got up once she had passed by the painful obstacle. This corridor was as bare as the first, but she noticed that dusty old metal brackets for security cameras had been installed in the corners of the corridor. The cameras had long since been removed, but the fact that the security cameras had been there meant that something important was in the area. Victoria saw something else of interest when she turned to the left and faced a hallway leading to the outside. The metal door meant to keep the snow out was left wide open and flakes of snow were scattered across the threshold like someone had spilled salt.

The brunette found that curious. She walked over to the door and put her goggles back on. She then took a knee and watched to see if her movement had alerted any patrolling enemies to her presence. When no enemies popped around the corner to stop her progress, she stood up and walked outside into the cold and the dark.

-Outside the bottom floor-

The sun had just set when Victoria walked into an open corridor protected by a chain-link fence to the left and a three-foot high concrete wall to the right. Just a short walk away was a set of five steps that led to the back of a large building with concrete walls and a blue roof. The security lights on poles were just flickering to life, something that made the mage more than a bit wary. How could the lights still be on if the base had been decommissioned over three decades ago? She did not know, but she had more reason than ever to be alert.

She walked up the steps and found herself at the back of the building. She turned right and began to walk around the side of the building to the front. Victoria paused under a light pole and rubbed her hands together because she had gotten kind of warm in the dam and now she was outside in the cold again. She could not wait to finish this job and leave Snowfall Island in favor of somewhere warm. She got what could pass for warm and continued her search for the building entrance.

The cold mage trudged forward through ankle-deep snow and walked past another corner of the building before she saw something that made her pause in place. It had old, rusty brackets and an old security camera with a broken lens that was pointing directly downward. Seeing that gave the brunette pause. It was possible that someone had put a listening device in the shell of the old camera and had left the camera in a down position to fool intruders into thinking they were not being recorded. Victoria kept silent as she slowly trudged past it.

A short distance away to the left was a thick metal door that was the entrance to the building. Victoria did a silent fist pump and jogged through the snow and up to the door. Her good cheer faded when she saw an old but functional keycard reader to the right of the door. The Sabertooth mage frowned deeply when she saw that. Where on earth was she going to find the keycard that went to the electronic lock?

Victoria walked away from the door and towards another light pole to think over how to get past this obstacle. Her eyes wandered towards the chain-link fence and she saw something unusual in the fence. The intrigued mage walked to the fence and ran her right hand around what appeared to be a hole in the fence. When her hand met no resistance from the air, she knew that there really was a hole in the fence.

It was a four-foot tall hole, meaning that the brunette did not have to bend too far over to fit through it. Through the hole she saw an entirely new area of the base. There was a two-story building dominating an area that had smaller one-story buildings that served as barracks or as offices and armories. Victoria was willing to be that the keycard was over there.

She stuck her head through the opening in the fence and saw that she only had a four-foot drop to the ice below. She frowned when she saw the ice. She did not know how thick it was and if it was frozen enough for her to cross safely. Victoria really did not fancy a perilous walk across the ice, but it was her only option to reach the other side. Muttering under her breath, Victoria leaned down to pass through the hole, then sat down on the edge of the wall below and dropped down to the ice.

-On the ice-

Victoria shivered as a gust of cold wind blew with enough force to nearly knock her down. She faced a long stretch of ice between her and the other side of the base. The keycard was not going to fetch itself, so the brunette began cautiously treading on the ice, hoping and praying that it was thick enough to support her weight long enough to get across.

She was exposed to the cold and had very little light to see by. The moon was not high enough in the sky to provide light and the security lights were too far away to help, so the mage would have to watch her step and listen out for cracking noises. This was not an ideal way to cross the ice, but it had to be done. She needed that keycard to get inside the building and find out if anything was left by the base's former occupants.

Victoria took a deep breath and began the crossing, taking one step at a time.

[Word Count: 1,075]
[Total Word Count: 3,710/12,500]

-On the ice-

Victoria put one foot in front of the other, reluctant to put her full body weight on the ice until she was sure that doing so would not make it collapse under her. It would be game over for her if she went through the ice because no one would be here to rescue her. Even if by some miracle she climbed out of the frigid water, she would be as good as dead because hypothermia would finish what the icy water started. Victoria gingerly walked across the ice and reached the quarter mark of the distance between her and her destination.

So far she had heard no cracking noises, so the ice was holding firm. The brunette continued her trip to the other side and listened for sounds of the ice cracking beneath her feet or sounds of the base's occupants finally being alerted to her presence and preparing to do something about it. She did not hear either sound, so she kept going across the slick surface, doing her best not to fall down and risk breaking the ice. Victoria reached the halfway point without much issue; aside from the cold and her own fear, nothing was really hindering the Sabertooth mage.

The other side of the base was drawing closer with every step Victoria took. There was a cluster of three smaller buildings that was dwarfed by a two-story building that looked important because a rusted old satellite dish was on top of it. She would investigate it when she got to the other side. She would investigate all of the buildings when she got to the other side. Without that keycard the brunette would be left out in the cold, metaphorically and literally.

Victoria continued her cautious crossing until she reached the three-quarters mark and passed it. The ice felt thick enough to support her weight, but this was her first time walking across a frozen pond and she did not want to risk falling through. Sassi Luminosa was not here to help her if she fell in and got soaked. She continued to walk slowly until she finally reached the short concrete wall that served as a barrier between the base and the water. It was only four feet tall, so Victoria could climb it without too much difficulty.

The brunette reached up with her hands and grabbed the edge, then pulled herself up and used her feet for leverage to climb up the edge. She then swung herself over the wall and landed on her feet. Now that she was off the ice she could move faster without worrying about falling through and ending up in a watery grave. Victoria walked around the first small square building she found and opened the metal door with a glass window that had been broken out.

-Inside the small building-

Victoria entered the small building, jumping back as her feet crunched on something. She looked down and saw the glass of the small window on the metal door she had just opened. She stepped inside to get out of the cold and saw two sets of bunk beds, one in each corner. Behind her and to the left in the bottom left corner was an empty metal file cabinet whose drawers had been pulled out and left open. In between the filing cabinet and the bunk beds in the upper left corner was an austere metal desk with a small book on it.

Victoria's attention was drawn to the book. She walked over to the desk and flipped the book open. She picked it up and carried it to the window that was still intact so that she could read it. It was a journal left behind by one of the base's previous occupants, a man named Corporal Cahill.

"This place sucks. The weather's cold, there's ice and snow everywhere, and there's no television to watch when I'm off-duty. What the hell did I do to get sent to this frozen dump? Oh, right. I did better than Colonel Hoffman's son in Basic Training and Advanced Training AND I didn't think it was a good idea to hold a grenade and throw the pin during Basic Training, so I made PFC first instead of Daddy's Boy! Private Hoffman gets to go to a cushy posting in the city garrison while I get stuck out in this barren hellhole!" The journal started with a rant about the nature of the base's location and what circumstances led to the corporal's assignment to this place. She could feel the anger of the corporal emanating from the pages of the journal as he ranted about Private Hoffman and how much preferential treatment he received because of who his father was. After skipping over several more angry and obscenity-filled rants full of vitriol, Victoria found an entry that was made eight months after the first entry.

"I hate Colonel Hoffman so much right now. Daddy's Boy just made sergeant and I'm still stuck as a corporal! I wish my dad was a colonel who married into a general's family so that I could get cushy postings and faster promotions just like Daddy's Boy, but my dad was a shoemaker, so I don't get to be in the Good Old Boy's Club. No preferential treatment for me!" The journal ranted bitterly. Then more bitter diatribes against nepotism began until she found an entry made three weeks after the last entry. It discussed water cooler talk on the real purpose of the base.

"Today I heard from Corporal Kramer that the dam we're guarding's just a cover-up for something real big. Something so secret that if they discovered I even wrote about it, I'd be put away in a military prison for life. The joke's on them though... I DON'T HAVE A LIFE THANKS TO COLONEL HOFFMAN!" The author made another jab at the man responsible for his misery. A few obscenity-filled paragraphs later and the corporal got back on track.

"Corporal Kramer told me that the dam's just a cover-up for secret biological weapons testing. They're trying to make super soldiers or something. They're accepting volunteers to be exposed to something called Agent Lacodemon. It sounds like something out of a hokey spy movie to me, but Kramer told me it's no joke. He's told me things he heard from a scientist friend who works on the project and they're too dangerous for me to even write down. The project's in that administration building that's kept behind a lock that needs a keycard." The entry stated. Victoria put the journal away into her backpack and resumed the search for the keycard. It might be in one of the other buildings she had seen earlier.

Other Side Of The Base:

[Word Count: 1,170]
[Total Word Count: 4,880/12,500]

-Inside the barracks-

Victoria had left behind the smaller building and had entered the second-biggest building in the block of four. Inside was six bunk beds neatly arranged in two groups of three, one row facing the other and leaving a pathway in the middle. At the foot of each bed was a metal footlocker that had been left open. Victoria looked inside of them and came up with nothing... until she thought to look under the old mattresses that had been left behind. She started lifting all of them up and searching underneath them until she found a blue notebook marked "Kramer."

Recalling that as the name of Corporal Cahill's friend, Victoria opened it and began to read more water cooler talk that had been circulating around the base in its heyday.

"I don't believe what my friend's telling me. Some real sketchy shit's happening in the research labs. She says there's experimentation on live humans, and some of them aren't volunteers. According to her the military's black ops team has been abducting homeless people off the streets for their experiments because the experiments are killing volunteers faster than they can be recruited." Kramer wrote in the opening entry. Victoria learned that the "friend" of Kramer was a female, but other than that there were no clues to their identity, which was a reasonable precaution because the military would not take too kindly to its secrets being spilled. She kept reading and came across an entry written a week after the first that was more ominous and provided an insight into what went on behind locked doors.

"My friend slipped me a note about the abductions in our usual meeting place. They're having to round up fifteen homeless people a night to keep the lab going. The base commander's denying it up and down, but not too many people are fooled by his blustering speeches. They know that something's going on with the tight security in the lab. Security's so tight that anyone without a pass is turned away at gunpoint and they search everyone going in and out." Kramer wrote. Victoria could see how things started to go sour once the normal soldiers found out about what was going on in the labs. The high-handed security measures did not help matters in the slightest.

Victoria continued to read until she came across a final entry that discussed how morale on the base was deteriorating and relationships became strained. It was written a full two months after the second entry.

"Security's gotten real paranoid ever since word about what's going on downstairs in the labs got out. They're going over everyone's credentials and doing their best to plug leaks, but it's too late. Everyone knows what's going on down there and the top brass can't lie their way out of this one, not after security shot that homeless person trying to escape the main building. The poor guy gave them hell and actually made it to the fence before he was shot by three security guards with automatic weapons. After that us normal grunts aren't allowed anywhere near the building... only the hand-picked chosen men of the colonel can get in and only with a keycard.

I know where one's kept... that dumbass good-for-nothing Sergeant Newman keeps dropping his card in the comms tower and leaving it for hours at a time when he flirts with that airhead Corporal Gardner. If his father wasn't Major Newman of Spec Ops, the numbskull wouldn't even be sergeant. Leaving that keycard lying around could get his ass thrown into military prison, but the Good Old Boy Network keeps covering up for him. I wish I had someone covering up my mistakes like Sergeant Newman does..." Kramer mused. After that the journal ended. Victoria closed it and put it inside her backpack. She then left the barracks and walked a short distance to the comms tower to follow up on Kramer's assertion that the forgetful sergeant left a keycard in the comms tower.

-Inside the comms tower-

Victoria walked up the metal stairs and into the comms tower, which was loaded with device panels that she could not even pretend to understand how to use. She also saw screens coated with dust and mildewed old maps scattered across the floor. While those were interesting, her primary interest was in finding the keycard that Corporal Kramer's notebook talked about. She looked all around the consoles and on both the first and the second floors but did not find it. What she did find was a folded-up note stuck between a console and the wall next to the stairwell.

Victoria steadied her shivering hands and plucked the note from behind the console. She opened the simple half-fold and read the note. It was from Corporal Gardner to Sergeant Newman.

"Hey Newman, meet me in the armory tonight at 22:30. This comms tower shift is boring, but you're not. I'll show you something really explosive." The note read in simple but effective language. Victoria felt dirty just for reading the missive and wanted to burn it and her gloves. Did those two really have a romantic encounter in the armory? The brunette put the note on top of the console and walked out the only door on the second floor, returning to the painful cold of the night air.

-Outside, on the rooftops-

Victoria climbed down from the metal balcony and lowered herself onto an improvised plywood bridge that spanned the distance between the comms tower and another building she had not yet entered. She carefully walked on the flimsy bridge and soon saw a gap in a roof where the top hatch had been left open. The mage braced herself against a strong gust of wind and briskly trotted across the plywood to get to the sturdier metal roof.

The brunette sat down near the hatch and looked below her. She saw a few metal crates piled below her, which was likely how Gardner and Newman got into the armory for their business... if this was indeed the armory she was on top of. Victoria put her feet onto the metal crate below her and climbed down the stack and into the building.

[Word Count: 1,080]
[Total Word Count: 5,960/12,500]

-Inside the armory-

Victoria gently descended the crate stack until she reached the very bottom. On the standing metal shelves sat boxes of hand grenades, grenade launcher grenades, rocket launcher rockets, demolition charges, and land mines. The brunette was glad that she was not a smoker... all it would take was one stray spark and the whole building would go up in a fireball. She turned away from the explosives and looked around the armory floor for the keycard.

She was not having any luck yet because she was distracted by the explosive contents and how close she was to them. She searched all the corners and around the standing metal shelves but was not finding what she was after. Victoria was getting more than a little bit annoyed by the fruitless search. Not knowing what else to do, she turned towards the shelves and looked between the boxes of grenades and land mines. She noticed a gray wafer-thin object and a small note stuck between two boxes of hand grenades.

Victoria carefully fished out both items and was rewarded with the keycard and a note from Corporal Gardner. Victoria was almost afraid to read another note from the corporal but opened it anyway. The mage was rewarded with a little more information on events from thirty years ago.

"That Sergeant Newman's an utter dumbass. Not only does he keep losing keycards, but he never changes the code for them! I'm starting to agree with Cahill and Kramer... the only reason Newman's a sergeant is because his father's a major." The note started.

"He told me his keycard's code while we were... checking the munitions two weeks ago. It's 1234. Both of us could be thrown in prison. He could be thrown in there for giving it away and me for knowing something I'm not cleared to know, but I don't care anymore. Things are really going to shit here... it's a constant fight between the favorites of the top brass and the rest of us. I've hidden some observations of base life in the tunnel just outside the perimeter fence... I had to hide them because if the MPs caught on I'll be put in prison before our plan can be kicked off." Corporal Gardner wrote. Victoria was intrigued by that information. She pocketed the keycard and the note, then turned to climb on the crates to get out of the armory.

-Outside the armory, the base-

Climbing out of the armory, Victoria stood up and braced herself against the biting cold again before slowly walking across the plywood bridge and entering the comms building. She made her way down the stairs and went through the door. She walked to the perimeter fence and saw the tunnel that the note mentioned. Victoria effortlessly passed through the gap in the fence and made a beeline for the tunnel.

When she reached the mouth of the dimly lit tunnel she saw five loose-lying wooden crates that were just barely holding together arranged in a staggered pattern. Victoria walked inside and began searching in and around the crates for the observations that the note mentioned. She took the top off of the first crate and shrieked when it succumbed to age and fell apart at her feet. There was nothing in it other than packing material, which she pawed through and discovered nothing for her trouble.

Victoria walked over to the second crate and removed the top. Inside was more packing material, which she sifted through to find a whole lot of nothing. She set the top back on and moved to the third crate. She removed the top and found more packing material, but sticking out was a sharp corner of a book. The brunette grabbed the corner and fished it out. She had found a green spiral notebook labeled GARDNER.

Victoria exited the tunnel and made her way back to the warmth of the small building that she had not yet explored. She opened the door, shut it behind her, and looked for a safe place to sit.

-Inside the building-

Victoria looked to the left of the doorway and saw metal filing cabinets that had been turned onto their sides and the drawers left open. In front of her was another group of six bunk beds arranged in two groups of three with a pathway down the middle. Empty footlockers with the lid open were in front of them. Victoria found an empty swiveling office chair and sat down in it to read the observations of Corporal Gardner that dated to six months after Kramer's last entry.

"Things are really going to shit ever since the MPs shot Corporal Cahill to death after he beat up Sergeant Newman in a fight that Newman started. Newman was lucky that the MPs separated Kramer from him before Kramer finished what Cahill started. Sure, Cahill was pissed to be assigned here and probably shouldn't have fought the sergeant, but Newman was dumb enough to rub his status in Cahill's face. No one really blames the late corporal for being pissed. Last week Private Wilson went on leave, paid a visit to a friend who was an enlisted personnel clerk, and found out from his friend that all of us grunts were assigned here because we pissed off some higher-ups who had sons or daughters that we made look bad in training." Corporal Gardner's observation started. The next entry was only three days later.

"We all got sent here to get us out of the way so that Daddy's Boys and Girls can get accelerated promotions and cushy assignments that lead to accelerated promotions. That and Cahill's execution really pissed us off. It's all we can to keep Kramer from storming the administration building with the keycard that I stole from Sergeant Newman. Speaking of the sarge, he STILL hasn't figured out that he old keycard went missing and that the code's still good. I haven't told Kramer that because he's so angry that he'd try to storm the building by himself if he knew the code." The corporal wrote. Victoria too was puzzled as to how Newman was still a sergeant after losing the card and giving away the code associated with it. Maybe it was the work of a good old boy's club that kept the dimwit in his rank. Victoria flipped a few pages and read on to find that things went from bad to worse in the span of a week.

"Kramer's about to hit the roof. He just learned that Newman got promoted to Staff Sergeant and none of us corporals passed our sergeant's exams. Of course all the other favorites passed their promotion exams too. We think that the brass is intentionally cheating us out of promotion by changing up the exam questions to differ from what we studied. They're asking us questions on the level of 1st Lieutenant and Captain candidates." Corporal Gardner complained about being cheated out of a promotion with abrupt changes to the questions on the exam. Victoria could easily see why Corporal Kramer was so angry about the situation. A base full of angry enlisted men and women who felt cheated out of a fair chance at promotion was a dangerous base.

[Word Count: 1,250]
[Total Word Count: 7,210/12,500]

-Inside the building-

Victoria stood up from the table and closed the green spiral notebook, then put it into her backpack. She had learned all that she needed to know about the base's increasingly hostile mood and was now going to check out the source of all the hostility, the large building that housed the labs where human experimentation was going on. It was also the home of Agent Lacedaemon... whatever that was. Victoria exited the building and walked back into the cold to try and get to the bottom of this mystery.

-On the frozen lake-

Having exhausted every possible clue in the area, Victoria sat on the edge of the concrete wall bordering the frozen lake and dropped down to the ice below. She began walking across it with greater speed than she had employed on the first crossing because she knew that the ice was thick enough to support her weight. It was a simple matter to cross the ice, but the trip was made a little difficult because there was no cover from the chilly wind that periodically blew across the ice and made the brunette colder than she already was. She would be able to get a little bit warmer once she crossed the ice and got inside the building secured by the keypad.

Victoria crossed the halfway mark and continued to make good time across the slippery ice. It was a lot easier this time around because she did not have to tiptoe across it to avoid falling through. She hugged herself for warmth and walked until she reached the hole in the chain-link fence. She grabbed the ledge and carefully climbed through the hole, then fell stomach-first onto the soft snow. The brunette stood up, dusted herself off, and slowly made her way over to the keypad that stood between her and entering the labs.

-Outside the administration building/labs-

Facing the keypad and the thick metal door, Victoria reached into her jacket pocket and brought out the keycard that had once been Sergeant Newman's but had been stolen by Corporal Gardner for purposes that had never been disclosed. Maybe she and the other disgruntled enlisted personnel had planned to raid the labs and put a stop to the experimentation. Maybe they just wanted to kill the top brass and their chosen pets in revenge for being dumped here. She did not know and she would not know until she gained entry to the labs.

Victoria swiped the magnetic strip of the keycard and the panel flashed green. She then type in 1234 on the lighted numerical pad. A small green light flashed and she heard the sound of the door unlocking. Victoria was incredulous that the code had actually worked. She counted her blessings and entered the facility, finally getting out of the cold.

-Inside the administration building/labs-

Victoria shivered as she finally got out of the cold and entered the base proper. She looked down a well-lit hallway and saw that something exciting had gone on. Metal shelves had been overturned and their contents strewn across the floor. There were also numerous holes that looked like bullet holes that dotted the concrete walls. Victoria stepped over the shelves and made her way down the hall and to a flight of stairs that had a brown substance on them that looked a lot like dried blood.

She walked down the stairs and came across more bullet holes and a skeleton wearing a slate gray uniform slumped against the wall. The skeleton had three bullet holes to the head and four times that number in the chest and there was a lot of dried blood behind him on the wall and below the skeleton. She took a knee and looked at the name tag that was still on the front of the uniform.

SSGT. NEWMAN

Victoria had finally found Staff Sergeant Newman... or what was left of him, anyway. It seemed like Corporal Kramer had finally gotten revenge for the death of Corporal Cahill. She noticed an empty pistol nearby with the shell casings. The empty magazine was not too far from the weapon and the magazine well of the pistol was empty, suggesting that the staff sergeant did not get a chance to reload before he was killed. Victoria stood up and turned away from the skeleton, walking down the stairs and coming to another skeleton dressed in the same uniform as Newman.

This one was lying on its stomach with six bullet holes to the back of the head. Whoever had killed this person really did not like them and wanted to make certain that they were dead. Victoria saw that a pistol was still in the holster on their left hip, suggesting that the dead person did not even get a chance to defend themselves. The mage walked past the skeleton and turned right to face a set of metal double doors. Curious as to what was behind them, the brunette entered.

-Inside the room-

Victoria entered and faced a tile wall that permitted passage to either the left or the right. She chose to go right and walked into a room with gray tile. She was greeted by the sight of uniformed skeletons with hands bound behind their backs hanging from the four metal shower heads by leather belts and empty pistols lying at their feet. Apparently they had been lynched by whoever had killed the other two people who were now skeletons. However, these people had not gone down without a fight because three skeletons in lighter gray uniforms with dark vests lay strewn across the floor, suggesting that these people had fought back and took three of their attackers with them.

Bullet holes marked the walls where the skeletons in light gray uniforms had fallen. She saw that one of them was lying on their back and walked over to take a look at the name tag on the front of the uniform.

PVT. COLE

It was not Kramer, Wilson, or Gardner, so they might have gotten deeper into the base to enact whatever plan they had for the facility. She turned around and left the shower room to learn more about what had happened in the base. Whatever had happened in here, it was not good. Maybe the mutiny Corporal Gardner had hinted at in her notebook had finally taken place. Victoria wondered what the catalyst for the mutiny was.

-Inside the main hallway-

Victoria exited the shower room and turned left to go down the hallway. There she saw a skeleton in a light gray uniform holding a pump-action shotgun sprawled in front of a metal door as if he had died defending it. In front of him were two skeletons in dark gray uniforms that had old assault rifles clutched in their hands. This mystery kept growing stranger the deeper she went into the base. She took a breath and tried to figure out whether she should keep going straight or take a detour into the side room that the skeleton was lying in front of.

Victoria chose to take the detour because something important might be in the side room.

[Word Count: 1,204]
[Total Word Count: 8,414/12,500]

-In the side room-

Victoria walked inside and found herself facing an overturned wooden table riddled with bullet holes. Behind it were two uniformed skeletons wearing light gray uniforms holding an assault rifle and a shotgun. In front of a metal filing cabinet a short distance to the left of the door was the skeleton in a dark gray uniform. Judging from what she had seen, the dark gray uniforms were base security and the light gray uniforms were the normal soldiers who had had enough of the research into Agent Lacedaemon and wanted to put a stop to it.

She tiptoed over the skeleton and opened the metal filing cabinet, which was empty except for a single manila folder inside the bottom drawer. It had an interesting label, one that explained the fighting that had gone on in the room and outside of it.

AGENT LACEDAEMON TEST SUBJECT STATUS REPORT

Victoria picked up the folder, opened it, and began to read it. It was full of technical and scientific jargon, but its meaning gradually became all too clear. This was a list of people who had died after being exposed to the chemicals that formed Agent Lacedaemon.

SUBJECT 1138, FORMERLY KNOWN AS PRIVATE T. WILSON- DECEASED, DIED DURING TESTING

SUBJECT 1337, FORMERLY KNOWN AS CORPORAL S. BRADLEY- DECEASED, DIED DURING TESTING

SUBJECT 1453, FORMERLY KNOWN AS PRIVATE H. TROY- DECEASED, DIED DURING TESTING

SUBJECT 1492, FORMERLY KNOWN AS CORPORAL C. COLOMBO- DECEASED, DIED DURING TESTING

SUBJECT 1521, FORMERLY KNOWN AS PRIVATE H. CORTES- DECEASED, DIED DURING TESTING

Victoria could not stand to read much more of it because the list included at least fifteen more entries of people who had died during the testing of whatever this Agent Lacedaemon was. She put the file into her backpack and was about to leave when her right foot accidentally stepped on something lying close to the skeleton's hand. It was a silver cigarette lighter! She had a feeling that this individual was sent to destroy the evidence of the project but failed thanks to the efforts of the two men who died behind the wooden table.

Maybe the filing cabinet was empty because the rest of the evidence had already been moved or destroyed, but thanks to the two men she had some evidence of the human cost of the project. Victoria left the room and re-entered the main hallway.

-Inside the main hallway-

Victoria avoided stepping on the skeleton with the empty shotgun and walked forward to find still more signs of conflict. Skeletons with shotguns and assault rifles lined the floor, shell casings and shotgun shells littered the area, metal shelves were overturned, and bullet holes were in all the walls... there was a small scorched crater near the right corner of the room and three skeletons who were sprawled around the crater, suggesting that a small explosive like a hand grenade was employed at some point in the fighting. Victoria walked past the site and went down the stairs.

The middle of the stairs were coated in a thin trail of dried blood and a dark-uniformed skeleton rested at the bottom of the stairs. Victoria walked past it and made a left to go down the second flight of stairs. Sitting in a corner was a dark-uniformed skeleton with an empty shotgun and eight empty shells dotting the area to its right. It had a giant hole in its forehead, possibly from another shotgun at point-blank range. The brunette kept walking and made her way down a third flight of stairs.

At the bottom of it were two light-uniformed skeletons holding assault rifles. There was a crater at their feet that suggested the two fell victim to a hand grenade or an anti-personnel mine. She walked past them and found another dark-uniformed skeleton at the bottom of the stairs with its left hand and part of the left forearm missing and dried blood splattered on the floor and on the wall they were standing next to. Her impression was that the soldier was in the act of throwing a grenade when he was shot. He was unable to throw the grenade in time and the explosive went off in his hand, leading to the wounds the skeleton bore thirty years into the future.

Victoria continued past the unfortunate grenadier and walked into a large room with skeletons of both sides strewn next to a large power generator, the generator which had been powering the entire complex. Some of the light-uniformed skeletons had unexploded satchel charges next to their bodies, indicating that their mission was to destroy the generator. Thankfully they had failed in their mission because otherwise the truth of what happened here would never have been known had they succeeded.

How was the generator still intact and still providing power after thirty years? Victoria did not know how that was possible until she saw a glowing purple crystal about the size of a human fist inside of it. The crystal had a magic signature, suggesting that it was a Lacrima that powered the large generator. The Sabertooth mage left it alone and continued her trip through the base, passing through a set of metal doors that were wide open. Next to it was a large metal sign that had directions to important lab facilities... among those facilities were the Medical Labs.

-Inside the lab, main hallway-

Victoria entered the eerie calm of the labs and was greeted with the sight of fifteen skeletons, all of which were in white lab coats and wore either long-sleeved shirts and dark pants or long-sleeved shirts and knee-length skirts. The mutineers had gotten to some of the scientists who were trying to escape and had put a permanent end to their research. Victoria did not know how to feel about that, but she could not alter what had happened thirty years ago. She was not sure that she would let them live after what they had done to innocent people whose greatest crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lying just to the side of one of the scientists was a piece of paper attached to a black clipboard; the writing was scrawled like it had been written in a hurry.

"Damn it! The project lead, a scientist named A. Kerwes, ran off with most of the project info and left us here to die! That asshole KNEW the mutiny was coming and left us all to die so that he could get away! I bet he was the one behind it! HE was the source of the leak that gave details of Project Lacedaemon to the soldiers!

I can't say we didn't have it coming after we used Private Wilson and other soldiers conscripted into the experiments as guinea pigs. This project's cost too many lives, too many innocent lives. And for what? What is it that we gain from sacrificing so many people? I don't even know anymore.

We were supposed to enhance our soldiers, make them stronger and tougher, but all we've done is kill innocent people. Almost all of them die moments after Agent Lacedaemon is administered intravenously. They start to bleed from the eyes and the nose and do nothing but scream in pain as they suffer a heart attack from all the stimulants that make up the agent. Once they start bleeding and screaming it's only a matter of minutes before their heart literally explodes. This whole thing's an avenue of research that should have never been opened, but the military's pumped too much money into it, so we have to produce results.

I bet he's going into business for himself using the research that all of us spent five years and who knows how many Jewels researching. Well, he won't get too far with his ill-gotten gains. That's because I have my sources too, and they all tell me that Kerwes was running off to an island, a dark island not too far from here. I won't live to see my revenge, but I'll be sure to save a seat for that asshole in Hell. There's plenty of room for the likes of him there." The note read. Victoria picked up the clipboard and fit it into her backpack. This was an important piece of evidence that her clients would be very interested in, but she needed to find more in order to put the final nail in the coffin of Project Lacedaemon.

[Word Count: 1,442]
[Total Word Count: 9,856/12,500]

-Inside the lab-

Victoria continued to explore the lab and search for more documents that detailed the events that happened here. She soon got her wish when she stumbled across another medical lab with gurneys and operation tables that were both coated with dried blood. What the Hell was going on here? Her eyes were drawn to a red clipboard with a piece of paper attached to it sitting on a metal desk whose drawers had been opened and ransacked. Papers were strewn everywhere around the desk and Victoria had to watch her step so that she did not slip and fall on them.

Victoria picked up the clipboard and read the words on the paper. It was a note from the A. Kerwes man who was the head scientist behind Project Lacedaemon.

"After spending five years, countless Jewels, and countless test subjects, it is almost ready. Agent Lacedaemon, or A-LAC as the common soldiers have taken to calling it, is very close to success. All it will take is a few more test subjects and some more funding, funding that the military cut off when word reached their ears about how many test subjects were needed. I may have pushed too far when I suggested that the military send their problem soldiers to "volunteer" for the project or have their families sent in their place. However, I have an escape plan.

My unwilling agent Ms. Currie has been most helpful... once I found out that she and a Corporal Kramer were having an affair, it was all too easy to enlist her in my plan. At my command she has been leaking information about the project to the soldiers and now a mutiny is inevitable. All I need to do is light the match that sets off the powder keg. That should not be terribly difficult to accomplish because I have heard that Corporal Kramer is looking for revenge for the death of his friend Corporal Cahill. Once I leak word about the military using its problem soldiers as "volunteers", Corporal Kramer should do the rest for me. While the mutiny rages around me, I will make my escape with the research and finish it elsewhere." The note read.

Victoria was disgusted by what she had just read, but it was exactly the kind of evidence that she was hired to collect. She put the clipboard in her backpack and left the medical lab. She was not sure how much more she wanted to learn about this Project Lacedaemon.

She walked through the hallway and came across another skeleton in a white lab coat slumped against a wall with a gunshot wound to the head. Victoria looked down at the plastic I.D. card clipped to the lab coat and found that it was Ms. Currie, the woman who was blackmailed into helping Kerwes spark the mutiny that was the cover for his theft of the project information. It was sad to see that because the woman really had no choice in the matter. She was desperate and willing to do anything to keep the secret.

Victoria kept walking and entered a third door that led to a wing set aside for base security.

-Inside the security wing-

Victoria entered a long corridor that had windows to the left and grates where the people inside could speak to those on the outside. This hallway lacked the signs of fighting that the other parts of the building had and it was creeping Victoria out. There were no bullet holes, no skeletons, no nothing. If there was a mutiny, then why was this place still intact? She expected it to be a charred wreck of an area, but it was as clean and intact as when it was first built. She continued down the hallway and turned at the corner, where she faced two doors.

One door was a metal door to her left. The other was a metal door that led to the right. Victoria opted to go left to see if she could find something like a video or Lacrima recording of the mutiny for her clients. When she opened the door, she was facing another lengthy hallway with small offices to her left and a door in the center of the hallway to her right.

Victoria followed the large red arrow painted onto the white wall that helpfully pointed the way to the command center and followed it to the solitary door on the right. She opened it with her left hand and was greeted with the sight of a ransacked office and a skeleton in a black uniform lying on an elaborate wooden desk with a knife rammed into its forehead. The hapless person must have been the base's commander.

Victoria walked over to the skeleton and read a note that had been written in large letters on the wall behind the desk. It was a simple note with a simple message. It was written in what looked like dry blood.

DEATH TO TRAITORS

Victoria looked at a triangular nameplate holder lying on the floor and picked it up., then read the name written in white letters. She was facing the late Major Newman, the father of Staff Sergeant Newman. In the skeleton's hand was a note written in red ink.

"You have been found guilty of treason. You have sold your own men to the enemy for monetary gain and must be punished for your treachery. The sentence is death and the sentence will be carried out immediately." It read.

Victoria surmised that "the enemy" was A. Kerwes and that Major Newman had been offered money for each problem soldier sent to Project Lacedaemon for use as test subjects. Judging by the note that was written and the knife lodged in the major's forehead, he must have taken the offer with great enthusiasm. She looked on an intact desk to her left and spotted a green financial ledger lying on the table. Swallowing her disgust, she walked over to the desk and opened the ledger.

Victoria thumbed through it and found mostly normal financial expenditures through most of the pages, but when she neared the back she found a section devoted to recording the money paid for each soldier sent as a test subject. The sum paid for each new test subject was 10,000 Jewels. Victoria's stomach turned a flip as she read down the columns and saw the same fifteen names from the Test Subject Status Report plus at least thirty more for a total of 450,000 Jewels made over the eight months before the mutiny. The ledger was absolutely revolting to read, but it was evidence and into the backpack it went.

Victoria did not feel any sympathy for Major Newman because of him selling out his own men for money. He had gotten what he deserved. She left the office and looked in the other rooms of the hallway but found no video evidence of what had happened. The videotapes or Lacrimas had probably been removed and destroyed when the mutineers broke in, so looking for visual recordings was most likely a waste of time.

She returned to the main hallway and opened the door to her right. Inside was a hallway full of uniformed skeletons, bullet holes in the walls, and craters burned into the floor. Hand grenades and rifle grenades must have been used here because the area looked like a war zone. What was so important here?

[Word Count: 1,258]
[Total Word Count: 11,114/12,500]

-Inside the hallway-

Victoria gingerly walked past the bodies in the hallway and made her way into the main part of the square room, which was lined with wall-to-wall weapons lockers with the weapons still inside. On the right side of the room were specially armored lockers that were labeled to contain explosive munitions. Now Victoria understood the significance of the fighting that happened in this room. The base's defenders were trying to keep the mutineers from getting their hands on explosives!

Judging from the bodies lying around, the defenders were successful but paid a high price for their victory. She saw at least ten of the dark-uniformed skeletons dead from either gunshot wounds or from the effects of rifle grenades going off next to them, which included missing limbs and the resulting blood loss stemming from losing a leg. Victoria wondered why both sides would employ rifle grenades in a place loaded with explosives but surmised that the mutineers were desperate for munitions and needed to secure the armory as quickly as possible. The situation must have been truly desperate for both sides to willingly risk destroying themselves when the munitions in the lockers were detonated by all the explosions.

Victoria continued to tour the armory and saw a thick metal door at the end of the hallway. It had been blown off the hinges by explosives and some hapless dark-uniformed soldier had been crushed underneath it when the door was blasted onto him. She walked into the room and found a few more dark-uniformed skeletons and some empty munitions lockers. All four of the armored lockers reserved for explosives had been looted and the brunette saw what they had managed to acquire... demo charges and rifle grenades for the underslung grenade launchers mounted on all the assault rifles in the base. While the mutineers had been unable to get access to rocket launchers, demo charges and rifle grenades provided more than enough firepower to do some damage, but what were they going to be used on?

Aside from blast craters and bullet holes, the base itself was intact, so the mutineers had not planed to destroy the base with the purloined munitions. The base was built to last and would require a lot more power to destroy than what demo charges and rifle grenades could provide. Even rocket launchers could not do enough damage to level the facility, so there had to be a bigger goal in mind.

Maybe some of the rebels had survived and were chasing that Kerwes man to get revenge for leading Project Lacedaemon and contributing to so much death and misery. If that was the case, they had stocked up for the road trip because Kerwes was most likely holed up in a fortified location and they would be dealing with a lot of resistance before they could get to the rogue scientist.

The brunette looked around the room one last time to see if she had missed anything important. She found nothing of interest, so she left the room and the armory behind to continue her search for evidence. The mage walked through the long hallway of the security command center and out to the main hallway that was full of skeletal scientists.

-In the main hallway-

Victoria exited the security command center and found herself back in the main hallway. She faced right and walked down the straight hallway while facing a giant red lambda letter on the wall at the end of the hall. Kerwes had to get out of here somehow. She doubted that he had sneaked by so many rebels and defenders without being spotted, so he had to have had outside help to make his getaway. Next to the lambda was a silver metal door.

The brunette approached it and the door slid open to show a corridor wide enough to accommodate two people walking side-by-side. In the corridor were the bodies of more scientists... this must have been a passageway that was designated as an escape route in case of an emergency. They had all been shot in the head with a pistol, probably by Kerwes. The rogue scientist obviously did not want any company on his flight to safety. The curious Victoria followed the corridor to its end and stepped outside to find a medium-sized airfield that had space for two dozen airplanes.

-On the airfield-

Victoria braced herself against the cold and walked onto the tarmac, which was like a smaller version of the one from Rose Garden's private airfield. In the left corner was a small metal shed marked AVIATION FUEL. She saw eight small single-engine airplanes painted white with blue stripes and three large four-engine military cargo planes painted solid gray. Lying around the airfield were more bodies of soldiers who had been killed either by Kerwes or by the rebels looking for Kerwes. Thankfully no one had used explosives here because the runway was dotted with aircraft and barrels of their equally explosive fuel.

The air traffic control tower was in the bottom right corner of the airfield. Maybe it had a clue as to where Kerwes went. The note of another scientist mentioned a "dark island", but Victoria was not sure where that "dark island" was. She walked over to the tower and pushed on the metal door, which was not locked. A glance inside showed more bullet holes and more bodies lying on the floor.

-Inside the air traffic control tower-

Victoria stepped over the bodies of defender and rebel alike as she ascended the stairs to the tower in search of clues as to where the lone plane that had taken off went to. When she reached the top after walking up five flights of stairs, the brunette was sorely disappointed to find overturned desks and electronics that had been shot up or destroyed with explosives. All the equipment used to track flight paths had been wrecked in the fighting and was useless to her since she did not know how to even begin to fix it. Kerwes obviously did not file a flight plan before his departure, so the mage sighed and walked back down the stairs with nothing to show for this brief side trip.

Since there was no more of the base to explore, the Sabertooth mage might as well start heading home with what she had managed to find. Maybe the clients could determine what and where the "dark island" mentioned in the note was. She would have to retrace her steps through the dam and ride the finicky elevator to the top, then walk across the top of the dam and drop back down to the snowy banks of the frozen lake before she faced a four-hour walk to civilization. Victoria walked past the skeletal scientists and retraced her steps to the entrance to the facility.

[Word Count: 1,156
[Total Word Count: 12,270/12,500]

-On top of the dam, one hour later-

The elevator door dinged shut behind her and Victoria walked through, then took a deep breath of chilly air. Victoria was tired from the lengthy trip through the dam to get back to the elevator, but the worst part of the journey was yet to come. Now she had to walk four hours to get back to civilization. Maybe she should have asked a local transport service for pickup before setting out, but the brunette did not know if she could have thoroughly explored the base and made it in time to meet the transport, so she did not bother to arrange for a way out.

Victoria walked across the dam until she reached the point that she had climbed up on to get on top of the structure. The brunette sat down and pushed off the edge, landing inelegantly on all fours in the snow but landing without injury. She stood up and brushed herself off, then surveyed the scenery in front of her.

The full moon was now in the sky and was providing sufficient ambient light to see by. All the mage had to do was watch for nocturnal predators and survive the walk back to civilization, which would be lengthy and dangerous because of the lower temperatures at night. Common sense suggested sheltering in place for the night, but the brunette really did not want to spend the night at the dam after learning all that she did about the facility and Project Lacedaemon. The weather was cold but clear, so she would just brave the walk back to Snowfall Island's city and deal with whatever came up during the trip.

With the decision settled beyond all doubt, Victoria began to put one foot in front of the other and braved the cold night to get back to civilization and hand over the evidence she had collected to her clients. The big payday for completing this job would make all of the effort worthwhile. So would getting out of the cold.

[Word Count: 344]
[Total Word Count: 12,614/12,500]