1- Radios Ain't Radios Anymore

The last time Dane had been to Niagara Falls it’d been a pretty broken downtown. But he hadn’t remembered a shimmering violet edge slicing through the center of it. Nor did he remember so many packs of zombies. Drunks and violent-looking latchkey kids, sure, but not real flesh-falling-off-the-bone zombies.

The field surrounding the area wasn’t difficult to see if you knew what you were looking for. It had a soap bubble feel to it, except most of the colors were deep purple to magenta to bubblegum pink. They’d stopped just shy of it, even though the mission was clear on them heading directly through (and possibly morphing into something with green skin and tusks), on account of several dozen undead creatures.

The team stood surveying the town from the cover of the deep uncut brush under and around the faded “Welcome to Buffalo” sign that signaled where the edge of town used to be. Now, to their advantage, it was the scene of rusted out factory hulks and abandoned urban blight. There wasn’t any hustle or bustle here. Just the eerie moans of the restless walking dead.

“So, zombies are a thing?” Lieutenant Daniels gave the group a stern and piercing look, the icy edge of his blue eyes driving home the point that he wasn’t here to deal with nonsense. “What sort of flatheaded god would allow such a thing? You got any clue, Corporal?”

Corporal Pugh gave Lieutenant Daniels a lop-sided grin. “Shit, I’ve seen enough of them on the console to know that they are usually just the meager start, sir. If you’ve got zombies at the gate, you’ve got killer mutated shark men behind them.”

“Killer mutated shark men?” LT Daniels asked, the tactical bar of his rank bobbing with his Kevlar. “You’ve got to be shitting me. Sergeant Rivera, did we hear anything in the briefing about the shambling undead?”

“Not at all, but I’m not sweating it none sir.” Dane looked him over in awe. The man was more chiseled than a Renaissance statue. He could see all of the muscles in his neck flexing as he cracked it back and forth. “You just crack ‘em in the head. Ain’t that right, nerd dude?”

Dane froze, the sergeant’s eyes locked onto him. “You’ve got that stay-at-home-play-the-game look to you. How do we fight zombies?”

“Well,” Dane said. His throat was suddenly so narrow, his mouth so sticky with phlegm. “I think it is better if we just don’t.”

“Pogue doesn’t want to fight. Shocker.” Specialist Neiderhauer smirked. “I’ve got news for you kiddo. Those zombies, they’re in our way. And they don’t look like the kind of people you can talk to.”

Being mocked didn’t sit well with him. But it was hard not to be intimidated by the sheer amount of determined expertise and power represented in the badges and ranks about him. He cleared his throat again. “What if they are ghouls, like in the Armageddon games? Just wasted forms that are capable of speech and thought? Have you asked yourself where the residents of the city ended up?”

Neiderhauer blew a raspberry and SGT Rivera gave him a shrug. LT Daniels fixated those eerie eyes on Dane. “Are you certain that those ghouls, as you say, are civilians and not enemy hostiles? Because I sure as shit don’t want to walk out there, hand outstretched for a handshake, and watch it get taken off by a hungry human-looking monster.”

Dane shuddered away from those eyes and didn’t answer. Beside him, Specialist Guzman shook her head in a way that conveyed disgust for who he was and what he represented in a better way than if she’d simply decided to straight up say it. Corporal Pugh laughed and the rest turned away from him to focus on themselves.

“So, drone guy sucks. I say we pop them sniper style right from where we are standing. Head shots should take them down.”

LT Daniels nodded. “It won’t hurt to try. I can’t imagine that those . . . things would have anything to say to us. And we have to get through the portal and figure this thing out.” He stopped and looked back over at Dane, who was busy feeling both sad and happy to be left out. “Hey, what’s that drone thing of yours do, really? Does it have any sort of combat abilities?”

“Not really? It is a sophisticated observation device. It can do heat signatures as well as standard video, and is equipped with an infrared beam that it can use to light the dark and see as if it had a regular old spotlight on top.”

Daniels nodded. “Alright men, defensive positions. Kid, what’s your name?”

“Uh, Dane?” he answered, unsure of himself under the man’s stern eyes.

“Well, uh Dane, we are going to set up position here and you are going to recon the area and make sure there aren’t any, quote, killer mutated shark men waiting for our approach. Also, more importantly, make sure there isn’t anything that can shoot back.”

Dane nodded and set to work. The carry case for the drone was a wide metal briefcase that felt hard enough to withstand a missile. Its latches were tight and he needed his handy screwdriver, always one available in his right pocket, to lever it open. When the second latch plocked, though, there was an audible sucking in of breath. His drone was a beast. The size of a rottweiler, it had five helicopter blades by which to take flight, a number of cameras and lights festooned its bottom and sides. The landing platform for it came complete with detachable solar panels that would be deployed out of it in five directions, the shape of a pentagon. On one side he’d markered the words, “I WATCH YOUR WIFE UNDRESS”, a joke scrawled on to impress his fellow IT geeks. It didn’t seem so funny, now, under the gaze of America’s heroes.

“That there is one impressive piece of equipment, Dane,” Lieutenant Daniels deadpanned. Corporal Pugh gave a snort and the steel eyes of the LT landed on him. “Full mission time. Let’s keep it serious. Take positions, keep a watch for hostiles, Dane do your thing.”

“Fucking Pogue,” Dane heard Neiderhauer mutter. But it didn’t matter. This was his thing. Outside of his intense non-relationship with Carla, this was his greatest joy in life. The drone buzzed like a hummingbird under the intense swirl of twenty-three hundred rotations per minute, with an intense whine hidden within that sent dogs howling from a quarter of a mile away. Here too.

A guttural roar sounded from within the city, and was answered from another angle. Something deep and alien, a teensy bit bear with a whole lot of never-before-heard stacked on top. Something that set him on sudden edge.

“Guys?” he said.

“Put it away, uh Dane,” the lieutenant muttered. His face was screwed into thought. “Corporal Pugh, if this were one of your console shooters, what would you expect to be coming for us at this very instant?”

“Some horror-movie knock-off werewolves, sir.”

“Uh Dane, you play lots of games, don’t you?”

“Uh, mostly tabletop, sir.”

“Ah, well I bet you watch a lot of movies. What do you think is coming for us at this very moment?”

“Werewolves?” he answered.

“Damn,” the LT muttered. “Scan your lanes, men. I think things are about to get a whole-lotta dicey.”

The thing that came out of the murky pink and purple depths of the anomaly was the size of a bus sat next to another bus. And while it wasn’t a shark man or a werewolf, it was a shark of sorts, one with a mottled green back and a grubby dirt-colored underbelly, but in addition a stubby fin on its back, the rows of teeth and the sociopathic black marble eyes all completed the look. It bounded in on four short legs, each bearing a fin but all ending in what Dane would label elephant feet. It also sported a long, whippy tail ending in a shark’s tail fin. Overall, a cross between a shark, an alligator, and a passenger plane.

The sergeant gave a low whistle.

It opened up its mouth enough that you could walk straight in, and in went three or four zombies. The next bite took four more. They watched in awe (Dane watched in awe at least, unable to tear his eyes away) while every zombie except two disappeared into that gigantic maw, before the sharkigator turned and stumped away, with the zombies chasing after it in their slow, moping, and decidedly suicidal way.

“Well that just happened,” Niederhauer muttered.

“Bogey has cleared the entrance,” Daniels said. “We move. Let’s get to some high ground and see what Uh Dane has for us on an aerial survey.”

Dane expected every one of them to look at the LT like he’d just grown a second head, but they all clamped their mouths shut, got up, and started their focused, guns-up military jog toward the edge of the purple field. Dane, idiot that he was for enlisting, for going through basic training, and then for agreeing to be a part of this mission, followed. He lost his only chance to turn and run when Specialist Neiderhauer grabbed him by the collar and got him on his feet.

The sensation of passing through the force field-like film was not one he could describe. It tingled, but in places in his body he had never felt before. His ears buzzed and roared simultaneously, but not with any sounds he’d ever heard. A series of smells went into his brain, but they weren’t anything he’d smelled before.

Several things appeared in the periphery of his vision as well, like those floaties you got in your eyes if you stared at the bright afternoon sky for too long.

“Keep moving!” one of them said, and again Neiderhauer roughly pulled him along.

The arm Neiderhauer used to drag him was covered in scales.

***

Eight more people came through the border of the anomaly once Lieutenant Daniels headed back through and gave the signal. It was bizarre enough watching him go from a squat four-and-a-half-foot bearded fella to a six foot wall of muscle, but then he immediately transformed back when he walked back through and joined Sergeant Rivera, the huge stone and metal golem man.

Weirdest of all was Corporal Pugh, who hadn’t changed at all. Aside from the firearm transforming into a long sword and his tactical gear changing into a suit of plate and chainmail. A fact that Neiderhauer attributed to some “straight-up cosmic favoritism bullshit.”

Daniels had a war hammer strapped to his back rather than an automatic assault rifle. Dane’s own weapon had transformed into a short sword… but he’d also shrunk by three feet, so the blade appeared like a bastard sword to him. It had a sturdy, but unimpressive hilt, without any gold trim, no jewels, no etched designs or runes… like it came out of an overworked weaponsmith working for a king who wanted quantity, damnit.

Or like it was mass-produced in a factory, like his service weapon had been. He felt a little jiggle in the hilt and remembered that he’d stored a candybar in his butt stock. He wondered what the heck that had changed into, and if his hilt had stayed hollow.

“I’ll take Niederhauer west and circle around to the south. Sergeant Rivera, you make sure Pugh doesn’t do anything stupid. Head up north and swing around to the west, then return back… that cherry red Hyundai is our muster.”

Rivera gave a thumbs up and a metallic, “You got it, LT.”

“We secure this area further, ensure that nothing’s waiting just beyond these houses and buildings here. Guzman, you stay with Uh Dane.” He stared directly into Dane’s eyes. “You are not to move a muscle, understand? Specialist Guzman will make you her bitch if you so much as sneeze loudly. Your job is to keep an eye out for the communications team while they set up shop. Once they’re done, we move out.”

“LT?” Pugh said, and held up a sheaf of parchment and a small burlap sack with a drawstring.

“What’s that, Corporal?”

“Radios ain’t radios anymore.”

Pugh upended the drawstring sack, and an ink bottle tumbled out, followed by an ink-stained feather, which drifted down. Other implements followed. Dane recognized a blob of wax, a candle, a wax-splattered, burnt little metal cup, and a wax seal. Dane bent to get a better look, and saw the bald eagle done in pewter or lead, with a bundle of arrows in one claw and a bundle of olive branches in the other. Over its chest was a coat of arms, a slightly misshapen version of the seal of the country. And where the miniaturized comms radio used to be now sat an orb, its interior full of fog, undulating shadows rolling through it.

“Looks like comms are out, unless one of you is a fortune teller. Worse comes to worse,” Daniels said. “We’ll use the flash/thunder signal. Snap your fingers or tap your blades on the pavement.” They wouldn’t need it; this section of the USA was a ghost town.

The comm team only took about ten minutes to enter, get used to the idea that one of them was a humanoid version of a housecat, and that their communications equipment had all transformed into medieval implements. Two of them (an elf-looking guy and an orc) exited the anomaly immediately. The others sifted through their gear, marveling and swearing at the same time.

As for Dane, he could barely comprehend what had just happened. He watched as the comms team took their packs and dumped out cheesecloth-wrapped, twine-tied rations, torches pre-wrapped in some fabric or another, a dagger, a cooking kit, and a piece of paper. Dane came over and marveled with them.

“Jesus, it looks just like Shelly,” the elf guy said, staring at the woodcut of a girl holding a baby. He stuck his arm back out, and it transformed back into a photograph, blurry through the edge of the anomaly, but it became a woodcut once he drew it back through the edge.

Unreal.

This neighborhood of suburban Buffalo appeared untouched, except for the semi-transparent pink veil standing on the northwest side, stretching up into the sky. It roiled with the same swirling energy of the portal they’d seen in the videos. It extended around in a wide arc, and up maybe a hundred feet, but it was tough to get a good look at it. This other filmy barrier sat maybe a mile off, maybe a little more.

In front of it were just… houses. A few cars, but not many. Lawns with three months of growing and no mowing. No lights on, no birds flying, no bugs chirping, no kids, nobody rushing out of their house at this ungodly hour to get to work. Ninety percent of them, if Dane remembered correctly, had fled away from that ever-expanding purplish pinkish soap bubble.

And beyond that inner barrier?

Dane wondered what they’d be looking at once they pushed through.

“Come on,” Guzman said quietly.

Dane realized he’d spent so long just staring around that Lieutenant Daniels and Niederhauer had given them the signal. They’d linked up with Pugh and Rivera, and were ready to push on.

***

Dane discovered a great deal more hair on his forearms than he’d had on his entire body since puberty began. Specialist Neiderhauer had gone full dragonite, gaining the telltale spines protruding off the back of his head, the snout, the smoke coming out of his nostrils when he breathed, the tail, the vestigial wings. All in all, he’d taken it a lot better than Dane expected.

“Holy fuck, Sarge, would you look at me? You think I got a cloaca? Hang on–”

“Belay that, Specialist, I am not interested in seeing your reproductive organs, no matter the type.”

“Bam! That’s a cloaca. Hoo, that’s a four-headed peen right there. I will absolutely ruin anyone we come across, make no mistake about that.”

“You are to cover that up double time, Specialist. That is a direct order.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Niederhauer said, but didn’t move.

“Uh Dane!” Sergeant Rivera barked.

“Sir?”

“Report on exactly what is occurring right this second.”

Around them, the world still appeared to be modern Buffalo, New York. A good mile distant, the atmosphere was swallowed by a pink and purple sort of haze, where the street signs and buildings and such disappeared.

“We are… under the influence of the anomaly.”

“No shit, soldier.”

“We should be getting game stats right about… now.”

He pulled up the SPECIAL Attribute array and tried to get a handle on what he was seeing.

SPECIAL attribute array: Dane Frelser, gnomish Tinkerer.

Level 1

XP: 0/1000

Strength 4

Perception 9

Endurance 6

Charm 14

Intelligence 12

Agility 8

Luck 1

Skills:

Inspect (Perception) level 1

Knowhow: General (Intelligence) level 1

Mingle (Charm) level 1

HP: 35/35

CP: 60/60*

Tinkerer class abilities [tap to expand]

He tapped.

Jack of All Trades: You gain Knowhow: General, level 1 as a skill. All-Purpose Tool: Any tools you carry are considered of the highest quality. Tinker’s Word: Gadgets you make with clockwork, or animated by magic can be controlled with simple verbal commands.

Not sure what to make of that just yet. Moving on...

He tapped on CP, figuring he ought to have magic, but instead read: Gnomish folk channel their mana into creating fascinating gadgets, many of which have magical effects. Therefore, you have Crafting Points rather than Mana Points.

He also opened up his inventory and discovered a bank of slots that could be filled with cards. He knew they were cards because he’d played Mad Card Again! around the same time Corbin was giving it up, and had amassed quite a collection. That was until his hometown of Ferndale, Michigan had suffered a flood so nasty it had decided to climb halfway up his basement bedroom walls and murder his collection valued at around thirty-five thousand dollars. He had managed to save only a handful of cards, like four or five thousand, but many of them eventually contracted black mold, and anyway… he had a single hermetically sealed hyper rare of one of the best dragons in the game, and eventually, he’d sell it off.

Point was, he knew his shit.

One of the cards was locked in the top row of three, while the other two were in the bottom row. The top card showed an old gnomish with a gigantic mustache seated at a workshop with his tongue stuck out, gigantic steampunk goggles on his face and one of the lenses with a magnifier in front. Other magnifiers stood at the ready, waiting to be swiveled down and locked into place. He was currently working on putting together a fish with mechanical teeth and a lightbulb extending off its forehead. He was surrounded by bits of metal, piles of scrap and cast off designs, and tools in a neat row beside the fish.

Dane brought his hand up and found a mustache that protruded several inches from his face, dipped down low across his cheeks, and rose up to connect to his sideburns. Yikes.

The card locked into his inventory was called Right Tool For The Job, a mythic special ability card that apparently made him into a Tinkerer. This card gave him the ability to take loot drops and fashion them into useful items or gadgets, based on his Intelligence and Knowhow roll. The more CP he invested in these items, the longer they would take to break.

The other two cards were common: Silent Step, and Anything Can Be a Weapon. The former made him quiet for a few mana (or CP in this case… his locked special ability forced him to craft something to use with Silent Step), while the latter was a passive boost on improvised weapon damage and durability.

​​The Silent Step card informed him that if he put the card in his Core Slot he would end up being a Trickster, while the other card said if he equipped that one into a Core Slot, he would end up a Gadgeteer. He wasn’t sure what either of those meant yet, but figured he’d keep them out of his Core Slots. They sounded too important for common cards.

“Come over here,” he called out in a brand new voice. It wasn’t an upgrade.

“What did you say, you peon?”

“I said gather round!” he said. “I’ve played this card game before and we need to powwow.”

“Negative,” Daniels said. “Rivera, if he opens his mouth again, shut it for him.”

Dane turned wide eyes on the sergeant, and discovered that Rivera had transformed into a nine foot mechanical monstrosity all in slate gray stone, with glowing orange eyes and metallic accents. He also contained some glowing areas around his new anatomy: elbows, knee joints, and a circular space in the center of his chest with a gear-shaped border. These all gave off an orangey-red light that was about as cool as it was threatening.

LT Daniels spoke up. “We are still visible to any possible Canadian surveillance. We continue through the second border and into the fantasy land.”

“Oooh, fantasy land,” Niederhauer cooed. “The land of all my fantasieeeeeeees.” Which sounded very weird in his dragonite voice.

“Stow that talk, Specialist. Make sure you have Uh Dane. Let’s hump this, people.”

This time instead of dragging Dane by his shirt, he just picked him up and slung him over the shoulder, then literally muttered “hump, hump, hump!” when he took off jogging toward the inner perimeter.