You must be this old to enter the Dungeon

71) Gone to the dogs

So as Brad slowly explained things to me, translating everything from lawyer talk, it turned out that I didn’t exactly own the old hospital.

“It’s still owned by the state, but the George Bright Foundation has the rights to it. With you as the chief administrator of the Foundation until you either quit, die, or are removed by the Governor. But it seems that as far as the System goes, all of that is close enough to count for making you the owner as far as your powers go.”

The old guy looked a little lost in thought. “Probably since no one has any greater claim on the land other than you as the representative of the state to which the property had been officially assigned without any property taxes for whatever you do with the land.”

He gave me a curious look. “Have you thought about moving onto another piece of property to keep any Dungeons from opening on it, something larger than your house and the adjoining properties? A larger safe zone might be important later on. Important enough I’m pretty sure we could get the funding to move your house.”

I had to stop and think about that and then shock my head at my lawyer. “I would, even if I had to leave the house behind, but… trying to move Acey’s tree would probably kill her. She’s one of mine, and my own comes first.”

The old man seemed a bit confused until Beryl touched his arm and whispered “The tree spirit.” and he blinked rapidly. “Oh, yeah. Her. Of course.”

The three of us, Captain Ebler, and a young woman in an army uniform that had been introduced to me but I had lost her name, were sitting a what I was guessing was an empty apartment in the Elysium with a hodge podge of furniture that must have been left behind by people who had moved on from needing the places assistance anymore.

Which would be either going to a real nursing home or the grave. So this was using dead, or as good as dead, people’s furniture.

It gave the room a certain odor, which I knew wasn’t just me as all the coyotes had squirmed around and whined until we opened a window and let them out on the balcony.

Where they were chowing down on a five pound bag of puppy pellets Ebler had brought along. The officer had shrugged when he saw me reading the writing on the package. “With their rapid growth, they need the calcium, same as growing dogs.”

I guess for him, me and the coyotes fall under the category of ‘one of his.’

The Captain seemed to have my back, at least until he needed to stick a knife in it. After all even good managers are still management.

Besides becoming the official head of the foundation named after my uncle, I had to sign for several other locations around the state, all of which either had, as in currently or had, as in past tense, Dungeons on them.

I had looked at the stack of papers for all the locations and had given the Army guy a questioning look. “It won’t do anything for me to ‘own’ any of these unless I’m at one of the properties and other than calling up my pet angry mulch pile, there ain’t much I can do there that is going to help anything after I leave.”

He nodded and turned to look at the Army girl, woman, with him. She reached forward to tap the papers in front of me. “What it does sir, is make you a representative of the state with authority over the sites in question. Federal officers attempting to deny a normal citizen access to their own property is a lot different from doing so to a state representative. No lower level functionary wants to put their career on the line stopping a state official carrying out an official inspection of a location assigned to them.”

I grinned a little, with one entire corner of my lips curling up. “So now I’m officially the Man. Got it.”

She seemed a little unsure at my use of the term but nodded without looking for reassurance from any of the older, or older male, people in the room. I noticed she also had a set of bars on her collar which meant she was an officer of some kind.

So, that meant something. I wasn’t sure what, but something.

Beryl spoke up next. “You need to get to fifth level Harold. Within the next five days.”

I stared at her. “Why? So you get more points?”

She gave me a cold look, then sighed. “I’m not going to try to manipulate you Harold. The quests I get are always to my advantage, even if I can’t imagine how they are in advance. But so far anything involving you that has helped me has at the very least not hurt you, and in some cases has helped you as well. This might be one of those, or it might be something that only helps me. Would spiting me be worth not doing something right now that we both know you will end up doing eventually anyways?”

Glaring at her, I began to stand up, only for Beryl to lean forward with her head pressed against the fingertips of one of her hands, “And then I try to manipulate you in a way that I should already know will only get your back up.” She looked up at me and sighed. “I’m sorry Harold. Please help me with this, it may matter to someone other than me, and that someone could be you.”

After staring at her, I grunted and sat back down. Looking over at Ebler, I asked. “Do you got someplace you need shut down sooner than later?”

He brought out a pile and began to explain.

Bird Island had long been a destination for family outings for generations, but each of its attractions had been abandoned one by one due to either being too small, too old, or having the funds for their upkeep and renovation being diverted by some politician to their own or supporter’s pockets.

I would call them corrupt politicians, but that last word pretty much always includes the first without even having to say it.

The Bird Isle Zoo was one of these attractions, first becoming a children’s zoo with… odd attractions after the new, larger, city zoo opened up and took all the better critters. Then the money raised to refurbish and reopen it got diverted to a new children’s zoo on the other end of the island, which was being built by a construction company with ties to one of the most outrageously corrupt mayors the city ever had.

Who kept being elected for no other reason I could tell than being tall, and being the same color as most of the people living in the inner city.

Now the place had gone to the dogs. Demon dogs.

Ebler told me that was name the that everyone involved was using, but the woman with him had offered up that Brackets called them, “Bale Hounds.”

By whatever name, they were fairly small, about the size of a beagle from the picture she produced of one of the many ones that had been killed outside of the “Forgotten Host” Dungeon.

But they ran in packs.

The Captain broke it down for me. “They’re small, not all that tough, but they travel in groups of a dozen or more, and… show him the shot with its mouth open Lieutenant Mukasa.

Have you ever seen an opossum yawn.? Their mouths can open up past it’s eyes and so can these dogs. Even better, the dog’s mouths were full of narrow, widely spaced, pointed teeth with visible curves to them, almost to the point of being like hooks.

I looked up from the photo at Ebler who took in a deep breath as if getting ready to give me bad news.

It was.

“The first team… only three of them came back out. The second one turned back after getting… well chewed up. Worse, before the national guard unit assigned to it secured the entrance, some of them had swam across the river. If the Dungeons goes up a rank, and these ‘Hounds’ get to rank two versions, well, I heard rumors of some Dungeons that had somehow ranked up their inhabitants early, and hordes of these things after they get tougher crossing the river over into the city would be bad. Real bad.”

Yeah, but… “I’m close enough to fifth that I could get it with just a few hours in someplace… easier, and then I could rest up for a few days before we tackled this. The rest of the group from here could do the same.”

The Captain grimaced. “Captain Walterich of the State National Guard and his command is to be relieved upon the arrival of a full company of regular army that is supposed to be boarding a flight from the Middle East as part of a larger withdrawal of most of our forces from overseas. On arrival I am expecting the same lockdown as the Border Patrol tried to pull but with official backing this time.”

I thought there was some law about the real military being used inside our own borders, but I was guessing the Dungeons counted as a form of invasion, there had to be exceptions to that law for things like that.

Ebler tapped the stack of papers in front of me. “The paperwork for the zoo should be on top.”

I sagged down in my chair. “Well... shit.”

The Captain nodded at me. “Welcome to being the Man, now you have to be the one making the calls, and then be the one held responsible for them. And yes, it's going to suck as much as you would imagine it would.”