I thanked Steve for the address.  "So, can you get match grade thirty cal pistol ammunition and additional magazines like this?  I'm going on an extended trip in a while and I'd like to have enough spare cartridges to last."  I took the extra mag out of my jacket pocket and handed it to him as I told him the kind of pistol that used it.  I waited for him to examine the mag, then asked for it back.  I left him with a promise to go see the dozer guy.

   I headed over to Arrow and bought some more canned food to take to the parking garage.  My next stop was a trip to the parking garage to drop off the food and leave the three wheeler.  I hoofed it a few blocks to find a cab, which I took to a place near the Silver Initiative office.

   The office was open.  I introduced myself to the secretary again and asked if Mr. Norton was available.

"It should be here, three days from now. How much do you want?" Steve asks after getting out a paper and pen.

"If you can wait twenty minutes, he's in with a donor right now." The secretary says with a consoling smile.

   Hmmm...  This was probably my last chance to get this caliber of ammunition and I did have two pistols to feed.  "I'd say six hundred rounds, four double magazine pouches, and seven magazines, if you can get them."

   I told the receptionist that I didn't mind waiting.  I passed the time reading the magazines in the waiting area.  Mr. Norton had fewer, but newer, issues than the clinic.  I'll call that a win.

Steve writes down your order.

After reading some magazines, Mr. Norton, and a fat, successful looking matron come smiling out of an office.

"Thank you for your support."
"Its, I just don't understand it.  Until a hundred years ago, anyone could have any amount of silver.  And then all of a sudden as my grams said it when she was young, 'they just took my mom's silverware'.  It seems an infringement of our Rights as Englishmen."
"Indeed, it is.  And its what we are here to fight."

With a few more enthusiasms, the woman leaves, and Mr. Norton turns to you with a smile.

"Now you see what I do about a third of the time." He ushers you into his office. "Still, a five hundred pound donation, and three thousand pounds over five years is a good morning for us.  How can I help you, Misty?"

   I smiled.  "Do you mind if we go into your office to talk?  This might take a little while..."

   Once we were in his office, I took off my jacket, revealing the twin pistol rig.  The motorcycle jacket was warm indoors and it felt good to take it off.  "If you caught the news, you might have heard of the favor I did for a mutual friend."  I tapped the holstered pistol on my right side.  "I've done a bit of shopping already..."  I shrugged.  "... but I could use a few more magazines and some more ammo for the pistols.  Also, could you tell me how the grenades of your world are put into use.  I could have used a couple of them last night, but I didn't want to blow myself into small pieces by getting something wrong."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:48, Tue 05 July 2016.

He sees the rig, hears the comment, and you can see a lightbulb, as it were, go on above his head.

"Good. Yes, I can get you some."  He looks about in his office, and comes up with a joke grenade.  "Its a wallet. But except for the boom, it works."

He turns a screw one click left, spins it to right three revolutions, and the screw pops out, and klunks on the floor.  The arm is now free to move, and you have four seconds before it would explode.  He shows you that you can reverse insert the screw, by its wide, easy turn top, and that makes it an explode on impact device.  He also rescrews in the screw, and it self-locks to the left with an audible click.

"Now it's safe. You try it." He has you do it a half-dozen times until he's confident you got the basics down.

   "I appreciate all of the help you are providing.  Last night was just the opening volley.  My plan is to hit their revenue producing operations.  This will hurt them in several ways.  They lose income, people, facilities, and most importantly, prestige.  Then I'll start getting serious."  I smiled as I shrugged back into my leather jacket.  I still had a lot of things to do.  "Please say hello to your wife from me."

   I headed out and picked up the four wheeled car.  I needed to do some recon.  I decided to drive by their showplace brothel to get the lay of the land... so to speak.

Saxby's is a four story yellowstone hotel of massive proportions with a fenced vision blocking parking lot next door.  A short line of two three wheelers and two taxis is pulled up in front, and a beautiful girl in red shimmercoth dress is greeting the man leaving the lead taxi while two guys in white shirts and red vests and black pants that looks like a uniform as both wear it, stand nearby looking about occasionally.  A young guy less nicely dressed stands by with a cigarrette, and serves as a valet.

Hanging from the front is a thirty foot tall neon sign.

A short walk up to the front door, and a woman built like she could serve as a NFL guard welcomes the man in.  You can hear music from inside.  There are lights aimed up at the building all the way around making the yellowstone glow in the night.  It has a fifteen degree slanted roof of dark red clay half tubes.

   I studied Saxby's for a minute more, then left before I drew attention to myself.  This place didn't seem have the overall evil vibe of Bron's place.  Saxby's was probably going to require a straight up frontal assault.  I wasn't dressed for that kind of party yet.  I drove downtown and parked at the lawyer's office.  I got my stuff out of the car, locked it, then went into the lawyer's office.

   I hadn't done this since I arrived, and I know that I should get into the habit as soon as I arrive anywhere, but at this point I'm going with better late than never.  Truth be told, dropping in on a dead body was just a little distracting.  I checked to see if I was alone here or if I was sharing this place with other versers.  I also checked to see if I could locate the quarter I had left behind at the Ceres safe house.

   There was something about the Madam at Saxby's.  The Ten supposedly all had a similar physical appearance.  If you ignored the question of gender, the Madam's general description could be Bron's description, or Muerte's.  If I was a crime boss, I'd probably assign my top enforcers to my operate primary activities.  It would keep my underlings under the control of an enforcer and keep the separated enforcers from getting bored while they make me money.  Supposedly, the Ten consisted of eight men and two women.  It would make sense that one of the two female members ran the high class bordello.

   I took the few minutes needed to add one of the suppressed thirties to the weapons harness, just like last night.  I added a double mag pouch to the spot where the phaser used to ride, then tucked the third mag and the mag from the second pistol.   into it.  I looked at the meager ammo supply and sighed.  The extra mags and ammo for the thirties couldn't arrive too quickly for me.

   I shrugged back into my Glock rig.  The twin thirties rig was comfortable enough, but it didn't feel like a part of me as the Glock rig did.  I added a denim jacket and headed out by car to find the Ceres safe house.

In reply to Misty (msg # 299):

You detect one verser, and you detect two of your items.  That would be the gems which were last at Delmonico's and the coin at the safe house.


You do recall that the Martini structure was an overlapping mix of function and territory bosses, almost as if they had two chains of command.  And the Ten supposedly helped out occassionally.  Still, your theory seems sound.

You end up in front of Delmonico's first, and the door on the front looks new.  Which might mean Detective Calhoun had to kick in the old door.  A few miles more, and you pass by a discreet large duplex with brick walls and covered windows from the inside, and a garage in the middle.  Your coin is in there.

   Just one other verser on the planet meant that the place wasn't highly traveled.  That could be a good thing if the powers that be aren't used to people like me.

   I parked on a side street.  I looked around to see if anyone was paying any undue attention.  When I was reasonably sure it was safe, I walked up to the door, knocked, and waited.

You hear someone come up to the front door, stop, run off.  Another person comes after thirty seconds, stops, yeanks the door open, and draws you in.  Its the Ceresian priestess, and she's furious to judge by her face.

   I smiled my best rich client smile.  "Hi, I know I've probably come at a bad time, but I've run into something big and evil and I need your help."

"Grrrrrr." You've never seen her face pink before.  "Ceres give me strength." And then gives you the Angry Eye.  "....not to strangle my friend."

   I smiled.  "I apologize for the intrusion.  I did mention that I was a detective.  Here is the problem.  There is this dance club called Bron's.  I know of two instances where young women went there to apply for jobs and were never seen again.  I doubt those are isolated instances.  I went there to get eyes on the place, but it radiates so much evil that I couldn't get any closer to it than the street."

"Its a dangerous thing, Misty. Some of the people out there, if they found where we are would do very bad things to some of the people we've hid. We're not the Temple of Mars, we don't have ushers armed with shotguns and swords." She's calming down, and she smiles faintly. "It is good to see you."

"Now, about your problem. Yes, Bron's for those in the know has an evil reputation.  Fools go there because they think they can safely play with fire.  And its not just girls; I know of one guy who went there, and dissappeared as well.  I know because his mother came here.  She had been hiring private investigators, and harassing everyone.  Suddenly she gets phone calls in the middle of the night, and they tried to poison her dog.  So she came here."

She takes you to her office, gets you a cinnammon roll, and writes a note in some code.

"Take this to the High Priestess. We have a few things left over from the Age of Legends, it is said.  If she cannot help, I can teach you more magic."

   I polished off the cinnamon roll as if I hadn't eaten all day.  I probably needed the carbs.  I really should add more bread to my diet.  You know... for the fiber and stuff.

   I took the coded message and got directions to the temple.  "Thank you for the referral.  Even with my skills and abilities honed on a variety of worlds, I wouldn't be able to do this without your help."  I turned to leave, but turned back.  "I know that I'm an extremely violent person at times.  It's something I'm really good at doing, but it's not about the violence.  It's not even about punishing the psychos, no matter how much they deserve it.  It's about standing up for their victims and protecting the people who would become their prey.  It's what keeps me putting one foot in front of the other every day."

Thankfully carbs eaten in the safe house don't bother people.

You leave and make your way through crowded streets, amidst many walking workers in their work uniforms to the High Temple of Ceres.

It is Parthenon like, but the columns are wheat stalk shaped.

Walking inside, you are greeted by a teenybopper girl in a gown who takes you to a priestess, and then goes back to her front door post.  The priestess glances at your note, and takes you to the High Priestess.

On the way you pass an altar where loaves of bread are cooking, along with a line of people waiting to cook the small dough loaves they have in their hands.  You cross the central open area where a statue of Ceres nearly brushes the ceiling.

And on the far side is a balcony overlooking a beautiful wheat field.

A very old lady is standing by the marble railing looking out over the field. She turns to you, and you can tell she is blind. The priestess comes and whispers in her ear, and the high priestess nods.

"My name is May. While I respect the work my dear sister does, I'm not sure I should be giving out artifacts from the Age of Legends, even if I had them."

   The High Priestess was right.  I wouldn't give just any stranger with a note my alleged artifacts either.

   "High Priestess, thank you for allowing me to interrupt your work.  I understand the position you are in.  You have been entrusted with the care of things that, if they existed, would have enormous power and value.  And now someone walks in off the street with a request to get them from you.  I can see why you are unsure.  I would never ask anyone to do anything they were not completely sure about doing."

   All she could say was no.  OK, maybe she could vaporize me with the wave of her hand, but that is still a form of no.  "The question I have is, what would it take for you to be sure?"

"I'm blind, please take my hand." She holds out a hand. "While we walk, you can tell me what you want to do with my 'alleged artifacts'.  I like that." She chuckles.  She walks slowly with you as you talk, and at the altar, she reaches out with a hand, and deftly picks up a hot roll, which she hands to you.

"Toss it."

   I explained about my going to different places to help people as I held her hand while we walked.  I took the roll and tossed it straight up in the air maybe eighteen inches.

It lands on the ground, bounces two feet away, bounces another foot, and starts rolling, and ends up, keeping on rolling, all the way twenty five feet away until it rolls up against a column.

"Really, Ceres, are you sure? OK." May says.

She walks over to the column, and presses a decoration on it.  A door opens into the column, and below it is stairs.

"Go on down. See if Ceres gives you what you seek.  See if you can handle it.'

   I turned to face May.  "No matter how all of this works out, thank you."  I walked slowly to the doorway in the column, took a deep breath, and started down the steps.

You walk down into a room made of stone.  A long table sits crosswise in front of you.  On it are three dishes.

One is a cinnammon roll, another is a freshly grilled steak, and the last is a cup of blood.

A note is on the table.

It reads as follows: "The roll has poison in it. Eat or drink one, and receive the judgement of the Goddess."

   Even though everything running through my mind says that carbs are bad for me down here, I go with my heart and eat the roll.