After some further conversation from Armbruster wherein Jim-Bean assured her that they wouldn't try to escape, she let them out of the pen. She showed them around the caves, starting with the lab, pointing out the refrigerator and freezer as examples of her good will.
"You're all going to have to pull your own weight around the house, of course," she said.
Willie growled at Hammer whenever he came near. Hammer gave the wolf-beast a wide berth.
Each agent was assigned chores. Hammer had the bulk of the work, including fetching water from an underground pool, cleaning the dishes, and most disturbingly, emptying the latrine.
Archive became Armbruster's research assistant. He had was assigned the dull, dirty, and dangerous work: drawing quivering microscopic horrors, sniffing bubbling alembics pouring off poisonous gases, and reading paragraphs that tempted the mind to disintegration.
She took Jim-Bean aside into another chamber. "You're different, aren't you?"
Jim-Bean swallowed hard. Armbruster poured three bottles of wine into a large glass vat the size of Jim-Bean's head. She poured the remainder of it into a beaker and offered it to him.
"You could say that," he said, taking the glass. Her hand brushed his arm, the contact a little too long to be an accident. more
Michael "Talien" Tresca is a game designer, author, communicator, and artist. He has authored numerous supplements and adventures for AEG, MonkeyGod Enterprises, Goodman Games, Otherworld Creations, RPGObjects, Ronin Arts, and Privateer Press. His articles and reviews have appeared in Allgame.com, D20 Filtered, Dragon, Gamers.com, Pyramid, and RPG.net. Michael lives in Connecticut with his wife, who is an editor, his infant son and his cat, all of which are fluent in English.
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