Your mentor, the Ghoul, and yourself make your way through the remnants of the past world. Suddenly, it all makes sense to you. The world went to hell, and it was the Professor's abuse of his Creations that furthered it. Now, the Church hunts you all down for no reason other than to to give hope to 'real' humans. It's despicable, but it's the world you're in right now.

The hot sun beats down upon you, while your slave suddenly comes to a halt. "This is it." He blandly calls out, reaching down to the sandy flooring, and makes hand motions as to move some of the sand away.

You turn to wish your master a farewell, but he is already gone. Only a hazy version of him can be seen through squinting in the distance. So, it's just me and my Ghoul. Let's just hope it doesn't get bloody...

You follow David's beckoning, and bend down to see what he was unclearing. As your slave digs, more and more sand  seems to pile in. "What are we looking for?"

"They're underground, sir."

With a nod, you decide to help out with the digging. As you lay your hands on the sand, you thank fortune that you hadn't done this in the middle of the day, rather than just an hour or so after sun-rise. The sand would no doubt have burnt your fingers otherwise! Even though you and your ghoul are digging barehanded, it doesn't take too much time before you begin to feel the sand getting thicker, more doughy. With quick powerful stroke, you continue ripping through the sand, throwing it out of your radius, soon creating a little pit, low enough that you could stand up in it. After clawing at the earth with your servant for a while, you accidentally scratch at something... Hard, metallic. Underneath the sand lay a metal disk, with evenly-spaced holes around it's edge and the middle. Even as it is right now, it's fairly obvious that the disk is heavily embedded into the ground, and prying it out would no doubt prove to be a challenge. At first, you try just digging around and under it, but your efforts seemed to have been in vain; the plate appeared to be a part of both the earth and some sort of brick-well that goes much further down.

"You sure this is the place? You ask, making sure that this was the opening to the Wolf Stronghold. It'd make sense, as this is extremely safe from the Zealots, considering.

"Yes." Comes the monotone reply, "The few remaining GPS satellites pin-pointed this exact spot. We caught several monsters disappearing from under the sand here."


Now, how should we try to open this?

You just call through the disc's holes and hope to hear an answer.

Using divine intuition, you lean in close to the holes on the lid and yell as loudly (and awkwardly) as you can, "HELLO THERE, WE'RE LOOKING FOR THE WOLVES."

Your ghoul snickers. You vaguely hear the echo of your voice trail off into the buried well. Hopefully somebody down there heard your dopey exclamation, even if it came out dumb sounding. You certainly wouldn't want to go through it again. You hear some heavy foot-steps from the well, and try your best to peer through it. Alas, it is too dark. Still, you hear a voice in response.

"Who are yeh?" The voice progressively gets closer. It's gruff, but calm.

"Uh, I'm not a hundred-percent sure! But we're related."

"Related eh? You'd have to explain that one to me." You can hear a sharp thud, and the lid on top of the well turn from a flat 180-degrees to a wedged 90. A hairy, clawed hand withdraws. You hear another thump, probably the Wolf down there falling back to the floor.

You shrug, and smile at your Ghoul, and then proceed to look down the brick-well...

It's dark, for one thing, and you can't make out anything but two figures looking up at you. Overcome with nervousness, you loudly blurt out, "We come in peace!"

Several dark figures appear from the bottom of the well, after several glances upwards at you and whispering, one of them waves you down. Shivering, you make sure to slowly go down, using the metal foot-holds protruding from the side of the cylindrical, brick well. The dark figures eye you carefully, taking a while to speak. One with dark gray hair and scruffy facial hair as well as a slouching hunchback of a surprisingly muscular body, points at your armor, "If you're a Zealot, I'd turn back right now."

His voice isn't too threatening, but his body language and thick-eyebrows suggest otherwise. He's clad in tight cloth shirt and pants, bulging with muscles, and is surrounded in an intimidating aura. The other one is completely cloaked, though watches your Ghoul with suspicion. "I'm not of the Church," you start, trying to make a good first impression, "and neither is he. Not anymore at least."

"Then what are you?" The gruff man calls out, his eyes narrowing.

"Well, I'm glad you asked. I'm a... A Creation, just like you. This is my Ghou--" By the time you uttered the word, 'Creation' he had already put you in a headlock. The cloaked one has already put your ghoul to sleep, though hopefully not forever...

The man continues, "What do you want from us, fangs-boy? I thought the rest of your clan died."

Clans? "No!" You exclaim, struggling out of his hold. You actually manage to surprise him with your strength and are able to push him off of you. "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. But you're part of the Wolves, right? My associate and I want to join your strong hold."

He spits back at you, "We don't need any joiners."

"Why not?" You argue, your body tensing. "The Zealots are planning to raid this place soon, and I figure you could use as much help as possible."

The old man growls back you, "What are you, some sort of message-boy for the Professor?" Well, at least that means they aren't working for him. Probably. "The Church means no harm to us at this point. It'd be stupid for them to attack us. If you're trying to make a powerful group do something out of desperation, then oh boy, have you come to a bad place, vampy. I'd go back to the sun, where the pain is relatively quick." He cracks his knuckles. If you weren't so confident in your abilities, you might have been intimidated by this Neanderthal.

"Then perhaps you should ask my Ghoul, David. He was a Zealot before I brought him to the darkness." You point at the slumped body on the floor.

"He's dead now, too late." The brute says with a cruel grin, "Snapped his neck, Ragnor did."

You laugh, "I don't think he'd die from that." You take several steps toward your slave, waving the cloaked man aside, you grab David by the cuff of his armor and pick him up, then bring your hand to his neck and snap it back.

David glumly states, "Hi."

The Wolf grits his teeth, "Didn't know Vampires could use their powers like that."

"Then you'll be learning a whole lot more during my stay here. What was that you were saying about being the last of my clan?"

He smiles back, surprisingly, "Oh? So you don't know. You're the last of the Vampire Creations, as the rest died in this desert planet. I'm surprised you made it this long since the last Facility was destroyed. But if you don't remember that, then do you even remember your name?"

"I'm afraid not. Can you at least tell me yours?"

The Wolf laughs, "Call me Gideon. The cloaked figure on the side is Ragnor, our residential assassin, even if fighting has little place anymore." He brings out a hairy, clawed hand to shakes yours.

You accept it. "So I'm in?"

"I'm still suspicious of your reasons for coming here, and your story about the Zealots needs some checking."

"Is it really that surprising?"

"Less that and more that we don't want to fight them." What? Seeing your confused expression, Gideon continues, "Listen here Vampy, I'd rather die and let humanity survive than not. And most of us here are ready for that. If the Zealots come to our turf then we'll wipe them out easy, but we're definitely not going to seek conflict, even if me and the boys can take those choir-boys out in an instant."

"Why not? They want to kill us all?"

He shakes his head, his face now grim, "The Church may believe that we're demons, but they also value the sanctity of life, so I doubt they'd come here. Regardless, they aren't all that wrong about us. The things we've done... The innocents we've massacred in our wake. It doesn't mean that we're bad now, per se, but what we've done is inexcusable. The World has gone to waste, and I'm alright if we don't survive to see it rebuild itself.

You stand in silence for a little while, realizing that you've joined ranks with the modern equivalent of the hippies.

Gideon grins again, "But don't worry about that now, let's close the lid on top of our well and then introduce you to the rest of the gang."