Monday, January 9, 2012

The Tower of Trials Chapter 1 Page 1

George Getriebe had thought his life dull. Sure he had whatever he needed from the city he lived in, the tower city Covenant. Shelter, food, healthcare - all were provided.

There were shops to trade, factories for employment and products, even gardens for recreation and greenhouses for agriculture. Covenant had the space for it all, being a tower reaching up to the skies and a width so thick it would take could easily take a day to walk across unaided.

And there was peace and security, guaranteed by the city's laws and upheld by the ruthless Enforcers.

But George's life still lacked excitement. Entertainment in the city, in the form of theaters and clubs, was more a chore than a delight. The only exception were the television programs about the wasteland around the tower. George had always watched those, whether they be stories or documentaries.

George had first heard about the wasteland from Papa. His old man had told him about the sandy lifeless land around the tower, a place without law, where everyone was free to do as they wished. There was excitement, there were mysteries and there were hidden treasures.

So as soon as George had turned eighteen, and was eligible to visit bars, he had started visiting Sandy's Last Hand in the darker side of one of Covenant's commercial districts. It was there that adventurers of the wasteland gather. There were explorers, raiders, treasure hunters, the occasional bandit - people who made the wasteland a part of their lives, whether as part of their jobs or as diversions. It was probably the closest George would ever get to the exciting life he had always dreamed of.

Getting in each time had been an inconvenience for George. His small stature made people think of him as a 'boy'. He was eighteen! He was a young man! The ID in his wrist communicator proved it!

Once he had settled, however, the trouble had been quickly forgotten each time. The atmosphere within the bar had usually been lively. Drinks had been of average quality and there had actually been a few quality food cubes and nutrition paste on the menu, and at reasonable prices too!

That particular morning, George was early at the bar. It was his day off. Silly him, in his excitement to spend the day there, he had mistakenly dressed for work in his coveralls. He had even stuffed tools in his pockets and on his belt for some odd reason. He noticed it once he was in the bar, as he was yet again showing his ID (bless Covenant's obsession to label everything and everyone) to the bartender.

George had a day job at Papa's gadget fixing shop. Day after day, he had stooped over a work table fixing appliances. It had been boring work. He always had the same old uninteresting thing to fix, things like wrist communicators, child tracking devices, broken toys, the occasional kitchen sink. Never anything fun like a high fidelity sound system or a short range radar.

His father had taken all the fun jobs for himself.

Once the bartender was satisfied with his ID, George ordered himself a soda. No sense getting inebriated while trying to eavesdrop for exciting gossips and stories.

After a gulp of the sweet gassy drink, George looked around for anything of interest. The busty waitresses in very short skirts were attractive but they were not why he was there. There were adventurers, but at a fraction of the number that would be present later that night. George glanced at each of the tables of adventurers, looking for a group that would have and be willing to share tales. Their appearance and their noise level would give him clues.

George had heard many tales, mostly from sitting close to loud people bragging about their exploits. He had even once been accepted at a table with a few explorers where he had listened closely to their discoveries. Oh, and he had to show his ID to those explorers to prove that he had met the bar's minimum age limit. That was how he had scored an apologetic invitation to sit with those adventurers.

The double doors of the bar slid open. Two women entered.

The woman in front was of average height with her dark brown hair wrapped into a bun and secured with a black clip. She had a long brown coat. Beneath the coat, a pistol could be seen on her belt when she twisted aside. She was young and quite pleasing to the eye.

George was about to look away when he noticed, on the back of the woman's coat, the logo of a red fox's grinning head over a background of a gray cloud. Well, he thought it was a fox, since he was not sure what an actual fox looked like.

The other woman had a similar logo on her breastplate, over her heart. That other woman was tall, with skin of ebony. She had short black hair and she wore ceramic armor that covered her body and limbs. On her belt, she had a sword and a pistol.

George recognized the logo as that of the Scarlet Vixens, a well-known group of wasteland adventurers he had heard many rumors of. Tales of the Scarlet Vixens' crazy exploits were always full of excitement and loot, with stories of treasure hunting and besting great foes, of visiting faraway places and seeing strange sights.

Maybe he would hear new interesting stories.


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