Snippet the Last, BRAVING THE MALSTORM.

I… have a bit of a plan.

…

I hadn’t realized that the Danites (because who else could Ezekiel be from, except Deseret’s main intelligence agency?) had an elaborate hidden base in Old Vegas itself. I probably should have, though. It was an obvious place to put one, and Deseret loves secret facilities. Centuries of occupation by an evil magical empire tends to make you proactive about that sort of thing.

Anyway: one meal, shower, and change of clothes later (but not a skin change, which I was planning to bring up at some point), I was in a conference room with three other people. Ezekiel was still there, and I was utterly unsurprised to see my former client Professor Melissa Thackeray in attendance. No point to spreading around this particular knowledge, after all. The fourth was Colonel Tabetha Schaffer, who wore her Nauvoo Legion uniform like she really meant it. She also had a salvager tab on her lapel, in the properly distressed style. Either she really was a salvage engineer, or she knew enough to sing along anyway.

Right now she was noting details on a wall map. “Malstorm Base. Called by a slightly different name before the Discovery, of course. Bardic legend has it that it was where the Ancient Americans stored their icies, with great protections and wards against allowing such fell weapons to be lightly used. Or used at all.” Judging by the mordant relish with which she said all that, she was also actually looking forward to traipsing north to meddle with tainted Ancient super-weapons.

I would have shook my head, except that I had the same disease. There’s just something about mucking around with things that smart people leave alone. I raised my hand, politely. “Bardic legend?” I asked, trying to keep the skepticism out of my voice. Sometimes oral tradition is useful. Sometimes it gets you killed.

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