Earth – the world of The Misplaced Dungeon.

{Timeline: September / October 2018 – MD from Ch. 26 through to 41}

Dr Jones was feeling harassed, it had been hell getting into work the offices of the CDC had been surrounded by protestors including several in black with hoods and masks. Then he had been summoned to see his superior and been informed about Task Force Blue and how he would now have to report to that incompetent political hack Ms Garr-Sampson.

That had led to him and Josh wasting the morning trying to brief the old dinosaur.

A grossly distorted and frighteningly inaccurate version of their briefing was on the two o clock news and then on all social media. The only sites with accurate information were the hobby and gamer sites.

Taskforce Blue limped on badly hampered by the political apparatchiks at the top who only wanted suitable sound bites to enhance their careers and increase their profiles with the public they despised.

* * *

Certain middle-eastern countries denounced the whole affair as a plot by the Great Satan.

A suicide bomber in Tel Aviv failed to kill anyone but himself when a glowing blue shield formed around him as he committed suicide.

A television evangelist denounced it all as the work of Satan and ordered his followers to shun the sinners.

* * *

Meanwhile at the North Hawaii Community Hospital Ginny was speaking with Jonathan Silverberg under her tree in the front garden of the hospital, Jonathan had changed into a rather striking looking Dryad with the tendency to shed heaves when nervous and she was often nervous around men as her mythic sex appeal made the former man very uneasy and unhappy.

They were the first to hear and see the mob, it was headed by hooded men wielding baseball bats, crowbars and at least one had a pistol.

Ginny fled into the Hospital to raise the alarm and was surprised when Charlie van Dorn, the other former man they were treating sashayed out of the front door to confront the mob. She was accompanied by most of the blue screen sufferers and a few doctors and nurses. She rang emergency services and after reporting the incident to a harassed sounding operator went out to support her friends.

When she rejoined her friends and colleagues the mob was screaming with a mix of fear and rage, two were firing pistols without aiming properly and at over fifty meters were thankfully not hitting anything. The vegetation was very active grabbing and holding any of the mob that came into reach while Charlie and Kaycee were throwing fireballs, Charlie, or lightning, Kaycee, at the shooters and then at anyone who tried to pick up the guns, or came charging at the defenders.

The majority fled when they realised that they were actually being hurt or horrors, Killed!

The small hardcore members of the mob who managed to get close regretted it as it seemed that people who were infected by the blue screens and claimed to be warriors or martial artists were dangerous at close quarters. Especially when they were healed of their injuries while their opponents weren’t.

The riot squad arrived in time to call for crime scene specialists and leave to confront other conflagrations.

* * *

In Pakistan Hassan who had been resolutely ignoring the blue screens he had been seeing since his flight back from the States decided out of desperation to at long last acknowledge them. He was in his house with his terrified young sister as his brother and cousins tried to break down his door.

‘What’s the most powerful thing I can become to save our lives? Race, select, change to most powerful, pah! no, no, no, Rakshasa. Yes, yes, yes. Now can you do the same for my sister! Please I beg you, she needs strength to escape if I fall!”

“Please sister try to see blue screens! And don’t be frightened when I change, I will always be your true brother."

First Hassan grew and gained bulk, seconds later so did his sister and they changed gaining the appearance of humanoid tigers. Then the door broke and their indignant relatives entered intent on committing an honour killing for their sister’s heinous crime of rejecting her cousin’s hand in marriage. Seeing the two Rakshasa they screamed and turned to flee.

They were unlucky, in the throes of change the Rakshasa’s instincts were in control and slaughter ensued, only Jamil the first to flee survived though bleeding profusely from slashes to his back.

* * *

Despite everything Dr Jones and his team soldiered on gathering data that was often contradictory and impossible. People throwing lightning from their hands, please!

Then from Germany came the story of a dying planet, a blue haired goddess and other gods, sentient gems that were the brains and souls of dungeons that fed on the death of others.

Within a week of their having received Markus Wrangel's story, similar stories came from Spain, South Korea and New Zealand. There even was a similar case in Honolulu where a researcher from the Smithsonian was investigating something that sounded remarkably like the dungeons described by Mr Wrangel.

Unfortunately there seemed to be no rhyme nor reason as to how the blue screen syndrome was spreading. The Japanese had their cases completely isolated allowing contact only by video and still one of their victim’s cousins had succumbed. Mr Hutchinson had isolated himself and he had contracted a particularly nasty version of the syndrome. Then many people came in touch with victims and absolutely nothing happened.

All Jones and his team could say is that it wasn’t transmitted by contact, germs or viruses. However, their superiors didn’t want to know what wasn’t causing it, they wanted to know what was and how to stop it.

Meanwhile sertain agencies and militaries around the world had noted the Israelis’ success in Tel Aviv and were eying the victims hungrily.