The shelf was as stable under her feet as a street would be, wider than many alleyways she'd seen in her time, however short that was from a squad perspective. Still, she was level twenty-seven and only twenty years old. She'd seen and done more than most people would in a lifetime. She could do this. What did best even mean in this situation though? It wasn't like there was a magic sword of dungeon slaying she could see anywhere. She went ahead at a steady walk. She could have covered more ground with a run, obviously, but wouldn't have been able to inspect the items as closely if she had. She picked her way between the detritus of another civilisation carefully, her standard issue diver boots placed so as not to crush anything beneath their not insignificant mass.

Step after step, steady as she went and looking at each piece in turn. This looked like a pen? That appeared to be a spoon, but bladed on one side, so you could cut your mouth open while you had soup? Spife. Definitely did not want the spife.

The fact that she had no idea what she was looking for was really slowing her down. What the hell was the best item? How would she know? It was like finding a needle in a junk pile. What she really needed now was some kind of divine blessing. If this was a movie, there would be a flashback scene now where some incredibly significant thing from earlier in the movie would show her what she was looking for.

Emboldened, Ishani started looking for a magical trans-dimensional espresso machine. No such luck. A few tens of metres later, and she was still no closer to finding anything exceptional. As she passed the two-thirds mark however, something definitely began to catch her eye. It wasn't just the ornate carving that covered the box. Nor was it the fact that it looked a lot cleaner and more colourful than the rest of the junk. It was probably the way that the part open lid suddenly began to glow like a star was being born inside it. A shiver of instinctive fear rippled through her, making her immaculate ponytail wave behind her like a banner. Again no, there was a wind coming from the box. It was getting stronger as she got closer. Steady step after steady step turned into a battle to get close to the box, her eyes watering as the wind grew stronger. The last step was tortuous, like leaning into a fullback who's trying to get to the bar after a match. Her fingers reached out to the box and just managed to flick it closed. There was a sharp click and the pressure against her vanished. She fell forward as the win ceased, the light flickered out and the attendant, forgotten in her struggle caught her before she landed face first on the box and the junk that surrounded her.

The junk appeared to have not been affected by the wind. Looking back she also now remembered the attendant walking next to her the whole way. Clearly whatever was in the box had some kind of fascination power as well as the ability to repel people it was fascinating. That seemed illogical but the first rule of planar travel was don't judge another species' wheat by your set square, presumably it made sense to its creators. Thanking the attendant, she held the box almost reverently as she stood back up. There was no doubt in her mind that this was the best thing she'd found on that shelf. It was the best thing that she was going to find but... She was a stickler for duty.

Sighing she, stood up, and carried on searching the rubbish for anything better than a literal box of magic.

Back in the antechamber, Chris' team was giving free rein to their most paranoid fantasies about dungeon diving, now that they were allowed to take everything up to and including, no especially, a nuke and a portable bridge to stabilise it. They could even use the pocket dungeons for transport. In a gaming context, they'd be called a bag of holding, or dimensional storage, but in the real world they were pocket dungeons. Artificially created dungeons the size of a small hangar, no core, one end, nothing inside but a blank room. The Dome's armoury had three in its stores, and they were reserved for the most important of missions due to their needing a portable bridge to saturate the local area with magic. A much smaller, but also much easier to control, version of the HMZ surrounding the Bridge in the Dome.

The entrance to one of these pocket dungeons was being loaded with everything the team thought they might need. The doorway itself wasn't actually very heavy, no more than a few tens of kilograms. It was however a complete rectangle, the lower side embedded into a dolly so that items could be pushed into it, and it could be wheeled around. There was no chance of taking it into the dungeon with them though, someone had tried once and the resulting explosion had removed a good chunk of Northern Europe. Then a few weeks later someone else had done it with a pocket dungeon they'd made from scrap magical items and sheer bloody-minded persistence and a freshly spawned dungeon in Yellowstone. The explosion had triggered the super volcano. North America was vapourised, the dimensional confusion somehow amplifying the blast. A single research mage in the Canary islands felt the blast and realised that the world was on the verge of ending. That wasn't special, millions realised that. Most of them tried to get to the other realm, or gave themselves over to debauchery. This mage was special though, La Palma had a secondary tier permanent bridge to power the observatories in the area. She used this and the rules of magical karma to channel the energies contained within the volcano under her feet to erect a barrier a degree or so North of where she stood. This was the single largest magical spell cast by a mortal practitioner on this Earth. It took its toll. Over the next twenty-four hours, as the spell ripped through her and blocked the fallout from the volcano coming South, her body started to come apart. She pulled from around herself to repair and replace her mortal shell. Now her vitrified body is the centre of a shrine to her sacrifice. She is still casting the spell today, bleeding energy from the Earth's mantle to keep what's left of humanity alive.

Everything North of 30 degrees is lost to the nuclear winter. Much of East Asia and Australasia were wiped out by the tsunami. Less than a third of humanity survived the next decade.

All of this explained why the pocket dungeons were kept in the most secure facility on Earth and were only let out with some of the most powerful combat mages humanity had to offer. It also explained why Chris was arguing with Mary about what they were allowed to put inside the room. Apparently he, in his role as avatar of magic, was certain that the dimension warping warheads for the fifty millimetre howitzer he felt was important to bring were perfectly safe.

"Look, I'm going to be taking them into a dungeon, right? I've used the same tech in grenades in dungeons. They're not active distorters of planar boundaries. It's the difference between scrunching up a tissue and tearing it to shreds" He was demonstrating with a packet of tissues he had pulled from the desk. As he ripped up the tissue he caught Mary's scathing glare. "I'll err, get you some more tissues, sorry."

She crossed her heavily muscled arms in front of her and glared harder.

"Well, I suppose I can carry them in my backpack, there's only three anyway. You're probably right, better safe than sorry. Best to follow the rules really, eh?"

The antechamber was a hive of activity around the counter. A veritable army of homunculi were bringing weapons, field fortifications, huge stacks of food, emergency water, portable magical toilets which were also water reclamation kits, And apparently also heavy artillery and a functioning self-contained shower block.

In the midst of all this, Ishani came back, amazed by the transformation. Her attendant, as she now thought of it, led her unerringly through the chaos and left her at the counter. She still clutched the ornate box in her arms, as though it was someone's fragile baby that she'd been given to hold and was terrified of holding it too tight and hurting it, or holding it too loosely and dropping it.

"You're back then?" Wolfgang's voice drifted up from behind the counter. "I guess you've found what you were looking for then? What is it?"

"I don't know." Ishani replied. "I couldn't see it. When I got near, it started glowing and pushing me back. It was the only thing on that shelf that seemed to be in the least bit magical."

Mary looked at the box. "That box is empty, or it was when I catalogued it. Made of some cheap plastic, but at least you've cleaned it."

"It was like this when I found it."

"Then it's definitely not going into the pocket dungeon."

Chris managed to convey the fact he was blanching under his fur quite effectively. "We are definitely not putting an unknown magic into or near a pocket dungeon. Can I have a look at that, over in that corner?" he asked Ishani.

Agreeing she handed the box to him and they went to a booth in the corner, followed by the rest of the team. Everyone was interested to see what a new magical item was. With a nod of his head Chris used :

[Malkeni Box]

"I take it you inspected it?" he asked.

Ishani nodded. "I did. I'm not sure what it is, but it's called a Malkeni box. That's all I got from it."

"Me too" replied Chris. "Which is a bit vexing since I'm supposed to have the most powerful inspect of anyone in this Realm."

Arriving at the booth, he eased his oversized form around the small table, placing the Malkeni box on the chair beside him. He met Mary's eyes and gestured at the table, "May I?"

With the glow of a relic hunter's lust in her eyes, Mary nodded. She was as keen as any of them to see what this box was.

Chris allowed one of his claws to slide out of its sheath and used it to skilfully and quickly etch a small magical circle on the table. Then a second, then a third, and so on until he had a circle of nine circles connected by lines. Each circle was thick with intrictate runes and symbols. Ishani was amazed that the huge Leonine could create such a delicate and complex ritual magic so quickly.

The final circle in the centre was relatively simple, a single rune, contain.

Chris placed the box on the table in the central circle and began to chant. This was no cod Latin like he'd used in his office. He was calling to his god in her native tongue. Each word caused another symbol to glow with mana, until the table was nearly too bright to look at. The chant ended and the lines between the circles glowed brightly and then faded as the mana surged to the central circle. The box began to glow and the barest whisper of wind began to push at Ishani.

It began to get stronger and Chris put his massive paws on the table, exactly fitting in two of the now dim circles.

Then as suddenly as it had come, everything went dark as the box and circle ran out of mana.

"By Ngaboux, that was much harder than it was supposed to be, and it did less than I hoped. Why didn't you tell us that you were descended from elves, Ishani? This is an elfward, if powered properly it'll keep elves away from quite a large area. The issue is, I don't know how it was being powered, or why it's reacting to you. Care to enlighten us?"