Having reached the entrance of the pass after his army’s long march, Alan orders his men to set up camp at the entrance.

With his right hand man Chris, Alan starts the short climb to the pass itself to see just how much work they would have to do. What had once been a highway large enough for a industrial dump truck to fit through with ease, had been reduced to cracked pavement leading from the eastern city to the base of a gigantic pile of rubble.

For a good mile around the pile, the ground was covered with a scatter of boulders, metal, plastics and depleted radioactive materials. The documents that had been put in his care a short while after the army arrived at the eastern city said these dangerous materials had been dumped her purposefully to prevent the succubae from simply digging it out with the heavy machinery humanity had been forced to leave behind.

Walking up the incline towards the bottom of this immensity, Alan looks up towards the top of the pile towering above them at roughly three hundred meters, and the mountain peaks on either side which reached all the way to an estimate of four hundred and fifty meters.

This pass was supposed to be a show of the countries power, influence and technology, imagine for a moment the incredible boast “Able to remove the center of a mountain” but during the war it had proved in the end to be a simple folly of political stupidity.

Reaching as close as they could to the pile, without climbing over or squeezing between the pieces of stone that had fallen from the main pile, Alan stops before a particularly large boulder and covering his arm with a deadly mix of heat and cold, punches the towering rock.

Upon impact the cold spreads across the surface of the rock freezing it solid before some heat burns it to a crisp with the cold winning out in the end. The boulder cracks and falls apart but Alan isn’t satisfied with just one and proceeds to do the same to various rocks with different mixtures of magic and strength...

“It’s a no go...” Chris says after the tenth one

“Yeah we can’t do it this way...” after only ten rocks Alan’s mental condition had been lowered to about half way. “The consumption is just to high no matter how I do it.”

Slumping his shoulders for a moment, Alan looks down trodden while staring at the mountain.

After a few minutes like this he snaps his fingers and perks up. “Explosives!” he says, making even Chris who usually couldn’t imagine the scale of things tremble and go white at the idea.

“Ummm... boss I’m completely against this idea...” Chris leaks out and Alan ignores him “What would you do if the volcano erupts or an earthquake starts! This isn’t a missile strike you’re talking about! This is on the level of... well I don’t actually know!!!”

“To clear the pass in one go we would need a tactically nuclear weapon at the least...” Alan says, making Chris go even paler...

“You can’t mean to use a ta...”

“Of course not Chris! I’m not completely crazy, that would most likely cost us the mission! All that money!” Alan tells him “No, were going to do this a little smarter... I think my idea will work..”

Telling Chris his plan of action, he calms down immensely, this plan wouldn’t use nearly as much force and way more finesse than simply blowing it all sky high.

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Lucca was exasperated at Maximus’ lack of preparation, not only had the fool not done something obvious like weld the doors we wasn’t going to use shut, but he had so few recourses stockpiled she had to give him some of her pain medicine for his newly broken nose.

“Lord Nebel damn you!” Lucca says to him “Asking me a question like that! You’re the one that told me this was oh so urgent! I did stop for clothes alright!”

Maximus bows his head before her looking both embarrassed and frightened of his new companion. “I’b swoo sworry!” he says “I wbon’t do wit awgain...”

“Argg stop talking your broken nose makes it so annoying...” She tells him, to which he responds by digging through his bag and pulling out an “etch a sketch”...

“THERE’S A WOMAN’S CLOTHING STORE A FEW BLOCKS AWAY.” He writes before turning the board her way...

She holds her temples and slowly messages them “Seriously! You didn’t bring medicine but you brought an “etch a sketch”! You could have just used the display!” She kicks him in the ribs. “I’m going to get some things!”

Heading to what she assumed was the cells, she finds herself to be correct and heads into the cell that had the crudest walls she had ever seen, dumping her bag out on the coot, she replaces only the essentials back inside before heading to the exit.

Leaving Maximus locked up inside, she heads back the way she had come to the mini mall where she had picked up snacks. The mini mall itself didn’t have what she wanted but in true suburb fashion, right across from this small minimart was a series of mega marts that were surrounded by rat men.

Jogging around them, she eventually found what she was looking for, a path to one of them that wasn’t completely over run.

Using the hundreds of cars, that had been left to rust in the parking lot, Lucca makes her way towards the doors, without alerting too many rat men. Those that did see her, she grabbed before they could scream and using one of her knives slit its throat or gave its heart or brain a little air.

Ironically the doors of the mega mart were unlocked and ready to open, but the inside was completely untouched. This was thanks to the sensors of the sliding doors being set so high, Lucca herself had to spread her arms and legs out for it to recognise her as a person and not just some large pack of dogs or something.

Entering the store she made sure to lock the doors by flicking a switch beside the doors that had been left unlocked... just in case.

From here it was easy to get what she needed from all the mega marts since they were connected by small bridges in a mall-like fashion. The one she entered through, being a home improvement store had all the tools she could need and any materials too. Grabbing a large bag of nail gun nails, a battery power solar recharged nail gun and a small welder she packed them away and headed off to the next shop.

This one being a grocery store of epic proportions, she was able to find all the food they would need, even if she couldn’t figure out how it hadn’t rotten...

Finally the third and last shop she visited that day was a furniture/clothing/decor super store with all the furniture one could need. Grabbing some sheets and pillows she squirreled them away into her camping bag before heading to the woman’s clothing section.

Swiftly grabbing only what she would need... lingerie first... she chose a few pair of tight sweat pants and hot pants along with tight t-shirt family styled garments as tops.

Changing before leaving, Lucca breaks a hole in one of the covered bridges to throw out a digital clock she had rigged up to a battery. She had set the timer to five minutes from now and the volume to maximum to give her an easy escape out of a store on the opposite side, where she had left a large home improvement style shopping cart loaded with materials.

Racing over to that side she drops her bag on the cart and opens the doors ready for the moment the rats ran away.

Right on time the alarm started ringing and the rats ran towards it to investigate, taking her chance, Lucca pushes the cart clear across the parking lot and out onto the main road, crossing said road she runs straight into the shop she had made hers earlier.

There she stashes most of the materials and waits out the rat man’s state of high alert. Arriving at the base only a few hours after she left, Lucca finds Maximus throwing out documents of the police that used to work there... “At least he’s doing something...” she thinks “Huh!”

Maximus greets her with a smile “Welcome back Lucca!” he says “Do you have anything i can help out with...?” checking to see if she’s still angry.

“Actually yes there is!” Lucca says handing him various objects “Weld the other doors, add these dead bolts to the one we use and fix that wall around my room.”

Maximus looks at the tools and at her smiling yet aggressive face “Yes ma’am !” he says giving her a salute “Any ideas for materials for your room?”

She tosses him the key to the mini mart “The mini mart across from the mega stores has some materials I nicked! Use those.”

Maximus runs off to do her bidding and Lucca lies down on her coot with its new top quality sheets and goose down pillow...

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Reaching the eastern city had been done in only a few hours!

That was the power of Synthia’s drive! Racing along roads and through parks it was only a matter of time before the nympho reached the mountain and began to climb.

Towards the east she went, straight through the foot hills and up the mountain.

Unlike Alan’s uneventful trip, or bo’s journey into the eastern lands her’s was a bit more eventful, heading dead east into the mountains, instead of along the northern road to the destroyed pass’ area, had landed her with a lot more hardships then those faced by the rest but these little things would stop Synthia!

No chasms, cracks, hills, ravines or cliffs would stop her from reaching the glorious flames of her beloved lava! No sir!

Currently climbing a cliff without ropes, magic or any gear of any kind, she was having a few problems, but those wouldn’t hold her back for long!!!

She had prepared everything she needed for the summit, the Champaign for when she reached it, the thirty beers for relaxing by the liquid death, the confetti to show her victory and of course her miko outfit and camera!

“This is going to be great” she mutters while dragging herself over the top of the cliff.

Pulling her ice chest up after her she carries it as she runs to the next cliff ready for anything!

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Looking around the cave for any signs of a wall or maybe some sort of... anything, Mitchell wanders through the amazing large cavern she had fallen into.

The floors were un naturally smooth and were made out of marble so she knew it wasn’t a natural formation... but that’s all she knew so far, the rest of the details if any were hidden from sight by the oppressive darkness.

A few minutes later she could feel a slight breeze and her torch started flickering so she decided to continue walking the way she had been going. Finally reaching a wall she had actually found the exit of the room.

Through a large arch that lead into a five meter wide tunnel, she could see... darkness. But it wasn’t all bad, she also noticed light fixture along its ceiling and a small room just off of this cavern.

Entering this second room that was in contrast with the huge room from before just large enough for the seat and consol that were inside, Mitchell walks up to the consol and starts reading the faded labels.

Finding a promising one she decides to press it and is awarded by the lights inside the room coming to life and the consol’s many screens coming to life... it was the power button...

Now in proper lighting, Mitchell puts out her torch.

After seeing a read out on the screen indicating that the generator were in nominal condition she starts looking for more buttons and quickly finding a few that look useful, she flicks halls lighting, main chamber lighting and climate control into the on position and hopes she isn’t waking up some ancient evil.

Returning back outside of the tiny room, she looks out over the grand chamber and slaps her forehead.

Yes the room was huge, yes it was pretty long and the ceiling was high, but no, it wasn’t the size of foot ball fields like she thought.

Looking at the floor she could clearly she the red marker arrows she had left... wandering all over the place... between pillars and around a central raised area the marks went, they even followed a wall for a while that she hadn’t even noticed was there...

O-o I had no idea what to name this one... but i guess this one fits...

hope you like it, i tried adding a little more detail to the beginning of the chapter but i think i unconsciously dropped that attempt part way through

ok comment and thanks to the thanks!!!