-Julian Rootbrew-
A Furry Story written ChristianC
Disclaimer: Julian, The Great Change, BiTech America, etc. are Copy-
righted ChristianC(That's me). Should you wish to use the setting for a
Fic, go ahead, but please tell me in some way. E-mail me at :
SwedishChef@kaio-sama.zzn.com
---
Julian flinched as the huge metallic doors hissed open, cracking the
vines attached to them. It revealed a long, dark corridor lined with
broken chairs, turned over plants and the occasional spot of dried
blood. A complete opposite of the overgrown forest just outside of
it. A low humming sound revealed the presence of a air-spirit still
working it's endless duty. In a line on both walls a strange symbol
was painted, and she guessed it was the temple's god's symbol.
Sneaking inside as slow as possibly, the young Raccoon-hybris took
time to study the entire corridor of the old temple, her tail twitch-
ing in both nervousness and interest. While nearly all of the lights
had burned out, her hazel eyes quickly adapted to the dark room.
Judging from the design, this temple-bunker obviously belonged to a
Research God, and a racket of moldering white coats confirmed her
guess. Her dark brown fur gleamed in a sick color in the few spots of
light, and it mixed with the white and black in her fur-coat to make
the most disturbing colorations. Her khaki pants felt more of a relief
than a bother now that she was in a slightly cooler area than the moist
jungles of Washington. Her tank-top, it too khaki-colored, was
soaked in moist and water from her trek, and it was highly uncomfort-
able. She had half her mind to take it off, but running around half-
naked didn't really seem proper, even if the place was deserted. And
besides, if she didn't wear the top her coarse trunk-coat would give
her the mother of all rashes on her nipples, something she defiantly
didn't want to experience again. Just her luck to be born a woman, all
the men had it so much easier.
Taking left at a junction, Julian grew a bit uneasy by the echoing
sound of her footsteps. The place was spooking her, and she rarely
grew scared. It wasn't that the place was abandoned, she'd seen
places like that before, but because she hadn't encountered any
bodies yet. It was as if the people there had all survived The Great
Change and left the Temple, leaving everything behind.
Moving systematically, Julian explored every room she came across in
hope of finding anything useful. Most contained nothing, or at least
nothing that was of interest to a treasure hunter like herself, while
some carried a plethora of objects, like small unbroken glass-tubes,
big looking-glasses and other minor objects that carried a great
value with the right buyers. When looting a room that probably had
been the quarters of a headpriest, she found the best thing yet. A
handgun, in perfect shape. It was dedicated to the deity "H&K 9mm.",
the god she followed, and the smooth surface showed that the priest
who had owned it had been rich and powerful. Doing a little victory
dance for herself, she quickly pocketed it, but not before checking
if the safety was off. You could never be too sure of that. The ways
of the war gods were fickle, and the last she wanted to do was to
enrage H&K 9mm. into shooting her.
She continued her searching for another hour or so, until she reached
an elevator. Strangely enough, the light of the button were still
glowing, and with a curious look she pushed it, waiting to see if
anything happened.
At first, the room remained as silent as before, but suddenly a loud
groaning echoed horribly through the room. Julian grabbed her tail
nervously and awaited the elevator with dread. What if something was
in it? Something ancient that had survived for years, waiting for
someone to come and... no, don't be silly, Julian Rootbrew, how would
it had survived for so long?
The elevator gave a bing, loud enough to echo down the seemingly
endless corridor and return, enhanced by the vibrating walls. Still
holding her tail, Julian entered the room and looked at the buttons
at the side. She wasn't very good at reading English, but she knew
the basics, and luckily the elevator buttons were displaying only
numbers and a few letters. But there were so many floors! The bar
indicated with a green glow that she was on "1F", and the elevator
could go all the way down to "B20". She rubbed her hands happily, if
every floor was as rich with treasure as 1F, she could become the
wealthiest treasure hunter in Washington! Deciding to start at the
bottom and working her way up, Julian pressed the "B20" button and
giggled as the door closed. Wait´til her old man heard of this. He'd
been living in Washington his entire life and he'd never found this
place. Not that she blamed him, the temple had been virtually
invisible in the thickness of the jungle.
The elevator speeded down faster than anything she'd ever gone with
before, and as Julian looked down on the floor she noted that the
same symbol as she'd seen before was painted on it. She started to
fantasize about what the place could've been before The Great
Change. Perhaps it had been making firearms for a war god like H&K
9mm.?
Nah, she wouldn't be so lucky. They'd probably been working with
healing or something like that, as the places her old man had found.
But if so, where were the sofas? She remembered clearly that her
father had told her about the old building, covered completely in
wines and bushes. He'd had to cut through with his sword to be able
to enter the old place. And what a place it had been! It'd been a
temple to the Healing god "St Michael" and there had been so many
things there her father couldn't take it all. And best yet, it had
had sofas! Spread here and there, not like this place with only a few
chairs and nothing more. Where had these people been sleeping?
Perhaps on the floor, she wasn't surprised. After all, their god
couldn't have been a very kind one, considering how sterile and
boring the place was. Perhaps they'd brought the sofas with them?
She was interrupted in her thoughts with the binging sound of the
elevator, and the doors slid open with a soft hum. She instantly
noticed the smell that met her and shone up. This was what she'd been
looking for, dead Old-people. But there were some dead Hybrid-people
too, and their smell was fresher than the Old-people's. No matter,
they were all of them dead, which meant that nothing could jump out
and surprise her. She walked past the bodies of two Old-people hold-
ing each other. She leaned in to take a closer look, but didn't find
anything on the mummified skeletons that interested her, except for
two flat things on their chest with some In-glitch written on it as
well as the symbol of their god. She shrugged and continued her
search, but stopped when she heard a familiar dripping.
"Water?" She mumbled slightly for herself as she moved towards the
sound, the smell of it was completely hidden by the one of the dead
Old-people.
Finally she reached the source of the dripping, and she gasped in
both surprise and excitement. The corridor was leaning slightly down-
wards, and just at the edge before it started down the water begun
and continued, even to the point of meeting the diagonal roof.
Puzzled she looked down in the water. Nothing. Very well, there
hadn't been any rooms before this, so she could as well continue
underwater.
She decided to leave most of her stuff behind. While it certainly
hurt to take everything out of the pockets of her Trunk-coat, she
knew she'd be back anyway. After some thinking she figured she should
bring the handgun, just in case. She would honor H&K 9mm. by using it
should any danger rise. She tied back her long silver hair in a pony
tail and took a few deep breaths. Right, this was it.
She dove under the surface, and her body screamed out in the cold
water. But she could already see the opening on the other side, and
there were two more tunnels branching off under water! She continued,
first she would explore the passage straightwards, then she would...
WHOA!
She had to quickly swim aside as a fairly big fish swam straight
forward towards her, but as she avoided it, it kept swimming, as if it
was blind. Pfeh, stupid fi... fish?
Okay, something was defiantly wrong here, but she couldn't think
about that. She felt her supply of air decreasing rapidly, and she
sped up to reach the other side. She passed through a sparse forest
of sea grass and reached the surface on the other side.
Gratefully swallowing as much air as she could, Julian remembered
the fish, and the sea grass. How could they had appeared in this
water? She hadn't seen any holes that could've led to the surface...
Had they been bred here before The Great Change? Probably, that's the
only way she figured they could've ended up here. Oh well.
Wringing out the worst of the water from her Trunk-coat and tanktop
while trying to shake it out from her fur and pants, she gazed around
the new corridor she'd entered. This one was actually lit! However, the
light was flickering on and off, and she reckoned they would die soon.
Hopefully not before she was finished with this corridor. While
certainly she could see as well in Darkness as in light, she preferred
light.
She made her way through the corridor, stopping every now and then to
search the body of a dead Old-person. It was weird that she never found
any dead Hybrid-people, considering how much it smelled of them. On one
Old-person, she found a pair of sight-glass, and they were so strong it
made her feel ill when she wore them. They would probably be perfect
for the Mole-Hybrids that usually came to Washington Market to barter.
She carefully placed it in her soft-pocket, hoping that the glass-tubes
she found before would hold in the normal pocket she put them in. She
looked down on the scientist, now merely bones and a few strands of
blond hair, and frowned.
Julian turned to keep walking, but stopped in her tracks. Her senses
told her someone was watching her. But as she swiftly turned, there
was nothing there. Puzzled, she shrugged for herself and reached down
in her gun-pocket to take up the handgun. She slowly clicked off the
safety and gave a slow and silent prayer to H&K 9mm., asking him to
bless the weapon in her hand. When finally she felt ready to continue
she did so with the same cautious steps as she'd taken when first she
entered the old temple. Suddenly the shadows she left on the wall
seemed very strange and the shapes they took reminded her of stories
she'd been told when she'd been only a little pup. About those
ancient creatures, the Bicaroquotecat, still guarding some temples,
about those horribly big, red eyes... and the claws!
She jumped in freight as she heard a tremendous slam in front of her.
Her heart beat like a hammer, and she had to wait a few moments to
gather enough courage to continue moving, now in a snail-like pace
which took a painfully long time. Why hadn't she brought someone with
her? When finally she was at the door from where the sound had come,
she found, to her relief, the reason of the sudden sound. The door
frame was empty, and the metal block that had once been the door was
rusted and it's hinges looked like a couple of red lumps. It was a
miracle the door had remained in place up till now. She quickly
concluded that the corridor had probably been empty for years, and
when finally she arrived and started walking around the door's hair-
fine stature had been broken and it'd finally fell. There, good, all
explained logically and well... Except she was still scared like
shit. Without even realizing it she held her gun before her as she
looked inside the room.
Like most other rooms she'd searched through, this one was in a mess.
Ancient desks stood, covered in dust and molded pieces of paper. A
few skeletons were spread around the room, all of them Old-People,
and another door was at the end of the room. Next to the door was a
large glass window that showed a partly lit room with walls covered
in shelves. The shelves were lined with bottles, but they were to
small for her to read what they contained, not that she thought she
could anyway. A feint green light glowed next to the door in the end
of the room. Curious, she walked up to the light, and she could
barely read out what was written above it.
"Pl...Place In-Insort Cerd K-Kay?" She mumbled as she tried to
decipher what the small text said. what did it mean? "Kay" was what
the Old-People had been using to open doors, she knew, and
"Insort"... did it mean insert? But what did "Place" and "Cerd" mean?
She pondered about this, and finally concluded that the room wanted a
kay before it would open... but where would she find one? She looked
at the hole where the kay was going into. It was flat. So perhaps
"Cerd" meant flat? So she had to find a flat Kay. But why would the
Old-People close this room with a kay? They probably had something
valuable in there.
She walked over to the corpses lying around in the room and began
searching what was left of their clothing. She found several things,
and one of the Old-people even wore another pair of Sight-Glass!
Happily she pocketed it and kept searching. However, she didn't find
the flat kay. Frustrated she tried throwing something at the large
glass-hole, but the object she'd thrown only bounced off. Finally she
realized what she'd do! Hopefully, H&K 9mm. would be kindly disposed
to her... She took aim and fired the handgun. It made a small hole
in the glass and sent cracks everywhere. Thanking H&K 9mm. with a
grateful prayer, she again took aim and fired twice, crashing the
entire window. Too late she realized she'd also hit one of the
bottles on the other wall. Oh well, one bottle couldn't be that bad,
could it?
She stepped through the hole she'd made, cautious not to cut herself
on the glass, and began looking around. All bottles were labeled
with both the symbol of the god as well as some text in In-glitch,
and she growled slightly as she tried to read what one said.
"Saam-pell 2" she tried as she held up the small test-glass with the
purple water in it. "What's a Sample?" she asked no one in parti-
cular. She shrugged and pocketed the small glass-bottle, squeezing it
into one of her bottle-holders on the inside of her trunk-coat. She
continued searching through the shelves, and found a few bottles
contained water with nice colors. All bottles had "G-something"
written on them, but the words on them were hard to understand. She
noticed that there were several bottles with the same colored water
in them placed close to eachother. Perhaps they were the same? How-
ever, there were a lot of bottles missing, and at least one of each
kind was gone from the shelves, and the thin layer of dust that lay
in their places showed just how long they'd been gone. Finally, with
her curiosity sated, she turned to walk out. However, before she
could take another step a strange female voice sounded.
"Warning, warning. Unidentified presence detected in Sample Contain-
ment Room 3, repeat. Unidentified presence detected in Sample Contain-
ment Room 3." The voice died off, echoing slightly. Julian understood
some of those words, but she had no idea what it all meant. Deciding
it probably wasn't important anyway, she walked over to the door, but
sighed as she remembered the door wouldn't open for her. She walked
over to the destroyed glass-hole and climbed through, cutting her
left hand slightly. She cursed and put the finger in her mouth, keep-
ing it there until she no longer could feel the taste of blood. Her
finger stinged like hell, but she had more important matters. She
didn't feel like spending more time than necessary in this place.
Perhaps she'd return in a few days, maybe even bringing a friend or
two with her.
She took one last look through the room, and noticed to her surprise a
small hand-held computer in the hands of one of the dead Old-people.
She took it up carefully and examined it with a cocked eyebrow. She'd
seen their kind before, but usually as junk that some bogus hunters
would offer for food or lodging. None of these had ever worked, in her
experience, but when she tried the "on-button" the small machine hissed
and the small screen lit up. It flickered, but otherwise it displayed
to the young hybris something she'd never seen before. Julian gazed at
the screen for several minutes, but then came to her senses and turned
it off. She had to save it's power for when she would return back.
Return back, yes, that's what she was supposed to do. Taking a final
look at the thrashed room from the doorway, Julian turned tail and left
the room, her steps echoing slowly until their sound disappeared. After
a while a room-grating was suddenly pushed up and a clawed hand grabbed
at the edge of the hole.
Julian nearly shrieked as she again breached the surface of the ice-
cold water. She quickly jumped up at the dry floor and shook herself
ferociously to get dry. When finally she was done, also having checked
through the stuff she'd brought as well as the stuff she'd left, she
headed off towards the elevator. However, the feeling that she was
being followed simply did not want to disappear, and no matter how many
times she looked over her shoulder, she couldn't see anything. However,
one time she was nearly certain that she'd seen something move out from
her field of vision, but after looking around nervously for a while she
continued her trek, hoping that whatever was around here didn't eat
flesh.
Finally she reached the elevator, and she breathed out. She grabbed for
a small bottle of water she had attached inside her trunk-coat and took
a sip from the refreshingly cool water. However, she nearly choked when
she saw where the elevator was. The digital numbers showed clearly that
it was now on the 1st floor. Without even thinking about it, Julian
took the pistol from it's waterproof pocket and slowly clicked off the
safety, all the while she kept her eyes on the floor-display.
Suddenly what she'd feared happened, the elevator began moving down.
Tightening her grip on the gun and was ready to face whatever would be
coming down the elevator. Except maybe nothing. The elevator doors slid
up with a soft hum, but there was no one inside. Obviously relieved,
Julian peered into the square-shaped room. Nothing.
Shrugging, Julian entered the elevator and pressed the 1st Floor
button. She noticed that the button was covered in a sticky layer of
transparent slime, something that had not been there before. She brush-
ed it off on her pants and waited patiently as the elevator ascended.
Suddenly the whole thing jolted, stood still for a moment, shook and
then died, the lighting in the roof, as well as the glowing from the
buttons, dying.
"Aw fuck!" Julian swore to herself as she tried to find the source of
the sudden blackout. A grinding noise from overhead made her look up,
and come to a conclusion on why the elevator hadn't had any passenger
in it.
"Hatch!" She yelled as the creature crashed down on her, a fury of
claws, fangs and scales. Trying her best to shake away this unident-
ified assaulter, Julian grabbed for her gun, but found she'd dropped it
when she'd first been attacked.
The smell of the creature was completely unrecognizable. It had a very
vague resemblance to a hybris, but it smelled more like a wild animal
than the hybris' she was used too. It's tiny beady eyes glowed with an
fire she'd never seen before. Talking to this thing was impossible, not
that she would ever be able to muster enough willpower to do it while
trying her best to fend off the attacks.
Julian was an experienced fighter, but this creature fought like no-
thing she'd ever seen before. Time and time again in penetrated her
defenses and delivered a nasty slash or a bite that sent waves of un-
bearable pain through her entire body. Suddenly the elevator jerked
again and the lights went on, giving Julian a clean look at her enemy.
The thing looked much like a common lizard-hybris, but it's animalistic
traits were more visible, and it's small size and fierce mind made her
doubt this creature could ever have been a hybris.
Julian found herself slowly pushed up against one of the walls of the
now moving elevator. Noticing the gun lying close to her she dove for
it and managed to catch it, but not before receiving a nasty blow from
the creatures arm in her stomach. All air was punched out of her as she
bended over to the floor, gasping. In an instance the beast was over
her, but now Julian had the gun.
"I don't think so, mr." She mumbled as she fired at the thing's head.
The sound was horrible in the tight space and when it finally died off
Julian gasped. The creature was still standing. A minor wound over it's
left eye, the creature seemed only madder than it was before.
Julian fired again, and again, unloading the entire magazine in the
approaching beast. Finally, when there were no bullets left, the thing
shrieked horribly and fell to the floor, dead. At nearly the same time
the elevator binged and she realized she was up on the first floor.
Her sigh of relief stopped short when she saw what was in the corridor.
Three more of the lizard-like creature stood at different positions in
it, and they quickly looked up and saw her. The one closest even looked
as if it was smiling, although it was hard to tell. Suddenly the three
creatures fell into a running, heading straight towards Julian. The
daughter of Adrian Rootbrew gave a deep sigh of irritation and exhaust-
ion and swiftly sidestepped the first lizard-thing. While searching her
pockets for a new magazine she managed barely to avoid the claws of the
second monster. Finally she found a clip and quickly changed it with
the empty one, firing three bullets at the third and final creature.
The beast got one of the bullets into its eye and screeched in pain and
confusion. Julian simply ran past it and headed for the exit. She
noticed the panel in the wall that controlled the door system and with
a well-placed shot she destroyed it, bringing it beyond any form of
repair. She jumped out through the still open shutters and smashed the
close-door button nearly hidden from the undergrowth. However, just as
the door was about to close one of the creatures stuck its head
through, biting after Julian. However, mere moments later its head was
crushed by the large doors and Julian let out a final sigh of relief.
She was out. She, the daughter of the famous treasure hunter Adrian
Rootbrew had finally made a name for herself. With the things she'd
found she would be able to live well-off for nearly a month, and she
could always return to this place. Of course, next time she would prob-
ably bring some heavier weaponry... Speaking of weaponry, Julian looked
at the handgun that had served her so well. She held the weapon up to
the sky, mumbled as many prayers as she could and then put it down in
its pocket again. She looked over her wounds, decided that she would
probably make it back(the repair of her clothing was a different matter
though) alive. She checked that everything was in one piece(one of the
empty bottles had broken, but oh well, that's life) and then set out in
a quick march back to Washington. Wait´til her old man heard about
this...
As she disappeared in the undergrowth, the facility again disappeared
from any kind of conscious view. The large metallic doors were again
covered in the vines and roots that had been there for hundreds of
years, and the text above the entrance was hardly visible at all.
BiTech America Bio-Chemical Research Facility
        No unauthorized personnel
                allowed               
---
That concludes chapter 1 in my story of the BIG CHANGE, the corniest
title ever. I've got plans for the world, and expect more stories of
mine coming up sooner or later, and they're all set during, before or
after the Change, an event you will learn more off in the next chapter,
After the Change 2, The Project. I won't reveal much, but you'll learn
more about this facility, the reptile things, etc.
As I said in the beginning, if you've got any questions about the world
at large, or any characters, etc. just drop an email at:
swedishchef@kaio-sama.zzn.com
HUZZAH!!
ChristianC Spring 2003
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at: 6/11/05 17:43
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