Adama, Bert, and I were investigating the same house... We saw as we pulled up that it still had the crime scene police tape up from...more than a month before. This...this wasn't one of the jigsaw houses, one of the houses that we've just learned would have inhabitants returning home someday... It was the house of a Catholic priest.

When we entered, it was pitch black inside... We switched on our flashlights and looked around... The walls had once had crucifixes lining them, and bookshelves with Bibles, books on religion, history, and various scriptures... Now, blasphemies were written on the walls in dried blood, the crucifixes had been smashed, burned, or smeared in...I didn't want to know what...

We hadn't taken two steps into the main room, and things started exploding... Fortunately, they were of a class of homemade bombs, according to Bert, and the ones that had just gone off were less effective than had been hoped for by the maker... If we hadn't been wearing mundane and magical armors, we could've been a good deal toastier than we were... It wasn't pleasant as it was... Well...Bert went through every last inch of the room, tearing it apart bit by bit, and finding enough minor explosives to blow a hole in Fort Knox...

We stopped there to discuss what course of action we should take from there...

You have to understand my position in this. We were walking right into a trap. The explosives alone were proof of that. So I stand by now what I proposed then. That we all back out of the building, and I turn the entire place into a volcanic crater.

However, Bert and KT started up about the possibility of further explosives, and incidental collateral damage. Now, I understand the need to contain civilian casualties, but... We also had to know that we couldn't let a single person in that building live. There were no hostiges, after all. Just targets.

Still, two to one... So instead of immolating the place, we prepared for battle. That's about when we sensed somthing coming...

I just didn't know how much and what sort of explosives would be deeper in the house. If I knew what we'd be setting off I'd have detonated the house where it stood and be done with it.

While...while Bert was calling in for backup...Adama and I both sensed Gabe coming. Coming fast. I barely had time to turn to the door before a wave of darkness washed into the room... In a split second, the amulets of healing and protection I was wearing flew up into the air, as I felt myself caught up in the darkness wave that was Gabe... I barely felt myself drawn inside...

Before I knew it...we were in the darkness of the next room... I was...aware of what was going on around us, but unable to act... We stayed there for several seconds, as Gabe listened... We heard Kei come in. We heard her talk with Adama and Bert. Gabe seemed pleased... We started to leave...then I heard him growl something about "Malakai's fucking worthless traps"... He...shifted a bit, from a wave of darkness into a ball... He started in that room, flying around, slamming into things...setting off all kinds of traps... A lot of them were explosions...there were things exploding that shouldn't've ever been flammable in the first place...but there were other traps, too...gas traps, of both flammable and poisonous varieties...dart traps...electrocution traps...flashbang traps (those HURT)...you name it... I'll never feel safe in a stranger's home again... There were traps I don't think Bert would've been able to disengage, on account of one trap being set up to go off if someone tried to disarm the next one...and a trap set up to go off if someone tried to disarm the first...and so on... It was...it was just one massive hellish nightmare...

Gabe set off as many traps as he could...then he left the house as he heard the monsters deeper within stirring... He told me that...that there were a few traps deeper in the house...but that the creatures therein were far more dangerous...and that the traps were only there to make our side more paranoid...so they wouldn't be as capable of defending themselves...

Just...from what he told me of the creatures lurking within...the fact that he didn't let me see them...if I'm ever physically capable of sleeping again...will help stave off some rather horrid nightmares...

I may continue to have nightmares, anyway...

(My story is not finished, but does not belong here... I'll leave Bert, Adama, and Kei to finish the story...)

We were attacked by a monstrous construct made of the bodies of children, with the conscious still-living minds of children attached and crying.


This is reason #2 I'm looking for Kalim the Beautiful.