Jordan hadn't seen the office this busy since a world leader had been shot dead at his wedding. People were hurrying around the maze of desks, handing each other paper, watching the screens that had every news reporter under the sun plastered on them.
Jordan was no different, as his desk was covered in reports on a female investigative journalist, Sarah Whitehall. She had been all over the news in Australia, and the parts of the world who had paid enough attention to know what she was saying wasn't bullshit.
She had gone on public television showing off her 'spell', which contained force similar to a shoulder-mounted missile launcher. She made some hippy gestures in the air, and the camera was filled with a bright light. It was hard to see anything happening, but when it died down, the targets she had fired at, had disintegrated.
The surroundings were charred black, and parts of bush were still burning. Jordan was sceptical, as there was no proof that she didn't just set off an explosion at the same time as the bright light. If it weren't for the fact that multiple other people had purchased the spell as well, and confirmed its power, she'd have been labelled a hoax.
Perhaps more alarming to him was the figure she repetitively mentioned, some kind of saviour that told her to purchase the spell. The image they had drawn up of the mystery man was no better than someones fan art. A quick search online could find hundreds of results that looked similar, right down to the face paint.
Jordan picked up a pack of mints from his desk and threw a couple back. Normally he wasn't one to snack, but the mints had been purchased from this 'Dos' store that tied the whole thing together.
Nobody had any idea where it came from, or who had the power to display a holo-screen in front of everyone's eyes on command. No matter how absurd, or unknown something might be, it appeared in the store. The price was reasonable, as the price of currency had a direct conversion rate. Some items, like those used for fighting, were unaffected by any fluctuations in currency, and were a hell of a lot more expensive.
Jordan frowned each time he looked, the amount of USD per Dos was increasing every day. People had no problems spending it themselves, but the bigger picture was being hammered every day. Too much currency was entering the system. His own amount was still high, over 1,200, as the office had demanded them to keep 1,000 Dos at all times.
Researchers had no way to solve the puzzle of how said items came into existence, only that they definitely had no connection to anything they'd ever seen before. Jordan bit into one of the mints and looked through his own status,
The screen that puzzled him the most was one that gave him an overview of himself. Jordan had set his 'username' to be Agent82, and his level was '1'. According to Sarah, killing whatever abominations appeared inside the dungeons rewarded 'experience', which would level a person up.
The level would award attributes, which dictated the state of ones body and mind. Jordan glanced at his own attribute sheet and snorted. His strength was average, and his agility and constitution poor. His intelligence, charisma, and wisdom, however, were quite high.
He guessed it was accurate, as far as a numerical system could work. What he didn't understand was how adding points to these attributes could change anything. If Jordan's 6 Strength was doubled, would be literally be twice as strong?
Sarah thankfully answered the question, as she ran a test using her agility. She had seven agility, and ran a 100m sprint to test the time. When compared to the time with twelve agility, she wasn't even close to twice a fast, but it was a noticeable increase. She was also far less tired afterwards.
Jordan wanted to refute this, as she had only done one test, which could provide varying results regardless of the system. But no, she had been thorough. Her times were averaged over twenty 100m sprints done with an hours rest in between, and there were many people witness to it.
The whole recording had fallen into Jordan's lap, but he hadn't bothered to watch the whole thing. That job had someone with a lower pay-grades name written all over it.
Even weirder than the systems individual related information, it seemed to classify humans as 'Pioneers', and gave Earth a designation code. This set off alarm bells for many people, as giving something a code probably meant it wasn't a singular case.
Did this make Dos some kind of Alien technology? There had already been plenty of conspiracy theorists out on TV screaming bloody murder that even Jordan had to admit it was a possibility. There had been no news from any of the other powers, as they were doing their own research into it.
No one was going to claim or deny ownership over it, so communication was kept to a minimum. Jordan was almost convinced they should just outlaw the bloody thing. Everyone started with a starting amount of the currency, like trying to draw an addict into trying a newer, more addicting, drug.
Once that amount ran dry, no one was going to care about a shop they couldn't buy anything from. Dos could be converted to any countries currency, but the reverse wasn't possible. It might have been a viable option if the woman on his desk hadn't come out spouting her story.
Dungeons. A name that illicited feelings from depraved individuals, to nerdy teenage gamers. There were several cases now where people had emerged from these invisible and magical places. Two of which were related to the skeleton face man, and three of which were not.
If there hadn't been two cases out of their control, in a shithole bunker in Baghdad, and a cocaine warlords private home, they might have elected to silence Sarah and keep the whole thing under wraps as they had with the first one.
Unfortunately the media had already pounced onto the issue, and the existence of these death traps was slowly making its way around the world. Nobody knew where they were, how to find them, or when they appeared, except for one person.
Being involved in one dungeon and surviving could be called luck. But stumbling into two dungeons within such a small time period, when the top intelligence and surveillance agents couldn't find a single one?
Bullshit.
Sarah had done her job on reporting the masked man as well as she could. He didn't seem nervous in the dungeon, and had no quarrel with killing whatever monster she claimed were inside, and disappeared afterwards.
Jordan had no idea if the man was related to the dungeons, or just happened to have acquired a way to find them. It was relieving that he seemed geared towards destroying them, and saving the poor sods trapped inside. But there were no guarantees that his feelings were going to stay that way.
There were massive efforts going into tracking him down. At the very least he was likely located somewhere in the vicinity of Sydney, as both of the dungeons he had been involved in were there.
Jordan unconsciously reached for his packet of mints again, but felt the desk vibrating. He shifted a couple of papers around until his phone was revealed. A young, mid-twenties woman covered his phone screen, wearing a military uniform. For someone Jordans age, it was an unhealthy habit to be pursuing the younger generation.
Thankfully when Jordan picked up the phone, a voice on the other end screamed out comforting words.
"Hey dad!"
He had to pull the phone away from his ear to save them from exploding, and then pressed it back against the side of his face. Ever since he had discovered her little habit, her sing-song voice she used at home was almost unnerving.
Many of his colleagues were convinced that she was in her thirties, and from America, which made it a pain to protect her from their wandering eyes. She liked to add a western drawl to her voice, which did surprise him the first time he'd heard it.
Nobody believed him when he said she was born and raised in Australia, especially since he was an American agent. His wife apparently knew about her fake accent, not that she'd told him anything.
"What's up sweetie?"
Jordan slipped a USB with the track-field recordings of Sarah into his laptop, intending to send them to someone working under him for monitoring.
"Well... You know this new shop that opened up?"
Jordan's hand froze on the laptops track pad, he was all too familiar with the tone of her voice.
"There's this thing that I really want to buy, but I can't afford it." Her words started to draw out, and she added a cute sniffle to really sell it.
Jordan could feel his wallet start to sweat. He whispered calming words to it as his daughter was silent on the other end of the line.
He couldn't send her any Dos, as work required him to keep the 1,000 amount at hand. And, admittedly, he wanted to play around with the remaining 200 himself.
So he did what any self-respecting father would do before abruptly ending the call.
"Ask your mother."
Jordan sat back in his chair with a satisfied smile, proud of the way he had completely avoided any responsibility. He reached again for the pack of mints, but his hand found only paper. Someone was standing beside his desk with the mints in hand, having swapped them out for a report.
The man held two fingers up as he took a mint out and mouthed the word 'dungeon'. Jordan groaned as his workload yet again increased. He swore he was going to drown in all the paper smothering his poor desk. How many trees had been murdered to provide this much material...
Jordan slid his hand out from underneath the papers and dumped them with the rest, then shooed the man away.
He had expected Max to leave, but found him unmoved, still chewing on a mint. He opened his mouth to speak, but Max pointed at the report.
"You'll want to read that."
Jordan sighed, and took out a pair of glasses from his chest pocket. Max remained standing as Jordan read through the part, his face growing pale as he reached the next page.
Max smiled and put the tin of mints down, laughing loudly as he walked away.
"We've got a live one!"
----------------------------
On the other end of the line, Sabrina groaned as the call started beeping, indicating that her dad had cut the connection. She threw down the expensive smartphone onto the bed and stormed out of the room. Palming her off to her mother was dads favourite move, but she hadn't expected him to pull it out so early.
Her mother was definitely going to say no to her request, regardless of what it was she wanted. If she knew what Sabrina wanted to buy, she might have even forced her to hand over whatever Dos she had.
There was an item on sale for the next couple of hours that she needed to buy before it went to full price, and became even further out of reach.
She had already added it to the wishlist, and looked at it longingly, seeing deficit of Dos between what she needed, and what she had.
She was going to have to go pester her friends after all...
[Rapid Six-shooter Revolver] 1700 Dos.
60/60 Durability
10.0 - 15.0 Physical Damage.
A classic six-shooter revolver that fires bullets faster than the eye can see. Ammunition purchased separately, comes with loaded chamber.
Rapid: 15% increased firing speed.