Death Trap du Jour
Expedition
2003
8/1
8/1
Wyldfire has been sent on an ultra-secret rescue mission on an island not too far from Easter Island.
This rocky, inhospitable island was the site of a secret archaeological dig. Preliminary reports were that it served as an observation point for the Nazi Reich during early parts of WWII, and then became a stopover for Nazi leaders escaping to the jungles of the Amazon. Red Skull probably worked out of here during the eighties or nineties.
But before that, as the dismantle-villain-base company discovered, the deeper recesses of the complex may have been a viking shelter -- with strangely advanced water- and light-filtering systems. The archaeology team was trying to narrow down the origin civilization when a storm came through ... and they haven't been heard from since!
The party gets to the island and sees that the camp antenna has been bent down to an extreme angle. It looks like the storm may have dumped some hail through here. Not far away, there's a reinforced, covered entrance to a hole in the rock. A very steep slope leads to darkness. The lights aren't working.
How did this happen?
I'm the straight man!
Clues that were available to investigators, based on some sort of Perception Check (Detective/Military Science/whatever):
- {OV/RV = 7/7}: Looks like this camp was mostly used for communication with the mainland, and meeting ships or helicopters.
- {OV/RV = 9/9}: They also apparently had a few cookouts. The camp is laid out for eight people, plus two workshop areas and a storage hut.
- {OV/RV = 12/12}: There's no medical tent, but there is a first aid kit. It's propping up the rock slab that shelters the buried beer cooler.
- {OV/RV = 15/15}: On the back of an instruction manual for a solar-powered popcorn popper, in the margins, you find a set of scribbles that might be a map of the complex!
- {OV/RV = 21/21}: Someone's already traced that map recently.
The underground complex turns out to be chock-ful of AIM agents, holding the archaeology team prisoner in order to steal the strange technology. Most of the civilians are college kids (hence the beer and popcorn) interning on this dig in lieu of a Spring Break. Nobody involved has enough information to figure out that the ancient technology was atlantean in origin: they were looking for signs of the Unknown Alien Scout believed to have crashed somewhere in the southern hemisphere, said unknown scout being either Fright or Fright's predecessor. The Atlanteans had lost track of this surface outpost in the centuries after they abandoned it.
- First campaign appearance of A.I.M. who are taking this VERY SERIOUSLY, because they are SERIOUS, why do their plans keep going horrifically awry?!
- Nobody, including AIM, figured out that the ancient technology was Atlantean in origin.
- First time Don Blake knowingly worked with Wyldfire.
Related Location
Atlantic Ocean
Related timelines & articles
Atlantic Ocean
Iradium (article)
Tales of Justice Timeline
Skyburner (article)
Wyldfire Adventures (article)
Thunderstrike (article)
Tales of Justice is a work of pure, unabashed fiction. In fact, it considers itself rather heroic and quite proud of itself. Names of characters, places, events, organizations, and locations are creations of the author's imagination for this fictitious setting. Some have been inspired by other sources, which will be credited at the top right of the article.
Permission is not granted to use this material to feed a so-called Artificial Intelligence chatbot.
Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or reanimated is coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with either of the authors, since the characters and authors tend to disagree a lot.
Unless otherwise stated, all artwork and content are © CB Ash and Jarissa Venters, 1993-2024, All Rights Reserved.
Original CSS "Comic" theme comes from Oneriwien but has been adapted/modified and expanded by Kummer Wolfe
Original CSS "Comic" theme comes from Oneriwien but has been adapted/modified and expanded by Kummer Wolfe