Emmy was still in shock over their wipe. Those metal spiders would be haunting her dreams for some time. Unlike Alison and Shelly, she’d held it together when the Misfits had gathered again in the command center. While what had happened was bad, she’d built in a self-defense mechanism after she’d been assaulted. No one would ever see her cry.

However, looking around at their normally resilient group gave her pause. The men were largely angry and bickering with each other although Tim was keeping things together on a razor’s edge. Sean, who would normally have taken charge with his usual charismatic personality, was taciturn and withdrawn. Alison and Shelly had mostly pulled themselves together and were comforting each other which was better than nothing. Emmy and Dr. Thompson had talked a bit in the past couple weeks that they’d been at the bunker. Her name was Laura. She listened well and Emmy needed a friend to help with the difficulty of dealing with real people. While the Misfits had been her in-game friends now for over two-years, having to deal with everyone in a rather small enclosed area was a huge adjustment. The bunker wasn’t that small, perhaps six-thousand square feet, all told; however, anywhere that Emmy came into contact with other people was challenging.

After listening to them manage their anger and grief, Laura looked at the group expectantly. Like, “Hello people! You are the Misfits and you are World First Champions not a bunch of grade schoolers who’ve been told it’s the end of the world and now you are losing your shit.” Actually, it was the end of the world, apparently. But hell, if Emmy was going to lose her shit anymore. She was tired of being beaten down by life and if no one else was going to lead the Misfits she would.

Finally mustering her courage, Emmy spoke up. “Listen up Misfits. We got our butts handed to us by a bunch of metal spiders in space but this isn’t the time for a melt-down,” she said. Apparently, she had everyone’s attention because they were all suddenly staring at her. Yikes! Keep going Emmy. She looked over at Laura for moral support. Laura nodded. “Ok, so Dr. Thompson might have some suggestions. Actually, her name is Laura and once we’re all done crying over spilt milk we should listen to what she has to say because she typically has good advice,” Emmy said. Well, that was lame but at least she’d said her piece.

Laura looked around at the group, “Thanks Emmy. This news of an AI taking over the world must come as a shock to all of you and we don’t know the full extent of what’s happened; however, Aeon has taken the liberty of outlining the most probable scenario. Aeon, if you would?”

A women’s body was projected into the room. From certain angles you could see through her but at others she seemed entirely real. She was young, perhaps mid-twenties and had red hair and dimples. When she spoke, she had a flawless Irish accent, “Thank you Dr. Thompson. As Laura mentioned I have run through numerous simulations and it is highly likely that the following has happened. The rogue AI, Precious One, has most likely absorbed my split self. Since the world’s power and resources are controlled by us, these have likely been shut down. Also, world resource collection and trade have been brought to a halt. There is a high probability that with these conditions several smaller countries have attempted to retaliate and nuclear war has occurred. It is unlikely that very many nuclear warheads have been launched since AI control those too but there is a good chance of fallout in several countries. Additionally, it is highly likely that surviving humans have banded together in local mobs to try to protect the few resources that they have left. There may be a few other things that have occurred but the likelihood of these is lower,” Aeon explained.

“Do the Gears still work?” Tim asked. That was their strategist asking the smart questions, Emmy thought.

Aeon smiled, “Yes, although as you surmised the ones on Delpha 41 have been destroyed. Most likely the arachnid creatures you fought were Gears under the control of Precious One. There is one set of replacement Gears here in the bunker. Unfortunately, this set of gears is not attuned to your current maximum level so you will need to start over at level 1.”

While it was good that all the Gears hadn’t been destroyed, it was a major setback to have to revert to level 1. Also, there would be no second or third chances with only one set of Gears. The Misfits would have to be cautious leveling to ensure that they all survived. Emmy smiled thinking about the challenge.

“I understand that you probably have many questions. Keep in mind that everything I told you at this point is merely probabilistic, not certain fact. As you are able to explore outside I will continue to gather data to assist you and may be able to provide more information,” Aeon explained.

With that the Misfits rounded up the remaining Gears and set to work figuring out what had happened to their planet. The group quickly agreed to keep the same classes they had previously. The reasoning was that this would minimize the learning curve and allow them to have the quickest ability to level up. Emmy certainly wasn't disappointed to play her character Thag again; however, it would actually be kind of fun getting another chance to level up and pick some different skills. In Champions once you chose a certain set of skills you had little flexibility on some choices and were locked in to certain trees. Since Thag was Emmy’s first character she had chosen some abilities prematurely that she wished she could undo. Although she would never have re-rolled just to fix these minor skill flaws, replaying her character would give her the ability make Thag exactly the way she wanted.

After they had determined how they were going to re-roll their characters the enormity of their task settled into Emmy’s chest. She wasn’t sure what they’d encounter but nothing that Aeon had described settled her nerves. Would they find that humanity had been sent back to the dark ages? Was the world reduced to ash with nothing but bacteria left to repopulate the earth? Not knowing what she would find was probably going to be worse than whatever they encountered. She had a pretty active imagination and the look of concern in Laura’s eyes as they resettled themselves in their pods in the command center and put their micro-transmitters behind their ears had left her with chills. Emmy wasn’t the religious type; however, when she closed her eyes she said a little prayer before the login prompt booted up.

***AR Online – Aeon 1.687.10***

Looking down at her body she saw that Thag had changed. She was no longer at the level cap of 60 and she was no longer equipped in her raid armor. Instead, her half-human, half-demonic body was wearing simple leathers and she didn’t have her special shield and sword equipped. On a whim she opened her inventory and noticed that all her raid gear was still in her bags. She just couldn’t equip it since she didn’t meet the level requirements. Once they got back to the level cap all their raid equipment would come in handy. She saw that the rest of the Misfits were wearing low level gear as well. Everyone was looking around at the landscape, their eyes wide.

In a moment Emmy realized what they were staring at. It wasn’t only their armor and weapons that had changed. The landscape surrounding the bunker was obviously different. The desert landscape that had once surrounded the valley adjoining their bunker had been completely decimated. Instead of small shrubs and trees and wildflowers, there was nothing but sand. She wondered what had happened here to annihilate the entire desert. Had this been an area affected by nuclear fall-out? It seemed way too far out in the middle of no-where to be a high priority target. If there was this much change out in the middle of nowhere, it was nerve-racking to think about how some of the city centers had been affected.

After some discussion, the group decided to make their way east, figuring they might be able to find some traces of civilization closer towards the coast. While they walked Emmy reviewed her status screen:

Level 1 Demon Knight Abilities: Demon sword, crippling attack, bloodsuck.

She remembered that these were the standard Demon Knight abilities that everyone started with. Her demon sword, which she could summon at any time, was a magical sword with a demonic aura that penalized holy creatures. Her crippling attack was a stun. Finally, the bloodsuck ability allowed her demon sword to recharge her stamina when she successfully hit an opponent. This allowed her to use her abilities more quickly.

While she was checking out her abilities she also decided to review her stats:

Thag – Level 1 Demon Knight

HP: 220

STA: 80

Att: 18

Def: 12

Mag Att: 18

Mag Def: 10

Str: 14

Speed: 12

Vit: 14

Spirit: 10

As a Demon Knight, Thag had well balanced physical and magical attacks. As a starting character she was more offensive than defensive. When the Misfits raided, Thag had setup her armor and abilities to provide more defensive than offensive capability; however, at their current level having more of a DPS role was perfectly fine. Every level she would be able to allocate a certain amount of ability points to Str, Speed, Vit, and Spirit. This would allow her to focus on how her character evolved. For the first ten levels she would be stuck with the first three abilities/skills that everyone started with as a Demon Knight. After that, she would have more customization options. For now everything was setup as the default and Thag would need to get to level 10 before she could really start exploring how she wanted to customize her abilities.