The Misfits got a notification from Dr. Thompson while they were travelling to Silverton. Apparently, Mr. Tiel had sent one additional message. The group decided to log out for a bit and watch the new message from their employer.

***Logout of AO***

Emmy had been giving him the cold shoulder all day and Kevin wasn’t sure what he had done wrong. Yesterday, things had been perfect until they had gotten up on that asteroid. When they’d logged out from AO to go to sleep he had given her a massage and things had been going really well until she had just pushed him away. He hadn’t even tried anything with her, not that he hadn’t thought about it. To make things even worse when he tried to go after her and explain, Sean interfered. He laid a hand on Kevin’s shoulder and told him to give her some space.

When he logged off and looked over at Emmy’s pod, she was still ignoring him. Fine, he thought. Everything else in the rest of this world has gotten messed up and it was just so damn typical for something like this to happen when he’d been making such good progress getting to know her just a day earlier.

Kevin didn’t have time to try to say anything or clear the air before Dr. Thompson walked into the room. She didn’t waste any time with pleasantries. She asked Aeon to playback the recording they had received about twenty-minutes ago from San Francisco. “Greetings Misfits. Hopefully, this message reaches you. If you receive this message, you can assume that things went wrong and the duplicate Aeon was not able to stop Precious One. I put together this video in case that worst case scenario occurs. Also, I have a request for you. Most likely I will have retreated to my San Francisco bunker. Yes, you can call me a paranoid old man. Assuming that this side of the world hasn’t been completely destroyed, I’m still holed up there and could use some assistance. I can assure you there is a very substantial bonus and in-game reward for you if you are able to rescue me. By now I’m sure Dr. Thompson has familiarized you with the Gears which will allow you to control your VR selves in the real world. Radiation and other hazards should not limit your Gears in any fashion and you should be able to travel freely. As such, your next mission is to travel to San Francisco and try to recover me and any other survivors here. The bunker here is not meant for an extended evacuation and any survivors will likely not last more than a few weeks. I’ve included details in this message so that you can find the base. Good luck.” Mr. Tiel’s recording finished playing.

The screen in the command room lit up.

***

Will you accept Mr. Tiel's quest to rescue him from his bunker in San Francisco?

Rewards: A continued paycheck from Mr. Tiel and unspecified loot to boost your Gears.

Risks: Unknown

***

Sean walked up and accepted the quest for the group. Still, San Francisco was a long way from the middle of the Australian Outback. Based on what they found out there so far, there was a good chance that there weren’t any functional planes or ships to take them across the ocean. How in the nine hells were they supposed to save their crazy employer if they couldn’t get there? Looking around the room Kevin saw the rest of the Misfits with the same unsure expression on their faces that he was sure he had.

Everyone looked to Sean for an answer. He shook his head at the group. “What do you expect me to say? I don’t have any miracles,” he said bitterly. Kevin felt a brief stab of guilt thinking about his friend dealing with a shitty divorce and now this – being stuck leading the Misfits on impossible mission after impossible mission. But that was just a BS emotion. It was Sean’s fault they were here. It was also his fault that Emmy had been giving him the cold shoulder. Enough was enough.

“That’s tough for you man,” Kevin replied. “Shit has gotten real and all you can do is mope around whining about your ex.” He was tired of hearing Sean’s shit. Everyone had something to deal with. Kevin had lost his job only to wind up here in the middle of this desert hole while everything in the world had ended and they were just getting the crap beat out of them. Now wasn’t the time for Sean’s whining.

Sean looked like he was going to say something but then stopped. Instead he replied, “Screw you. I don’t have to take this from you.” He started to walk away.

“Yeah, well maybe while the rest of us figure this out we elect a new guild leader. You can’t just keep walking away and sulking,” Kevin said. Sean turned back with anger in his eyes. Kevin was waiting for this moment. Just try coming over here and I’ll kick the crap out of you, he thought. Instead, Sean just balled his fist and walked out of the control room.

Emmy turned on him first. “What’s gotten into you? Can’t you see that Sean still blames himself for what happened on the asteroid yesterday?” Her blue eyes glared angrily at him like he was the one who had gotten them into this mess.

“He’s the one who started this whole damn thing. We should have just stayed in Champions. And now he falls apart when he realizes he screwed up. And you, of all people, are protecting him.” By the end of his statement, he was yelling at her. He raged at the unfairness of the situation, the betrayal of his friend, and now his girlfriend was turning on him, of all things.

Kevin realized a few seconds later that he’d gone too far. Emmy, sobbing, ran out of the room. He could still feel the adrenaline and righteousness pumping through his veins but the rest of the Misfits looked worried. He glared at the lot of them and jumped back into his pod. Time to go kill some shit and get back on top of their game.

***AR Online – Aeon 1.707.50***

Logging in again, Krok had a sudden urge to go find some more of those mutant bastards and show them what was up. On a sudden whim he decided to see if he could ask the computer where the closest mutants were. “Hey, Aeon where is the closest group of mutants?” A second later a blue arrow popped up a few feet from where he was indicating that he should head east. Interesting, he thought. That’s the same direction as Silverton. Might as well.

Krok could see the mining town in the distance and decided that he should probably scope things out before diving in. Unlike at higher levels he didn’t have the ability to use stealth just yet. However, he did have the perfect thing for checking out the enemy before they could spot him. One of his first abilities was distant eye which allowed him to view things like he was looking through a long-distance scope. Reaching a crest along the trail he followed, he looked down at the small town and activated his ability.

The small town had about fifteen buildings remaining along the main street and then a few outlying homes surrounding it. It was pretty hard to imagine that this had been a mining town only a day ago as Krok took in the damage. Something had blown down most of the structures and only the strongest brick buildings in the middle of town looked relatively undamaged. Most of the homes had been flattened. Scanning the area Krok saw that there were still people in town or more accurately what had been people. Their skin was similar to the miner they had found earlier: blistered and torn, sores covered the exposed parts of their bodies and wept blood. He saw additional features that he hadn’t observed on the miner: some of them had claws and fangs and because they were alive he could see that their eyes had become completely blackened making them look like something from a crazy horror flick. Normally, Krok would have just reported back to the Misfits and they would have formulated a plan of attack; however, Krok was done waiting for the guild to get its shit together. The time for action was now and he wasn’t going to just meekly await orders. That said there were about twenty mutants that he could see in town so if he was going to take them out then he was going to have to come up with a better plan than just rushing in with guns blazing.

Krok reviewed his abilities and stats and contemplated his next move:

Level 1 Mystic Assassin Abilities: Life suck, Distant Eye, Assassinate

These were the standard Mystic Assassin abilities that everyone started with. His life suck ability was a ranged channeling spell that allowed him to damage his enemies while stealing their health by taking their hit points. He had just used his distant eye to assess the enemy and it was the perfect long-range spying tool that allowed him to determine where to strike his enemies. Finally, Assassinate was a melee attack that allowed him to get behind an enemy and do massive amounts of damage if he was undetected. Unfortunately, he would have to wait until he was level 10 in order to learn stealth, which would make it much easier to sneak up on his opponents.

While he was checking out his abilities he also decided to review his stats:

Krok – Level 1 Mystic Assassin

HP: 140

STA: 80

Att: 12

Def: 12

Mag Att: 32

Mag Def: 10

Str: 10

Speed: 14

Vit: 10

Spirit: 18

Being level 1 was definitely quite limiting. Krok figured that he could probably go toe to toe with about five of the mutants since they were also level 1 and likely untrained with any abilities. However, to take on the entire town he was going to have to find some sort of distraction or the ability to lure some of the mutants out of the town so he could split them up into more manageable groups. Looking back at the town with his distant eye Krok formulated a plan.

About an hour later he returned to the town and tested his disguise at the outskirts, near one of the homes that had nearly been demolished. He got within about five feet of one of the mutants before it recognized him for what he was. As it turned to face him he hit it with his Assassinate ability:

Instakill

Excellent, he thought. With their limited eyesight and the dead mutant flesh he’d spread all over his body from the mutant they’d found in the mine yesterday it seemed like he would be able to get quite close before any of the creatures could recognize him. Now to put the final pieces into play he thought. He quickly made his rounds through the town, avoiding crowds of mutants wherever possible. Occasionally, he’d have to use his Assassinate ability to take out one or two.

When he’d first observed the town he’d thought that the mutants were milling about in a random fashion; however, after he’d watched a while longer with his Distant Eye it was clear that they were concentrated at the town square for some reason. It was at that point that Krok remembered that there were some blasting tools back at the mine from yesterday. Before setting his plan in motion he’d returned to the mine and picked up those materials. While there he recalled that the miner from yesterday had said that the mutants couldn’t see well in the light. Based on that he figured he could disguise himself with an extra cloak and he’d used the guts of the dead mutant to cover his smell.

Back at the town, so far the plan had been going perfectly. He’d been able to sneak up on the mutants unaware and when the explosives went off seconds later he relished the screams of the mutants dying:

Instakill

Instakill

Instakill

Instakill

Instakill

Instakill

Instakill

Instakill

***Congratulations! You are now level 15***

For now, Krok swiped away his status bar. He would allocate his points later after the fight was finished. The explosions had rocked the town and given him the much-needed distraction he required; however, there was still work to be done. He quickly descended on the remaining occupants of the town, a whirlwind of murder as he used his Life Suck and Assassinate ability in rapid succession, quickly whittling down their numbers. The remaining mutants were slaughtered and within less than a minute Krok stood in the middle of Silverton dripping with the guts of mutants. His heart pounded in his chest and the rage from earlier had dissipated into a quiet seething. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do it yet, but Sean would pay for turning Emmy and the rest of the group against him.