The enormity of a close friend’s death, murdered by their other friend and guildmate, and the subsequent banishment of said guildmate didn’t sit easily with anyone. The Misfits continued to level in the same area outside the pirate city but no one had the will to push as hard to reach their goal. Emmy felt like she had let Shelly down the most. She’d failed to see Kevin’s jealousy for what it really was and her lapse in judgement cost Shelly her life. She thought about all the times that Zeffu had enthusiastically greeted her when she’d logged in over the past two years, about how they were able to commiserate about stupid things like hating styling their hair, or the way that Zeffu had been the one to give Thag the first in-game birthday present she’d ever received.

Emmy ate her food listlessly, staring at the four steel walls of the bunker. She knew that the food here was actually delicious. The processor that Mr. Tiel had installed was state of the art and you could order whatever you wanted and have chocolate for dinner if that was your desire. All of it tasted like ash while she contemplated her role in Zeffu’s death. She would never see her friend’s smiling face when she logged in ever again. Emmy would have broken down and cried at that thought but she had no more tears to cry. It had been a week since she’d died and Kevin had been banished. She should feel something more about that. Hadn’t she been in love? Or was it just infatuation with him? Now he was probably also dead just like poor Shelly.

Laura walked into the mess hall and grabbed some steak and eggs. Now that was comfort food. As a psychologist, Laura had probably taken the greatest brunt of everyone’s feelings over the past week. She’d risen to the occasion amazingly and counseled everyone at least once, especially Sean. To his credit, at least Emmy had seen him bleary eyed on more than one occasion, proving that guys could still cry. Emmy refused to cry until she’d broken down yesterday. Having been sexually assaulted when she was in college, she refused to show weakness to anyone after that incident. But losing Shelly brought forth a tidal wave of emotion in her. Besides, the guild was like her family, if they saw her as weak then so be it. It wasn’t like no one else in the guild hadn’t been crying.

“You look like hell Doc. Have you been sleeping?” Emmy quipped.

Laura smiled as she sat down next to her. Damn, those steak and eggs looked tempting. Emmy might have to grab some of that next. This cereal wasn’t cutting it. “It’s been a tough week for everyone and I can’t help but think about my own role in all of this.”

“Didn’t you tell me only yesterday that you can’t blame yourself for things you couldn’t know?” Emmy replied.

Laura chewed her steak thoughtfully before she replied, “True. It’s easy to say but difficult to follow. I can’t help but think about how things could have been different.”

Emmy could understand that. If only she’d talked more to Kevin about his anger issues or if only she’d recognized that he was so angry with Sean in the first place. At the time it had seemed so petty and they had been good friends for years. What had made Kevin snap anyway?

“I still don’t understand it: why Kevin did what he did,” Emmy said for the thousandth time it seemed.

“We probably never will understand,” Laura replied. They continued eating in silence for a few more minutes before Laura added, “But I think it may have had something to do with something Aeon showed Kevin. I don’t have any evidence but there were some very suspicious logs that Aeon has clearly tampered with.” Laura was referring to the data logs that the system recorded. The logs were controlled by Aeon, as everything in the bunker and AO was controlled by the AI.

“Why would Aeon do that?” Emmy asked.

Laura shook her head. “I don’t know and I don’t have any proof of anything but my gut tells me that Aeon had a hand in things. Of course, it may have been to protect the bunker in some way, but the whole thing seems suspicious to me,” Laura replied. If Aeon had tampered with the records to protect the bunker that would be perfectly in line with the AI’s programming directive; however, Laura couldn’t prove that was the case. In other words, had Aeon acted completely on its own? An advanced AI like Aeon could replicate many of the functions of a fully independent human but for an AI it was just a facsimile. There wasn’t an AI that could yet think and act completely independently from humanity – if Aeon had in fact acted independently, that had tremendous implications on their immediate safety. Who knew what a fully independent AI would do and what it would possibly decide that it wanted from the Misfits? The implications were certainly terrifying; however, there was absolutely no evidence that Aeon had evolved to that point.

“That’s too heavy a topic for me to contemplate this early in the day,” Emmy said lightheartedly. Suddenly, Emmy had a bit of inspiration to get herself and the rest of the Misfits out of their funk. “I think we need to have a party,” she said suddenly. “I know it seems like we can’t possibly celebrate anything right now but I think we need to anyway. We need something to cheer us up because we’re all still here and we have each other.”

Before Laura could reply, Emmy pushed forward, “And I think we need to have the celebration in-game. It’s only fitting since we’re the Misfits, a World First Guild. And I want you to be there too, Laura.”

Laura’s face showed several different emotions before she settled with a smile. “Ok, I’m in. Does that mean I need to level a character?” she asked.

“Oh, good idea. I hadn’t thought about that,” Emmy replied. “Let’s get you setup with a character today and get you to level 5 so we can have the party in this one field that would be perfect.”

Just then Tim and Alison walked into the mess hall to grab some breakfast. Alison said, “Did I hear someone mention a party?” Alison had taken Shelly’s death the hardest. The two of them had been best friends and complete opposites in some ways. Shelly had been tall, angular, and lean with a cutting wit. Alison was shorter, plump and had a soft round face that was only slightly offset by her glasses. She had a great sense of humor but when the chips were down Alison always had your back. Right now, her brown eyes sparkled and for the first time this week she had a smile on her face. Tim on the other hand, was wiry and bald, his round glasses and shaved head were the only things that weren’t angular on him. He wore one of his favorite gaming shirts that had a pair of orcs rolling some d20s.

“Yes, Laura and I were just discussing the fact that we should have a party to celebrate,” Emmy said enthusiastically.

Alison looked at Laura’s steak and eggs breakfast with a grin and ordered the same thing. Alison was her type of person, Emmy decided. None of this B.S. about eating healthy all the time and trying to look like a stick figure. “What are we celebrating?” she asked innocently.

Hmm, that was a good question Emmy thought. Before she could come up with a good response Tim answered with a smile, “How about an end of the world celebration?”

Laura laughed. “I love it. That’s so melancholy and yet so apropos,” she said.

Later that afternoon the Misfits gathered in a field near the starting area. The sun was setting and a multi-colored array of yellows, oranges, and reds could be seen on the horizon beyond a grove of trees in the distance. The Misfits had put together a base camp in the grassy field by clearing a small area and constructed a campfire. Miles was busy roasting some sort of wild pig that he’d hunted down earlier that day. Emmy hadn’t yet tried to eat anything in game. Would it taste good or fill her up? It would be fun trying. Sean and Tim were busy discussing their plans to sneak into the pirate city for about the tenth time that week. It was funny listening to their crazy ideas. When they had played in Champions, Emmy had just showed up at raid time ready to go with potions and the like. She hadn’t been involved with a lot of their early planning and it was fun listening in for the first time to what went into it. Mostly, it sounded like one boy coming up with crazy hair brained ideas and the other one shooting it down. These were their master strategists? Alison and Emmy had spent the day showing Laura the ropes. She had never played an MMO before and it was really fun seeing her eyes light up each time they explained something new. It was hard to believe that Emmy had ever been that new to gaming but after the tears they’d cried nearly all week, the silly things that Laura tried had both of them in stitches the entire day.

“Ok, people gather round. Let’s have a toast,” Sean said, bringing out the moonshine. Technically, it was a bottle of wine. Where he’d found it in game and whether it was safe or not were a complete mystery. When he’d brought out the bottle out with six glasses ten minutes earlier, Emmy had asked him about it but he said the guild master had to have some secrets.

After everyone had a glass in hand he spoke, “To the end of the world and to new friends.” Sean paused a moment and then continued. “It’s been a hell of a week but I just want you all to know how thankful I am to have you all here. I couldn’t ask for a better guild or better people to share this funky wine with.” Everyone laughed. The wine was a sweet wine that tasted of lychee. It definitely wasn’t going to go well with their roasted pig monster or whatever Miles had caught.

She looked over at Laura’s new character, Seona. She was a Druid which was a healing/DPS caster combination. It was a fitting addition to the group. Since they had lost Zeffu, they were down to just one party member capable of healing – Linca. Now more than ever, the Misfits needed some new blood and Laura brought a calm wisdom to the group that they sorely needed after so much loss.

Emmy must have been staring off into space because Laura came up and handed her another glass of sweet wine, “Drink up. We don’t know when the next time we’ll ever get to eat roasted pig monster and drink stuff that only a minor would drink.” She took the offering with a laugh and grimaced as he swallowed it. The sugar was going to give her hiccups for sure.

The party continued well into the night. The roast pig monster, dubbed ‘roar oinker’, was actually delicious. She could see everyone having a good time and it was almost a physical relief to see all the Misfits smiling again.