He didn’t often play an alt character of the same class but Miles was excited to start his new rogue – Kamikaze or Kami for short. After they’d all got the bad news from Aeon that they might be infected it had hit the group pretty hard. Their mains were all stuck in San Francisco with no quick way back and there was possibly a guild traitor on the loose who was attempting to get them killed. Miles wanted to figure out whether the zombies had entered their base by accident, or if this was something planned. If the latter, it was likely that they would be facing more monsters at their bunker in the Outback soon and he wanted to be as prepared as possible.

Since they weren’t sure they were infected yet, the best way was to send out a scout from AO. The pods that they used allowed as many different characters as you wanted. They could have all re-rolled level 1 characters; however, there was still the issue of wrapping things up in San Francisco, collecting their loot and getting out of there. Since six level 1 characters weren’t very powerful, it was decided that Miles would pick a new alt rogue and scout the area near their bunker alone.

As Miles sat down in the pod and started to put his micro-transmitter on, Emmy strode into the control room, her face rigid. “I’m going with you,” she said. Seeing that he was about to respond she cut him off. “I don’t want to hear any lip from you Miles Trent. Just give me a kiss and say ‘yes babe’.”

He wanted to say no but having Emmy there would be a great help. She was killer with a shot-gun in real life and always had his back in AO. He looked at her, taking in her stern face, hands on her hips, and defiant swagger. His girl was sexy when she was angry.

Leaning up from the pod he pulled her down on to him and kissed her deeply. She protested a bit but didn’t struggle for very long before responding to his ardor. Sadly, he knew they couldn’t do this all day – he had a job to do. Quite possibly the Misfit’s lives depended on it. Still, when he let go of her it was with remorse that they didn’t have time to continue from where they’d left things last night in the caves. She gazed at him adoringly and he had to fight back the urge to continue where he’d left off.

His voice was gravelly as he spoke. “Ok, you can come along. But you have to play a rogue as well. We aren’t going toe to toe with whatever is out there. The zombies that got in the base were level 10 and our avatars won’t stand a chance against them. It’s a good thing that using a shot-gun at close range levels the odds,” he said smiling up at her.

“I figured you might say that, so I made one already,” she said with a sassy grin.

Her avatar’s name was Dairystabs. Miles had tears in his eyes after he got done laughing.

***AR Online – Aeon 2.411.07***

Stepping back into the game never got old. Not for the first time, Kami wondered whether there was something addictive that Aeon had put into the game. He and Dairy were in the starting zone again and were both Level 1. It would be a few levels before he could start gaining any rogue abilities but this time he wanted to rebuild a rogue character with a different flavor than his main. While Cheezus was focused primarily on a single dagger build, for Kami he wanted to go a different route and try a two-handed fighting style. Watching Rygor had been giving him ideas and it seemed like there was a flexibility that the Survivor’s guild leader had when fighting that seemed very freeing.

As he and Dairy started scouting the immediate area they both dropped into stealth. It was quite possible that there were still zombies out here and this wasn’t the time to fight. After about an hour of surveying the immediate area he reported back to the Misfits that the zombies had cleared out.

“We should check out some of the surrounding areas before we go back,” Dairy said.

Kami nodded and they quietly made their way toward Silverton to see if there was anything out of the normal that had happened there while they were away.

*******

After Miles and Emmy had departed to scout the area, Tim had gone back to San Francisco as Deathberry. He, Sean and Rygor had met with a contingent of elves who’d surrounded the remaining Misfits after they exited the wizard’s tower.

A male elf with a timeless face stepped forward and spoke. “You’ve conquered the wizard and we would have words with you. I am Lyan and I speak for our people.”

“I’m Smashit and our raid has cleared the tower. What do you wish to talk about?” he answered.

Lyan explained that their people had been decimated by the Conjurer in his ploy to create more powerful mutants. Apparently, the elves believed they were descended from humans who’d had the most latent magic.

“So, you’re telling us that your people, formerly humans with latent magic, were captured by wizard Tiel and turned into the mutants that we killed today?” Sean asked, his eyebrows raised.

Lyan’s face was guarded as he replied, “That’s correct. Worse still, we believe that the Conjurer had even more of our people back at his laboratory.”

“And do you know where this laboratory is?” Smash asked. Lyan nodded.

The raid officers spoke in chat for a few minutes and quickly determined that they should investigate. The lizardmen had to return home and would not be able to join them. While there was a risk that they might not have enough raiders left to storm the laboratory but it was risk they were willing to take to see if they could learn more about what had happened to Mr. Tiel.

Lyan’s scouts led the way and they made their way deeper into the hills. They didn’t encounter any further mutants but that might have been because Lyan’s group had been clearing the area out. On what had previously been park land, they made their way to the base of one hill that had a series of strange looking vegetation on one side. One of the elven scouts moved some of the unusual vines aside and revealed a door that looked like the smaller one on their bunker in the Outback.

Without their rogue, Smash took the lead and made his way inside. Similar to their bunker it seemed that a power source was still active and lights flickered inside. He stepped forward and heard the other raiders behind him. It took them a few minutes to clear the bunker. Aside from two dead mutants, no one was left. The console attempted to flicker to life but had been smashed in a pitched battle between the mutants and whatever they had fought here.

Deathberry called to the group. “I’ve found something unusual. There is a trapdoor under one of the bunks,” he explained. Smash gave a nod and the group moved the bunk out of the way and opened the door. Downstairs was a well-lit room with hundreds if not thousands of tubes suspended from the ceiling. Each one contained some mutant or portion thereof. Many of the creatures in them appeared to have been human, elven, or otherwise humanoid once but were now something warped. Back in Australia, they had assumed that the miners had all been infected by some biochemical toxin that had been released during the apocalypse and perhaps that was true; however, here it was obvious that the conversion had been far more deliberate and in some cases far more heinous. Large test tubes hung down from the ceiling towards the end of the room. Enormous monsters were suspended there: dinosaurs like they had fought, large golems and cyclops, small dragons, and numerous other beasts too hideous to understand.

The raid was silent as they walked through the mutant test-tube chamber. Deathberry investigated a console at one end of the room and listened to the playback of the last recording. “The new serum that we developed doesn’t seem to be working to transform the mutants and elves back to their former selves. In fact, I think it’s possible that…” the recording shut off as static interrupted Mr. Tiel. It was apparent then that Mr. Tiel had tried to find an antidote for those who had been affected by the biochemical attacks but whatever he’d done had actually made things worse. When the other officers were done investigating the room, Deathberry played the recording back for them.

“Unless there is something here we want to study further, I suggest we bury our dead and destroy this place.” Smashit said.

Deathberry and the rest of the officers slowly nodded. Lyan wanted to make sure that each of the elven creatures were burned. After the grisly remains were handled, Deathberry asked Lyan if he could speak more with him about magic. He wanted to understand exactly why the elven mutants were so powerful and increase his own powers if possible. Rygor, Smashit and the rest of the raid returned to San Francisco. Deathberry remained behind with Lyan, the elven wizard, to learn more about how they had become so powerful with their magic.

Three days later Tim emerged from his pod in the Australian Outback. The rest of the Misfits had return to the bunker to hear the status report from Mile and Emmy.

“There is a large encampment about three miles away near the town of Silverton. There are hundreds of zombies like the ones we fought previously. It seems they are slowly moving their way down the valley searching for something. It wouldn’t surprise me if they are looking for our base,” Miles reported.

The Misfits were silent for a minute after hearing that news. That was a lot of zombies to fight. On the other hand, if their base was truly secure they didn’t have anything to worry about. Looking around the room Tim noted that some of the group looked concerned but no one was panicking yet.

“Despite the fact that it is unlikely that they are looking for us and even more unlikely that they have a way inside, let’s prepare as if we need to go to war. There is no sense in waiting for the enemy to be on our doorstep,” Sean said. “Hopefully, it all just blows over and it’s no big deal. But if they have a way inside or Kevin is still around to help them, we could be in trouble if we do nothing.”

Everyone agreed to make their defenses as sound as they could. The main problem though was that their powerful level 60+ avatars were stuck in San Francisco. Unless Deathberry could use the power of the elves’ ancient magics to come up with something. After the meeting, he set to work with the plans he’d been thinking of for the past several days while he’d studied under Lyan.