Cheezus’ face was the first thing that Smash saw upon regaining consciousness. He was lying on the ground, with pieces of clay and bone covering him. He reached out and Cheezus hauled him to his feet. “Come on,” his friend urged. “We need to leave.” Smash could see Drak’s form emerging from the keep on the other side of the courtyard. He could see the raiders who’d survived had moved towards the gatehouse and were quickly hurrying past the fallen giant.

“Did you loot the body,” Smash asked with a wan smile.

His friend tried keeping a straight face for a moment but failed. Smiling, he said, “What type of thief do you take me for? Of course, I looted the body. But unless you want cyclops guts or a giant tree of whoop-ass there isn’t much for the taking. Since you had the killing blow, I’ll let you take your pick.”

Smash laughed and clapped his friend on the back. Thag was at the gate urging them to get a move on. “Touching bromance,” she said with a smirk. “Now let’s run away like brave, brave Sir Robin.” She had a good point. Drak was already advancing towards them, his silent dead minions in tow. These were a new breed of zombie and looked cleaner – just barely dead. Even more worrisome was the fact that they moved fluidly, not the typical hurky jerk you’d expect from the shambler types. Finally, these undead appeared to march in formation, not dissimilar from the skeletal warriors. Smash wasn’t looking forward to tangling with this new force, particularly with his arch-nemesis at head of the pack.

They passed the DM’s fallen body. Smash poked it again with his sword and checked its status bar. Definitely dead. Good thing too – this was one of the most powerful raid bosses he’d ever fought in any game and he was glad to be alive. “How many did we lose?” Smash finally asked his friends as they exited the keep and walked on to the fields beyond.

The silence that stretched before them told him that neither one wanted to answer but finally, Cheezus replied, “We lost 67 of them, although I could only find the bodies of about 60.” No wonder he hadn’t said much. Even though many of the prisoners they’d freed were only human, a good portion of the remaining hundred had been mutants with powers in some cases exceeding their own. Smash realized that they were lucky that any of them had made it at all.

Cheezus put his hand on his shoulder. “One of the ones who didn’t make it was Joe,” he said. Smash shook his head sadly. He’d thought that if any of them were going to make it, the determined ex-marine would have been one of them. Just because he’d survived so much before this. But there were certainly no guarantees in this world.

Running his fingers through his hair in frustration, Smash kicked a dead zombie in front of them. He was going to have to deal with today’s tragedies another time and he was sure he would be haunted by much of it. “Let’s get back to the base and regroup. When we have the entire raid together let’s get everyone organized and then we’ll make Drak pay for this,” he said with more conviction then he felt. Sometimes you had to run on empty for a while before you realize you have more in you than you think. Hopefully, that adage would remain true, he thought. Since right now he felt drained.

It didn’t take long for them to catch up to the other escapees and they were easily spotted smashing their way into the back of the enemy lines. Hundreds of zombies were decimated by the group since they hadn’t been prepared for a surprise attack from behind. Cheezus ran ahead and quickly Smash lost him in the crowd. As his friend would say, an unfair fight was the easiest one to win.

Smash made his way to the front, Reaver cutting him a path. He’d leveled up several times and was approaching level 85. One of his new abilities was shield swipe which allowed him to bring his shield into the enemy like a weapon. He cut across the ranks of the skeletal warriors’ tight formations, wiping out front lines and clearing a path of destruction for his fellows to follow.

Chopping off the head of another skeleton he felt a hot blast nearly burn off his hair as he ducked down just in time to see a ball of fire smash into a skeleton that had been sneaking up behind him. Nicole’s cocky grin hadn’t diminished, although Smash wasn’t fooled a bit. She’d been crying and streaks of dirt and blood marred her naturally beautiful face. For once she didn’t immediately assail him with a snarky comment. Instead she yelled, “Glad to see you are still alive commander. We’re making good progress but the tide is turning. What are your orders?”

He turned around and saw Cheezus and most of the rest of the raiders looking at him. Like he somehow would know what was needed to save them. Damn, being a leader sucks sometimes. “Let’s group up for now and form a ring of defense. I’d like to talk with the officers for a few minutes do discuss what I’m thinking,” he responded. Hopefully, that would give him enough time to actually come up with a plan.

In the crowd he heard a woman’s voice. “I have one idea for you to hear first.” It was Tabitha. She had always been pretty quiet and had led the healers without any complaint, despite the massive casualties they’d suffered.

Smash nodded. “Let’s hear it.”

“I’d like you to give me a guild invite,” she replied, so quietly that he strained to hear her. Others took up her request though and soon Smash was inundated with requests. Was it even possible for him to allow what were essentially NPCs into his guild? It was worth giving a shot. He swiped a finger on his Seemi and sent out an invitation to Tabitha first. A moment later he saw the notification in chat:

***Guild Chat***

Tabitha has joined the Misfits.

Cheezustabs: Welcome to the madness…

Thag: Woot!

Linca: Who’s the new girl?

Deathberry: How did we end up with a new guild member?

Tabitha: Thanks for the invite!

Smash quickly set to work inviting everyone else who requested. In total he showed 33 new members after he was finished. In the meantime, everyone in the raid around him had taken defensive positions and were making quick work of the undead. It seemed like the entire group had gotten a second wind and there was something good again to fight for.

***Whisper from Deathberry***

Deathberry: Any chance you all could make your way in our direction? Seona and I are surrounded and it looks like that dracolich is back. Lyan’s armada has had to retreat and we were grounded.

Smashit: On our way.

Just as things were looking easy again. Since the rest of the guild seemed to have the undead around them on the back foot, Smash called the officers to gather round him as he looked for input. Deathberry wasn’t one for dramatics so if he was asking for help it was probably every bit as serious as it had seemed from the brief chat they’d had.

“Deathberry and Seona are in trouble,” he explained. “I’ve got a pretty good idea of where their ship crashed from the description he provided; however, we’re going to have a hard time pushing our way through half of Drak’s army to get to him.”

Nicole was the first to reply, “What about sending a small strike force to retrieve them? It might be easier than trying to get the entire guild over there. We could create a distraction,” she offered.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Smash said, nodding.

Cheezus had one of those looks on his face that meant trouble. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. Thag groaned. Yeah, it was going to be one of those crazy ideas where everyone nearly dies, Smash thought. Whenever he got that smirky smile on his face they ended up doing something really dumb and really awesome.

When no one said anything further, he continued. “Thag and I noticed some weird stuff when we were in the fortress. We entered one room full of zombies and none of them so much as looked at us. There was no way they couldn’t see us. What I figure is that they have to be programmed by Drak explicitly or by one of his lieutenants,” Cheezus explained.

“That makes sense, but how do we stop them from getting orders?” Smash asked.

His eyes lighting up with mischief, Cheezus said, “We just fool their orders. There are a lot of dead zombies around here,” he gestured, indicating a large pile of still bodies. They were completely dead – not just undead. “We grab a few of them, hack them apart, and use them as a disguise. A few of us sneak over to where Deathberry and Seona are and retrieve them. Easy peasy.’

Smash doubted it would be that easy but his suggestion did seem to have merit. “Let’s give it a shot,” he replied. Orders were given from the officers to the rank and file. Soon Cheezus and a few fellow sneaky types grabbed their zombie suits and started to move away from the rest of the raid. Amazingly, none of the undead seemed to notice. Perfect, he thought.

Just to make sure the undead didn’t suddenly get any bright ideas, the next step was carried out. A few trees from the nearby river were harvested for dead branches and a fire pit was quickly assembled. In no time at all they had a giant bonfire going in the middle of the desert. Since it was still only late afternoon, the flames didn’t stand out to a lot to the undead before them. Nicole starting chanting with four of the other wizards in the guild.

Smash was kept busy for the next several minutes as the noise and fire had attracted more of the undead. Skeletal hands tore at the gaps in his armor and he swore, lashing out with Reaver. His shield smashed apart another bony body as he stood face to face with one of the giant skeletal warriors they’d seen from a distance. Melee DPS with bludgeoning weapons soon joined him and they danced in between the giant’s legs as it swung a might ax. Eyes pulsing red with hatred, the bone giant roared and smashed down on one of Smash’s guildmates with a bony foot, pinning the warrior to the ground. Smash could see his health bar begin to go in to the red. “Quickly, get this thing off of Simon,” Smash yelled to the others.

He was too busy helping free their new guildmate to notice; however, the giant bone creature before him withdrew its foot from Simon and took a step back. That’s right, you better run. Chancing a look behind him, Smash gasped. A towering wall of flame came down upon the bony giant’s head, severing it in one blow. He could feel the burning heat starting to warm his metal, and Smash realized that this must have been Nicole’s doing. The creature before him was a fire elemental. Born of magma, it dripped chunks of molten rock from its bright orange core, spreading out in waves of pulsing heat. While he’s seen similar creatures in Champions, none were the size of this one, and none burned so brightly. Unlike the bonfire from which it was born, this creature lit up the late afternoon sky, causing afternoon shadows to retreat. Smash broke out in a sweat standing before it and he realized he too needed to escape before he became barbeque.

Helping Simon to his feet, they ran away from the elemental. It and four others had emerged from the bonfire. Nicole and her fellow casters looked like they had run a marathon and her face, normally full of sarcasm, simply looked exhausted. Approaching her, Smash said, “Very impressive. That should help us turn the tide on this fight.”

She shook her head. “Unfortunately, elementals this powerful are a double-edged sword. As soon as they finish destroying Drak’s army they will come back for me,” she said, her voice tremulous. Smash didn’t have a pat response since he wasn’t used to Nicole showing any bit of weakness. Perhaps she was a real person after all. Still, those creatures must be fearsome indeed if Nicole was scared of them.

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes. The Misfits stick together and protect each other,” he replied. She looked closely at him for a second, trying to assess his intentions before she nodded. Smash figured she must have had few friends she could rely on in her previous life.

With the help of the four elementals, Cheezus had the distraction he needed. Smash hoped that his friends were safe but didn’t want to distract them with a whisper. He could see everyone’s health bars on his Seemi and no one was mortally wounded, although there were some injuries. He would just have to trust that everyone came through. Leading wasn’t so much taking charge but more like coordinating everyone and sitting back to watch them execute it. Not interfering all the time was the hard part.

Soon the elementals had the attention of the entire undead army and yet they pushed forward with the Misfits right behind them. Smash said a silent prayer and hoped they would be in time.