While Deathberry had been studying with Lyan in San Francisco for the last week, he’d learned quite a bit about how they used what they called inherent powers. Lyan believed that this power was something that only certain humans had inherited from their ancestors and typically it was this magic that manifested itself in those that had become elven when the apocalypse hit. While Deathberry wasn’t an elf, he developed a pretty good understanding of how this power worked and it looked very similar to the General Abilities that he and Cheezus had developed. Deathberry had a theory that just about anyone could manifest a General Ability; however, he’d yet to prove that idea. Both he and Cheezus has manifested those abilities when thinking about a situation from a different viewpoint. There didn’t really seem to be another catalyst other than the ability to meta-think which many gamers had. When he returned to San Francisco he intended to test that out with some of the other Misfits if they had time.

While this was a compelling idea, it wasn’t going to be enough for the guild to survive the coming attack. What Cheezus and Thag had reported was an army of zombies like the ones they had fought before – all between levels 20 to 30. Their levels weren’t the part that was the most difficult to deal with. However, the size of the army would overwhelm the guild in short order if they didn’t come up with some better defenses. Therefore, he’d spent the majority of the past week developing two new ideas, one of which he was about to test.

Tim logged out as Deathberry and logged in as an alt Wizard named Tim. Yeah, not exactly original but hopefully, just like the infamous wizard of Monty Python fame, he could pull a trick out of his hat. He had brought his creations to Silverton which had continued to be a hot-bed of mutant outbreak despite its previously decimated state.

The level 5 Cleaning Robots attacked the group of mutants twice their number and three times their level. Tim stood back and watched. The first robot brought its arm up which had been turned into a laser cannon and fired several rapid-fire bursts:

-457 burning/piercing

Instakill

-701 burning/piercing – critical

Instakill

-510 burning/piercing

Instakill

The four other robots followed in turn with similar results. In short order the robots that Tim had setup to optimize DPS had annihilated half the mutant forces. That was the easy part. Now to see how they deal with being attacked, Tim thought. The mutants roared in disbelief but had no fear in their eyes as they blindly charged Tim’s creations. Two of the robots he’d equipped with heavy armor and both of them had shields made of magic. Several of the mutants attacked these two directly but the other five ran around to attack the casters in the back.

-157 slashing

-157 slashing – redirected

-157 slashing – redirected

While his DPS had taken some damage the shields he’d created for the tanks served their true purpose. Tim hadn’t been able to find a way to create true tanking robots the way that Smashit and other tanks worked. There wasn’t a magical aggro ability that he was aware of. However, the shields they carried redirected attacks on any allies within their visual range so that the tank’s shield took the majority of the damage by redirecting it magically. Tim called it a magic shield wall.

The mutants continued attacking their targets blind to the fact that their damage was greatly reduced. Fortunately, Tim had one more surprise in store. Since ranged DPS were not highly effective in close combat, he’d modified the robots to have one more ability.

-477 slashing/piercing

-700 slashing/piercing

Retracting their laser arms into their backs, the robots pulled out their main arms which had been converted to plasma swords using the new elven magic Tim had learned. Normal players had to choose between being effective at ranged or melee DPS and there were advantages and disadvantages to both. However, his robots had the best of both worlds and when the enemy closed on them they could continue to do extremely high damage considering their low level.

With their attacks blunted with the magic shield wall system and taking heavy hits from a group that had switched to melee combat, the rest of the mutants were dispatched in short order. He reviewed the damage that his small team of robots had taken. Not bad – there were a few adjustments to make but this would suffice for keeping the guild alive until he could get his second magical invention completed. For a bunch of cleaning robots, he’d converted from the bunker they certainly were a lot more bad ass than they had been a day ago.

******

As she stared up at the ceiling above her bunk, Alison knew that Tim was working on something big with the elves in San Francisco but she knew that she had to prepare for the upcoming battle as best as she could. She hadn’t realized what it had meant to be a healer until Shelly had died. Up to that point the game had been an escape for her even when AO had turned out to affect the real world she just couldn’t see it as anything other than another game. Sean, Tim, and Miles had led the guild to their victories and despite the fact that she was an officer of the guild, she’d just gone along for the ride. Even Emmy had become so dependable. Alison didn’t know that she could fire a gun like that in real life. Emmy had saved her life so many times in game and now outside it as well. She felt like she was being left behind. Her and poor Zeffu.

She saw the rest of the Misfits scrambling around the bunker making preparations. Miles was putting together traps using nothing but his ingenuity. He and Tim called it metaknowledge. He’d explained it to her earlier in the day and said that he’d grown up in the hood so he knew how to defend his home and his family. But what did Alison know? She had grown up a sheltered southern girl in the suburbs of Atlanta. She’d grown up in a loving safe environment and it seemed like nothing bad had ever happened to her until her parents had gotten into a fatal car crash when she was eighteen. Such an accident was supposed to be something that only happened in her grandparent’s era but the automated systems on the car had failed. Truly a freak accident. After that she’d gotten support from her mom’s sister and lived with her for a couple of years but she never got over having her perfect life shattered like that.

It was probably why she was a healer in game. She hadn’t been able to do anything to prevent her parent’s fatal car wreck and though she’d tried to become a nurse the real world didn’t need medical professionals anymore – AI and robots did a far better job. If only she’d not met her best friend Shelly in real life they could have remained safe in their respective homes thousands of miles away. That was a fantasy and she knew it but somehow, she felt like she’d contributed to everything ending for them. She should have been there to take the wrong capsule and sacrifice herself for her friend. Or she should have foreseen how sick Kevin was becoming and stopped him before he could sabotage the pod.

“Alison? Alison, are you awake,” Emmy’s voice interrupted her guilty thoughts.

She pulled herself out of the bunk and saw Emmy standing there with a 12” gauge in hand. “What are you doing?” Alison asked.

“I have an idea but I need your help,” Emmy replied.

An hour later they were in Silverton. Emmy was out there with the gun, a gas mask and some crude armor that Tim had apparently fashioned for her. Emmy had asked her to jump on Yalla, her holy priest alt. Alison had spent some time leveling up Yalla earlier in the day but she was still only level 25. She felt fairly powerless being so weak.

“What are we doing out here? Why aren’t you on your alt?” Yalla asked.

She couldn’t see Emmy’s expression through the gas mask but she gave her a thumb up. Her friend had been spending a lot of time with Miles and he’d really brought out a social side to Emmy that she’d never seen in her friend before. Previously, Emmy had been purely the tomgirl with little interest in either her or any of the other girls. Yalla had wanted to be her friend but it had been difficult because she was so stand-offish. They had never gone out on a mission together before today and besides that this was freaking crazy. Emmy could die out here for real and that would be the end. Suddenly, she had a bad feeling about what her friend was going to ask of her.

“You aren’t seriously thinking that we go out there and attack mutants, are you?” Yalla asked, her voice was flat but her heart pounded.

“Close, but we aren’t killing mutants, come on,” Emmy urged.

Over the next rise was a small encampment of zombies. No way, she thought. This is not happening. “Wait, you can’t,” was all Yalla managed to say before her friend ran into the group shot-gun blazing.

The next few minutes were a blur as Emmy ran into the group the zombies turned. Emmy’s shots splattered zombie brains in rapid succession. When they got too close she stabbed them with a bayonet that she must have added to the gun between their last fight and this one. Yalla’s heart pounded as she ran in to protect her friend’s back. Holy priestesses weren’t very effective in melee but they did have a quarterstaff that wasn’t terrible at blocking damage. Yalla’s fear for her friend brought her defensive combat to a level she’d never previously experienced.

Despite the hail of bullets and repeated beheadings she dished out, Yalla could see Emmy’s health bar go down. Yalla didn’t have time to process how that had happened. She’d never seen any of their real bodies have a health bar before but somehow it was on her Seemi. Yalla did the only thing she felt she could and started healing her friend. When Emmy’s health bar had started dipping it was a natural reaction that she didn’t even have to think about. Surprisingly it worked.

***Congratulations! You’ve learned the General Ability: Heal All***

Yalla swiped away the notification as a wave of zombies pushed in towards them. She had no time to think. Seeing Emmy’s life in her hands brought back all the emotions she’d pushed down after Shelly’s death: the guilt, the feeling that she should have done something, that she’d failed her friend. No way in hell that was going to happen now.

There was a flow to healing that Yalla had been able to tap into when she was in the most chaotic raids. It was like a zen state or how athletes would describe being in the zone. She felt that connection as the hordes of zombies pressed against them as she cast each spell seamlessly, leaving no time between casts for any inefficiency:

+225 holy light

+171 holy light

-457 slashing

-094 slashing

-322 slashing

Protective Angel – 30s

Her mana was running dangerously low. She chugged a mana potion and prayed that Emmy had enough bullets. She knew that they only had a limited amount of fire power and this attack seemed so reckless to her. But there was no way in hell she was going to let her friend die. She had 20s left of reprieve. Yalla mana tapped one of their other casters and then quickly parried two attacks that they made on her. So far, the zombies hadn’t been able to do much damage to Yalla thus far. That changed though when one of the larger zombies pointed to Yalla. Suddenly, she was totally focused on full defense as they surged against her. Emmy fought them off as best as they could but it seemed like they would be overwhelmed.

Suddenly, Yalla lost aggro and she could see Sean’s alt taunting the zombies while Kami had snuck up behind them and started tearing them apart. Within a few minutes there was a large group of dead zombies of their feet. Yalla wrapped her arms around Emmy and said, “What were you thinking? You could have died.”

“I didn’t want to scare you but we needed to do this. The distraction we provided allowed Sean and Kami to dismantle a large portion of their forces,” Emmy replied. “I know you were afraid to lose another friend after seeing you take Shelly’s death so hard. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before we came out here.”

Yalla turned to her other guildmates, “You knew about this crazy plan of hers?” Her face felt hot and her breathing was rapid.

“Sort of, but not the exact details. That was pretty reckless, babe,” Kami said. Yalla’s mouth moved but no words came out. She made a slight choking noise. Emmy looked down at the ground and wouldn’t look her in the eye.

Shaking her head Yalla laughed for the first time since Shelly’s death. “What would you all do without me?”

With that the Misfits headed back to the bunker. While Alison hadn’t been able to save her parents or Shelly she had protected her friends today even through their recklessness. She wasn’t sure how much time this distraction had bought them but she was content to enjoy this with her friends while she could.