It took longer than Shaggy wanted to get the second pod set up. So when he logged back in the game, it was a full day later in the real world. Which meant that three days had passed in the game. Shaggy prepared himself to log into pure pandemonium, but he was pleasantly surprised. Not only was the bar still standing, but the place was pretty busy, too. The bar was standing room only as Shaggy walked in. The large dance floor and stage had people milling around, drinking and talking. A few were even using the empty band stage as a table.

As Shaggy looked around, he could see several Lackeys interspersed with the crowd. Some were happily mingling, while others had angry looks on their faces as they scanned the mass of people. He couldn’t find Vlad or the others, though, so he moved to the bar, hoping to find Mr. Blue or Petra. The counter was the most densely packed area of the bar, and Shaggy had to shoulder his way past a few stubborn patrons. But eventually he made it and stopped short at what he saw.

A large Minotaur was behind the bar, taking drink and food orders. Shaggy’s grin fell as he thought they had lost the bar to another group. But then the door to the kitchen opened and Mr. Blue stepped out. The blue-skinned alien caught Shaggy’s eye and nodded placidly. Shaggy walked over and caught the bar owner by the shoulder.

“What the hell has been going on?”

Mr. Blue adjusted the dark green vest he was wearing before responding. “We have been operating at full capacity since you and the others went off. Miss Ephemara even brought in some more help for the kitchen and bar. We have had a few attacks from the Quinica and surrounding robots, but nothing too dangerous. Mr. Dave and Slink arrived a short while ago. Dave is off ‘exercising’ with some of the men and I believe Slink is downstairs.”

Shaggy blinked at Mr. Blue’s monotone delivery of the events of the past couple of days. But it seemed that the bar had been running fine without them. He gave the bar owner a quick nod before he rushed to the back of the building. The steps to the basement had been put in along the south wall. He had to pass several no entry signs and walk down a long dark hallway before he found a door with a human and dark yellow alien guarding it. Both of them stood straighter and gave Shaggy the stink eye as he approached.

“Hey, fucko! This is for VIPs only. Take your short hairy ass out of here,” said the yellow alien, puffing up his chest and cutting his eyes at his fellow door guard.

Shaggy froze for a few seconds before he grinned up at the taller alien. He took a few steps closer, waiting to see if the guards did anything to him. But they just glared at him. Obviously, they were hoping they could scare him off with a mean look and harsh language. Once Shaggy was close enough to count the stains on the yellow asshole’s t-shirt, he asked.

“So neither of you know who I am?”

The yellow alien glanced at his partner before he glared back at Shaggy. Before the Lackey could say anything though, Shaggy had reached up and gripped the man by the neck. Holding back as much as possible so he didn’t kill the idiot, Shaggy pushed through the door. He dragged the Lackey into the next room, followed closely by his fellow guard. She had her hand at her waist and was obviously going for a gun, but Shaggy ignored her as he wrenched the door guard around and presented him to the few people in the stone room.

“Anyone want to tell this fucking idiot who I am?!” Shaggy shouted, looking around the room.

Slink and Ephemara were standing around a large computer table. Both staring at him in shock and confusion. More Lackeys were in the room and Shaggy was sure he saw part of his pack seated on a nearby couch. The room was pretty sparse, but it looked like they were slowly getting things built up. With couches, TVs, a coffee table, it had the making of a nice rec room for everyone.

Several Lackeys went for their weapons, but others stopped them as Rita stepped forward and grinned. Sybil and Tom were with her and they all looked to be relaxing in the room.

“Shit, boss. You can’t blame the guy. Not a lot of the new crew have seen you yet.”

Shaggy grunted and dropped the door guard. He saw several people in the room mouth the word ‘boss’, so he spun in a circle and addressed as many people as possible.

“My name is Shaggy! I am one of the leaders of this outfit. Along with Vlad, Slink, Ren, and Dave. If you cannot recognize one of us on sight, then I suggest you find someone who knows what we look like and fucking ask. Just so nothing like this happens again. Are we clear?”

A small sea of shocked faces stared back at him, so Shaggy focused on shifting his hands into claws and waved them about.

“I said, ARE WE CLEAR!?”

“YES!”

A chorus of voices answered him and Shaggy moved to join Slink and Ephemara at the fancy table they were looking down at. The sounds of shuffling feet behind him told him that the door guards were either returning to their posts or running for the hills. Rita and the others of his pack joined him as he stared down at the screen built into the large rectangular table. It was obviously some kind of tiny holographic map as it showed the surrounding areas of the bar and several nearby locations. It looked like it went on for a few blocks before it got fuzzy and indistinct. Shaggy glanced up at Slink and raised an eyebrow.

The young teen shook the shock from his face and coughed awkwardly. “*ahem* Sorry. This is our War Table. Vlad bought it the other day so we could collate our scout’s information. It helps us keep track of enemy movements and what the Quinica are up to. But…”

Shaggy stared at the various blue buildings on the map. In a few places, the buildings were incomplete. There were a few red dots that probably showed enemy movement on the map, too. But they shifted wildly between blocks. There also appeared to be an enormous collection of red spots out west. Shaggy kept looking at Slink, urging the boy to finish his thought.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Our guys suck at scouting. I mean, really. This table operates on the reports we feed into it. So the more detailed the reports, the better our information will be. But our scouts hate paperwork.”

Shaggy sucked in a breath through his teeth. “We all hate paperwork. But we are talking about shit that can keep us in the game. The more detailed those reports are, the better we can fight off the Quinica and defend our turf. Who is in charge of the scouts?”

Ephemara coughed into her hand before she silently raised it. Shaggy felt a confused look come onto his face and he couldn’t help but ask.

“Why? You’re supposed to be our lead spy. Spying and scouting are not the same.”

“I figured I could do both, Boss.”

“Yeah, no. We have to find someone else to get our scouts up to snuff. No offense, Ephemara, but I want you focused on spying on our enemies. Particularly the Quinica. They are the latest group we’ve pissed off and we are operating in their backyard. So that’s where our next headache is going to come from.”

“Gotcha, boss.”

“How have we already pissed off another of the Big Four?” Slink whined.

Shaggy shrugged. “Least it wasn’t me this time. Vlad’s not a fan of the ‘fake Space-vamps.’ So I guess he’s a little short with them. But when they march into our turf and demand a tithe. Well, that would set anyone off.”

“Maybe. But what do we do then? I have been rotating scouting teams trying to find a good batch of people to make permanent scouts. But it’s like correcting homework. Some of these guys can barely freaking spell.”

“Well, that’s a disconcerting… and a little hilarious.” Shaggy chuckled. “Just keep doing that until you find a group of people who can do the job the best.”

Slink nodded and turned his head toward the table again. He brought up a window and started looking over a large block of text. Shaggy studied the kid’s face before asking.

“You alright with doing that, kid? I know most people don’t want to play a game and do paperwork.”

Slink snorted and swiped his finger over the hovering window. The block of text moved up, and he kept reading.

“I’m fine. This stuff is simple. You and the others can go out there and fight with a bunch of alien vampires. I’ll hold down the fort. We also need to organize our people a little better. So I can work on that.”

Shaggy put up his hands and started backing away. “As long as you’re having fun. I’m going to take my pack out and about. We need to run the yard a little. Do you have somewhere you want us?”

Slink closed the window in front of his eyes and looked over the table. “We need more information on the Quinica. They are on our western side and slightly to the north. But they have guys roaming everywhere. I would say that you head north and then curve west. Might be safer than heading straight for them.”

“Pfft. Where’s the fun in that?” Shaggy asked, walking over to his pack mates.

Although in truth, Shaggy had no real motivation to run straight at the pack of pale space-vamps. He was waving at Rita when Slink asked another question from behind him.

“Vlad said your wife was coming to play with us?”

Shaggy nodded as he turned around. “Yeah, we got her pod all set up, but it took all evening. So she’ll be here after work. Although I may have to go topside to get her.”

Slink smiled. “Cool. What kind of powers does she have?”

“I do not know.” Shaggy shrugged. “We promised not to tell each other what we rolled until we met in-game.”

“I hope it’s something awesome.”

“Trust me, kid. Knowing my wife, it will be.”

With that, Shaggy led Tom, Rita and Sybil out of the underground room. As they passed the door guards, neither of them would look at Shaggy and he had to stifle a laugh at their stiff posture. His pack walked out onto the bar’s main floor and then spread out to find Vick and Cekrass.

The big lizard was the easiest to find, as he was at least a foot taller than most anyone in the bar. Sybil tracked Vick down to a room on the second floor. Shaggy felt a little bad about waking the man up, but Sybil said he was just polishing his rifle. Which Shaggy hoped wasn’t a euphemism.

With his whole pack gathered, Shaggy headed for the door. He could tell that their group was drawing a lot of eyes, but he ignored them. Once out the door and away from the tumult of people, Shaggy took a deep breath and looked around. Under-town was still dark and dreary, with the occasional gunshot going off in the distance. There was still the scent of smoke in the air and sounds of people shouting. Scent trails crisscrossed in his vision and he tried to look into them, to see if he could discern anything about their owners. But beyond the normal coloration tags, nothing changed.

“Boss?” Rita asked.

Shaggy hadn’t realized he had closed his eyes. As he opened them, he looked at his small pack of Lackeys. Rita, Sybil, and Vick were looking at him questioningly, while Cekrass was looking around for threats. Tom was talking the ears off some people standing just outside the bar. They looked like they were about to punch the skinny chatterbox. Shaggy grinned.

“Okay, people. We are going north and then curving westward. We are hunting for Space-vamps. So be on your toes and watch out for their claws and teeth.. Let’s go!”

Shaggy jogged northward, and he felt the others following him. Rita spoke up as they all started moving.

“I thought you said doing it this way wouldn’t be fun.”

“*ahem* Sometimes we can’t just do what’s fun. We have to be smart about this.” Shaggy coughed.

“Do the Quinica bleed?” Sybil asked as she moved closer to Shaggy’s side.

Shaggy saw the short woman tap her pistols. “Pistols work, but you are going to need to use a lot of bullets. They are tough, but have the same weak points as everybody. Heart, head, eyes, nuts.”

“So, same vulnerable spots, but we might need more shots to take one down?” Vick asked from behind Shaggy.

“Yep. Rita might have an easier time with her sword, but they are also fast. Not as fast as Vlad, but still pretty quick. Just be ready.” Shaggy explained.

“That’s why we’re going north first, isn’t it?” Rita asked. “You want us to learn how to fight them in smaller groups first?”

Shaggy nodded. “Yeah, but I also think we need to figure out this bond. I have a basic understanding of how it works, but I think we need to field test it.”

“HAHAHA! It strengthens me and I can feel the others. What else do I need to know?” Tom called happily as they moved.

The surrounding huts grew closer together and Shaggy had to squeeze through a few gaps. They kept up the discussion on the pack bond as they ran. Shaggy explained that while he didn’t get a boost from the bond, he could feel them slightly over it. Meanwhile, from his pack mates’ perspective, they could feel his mood as well, but they also felt completely energized. Rita described it as being on four cups of coffee all the time, and the others kind of agreed.

Shaggy watched the scent trails in the air and kept an eye out for the odd robot. He was sure he could hear clanking in the distance as the robots fought or moved in the neighborhood. There were also a few civilians moving along the dirt roads. Some looked familiar to Shaggy, while others didn’t. A few of the unfamiliar ones stared at his group with either fear or anger. Shaggy ignored them and turned off the scent trails of the various civilians he met. Hopefully, if he went out enough, he would eliminate all the non-combatants in the neighborhoods surrounding the bar from his scent trails.

He was ticking off blue and yellow scent trails from his vision when a brand new scent appeared from the north. Shaggy blinked and stared at the odd colored scent markers. Normally, a scent trail would be a solid color denoting the individual he could smell, but this new one was both blue and yellow. The yellow coloring was far more pronounced than the blue, but Shaggy felt the blue was seeping into the yellow even as he watched. He stopped their jog through the neighborhood and watched the scent trails.

There were four of them moving eastward and Shaggy was sure they were the space-vamps. But the odd mix of scents worried him. The normal Quinica at the supply tunnel had fully blue scent markers showing that they were fully alien. But now with the yellow coloring Shaggy had thought meant Mutant mixed in, it was an interesting smell. Shaggy took a large whiff of the scent trail and focused.

Sweat, body odor, cloth, dirt all wafted into his nostrils and Shaggy took a second to parse everything. There was another smell behind everything else, but he couldn’t identify it. It wasn’t the fear he had smelled at the start of the robot invasion. But it had a similar nebulous quality to it. Shaggy was rubbing his chin in thought when Rita smacked him on the side.

“Talk to us, boss. We can all feel your confusion, and it’s annoying as hell.”

Shaggy grunted. “Ugh, sorry. I’m just trying to parse these scents coming from up ahead. We got four… creatures heading east. I don’t know what they are. My head says Quinica, but the smells differ from what I’ve smelled before.”

Vick grabbed his rifle from its shoulder strap and held it ready. “Well, there’s an easy way to find out.”

The others nodded in agreement and Shaggy pointed to where the scent was moving. “We’ll hit them at a run. Shock and awe, people. If we identify them as Quinica lay into them. If they aren’t, well… they’ll get a surprise and maybe robbed.”

The others chuckled as Shaggy took off at a full run. He followed the mix of scents and dashed between the metal shacks of the neighborhood. He could see the scent growing larger as he followed them, and eventually the scent trail of yellow and blue separated into four different mixed scent trails. It looked like they were traveling in a tight square and as Shaggy burst forth from between a few houses. He caught sight of several pale men in black clothes. Which was enough for Shaggy as he pounced.

“Surprise! You Space-Suckers!”