“YOU. ARE. BULLSHIT!” Vlad said slowly, and only slightly angrily.

Shaggy just grinned as he relaxed in Ralph’s cramped back seat. He was squashed back there with Slink. Dave was driving, and Vlad had stolen the passenger seat. Ren was riding in the bed of Ralph’s massive truck. With an unconscious Ralph. The massive, red hover truck hummed quietly as Dave eased the big vehicle down the street. It would’ve been pretty nice if it wasn’t for the lack of leg room in the back seat.

“Seriously! You go into a restroom in search of drugs and activate some weird Blood power quest line? What the hell? It’s utter bullshit.”

Slink sighed. “Well, he went to that blood realm. Remember? When Cog killed him.”

“Nice of you to remember, Slink.” Shaggy grinned, readjusting his legs. “But, yeah. I’m willing to bet it had something to do with Cog’s weird magical death curse thing. He obviously pissed off some AI Deity in the game and since I was the only other person there, I got god-slapped.”

“But why did it activate now? You are always covered in blood of some kind. Hell, you’ve sliced through more space-vamps and humans than any of us,” Dave asked as he turned the truck northward.

Shaggy shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it had to be demon blood? Or magically enhanced blood? All I know is that it ‘augmented’ my werewolf form. Whatever that means.”

“Can’t you shift and find out?”

“Pfft. Last time I shifted in the city, we got chased by the rainbow cavalcade of Supes. I don’t want to try that again.”

“The rainbow what?” Dave called over his shoulder.

“Long story. Which I might’ve told already. But anyway, the point is, I’ll find out what it means later. For now, we need to decide how we want to proceed.”

“Sorry, Shags. But we really have to stick with this current job.” Vlad stated simply.

Shaggy was about to argue, but Slink tapped his arm. “How about we wait until we can all talk? Doesn’t seem right to have this conversation while Ren is in the truck bed.”

Slink pointed out the back window at their eight-foot friend. The giant rhino-man was seated in the bed with a steadying hand on Ralph’s prone body. The hover truck had little in the way of suspension, but with the way Dave was taking the turns, Ralph’s body would probably roll.

Shaggy grunted and nodded. “Fine. But where are we even going? Ralph’s place?”

“Just following the GPS to home, dude.” Dave said.

“Yeah,” Vlad said, turning back around in his seat. “Ralph’s got an apartment we can squat in. At least for tonight.”

“Sounds good. But do we know if he has any roommates? Anyone who could try to stop us?”

“Also, why not just kill Ralph and take his apartment?”

Shaggy and Vlad turned to look at Slink. The casual way the kid mentioned killing someone was alarming.

“Hey! He’s an NPC. We could just gank him and crash at his place.”

Shaggy sighed. “Then when he doesn’t show up to work or if the cops stop by to get his statement about what happened tonight?”

Slink waved his hand dismissively. “They bought our story. Those cops didn’t even scan us after the bathroom exploded. We just gave our statements and they let us out. Why would they worry about some guy who was drunk through most of the altercation?”

“You want to risk it?” Vlad asked over his shoulder.

“Besides, like, I’m not good at killing some innocent dude.” Dave added.

“Their not real!” Slink grumbled.

“Yeah, but the consequences are. Multiple people saw us dragging Ralph out of the bar. We took his car, and a lot of his coworkers saw it. We don’t need the heat.”

Slink looked thoughtful, but remained quiet. Shaggy turned in his seat and looked out the window. Trying to ignore his aching legs. The dark Austin suburbs were lit up with various streetlamps, and he could just make out the outline of buildings as they drove past. Outside of downtown Austin, the buildings were less steel and glass and more brick and mortar. Their current street was an odd mix of apartments and mom and pop stores. Or what used to be mom and pop stores.

“Man. Everything is closed.” Shaggy muttered.

“It’s two in the morning.” Vlad said, confused.

“No. I mean, there are a lot of stores closed permanently.” He pointed a finger out the window at a small building with border up windows.

Slink shrugged. “Small business come and go.”

Shaggy shrugged back and lean back in his seat again. It just seemed odd to him. So many businesses shut down this close to downtown Austin? It made little sense, but maybe with the recent Cog attack, they had left the city completely. Shaggy shook the thought from his head and tried to think of a way to find Cog.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The Super Villain was probably down in his lair, inventing more monstrous robots again. Shaggy still remembered the entrance he, Ephemara, and Slink had used. But getting captured again didn’t seem like a good idea. Also, who even knew if the old bastard was still down there? For all Shaggy knew, he could march down into the sewers and find an empty set of tunnels. Although that brought up another problem.

Even if he convinced the others to join him in attacking Cog, what were five players going to do against a magically enhanced Technopath and his ARMY of robots? It would be suicide. Sure, he had done fairly well for himself a while back, but he had still been grayed-out by the old codger’s bots. They were going to need their own army.

He briefly thought about putting their burgeoning gang up against the mad Super. But he dismissed that idea immediately. He sighed as he realized he was going to have to organize a raid. He hated managing all that crap. Gamers were a fine group, but get them talking about loot distribution and creative problem-solving and they’ll talk your ear off. Shaggy bit his lip and opened up the in-game web browser and went to the games forums.

Cog was still a big topic of discussion. At least for the Texas-based players. Some were calling it the first in-game event. A Super Villain just went on a rampage with a bunch of magically enhanced robots. Of course, the players in Under-Town bragged about how they fought off an army of robots. But photos of the attack were ridiculed and answered with screenshots of what had happened topside. Shaggy almost whistled out loud.

Giant silver robots the size of skyscrapers went man-a-roboto with flying Supes. Panther-like robots stalked the streets as Registered Supes got civilians to safety. Robot men with purple magical on their fists marched through the streets. Shaggy thought they had gotten off light in Under-Town. Some of Cog’s new stuff looked downright insane. He continued to look through the forums for the next couple of minutes until they arrived at a rectangular brick building about six stories high.

“This seems to be the place, dudes.” Dave said.

The truck bounced a bit as Ren hopped out of the bed and stretched his legs. Ralph tucked under one arm. Shaggy and the others got out as well. Shaggy popped his knees and stretched his back. He was about to complain, but he kept it to himself. They had bigger things to discuss tonight.

“So, which apartment is Ralph’s?” Dave asked.

Vlad put a finger to his head in thought, but it was Ren who answered. “Top floor. Suite six-one-six.”

“This place has a suite?” Slink asked incredulously.

Shaggy agreed with the boy. The red building looked like your average apartment complex. Complete with a key card entry and bulletproof glass doors. Vlad and Ren’s only response was to shrug and move toward the building, followed closely by Shaggy and the others. A quick pat down of Ralph produced the plastic entry key, and they were into the building and up the stairs in no time.

The sixth floor was one wide hallway with white linoleum floors. Plants Shaggy was sure were plastic dotted the hallway at odd intervals, and two doors were embedded into either side of the hallway. Their odd group quietly stepped up to the door and used Ralph’s key card again. What met them as they entered made all of them stop in the doorway. Mouths agape.

“Oh, he is definitely a criminal.” Slink said as they all stared into the large living room.

“No shit.” Vlad said.

Shaggy stepped forward first, awed by both the apartment’s size and the furniture Ralph had decorated with. The floors were carpeted in an avocado green shag carpet, then ran from the living all the way past the kitchen and out of sight toward the back of the apartment. A set of zebra-print couches and love seats bracketed a glass coffee table. The pièce de résistance for Shaggy was the large ostentatious chandelier decorating the large vaulted ceiling.

“This dude has way too much money.” Ren said as a disgusted look crossed his face.

“Do you think there’s, like, some here?” Dave asked idly, as they shut the hallway door and slowly looked around the living room.

Everyone froze at the thought and Shaggy caught eyes with everyone. There was a solid thump as Ren dropped Ralph and their party split up to investigate the apartment. What followed was possibly the world’s quietest hurricane. Careful to not wake up any neighbors or the apartment’s owner, Shaggy and the others went room to room, searching for any loot.

A couple of frantic minutes later and they had found nothing of note. Ralph seemed to spend what little money he earned on various bits of horrible furniture. Shaggy and the others agreed to give the place another search later and returned to the living room. Shaggy saw Slink and Vlad idly kick Ralph’s body as they walked past. The promise of loot making them slightly salty.

“Okay so, we have a place for the night. We crashing here and then what?” Shaggy asked as he threw himself into Ralph’s ugly sofa.

“Then we go back to work tomorrow and try to find Boss Spiegal.” Slink said. “All we have to do is find our target and ruin the man.”

Ren raised a large hand. “What about Shaggy’s quest for that Blood God? Shouldn’t we look into that? I mean, two months is a long time, but I got to think helping a literally god would bring some benefits.”

“Agreed.” Shaggy said, smiling at his friend. “But I think we are going to have to wait.”

Vlad raised an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, for one, we have to attack someone with a veritable army of robots. Then we have to figure out a way to banish Cog to the Blood Realm. I don’t know how to do that, and I doubt any of you do.”

“Hey!” Dave said, offended. “I totally could know how to do that.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

Shaggy bit his lip and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Cog is going to be a raid. I just know it. Which means we need more players. Which means it’s going to be a cluster fuck.”

Vlad shrugged. “I met a few in Under-Town. We could start there?”

“Yeah, it’s something to look into. But for now, let’s focus on the Spiegal job. What do we know about the owner of Spiegal Brothers Construction?”

“Drew Spiegal is fifty-four years old, lives somewhere in the Barton Creek, and he is, by all accounts on the net, a feckless layabout.” Slink rattled off.

Shaggy and the others stared before Shaggy chuckled. “Hehehehehe. Well damn, kid. How long do you need to get his address?”

Slink scratched the back of his head. “This is all the shit you can find on the Net. We still need to track him down and then we need to find some dirt on him. Then we can ruin him and, hopefully, his company.”

“That sounds good. So tomorrow… or later today, as it were. One of us can head out there and do some recon. The rest of us will maintain our covers as office workers.” Vlad said.

Shaggy’s hand jumped into the air. “Dibs on scouting!”

Ralph gave a snort and rolled over on the floor. But the others just stared at Shaggy.

“I was thinking Dave could do it. He is the one the drones won’t care about.”

Shaggy shook his head. “That will not work. Dave has already Dave’d himself into everyone’s hearts down at the warehouse.”

“Not sure I like that I am a verb dude.”

“My point is people are going to notice if you are gone. I may have caused a minor disturbance…”

“You caved a man’s chest in.” Ren interrupted.

“But I won’t be missed.” Shaggy finished, carefully ignoring Ren’s interruption.

Slink sighed. “I hate that he’s right. Ren could do it too, but a large rhino alien walking through Barton Creek? You would stick out.”

Vlad hissed, annoyed. “What about me?”

“I’m not a verb.” Dave mumbled.

“You’re the office’s new golden child. You go missing and someone’s going to pitch a fit.” Slink said.

“Then you go with him.”

Shaggy threw up his hands. “Why does anyone need to go with me? I can handle a little scouting.”

Ren and Vlad shared a look, then Ren said calmly. “You have a habit of getting into trouble.”

“Which is fine.” Vlad said. “But we all want this over with quickly and Slink is a proper scout with his snakes.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

Vlad clapped his hands, and Ralph snorted again. “So we are all in agreement. Three of us will go back to office work and Slink and the Wolfy trouble-magnet will go investigate our target. We can all meet back here after work.”

“Wuh? Hey, what are y’all doing in my apartment?” Came a voice from the floor.

They all turned to see a bleary-eyed Ralph trying to struggle to his feet. Ren raised his enormous fists and bopped the hungover worker. Ralph crumbled to the floor, and everyone sighed.

“We also need to do something about Ralph. We can say that we dropped him off at home and haven’t seen him since,” Vlad said.

“We could just tie him up and leave him here.” Shaggy said.

“Dudes! Let’s just go to work with him in the morning. We can, like, tell him he gave us a place to crash and it’ll all be good.”

Shaggy and the others glanced at each other. Eventually, they nodded, and Dave smiled. They had a plan of attack and Shaggy was ecstatic that he wouldn’t have to go back to the warehouse. Instead, he was going to travel to Barton Creek with the kid and do some spying. Now that was the type of gaming he wanted to do. A thought flitted through Shaggy’s brain and he voiced it immediately.

“Dibs on the bed!”

“Oh, hell no!”

“Fuck you, dude.”

“Not happening.”

“We should draw straws.”