A few minutes later the Misfits, minus Kevin, were gathered in the command room. Sean started to apologize but Miles stopped him before he got a word in edgewise. “We all know what you’re going to say but the truth is we all bear some responsibility for yesterday. We can’t fix what happened but let’s get back in the game and get you leveled up,” Miles said. Sean just nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. With friends as good as these he knew that he would always have someone looking out for him.

“We’ve got some good news though. There is a port city on the coast that has a number of ships that we ought to be able to use,” Alison said.

Sean looked at the group as they looked back at him somewhat nervously. “And the bad news?”

“The entire port has been taken over by pirates,” Tim said. “Most of them are level 30.” That didn’t sound too bad, although Sean didn’t have any idea what level the Misfits were and how hard it might be to get to that level.

“What level are you guys at? I know I’ve got some catching up to do,” Sean replied.

“Around level 30. But there are only four of us and like hundreds of them,” Shelly explained.

Sean let that sink in for a bit. He’d have to do quite a bit of leveling just to catch up and then they had to collectively figure out how they were going to deal with that many pirates. Maybe they could just steal one of the ships at night or something. And then once they’d stolen the ship he had a feeling that it wasn’t just going to be an easy cruise to San Francisco.

“What type of ships are the pirates using?” Sean asked.

Miles laughed and said, “Oil tankers of all things. They’ve even affixed wooden masts and sails to them although I’m pretty sure they are too small to function. One of the ships even has a good ‘ol Jolly Roger on it.” Sean tried picturing it for a few seconds before he gave up. He’d have to see that type of monstrosity for himself. But before that he needed to start leveling.

“Ok, let’s get started,” Sean said enthusiastically.

“Sounds like a plan,” Shelly said. “But this time you sit the middle pod so you know that the entire crew has your back.” Sean thought that was a weird idea but everyone else nodded at Shelly’s suggestion so he rolled with it. The only one who wasn’t there was Kevin. He would have to talk with his old friend another time and try to work things out.

***AR Online – Aeon 2.284.10***

Had Aeon been self-patching? It looked like a major release had been done since the last time he’d logged in. No one else said anything though so he didn’t bring it up. He quickly pulled up his abilities and stats – he had a long way to go before he’d be fighting level 30 pirates.

Level 1 Knight Abilities: Shield other, stun, and knockdown.

It had been a long time since Smashit was level 1, he thought. Knights were defenders right from the get go and while they didn’t have a lot of DPS ability, they were excellent at crowd control and defense. His shield other ability allowed him to take a hit for another player, while his stun temporarily put his opponent out of the action. Finally, knockdown was both an offensive DPS ability and a short duration stunning attack. It took a lot of stamina though, so he had to use it sparingly at least for the first few levels.

While he was checking out his abilities he also decided to review his stats:

Smashit – Level 1 Knight

HP: 220

STA: 90

Att: 14

Def: 18

Mag Att: 10

Mag Def: 12

Str: 14

Speed: 12

Vit: 14

Spirit: 10

Smashit was still standing in the starting area of AO, since he hadn’t logged in yet with the other Misfits. Just as he was wondering how we was going to reach wherever they were, they all winked into existence right next to him.

“How did you guys just suddenly appear like that?” he asked.

Deathberry explained to him that there were various save points that allowed you to teleport with the Gear back to previous zones. Obviously, you could only save and teleport to places you’d been before so Sean would have to go with them to the various save points if he wanted access.

After some discussion, the group decided to take him to a level 10 area to start leveling up. The rest of the Misfits wouldn’t be able to get any experience points but they could help burn down mobs that Sean tagged and they would stay ungrouped like they had before in order to accelerate levelling for Sean. They could try to go to a higher area but the concern was that Sean would auto-aggro everything in the zone and die in the process. Sean agreed that dying on day one would be bad form and they should stick to areas where they could manage things safely.

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They made their way beyond Silverton to an area with higher level mutants. Most of these creatures didn’t look remotely human. Many of them ran at the speed of a horse and had multiple limbs sticking out at crazy angles.

Sean quickly got into a groove of aggroing about three to five of these mutants at a time and going into defensive mode and using stuns as soon as they were available. While he held the creatures, the rest of the Misfits burned down the mutants. They went about this process for about an hour until Smashit was level 15 and then they traveled to go to a higher-level area for him to progress.

There was a swamp along the coast that had several level 25-28 creatures. The monsters here weren’t mutants but rather lizard people, giant alligators with mutated limbs, and the like. The group got into a respectable rhythm of leveling and since these were higher level creatures the rest of the party was able to benefit.

Finally, Smashit reached level 30 and the rest of the party was around level 34-36. They headed over to the pirate city to see if they could commission an oil tanker. The enormity of their task started to hit Smashit but he pushed back the feeling of crushing responsibility. He wasn’t the only one in the group who was feeling overwhelmed. Also, they would probably figure something out since they had always figured out a way to beat games before. There was no reason to get particularly worried now that the game had pushed into the real world.

While Cheezus used his stealth ability to sneak through the pirate city, this time the Misfits weren’t taking any chances and they were ready to fight back if any surprise attack came their way. Also, since the city wasn’t instanced they were able to see Cheezus’ point-of-view through their Seemis as he snuck through the city. As advertised, the city was crawling with pirates. What was really weird about the whole thing was the improved nature of it. Most of the people looked like completely ordinary Australians citizens who happened to being cosplaying as pirates. Some of them didn’t even have real swords but used wooden mop handles and the like. How the heck were these folks level 30? Seeing a few kids in the crowd, Smashit decided that they would need to use a diversion tactic or just plain sneak in to steal a boat. He wouldn’t be responsible for the Misfits killing children playing dress-up. Eventually, Cheezus made his way to the docks. Here there were a number of toughs including some mutant creatures that looked like the giant orcs that you might see in a typical fantasy MMO. Looking through Cheezus’ POV, Smashit could see that some of them were in the level 40 range and it would definitely be a challenge just to fight a couple of them. The tankers were pulled up to the docks and as he’d heard from Tim, they really had decked some of them out in full pirate regalia. Crazy graffiti was painted on the hulls of the ships, they had strange masts and banners sticking out of all sorts of unlikely areas, and overall the tankers looked like they’d become props in some strange hybrid movie.

After scouting out the docks, Cheezus returned a few minutes later, completely undetected by the strange residents of the pirate city. The Misfits agreed to take a break and log out for a bit before they determined how to proceed with obtaining one of the tanker ships. They should probably also figure out how they were going to power and navigate with the ship before they stole one, Deathberry had suggested.

***Logout of AO***

The hysteria began only a few seconds after Sean had logged out and disconnected his micro-transmitter. He turned as he heard Emmy’s scream echoing throughout the control room of the bunker. She and Alison were standing over Shelly’s pod shaking her and trying to wake her up. Sean’s mind raced at a million miles a second trying to figure out what had happened but like on the asteroid he began to freeze up. No, he thinks – this is not the time to doubt myself. I can beat myself up later but right now the Misfits need me.

“Aeon, what is the status of Shelly Roberts, aka Zeffu?” Sean said, his voice sounding remarkably calm. Sean already knew the answer but refused to believe it until it’s confirmed. Seconds later, Aeon confirmed that Shelly/Zeffu was dead. She was in the pod that Sean always used at the very end of the control room and the only people who weren’t logged in were Dr. Thompson and Kevin. It wasn’t difficult to deduce who would have tampered with the AO controls.

Tim tried to stop him but Sean blew right by him in a dead run for the bunks. Other than the command room, galley, and recreation room the bunks were the only place in the bunker and since they were on the far side Kevin had to be in one of them. The galley and rec room whizzed by and there was no light on in either room. The bunks’ lights were on and Sean raced through the door and immediately grabbed Kevin off the bunk.

“What did you do to her, you piece of shit?” Sean yelled.

Kevin, who was half awake, looked genuinely confused but he doesn’t back down. “What are you talking about asshole? I didn’t do anything,” Kevin refuted.

Sean decked him right in the stomach and Kevin doubled over. “You lying sack – you know what you did. You killed Shelly. And you’re gonna pay,” Sean vowed. A cold anger settled over him.

Kevin hurled up the contents of his stomach, trying to catch his breath. The rest of the Misfits ran into the room and Miles restrained Sean from kicking Kevin while he wheezed on the floor. A few seconds later Miles let go after Sean reassured him that he’d regained control over his temper. Emmy and Alison glared daggers at Kevin as he stood, wiping vomit off his face.

“Start again. With the truth this time,” Sean said menacingly.

Kevin looked back defiantly at him but was cowed by the hatred coming from Emmy’s eyes as well as the dark looks from the rest of the Misfits. “Fine. I sabotaged your pod. It was supposed to lock you out of the game, that’s all I meant to do,” Kevin said.

“And now Shelly is dead,” Miles said in a flat voice. “Let’s go see your handiwork.” He led Kevin back to the command room as the rest of the group followed.

Seeing Shelly’s cold face, lying still in death’s embrace, Kevin blanched. “I swear I didn’t mean to kill anyone. It was just supposed to disable the pod. Aeon can vouch for me – it helped me with the sabotage.”

Aeon said, “You asked me how to damage the pod - nothing more.”

Kevin panicked, “You’ve got to believe me! It was an accident. I didn’t mean for Shelly to die.” He sobbed.

The Misfits looked to Sean. “Let’s put it to a vote. Those in favor of banishing Kevin from the group and the bunker, say aye.”

The vote was unanimous.