We split up, a few discussions went around while people decided what they would rather do. In the end only Ivan and Eva decided to join us. Eva was apparently the christian girl's name, We shrugged, I was fine with the team split up this way. I preferred working in a smaller group anyhow, my own thieving team was set up with four people as well so it fits. Thinking about my brother and two little sisters I felt a little homesick. I really missed having them around, I wonder if they got drafted, I'm pretty sure they would do pretty well.

I shook the rampant thoughts from my mind and focused on the present. Reg had just finished some last minute discussion with the doctor. He walked over and sighed, “Well this is the way we are going to be split, Ivan and Eva with us and the rest with the Doc.”

I nodded, then shrugged. “Works for me, so whats up next?”

Reg glanced at me, scratching his beard. “Well we need to get some practice in. First of all, I just want a full nights sleep. I really don't wanna sleep in an empty mansion, home feels lonely without the people in it.”

Eva walked up to them after the others finished their conversations, Ivan walking beside her with a huge goofy grin. Eva swept her eyes over the both of them and spoke up, “My 'home' is a church and rather inhospitable, I too would prefer to find another place to spend the night.”

“I too, barracks empty, it does not feel good. No longer home.” The huge russian said.

I shrugged, “You could all stay at my place, the pub has the room. You would need to set-up your own place to sleep. Unless you are fine with the hammocks.”

The rest glanced at me and grinned. To my surprise, the Israelian soldier walked up to us. “Would it still be possible for me to join your group, it would seem the others have a method for working that I don't quite agree with.”

I glanced at Reg who gave me a small nod, “Fine with us, we were just talking about all gathering in one place to spend the night. Most people felt their houses did not feel like home without the people in it. I would agree with the fact that it would bother me sleeping in an empty pub.”

The soldier raised an eyebrow as she glanced at me, “You sleep in a pub? Do you have an alcoholic issue?”

I laughed at the not-so-subtle question. “ Nope, we built the bar to help out the man that raised us, the pub is the bottom floor, the living room is upstairs. The pub is our home however, you'll see. Before we head to the pub, however, I didn't catch your name? I'm Zoa by the way.”

She gave me a polite shallow bow, “I am Aviva, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The others introduced themselves to the new addition and we headed towards my door. I walked up to the strange hotel-door and found myself staring at the plate holding my name and room number. With a shrug, I opened the door and waved the others inside. They walked into the pub and glanced around the lounge. While they were admiring the view I grabbed a drink (milk, to the surprise of many I did not drink alcohol.) and sat down in my regular corner that had a view over the rest of the lounge.

I told the others to grab whatever drink they fancied and join me. Reg came with a beer, the huge Russian had a vodka, how very stereotypical of him. Eva had a glass of water and Aviva also had a beer to my surprise.

Reg took a sip of his beer and looked around the table. “So everyone here decided to do the random mission. I have asked Fluid a few questions about it but I have no further information that you have not already heard.”

Reg started giving a speech, to be honest, I was not paying much attention as I was eyeing the people who I would be having a life and death scenario with. Reg had taken a seat to my left, He was somewhat taller to me at about six, three. Or one meter and ninety centimeters in non-retard units. As memes have informed me. He has a close-cropped blond beard, short hair of the same golden colour and blue eyes. A true ubermensch I'm pretty sure he'd be pissed off if I started calling him the ubermensch, making me want to do it even more. I hid my grin by sipping from my milk.

I swiveled my gaze over to person on my right, the Israelian soldier, Aviva. Now that I actually looked at her properly I could tell she was a beautiful woman. Despite her not very flattering desert-camo military outfit I was sure she had a nice body. I had to resist letting my eyes gravitate to where the normal luscious curves would be visible. The thing that stood out most to me, however, were her amber eyes. They glinted a near golden in the atmospheric lighting of the club, her hair was shaved on both sides, the hair on top and on the back of her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She had a somewhat angular face. Maybe I was being somewhat racist but she really reminded me of a character from the show NCIS that I watch. She looks similar to Ziva, they could have been sisters or cousins at the least. She wasn't that tall either at around five foot, five or one meter and sixty-seven centimeters..

Then my gaze moved over to my man Ivan the not so terrible. I grinned at the monicker I had given him in my head, The man truly was huge at least seven feet, my guess he was even another three or four inches taller than that. That would be, I did some quick calculations in my head, about two meters and twenty-five centimeters. Which was insane, most people that size are thin. Ivan was anything but thin, he was built like a closet, arms the size of tree trunks. I was surprised the wooden chair was capable of holding him. Ivan had hazel brown eyes, and hair of a similar colour. Though his size was intimidating his general attitude was disarming. The man had this permanent goofy mischevious grin plastered on his face. It was hard not to like the giant.

The last person in our merry little band of misfits was the christian girl Eva. She would not have stood out anywhere in a western country, she was cute, in a humble country-girl like manner. Her hair was a dark brown, she had a few freckles sprinkled around her nose, and her emerald eyes accentuated a cute button nose. Her small frame betrayed her well-toned body however, I had seen her run in her torn dress. She was physically fit, far fitter than her small frame might suggest. She was easily the smallest of the group at about five, two or one meter and fifty-eight centimeters.

Then I gazed into the large mirror behind the bar, staring at my own reflection. Our clothes had been fixed when we arrived in the HUB, I was still wearing the track pants with sturdy cargo boots. Both black, and a black tank-top to match. My eyes were a steely grey, and my hair was black. Or so very very dark brown that it might as well be called black. It was an ongoing discussion back home, I was pretty sure it was black to be honest. I wasn't very tall at five foot, nine. Or one meter and seventy-four centimeters. Although I was somewhat short I was broad, I had met few people my height that were broader than I was. Most importantly and I don't mean to brag but I was seriously chiseled. I had always been lean, but the stat upgrade had changed my body to look like one of those probably photoshopped male underwear models.

I turned my attention back to Reg, he had been talking about group effort and trust and blabla-not-very-important. You can talk about trust but that doesn't mean it will magically appear, what he was talking about now, however, was much more interesting. Training, yup, he had found out from Fluid that they had simulator training rooms that we could use for the coming two weeks to practice our teamwork and get used to our weapons. Something we would start doing tomorrow apparently as he proposed we headed to bed for the day. It had been an exhausting day after all, with many firsts. I voiced my agreement to that plan with a nod from the rest. I stood up and showed the others the way to the sleeping/living room.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Their eyes widened and I heard a few express their awe. I grinned as I swept my eyes across the place, this was home, a teenage playground. We had arcades set up in one corner, four of them, including the good-old pinball machine. We had a lounge couch set up facing a wall, a wall that had a big ass tv and all the consoles and games that we could find. We had a corner filled with a massive amount of books. In all honesty, the living room was much larger than the pub downstairs. The pub was just a simple part of the complex, with a few other stores connected to it. The second floor, however, was completely ours. It must have been a hundred by fifty meters or something close. Fat boys, couches, hammocks, laptops, pc's. We had it all.

Reg walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder, “This is a lot different than the pub downstairs, the pub was cozy an felt like a nice place. But this, this is your own little slice of paradise isn't it.” His eyes wandered across the room trying to take everything in.

I grinned and thrust out my chest a bit in pride. “I did say we weren't wanting for money, thieving pays well! We built this place ourselves, everything you see we either made, bought, or stole somewhere.”

Eva stared at me for a bit, keeping her face carefully blank of any and all emotions. “You were a thief? You threatened and harmed people and took off with their things?”

I blinked at the accusation, “Threatened and harmed people? Pffff, that's for amateurs. We snuck into the places of rich people, bypassed their security and then legged it. Most of the time we didn't even have to leg it. We had escape routes set-up just in case, of course, Elli was adamant about that. Then there's all the money we put into the street. We had our own little weekly feeding of the homeless.”

She stared at me for a moment longer, “The police, they never found you?”

I chuckled for a bit, “I honestly don't think they tried that hard, the people we stole from were true assholes. Some of them criminals themselves, we actually tried to target people that we knew the police secretly despised. People that looked down on the good officers of the law. We even helped out our freindly neighborhood donut eaters. Yea Lily hacked this pedophile website and crashed their net, sending their address's to the police. Then there was that one time we helped them track down a killer, all anonymously of course. But it built us up some goodwill, all in all, I think we were harmless and the police knew that.” I shrugged at the end of the explanation, to see the others staring at me.

“What? Do I have milk in my mustache, or in my oh so fabulous beard?”

Ivan blinked and spoke with that deep rumbling voice of his. “You have lived an interesting life, have you not Zoatra of the thieves.”

I scratched my neck, a bit put-out by the use of my full name and the fact that the of the thieves part sounded like a fancy titel. “I'm pretty sure the rest of you have lived an interesting life of your own, I doubt you would have been brought here otherwise.”

Ivan shrugged, “Ivan is mercenary, Ivan get paid to kill so Ivan kill. It is not that complicated.”

“Perhaps not complicated but it sounds interesting enough to me!”

Ivan returned another shrug not seeing his own life as anything special, neither did I see my own as anything special so I guess I understood what he was feeling. The rest of the day was over surprisingly quickly, everyone picked a spot, I climbed up to swing into my hammock and closed my eyes. It only took me a few seconds to completely pass out.

The next day I was slow to wake up, Reg and Aviva were already awake and were making breakfast in the pub kitchen downstairs, I could hear and smell the sizzling of bacon. I inhaled through my nose, savoring the smell of bacon. After a hearty breakfast, complete with conversations and a dreary-eyed shambling Ivan we headed to the simulation room. It was not like what I had expected, I had expected a sort of VR environment with different types of enemies and the like. Instead, it was a larger room with holographic targets, both moving and static. Fluid informed us that the Simulator would evolve along with the points we earned. He said it was too much of an investment to give all groups fully powered simulators if they weren't sure we would be worth the trouble.

I got the sentiment but it was still odd to practice against the holographic targets. I quickly got used to my Vector, it did take me some time to get a handle on it while moving around. Doing parkour and other athletic movements while shooting a two-handed weapon was a lot harder than the movies made it look. Aviva and Ivan helped us set up the way we moved in a squad, We had pooled the remnants of our points to buy Eva a pistol. A sniper was useful to have but without a close range sidearm, she would be far to vulnerable. In the end, we got her a simple Beretta, the same one her father had taught her with.

To my surprise, i was easily the worst shot in the group. Everyone other than me had experience in firearms. Aviva being a true crack shot and Ivan. Well, Ivan had a Gatling gun with infinite ammo, who needs to aim when you have something like that. I was the most mobile of the group though, the thievery had taught me to be nimble and light on my feet. As thus I was designated as the group scout. Aviva had taught us how to set up as a proper crack military unit. We were all given a designated job, and a sector to watch while walking in close formation. For instance, Reg would watch the 9 to 12 o'clock, or west to north. Depending on the way you looked at things, Aviva would 12 to 3, Ivan 3 to 6 and Eva 6 to 9.

i

Ivan was unsurprisingly designated as the Heavy, Reg she designated as the Assualt, Eva the sniper and Aviva as CO. We had all generally agreed that Reg was the overall leader, but he would leave combat command to Aviva, especially in small group combat. She was a sergeant and was experienced with squad-based combat tactics. The next week we spent our time training and moving in formation, she taught us hand signals, abbreviations, taught me and Reg how to better handle our weapons, telling us Ivan and Eva did not need any further tutelage.

My aim got increasingly better, then when the week ended we anxiously awaited word of the mission that awaited us. I breathed in deeply as I stared at the text that appeared on our panel.

[Mission: Survive the Deep Roads]

[Mission Parameters : Survive as long as you can while in the Deep Roads, No weapon limit, No power limit, No team Limit.

[Mission world: Dragon Age]

“Owh shit.” I said, the others looked up at me questioningly. “I'm familiar with this, it's one of my favorite games. The deep roads suck though. Like they really really REALLY suck as a place to be. It might even be worse than the last one!”

“Worse than those Kabane?” Reg asked doubtfully, Eva raised a doubting eyebrow as well. Ivan and Aviva just shrugged. They had not truly witnessed those fearsome creatures.

“Well let me put it this way, Darkspawn infest these deep roads. They are born from these disgusting creatures called Brood Mothers. Darkspawn have tainted blood, somewhat similar to a zombie virus I guess but not exactly like it. Brood mothers area created by capturing females. If they catch a female from a different race the Brood mother they turn into will 'birth' different types of darkspawn.”

The others just looked at me, it sounded pretty bad. It was nowhere close to those kabane however. I scratched my chin and sighed. “Let me put it this way. Women are captured, they are force-fed the meat of their own people, effectively turning them into cannibals against their will. Forcefed the tainted blood of darkspawn, which hurts like a mother fucker by the way, and then raped and beaten and tortured by darkspawn. They slowly but surely lose their sanity, their sense of being. Then they start turning into something else, something not quite like anything else. Its like this super obese, tentacly humanoid flesh sack. Seriously it's disgusting, even in the first game which is somewhat old the graphics and story are somewhat disturbing.”

Aviva frowned, folding her arms and pacing across the room. “And we are going to be stuck in these 'Deep Roads' with these creatures? What are these deep roads?”

“The Deep Roads are a tunnel network built by the dwarves, the darkspawn have infested and live underground in these tunnels. The dwarves fight an everlasting war against these darkspawn, holding them back with all their might. Our best chance at survival would be reaching one of these dwarven cities. Or in my opinion finding the Legion of the Dead. I am almost positive that meeting them would be awesome.” I said enthusiastically, I couldn't help it. Dragon age was easily one of my favorite games. I had played them time and time again.

Eva paled a bit. “Legion of the Dead? That doesn't sound that great, I really don't think running into an undead horde will be that pleasant.”

I blinked as I processed what she said, then I started shaking my head, waving my arms in front of me. “No no no! The Legion of the Dead is not an undead legion. They are this group of dwarves that have forsaken their lives and declared themselves dead. Setting aside their money, family and life to fight the Darkspawn in their own homes. They have this badass black armor, and they are strong! Like they smash darkspawn, they fear no death, they fear only that the dwarven people fall.”

I kept regaling the tales of my experience in the game to the others, enthusiastically informing them of the lore. We walked back to the pub. I spent time on the computer looking up maps and any lore I could find about the deep roads that might help. Any sliver of information would help us, then I remembered there were so many other nasty creatures that made their homes underground. I made my way to the others to tell them everything I found. The last week was spent planning, gathering information and training some more. Then our time ran out, we watched the time run out on the panel in front of us. Everyone had gathered in the hub, we wished the Doc and his group luck as we waited for the timer to run out.

Five

Four

Three

Two

One.

I took a deep breath and readied my weapon. The second mission had begun.