It was a surprisingly small group that snuck out the back way of the Botanical Gardens just before the descent – in some cases, literally – of thirty or forty Level 10s thirsty for blood.
Lorelei was unsure whether this was because her new friends did not believe her story or, rather, if the day had been such a colossal shitshow that death seemed an attractive option. Whichever it was, it meant the obstinate, the paranoid and the completely untrusting were left behind to be utterly massacred by those on the hunt for some free XP.
The escape had, in fact, been quite a close-run thing.
From where the group of ten refugees – not counting the zombies - chose to hide out, they could make out the screams, shrieks, and cries of those who had chosen to stay behind. This had the effect of both horrifying them and also making them look at their saviour - as they saw it - with slightly more respectful eyes.
The place of relative safety they had reached was the remains of the White Horse pub that Lorelei could remember spending several enjoyable evenings in the recent past. Of course, as each of those had been with her ex-boss, the memories were, now she thought of it, somewhat tainted. Not unlike the pub itself which had lost most of one wall in what seemed to be some sort of giant acidic blob of slime attack.
"So, you were telling us the truth . . ."
Lorelei wasn't sure how the Necromancer - whose name was Steffan - had ended up the spokesman for those who had chosen to flee the Amber Zone. Although she presumed it might have something to do with the little army of Zombie cheerleaders, he apparently controlled at will. She'd never been much of a fan of The Walking Dead, but she could see how someone controlling a posse of corpses could take charge.
Initially, she'd found the whole 'submissive army of dead beauties' thing a bit creepy. After her recent experiences with the Prick with the prick, Lorelei was feeling reasonably jaded about the male of the species. Finding herself in this particular pub again had brought these very much front and centre, and she had made several unflattering assumptions about what the young man's intentions were in reanimating the corpses of eight very attractive, blonde cheerleaders.
However, after some reasonably blunt discussions, her worst fears were proved unfounded. It turned out that Steffan himself was a cheerleader and, sadly, the sole survivor of his little troop. His attempts to save his terminally injured friends with the powers of his new Class had, unfortunately, turned out a touch awry, and he was now stuck with a semi-immortal - though very, very dead - zombie army.
Back to the matter at hand, Lorelei thought. "Well, yes. I assumed you came with me because you believed what I was saying. Why else would you leave a 'safe' zone?"
Steffan screwed up his nose. "It's hardly like the place felt all that 'safe' anyway. We all saw what those guys were doing to the rest of us before you stepped up and saved us. We were only there in the first place because we got a quest telling us we had to. As far as I'm concerned, we'd be dead without you."
Lorelei grimaced. While not revealing everything about her unusual Class, she had been at pains to make clear to the group that she wasn't some sort of avenging superhero. Her little performance at the gates of the Botanical Gardens may have looked like spectacular powers being unleashed - but, in reality, she simply brought about a string of unfortunate coincidences - unfortunate for the bad guys, certainly - that had only been achievable because her primary offensive Skill had been temporarily buffed. It wasn't quite a 'one-time' deal, but neither was she going to put money on her stringing a combo that powerful together again.
In fact, the more she thought about her Class, the more she was probably endangering those around her just by being near them. She would not put it past the System to start transferring some of the outcomes of her negative rolls over to anyone it saw as her allies. The quicker she could get herself away from these poor people, the better. She'd done her best not to engage any of them in conversation, but she could recognise the signs of significant trauma. Lorelei had no wish to be the cause of any more pain to them.
"So, what next?" The speaker this time was a painfully thin, and yet oddly stacked woman called Monica who - had not Lorelei been told her Class was a standard healer build - she would have assumed was some sort of Vomitor. "Where are we headed now?"
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"Look, I'm sorry if I have given any of you the wrong impression here, but there's no 'we' involved." Lorelei became aware that everyone was looking at her. This was almost precisely her worst nightmare. There was a reason she had chosen to make her career in HR. Lorelei was good with people in a very specific, supportive, and entirely limited way. The powers that be at Glyde and Glyde had recognised this trait in her and made use of it. If you had a job that needed doing—and that job could be as unpleasant, immoral, or challenging as you like—you would give it to Lorelei, ensure she had entirely unambiguous instructions to follow, and then tick it off your list of things to worry about it.
What you did not do was put her in front of a group of worried people and ask her to pull solutions out of her hat. She rarely shined in such situations.
Feeling a blush come to her cheeks, Lorelei started to back away from them towards the door. "Look, you guys can do what you want. I'm glad you are alive, and I'm pleased that I played my part in that, but in lieu of a quest telling me that I need to escort you somewhere safe, I think it is best that we go our separate ways."
Lorelei knew what was going to happen the minute she finished speaking. With a sense of crushing inevitability, the notification began to scroll across her vision.
*** Quest Awarded *** Save the cheerleaders, save the world
Objective: Get your new best friends somewhere safe.
Quest Description: Well, who would have thought it? One moment, you were running around, punching kobolds to death with your bare hands, and the next, you are suddenly the grizzled, reluctant saviour of a small group of helpless, gormless innocents. Don't times change? We'll keep this one nice and simple. Lead your faithful companions to the sanctuary of Lichfield Cathedral. They'll be safe there. Promise.
1/3. Take no more than 49% casualties: Look, see how generous I'm being? I'm not even saying you have to keep all these fuckers alive. Collateral damage is entirely acceptable; I might even say desirable. Just get most of these guys through the Cathedral doors, and I'll be happy. And there are Zombies in the group! Those little darlings are pretty much invincible. What's not to like?
2/3. Take no longer than two days to reach your destination: It's helpful to have some sort of jeopardy, isn't it? To tell the truth, I have some spare Doom Clock animations I wasn't properly able to roll out during the run for the Safe Zones, and I'd like the chance to make use of them. When time runs out, something suitably epic will happen, so don't test me on this, okay?
3/3. Defeat the Chimera: You'd expect nothing else, would you? When you reach the Cathedral, there will be an appropriately difficult creature to defeat. For the sake of clarity, I want you to understand that this is a Party Quest. As in, you need to do it in a group. I don't usually have to make this so clear at the start of an integration, but then some dozy fucker soloed a Kobold Guardian by mistake.
Rewards: I'll come up with some sort of snazzy title for you. You love your titles, don't you? Oh, and I'll also gear up whichever of this motley crew makes it through alive. What's that? Still not sold? Okay, well, depending on how you do, I'll give you access to some of the XP I took off from your most recent kills. How much is entirely at my discretion.
By the look of fear/horror/despair that crossed the faces of those around her, Lorelei assumed that some version of that quest had also been shared with each of them. "I take it you all got that quest too?"
Steffan looked around at the others, and then they gathered together towards the back of the pub. Lorelei looked around, noting the absence of any horribly mutilated bodies, which - who knew - was becoming fairly unusual of late. Then, she reflected; she assumed whatever gooey, slimy monster had melted the wall had probably absorbed whoever had been in there. Her life had become weird of late.
After a few minutes of frantic negotiation, Steffan returned to her and coughed discretely. "It would seem that it will be very much in our interests to stay with you for the foreseeable future." From the expressions of several people in the group, this decision was not one that caused universal joy.
"Just for my interest, what is your quest called?"
"'Follow this lunatic, and half of you will die."
"Okay. Well, that sounds fairly unambiguous. If I were you, I'd ensure you stayed as far away from me as possible. On that note . . ."
Steffan grimaced and held up a hand, stalling her exit. "There's also some commentary in the descriptions that should we not follow you, then the rest of us will die instead. I don't think I'm the only one of us who is not certain this isn't going to be a lose/lose scenario . . ."
"Awesome. Thanks for that, Guide," she added under her breath.
Lorelei took a deep breath and looked at the little group. Ten scared, worried, and baffled people—not counting the zombies—who really just wanted the chance to live. Could she really abandon them?
Rubbing a tension headache that was forming at the centre of her head, she plastered on her most reassuring smile. "Okay, well, if we're going to be travelling together, why don't we share a little more about ourselves? For a start, what Classes do we all have?"