Sally stood, tapping her foot on the floor of the hangar.

The spaceship was quite the sight to behold. A sleek, alien design of near-reflective dark gray panels. Not quite engraved, but each curved piece of metal was embossed with a spiral pattern. Some manner of magical runes, she had been told. Strips of green light pulsed slowly beneath it, illuminating the three stout legs holding it up.

Recently finalized and only briefly tested, but their new Sea-faring vehicle wasn’t the cause of her bad temper and crossed arms. As someone approached from the side, she turned and glared at them with her burning red eyes.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Dent said, scratching his rough beard with his metal hand. The swordsman was wearing a gray suit, and had a clipboard held in his more meaty—yet no less guilty—hand.

“I have sent Theo fifteen messages,” the zombie began, “and then a picture of my neck. No response. Either he is dead or you’ve shipped him off-world without informing me.”

“Chuck was going to tell you sooner, but thought you might cause a fuss. It’s nothing dangerous… more of a diplomacy mission.”

Sally pulled a face. “Am I not good enough for that kind of thing?”

The man hesitated a moment before replying. “We both know you’re good with people, Sally. Your skill set is just more gear towards… driving change and raising a flag for others to rally behind. Oh, speaking of skill set—could you send me your Class sheet so I can double check the spaceship records?”

Her eyes were narrowed at his segue from her social affinities, but she knew he had a point. Leading a rebellion? Sign her up. Boring political diplomacy? Yuck. “Sure thing. That’s because the ship acts like a miniature version of our System, right?”

“Correct. You’ll respawn on it if you die, so we need to ensure the records have been copied correctly. Bear in mind, you won’t be able to return to a world you’ve died on still.”

“Yeah, yeah. I paid some attention to the boring meetings.” She rolled her eyes and brought up her Classes for Dent to see.

[Zombie 5]

[Necromancer 6]

[Minion Master 4]

[Aspect of Life]

“Oh,” Dent tilted his head. “You reset that selection of [Ambusher] into another [Necromancer]?”

She clicked her fingers. “You know me, Dent. I’d much rather be the best at those three than too spread apart. You don’t want to know how much I had to grind for the materials to re-roll.”

“I thought you just convinced Theo to farm everything for you?”

Sally maintained a blank stare. “I said what I said. How’s life getting preferential treatment so you only get the [Swordmaster] class?”

Dent huffed and shook his head. “I don’t get any handouts. I’ve only just turned Level 25. Most of my time is spent with Chuck, sword-fighting comes a close second.”

“Uh-huh.” She grinned and looked over at the ship. “Enough about our love lives. I’m the captain of this, right? I get to choose my squad of baddies to go kick cockroach ass?”

“In a manner of speaking. You’re now the second highest level player at 64, so even without your other achievements or seniority, you’d be up here. Most of the Outsiders are ready and willing to go, but not all of them have kept up with the power curve, as I’m sure you know.”

She nodded. Many of her friends gained over the various adventures here and there had decided to settle down and live a peaceful life. She couldn’t fault them for that—it was part of the reason she fought so hard to keep Sanctuary safe. The knowledge of the war coming to their doorstep had even the retirees getting some manner of skills under their belt once the System reset to its current form.

Theo was, of course, the highest level Player in this world. He hadn’t even waited a single second—as soon as the updated System patch went live at midnight; he was out grinding monsters. She had barely seen him for the first three days, but any annoyance over that was lessened once he started funneling his excess gear and items her way.

The leveling process just for the sake of it never interested her that much, so getting a leg up—and the best locations for her to eat brains—smoothed out the process. Despite ribbing Dent for it, she did have a few handouts at the start that set her above any other Player.

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For one, the [Zombie] Class, due to her weird rebirth in this world. Thanks to one of her other adventures, she also had the [Aspect of Life] Class, which gave her deity-adjacent powers. Chuck had also found a way to wrangle new weapons for the Outsiders, based on how the new System was set up.

Her dagger, [Skeleton Key] ignored all defense of anything she attacked. Everything cut through like butter, despite it not being a butter knife. While she had been relatively fine with the Great Reset, getting her mainstay weapon back was non-negotiable. Her first Class at level 5 went to Necromancer, which came with [Mortis Bolt]. Not quite the same as her old skills, but the ranged magic attack also improved the attacks of nearby undead.

“How long do I have to make my decision?” she asked.

“If you can have your group decided within the hour, that would be great.” Dent gave her a shrug. “I know that’s short notice, but the timings still aren’t an exact science. We don’t know if you’ll arrive just before the invasion or during the start.”

“Neat.” Sally pulled a face. “Are there any High Value Players there? Chuck was uncharacteristically light on the details.”

Dent shook his head. “None that we can detect. This world has been on our radar for a while, but not one of much interest. Detecting the roach invasion bumped it up in priority.”

“But… Theo is off diplomacy-ing some HVPs, right? How strong are they? Stronger than us?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“In the same way that you and Theo are Aspects and almost uncontested in your desire to fight against the odds… you could consider them your peers, sure.” The man sighed, drumming his metal fingers on the clipboard. “They saved their System from a calamity and we want to bring them into Sanctuary. They’d have to start from level 1 again, but with their drive, they could be a huge boon to our goals.”

“Not to mention the near-immortality,” Sally added. She had been to nearly a dozen different worlds, and none of them had the same respawn function as Sanctuary had. They were a shining diamond amongst a blight filled universe, and that was one of the reasons the alien cockroaches wanted to siege Sanctuary.

“Actually, don’t mention anything at all. I wasn’t supposed to tell you…” Dent filtered away from the sentence as a flash of blue brought in the similarly colored wireframe form of the Architect.

“You forget, Dent,” Chuck said with a sly smile, “that I hear everything. These three will be the first HVPs we are reaching out to, as their unique positioning makes our offer that much more tantalizing. That’s all the information you’re getting, however, Sally. I’d rather you focused on your mission, as it is just as important.”

Sally grumbled. “If you get my pup sent back in time again, I’ll find a way for you to regret it.” Although Theo hadn’t had another accidental time jump since their return from Thrimble, she wasn’t discounting the possibility. “Oh, and was there a decision on our spacesuits? I already ate the guy who suggested skintight fabric like eight times.”

Chuck nodded. “As far as I know, he changed his tune after the second time. We figured the most neutral and widely accepted option is for everyone to wear what they like and then put the Guild tabard over.”

“Oh neat,” she said with a grin. “Does it have my logo on it?”

Dent shook his head. “Something about a cracked open zombie skull might signal that we are the bad guys. Which we aren’t. I want to make that clear.”

“Morally ambiguous anti-heroes, maybe?” Sally offered.

“A group of undead turning up and looking like the invaders would harm our mission,” Chuck replied. He waved his hand in the air and a screen appeared, showing the design of the tabard. “First impressions are everything, as always.”

It was simple enough. A gradient that ran from light to dark blue. Silver edging that wove around in spirals. The center was a large silver star, not unlike the ones on their wrists, with five smaller stars between the gaps of the five points of the larger.

“It gets eight points just for not making me look like a tube of male-gaze toothpaste,” Sally said with a shrug. “The blue clashes, but I’m sure it will be covered in blood and vomit in no time.”

Chuck waved the image away and gave her a sour look. “Yes. Hopefully after you have landed on the world and not before. The vessel will act as a small slice of Sanctuary. A beacon, if you will. No more skill or level resetting.”

Sally whistled. “Way to bury the lede, Chucky. I get to kick roach ass with the full force of my boot.”

“Exactly. Or rather… it’s important to know how our current strength sizes up to their forces. Although saving that world is an important part of your mission, the information we can gain is just as vital. They know that we can respawn, so their attempt to attack Sanctuary seems shortsighted… unless they have ways of mitigating that power we have.”

“Ah, I see.” The zombie nodded sagely. “Like if I never stopped vomiting, eventually there would be no clear space for people to respawn. The world would fill with it.”

“That’s…” the Architect shared a glance with Dent. “It’s not impossible, I suppose. You should start working on your team now. Although everyone was back there in the meeting room, I sent them away so you could just call on the ones you wanted to ask. With only four spots available, I’m sure more than a few will be eager to join you.”

She would rather have Theo by her side, but she had enough strong friends to pick from. Whether they wanted to travel through the Sea to beat up a few bugs was another thing… but sharpening their teeth on the group intending to wage war in a couple of months was bound to sway some who would usually be on the fence.

“Alright,” she gave him a grin. “Send me to-”

Before she could finish the sentence, a wave of vertigo washed over her, and the familiar light of a teleportation faded from her eyes. One she focused again, she found herself in a small room. No windows, and the walls were a smooth white. A table and two chairs opposite each other on either side were the only furnishings.

With a renewed grin, she sat down and brought up the Outsiders guild member list.

“Time to interview the unusual suspects,” she said.