Doctor Schneider started off into space absently.

Gambit beckoned Rick over. "There's something wrong with these guys. I don't see any debuffs, but something's messing with his mind."

"Yeah," Rick agreed. "It looks like the system is manipulating them to do its quests."

Gambit shook his head in disgust. "That's seriously fucked up. Can we help them?"

"I don't know how, but we can try." Rick turned back to the confused-looking astronaut. "Dr. Schneider, there's something I need to know. Before you started this caravan, what happened to the rest of the crew? There were a lot more on your mission, weren't there?" Sam, what about Sam? He barely kept her name quiet; he needed to hear what Schneider would say unprompted.

Dr. Schneider nodded. "Yes, the crew. I don't remember everything. It was dark, and there was so much confusion. There were these lizard things swarming all over us. Some of them died immediately, but others were fighting back." He shook his head. "I know the commander died. I saw one of the lizards tear his throat out. I'm not sure about the others. It was dark." He looked down at his hands, turning them over to stare at his palms. "My hands caught fire."

Which struck Rick as odd, but not for the reasons most people would think. "You selected flame hands in your talent tree?"

He shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about. There were these words and menus. I don't have them anymore." He stared up into the air around him, looking left and right. "But they were there that night." His brow furrowed as he tried to remember. Then his expression cleared. "The hydrologist, Dr. Wilkins. She told us what to do, me and the commander. I think that's what made my hands catch on fire, but it was all so confusing at the time."

Rick's heart swelled. Sam! She had survived, at least at first. And she had understood the menu system. He felt unaccountably proud. Taken in the middle of the night with no warning, she had picked up on the abilities tree immediately, and even suggested picks to others. He shook his head and smiled to himself.

Gambit noticed. "You know this Dr. Wilkins?"

"Yeah." Rick glanced at Gambit and felt his ears start to burn. "We knew each other in school. We dated."

Gambit considered this. "Your ex-girlfriend was on the Mars mission, and NASA knew about this?"

Rick nodded. "That's why they picked me. In fact, I think that's why they picked Team Technique, because I used to be with them.”

Gambit snorted. “Everyone who knows the competitive Everwar scene knows that was a stupid choice. If they were planning to bring you, they should have picked any other team except Technique."

Rick smiled wryly. "You got that right. Dr. Schneider?” The German scientist was staring off into space. "Do you know what happened to Sam? To Dr. Wilkins?"

The scientist shook his head. "No, I'm sorry."

It had been a forlorn hope, but it still felt good to know she had made it through the transition. For not the first time, Rick asked himself why he was so concerned with her. They had broken up over a year ago. He shouldn't be this invested.

Gambit interrupted his reverie. "We need to get these people back to town."

Rick checked the quest log and saw that Gambit was right. [The Lost Caravan, phase three. Get the survivors of the caravan back to town.]

Rick rounded up the caravan crew with the help of the other two and started the column towards town. Gambit took the lead, watching out for attack. Rick brought up the rear, with Daniel in the middle of the pack of scientists and NASA personnel and mission personnel.

The first ambush came a hundred yards down the trail. Level four sand rats, slightly larger than the ones they had seen before with double the health pool, leapt out of cracks and crannies in the rock. Daniel dinged Level 4 himself when the first one died at the point of Gambit's spear. By now his arrows were nearly one-shotting these things. They moved quickly though, and he only hit half the time.

Rick picked them off with Force Wave, sending them sprawling, easy targets for Gambit or Daniel. One got into the pack of scientists and tore a chunk out of one lady's leg. Soothing Mist patched her up quickly after the lizards were dead.

They were attacked two more times on the trip to town. Both times, some of the caravan were injured. Rick healed them up once combat was over, feeling a bit smug as their health bars returned to green. He and his allies couldn’t stop the damage from happening, but he had the power to make it right again.

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He’d always played a dps class in Everwar, usually something like a mage or warlock, using his magic purely offensively. That had been fun. He loved perfecting his rotation, trying to top the leaderboard by ekeing out one percent more damage, but this was opening a whole new world to him.

This escort quest was either supposed to be incredibly hard or was intended to be done by a full party of combat players. Only his healing kept their escortees in the green. Without him, they’d have lost someone. Whether or not they would respawn in town, Rick didn’t want to see anyone here die. The Rorks felt like true npcs, but these were real people.

Rick was beginning to think they needed to recruit two more teammates. Those ogres had been bad and the fight would have been much easier if they had had someone who could have kept its attention. They needed a dedicated tank.

In most games, a tanking character was a high defense class with abilities to keep the attention of an attacker, or many attackers, on themselves. They “tanked” the damage while the rest of the party killed the enemy. Combined with a dedicated healer, it was the standard structure for a party in most multiplayer games Rick had played.

It was clear this system had a similar paradigm. With only three players and no tank, Rick's party was at a disadvantage. Quests that were balanced around a party of five, assuming this system had any real balance in it, would continue to be difficult for them to survive and succeed.

When the crowd of scientists passed the guards at the edge of town, the quest notification popped up. [Mission complete! Escort the caravan survivors to town to safety. Complete the dialogue for your reward.]

Dr. Schneider turned to Rick even as he was closing the pop-up. "Thank you for getting us to town." He produced a small pouch of coins from thin air. "Please take this as a token of our gratitude. It seems our caravan would be safer if we teamed up with a party of adventurers. Would you be interested in a long-term arrangement?"

As the scientist spoke, his tone of voice was firm and focused, quite unlike their conversation earlier.

"What do you mean by a long-term arrangement?" Rick asked.

Dr. Schneider blinked at him. "A long-term what?" he asked in obvious confusion.

"Arrangement. You just said... Oh, never mind."

Gambit came back from the head of the group. "Did you complete the dialogue?"

Rick waved the pouch of money. "Kind of. The doctor offered us a long-term arrangement but I haven't got the details out of him."

"This must be what the guide was talking about." He turned back to Dr. Schneider. "Your caravan could use protection. What do you think of teaming up with our party?"

Dr. Schneider's eyes brightened. He smiled and spoke confidently. "That seems an excellent idea."

Immediately, a pop-up appeared. This one was more complicated than the last.

[Do you want to add this party of caravaners to your retinue?

Benefits: Unlocked the encampment feature.

Upgradable.

Adds vendors to your encampment. Varies dependent on specialization.

Unlocks the ability to add non-combat players to your party.

Retinue will not be available in most settlements until the caravan upgrade has been unlocked.]

Dr. Schneider jerked as if struck. "What?" He glanced wildly around. "What's this? The menus are back." He looked at Rick. "It says I'm going to be transported to an encampment. What's an encampment?"

An instant later the doctor vanished into thin air along with the rest of the Mars mission party.

Daniel, who had been chatting amiably with one of the group, looked around wildly. "What happened?"

"I'll explain in a minute." He glanced at Gambit. "We need to find that game guide and see if he'll talk to us now. I'm pretty sure we just completed what he told us to do."

Gambit nodded. "He said we needed to unlock the encampment, and apparently we just did. Let's go find out what all this is about."

When the slot in the speakeasy door opened, the bouncer inside let them in almost immediately.

“Slate, your party's back," the bouncer called over his shoulder.

Rick stopped just inside the door and motioned the others to do the same. Across the room at the bar, the Rork they had chased before sat in the same chair, less inebriated this time. He had a bandage around his right leg and looked happy to see them The name plate over his head read [Slate]. "Did you do it? Did you complete the encampment quest?"

Rick explained what they had done with the caravan escort and about accepting the dialogue at the end.

The guide nodded. "That should do it. Open your interface. You should have a new menu for your encampment setup."

Rick checked. "I don't see it.

“It's under your party menu."

Rick shook his head. "I don't have one of those. My party menu only says 'drop group'."

"You're not the..."

"Oh, I see it," Gambit interrupted. "I have a lot more options since I'm the party lead."

"Yeah, encampment's there. It pops up with all sorts of options. Also I see a list of the retinue. Dr. Tobias Schneider, Dr. Ideo Takashi, Dr Eva Martel, Elliot Mason-”

The guide interrupted. "Good, good. Come closer so you can complete the quest." He pointed to his bandaged leg. "Sorry, I don't want to get up."

Rick crossed the room towards the Rork. Halfway there, the announcement appeared.

[Quest complete. Catch your game guide. You have managed to chase down and corner your game guide. If he agrees to work with you, you will unlock the following benefits:

Game guide. Once you have unlocked the encampment, the game guide can be added to your retinue.]

Slate looked up in the air. "Oh yes, there it is. Accept, accept." He waved a hand.

Rick got another popup. [New retinue member, Game Guide.]

"Thank goodness. Now let me explain." The Rork jerked as if he had been prodded. "What? No. No, I haven't finished my drink. I haven't..." Suddenly he vanished.

Daniel took a step forward, staring at the space where the guide had been. "Uh, was that supposed to happen?"

"I think we're supposed to go to our encampment now," Gambit said. "There's two options on my interface. One says 'go to encampment' and the other says 'send party to encampment'."

Rick was relieved. He hadn't seen anything like that on his own menus. "Well, let's go. Send to the party."

"Mount up!” Gambit said, and the world dissolved.