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lainly not satisfied by this. "How do we know he isn't an agent of the Orc Overspawn?"

"Why don't you try your Reveal spell, Mike?" asked the female elf in chain mail.

"Yeah OK," said the hooded figure, dipping into a leather pouch and throwing glittering dust on Doug.

Doug felt a little uneasy, hoped it wouldn't show his real face. He almost felt like he could feel it as it whisked around him, but he knew that couldn't be the case. When it got to his head, words of fire appeared above him: NEUTRAL. HOME TOWN: Brentwood Mall.

"Well met, fellow Brentwoodian," said Steve, slapping him on the shoulder. Doug's character stumbled with the impact, although Doug in the booth remained still. Steve put his fists on his hips and nodded as he surveyed the smaller elf. "You shall have to come with us, because we have just come from Brentwood. Or, rather, we have just escaped Brentwood."

"Escaped?" said Doug. "What mean you by this?" He put on an alarmed look and glanced from face to face.

"The bastard Overspawn murdered every last one of our fair townspeople," the female elf in chain mail said. "And then, before we could give them a proper burial, he caused them to attack us - as the undead."

"Great Zeus!" Doug said, knowing he was fudging his mythologies and hoping they didn't care. "You mean - zombies?"

"They kept coming and coming," the other girl elf said, firing a burst of her uzi into the air. "It was totally awesome."

"Conserve your ammo," Steven said severely as the others laughed. "Awesomely terrible, that is. Our own children, friends, family, twisted by evil forces to the point where we had to... put them down..." He shook his head, and turned to Doug, his fists still on his hips. "That's Elsie, by the way. Our magic user goes by the name Mike, the pigtailed amazon by Christina and I am Steven. We can always use a brave soul."

Doug nodded, careful not to smile. The helm picked up facial movement uncannily well.

Having done the introductio

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