"LUNARRRR!" Voltage cries out, as she charges into the top sanctuary of the Clockwork Tower. Inside, she finds a huge chamber, with spinning and whirling spheres and discs suspended from the ceiling, and all sorts of machinery grinding and cranking away along the walls, while conveyor belts crisscross the floor. Across the room, a dwarf in a large mechanized "suit" appears to be interrogating ... Mysterio? Yes, it's Mysterio, and he's chained up to a wall. At the sight of the intruder, the dwarf pulls a lever, and Mysterio and his restraints disappear into the wall.

"Oh!" the dwarf says, "I'm surprised that you're up here already. I expected to get an alarm when you had solved the last puzzle. Well, well, I'm a bit busy right now. Could you come back in, say, fifteen minutes?"

Voltage is a bit taken aback - especially because it looks as if she alone has charged into the room, and there's no sign of her backup. "Well," she says, "I really have to talk with you about something important."

"Fine, fine, you can do it in fifteen minutes. I'm busy right now."

"But it's - Are you Hammerhand?"

"Yes, yes. Guildmaster Hammerhand. If it's guild membership you're looking for, you'll get it. Fifteen minutes. Shoo. Shoo. Off with you! No interruptions!"

After a few more failed attempts to insist upon talking right now - with no sign of anyone else coming in to join her - Voltage at last relents and heads back out of the room to confront the others. She reports what she's seen, and then urges (prods) the others to actually join her this time - as it appears that Mysterio is being held prisoner, and even if it's not Lunar like she had first expected, it looks like he could use some rescuing.

About this time, Kathmandu shows up, joined by Nao - and they in turn are followed by the Turtle Ninjas, who have caught up by following in Kathmandu's wake. Introductions are made, and several giggles made at the names of Jing-Li (consistently pronounced "Jingly" by most of the heroes), and of Kathmandu's new friend, "Nao" (since it sounds like "now"). Kathmandu indicates that Scars is the "old man" that was at the base where the Morpheus Project was being undertaken, while Matsunaki Nao was there as an assistant. Nao can't say that she "recognizes" Scars, but she is not terribly surprised that he doesn't look anything like the "old man" she remembers; after all, she looked nothing like a "cat girl" in real life.

So, after a bit of planning, our heroes charge into the top level of the Clockwork Tower, once again interrupting the interrogation of Mysterio.

"Oh, very well," the Guildmaster says, pulling some more levers. "I guess you wanted to fight your way to the upper level. Well, far be it from me to disappoint you!" Conveyor belts start spinning more rapidly, and heavy doors around the room begin to lift up, revealing an assortment of golems, each of them equipped with a lethal-looking array of weaponry.

"Watch out for the tank!" Mysterio cries.

"Tank? What tank?" Voltage asks.

Then, the huge double doors at the far end of the room open up, to reveal a gigantic steam tank, and its turret rotates to face the heroes. With bursts of escaping gas, fuel-line hoses snap off of its hull and fall away. Slowly, it begins to roll out, and a giant roller in front begins to rotate, lined with row after row of sharp blades.

Our heroes spring into action, filing across two narrow bridges over grinding machinery, to get to the more open area where they can focus on the golems coming down the conveyor belts out of the side chutes. The Turtle Ninjas form an advance line, flinging shuriken at the golems. One of their number - Don - rushes over to a side panel, where he sees an array of levers and buttons, and he tries to figure out some of the controls, to stop the conveyor belts, or do something useful. As the golems continue to roll out, at the terminating end of several of the belt lines are repair stations - and several of the golems park in these repair stations to leisurely blast away with ranged weapons - all the while being reloaded at the stations, or patched up if the heroes manage to actually get through their armor. Don manages to fiddle with the controls enough to get the repair bays to start disassembling the golems sitting in them - but the Guildmaster pulls levers and pushes buttons to counteract his efforts, restoring the repair bays to their usual function.

As Scars rushes over to try to deal with the Guildmaster, some barricades come down to seal him off from possible harm. Mikey rushes over to try to free Mysterio, but, similarly, some barricades seal off Mysterio, preventing his escape. Tinyanko the Technocat and Jing-Li (with her riding bird, Huang Feng) cut across the far end of the chamber, trying to get across while staying out of the line of fire of the steam tank, but they run into some powerful golems that have no other targets to steal their attention. Before long, Huang Feng is trying to turn tail and run away, while Jing-Li is forced to use her Transformation spell to change forms (into an "angelic" winged form) to stay in the fight a little while longer. Nonetheless, one price of her "Beast Companion" spell is that if the beast companion is knocked out - she is knocked out as well - and that's exactly what happens. Huang Feng is taken out by a steam shot, and Jing-Li's spells immediately end, as she reverts to her normal form and falls, unconscious, on the conveyor belt. Tinyanko, battered by golems, tries to make a heroic effort to ferry Jing-Li over toward the others, but he's taken down by a shot from the steam tank's cannon, and his components roll along the conveyor belt - soon separated and sorted out by the various mechanisms along the way.

Voltage flies about, using her clockwork wings - though she takes care to keep low to the floor, rather than to fly into the whirring mechanisms above and risk getting smacked across the room - like what happened earlier, further down in the tower. She manages to fly up beside the steam tank as it emerges from its "garage", and then lands right on top, where its turret can't reach. While it continues to blast away at her comrades, she furiously starts ripping off panels, sending jolts of electricity, and applying destructive use of her wrench in an attempt to break enough of it to stop it from moving. She starts to succeed ... but the steam tank parks on top of a repair area, and she finds herself competing with the repair automatons, racing to damage it more quickly than they can repair it!

Finally, Don manages to find some controls to open up the hatch that Mysterio has been sealed away in. Mysterio emerges, and Mikey rushes over to grab him and free him from the restraints. Mysterio, once freed, warns the heroes, "You have to flee right away! The Guildmaster thinks you're here on some quest - but if he learns that you know what's up, he'll just cheat - he can just use 'god mode' and make himself invincible!"

This prompts some grumbling from Scars, who's still sore over "Lady Thorn" and her "cheating" in the arena earlier (and then later "nerfing" his Super Strength power), but everyone gets the idea. Mysterio reveals that the machinery at the top of the room includes "gateways" to various alternate realities within the Universe system. One of them would be Superior City - and any of them would at least lead away from this place.

However, merely knowing isn't enough; getting there looks to be a problem, since the gates are suspended far above the room, and it's unclear just what steps are needed to get access to the desired gate - especially when the heroes have their hands full with a large steam tank, and a seemingly limitless supply of golems (constantly added to, as the Guildmaster keeps summoning more and more through the chutes).

Nao, greatly battered by attacks from the golems, is urged by Kathmandu to transform into the White Tiger Spirit form. She relents and does so, despite her misgivings - and promptly goes berserk. She does more damage to herself than to the tank, alas - but this seems to distract the thing long enough for Voltage to rip out something important from the tank. Something breaks in the back and bursts, and all the valves show the boiler going to critical levels. Voltage gives the tank another zot for good measure ... and then it explodes.

Nao, Kathmandu and Voltage are sent flying. Voltage ends up going straight up, getting smacked by part of the spinning mechanism above, and then slammed across the room, landing in a heap on one of the conveyor belts. Kathmandu and Voltage are both rendered unconscious. Don and Raph goes down. Mysterio briefly takes on the role of "The Unconscious Turtle Transport Service" to try to move the fallen Turtles to safer ground ... but then he and Mikey end up knocked out by attacks from the golems. Nao, on a rampage, charges toward Scars (the next visible "target"), but she ends up in the middle of the room - which turns out to be the end of the line of the conveyor belts. At the end of the line, a crane arm comes down and picks Nao up, then deposits her elsewhere in the room, at the start of one of the conveyor belt "tributaries". Scars, seeing this action - and seeing it repeated when some pieces of the Technocat get picked up by the crane and deposited elsewhere - gets an idea: That could be their ticket out of here!

Scars passes on the word, and calls upon April - since she's holding back and not doing anything else at the moment - to look at the images through the "gates", and look for anything that resembles Superior City. She spots what she thinks is a familiar building from Superior City - though she indicates that it looks like it's been heavily damaged by a recent battle.

Things by now are getting pretty ugly. Scars starts changing his focus from trying to fight the golems, since it's evident that if he defeats them, there will only be more to come. He makes his way across the room to intercept Voltage's unconscious form, while Leo provides cover with smoke grenades. He grabs Voltage and ferries her across the room, puts her at the end-of-the-line, and triggers the crane to come down to pick her up. When the crane arm comes down, he hops on, going for a ride - and then, once the crane retracts back up to the ceiling, he grabs Voltage and shoves her through the gateway that April indicated. He rides the crane back down to another part of the room, and then races along to the next fallen hero to be sent through.

The battle continues to go badly, with new golems pouring on in, and hero after hero falling unconscious - until April goes through the gate, and there's just Leo and Scars left to try to rescue their unconscious comrades. They take turns shoving unconscious comrades into the gate - but then it appears that the golems are catching on: They converge on the pick-up point, and then ride the crane up, swarming and attacking both Scars and Leo at the top. Leo falls unconscious, but Scars catches him, and shoves him through the gate, rather than letting him fall to the room floor. Then, Scars catches a ride on the crane, ferried across the room. He grabs what he can of Tinyanko's remains (or, maybe they are parts of other golems; he's not really sure), and picks up his last, unconscious ally, makes a run to the middle with the aid of his magical boots - past ranks of attacking golems - rides the crane up - and then leaps through!

When our heroes groggily and painfully regain consciousness, they find themselves at an intersection with a fountain in the middle, and a park at the corner. It looks a bit like Superior City, but somehow less ... friendly. It's night time, and the full moon is out, and there's a thick fog holding to the ground, making it impossible to see very far in the gloom. Plus, there are all these unpleasant moans in the distance, and the occasional dog howling. (Or, is that really a dog?)

When Kathmandu and Voltage recover, they immediately know what has happened: This isn't Superior City. This is Night City, which is a horror setting that uses Superior City's layout as a template.

It's also very evident that the rules here are slightly different. Voltage recently got an absurd number of silver coins from defeating the steam tank ... and, suddenly, all of the silver coins that the heroes have accumulated start taking up an actual amount of space. No longer is it possible to cram a theoretically infinite number of silver coins into a little cloth pouch! So, pockets and pouches burst at the seams and then explode in showers of silver coins. Voltage whoops and cries out at the display, turning and pointing her own spray of coins away from the others so she doesn't accidentally bean anybody. (While she's at it, she aims for the pool; it can't hurt to make a wish, after all!)

Jing-Li is horrified when her magic book vanishes. Voltage finds that her own spellbook vanishes as well, along with the Wrench of Tezla. Kathmandu and Mikey have the uneasy feelings that if they were to set down the magic scrolls they've acquired ... that if they were to simply turn around, they might inexplicably disappear. Some things don't seem to be inclined to stay in this place.

Jing-Li gathers the wounded around, and uses a magical staff to try to heal them. She discovers, with each use, that the staff's power seems to be diminished. Whereas, in DungeonWorld, items such as the staff seemed to have an unlimited number of uses, here it seems that everything has a limited power, before it is useless. So, she does her best to help everyone to be healthy enough to at least move on their own, but she decides not to deplete the staff's power immediately, since it might be essential later.

The others take inventory, some of them scooping back up some of the silver coins that they've dropped, and distributing them around: after all, there's no sense in hoarding here, and silver might come in handy, for melting down, in case they run into werewolves. Mysterio seems too shocked to do much of anything unless asked: He indicates that he is still unable to log out.

Finally, after some prompting, he tells the others what he knows. Apparently, his body in the real world is in a coma, and he is in a hospital, hooked up to a machine through the Apollo system. Mr. Kaufmann (AKA "Mr. Coffee") is whereabouts unknown, and being sought after by the authorities. Mr. Forrester (AKA "Crimson Hunter") has been arrested. Accusations have arisen that Mr. Kaufmann is some sort of "modern Michael Jackson", and that the fate of "Lunar" (and "Mysterio") is due to nefarious acts on his part - with the assistance of Forrester and some others connected with the "Heroes 'R' Us" gang. As Mysterio relates it, "witnesses" have popped out of the woodwork, concocting all sorts of accusations against Kaufmann, Forrester, and others who may have tried to act against the Universe Corporation. Mysterio found himself online, a prisoner in DungeonWorld, being interrogated by Bryce Hammerhand.

Mysterio had, during his trip into the Clock Tower, "cheated" to get past the levels by making use of his teleport ability (apparently unheard of to DungeonWorld characters, and thus not accounted for by the designs of the traps and puzzles). He was able to sneak up on Hammerhand in his laboratory and to overhear a few things not meant for his ears - suggesting that Hammerhand was in league with those who were trying to do who-knows-what to his friend, "Lunar". Mysterio, expecting our heroes to come this way, tried leaving a message for them scrawled in an oil spot, and then tried to log out when he got word from Crimson Hunter that "Heroes 'R' Us" members were being booted from the system. Apparently, however, either he wasn't able to log out ... or he didn't stay offline for very long. He doesn't remember what happened next, until he showed up again in Hammerhand's clutches.

Hammerhand is definitely, as Mysterio reports, in collusion with those who are trying to bring about the apocalypse that our heroes have warned about - but he is under the impression that not everyone in the Universe Corporation is in on this. Mysterio reports that Hammerhand speaks like some sort of religious fanatic, talking in glowing terms about the "next step in mandkind's evolution", of all humankind merging into "one harmonic entity", of becoming "one with the Earth Mother", "saving the environment", and other things that sound like one part Revelations, one part Captain Planet. He doesn't give a very clear report of it all, since it doesn't seem that he understands much of it himself; all he knows for sure is that he can't log out, he can't access messaging, and he doesn't even get to see any of the status flags that would typically let him see things like the names of players present, the status of characters as either "players" or "NPCs", health levels, and so forth. It would seem that he's in the same boat as our heroes ... and Voltage soberly proposes the possibility that Mysterio might have been "absorbed" into the system, and that he might not have a body back in the real world.

This doesn't do anything to help Mysterio's morale, as he loses what little composure he has. The surroundings aren't exactly conducive to clear thought.

Kathmandu decides to bring up the photo album that he recovered from his "meditation" at the arena of the White Tiger. He recounts his adventure, wherein he met Nao, and he talks about how he managed to "conjure" this photo album. He shows it to Voltage, refusing to tell her what she'll find in it, and watches with some amusement. To his surprise, however, Voltage gets to the second page ... screams horribly, then passes out.

After Kathmandu puts the album away, Voltage finally recovers, and all she recalls is looking in the book and seeing what looked like incomplete pictures, and some incomprehensible vagueness ... then getting an overwhelming sensation, something remotely like looking into a mirror image of a mirror image of a mirror image of a ... and so forth, only far more jarring and on a deeper level. The best she can resolve it to, is the sensation she's had of things being "unfinished", where the system "fills in" the details - but here, it seemed as if her mind was unable to deal with this "gap".

By this time, the sounds of the moaning are getting closer, and some of the heroes are getting rather insistent that they seek out cover, rather than standing out here and potentially getting swarmed from all sides. So, they set up a marching order, with the Turtle Ninjas forming up in front, the fliers in the back (carrying what's left of Tinyanko), and Voltage cradling Tinyanko's head (which, at the least, is talking again) while she goes along.

They make it down the street for a bit, flanked on one side by a comic store, and on the other by a "Media Buy" store, and a "Chinese Dragon" restaurant. A few zombies come stumbling out of the Media Buy, some of them clutching pieces of electronics as if they were caught in the act of looting - except that it appears that they're more intent upon using them as makeshift bludgeons. More zombies pour down the street to file in next to them. The Turtle Ninjas let loose with shuriken, taking down the front rank of zombies, while Mysterio uses his powers of telekinesis to rip up a mailbox and then a trash dumpster to pound more zombies into gristle. Scars rushes forward, smacking around zombies with his brass knuckles; while the zombies go down easily, they prove to be more dangerous than he first expected, and for a moment it looks as if he might actually be overwhelmed. However, the Turtle Ninjas keep throwing shuriken, and Voltage lets loose with her bladed feathers, and at last the zombies are taken out.

The battle seems to be over, and the Turtle Ninjas break ranks to start retrieving their thrown shuriken (as they've discovered, to their surprise, that they no longer had unlimited quantities of shuriken to use) - and then, several zombie geeks break out of the comic store. One of them crashes through a window, lands on Casey, and makes a critical attack, sinking its teeth into Casey's neck, and taking him down in a single blow!

"That's why I'll never have kids," Scars remarks, as he resumes clobbering zombies again.

April screams, and the geek zombies swarm out, but our heroes meet their advance, and - with a little help from a trash dumpster being telekinetically slammed around by Mysterio - the zombies are once more defeated ... but the sounds of moans indicate that there are even more coming this way. (Furthermore, Jing-Li and Voltage spot some glowing eyes and hear some skittering noises inside the restaurant ... and fear that there might actually be zombie rats in that place!)

In the haste to try to figure out a way to move the unconscious (and profusely bleeding) Casey out, while evading zombies, Raphael opens up the dumpster with the intent of throwing Casey inside, and then having Mysterio levitate it along. However, when he opens up the dumpster, a wino zombie grabs Raph and bites into him - and Raph goes down as well! The other Turtles take out the zombie, and then Mysterio levitates the dumpster and upends it to empty its contents to make sure that it's empty. The Turtles and Jing-Li make some make-shift restraints and tie up Raph and Casey (as well as applying some makeshift bandages to their gaping wounds) - and Jing-Li decides to gag them for good measure, lest they turn into zombies and rip out the throats of anyone who checks on them. (So far, after all, the zombies seem to be pretty nasty when it comes to biting.)

So, with even greater haste, our heroes rush along, with Mysterio banging the dumpster along the way. They get to an intersection, where there's the scene of a car crash right in front of a theater, and much carnage. Voltage rushes over to the cars, and tries to figure out if they're usable. Alas, the best that can be done with them is to roll them - but nonetheless, they move Raph and Casey over from the dumpster into the trunk of one of the cars, and then start rolling them down the hill. (Voltage starts talking about plans on what to do when she tries to rebuild Tinyanko's body, since they only recovered two-thirds of it from the conveyor belts. She imagines installing his head into one of the cars, just like "KITT" from Knight Rider ... and then she'd call him "KITT-KATT." This prompts much groaning.)

As they roll the two cars, bumpily, downhill, in search of a car garage to try working on them, they pass a convenience store. Scars volunteers to go check it out, since, after all, he's nigh-impervious. He heads in, heedless of the bloody hand-prints on the glass sliding doors, and the messy spills on the floor and half-eaten gobs of meat. He sees a Slurpee machine, so he gets one for himself. "If I'm gonna be eaten by zombies, might as well have a Slurpee!" He manages to pick up some quarts of oil and a few automotive products that might be useful - but then the lights flicker and go out. He hears some wet-sounding growling ... and then he's suddenly attacked by three dogs! He kicks and smacks at the dogs, gathered items spilling out of his hands as he stumbles and staggers back to the front door, then pushes his way through the sliding doors, using the emergency release - and he kicks the doors closed behind him. The zombie dogs bark and scrape their claws against the glass, but find no purchase. They soon return to gnawing on the meat already present in the store, as Scars shakily returns to the others with his findings.

They make their way further down the street, and turn down a side street so as to avoid the scene of a collision involving a school bus, with yet more bodies strewn about - right in front of a toy store. They have a bit more pushing to do, as they are no longer going down hill ... but, to their delight, just up ahead is a gas station and car wash right at the next intersection! Scars goes ahead, with the Turtles ready to provide covering "fire", to scout it out. It appears that the gas station is unoccupied, and still has power. He manages to get the garage door open, and they roll in the cars - and what's left of the Technocat. And then, they hear some higher-pitched moaning from back the way they came.

"Oh dear. The kids are up!" Voltage exclaims, as they rush into the garage, and hastily start barricading themselves in, up-ending tables, locking doors, and sweeping the place to search for zombies. Scars fills up several plastic gas canisters with fuel, and lays them in lines around the intersection, and heads back in. In the station office, he finds a revolver and some ammunition; he sets up watch, and when the line of zombie kids shows up, he shoots a metal container full of gas, and sets it ablaze. The fire catches on down the line, and the zombies mindlessly walk right through the fire, then thrash about and flounder into each other as they burn. The scene isn't pretty, but it holds off the zombie advance for a time.

Meanwhile, Kathmandu is horrified as he finds a back door - and it's open! There's a bloody streak on the floor, and the heroes track around to find where it went. At last, they find the front half of a stray cat, dragging itself along the floor - and then Scars bumbles around the corner and accidentally steps on it. Well! At least that was taken care of.

There's something particularly unnerving about this place. It seems that everywhere, there's more than an abundance of windows. Even the bathrooms have windows, albeit up high and with pebbled glass. The garage has a skylight. It seems that there's no one place that can be perfectly reinforced against zombies smashing through glass or drywall - so they decide to set up shifts to watch for the next zombie advance, while the others try to get some sleep.

With some trepidation, they decide to check on Casey and Raph. Mikey bangs on the trunk, asking if anyone's alive in there. There's some banging in return. There's much back-and-forth, as Mikey tries to get them to talk to him before he'll let them out, until Jing-Li informs him that she gagged Casey and Raph. Finally, they open the trunk, and it turns out that Casey and Raph aren't zombies after all - though they're still in pretty bad shape. Kathmandu finds a first aid kit, and starts administering treatment; the others loot the aisles, finding cans of highly caffeine-laden beverages, and processed food. It seems that anything resembling real meat is not worth eating: there's no telling how long those hot dogs or pizza slices have been under the warmers, and they sure don't look healthy. (Besides, when they emptied out the dumpster earlier, there was a nearly skeletal bit of fish leftovers that nonetheless flopped around weakly on the pavement. Best to go vegetarian, it would seem - or at least only eat very processed foods.)

While the others take shifts and try to find somewhere remotely comfortable to rest, Voltage stays up in the garage, working on putting together Tinyanko's body - using various spare parts, and making up for his lack of rear legs with some wheels. It seems that his flame-thrower mouth is minus its original fuel source, so she rigs up an oxy-acetylene "torch" arrangement as a makeshift (and highly dangerous) weapon to replace it. Despite her best efforts to stay awake (and all the caffeine that can be found in several cases of soda), when the sky starts to lighten with the first glimpse of dawn - she falls unconscious, and even Tinyanko shuts down.

When she stirs awake, feeling barely recovered from the rest, she finds that it's sundown; she's just slept through an entire day! The others wake as well - save for Mikey, who tosses back and forth, suffering from a nightmare that his brothers have turned into zombies, and that they're turning him into "pizza".

Voltage puts the finishing touches on Tinyanko. He happily rolls around the garage, knocking things over, and then manages to find his way into the convenience store, knocking over even more. (But then, it's not as if the place was terribly orderly anyway, after all the barricading going on.) "Listen to that engine purr!" Kathmandu remarks.

Voltage then tries to turn to other matters - such as finding a way out of this nightmare world. There are tourist maps of Seattle, and road maps of Washington State, but nothing that shows a map of this town - which is apparently called Night City. She flips through the phone book, and looks up the name "Morpheus" - and finds it. She tries calling up "Morpheus", and ends up getting an answering machine. As she starts leaving a message, she gets an interruption - It seems that even Morpheus screens his phone calls!

Voltage asks for help - or at least some answers, but Morpheus is strangely evasive, even to answer what should be fairly basic questions about the setting. He at least offers that the way out of this place concerns the museum, and that she can find more about that in the newspaper. He also informs her to keep an eye out for someone named "Ash". When Voltage wants to find out whether Ash is a good guy or a bad guy, Morpheus says, "Good? Bad? He's the one with the gun."

Voltage tries checking through the newspaper, and finds that "today's" paper has an article about a new exhibit at the town's museum, of some artifacts from Egypt - including the Mirror of Souls, and the Gate of Set. Voltage announces that she knows about this mirror - that it's actually the "Mirror of Truth", that Dr. Xerxes told them about, during their visit to the graveyard in DungeonWorld. She imagines that this "Gate of Set" might have something to do with getting out of here, too.

The power ends up going out, after a bit, and Kathmandu realizes that the breaker switches are in the back of the store - and despite their earlier searching of the premises for zombies, he does not remember checking out that particular room. (And, why in the world would he have overlooked it?) He's increasingly unnerved, wondering whether it might be that "back doors left mysteriously open" and the like might just materialize in this place to thwart any attempts at defending against the zombies.

While the heroes make another combing-over of the store for goods, there's some commotion in the street, and a terribly battered truck revs by, with several bodies twitching on its hood. Voltage cries out, supposing that this might be "Ash", so she hauls up the garage door and bolts out, quickly overtaken by Scars and then Tinyanko, while the others struggle to catch up.

Scars, thanks to his magic boots, is the first to arrive on the scene, far ahead of the others, as it appears that the truck has crashed through a line of zombies and into a hardware store. The zombies have closed ranks over the momentary gap created by the truck's passage ... and when Scars comes on the scene, they start swarming around him. The zombies seem to have a little more direction than usual, apparently under the guidance of a slightly more intelligent zombie - one armed with a portable nail-gun!

As the zombies swarm Scars, and he does his best to fend them off, Tinyanko and Voltage show up. Voltage starts contributing by flinging sharp metal "feathers" at the zombies, and Tinyanko takes some swipes at zombies but is torn into by a pack of zombie dogs - which seem to be quite capable of tearing his new components apart! Scars, to his surprise, is pulled down by the zombies, as they tear into him, and finally the pain is too great: he lapses into unconsciousness. About that time, the Turtles arrive, and one of them flings an exploding shuriken into the mass of zombies, while the others pick off the remaining zombies. By the time the rest of the group shows up, the zombies have been cleared out ... and Voltage hastily chases down Tinyanko's components and puts him back into working order.

Out of the hardware store steps a wild-looking man with a very large chin, and with a chainsaw replacing one hand. He warns the new "zombies" to back off ... because he has a brand new shiny "boom stick". Scars, drawing upon his training, manages to talk "Ash" down from conflict, persuading him that they aren't zombies - they're fellow survivors (despite the strange appearance of several in their number). Voltage flies up, and at first "Ash" supposes that she's an angel and that she's supposed to give him some sort of "quest" to accomplish now ... but when she starts talking about this "server" and other game-related details, he does a double-take. "Wait a minute ... do you mean to tell me that we're in a video game, and that this isn't real?" Voltage is unsure how to reply, but when she at last clarifies her statement, the man expresses relief, and asks her, "All right - how do I log out of this crazy game?"

Alas, Voltage can't tell him that. She's still working on that herself, sort of.

"Ash" reveals that he's a playtester in this game setting - that it hasn't even reached full beta stage yet, and that he was supposed to go through here in just "a quick run". However, he's died several times - rather painfully, in fact - and he just keeps respawning. He has no idea how long he's been here, or how many times he's died. In fact, he's been so immersed in this game and its horror that he can't even remember his own name - though he does recall that he was at Universe Corporation Headquarters when he went into the game, so presumably he's really still there.

Voltage relates that Ash isn't the only one in this situation: There are other players who have found that they can't log out (Mysterio being one of them present), and that there may be more to come. The heroes, she relates, are trying to find a way out, or at least to warn others, or get word to someone in the outside world who can do something about it. Toward that end, Ash agrees to help Voltage find if there's some way out of this "virtual reality" and into another one, because, whether or not it has anything to do with logging off and getting back to the real world, he wouldn't mind a change of scenery.

But first, there's looting to be done, and Kathmandu is eager to do it. Voltage shakes her head. "No matter how zen, how educated, you put a man in a tool shop...."

"This coming from Miss Fix-It!" Scars retorts - and, sure enough, Voltage isn't to be left out in her quest for new tools. (And Scars, for his part, hits the hunting gear, and gets himself some camouflage pants and a bright orange shirt with the store logo on it. He even gets several ordinary chains to wrap across his chest - just because he can - and hangs an alarm clock from his makeshift "necklace", for added style.)

The store seems to be stocked with much of the latest, though just about anything that could pass for conventional weaponry has been ransacked. No axes, no hatchets - but one good chainsaw, a portable buzz-saw, and a nail-gun are found, along with several crossbow bolts. (Now, if only they could find a crossbow!)

Since it seems that several of the heroes have some silver coins, Ash volunteers to help out in making some silver bullets - since there are some bullet molds at hand, some casings, and gunpowder. After a bit of work, he puts together a few boxes of silver bullets, and they even manage to apply some silver to Tinyanko's claws, and to weld some sharp metal spikes onto his front end.

After they load up - and as it looks like the zombie population is starting to converge on the store - they start making plans to head elsewhere. Ash gives them directions on how to go down the street to the museum, but he relates that it's the worst place in town to try to go; it's got the largest concentration of the meanest zombies, and even worse besides, and he's never gotten in before. Off in another direction, there's the hospital, and down another way is the church (though that's also hard to get into, owing to all the zombies hanging around outside), and there's a navy surplus store on the way down the street to the museum, a toy store back that way (which our heroes already found), and a shopping mall in entirely the other direction. As Ash relates, holy water works well against these zombies (though he prefers head shots), and he warns about vampires, undead bats and demons (sure to attack if you get on the roof tops), werewolves (what the silver is for), and various ghoulish things lurking about. He confirms that it's a bad idea to eat meat, unless it's been processed beyond recognition; for that, he prefers Spam, Chee-Z-Puffs, or Twinkies. (Not healthy eating, sure, but not nearly as unhealthy as something that could animate in your stomach.) He also confirms that getting bitten by zombies - or just about anything here - is very bad. In three nights, they'll be done for. "But it doesn't matter anyway. We probably won't live that long."

After some discussion, they decide that, as much as they'd like to check out "holy ground" at the church, their first stop should be the hospital, since they're all still pretty bad off. So, as the sounds of moaning grow louder, they break out, abandoning Ash's wrecked pickup truck, and rush their way down the street, in the general direction of the hospital.

So, will our heroes make it to the hospital? Can they get out of Night City before Scars, Raph and Casey turn into zombies? Find out answers to these and more questions, in the next session of ... Superior City!