Chapter 29 - Bringing the heat (1/2)

Maven and Lilly waved goodbye to Gray and Geoff as they drove off and out of the city once more. Gray and Geoff may not have received any merits from that 'quest', but they both giggled like idiots looking at the lipstick marks on their cheeks.

Geoff was more careful about avoiding large pot holes this time and thus they didn't get stuck again. As they approached the base Geoff brought the truck to a stop and parked it about 1 kilometer away from the entrance. Looking at each other dejectedly, Gray and Geoff wiped the lipstick marks off of their cheeks and then continued the rest of the way to the base.

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After paying the extra 20 merits for using the truck overnight, Gray and Geoff decided to say that they blew the almost 400 merits on feeding orphans in the city for a quest if they were asked about what happened. After splitting the 40 merits for renting the truck for two days they both ended up paying 214 merits each.

"We'll have to do some extra matchmaking to make up for our losses, but in the end it shouldn't hurt too much as long as we only do it just this one time." Gray thought to himself. Gray and the others had never tried matchmaking without a team so Gray wasn't sure what would happen.

Geoff and Gray met up with the rest of their team near the board about 30 minutes later than was originally planned, but this time Gray didn't get yelled at like last time because they had at least said they were going to be late in advance.

"Hey, you guys want to try a mission instead? It's not that I'm bored with matchmaking, I just want to try something different." said Geoff.

"Hmmm, a change of environment is often beneficial when one feels apathetic with the status quo." remarked Caleb. Everyone was used to Caleb at this point so it no longer phased them.

"Ok, then let's see what they have to offer!" said Gray.

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Gray and the rest looked at the mission board to see what was available. Currently 5 missions were available, none of which were taken by the only other team on base at the moment.

"Hmmm, so it looks like we got three missions that are the standard patrol type, one that is clearing out a nest of animals that are ravaging farmland, and the last one that is a raid type on a suspected pirate depot. Personally, the last two sound the best to me, but I know the first 3 will be the easiest." said Gray.

"Clearing out a nest of animals with our mechs seems a little overkill... what is that little stick figure next to the mission list mean?" said Geoff

"The best kill is overkill!" said Yurika proudly

As usual everyone ignored Yurika.

The attendant overheard their question about the stick figure icon next to the mission and said "That icon means it is a soldier mission and not a pilot mission. You can still take it, but you can't use your mechs."

"Oh, that makes sense. Problem is we don't have any weapons." said Gray.

"That won't be an issue. As players you will be allowed the use of any standard sets of soldier gear for the duration of the mission from the base armory."

"What are the sets?" asked Geoff

"The current standard sets are Assault, Engineer, Heavy Weapons Expert, and Medic. Every set comes with a Beretta M9-five sidearm and a combat knife. If one of the 4 sets of equipment do not meet a player's needs, they are free create their own based upon the available stocks in the armory."

Yurika's eyes seemed to twinkle slightly when the Heavy Weapons Expert set was mentioned, but everyone wisely pretended not to notice.

"Ok, so everyone in favor of one of the patrol missions raise their hands." said Gray.

Only Stacia raised her hand as she looked at the others slightly embarassed that nobody else wanted to do the easy missions.

"The animal lair clean up mission?"

Yurika and Geoff raised their hands for this one, which surprised Gray that Geoff would want this one over the raid since Gray was hoping for the raid and figured Geoff would too.

"And lastly the raid mission."

Gray and Caleb raised their hands for this one.

"Ok, so we got a tie for the raid and animal lair eradication. Stacia, since you were the odd one out, would you place your vote with either of those two or abstain?" said Gray.

"I will do whatever everyone else wants." Stacia said meekly.

"Ok... in that case... leave it to luck and flip a coin?" suggested Geoff.

Everyone nodded in agreement, and felt their pockets for a coin. They realized they had no money after a minute of looking. Caleb looked on the ground and found a wide flat pebble and scratched one side of it with another stone.

"Scratch up is heads, scratch down is tails." said Caleb.

Gray took the stone from Caleb and flicked it in the air with his thumb, caught it, and opened his palm revealing a scratch up.

"Heads it is!"

Everyone nodded, but then got confused for a moment.

"Heh heh, whoops, guess we should decide which mission is heads and which is tails." Gray said sheepishly.