The True Enemy Revealed
Page 65
The trick was to control the narrative. Once the players bought her story, it would be nearly impossible for Jay to sway the community to his side. Even the unedited videos of his Twitch Channel wouldn’t make a difference. That was the insidious part of what she was doing. Why would you follow a link to a contradictory website when you already knew the truth?
As it was, the story was already being reposted and discussed by pissed off players. There was some dissension from the newbies she’d slaughtered while taking over Telrain, but their voices were drowned out by the wave of outrage that she’d started. Julie was just trying to decide where she should hit next, when an excited voice called out from the other room.
“I found it!” Sandra said. “It’s the Talisman of Yeenoktu!”
“It’s a talisman?” Julie asked in confusion. Jumping up from her office desk, she strode into the living room swearing up a storm. “I knew that couldn’t be a skill. Otherwise, it would have already been all over the forums.”
“Well, it’s still no joke,” Sandra said, as Julie came to a stop behind her to watch the video playing on her laptop. Pausing the video, they both studied the stats of the item.
Talisman of Yeenoktu
Item Quality: Epic
Item Type: Crafted
Location: Inventory
Durability: 400/400
Weight: 0.5 kg
+10 Strength
+10 Stamina
*Token from a Gnoll Priest of the Demon Lord Yeenoktu the Soul Crusher.
**When activated by a non-believer, makes wearer invulnerable to all elemental spheres of magic, melee and ranged attacks, poisons and mental attacks for ten seconds. Can only be activated once every seven days.
**When activated by a Gnoll true believer, first effect: makes the wearer invulnerable to all elemental schools of magic, melee and ranged attacks, poisons and mental attacks for ten minutes. Second effect: casts aura of the berserker on the entire group or raid. Can only be activated once daily.
“Ten seconds! That’s it?” Julie shrieked in disbelief. “He survived that with a ten-second insta-bubble?” She raged as she began pacing the length of the room in a huff. “I can’t believe I let him play me like that!”
Sandra silently let her best friend release her frustration as she thought over the issue with the talisman. Julie had been ranting ever since the pod spit her out about nuking herself. While that was kind of funny, she knew better than to laugh about it, when she saw the look on her friend’s face. She had no desire to be the focus of that tantrum.
In truth, she didn’t understand why it was so important to get this one man back. It wasn’t like Julie didn’t have more men than she knew what to do with. Just because the loser had ended their relationship, it shouldn’t have mattered to her one way or another. Seriously, it wasn’t like the guy was especially cute or had money. Whatever, if her friend wanted to ruin him for breaking her heart, then so be it. As she contemplated the talisman, her eyes suddenly widened.
“It can only be activated once every seven days!” Sandra excitedly shouted to her friend.
“What?” Julie asked, coming to a stop. “What do you mean it can only be activated once every seven days?”
“Read it yourself,” Sandra said, pushing her chair back to let her friend look for herself.
“That tricky, fucking bastard,” Julie cursed as she read the talisman’s stats. “So, if I can catch him before he heads back-“
“You can crush him.” Sandra finished with a wicked grin as the tension left her friend’s face.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Julie said with a gleam in her eye. Squatting down in front of the laptop, she hurriedly pulled up her email program. “Well send the alliance after him and Domenic, while we do this…“ It took time for them to work out all of the specifics. But, by the time they’d finished their planning session, they were both giving each other high fives.
“He’s going to be so fucked.” Julie triumphantly crowed as she began sending out emails to her people.
“You know it, girl,” Sandra replied excitedly, as she went to work on her own list.