by E. M. Hardy
I shook my head. “Not going to happen. You can consider that ledger a property of the Silver Blades now.”
“That’s not for you to decide, you’re not the Lord Commander,” Darshan replied.
“Vahn will make the same decision,” I said. “It is leverage and a good one at that. A lot of people want revenge against you bastards and for good reason. If that information were to ever leak to the public, then you might not even have to wait a few in-game months to kick the bucket. Someone could kill you in the real world and be done with it.”
Elia added in. “Let’s stop talking and start working. I don’t want to associate myself with the Ascendants longer than I have to. The quicker we get this done, the better. You say we need to set up a meeting, so let’s do it. Let’s get this done and launch a full-scale war against the Horde.”
“We don’t need to beat them,” I reminded her. “The war is just a distraction. It’s something to keep us all busy in the game and to make us forget the real objective.”
Darshan nodded. “We only need to get in their base and shut down the mod they installed. They altered the core code that prevents us from logging out. That’s all we need.”
Finally agreeing on something, we all stood up and prepared for the biggest battle of our lives. This was the war that would determine the fate of two million people. It was the war that was going to figure in the pages of history. Even now I knew no one would ever forget this tale of two warring factions teaming together to unite the scattered battalions of players to defeat one powerful enemy.
Together, the three of us departed from the Drunken Stallion and made our way to the Silver Blades headquarters. As we did, we noticed dozens of players running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to log out of the game. It was like watching the apocalypse descend upon the world, without the need for meteors raining down from the sky.
Doomsday for Vatenkeist was here and the clock was ticking.