The next morning passed in a haze of half-remembered conversations. Winston hadn't slept, instead he'd tossed and turned while a dull burning fury had coursed through him. He was used to brooding. He got that way sometimes but he couldn't remember anytime he'd been so fundamentally enraged.

Not even lunch seemed to drag him out of his funk and he was absently eating over-cooked lasagna when Trish put her hand over his to stop the motion of his fork and leaned closer to him.

"Win, I'm so sorry. I didn't think they'd go that far. I was expecting some type of push-back but its like I don't even know them anymore. You stung Alex's pride for some reason and he'd taking it out on you." Trish said softly. Then her whole demeanor changed and she was just as angry as Winston. "I swear to god I'm going to bury them for this."

Winston gave her a grim smile. "That's exactly what I was thinking."

"You're still not going to tell me what you're doing are you." She asked.

"Nope, because if you get involved you'll be a traitor. I can burn down their whole world and be completely justified." Winston said.

"What are we burning?" Jason asked as he plopped down at the table.

"Lots of things. Have you seen my farm?" Winston asked his friend.

"Nope, off in the jungle, waiting for your trees to grow." Jason said.

"Well, you'll be waiting a while. Trish's guild burnt my entire farm down."

"They did what?" Jason asked incredulously.

"Destroyed everything, even killed Kisha, which I found particularly assholeish. I mean she was level 9 and couldn't even fight back." Winston said bitterly.

"What dickheads. You're going to bury them right? Should we get Brad to look them up IRL?" Jason said seriously.

"That seems a bit excessive." Winston said. "Although I am tempted, killing someone over a video game does seem a bit tacky."

Jason didn't look very convinced of that but Winston managed to put him off. After the short argument Winston found he felt a lot better. It seemed to be getting this off his chest really did make him feel better. His biggest problem at the moment was how long of a walk he had to get anywhere he needed to go and how much his vengeance was going to cost him.

When Winston got home he logged into Otherworld and began the long walk back to civilization. The trip back to Wraith Harbor would take him days but he wasn't headed that way. The Hound's might be waiting for him. Instead he'd decided to go the other direction, farther inland, which would take at least a week most likely.

He'd checked the online map and the city was called Rhaunar. It was in the zone to the North, but unless he wanted to walk across a bunch of deep Jungle he had to follow the road east before taking a fork over in the next zone and back-tracking a decent bit. It would be a long walk but he had plenty to do in the meantime.

Winston didn't bother re-summoning Bog for now. He didn't have much for her to eat and she'd be board with the long trip. Instead he just left her dead and brought up the web browser. As much as he'd like to take vengeance on his own that just wasn't a feasible option. No, he had money but no real power. It was time to find some mercs.

Otherworld had a lot of merc clans and even more that would take deals if offered but didn't actually advertise as mercs. The in-game contracts were strict enough to keep the big betrays from happening but there were a lot of ways that someone could follow the word of a deal without upholding the spirit.

Winston looked through the merc options carefully. He needed to find someone it wouldn't cost a fortune to hire, or someone who'd travel for free. Hiring a group large enough to knock down the wall would be expensive but not horribly so. Having to hire a group like that AND pay for the portals would basically wipe out all the work he'd done since he moved. His current funds were around 80,000 gold. That was quite a bit but mercenaries were expensive. The other problem was that the Blood Hounds were part of the big alliance against the Sword's and Crimsuns. A lot of the small and mid-sized guilds who normally did merc work were their allies so that cut down the options even more.

Winston started locally, looking for teams in Kishik that would be willing but all the options were pretty sub-par. There were a few smallish guilds that were willing but he needed a team that would work fast, or at least one that could knock the ward down quickly once they started. The BloodHounds had their attention on the new expansion content but they'd rally to defend their home. He needed a group that would bring the ward down in a hurry, at least if he wanted to enact the second part of his plan.

Winston switched to more professional outfits. They'd cost him more, but hopefully he'd be able to recoup some of the loss. He dug deeper and deeper into the Mercenary section of the trade-forum before he finally found the one.

[Want to raid a rival guild but lack the man-power and equipment to deal with their defenses?]

[Want to knock-down a castle but can't deal with the wards?]

[Message us, the Siege Specialists]

[The Wall-Breakers]

Winston laughed out loud but moved the window to one side as he brought up his messaging software.

********************************************************************

Winston's knuckles landed on the frame of Josh's door with a dull thunk. After a cheerful "Come in." Winson opened the door to see Josh setting on one of those low to the floor gamer chairs and playing on his X-box.

"Sup boss? Don't see you in here very often. Aren't you trying to rule Otherworld or something?" Josh said, his normal jovial tone was darker than normal. Josh had been a bit of a mess since Christmas and it was obvious he wasn't yet back to his normal self. Then again, his dad wasn't living at home anymore and as much as Winston was happy about it Josh wasn't.

"Ruling is always too much work. Nope, just wanted to talk to your girlfriend. She coming over sometime this week?" Winston asked him.

Josh's eyebrows shot up. "Some guys would be jealous with you talking like that. Granted, they aren't as handsome or confidant as I am but couldn't you just talk to her at school?"

Winston rolled his eyes. "In a reasonable world that would be true but considering last time I talked to her at school I got beat-up and suspended I think it's better to not risk it."

"That's a point but I think mostly you just don't want your girlfriend finding out." Josh said with his old grin.

Wiston didn't look at all abashed. "I'm not going to lie that's part of it. Trish REALLY hates Jessica, although after that dinner, it's not quite so bad and even if you aren't jealous she will be. I can't say I really mind her being all jealous and possessive but I think it's better to avoid the situation altogether."

Josh shook his head with mock sadness. "Sneaking behind your girls back to see her arch-rival. I'm so ashamed."

Winston flipped his brother the bird but didn't say anything.

"Fine, Fine. She's coming over Thursday night you can talk to her then." Josh said as he waved magnanimously.

"We should get some Chinese food Friday after school." Winston said. Josh thought about that for a moment, then nodded.

"Sounds good. Now, let me get back to slaying these noobs. I've gotta finish before 9 so I can get in my workout before bed otherwise my whole week will get screwed up." He said.

Winston left him to it.

The next two days crawled by for Winston. He went to school, came home and walked down the dirt road. He left Jugda and entered Drista Plateau. The plateau the zone was named for was farther east but Winston only got to see it from a distance. Instead he took the North-fork when the road split and headed away from it towards Nesik-Falls the zone he was aiming for.

By Thursday he was thoroughly board and still had at least another week of walking to get anywhere. He hopped out of his system around dinner time and ate with his mom and Josh before going back to his room to get some homework done before Jessica came over.

Surprisingly, it was Jessica who came up to his room. He figured he'd have to ambush her before she and Josh got too cozy in Josh's room.

"What do you want? Your brother told me to needed to talk about something in Otherworld. Which is weird cause I know You've got Therion's contact in game." Jessica said. She looked a bit sour to have her boyfriend time put off.

"Well, I needed to talk to someone in the Sword's who wouldn't just shuffle me off to an underling. Which is exactly what Therion would have done and your the only high-ranking member I've got easy access too. Besides I needed someone I could trust and your the least likely to sell me out since you're seeing my brother." Winston said.

Jessica rolled her eyes and made a 'well spit it out' gesture with her hands.

"Anyway, when I grew that giant bamboo stalk for your guild part of the deal was I got one smallish favor and I want to cash it in. So I need you to let whoever keeps track of such things know. And i thought this one would actually be right up your alley." Winston continued.

She shifted her weight and crossed her arms in front of her rather nice chest."Just spit it out already."

Winston scowled at her but kept his temper. She really was beautiful but so damn haughty. He wished his brother luck but he would not have the patience for a girl like Jessica.

"Anyway… I've hired the Wall-Breakers to crash the ward on Trish's guild next friday. And I'd…." Winston started but Jessica cut him off.

"Why did you hire mercenaries to attack your girlfriends guild? I mean I've heard of bad break-ups but you didn't seem the type."

Winston sighed. "We didn't break up. Trish's guild is run by a triumvirate. She's only got one vote out of three, and the other two outvoted her when she tried to keep things for escalating between us. We got into a bit of an argument over land-rights but they decided to take the gloves off, so I've decided to wrap mine in barbed wire.

"Their supposed to bring the ward-down next Friday around 2:30 AM our time. I want to use my marker from the Sword's to get them to send a small team of their best thieves, lock-pickers, and ward-breakers, to rush in as soon as the ward goes down and steal everything that's not nailed down." Winston said with a grim smile.

Jessica started to laugh. It started as a chuckle but escalated into deep heaving gales of laughter that bent her over.

"So does that mean you'll get the guild moving?" Winston said as he smiled at her. She really was a bit too pretty and seeing her wiping tears from her eyes as she tried to stop laughing humanized her a great deal.

"Oh… Oh, that good." She said, still laughing but under more control now. "I'll tell the guild but there's no way I'm going to miss this. I'll lead the team myself. My lock-picking is at professional II." She used the hem of her shirt and wiped at her eyes, giving Winston a rather nice view of her toned stomach. "I suppose you'll be expecting a cut of the loot?"

"Well, it is me using up my favor so I could probably ask for half, but I'll settle for 20% if you promise to really stick it to them." Winston said.

She stuck out her hand to him. "On behalf of the Sword's. You've got yourself a deal."

****************************************************

"What did you say to Jessica?" Trish asked next Wednesday at lunch. "She's been insufferable all week. She just keeps smiling knowingly at me. You didn't sleep with her did you?"

Jason choked on his mashed-potatoes and even Brad had to dab at his mouth a bit. Ruger seemed to have inhaled part of his mountain-dew. Winston just shook his head.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." He said dryly. "and she's dating my brother. That's just icky. I mean, I suppose it's not much different than hooking up with a girl who'd had a bunch of other guys before you. Logically it should make that much difference if I want to be all progressive and forward thinking but there's something about it being family that would just make it too weird for me."

Jason shook his head in mock-disappointment. "Common, sleeping with your older brothers woman is practically required. It's like the plot line of every Japanese henti manga."

"If you're never going to sleep with any girl who'd been with your brother you should probably leave the country. Otherwise it's going to really narrow down the field for you." Ruger pitched in.

Winston snorted and Trish let out a belly laugh. "He is kind of a man-whore." Winston said. "In somewhere as small as this school he'd probably put a pretty good dent in the population but leaving the country might be a bit extreme."

"Is he really that bad?" Brad asked.

"Depends who you ask. I mean if you really did the math on it…. There are what 120 people in the Senior class, and our class has 112 or something right? Figure on half of those being girls so we'll use 110 as our base number of available females for easy calculation. That's assuming he's not going after anyone younger which he's too honorable to do.

"I know of at least 12 girls he's been with that currently go to this school. That's more than 10% of the population, and two others he was with from the class that was ahead of his when he was a Junior last year." Winston said honestly.

"In all fairness, most of that was last year right after he made varsity quarterback. I swear he was basically going through a girl a week but he seems to have grown out of that. He dated Katie for months and now he's with Jessica again." He finished.

"That wasn't a bad subject change but I did notice you never answered my first question. What did you say to Jessica and why is she smiling at me like that?" Trish pressed.

Winston considered telling her but again, it was best to keep her out of it. She'd likely catch enough blame as it was

"You'll find out this weekend but it's really better if you don't know." Winston said. Trish glared at him and he smiled.

"Come over Friday night, Mom's going to some conference thing for work and Josh will be out with Jessica. I'll cook dinner and you can try to pry the secret out of me." Winston told her.

Jason made a gagging sound but Winston ignored him as he finished off his lunch.