“...and that is why I need you to keep searching for a Godbinder,” Rotgoriel finished.

The chamber was silent. Rotgoriel looked around, weighing the people in it, and trying to gauge the impact of his words.

It was a large room, as it went. Too large for the small amount of people in it. There was a round stone table, amazingly the one that had adorned the central cave of the old Turpentine Fortress. One of the Resistance's top craftsmen had decided that it was too good to leave to the enemy, and transported it here intact after the priority items had been salvaged.

The central room rose to a domed ceiling, with an upper walkway around, for ease of observation. Though the doors leading up to that today were sealed, and nobody stood leaning on the railings. Rotgoriel was tall enough he could lift his neck and examine them, and had done so before starting his explanation.

They were alone, the eleven of them. And Rotgoriel watched the top officers of the Scions of Order look to each other, squint at him, and try to figure out the truthfulness of his words.

And not for the first time, he felt nervous.

He'd hoped for a charisma gain after explaining the truth of the matter to the guild. That would have been an indicator that they had believed him, that he had succeeded in explaining things sufficiently to motivate them into doing what he wanted.

But there had been nothing. No words.

To be fair, having been in a human's head before, having visited their decidedly un-magical world, he could understand how it was all somewhat unbelievable.

But he had hoped, nonetheless. And now that hope died, as Longtom cleared his throat and said, simply, “I'm out.”

“Tom? What the fuck?” Vae Victus turned her head to look at him.

“Look. I don't do drama. I do action and PVP for the fun of it. This is bullshit. This is the game's writers fucking us over and setting up one of those lame storyline events where we basically lose gear and waste time trying to save the world or something.”

“It is an unfortunate thing when you get to the high-end content,” Suzy Reign agreed, crossing her arms as the rest of the table looked at her. “I still haven't replaced the gear I lost in that Chinese dungeon. Or rather, you haven't replaced it,” she said, glaring at Rotgoriel.

“We had to turn all of our resources to building and arming for the final assault,” Rotgoriel replied. “You know this. Why do you continue to complain about a settled matter?”

He had not meant it to be an insult. But her cheeks reddened, and he knew he'd made a misstep even before she snorted in disgust, and walked toward the door. “I'm out too, then.”

“About those resources,” Goblox said, raising a gnarled hand. He was dwarven, clad in an apron stuffed with tools and a sturdy set of workman's clothes. His beard was braided with coins punched through with holes, and Rotgoriel had never seen him without goggles. He wasn't sure they did anything, but Goblox always wore his goggles. “We are running severely low on coin. I'm having to stagger payments to the quarries and smithies in Kai-Tan. Either we go into debt, or we're going to have to slow our roll way down on the crafting front.”

Rotgoriel considered the problem, trying to ease down the instinctive flare of anger that bubbled up from the back of his mind. Paying for something? That was very undragonlike!

Before he could muster his composure, the door slammed open as Suzy stormed out, LongTom following behind her. The cloaked sniper turned to look back at the others. “Binder? Vae? Warper? Room for a few more. We can form our own guild. With blackjack. And hookers! And without fucking bots.”

Rotgoriel growled, before he could stop himself.

“Tom...” Vae looked from the dragon to the sniper, then sighed. “I'm sorry. I'm in this for my friends, and they're leaving. Good luck, guys. With whatever.”

Blackbinder stood and left too, but without a word.

The door closed behind them, and Rotgoriel closed his eyes. Then he asked “How much?”

“What?” Bittybop spoke up, her voice wavering.

“How much coin do we need?” he said, speaking through clenched teeth.

“Oh. Uh... about a hundred thousand gold if we want to keep on schedule. Half that would get us by for a week or two, if we couldn't do an even hundred. Or if you did fifty and threw in some money for bribes I could maybe set Blackbinder to greasing the... uh... I guess he's gone now. Maybe somebody else who's good at shady stuff? Nerguin?”

“I could drop off some suitcases full of money,” Cutter spoke. “Sure. If we have that.”

“Take it from my hoard,” Rotgoriel said, grinding his teeth, feeling the agony as he gave, gave away his treasure. It was shameful, and he knew that he would be a laughingstock among other dragons if they ever heard of it. Even Agnezsharron would think him a fool, and she loved him.

Like a brother.

He turned his mind from the bitterness there, pushing it away as human weakness, and realized that he'd missed a few words from the rest of them. But by the looks of it, most of them were talking to each other, sorting out the details, figuring out how to work around the fact that four of their ten officers had just quit the guild entirely.

“How much from your hoard exactly?” Goblox said, coming around the table with a clipboard in hand. “The full hundred, or the fifty and bribe money, or—”

“The full hundred. And never mention this to anyone outside this room,” Rotgoriel said, covering his face with one hand.

Then a horrible thought struck him. “Wait. Are any of you streaming this?”

“No,” Nerguin replied. “At least, none of us should be. That would be a major opsec violation.”

“Um...” Bittybop raised her hand. “What's up sek mean?”

Rotgoriel left.

The doors were barely big enough for him, and he had to squeeze through, but if he spent any more time in that room, that horrible room where he'd given his precious, hard-earned treasure away, then he was going to burn it down and damn the consequences.

So instead he went up the hill, and looked down upon what they had built, in the week since he had eaten a frog creature in the heart of Kai-Tan.

They had come far, since that cold cave in the wastelands.

Goblox was an architect, in Richard's world. Or a student of architecture, and Pat, before his incarceration, had declared him their city planner. In Pat's absence, Goblox had taken to it with gusto and his work was plain for all to see. Fields of stumps cleared out for miles in each direction, with fallen trees bigger around than Rotgoriel's torso piled up into a wall along the whole length of it.

As Rotgoriel watched, trees shimmered and blinked out of existence, leaving stumps behind as Lumberjacks used their special skills, and new trunks appeared, ringing the central fields. Those were planted with crops, done up in neat circles, with wood and stone buildings, mainly dwellings and storehouses and foundries.

The Council hall stood at the center of it... at the center of the current works. The group had sat through many sessions with Goblox and his non-player assistants over the last few nights, hashing out the shape of things to come. The smaller they went, the less they had to defend, but the less threat they were to an invading army. Conversely, the more they spread out the less chance that the Warmer's could ignore them and strike directly at Kai-Tan, but the more they'd have to defend.

They had settled on something that Goblox called a modular build. It would start small and they would design it to grow and expand and shift as they went. It would slow things down slightly and add on expenses, but result in a good balance of defense and space for future growth throughout the timeline.

It had taken much argument, much back and forth, and thinking back on it, that was when LongTom and Blackbinder had started showing signs of annoyance.

This has been building for some time, Rotgoriel realized. And the thought made him feel better. He may not have helped the situation, but he probably had not made it horribly worse.

Probably.

Closing his eyes, he rested and let the wind play around his horns, feeling the warmth of the sun. Could he take a nap? Would the Guild continue on without him for a day or two?

“Hey there, tall dark and scaly,” WorldwarpR called.

No, evidently not. “WorldwarpR,” Rotgoriel greeted him.

The artificially aged man grinned at him, than sat down on the hill, staring down into the valley. “For what it's worth, I appreciate the lore. And it explains a lot of what you guys were cagey about for so long. Elder gods corrupting ancient dragon magic? That's a hell of a story payoff. Can't wait for the world raid to fix it.”

“I do not know if it will come to that,” Rotgoriel said, staring at the black specks of workers in the distance. “Konol must be saved, but I do not know if a battle is possible, let alone feasible. Nial'https hurts to look at, strips sanity away with every glance. We were trying to find ways to counter that, but the battle with the Warmers has dragged on too long, far too long.”

Another figure emerged from the council hall, looking around. Midian, he realized, as she started up the hill toward them.

“Yeah yeah yeah,” WorldwarpR said. “Sure, buddy. This very popular game and its ludicrously profitable cash shop are going to end all of a sudden if players don't beat the pre-scripted story event. Got it.”

Rotgoriel ground his teeth, and said nothing. This was what he was up against. This was the result of Rich's choice... well, Pat and Greg's as well.

Humans had to avoid sounding crazy, when dealing with each other. Which was problematic, because far too many humans lacked the imagination required to deal with a reality that encompassed far more than their experience and imagination could confirm as sane.

“Though I have to admit,” WorldwarpR said, “It's been a few years. If the guys running this wanted to launch a sequel, that'd be the perfect way to do it. End the old world with a bang, set up something with a paid subscription. So yeah, I guess they could do that. Shit, I don't know why, though. There's so much untapped, here!”

Rotgoriel exhaled sharply, surprised and pleased.

And then he paused, as an idea struck him.

“I cannot speak of any future games at this time,” he said quietly.

WorldwarpR instantly stood up and stared at him.

“What was that?”

“I cannot speak of a sequel at this time.”

“Oh oh shit, oh yeah those bastards left a glitch, ha ha ha!” WorldwarpR's grin was huge. “Rotgoriel do you have any quests for me?”

CHA+1

Rotgoriel did his best to sound like the somewhat dumbstruck, repetitive tones that he had heard non-players adopt, when players were around. “You have not gained enough faction with me to unlock any new quests.”

“Shit. Shit shit shit, not yet? What do I have to...”

Rotgoriel shook his head, as if he was dazed. “I seem to have misheard you. What were we speaking of?”

“Oh boy. Faction. Uh...” WorldwarpR's grin was huge. “Hey... would you consider it a favor if I persuaded the guild officers who left to return? Or maybe recruited some new guys to replace them?”

Rotgoriel smiled. “You know, I think that would make me quite... happy.”

“Flight!” WorldwarpR said, and rocketed off across the fields.

Midian turned to watch him go, then climbed the hill with a bemused expression on her face. “What did you do?” she asked, when she came up to his napping spot.

“I am not sure yet,” Rotgoriel confessed. “I am pretty sure he did it to himself. I might have nudged things, however. Hopefully for the better.”

“We'll see how that plays out,” Midian said. She sat down where WorldwarpR had sat just a second ago. “You know that I cannot see into Konol's space. I can track the timelines for this world, to a degree. Never infallibly, and never without cost, mind you. But the magic doesn't reach between worlds.”

“Then tell me of this one,” Rotgoriel spoke. “Do we prevail?”

“If we have enough allies? Yes.”

“We have Kai-Tan.”

“You need players. You need the other guilds.”

“There are none of significance. The Bharstool Warmers have hunted them too well.”

“And there you are wrong,” Midian smiled. “There are many, but they are scattered. The world is far larger than most have been led to believe. There are many small guilds, but they have learned to hide and steer clear of the Bharstool Warmers. They have their little wars, and their regional differences, but so long as they stay clear of the Warmers' main forces and don't draw attention, the masked ones can't hunt them all down. And they fight and squabble among each other, calling it the guild wars. To them our fight is just one more battle in the ongoing wars.”

“We can rally them?” Rotgoriel's eyes widened. “We can bring them here?”

“That is not the path to victory,” Midian shook her head. “I'm still sorting through the timelines, and they're shifting as we go, but if it ever gets to a decisive battle then we'll lose. The Scions of Order break, Kai-Tan follows, and you are defiant until the last, when they bind you and bolt the mask to your roaring face.”

Rotgoriel let out a long breath. “I would die first.”

“They know that. Which is why they want you alive, in the end. You or Rich. That is their win. That's their endgame— in this struggle, anyway. They have more after that, but the timelines in which they do win, things get seriously strange after that point. I can't track them too far.”

“What can you do?” Rotgoriel turned to look at her. “I have trusted you so far. Especially considering your revelations about Legion. I am placing a lot of faith in your aid, and its value to myself and my brother's goals.”

“I can do quite a lot but never entirely enough. I am only one person, for better or for worse.”

By now he had been around enough players to tell that there was sadness under that smile.

“Well,” he said, turning his gaze back to the workers, the players and their minions and allies, and the framework of the future that would hopefully last far beyond this war. “It is fortunate then that we are not alone.”