“Steve, awake and rise,” a voice called, muffled by the thick fog that seemed to suppress his senses. As soon as he became aware, the migraine tried to murder him and his ancestors. The light attempting to stab out his eyes, even through closed eyelids.

Groaning, he rolled to his side, or at least that was his intent. He found that he was in a chair, making the rolling pretty damn hard. Surrendering to the inevitable, he mumbled, “The name’s Aragoth, don’t use my real name.”

“Sorry Aragoth, but the lawyer is here,” the voice said, more clearly than before. Aragoth recognized it as belonging to Marcus, his trusted confidant and advisor.

“Give me a few minutes,” Aragoth mumbled and thought, ‘Funny how quickly I’ve come to trust him, only been a couple of weeks.’

“Sure thing boss,” his friend and the only person he could truly trust said. The hiss as the door opened and closed signified that Marcus had left. Suddenly Aragoth felt very alone, and the migraine suddenly seemed like a large dragon looming over him.

“Damn that bitch,” Aragoth muttered. A few months ago that reporter had used some illegal biomods on him, and one of the side-effects was the severe migraine side-effect of those. He had felt the migraine the morning after, but then nothing for months.

‘Weird, how the migraines didn’t start occurring until a couple of weeks a—” he started thinking, before his mind went blank, ‘What was I just thinking about?’

A minute later it occurred to him, ‘Oh right, I need to start Project Dead Lotus.’

Chuckling at the thought of squashing the bug that stole his honour and humiliated him, he felt the migraine starting to leave. True, the migraines might be quite a hassle, but he got his best and brightest idea after one. The clarity they provided was immense.

The buzzer made him open his eyes, and he found himself in his office. Whoever had buzzed did not wait for him to answer. The door slid open a few seconds after the buzzer had broken him out of his reverie. First through the door was the smarmy, but competent, lawyer that Marcus had found. Aragoth did not bother with his name, he was simply the Lawyer, Rat or Weasel.

He thought for a few seconds about why the lawyer would be there, but then he remembered he had the Weasel deliver his ultimatum to that annoying bitch. Glowering, trying to impose some of his avatar’s charisma, he haughtily asked, “When will the cunt be dropping by to pay reparations, and complete the transaction?”

The Rat cowered a bit before mumbling, “Uhm, she’s not.”

“Goo—what did you just say?” Aragoth demanded. He thought he had heard wrong.

“She’s not going to do it,” the Lawyer kept mumbling.

Not liking what he heard one bit, he roared, “Doesn’t she realize that I got evidence that could put her in prison for several decades?”

“She does, but she’s got the recording of you blackmailing her and admitting you knew about them,” the Weasel was starting to talk fast. Almost like he believed that bad news was best delivered quickly.

“So what?”

“Knowing about the illegal bioweapons and not reporting them, means at least five years in prison for you,” the Lawyer was clearly trying to hide the fear in his voice. In a whisper he added, “And you’ve made us your accomplices.”

“So I’ll go to jail if I expose her?” Aragoth was dumbstruck, he had never thought it would turn out like this. It was the first time one of his plans provided by the clarity following his migraines had backfired.

“Uhm, yes,” the Lawyer ventured cautiously.

Aragoth looked up at his confidant, unsure what to do. The frustrated frown on Marcus’ face worried him. Normally Marcus showed no emotions at all. It was like Marcus felt him staring at him, because his eyes immediately went to Aragoth’s and his face fell back into the normal emotionless folds.

“I think we need to put aside dealing with HannahVixen till later, it seems we gave her too much time to think about her actions this time. Much more disconcerting is that new guild the Blue Lotus, we need to deal with them,” Marcus stated.

Aragoth was about to protest, but then decided there was wisdom in the suggestion. Turning to the Rat, he sneered, “You can see yourself out.”

When the lawyer had scurried away, Aragoth turned to Marcus and ordered, “I already have a plan to deal with those Lotus folks, I need to speak with Erilyth, Hermes and Narmoth. And it’s best we do it out here, the Perennial EULA has some pretty strict regulations against implanting saboteurs and spies in other guilds. Which is weird, because that’s pretty much how guild politics work in most games.”

“They’re already waiting outside, I’ll go get them,” Marcus replied.

Confused, Aragoth asked, “Why are they here?”

“Have you forgotten we’ve a status meeting scheduled?” Marcus asked as he opened the door, “I’ll send the other councillors away, and we can hold that meeting ingame instead.”

Aragoth was perplexed, he was quite certain he had not called a meeting, but if Marcus said it, it had to be the truth. Shaking his head to clear up the confusion and doubt in his mind, he said, “Okay, it’s more effective to hold it ingame anyway. Oh, and call your friend in the BIS, I got a job for him as well.”

“Will do,” Marcus replied. Half a minute later he arrived back with three of Aragoth’s inner circle. None of them looked like their ingame avatars, neither did Aragoth.

‘Not yet, but will soon,’ Aragoth thought to himself, thinking about the gene therapy he had just ordered. Turning to half his inner circle, he said, “Sorry to cancel the scheduled meeting, but I’ve more important things to talk about. A new project, called Dead Lotus.”

The three councillors seemed to look confused at his statement. Thinking it was because they could not make the connection between the project name and their target, he elaborated, “Dead Lotus will deal with Blue Lotus once and for all. We cannot let the stain on our honour stand. They must be dealt a lesson.”

“But Aragoth, we’ve already dispatched Lord and Lady Dust to deal with them. We even had to call them back early from their honeymoon. Blue Lotus’ only source of income as far as we can gather, is their leader’s business,” Hermes commented. Looking at the two other councillors, “We’ve already poured a sizeable investment into procuring coins for them. Credits that would be better spent on the guild instead of a petty grud—”

Aragoth struck the table surface hard with the palm of his hand, interrupting Hermes. Staring at the fat old man, he growled, “There’s nothing petty about it. They humiliated us not once, but thrice. And on a live broadcast no less. I’ll see them ground to dust as the might of Dawnguard marches over them.”

The councillors looked at eachother, before the one called Narmoth cleared his throat, “Sir, with all due respect we’re afraid that doing anymore would be harmful. With the credits going to the Dusts, the withdrawals made by Marcus and your cosmetic gene therapy, we’re quite strapped for credits.”

“Then sell some of all the useless stuff in the warehouse for some coin! Sell the coin if we need credits, but I want them dealt with,” Aragoth shouted.

After a minute of silence, broken only by the angry breathing of Aragoth, Marcus prodded, “What’s the scope of project Dead Lotus?”

“First step is Lord and Lady Dust. For the second point of attack, I want to deploy Shadowy Phantom, I want him to infiltrate Blue Lotus as soon as possible,” Aragoth said after a few calming breaths.

“But he’s almost through the preliminary tests done by the Silver Lords,” Erilyth protested.

“We already have eleven spies in the guild, one more or less won’t make much of a difference.”

“Damnit, we’ve spent close to a hundred thousand credits to make a fake CIN for him,” Narmoth protested. A protest Erilyth supported verbally.

Aragoth was about to slap the man for insubordination, when Marcus leaned in, and with an emotionless, yet threatening voice, he whispered, “Do what you’re told.”

“Fine. I’ll have SP withdraw his application, and join the game as soon as possible. What else?” Erilyth hissed.

“Have the Dusts hand him ten or twenty platinum. Make him say it’s an investment when joining Blue Lotus. Next step is dispatching a party from the Shadowguard, I want them to hunt and kill the members of Blue Lotus over and over again,” Aragoth ordered with a big smile. The thought of his elite assassins hunting the little pests was highly amusing, almost arousing.

Erilyth shot to his feet, “You can’t be serious?”

“Deadly serious,” Aragoth sneered, staring down the insubordinate council member.

“It’ll take at least nine days ingame of travel. It means that they’ll fall woefully behind in levels,” Erilyth objected with a raised voice. “They’ll never agree to that.”

“They’ll do it or they’ll get kicked out,” Aragoth haughtily stated.

“That’s a bad idea, you know what they’re like. They won't like it at all. You’re taking away their edge if they can’t grind effectively for nine days,” Hermes tried to reason.

“He gave an order, they’ll follow it, or else I’ll deal with them,” Marcus said, stopping all disagreements. The three councillors stared at him with hate in their eyes. Aragoth knew they were jealous, since he had taken over their position as his advisor.

“Is there a fourth step?” Narmoth finally grumbled.

“Yes, but it’s not something you need to concern yourself with,” Aragoth sniffed, and waved them away. Marcus forgot to close the door, when he left. So Aragoth was quite surprised when he heard that his last guest talking with Marcus. He had not expected him to be there for another ten minutes.

“—been waiting for thirty minutes already,” the muffled voice of his last guest drifted in through the open door.

Marcus’ reply was a bit clearer, indicating they were getting closer. “Just get the details, agree and then leave.”

The two men stepped through the door. The man accompanying Marcus was dressed in his black uniform and the red balaclava, making it obvious to everyone that he was a member of the Bureau of Internal Security. Aragoth did not know his name, nor his rank. He did not care about that though, the only important thing was that Marcus trusted the man. And that the money Aragoth was paying him bought his cooperation.

“Good, you’re here sooner than I expected. I like that,” Aragoth greeted the man.

“I’ve come to hear what the BIS can do for our confidential informant today,” the officer said with sarcasm evident in his voice.

“There’s a guild that have hacked Perennial’s newest game, we want to know what they know. If it turns out they haven’t hacked it, they must have an inside man, they know things they should not know,” Aragoth said.

“Bit outside BIS’ jurisdiction.”

“Since Perennial is solely owned by the largest shareholder in the Corporate Congress, any act against his company, is an act of treason,” Marcus said from the sideline.

“I see, a bit thin, but I’ll see if I can get a judge to sign a memory scan warrant,” the officer quickly responded when Marcus had finished speaking.

Aragoth nodded with satisfaction, before giving his orders, “I want to know if he hacked or received information from an insider in Perennial. If you can find anything illegal to hold him on that’s better. Oh and as soon as he’s picked up, I want the media to know.”

“Will see to it,” both the officer and Marcus’ replied. With that the officer left in a hurry.

Marcus turned to Aragoth, and said, “It’s time for your first injection.”

“Good, just ten more days, and ten injections in total, and I’ll be who I should’ve been born as,” Aragoth grinned, and excitedly followed Marcus out of his office. Dreaming of shedding the tall lanky skin of Steve, and become Aragoth the perfect man.