Phil and Philmore had decided to stay and work on our guild house, while the rest of us headed north. There were few rabbits that needed killing on the way. I knew of the farmstead that Nise was leading us to, but as far as I could recall there was no quests associated with the location.

Blaze was being unnaturally quiet, which was nice for a change. Had to admit that he had improved a lot. Sure he had taken over Ed’s role of being the jerk, and constantly challenging me, but the sexists comments had stopped. It seemed that the others had finally spoken or knocked some sense into him.

“The entrance to the root cellar should be twenty paces behind the main house,” Nise said. We just gave her a nod and proceeded towards the burnt down farmstead. There were two copses of trees in front of the house, one on the left and one on the right.

As we arrived in front of the house, a loud whistle sounded, and four players stepped out from the burnt down ruins. I recognized Iron Bear and two of the Shadowguards.

Kira hissed, “On the left and right too.”

Looking around, I saw that we were indeed surrounded. My guildmates had already drawn their weapons, Ed had summoned a level 6 earth elemental and were starting to take up a defensive formation, when Iron Bear called out, laughter in his voice. “We got you now!”

Knowing that he had a short fuse, and seeing that my guildmates needed some time to apply buffs and otherwise prepare, I decided to do the one thing I could do; piss him off and keep him talking. Trying to put as much condescension as possible into my voice, I asked loudly, “Are you sure you want to do this? Again?”

“Shut up Damian, we got you outnumbered eleven to nine, you and that bitch aren’t fighters.”

“You outnumbered us twenty to five last time, what makes you think these odds are better?”

“No hordes of rabbits can save you this time! And we got better fighters,” Iron Bear shouted, his voice having gone up a few octaves.

“I count only ten of you, and remember the time I beat you and one of your pals by myself?” Kira decided to twist the knife a bit more.

“You should count again,” Blaze said. I turned my head to look at him, and to my astonishment I saw him walking forward, seemingly without a care.

Ed was the one to voice my question, “Blaze, what are you doing?”

Looking back over his shoulder as he reached the group in front of us, Blaze said in a loud voice, “You really think I’m going to keep working for a madman? Got a better offer.”

“Good choice, I’ll make sure you’re richly rewarded,” one of the Shadowguards said.

I was confused, sure I knew he was not entirely happy, but outright betrayal was not the Liam I knew. The Liam I knew from when I was a teacher would not even rat out who had hacked the virtual classroom. Even though it had cost him almost three month’s worth of detention, because he had warned some kids about the changes before it happened. I had to know why he would do this. “Li—Blaze, why are you doing this?”

He gave a short laugh before answering, “You should know me well enough by now, Teach. I do what I have always done, you said it was one of my most remarkable qualities in all those conversations with my mother.”

That made no sense, I had never said anything to his mother that would equate to betraying friends or employers. If anything, one of the qualities I had told his mother about was his loyalty. Could I have misjudged someone that badly?

“Enough talking, it’s time you all die. And this is just the first of many, we will hunt you each and everyday until you quit,” one of the Shadowguards said, Lem was his name as far as I could recall from when I saw them at the docks, as he took a step forward.

That was when all hell broke loose. In between the front group and ours, a player appeared out of nowhere. Spinning around, I heard the whistling sound as he threw a handful of objects. Not at us, but at the group in front of us. A second later Blaze cast Burning Hands, engulfing the group in front of us in the flames shooting from his hands.

The Shadowguard who had appeared out of nowhere, looked over his shoulder and shouted, “Deal with the two other groups, Blaze and I got this one!”

“Traitor!” Lem shouted at the same time, as he ran out of Blaze’s flames and headed straight for the Shadowguard that was helping us, who I recognized as Hei. I grabbed Nise, and dragged her under the cart, shielding her with my body.

From under the cart, I heard Ed giving orders, “Kira your party takes those in the east, I’ll take care of the west. Robin help me, the rest of you go help Blaze.”

“What the heck is going on?” I heard Robert call out, confusion evident in his voice. Just before he let out a roar. Looking to the east I saw he was charging at the group, with Kira right next to him. Just as they were about to reach them, Kira was enveloped in a cloud of darkness. I recognized it as Shadow Cloak, she had mentioned she had taken it, but it was the first time I saw her use it.

As the darkness clashed with one of the players, red streaks of light shot out of the darkness in an unpredictable pattern, with an ever increasing pace. From the west I heard a detonation, and I looked over. I saw a cloud of dirt fall to the ground, and the three enemies there had been knocked to the ground. I saw no sign of Ed’s elemental. I could only come up with one conclusion. ‘Maybe he used Premature Severing.’

As soon as I had thought that, two new earth elementals shot up out of the ground. Both of them level four. That meant he had upgraded Summon Elemental to Apprentice, which allowed him to control two elementals at the same time, but they had to share the skill points he had to distribute, making them individually weaker. Robin used the knocked down state of the enemies wisely, and shot them repeatedly with Shackle Shot preventing them from getting to their feet.

Looking forward, I saw that Blaze was backing away from Iron Bear, parrying and deflecting with his staff one second, blasting a spell in Iron’s face the other. Hei was fighting the other three at the same time, bobbing and weaving to duck spells and dagger thrusts being aimed at him. His left hand suddenly crackled with energy, and he grabbed Lem’s left hand. Lem froze up, while Hei dashed past him, delivering a few light cuts.

Hei’s target was the guy behind Lem, trying to cast Lay on Hands. A kick to the knee, followed by a dagger slash at his neck, was enough to interrupt the casting of the spell. Hei spun around delivering a kick to the guy’s sternum, sending him tumbling backwards to the ground.

That was when my guildmates entered the fray, and it became hard to see what specifically went on. A few minutes of intense fighting passed by, with me and Nise hiding beneath the cart. I only managed to catch a few more glimpses of the fight, but it looked like we were winning.

“Clear west,” Ed called out.

Which was followed by Blaze calling out, “Clear north.”

“Please don’t kill me, I was just following orders,” someone begged loudly to my right. A meaty thud was the next sound I could hear. Then the sucking sound of something sharp being pulled out of a body.

Robert was the one to call out, “Clear east.”

Crawling out from under the cart, I looked around throwing a few quick Inspects at my guild members. All of them were alive, though some of the front liners having pretty low health bars. With regards to Hei I could not see his health bar since he was not a member of the guild.

“What the hell was that Blaze?” Kira demanded.

Ed agreed with her, “Yeah, I’d like to know that as well.”

“We got more important things to discuss,” I said loudly. “Original five you stay here, we need to talk. Petals and Marion, take the rest of them into the root cellar with Nise. We’ll gather the loot up here.”

Turning to the—former?— Shadowguard I said, “Hei, please go with them, I’ll talk with you in a moment.”

He did not look happy about that. Nevertheless, he nodded and went off to join them. I then focused on Blaze. “What the heck Liam? Tell me what the heck is going on.”

“Hey, I cleared the whole thing with Robin,” he protested.

“No you didn’t,” Robin said immediately.

“Yeah I did, I came to you about the friend that wanted to join. Got the contract and the stipulations approved and everything.”

“You didn’t tell me that it involved provoking Dawnguard,” she said a bit shrilly.

“So what? They’ve been killing Damian over and over again,” Blaze protested.

One-Eye nodded. “I agree, I think it’s about damn time we struck back at them.”

“But we’re not ready,” Kira groaned.

“What do you mean ready? They only got a few guys here, we can take them,” One-Eye said.

“We’re talking about protecting everyone in the real world,” Ed said with a frown.

Blaze had a confused look on his face. “Real world?”

“Yeah, Marcus threatened to kill our families if we made too much of a ruckus. We’ve been trying to toe the line,” Kira said.

“Who the hell is Marcus?” Blaze and One-Eye asked at the same time. Just phrasing it a bit differently, but the question was the same.

Sighing at the realization. I knew I should have told them, they had just seemed so disinclined to believe me, and had been openly hostile or distant. “I didn’t tell the two of you, because you didn’t seem inclined to believe me. One of you ignored me, and the other turned openly hostile. But here goes.”

I then told them of Marcus’ visit, at first they just looked unbelieving at me, but then it changed a bit. At least with Blaze, who said, “Damnit, I didn’t believe you, but after Hei tried to get me to join Dawnguard the pieces started to fit together. All the things Hei told me fit with what you had told me.”

“Wait, you’re not really believing him?” One-Eye grumbled.

“I mean, I can’t afford to, my mother and brother is out there, and too many things have been happening to explain them away,” Blaze said.

“That doesn’t matter, we need to circle the wagons. But we don’t have a lot of credits to do it. The forty five platinum I just put in gives us around eighteen thousand credits, which is not enough for everyone,” I said. “And we don’t even know how who everyone is.”

“What do you mean not knowing who everyone is?” One-Eye asked.

“We got Blaze’s mother and brother. Alicia’s mother. That’s three, and we can just about cover those three. Then we have Petals’ and Nise’s family, we don’t know how many they are. And we got Hei and his son as well,” I said.

“Hei got a—” Blaze just started to ask, when something or someone tackled me to the ground.

Looking up with blurry eyes, I saw Hei’s snarling face above me, and felt a dagger at my throat. Looking back he hissed, “Anyone make a move and I kill him.”

“Go ahead Shenshun, it won’t change the fact that your son is in danger,” I said.

“You told him my real name?” Hei asked through gritted teeth while looking at Blaze.

“No, he didn’t even know about this. None of them did,” Blaze protested.

Getting picked up by the hair hurt, even if it was just a few centimeters. “How do you know my name and about my son?”

“I’m guessing you heard the conversation, used one of the invis scrolls you like to carry and then used Fade before the scroll ran out. Am I right?” I asked, strangely calm. After having died a few times ingame, it did not scare me anymore. At least not death by another player’s hand, since I would not lose any XP. I also knew Hei’s temperament pretty well.

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“You heard what we talked about. I’m from the future, one day I was killed and woke up in the past. I used to know you in my previous life.”

“Bullshit.”

“Your son must be around three or four at this time. He calls you Shi-Shi, because that’s what his mother called you. She died maybe a half a year ago?”

“How the hell do you know all that? No one knows that,” he asked, relaxing his grip on my hair, but the dagger did not waver one bit.

“As I said we were friends in my previous life. In the future. It was why I knew the five of you were Shadowguards and warned the others. Why I knew you use Disguise often, so I’ve been using Observe, which is how I saw through your spell in the inn. But what I don’t know is why you would betray Dawnguard?” I said. “I know you were unhappy about the change in the contracts they’re making about now, but in my previous life you stayed with them. So you mustn’t have signed the new deal, which allows you to leave them.”

“This is surreal,” Hei whispered. “Yeah, they’re making changes to the contracts. Giving us a higher salary but removing all shares of profit. They’re also binding us for the next ten years with an iron-clad non-compete clause, haven’t signed it yet, which is why I wanted to make a shift after speaking with Blaze and hearing his offer. You only bind me for three years in one game, if I don’t like how it goes, I can always find another game to play.”

He took a deep breath. “Ever since Marcus entered Dawnguard, things have been weird. The new contracts, changes made to the inner council. Instead of just laughing it off, Aragoth went full psycho when you guys took away his moment of glory. Threatened to fire us if we did not waste our time to go deal what seemed like some insignificant upstart guild.”

“It’s important that we get you and your son into a pod-hotel,” I said. Still with a knife at my throat.

“We’re already living in one, and I transferred next months’ fees to your corporate accounts just before the attacks, as the contract stipulated. Blaze promised me shares in the guild,” he said.

“Everyone receives shares of the guild assets, right now we’re not having a whole lot of extra to use for paying out bonuses,” I said. “But we’ll be paying your MWT and your hotel expenses.”

“Not exactly what Blaze said, but we can work with that. Your story seems far-fetched, but I guess brainwashing technology would explain Aragoth’s unstable behaviour. Fuck this is heavy,” Hei whispered.

“As soon as you sign the contract and join the guild, Perennial should start moving your pod to our hotel,” I said.

“Fine, I’ve already burnt my bridge with Dawnguard,” Hei said and removed his dagger from my throat. Standing up, his eyes became unfocused and a moment later, the event log announced that Hei had joined the guild.

Standing up I looked around at the others. “Okay here’s what we’re going to do. Blaze and Ed is going to get Blaze’s mother and brother. Pay for them to get here. Robin you grab Marion, Miss Elleby and Alicia, you’re going to get Alicia’s mother out of the Coffins. I’ll grab Petals and Nise, see if I can get their family to join, or at least take precautions.”

“Are we just going to log off here?” Blaze asked.

“In the root cellar, while the other keeps a watch,” I said and led the way over there.

Marion was the first to spot me as I entered the cellar. “Hey Damian, I lost track of that Hei guy.”

“Don’t worry, he’s right here,” I said. Looking around I saw it had been a large cellar once upon a time, but a lot of it was caved in. I spotted Petals and Nise fairly quickly, and called them over.

“Listen, I didn’t want to bring this up just yet, wanted to give it a bit more time,” I started to explain.

“Bring up what?” Petals asked.

“You know about my false arrest, right?” I asked, and they both nodded. “Well here it goes. It was orchestrated by someone in Dawnguard, and he has made a few threats in the real world. I thought we could just ride it out, but with what just happened, I’m afraid he will take this badly. If he had pull enough to get a judge to compromise his career, I don’t know what the guy might do next. I’m worried, and want to protect your families. The safest place I can think off is inside the hotels.”

“So that’s what you guys been hiding lately,” Nise said.

“My brother works for the BIS, we can tell him,” Petals said.

“I don’t have any proof, but we can warn him, what about the rest of your family?” I asked.

“Just my parents, both of them have no siblings or other living relatives.”

“Good, what about you Nise?”

“Uhm, I’ve both my parents and an aunt and her two kids,” Nise said, looking a bit scared.

“Are any of your family highly salaried?”

“No, they barely make enough to pay for the MWT and our apartment,” Nise said.

Rose nodded. “Same, except for my brother. He’s been helping out a bit, otherwise I would not have been able to pay for the month.”

“Do you think we can convince them to join us ingame?” I asked

“Not sure, but you just earned more in an hour than my parents and aunt make combined in a month,” Nise said.

“Okay, let’s log out now and see if we can catch them at home,” I said.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Petals protested.

“Are any of your family working night?” I asked, to which both of them shook their head. “Perfect then. Let's go see your family then. Nise, when you log out pull Phil out. He got access to the guild funds, get him to take everything out and convert to credits immediately.”

Rose’s parents had been easy to convince. Their work at the factory was on a day to day basis, and the boss daily threatened with replacing his human workers with AIs. Just showing them that it was possible to earn a living wage in the game and they were onboard, even willing to pay for their own pod the first month. They saw it as an investment.

Denise’s family had been a bit harder to convince, but some intense begging from Denise had them agreeing. Luckily they all lived in the same apartment. That was when the next roadblock appeared: They were not stoked about leaving their job without warning, nor having to invest the money needed for the rest of the month. Then Denise pulled a card I did not know we had. Phil had given her access to his savings. Apparently she had the AI manager out of the pod before we left, and told him everything.

So far the night had been successful, but I did not have high hopes about convincing a policeman to leave his job, or that we were not full of shit. When the door opened, it was the business end of a gun that was the first thing I noticed, before I got a look at the man behind it.

“What are you doing here at this time of night with my sister?” a gruff voice said.

“Goddarnit Josh, put the gun away,” Rose cursed.

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” her brother said, but nonetheless the gun was withdrawn. He was dressed in a robe, clearly we had just woken him.

From inside the apartment another male voice drifted out, “Honey, who is it?”

“Just my little sister, and some old guy. And another chick,” Josh answered.

“Sounds salacious, invite them in.”

“You heard him, come inside,” Josh said and stepped aside, letting his sister inside.

“Uhm, hi,” Denise said embarrassed and a bit frightened as she stepped inside.

Sticking out a hand to Josh, I introduced myself. “Hey, sorry to disturb you at this time. It’s important though. My name is—”

“I know who you are,” he said, his eyes contracting a bit. “I was there when Ken Masters pulled you out of interrogation. Now what the heck have you dragged my sister into?”

“Can we step inside?” I asked.

“Sure, first door on the left,” he said. Stepping inside, I was confused why he said to go through the door just a few steps into the apartment. Confused because hallway opened up into the living room, where I saw the girls and another man dressed in a robe.

I was about to pass by the door, when a hand on my shoulder steered my through the open door and into a small office. Turning around, I saw he had closed the door and were in the process of pressing some buttons on a panel next to the door.

“There, safe and secure from all listening devices. Must warn you that the conversation is being recorded for my safety. So what did you want to talk about?” he asked.

“Well, since you know who I am, you are aware of the weird circumstances of my arrest,” I said.

“Yeah, a judge lost his job, refuses to tell anyone on whose request he signed an illegal warrant. My colleague fired for carrying out the warrant, because there’s no record of him being ordered to do it. My commanding officer is suddenly a murderer, a sadist and on the run from the authorities. Sure I know what seems to be going on, but not what’s really going on or why. So please enlighten me, why everyone involved with you has bad stuff happening to them,” he said with arms crossed. The gun still in his hand.

Not how I wanted the conversation to go, but it was better than nothing. “Some psycho in the game got mad about us earning achievement in front of them. Got humiliated on a live stream. Next thing I know there’s the whole false arrest. Don’t know how he pulled that off, but I’ve been receiving threats, and if he can corrupt a judge and someone in the BIS, well I’m taking the threat seriously.”

“So why the visit now, in the middle of the night?”

“Some things happened inside the game that might piss him off. One of my guildmates acted without my knowledge. Anyway, I can’t take any chances, and I wanted to protect all my guild members’ family.”

“What about the rest of my family?” Josh asked with a serious look.

“We’ve convinced them to join us in the game, they should be able to earn more money doing that than their current job. And while they’re in the hotel—well it’s the safest place I can think of.”

“I agree with that assessment,” he said, while studying my face intensely. “I can’t help but feel you’re hiding things still, and it doesn’t make sense. But I’ve investigated other crimes committed because of in game beefs before, they can turn nasty. Rich corporate brats taking things too seriously, and I can’t deny the whole business around your arrest reeks of it.”

“I’m glad you believe me,” I said.

“Not saying I necessarily do. Just that something fishy is going on.”

“Can I convince you to move into one of the pod-hotels?” I asked after a half minute of silence.

“No, Ben and I can take care of ourselves. We’re both officers, we can take care of ourselves,” he said with a hint of finality.

After sighing, I said, “Please reconsider it, I’m afraid of what this lunatic might do.”

“Give me a name and I’ll look into it.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Either you give me a name, or the two of us will have a problem right here and now,” he said, flexing his muscles.

“Marcus Goldman.”

“Good, now I’d like for you to take my sister and your other friend and get them back to the hotel. If he’s as much a threat as you’ve insinuated, it’s better if she’s not outside the hotel,” he said and opened the door. “Oh, and if something happens to her or my family, we’ll be having a less friendly talk. Understood?”

“Understood,” I said as I left the room. Rose and Denise was standing right outside it, waiting.

“What did you talk about?” Rose demanded of her brother.

“Nothing you need to worry about little sister,” Josh said. “It was good to see you, but you guys need to leave. Ben and I need our sleep before we start our shift.”

With a round of rushed goodbyes, and protests and demands from Rose, we were ushered out of the apartment.