In 2028, right at the peak of the fully immersive VR boom, a seemingly unimpressively titled game, suddenly dropped onto the grand, global stage known as the internet, causing a storm like none had ever seen before. Titled, Wizard's Quest, the game was an indie project released by an underground company no one had ever heard of before. No one really even knew how many devs worked on Wizard's Quest, or who they even were. So for many months after it's launch, Wizard's Quest sat at a woeful 0 active players. But after a couple bored streamers eventually logged on to the Smoke Games Library one fateful night in a beautiful mix of drunken and high stupors, the group had eventually found the game hidden on the 4th page of the library marketplace sitting at an alluring $5 price point. It was the cheapest game claiming to be a triple A title that anyone had ever seen, so, expecting a scam they decided to give it a shot. Soon after creating accounts, characters and then logging in, the group very quickly realized, the game was anything but unimpressive.
Hundreds of painstakingly realistic planets, each holding their own realms, dotted the massive server. Some planets were resource worlds, massive realms full of rare minerals and mob drops for only the most dedicated of players to find. Most resource worlds had strict pvp bans, and so, coupled with a thriving, player driven, universe wide economy, many eventually of these planets rapidly evolved. Everything from player developed and run countries, to massive trading Mecca's, to massive guild bases, billions of players and thousands of player built companies erupted across the resource worlds. Some players would gamble big and lose it all, others would become vastly wealthy forces of influence.
Some planets were story planets. These were war torn, beautiful realms, chock full of violence, betrayal, magic, dungeons and excitement. Thousands of individually designed countries with deep sociopolitical and socioeconomic disparities of all kinds thoroughly blew players' minds. While some tried to comprehend how an underground company had been capable of so much, others ran deep into the story worlds. There they tempered their skills, refined their magic and fought viciously for glory and titles. Since pvp was allowed in the vast majority of story worlds, guild wars and player crimes were heavily prevalent. These were also the only worlds where players were able to have guild owned territory for their guild halls, and so many guilds eventually coagulated, forming titanic organizations. Though they had all started nobly, with intentions of protecting their fellow players, many guilds had eventually turned to in-game crimes like extortion and loan-sharking, and then real world crimes, like actual extortion and loan-sharking.
Regardless of the type of world a player wanted to visit, they would need some form of interstellar travel. For the majority of the game, this was done in starships. These beautiful wonders of engineering could be crafted by at least 2 and up to an infinite amount of players. Starships could range from small crafts, to leviathan sized monstrosities that dwarfed skyscrapers, the end result relied on the skill of the players building and the amount of resources they could scrounge.
Once a player reached level 400 however, Stellar Mounts became available to wizards. They were impossibly rare to find and were only ever dropped or crafted as eggs.
A level 400 ArchMagi wizard would have to train their mounts from hatchlings to adulthood for them to go from pet sized creatures to large enough to be ridden. Finally, upon reaching ancient rank, the Stellar Mount would evolve, becoming celestial versions of themselves, and would gain the ability to allow their wizards to ride atop their mounts and take to the stars. But once they did, the opportunities were truly limitless.
Players with starships or stellar mounts, could take their operations from planetary to galaxy-wide. So it was only a matter of time till players eventually found out, that the space between the planets was a vast pvp free zone where unsuspecting starships and players could be easily attacked and have their resources stolen. These revelations soon led to no less than 3 Great Arcane Wars being fought in the game, each more destructive than the last as the general playbase would continuously get more powerful in the years during and between the wars. Space travel eventually deteriorated to war fleets guarding massive trading ships outfitted with many heavy guns and stellar mounts bred specifically for speed and strength in battle, traveling in assault groups coordinated by individual players, parties, or guilds. Stellar exploration in Wizard's Quest turned from a peaceful way to venture the stars, to a soulless operation of stellar mount eugenics and starship capitalism to traverse a battlefield perpetually littered with fragments of trillions of starships and stellar mount corpses. Hundreds of breeding factories for the most vicious, powerful stellar mounts kept popping up all over both the story and resources worlds despite constant efforts to destroy them. Forcing gene molding on the Stellar Mounts had eventually reduced the different races of mounts, as it didn't matter that the devs had made them all beautiful and unique anymore, the meta was fast or powerful, no matter what they ended up looking like.
This anarchy went on unchallenged until the devs, in an attempt to restore order and bring an end to the madness that was the 3rd Great Stellar War, hopefully for good, developed a supreme document. It was titled The Arcane Order of Conventions. The guildmasters of all the great guilds at the time, were brought to a massive crystal palace floating high above the clouds in the story world Areon. In-game streamers, many of whom were licensed by news massive corporations, live streamed the monumental moment 300 guild leaders signed the document into effect. The guild leaders were incentivized to sign the document with the gift of a personal once in a lifetime, epic item to benefit their guild.
At that point in the game, FatedWhisper, Bryn's guild, had been a massive, formidable force, standing at well over 1,200 wizards strong. They'd grown from a simple trading and adventuring guild, consisting of Bryn, his 2 best friends, and a few eventual randoms, to becoming a massive military force which had contributed greatly in the 2nd and 3rd Great Stellar Wars. Under the leadership of Axelrod, FatedWhisper had both provided invaluable resources for rations, produced millions of units of usable gear for the Allied force, and had even gone on to win 8 key victories in major battles, both in space and on story worlds, between both Stellar Wars. Thus, on the copy of the Conventions that every guild was given, the name of Bryn's wizard, Axelrod, could clearly be seen.
Bryn yawned and rubbed his eyes. He really shouldn't have stayed awake so late, and now was fighting dreams of his glory days of Wizard's Quest, trying to not miss his subway stop for school, again. Any more late arrivals and he would be taken from saludetorian and just put among the other graduating honors students.
"Still," Bryn sighed to himself, watching the underground mosaics pass by as the train continued to move, "that shit had nothing on when the devs actually released their own fully immersive VR version of WQ."
The introduction of VR didn't have much of an effect on the solo PVE players at first as most couldn't afford a VR pod to even see what it was like, but on the guild level, a massive chasm in capability between the VR players and the traditional players began to grow. It never stopped growing. After all, why wouldn't it? The thousands of well timed, practiced keystrokes executed in minutes that pro-players had once championed, had suddenly become outmatched by the even smoother, and much faster, wild flailings of noob players with VR pods. When those noobs suddenly began sharpening their lack of skills, on top of having a much more fluid platform than everyone else, massive power imbalances began appearing across the massive server holding hundreds of millions of active, daily players. Without The Arcane Order of Conventions, Bryn had definitely no doubt that a 4th Great Stellar War would've already long since broken out. One that regular players would've been held at a massive disadvantage for.
The thought of a ranker player with a VR pod sent shivers of fear up Bryn's spine.
"Thankfully we avoided that mess," the teen murmured as the train finally reached his stop, opened its doors and the sleep deprived Bryn disembarked, "For now at least, lord knows those braindead apes are still trying to find a way around it."
***
Alan wiped a smudge of General Tso chicken from the side of his lip with a napkin and set down his cheap, wooden chopsticks. He, Woody and Bryn had gone off the highschool campus for their lunch period. The three boys had been chatting and talking about life, college apps and the like, when a thought suddenly occurred to Alan.
"Hey man, got you a present," the half Japanese- half Filipino, 18 year old teen said out of the blue. He reached into his bookbag and pulled out a medium sized package.
Bryn had a deeply confused look on his face but took the package anyway, putting down his own cheap, wooden chopsticks. Woody, having no such restriction, continued to obnoxiously slurp his chow mein in Bryn's ear, while comically forcing his face, still with noodles dangling from his mouth, in the direction of the package. Bryn laughed while shoving away the caucasian boy's face with his other, non-occupied hand. Truthfully, the thought of even being slightly annoyed by his best friends' actions never registered as a possibility to Bryn.
How could it?
They'd all known each other since any of them could even process conscious thought. Alan and Bryn were cousins on their father's side, so both boys were half Japanese. Bryn's mother was a Jamaican nurse and Alan's mother was a Korean nurse, both were working in a hospital in Kingston where they had met Bryn and Alan's fathers. They had both been serving in the Japanese military at the time, and had been on a joint, US-Japanese marine base where they had both fallen for the pair of nurses. Four years later, and each had their own families with sons. Alan and Bryn would later meet Woody in preschool, and since then, the three had been inseparable.
Slowly cutting open the tape on the Amazon package with his keys, Bryn's eyes widened in shock. Within the somewhat heavy package there were two items, firstly, an "11th times the charm!" Custom card, and an immaculate, miniature recreation model of Axelrod fighting against Volrab.
"How... how..." Bryn started, his brain thoroughly fried as he tried to process the gifts, "how?"
"Dumbass, it took you so long to beat that fucking dragon, that I had enough time to go through so many versions of this that I even added Axelrod to the model," Alan said with a blank look. His pimply, glasses laden face broke out into a wide grin, "soooooo, the famous guildmaster's a ranker now, finally our guild will be safe from attacks for a few more years." He pumped his hands in the air before falling backwards into the faded Chinese restaurant booth with a comfortable stretch of his arms.
"So..." Alan asked with a smug grin, his excitement barely contained, "what class did you pick?"
Bryn felt his hands begin to get clammy and he winced internally, his memory of the previous night brought back his feelings of rage and depression. The dark skinned boy closed his eyes and breathed shaky, slow breaths as Woody and Alan shared slightly worried, anxious glances at each other. They knew their guildmaster and friend better than anyone, it wasn't often that Bryn acted like that.
Slowly, in a sorrowful, pained whisper, Bryn recounted the harrowing tale of the previous night to the pair of hushed, somber, and progressively more downcast faces of Alan and Woody. Bryn hung his head in shame the entire time. After he had finished, he kept the position, too wretched to even attempt to look his friends in the eye. They had been depending on him for this victory, the guild had been depending on him for this victory.
And he'd turned up with Jack Squat.
"Urrrrrgggghh," Alan let out a long, defeated groan, "goddamn it aunty," the teen whined.
Woody just whistled in shock. "Fuck man," he said sincerely, clapping Bryn on the shoulder, "you wanna hit my dab pen broski? You gotta look after your mental health."
Bryn sniffed, making puppy eyes. He silently nodded in thanks and began to pocket the pen to hit on their way back to campus.
Alan sighed, "weed ain't fixing this man," the teen said as he snatched the pen from his cousin's hand and took an accentuated, long drag. Breathing out the lemony sage flavored cloud of THC, Alan groaned again softly while he handed the pen back to Bryn. Rubbing his aching temples, the teen put his elbows on the faded out table in front of them, holding his head in his hands as he stared long and hard at his cousin. "I know you defeated Volrab, I was online and I saw the global announcement that Axelrod had opened The Gates of The Deific Planes." The 18 year old shook his head, "So you definitely hit level 800... but you're telling us you didn't actually walk through the gates to ascend to godhood and get a ranker class?"
"Yup. Not to mention the damn dungeon doesn't autosave until you pass the fucking gates," Bryn murmured with venom.
Woody groaned as he sat back, the back of his hoodie pressed into the wall of the booth they were in. He ruffled his ringed fingers through his golden brown hair. "Dude forget your mom, Kathy will actually skin you alive if you try attempting Volrab again. You helped her to grind to 500, but you also missed like 6 whole dates my guy.... she's starting to make plans to sell your PC on eBay."
Bryn nodded sagely, eyes closed. "That is true, she made me make the listing to prove she was serious," was all he replied. He huffed and took a long drag of the pen himself. "I just hope the dungeon's class instance didn't close."
"Yeah, no shit," Alan murmured, brow furrowed. Giving Bryn a soft pat on the shoulder, he gave his cousin a gentle shake. "Chin up cuz, you're still level 800 now and at least 20 million players know you got the killing Volrab event badge, it'll be over 200 million by midday when the vod of your Final Script hits the ViewTube trending page. So even if anything happens, we can always just submit a bug report or something to the devs and they'll fix ya up good." Alan tapped his temple with a chopstick, "see why I tell you to record every dungeon? Now we get proof, and ad revenue to buy more blueprints, always trust your tactician bossman."
"Yeah, I guess so," Bryn conceded. Taking a sip of his sweet tea and another bite of his sesame chicken, the dark skinned teen waved his chopsticks at Woody and Alan. Mouth slightly full he asked them both, "so what have y'all been up to?"
Alan gave a pained chuckle, "don't get me fucking started on what I've been up to." His eyes became sorrowful and downcast, "so remember how I was gonna grind the Naa'fi dungeon for some unobtanium? Yeah apparently she does drop the damn ore, but only if you somehow manage to beat her with more than 30% of your health remaining!"
Bryn and Woody immediately winced equally pained expressions.
Alan's ranker experience had unlocked priceless information for the trio of friends, exciting and scaring Bryn and Woody with every new revelation, while also providing priceless information on the Deific Planes for them and the rest of their guild. At the start of Alan's harrowing, lonesome journey through divinity, he had discovered that he could no longer use his celestial grade gear anymore. Even worse, since ascending and choosing to become a Heavenly Star Forger, Alan had to experience all of his previous legendary gear, the same gear that had gained him his fame, being immediately destroyed.
The game had shattered every piece of gear he wore, including rings and amulets, and absorbed them into his stats, becoming the base for his new divine stats. However, as he had recounted to them, the pain really started, when his old weapons, his magnum opus, the Fabled Tinkerer's Volcanic Greaves, crumbled away as well.
For the past year, the boy had been trapped in his game-imposed hell trial, attempting to obtain all the divine material he needed to finish crafting the 9 Bladed Star Keys that were supposed to be his only weapons going forward. Upon completing the 9 keys, any Heavenly Star Forger could bring them together with a basic class spell to momentarily manifest their unique, divine combat and utility artifact, the Constellation War Hammer. Alan and every other Heavenly Star Forger's problem with this was that the 9 Bladed Star Keys were completely composed of unobtanium. In fact, all ranker classes demanded that the ranker craft a ranker weapon that was inexplicably necessary for the progression of their class and the single most important piece of gear for a divine wizard. And every ranker weapon was comprised solely of 300 pieces of unobtanium.
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This specific metal was one of the rarest of the normal grade, god ore found in the Deific Planes. The fact that there were only two known ways to find unobtanium, either by farming the ore by mining for years in some deep, wretched hole, on a massive resource planet plagued with dangerous divine mobs or beat it out of the boss Naa'fi, cemented the devs as demons in the minds of rankers.
Naa'fi was the first floor boss newly ascended players would have to deal with after entering the Deific Planes. While in the early stages of the Deific Planes, divine field bosses were still dangerous manifestations of game code that made early stage rankers flee in fear. Compared to her peers however, Naa'fi's power was simply unfair. She was a dwarf goddess, clad in blue and black robes, who wielded ice and shadow magic. Striking out horrifying magic with her massive battle hammer, her spells would easily overpower the teams of rankers who went up against her, picking off the newly minted gods as if they were still noob players. Her hammer was a beautiful weapon of arcane devastation, the hammer's head was completely comprised of carved shadow ice, and the staff was a pitch black material manifested from the shadows of the void.
Aside from being completely broken for a "beginner floor boss," her actual might ranged in power closer to a mid-stage, divine floor boss, sometime late last year, around December, she had also eventually been found out to drop unobtanium, though at the time the news first hit the internet, none exactly knew how to actually get her to drop the incredibly rare crafting item.
While the news had certainly pushed hundreds of early stage rankers to single mindedly throw themselves at Naa'fi until she eventually shat out the ore, it wasn't until months later, after constant failures, that the 800, incredibly few, ranker players began to eventually realize there was a secret quest attached. The same one that Alan had recently figured out. Information on divine bosses was usually a closely guarded secret as most rankers and their guilds had the same idea in mind, consolidate information and grow power. Most rankers were in a race for dominance, to finish their ranker weapon, begin to consolidate their power and then fill the new, incredibly large power vacuum that just opened up to them. Unfortunately, many also held the intention of then returning to the mortal servers and sacking the mortal players, forcing the rest of the players unprotected from guilds with rankers, into submission where they could. Due to not knowing the secret of Naa'fi, many rankers ended up dying hundreds of times to Naa'fi before they had even completed half of their basic ranker weapon. But, after the even fewer, hyper determined rankers eventually completed the sadistic task, the night and day difference in their magical output that ranker weapons brought, even basic ones, made every exhausted ranker backflip for joy.
Alan had only completed 6 of his 9 Bladed keys, and so had many more times to die to Naa'fi left to go before he could get to finish his ranker weapon. After the teen finished his dark retelling, Bryn and Woody sat dumbfounded. Woody was the only one out of the trio that hadn't gotten up to Volrab yet. Working increasing hours in his dad's auto body shop had been eating up much of his little remaining free time he could find in between being an honor student and school valedictorian, but the boy had been playing Wizard's Quest just as long as his two best friends. His wizard's mighty celestial level of 782 was surly one to be respected, but Woody had long since been humbled by watching his two, stronger, best friends get effortlessly mauled apart by the great crystal dragon. Nowadays, hearing Alan's ranker exploits only seemed to stim Woody's already elevated blood pressure as he came to truly appreciate the sheer magnitude of the explosive power cliff hidden behind the Gates of the Deific Planes. Bryn, as a new maybe ranker, was also greatly depressed at Alan's news. The once benevolent game devs now looked to the dark-skinned teen to be depraved lunatics, releasing the sweet, sweet, irresistible drug that was late game Wizard's Quest, to its junkies it called players. Drip feeding the players with their desire for high fidelity magic and entertainment, through layers upon layers of cruel and unusual self-punishment.
Woody momentarily looked down and checked his watch.
"Ouch, 12:45 gents, it's about time we got a move on," he said as he packed up his empty food boxes into his plastic bag.
Shaken from their depressive stupors, Alan and Bryn did the same and soon the boys were on the city sidewalks, beginning the brisk trek back to their school while taking turns pulling from Woody's dab pen.
Bryn let out a long stream of smoke from his nostrils. He thought silently for a moment.
"How's the trade deal with SkeletonGrip coming?" He asked in a grim voice.
The sudden tension that befell the group was thick as molasses. Even their walking pace collectively slowed.
"Don't fucking ask me that," Woody groaned, pressing his palms to his temples, futility attempting to relieve himself of the massive headache that had just formed. "They don't accept any trade deal we offer, we've been humiliated twice already, and if they reject a third deal I swear I'll skin their smug asshole Deputy Master alive."
Throughout their collective 11 years playing Wizard's Quest, the trio had seen many guilds come and go. From tiny collections of friends, to massive conglomerates funded by real corporations, guilds of all shapes and sizes, had come and gone during the game's long tenure. One such massive conglomerate guild, SkeletonGrip, had become a painful sore spot in the behinds of Bryn, Alan and Woody. With Bryn as the founding GuildMaster, Alan as Vice Master and Woody as Deputy Master of the FatedWhisper guild, matters of diplomatic progress or unrest towards their guild and its allies were the main responsibility of the trio of friends first and foremost. A responsibility that meant they had sworn to handle the vast myriad of problems that came with leading such a once prominent organization with wit and patience beyond their years, lest they ruin FatedWhisper's legacy.
Sadly, despite their best, continuous efforts, the problem SkeltonGrip had become was turning into quite a cancerous one.
FatedWhisper's guildhall was a massive blue castle the guild members had lovingly come to nickname, Ol' Blueshanks. While the castle was certainly spellbinding and beautiful, it paled in comparison to where it stood. Hidden from view, thousands of feet in the air, resting unbothered within the center of a colossal, ringed mountain range known as the Crown of Mountains, sat the massive valley that was the home of the FatedWhisper guild. Sprawling orchards of green, yellow and red apples dotted the planes. Lush forests and bountiful farms painted the hills and valleys. Massive, gentle ponds laced with expensive enchantments, gave fish, clean drinking water, small amounts of experience points, and water for crafting to the inhabitants of the guild. Houses ranging from shacks to incredibly ornate mansions could also be seen dotting the territory. These were the individually built homes of guild members and since it was the pride and joy of many a player to eventually build themselves a beautiful home, many of these player mansions had been among the winning members of home decor, player fashion shows despite them having millions of entries every time.
Unfortunately, it was the very same beautiful abode that the FatedWhisper guild members enjoyed in abject peace, that SkeletonGrip was currently attempting to bully out from under them. Yet, even in the face of a threat as bold as SkeletonGrip, even in the face of war against a guild with 2 confirmed rankers and a possible 3rd rumored to exist, there was more than one reason Bryn refused to give up the territory.
2 massive ones in fact.
Regardless of his guild mates and their issues, not to say Bryn wasn't a relentlessly diligent and effective GM, the base of FatedWhisper had accumulated more than a few secrets that made it a little different from the norm and a treasure Bryn would die for before giving up. First was Ol' Blueshanks. The massive blue castle, despite its size, massively belied its strength and what it was actually doing while sitting there and looking pretty. Far more than just a figurehead of past glory days, Blueshanks was an artifact known as a Site of Prosperity.
Wizard's Quest differentiated itself from any game that had ever come before it in many ways. The absurdly high fidelity of its graphics engine, capable of running on any computer despite how shitty it may be may have been the first wonder, but it was soon eclipsed. By the time the game had gotten to VR, Bryn had been ready to accept there was nothing else the shadowy figures known as the dev group could do to surprise him. Then came the Site Artifacts. Sites were monstrous undertakings of in game effort. Even to purchase a blueprint for a simple one cost an eye-watering sum of well over 12 million gold. Bryn, Woody and Alan had long debated over the validity of spending such a sum of money, but when the trio came across the option to something called a Site of Prosperity while pursuing the game catalog, they bought the blueprint at an absurd value of 20 million gold coins, without a second thought.
After the guildmaster, along with his vice and deputy masters, had successfully crippled FatedWhisper's finances, they hollered in joy. If they were right about the call they had made, a Site of Prosperity would pay itself back tenfold, within that year alone. Sure it had taken well over 800 players to build and countless resources, but the experience infused into every droplet of water, blade of grass, piece of fruit and culinary dish silenced even the most disgruntled of voices. The fact that just by standing in the Site of Prosperity would also auto-repair broken gear was just a victory lap for everyone in FaterWhisper, and sensing imminent attack if it were ever to become common knowledge, the guildmembers had collectively sworn Blueshanks' existence to ultimate secrecy.
The second reason was one that was arguably even more important to Bryn.
After the signing of the great treaties years ago, Axelrod and subsequently FatedWhisper had been gifted a one of a kind treasure by the devs. The massive wall of blood-red mist that obscured the peaks of the Crown of Mountains, leading any would be invader to their deaths, was the gift the devs saw fit to bestow upon Axelrod. The Great Blood Mist was a living entity, sworn to protect FatedWhisper, it would devour, and attack any foolish enough to enter, lest they were given permission from any of the three leaders of FatedWhisper's guild. Over the years it had proven effective at stopping even celestial grade wizards that had attempted to breach its protection and gain access to the FatedWhisper guild territory. To give up either Ol' Blueshanks or the Blood Mist was unthinkable, to give up both, like SkeletonGrip was demanding they did, was simply not an option. Even if FatedWhisper were to be destroyed, any of its guildmembers would immediately rise to defend their territory if called. They loyalty the members of the guild had solidified underneath the fair and equal ruling of Bryn, Alan, and Woody, but it became firmly welded in loyalty by the abject splendor and decadence freely given to them with the guild's territory.
Woody let out a long sigh, "dude, high-key unless you definitively become a ranker, I give us 3 months tops before they try some stupid shit."
Alan, blew a long series of silent rings. "Much as I hate to give those fat, basement dwelling sweaties any credit, I can't take on 2 rankers myself man, and if they really have 3?" He shook his head and passed the dab pen back to Woody, "then forget about it, we're cooked."
"Do we know if any of their rankers got pods?" Woody asked cautiously.
"Would it even matter? A ranker is a ranker. VR pod, keyboard, touchscreen, controller, fucking panda art tablet? It doesn't matter what they use for controls," Alan said glumly, "we fucked if they show up."
Alan pushed his glasses back up his face and gave his cousin a half-hearted shrug, "we don't even know what'll happen if a ranker tries to go up against the Blood Mist, and I really don't want to find out." Alan's shoulders sagged, "god damn it aunty," he grumbled again for the umpteenth time that afternoon, "just 10 more seconds and we wouldn't even be having this conversation."
Bryn hadn't said anything in a while, his mind was currently working on a crackpot idea that he realized just might be stupid enough to work.
"Gents," the dark skinned teen said, grinning evilly and clapping his hands together, rubbing them maliciously, "y'all are forgetting something important."
Alan and Woody fell silent. Arched eyebrows were Bryn's only prompt to continue.
"Remember, Alan told us that the global message that I'd killed Volrab and hit 800 still happened right?" Bryn asked, looking at each of his best friends in the eye, waiting for them to pick up on his intentions.
"Oh shit!" Woody exclaimed suddenly, realization overcoming the teen with a sudden jolt as he covered his shocked mouth with a hand, "man's smokin on that devious pack, he's cooking!"
"...So we're gonna do a fake out, at least until we'll attempt one long enough to get you an actual ranker class?" Alan asked unamused, while he passive-aggressively cleaned his eye glasses.
"It's the only thing we can do." Bryn admitted, sighing in shame, his grin fading. "As long as they think we have at least 2 rankers, no one would be dumb enough to want that kinda smoke, even if they have 3. They're obviously not going to take any deal we offer, so war is inevitable. What we need is time to get ready, otherwise we're gonna lose real bad."
"Mmm, oof," Alan replied, pondering Bryn's words quietly while Bryn cringed from shame. "Ballsy cuz, really fucking ballsy," Alan eventually conceded. Sighing deeply, he continued, "sadly you're not wrong though, it's really the only real option we have." Alan rolled his eyes, "at least, it's the only option those degenerate losers are giving us, because if anyone of the millions of people that saw your victory message found out you actually didn't get a ranker class..."
"They'd napalm our asses off them mountains immediately," Woody finished darkly, "all our opps would come too. Every. Last. One. It'd be get back of the century, the perfect time for anyone we got beef with to put aside their shit, roll us up, smoke us like a pack, and get rid of FatedWhisper once and for all."
A resigned, "yup," with a heavy sigh from Bryn was the only thing their leader could reply.
The three boys fell silent. None had anything else to say to Woody's point. He was absolutely right. As it currently stood, FatedWhisper stood to lose far more than just Ol' BlueShanks, far more than the Great Blood Mist, far more than the Crown of Mountains. They stood in front of the precipice of losing their entire guild, an a culmination of 11 years of work, if they couldn't figure out a solution. It wouldn't just be a tragedy for them, but for the collective 340 active guild members they still had.
"Goddamn it," Alan grumbled, "this was supposed to be a happy day."
The only question on each of their minds, though none of the three boys knew how to voice it, was how much time they had left.
The rusty, green and grey gates surrounding their high school coming into view, saved any of the trio from having to give an answer they didn't have.
"I got BC Calc and Calc Physics study hall for the rest of the day," Alan said, turning around to dap up his friends before they split.
"Bryn and I got to do our grad speech review with Dean Michaels," Woody replied, returning his friend's dap as they each hit Woody's pen one last time.
"Ew filthy honors students!" Alan cried, cringing away from Woody's hand, but still snatching the pen and taking a hit.
"You're an honors student too, jackass," Bryn said with a laugh. "Don't be so obviously stressed just cause we got valedictorian and salutatorian and you didn't." Bryn blew a cloud of smoke into his cousin's face, causing Alan to cry out, turning his head away.
"Oh fuck you," Alan shot back with a middle finger jabbed into Bryn's belly button, "the AB Calc final was rigged and you know it."
"Maybe you're just a dumbass?" Woody chimed in with face innocence, "noggin a few brain cells too light there, 4-eyes?"
"That's rich coming from the drug addict valedictorian, I'm genuinely impressed you have any left to lose." Alan returned, folding his arms with a sassy stance.
"Pot calling the kettle black, and leave me and my 3 brain cells alone! After all, they were more than enough to easily school your dumbass," Woody said with a laugh, raising a causal middle finger to his friends while he walked off to the school.
"Yo, so we still on for the movies later with Terry and Jackie right?" Alan asked his cousin, turning to face Bryn.
"Yeah man defo," Bryn replied. Looking down to check his phone as a chime pinged from the device, he continued, "Kathy just paid for her ticket, did Ranna send you her $20 yet or are you paying for her? I gotta buy the tickets in like 30 minutes to keep the deal."
Alan huffed and shrugged, "honestly man, not sure." He scratched his head, "it sounds like her job's been griefing her heavy for the past few months and not paying her as much so I'll probably cover her's. But I know she'll hate herself for it. She doesn't want to feel like a leach, especially cause she's been profiled so much by filthy fucking racists in the damn deli." The tall teen's shoulders slumped with sadness. "Just wish she'd let me in, ya know? She's my girl but I feel like just another guy to her sometimes, like I can't help her, like I shouldn't help her... ever.... But then again, I don't want her to think that I don't believe she can solve her own problems." Alan groaned aloud, "the fuck do I do man?"
A hand fell on Alan's shoulder, breaking the boy from his depressed thoughts.
"Ay cuz, no spiraling," Bryn said with a soft smile, bonking his cousin on the head.
"Ow," Alan whined, rubbing his forehead.
"I'm serious though," Bryn continued, "you've got a good head on your shoulders and good intentions, you're a great guy and you'd be a bigger idiot than you already are if you don't think Ranna knows that, and trusts you to keep being that guy. Just don't sweat it. We're still gonna see the movie together tonight, and like you said, you just gotta trust her too man. Nothing else I can say but that."
Alan huffed in immense frustration, but forced himself to heel and at least let his cousin's words resonate to him. Eventually, the teen realized, Bryn was right. He couldn't control when bad things happened to her no matter how much he wanted to. Realizing that if he didn't get a hold of himself before he fell into a loop of insanity, Alan gave his head a vigorous shake to clear his head of the remaining negative thoughts, and gave a resigned dap up to his cousin. As they proceeded to then do their secret handshake they had created way back in 5th grade, Alan's gloomy mood was forcibly stripped from him with a resigned chuckle that eventually turned into his iconic belly laughter. The incredibly goofy and embarassing handshake the trio had made long ago in 5th grade, always made the them laugh uncontrollably, no matter how bad they were feeling.
They cousins then heard the study hall bell begin ringing, its dull wail emanating out into the streets from the large school building.
"Oof, shit, save the tears Romeo we're late," Bryn said wincing as the two began jogging the last few feet back to the school and up the building's stairs as quickly as possible.