Emmet looked at the message like it was an all consuming virus, this particular inbox partition named "administration" was used to announce new promotions, departures and a daily "birthdays" list for employees born that day, he never heard of anyone recieving anything else through that channel.
Tentatively reaching out to the packet while considering his options, its headline was "1/6" and that could just be so many things he wouldn't bet on any of them.
"Dear Emmet", well it could have started worse, "I hope my words find you in a comfortable space", his online office was indeed very comforting, "today our company will face many challenges", this was his morning routine so whatever would happen today hasn't started yet, "I have prepared a farewell package", wait what?, "in case you decide to resign before today ends", resign today?, "as you will see the package is denoted from the company value at the time of departure", numbers and denotations flooded his conciousness, "be advised that this packet has been sent to all our employees and their departure may also affect your own", none of these words made sense.
The faceless woman took a deep breath "by choosing to stay you will be exposed to deeper company secrets", his mind blanked at these words, "as today progresses you will face some hard decisions", this was how every promotion in the company was worded only it never spoke of a single day, "some of your decisions will have direct effects on your friends and loved ones", he knew this speach by heart, "we trust that you will not be swayed by outer influences", as your own base of power grows, "as your own base of power grows", so does our trust in you, "so does our trust in you", this is proof of your promotion, "and we expect that you stem the tides that are soon to fall", that wasn't it, "within seven hours several major events will take place", checking his timetable showed none of that, "your first order of business is to collapse the dragon fort down to the Underway", wait what?, "save the children", from whom?, "no outsider is to ever know it was deliberate", that was the usual way of things, "not even Allen", what did that sneak do now, "you will know when to act as the world goes dark".
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
With that cryptic quote the message just ended, leaving Emmet out of breath, collapsing the fort to the Underway with everyone in it not knowing what was happening will not be simple, luckily the Underway followed a very different set of rules than any simple cave, it was an entirely different instance of the game and had literaly infinite space confined by the virtual walls.
Why wasn't he given more time, why being so cryptic about the future of the company, who was the mysterious woman?
Gathering his deigners he started issuing the orders to create a collapsed replica of the fort inside the underway, losing himself in the smallest details it was fun to impose the current image on a cave space and then add the break lines and machinery pierced by a rock formation, some tumbling will occur and some people may notice small differences from their actual memories of the drop but trauma will cover for most of it.
With the work not even half finished the game server crashed and everything in the game went dark, "what the hell?" Emmet cried with his concentration broken, "shit thats the cue", punching the premade button changed the instance for every charscter in the designated area to a new, in this case Underway instance, but no character spawned, it was at this moment that Emmet looked at the game feed and noticed his mountain was literaly gone.
Unsure how long ago this happened he skipped back the feed and found the exact moment of the eruption, marking every Player and NPC alive in the direct aftermath he respawned them in the new instance when the world went black for the second time.
Some spawned inside walls and needed his people to excavate them, some didnt survive the transition, but most were moved to the underway intact and that was good enough for Emmet.
Checking his inbox he found two more messages headlined 2/6 and 1/3, dreading their content he needed to refresh himself before facing that music, instructing his team to keep up the excavation works by just leading Players in the right direction without being exposed as admins he logged off to take a quick shower.