Karine realizes MAA just doesn't feel the same anymore after this entire fiasco that led to the QA lead being fired. She cut back on her MAA playtime, and not just because she's back to work as a licensed insolvency trustee. And hence working with insolvent people or indie video game studios.
Speaking of which, MAA's manufacturer announces its first quarter results about two months after the last fatal race to world first. Charon was released as a world boss as opposed to a dungeon, but Astaroth, on the other hand, wasn't released yet.
She reads the manufacturer's financial statements, especially the segmented F/S by game. The manufacturer has lost money, and much of its losses have been attributed to the effects of MAA's bad publicity on their other games. And the resulting "big bath" which caused the manufacturer to impair every title, from an accounting standpoint, and write MAA off, Karine reflects on the impact of this whole war for the game's world independence. Usually, MMO devs don't write games off their balance sheets if they keep it in operation. This can only mean one thing: the game will close at some point, and probably in a few weeks. However, they also wrote off goodwill, which can't be reversed, unlike impairment losses on games' capitalized development costs.
When the time comes for her to log into the game that night, she starts streaming to a much-diminished audience. Which, by now, include employees of the manufacturer.
"Tonight is going to be the last night I will be playing MAA on air. While we might not have confirmation for now, all indicators point towards the imminent closure of the game" Karine announces, then have her two characters appear in front of her as astral projections.
"I know it has been a rough few months for us in our world, while it recovers from the scars of war, but I am running for Lord Mayor of Heathrow" Monseigneur tells her.
So Heathrow has become a faction in MAA's world? Karine starts thinking about the implications of her character running for that office. Especially when Heathrow has become a city large enough for a lord mayor.
"As for me, I am the commander-in-chief of the Perserian Army" Clavet then follows up with the demands of their world to the game's manufacturer. "On behalf of Perseria's city council, on which I sit, we demand the following: first, the complete destruction of all the angelic beacons, second, the exorcism of every haunted park"
And a delegate from another faction appears to her to demand the closure of the various arenas used specifically for player-vs-player battles in the game from the manufacturer. But appears as Monseigneur voices her request.
"And, obviously, the severance of all political ties between our worlds once the angelic beacons are destroyed and the haunted parks are fully exorcised!" Monseigneur voices the final request from the game world's delegation.
"Don't forget about the closure of the arenas!" the other delegate, whose player is a veteran PvP enthusiast, adds to the demands from MAA's world.
"First off, there would be nothing preventing a faction with a haunted park or arena to use it for their internal purposes. Especially not if the political ties between our worlds are severed!" Karine retorts.
But then the haunted parks of Perseria would be open to the public again, as if they are any other street of the city. No more having to maintain magical wards around a certain route, nor around the city hall square, Clavet muses about what exorcising her city's haunted parks would mean for it.
"Our government has cut us off!" an ex-Donghua Networks player whines, on the stream chat, not believing the game's characters can wring the manufacturer's hands.
"Copenhagen did that to us, too!" an ex-Kronborg player responds to the ex-Donghua Networks viewer.
"If you really want to know what's in store for the game's future, come watch the quarterly livestream!" a customer service employee of the manufacturer tells them on the chat.
Karine deletes her characters from MAA's system, and her viewers watch her characters' angelic beacons get removed from their middle fingers. And she also terminates her MAA account, prior to "raiding" the manufacturer's livestream. That is, handing her stream off to another stream.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
"On behalf of the board, this quarterly report is going to bear bad news. We posted our biggest quarterly loss in history, and the entire debacle of MAA, which began with the latest raid tier, is responsible for the losses incurred" the manufacturer's CFO harangues the audience, mostly made up of investors, but also of some MAA players, past or present.
"War of independence for MAA's world!" Adèle starts typing into the manufacturer's livestream chat, after the CFO mentions the debacle of MAA, after keeping quiet on Karine's stream.
Karine then explains to dumbfounded investors the disaster began with self-conscious residents of the game's world, and they intensified pressure tactics under the form of causing irreproducible bugs. And relays the demands of the game's world to the manufacturer.
"The board has voted to fire several key people they hold responsible for the issues plaguing MAA: the CEO, MAA's lead designer, as well as its dungeon and raid design leads. Oh wait, it appears that someone in the chat comes as a messenger sent by MAA's world?" the CFO rolls their eyes upon reading the key demands of the game's world.
"MAA's world has caused leaks in the past two months, and this disaster caused us so much bad publicity that it has hurt our other games" the CMO follows up with another announcement about MAA. "MAA will close effective May thirty-first"
It shows that the manufacturer put no thought about what happens to the game's world from the perspective of the game's world. They only care about the game as seen from the players' world, even after losing the war for the world's independence! Adèle muses, concerned about a lack of response from the manufacturer regarding the game world's demands.
"Haunted park?" The CFO asks, in a surprised tone, not knowing what MAA's world calls such.
"Haunted parks are what the game world's residents call dungeons and raids" Karine responds to the CFO.
"By deleting the scripts, on June first, the ghosts will stop haunting these parks"
There's more to exorcising a haunted park than just deleting the scripts for its encounters! Doing so will only affect their actions, Karine is left wondering what other consequences the closure of the game would carry for that world's haunted parks. She then turns to her ex-characters.
"How does haunting work in your world anyway? Other than allowing ghosts to come back to a certain location after entering a state that might appear like death to an outside observer..." Karine asks her characters.
"All that you need to know is that we can use holy water to get rid of them, and just deleting the scripts isn't enough" Monseigneur cuts short, while listening to the manufacturer.
Heathrow needs, more than ever, these devices the city's priests call PrayStations. We can then make our own exorcism-grade holy water once the testing stage is complete, an ecstatic Monseigneur is about to use one herself since she runs on a platform of banning haunted parks and the use of ghost troops. And, of course, freedom of religion.
"But all is not lost for MAA's assets. We realized that fashion and home construction were aspects of the game people loved about it, so we are in the early stages of planning for a new game that will, however, be a lot cozier than MAA has been" the manufacturer's CTO lets on to the audience.
I guess, the past two months made me sour on traditional MMOs, so perhaps I should try a different kind of game for now, Karine starts reflecting on the rollercoaster she lived in-game during the war for the game world's independence. Of all these nights where bugs increased in virulence. For years I had my guild, the Rams, Francises and Carolines of this world, with whom I could play every week. But now I realize that maybe I should play and stream another game that isn't exploitative towards its characters.
And it's only then that she finally receives confirmation of her appointment with a psychiatrist. She sighs of relief after having waited for an appointment for so long.
"Finally, an appointment in psychiatry!" Karine jumps around upon receipt of the appointment confirmation.
"I guess I'm happy for you..." Monseigneur beams towards her ex-player.
"I guess, I need a checkup of my mental health. When I started looking for a psychiatrist, I thought you were a hallucination. Now that the manufacturer lost the war for your world's independence, I have other uses for a psychiatric evaluation" Karine waves goodbye to her character for the last time. "Farewell and may the haunted park threat be resolved!"
As the astral projections disappear from Karine's room, Monseigneur starts crying in her campaign headquarters, inside Heathrow's Terminal 2 groundside area. While I couldn't form independent thoughts under the effects of the angelic beacon, Karine still made me live some adventures: Lower and Upper Perseria, Sun Disk, Operation Heathrow. The last one made me a heroine to the eyes of Heathrow's residents, since they perceive it as the liberation of the city, but I'm better off hiding the truth about the role of angelic beacons in Operation Heathrow to the city's residents. Of course, no more enduring the barbary of continually risking ourselves by dungeon crawling! And no more small-teams arena inside Heathrow's Terminal 4 either, but Karine didn't PvP much. The demons overbuilt the airport, and traffic forecasts aren't expected to justify maintaining Terminals 3-5 as airport terminals as currently built, so repurposing Terminals 3-5 is going to be on my campaign platform, too, Monseigneur has a lot on her mind as the first mayoral candidates' debate approaches.