1 Soul Bound
1.1 Finding her Feet
1.1.7 An Extreme Response
1.1.7.10 Know your onions
Olympus, (the private forum of The Immortals guild).
Nirrti: “Well, that was a fuck up.”
Eistla: “You could put it that way. VamaKali down, FancyAnts turned traitor. And they just got Wibano, Mazarin, and nearly every remaining member of The Immortals in Torello. About the only ones left are Jincan, Kullervo and WraithLock. Jincan is doing his own thing. I’ve ordered Kullervo to disengage and move North to rendezvous with a team who’ll help extract him back to friendly territory. WraithLock is staying to scout for a little longer, but we’ll be extracting her too. The Brute Squad is gone. Not just killed, but permanently wiped out as an effective team.”
Tlaloc: “You thought you were trapping them, but it turned out that they were trapping you. Mazarin screwed up and the Wombles rolled right over you.”
Eistla: “Yeah, about that. Jinzha, tell him.”
Jinzha: “My team has been analysing all the data we have from Torello, back to the launch, trying to work out how this happened. The first thing we noticed is that while we kept tabs on 5 of the Wombles fairly easily, we rarely saw Bulgaria. Our theory is that while we were watching the obvious distractions, he was watching us. He knew what we were planning, how we think. That Missal of the Spirits was too convenient. Who the hell walks in unarmed to save an NPC, knowing they will die? Someone who knows about the new laws, someone who instigated them being written, someone who wanted a nice clear test case with us firmly in the frame. That’s who. Everything, the specific factions and NPCs they gained reputation with, the viral stuff to get players on their side. Looking back, it seemed to have been tailor made for achieving this. Pick a bleeding-heart patsy, keep her ignorant, push her into a position like a pawn in a chess game. What we need to ask now is ‘who was behind this?’ and ‘are there traps being laid for us in other regions?’. Torello is a lost cause, nothing remains to be gained there, except recovering our assets.”
Nirrti: “So the plan is that we forget the Wombles, leave them strictly alone? Too much to mess with?”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Eistla: “Yes, that’s the plan. Going AFK. Got to see what I can salvage from this mess.”
Tlaloc: “Bye folks, it’s been real.”
: Tlaloc has left the chat.
Nirrti: “He’s gone.”
Eistla: “In more ways than one. Jinzha, thanks for identifying the mole. I had my suspicions, but it was nice to have proof.”
Jinzha: “No problem. One reason why we require all recruits to provide and verify their home location is so we can surveil them when things like this happen. We caught the pattern. Every time Tlaloc left Olympus, half a second later his machine would connect to a Tor router for just long enough to send a file the size of a chat log, then disconnect again.”
Nirrti: “Maha Kali-ma. A target for me!”
Eistla: “Yes. That’s the other reason to know the arlife identity of members. I’ve forwarded you Tlaloc’s info. Get a team to his house, take out a pet or family member. Then put him to the question. Then make an example of him.”
Nirrti: “It’s the team’s motto. You will know fear, you will know pain, and then you will die.”
: Nirrti has left the chat.
Jinzha sighs.
Jinzha: “Geeks. I bet she doesn’t even know where that line first came from.”
Eistla: “Don’t knock the Strife Squad. In their own way, her team is just as good at doing what they do, as your team are at analysis.”
Jinzha: “Fair point. So what’s the actual plan in Torello?”
Eistla: “Mazarin was carrying all the documentation for the items we sent to their auction house. Without it, we won’t get any of the resulting funds, and we need those funds. We were planning on transferring money from Torello to pay for our activities in other regions. Without it, we won’t gain a lead on the other guilds, and all the arlife funds we’ve invested in switching to Covob will have been for nothing. Malzeth won’t like that at all. So I’ve tasked WraithLock with retrieving them while Kullervo lures as many forces as possible out of the city as he can by torturing the Womble’s pretty singer, and holding out hope they can recover her.”
Jinzha: “You’re not going to actually let them save her are you?”
Eistla: “Don’t be silly. I despise the little bint. She dies and, sooner or later, so do all the other Wombles. If not now, then as soon as they set foot in the Teutonic League, or any other region we gain influence in.”