Everlast Online

Deep in an untamed forest near the southern border of Vradora, a lone cabin was currently being constructed.

It was not excessively large by any means, but it was also not small. It would not be unreasonable to consider it a mansion in its own right; though a rather diminutive one at the very least.

This cabin was the current guild base of the player killer guild: Wolf Fang.

Their previous base had been located in a city that had bordered the forest, but upon learning of the conditions to rank up their guild they had all but abandoned it - being among those who realised that becoming nobility wasn't the only way to become the ruler of a territory.

Though, claiming part of the forest was not easy, they had done it. The small bit of land now completely belonged to them and so Wolf Fang had become a rank 3 guild. Not long after they had risen to the rank an announcement of others doing the same came in; an announcement that also implemented a number of guild related abilities.

It was not even an hour after these implementations that Wolf Fang received a message and an offer. Inside the cabin, a poorly lit room housed a single table around which the executives of Wolf Fang sat, discussing what they should do.

"It's not a good idea." One man, dressed in mismatched clothes and an ugly bird mask, shouted out, "What do we do if she beats us!? She's already been making a fool out of us and now you all want to make it public!?"

Some shouted in agreement, others disagreed entirely. One fiery haired woman slammed her fist against the table, silencing the discourse before shouting her own opinion.

"It's because she's been making a fool of us that we should take the offer!" She yelled out, rage clear of her face.

"Crim's right! Everyone already knows she's been wiping the floor with our guild members, we need to take care of this now!" The man sat next to the fiery haired woman shouted out, "With the money and alliance it should be easy!"

"She’s also been wiping the floor with them as well! A couple of their members aren't going to solve anything!" An executive agreeing with the bird-mask shouted back.

Their disagreement went back and forth for ten more minutes before a loud crash interrupted them; the man sat at the head of the table had brought his foot up and crashed it through the table, fracturing the wood all the way to the centre while gouging out a chunk where his foot had hit.

"I've already agreed." He said groggily, taking advantage of the silence such that he didn't have to raise his voice.

"But boss!" Bird-mask yelled out, "Our reputation is gonna fall if she beats us!"

"Like I care, dipshit." The boss laughed heartily in response, "It's ten mil. Besides, she's pretty strong - fighting her will be fun."

The boss continued to laugh as he drank another of the ale's he had brewed. It didn't really match up to the real stuff, but he was just glad he could drink it again; unable to in the real world. The boss of Wolf Fang had not always been the leader of one of the largest merc guilds in the world, rather he had used to be an insurance salesman working for pennies.

Robert, Bobby, West had been a prodigy boxer when he was younger, he had aspirations of going professional and with his talent it was entirely possible - at least until the accident. Bobby had gotten into a car accident on his way back from training, no one had died, but his right arm was horribly injured and would never fully recover. His dreams were no longer attainable and so Bobby was stuck in a job he hated doing work he couldn't stand; it didn't take long for him to turn to alcohol, washing away all of his sadness with cheap booze.

He was trying to escape a reality he hated, but doing so was destroying his body even further. The once refined physique he had been so proud of disappeared and his family became worried for him - in the end it was his father who had turned his life back around. In his father's later years he had developed parkinson's and while it could be treated, he had to practise using his hands again in VR. His father had been the one who suggested Bobby use VR, raving about how it had helped him and so he did.

Soon Bobby became hooked, no longer needing the alcohol he had once depended on for a single reason. As while he could not in real life become a fighter; such constraints did not exist in the virtual world. Bobby could once again fight as he had in his youth; this alone turned his life around, he became happier and more lively, kicking his addiction with the help of his family and a number of special programs.

 Soon enough, Bobby became a powerhouse fighter in a number of games - a person others could look up to - and as those people gathered they formed a guild, one focused on fighting, even in games where that was not the purpose. Bobby came to realise that people would be willing to pay him to fight for them and jumped on the opportunity, turning Wolf Fang into the organisation that it was today.

And now, he had received an offer of 10 million to fight one of the strongest players in ELO. He was not going to miss that chance.

With the decision made, the rest of Wolf Fang eventually relented and allowed their leader to declare war:

(A/N: The announcements didn't happen one after the other. I just did that for effect to end the chapter)

Everyone in ELO and across the forums saw the announcement, the first declaration of war that had any meaning. There were 2 other wars that had been declared before Wolf Fang's, but these were just no-name guilds that no one cared about; a war between one of the largest merc guilds and a guild led by the most famous ELO player actually meant something.

As the world announcement faded another screen appeared in front of Bobby, detailing how the war would proceed:

Bobby's grin widened as he looked over the rules of the guild war. There was a week until it would begin and according to the rules set forth it would be a series of events where the best of 3 games wins.

Opening the page of events he could choose there was a near endless wave of events that could be chosen. There were the obvious ones like [Duel], [All-Out War]. [Siege] but there were also strangely named ones; [Collapsing Castles] was one such case, the event greyed out in Bobby's list as it could not be chosen , but there were also events like [Monster Chess] and [Labyrinth Escape].

Bobby clicked on some of these options and found they expanded to give a brief explanation of what each event was. [Monster Chess] was chess with a twist, each player getting a choice of monster to act as the pieces; the monsters would move like normal chess pieces, but each monster had different advantages and disadvantages.

[Labyrinth Escape] was basically as the name suggested, escaping a labyrinth full of monster and traps while being chased down by an unkillable boss monster.

There were even events like [Blacksmithing] or [Alchemy] where players would compete over who could create a better item in that specific field.

The list of event had also become visible to the executives at the table and they fervently began debating which event to choose.

"We definitely can't choose duels." Crim yelled out and for once the entire table agreed; knowing that Smokey would definitely fight and as a summoner it would definitely not remain a one-on-one duel.

"I don't think protection and defence events would be good either." Another executive called out, but this was more debated. His logic was that Smokey could simply use her undead to cover anything her guildmates couldn't, but others reasoned that her undead were only dangerous if attacked in small groups.

The debate went on until a general consensus was reached:

We need to take advantage of her guildmates.

Smokey had regularly been humiliating Wolf Fang and other guilds who attacked her, so some surveillance had been done, discovering that the majority of her guild are low level newbs. In reality most of Walpurgis was made up of players who seemed to have just joined the game - they were certainly skilled, but not enough to make up for the level difference.

However, despite all of these discussions going on, Bobby had not listened to a word of them. Instead he was scrolling through the list of events; stopping on one that had his heart racing like no other:

[Equaliser: A fight to the death between two individuals where both parties have equal stats. All skills and weapons become unavailable in a fight based on pure martial skill]

Bobby didn't hesitate to choose. This event was exactly what he wanted - a real honest fight between 2 warriors. He was a little sad that he likely wouldn't get to fight Smokey since as a mage it was unlikely she would put herself in the ring, but Bobby didn't really care - he just wanted to fight.

Once again the table was silenced as they realised that their boss had unilaterally decided their event, but they knew what he was like and seeing the event they felt that perhaps it wasn't actually all that bad - especially knowing their boss's history as a fighter.

So, their event was set and it didn't take long for the other slot to fill and the timer to begin clicking down:

Bobby couldn't wait.

---

In Camelot's main office 5 people were lounging around doing little to nothing.

Arthur was laying back in his chair with a pencil balanced over his top lip like a moustache while his sister Alaina was looking through their game's forums to see the general response to the new guild implementations.

Lars and Gally were playing an old fighting game they had found the code for and fixed the format so it could be played on more modern devices - while stealing, the people who would have profited off the game were long dead and so their actions had entered a grey area - while Percy watched from behind, waiting for his turn.

"Haah..." Alaina let out an annoyed sigh as she scrolled, causing Lars to look over.

"What's up Al?" He asked, just briefly looking away only to begin getting thrashed by Gally, "Shit... Fuck."

Lars handed over the controller to Percy as Gally laughed maniacally and walked over to where Alaina was. Arthur had looked over also, but he had never balanced a pencil on his lip for so long and did not want to give up his streak so he did not say anything.

"The guild stuff is going over well, but they still won't shut up about other things." She sighed.

"Whatever, enough people are playing that it doesn't matter." Lars responded as he sat down in a chair next to her, "But the guild stuff is being received well? We'll have to thank Gaia for that."

"Besides, Gaia's the one in charge of all that." Gally said as she stood from where she was sat, having already beat Percy, "She deals with the user interface and all that. Complaining to us isn't gonna fix it."

"Still sucks." Alaina muttered, causing the others to laugh. Alaina had always been sensitive to what others think - even if she acted so stoic and serious all the time.

After a while the 5 executives of Camelot sat down to talk amongst themselves. It was mostly inane chatter as they considered what they could put into ELO to improve it further, but nothing really stuck.

It did not take long for guild wars to break out - of course the number was incredibly low as there were very few rank 3 guilds, however, the third declaration was one that even the executives had to pay attention to.

"Looks like Gaia's favourite's got a war on her hands." Arthur chuckled as he closed his laptop and made contact with Gaia, "How are things going over there?"

Gaia's picture appeared on a screen on the wall, smiling at the room of people she considered friends.

"Bad..." Gaia sighed, her voice as sweet as honey, yet still clearly irritated.

"What happened?" Alaina asked.

"It's that little gold human, he seems to have found where Smokey lived and kidnapped her sister." Gaia explained, causing the entire room to rise in distress, "Don't worry, it's been settled, but I'm beyond angry they managed it."

"How did they even do that? Your defence for that should be rock solid." Percy asked, pushing his glasses up nervously.

"They are, but they found out the city she was logging in from." Gaia explained, slightly exasperated, "And since Smokey is so successful, they were able to pinpoint her based on players who had suddenly gotten a lot of money."

"Haah... At the very least they haven't completely broken past your defences." Arthur sighed, happy that they had been able to hide some things.

"Yes. And I've put up precautions to prevent any similar incidents; however, they managed to cover their tracks and so I could gather no evidence." Gaia sighed, upset at her inability.

"It's fine... Is everything proceeding as planned." Alaina asked.

"We're on schedule." Gaia responded gravely, "With how things are going we may even have extra time."

From there the 6 began talking about the future of ELO and the changes that would be coming.