The True Endgame

“It might be boring for a while, so until we get there, are you two sure you want to come with us?” Fenrir asks Azalabulia and Rao.

Rao looks over at Rock and Shogun lying on the deck of The Shoebill together. “I can’t take my bro away from his girl, and being a city’s leading architect sounds like a great way of impressing some cute girls, so I’m all in, bro,” he answers.

Fenrir still cringes whenever he thinks of Rock being Shogun’s “girl.”

“We shall build a vile fortress of darkness that—” Azalabulia starts to say, but stops when she sees everybody but Cassiel staring at her and waiting for her to get to the point, “…yeah, I’ll come.”

“You sure you wouldn’t rather go around and blow stuff up?” Fenrir asks.

“It’s – it’s boring playing alone all the time.”

“Then there we have it. Two new members of The Soaring Wolves, and we’re sailing east to build a new town and safe haven for artificial intelligences.”

“Will there be a castle, my hero?” Nell asks.

“I want big cannons like the pirate place had,” Serra requests.

“I’m going to build the sweetest bachelor pad ever!” Rao adds on.

“Can there be a bar full of oiled-up, muscly men?” Oleander asks.

“There shall be a tower of black and crimson bricks with a floating, burning eye of the dark god above it!” Azalabulia announces.

Fenrir looks at Cassiel.

She’s the only one who hasn’t requested something of her own yet.

“I – I just want a house,” Cassiel says.

“Alright. All of that can work except for Azalabulia’s and Serra’s. I think,” Fenrir says. “And Nell’s since that would probably require a ton of materials.”

“That’s the only problem, bro,” Rao says. “I can build a castle and tower as long as I’ve got the materials. Don’t know about the flaming eye above the tower part, but—”

“Yes!” Azalabulia shouts. “It’s okay! The eye can be optional!”

“My hero, would Tabitha not be able to construct those cannons that Serra wishes for with the proper materials?” Nell asks.

Fenrir shrugs and sighs. “Alright. I guess we’re going to not only have a city where artificial intelligences and players alike can live and feel safe, but there’s going to be a castle, a giant evil tower, huge cannons defending it, and a bar full of oiled-up and muscular men,” he says. At least Rao and Cassiel want simple things. “Finding those men is all on you, though, Olly.”

“Gladly!” Oleander replies. “Cor can help me out, too. I wonder how many of those beefcake fishing friends of yours we could convince to come over…”

From Fenrir and Nell exchanging their feelings with the serpent, they discover that she agrees to come with them as well. Though, rather than do so because she supports Fenrir’s idea of a free city full of equality for all, she just wants safe waters where she can hunt and play as she pleases.

Fenrir just hopes that she doesn’t cause problems for any of the town’s future sailors.

“If you’re all going to have your own crazy requests, then I’m going to make sure we host the biggest, best fishing tournament in this game,” Fenrir declares. “It’s going to be way better than Blackstache’s, and it’s going to actually be about fishing instead of survival and blowing each other up.”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to just do a ton of fishing before we started playing this?” Oleander asks.

“Yep.”

“You’ve done like, almost no fishing in comparison to everything else.”

“Yeah…”

“And now you want to build your own city.”

“Yes.”

“You’re probably going to find some way to make the fishing tournament not even about fishing with your current track record of wanting to fish.”

“Listen, we’ve been friends for years. You know how easily I get distracted.”

“I guess you can take the dog out of the Divine Brigade, but you can’t take the Divine Brigade out of the dog.”

While Rao may not react at all to the mentioning of the Divine Brigade, the other new crew member does.

“The Divine Brigade?” Azalabulia asks with wide eyes. “What was that about the Divine Brigade?”

“You know, Olly, we’re not supposed to let everybody know that used to be us,” Fenrir says with a sigh.

“It hasn’t been hurting us so far. Besides, with everything we’ve done in this game so far, we’re basically just a Divine Brigade lite. All that’s missing is taking down the biggest guilds, making people cry and write twenty-page long rant essays about us on game forums, and – actually, I bet that blonde asshole probably did that,” Oleander says.

“You guys were in the Divine Brigade?!” Azalabulia excitedly asks.

“I guess you could say that,” Fenrir answers.

“Yeah, Fenny here was the leader. I was second-in-command,” Oleander adds on.

“Come on, you don’t have to tell people I’m the leader.”

“That you are the leader? Don’t you mean were the leader?” Oleander teases.

“Y-yeah, I was the leader.”

“No way! Seriously? You guys have to be joking, right? The Divine Brigade broke up!” Azalabula says.

“It was less of us breaking up and more of us leadership splitting away from most of the members,” Oleander says.

“Yeah, most of the members wanted to go in a direction that we didn’t really care about, and they were way too needy, so we ‘disbanded.’ Really, me and Olly here, and one other guy who used to lead with us, came to this game,” Fenrir explains.

“If you were the leader,” Azalabulia says, looking at Fenrir, “does that mean you were the Supreme Commander of Fluffy Puppies?!”

“Aha, it’s… been a while since anybody has said that to my face,” Fenrir says while his girlfriends try to hold back their laughter.

“Bro, you used to call yourself that?” Rao asks.

“Yeah, but only because it pissed people off even more when somebody who called themselves that killed them. Would you be more embarrassed being killed by somebody with a super serious name, or that one?”

“I see your point. So, what’s this thing with the divine whatever?”

“A guild we used to run.”

“They weren’t just a guild! The Divine Brigade is the most notorious group in recent gaming history! Perhaps all of gaming history! They took down some of the biggest gaming guilds in the world from the inside! Everybody hated them and a couple of their members who got doxed even got into fights in real life, and won! They were the most skilled, powerful, sneaky, strategic, and evil players in history!” Azalabula explains while practically jumping up and down. “And now their leader is my servant – my general!”

“Bro, you sound like were an asshole. Were you one of those guys that would go around ruining other people’s fun, like destroying towns and shit of people who just wanted to build and be peaceful?” Rao asks.

Fenrir scratches the back of his head and lets out a nervous chuckle. “Yeah… you could say that was us,” he answers.

“That’s how we got popular! There was this steampunk MMO with a big focus on building cities and stuff, so we joined the biggest guild there, worked our way up the ranks until they trusted us and gave us some fun permissions, then we stole all their stuff, overloaded all of the city’s power sources with energy until they exploded, kicked out all of the lower-ranking members so that the city’s defenses turned on them, and then broke the defenses so their main rival could invade. Of course, their rival thought we were on their side the whole time and working as spies for them, so we got invited to their guild and promoted up the ranks as a reward! Then we fucked them, too,” Oleander explains with extravagant hand movements and a smug, proud smile.

“Bro,” Rao says.

“Yeah. We were assholes. B-but not anymore! Now we’re good!” Fenrir says.

“When you’re not commandeering a city’s defenses,” Cassiel says.

“Or burning down villages and stealing boats,” Serra says.

“And using toxic flames to burn your enemies alive!” Nell adds on.

Rao looks like he’s judging Fenrir more and more while Azalabulia looks more and more excited.

Then there’s the fact that he’s been leading their serpent friend on a rampage against all of rowboat-kind.

“Damn it, I’m still a bad guy, aren’t I?” Fenrir asks.

“I guess it’s better to be working for the bad guy then getting my stuff blown up by them,” Rao says with a shrug. “Wait, this is just more proof that bad guys get all the girls!”

“My hero certainly is quite the villainous wolf! He even stole me away from a king and took me out to sea on his boat! Then, because of the implication of being alone with him on open waters, I was forced to do whatever he—”

“Hey now, don’t make me sound that evil. There are lines even I won’t cross,” Fenrir interrupts Nell.

“Sadly.”