Kragathor settled onto his third favorite pile of gold, taking a moment to enjoy listening to the soothing tinkle and clinging of shifting coins.

With Kenji’s cooperation, the processing of the employees and board members into minion contracts was going smoothly, with generous benefits negotiated by Kenji on the others’ behalf.

The game accounts had been fully reinstated by Kenji as soon as he got to a console. Bloodied Talon, the Scaled One —a race that Kragathor had not encountered before— was practically falling over himself in trying to throw extra benefits and abilities at Kragathor’s account. Kragathor and, surprisingly, Kenji both shot the idea down. Kragathor was enjoying his jaunts in the otherworld as a totally mundane being whose only strength came from his fancy toys. He hadn’t expected Kenji to lay down more or less the exact reasoning without having had it explained to him first.

Kenji had suggested that Stefano Mayers and Bloodied Talon take up advisory roles if Kragathor decided to reveal the existence of Deep Town to the rest of the world. They would need to move on that within days, as news of the Virmo Corporation’s disappearance would spread rapidly. Kragathor had arranged for them to meet up with Shifty, who was largely responsible for much of Deep Thousand’s interactions with the world outside its confines, which had been rather minimal until this point.

Temporary housing had been set up on the edge of Deep Town for the newly acquired company’s staff.

Deep Town itself was in festive spirits as the residents warmly welcomed the newcomers into the fold. After all, even if they hadn’t come willingly, all who served the Supreme Tyrant of Indulgence were a part of the minion family.

That was all well and good, but Kragathor really wanted to get back to playing his game. He hadn’t even had a chance to really decide what he wanted for his second class. He had spent the night before finding his account was locked out narrowing the list down to two choices. The idea of Drone Operator was even more intriguing than it had previously been, now that he had more context on what drones were. However, there was also the Scrapper. It was a class focused on technological component recovery and improvisational engineering. It was an interesting concept for him to explore. He knew he would eventually have both classes, but he didn’t know which one he wanted to have right now. It was a refreshing dilemma.

It would be a few more hours until the normal log in time for his group, so he would just do research for now while he pondered the direction to take. He logged into Ciro and pulled up the WIK.

Kenji settled down in his office. He still didn’t know if he had made the right choice. However, for now, he would play along. He owed it to his friends and the employees of the company. He poured himself a couple fingers of whiskey from a decanter; he didn’t often drink, but now seemed like the perfect time. He had told Kragathor nearly everything. Nearly.

Perhaps the dragon really would operate in good faith? After all, he had a demonstrable lack of need for underhanded scheming. Perhaps not. Either way, Kenji would look out for his people.

He’d already helped them out by negotiating very favorable terms in their ‘minion contracts,’ as the locals termed it. Kenji had been surprised that Kragathor was so amenable to the idea of treating his employees well. The dragon had said they’d be treated well, but Kenji had doubted that such a being would really know the difference. However, even the original minion contracts were hardly unfavorable.

In the hours since his talks with his new patron, he had met all sorts of fantastical creatures, some of which were downright frightening to behold. All of them seemed very excited to meet him and were rather welcoming in their own strange ways. He’d never done any adventuring, so most of them he had only heard about in stories. These beings all seemed in awe of the fact that he would be working directly with the dragon, whom they referred to by many different titles. It was rather confusing at first, until he realized that anything which didn’t seem to be an actual name was referring to Kragathor.

Bloodied Talon was on his way to meet up with the Grand Patriarch of the Scaled Ones, to secure their recognition of Deep Thousand as an independent state. Their clan had a great deal of political clout amongst the nations, mostly because there were few forces that could stand up to the Grand Patriarch. It was doubtful that other nations would take Kragathor seriously unless he showed himself, but the ancient dragon seemed quite content to return to his game and leave everything to his minions.

Shifty had spent a great deal of his time with gritted teeth, a fake smile plastered on his fake face. He would do as the Godscourge wished but working together with normal humanoids was infuriating. They didn’t even understand simple concepts like culling the weak from your own population, or that Doppelgangers were inherently superior to the transformationally challenged. Worse, to keep the glorified livestock calm, he had to wear their visage, since they found his normal form ‘unsettling’ and ‘horrifying to behold.’

The only upside to the recent acquisition of the Virmo Company was that Virmo units were being offered freely to the citizens of Deep Town. If the Grand Exterminator enjoyed playing them, there must be some merit to the concept. Shifty was eager to try it out for himself. He’d been a bit skeptical at first, but if the Woe Bringer himself was actually enjoying them, Shifty would have to take the concept seriously.

Which was why Shifty was sitting in a comfortable chair at home, holding his very own Virmo crystal, tied to the server of Hoxland. If rumors were to be believed, it had been Kragathor’s second choice for server to play on. Besides, even if he was only murdering imaginary people, it would still feel like murder, right? It was said that these games felt as real as the real thing.

Shifty settled back into his chair and spoke the command from the manual. “Virmo, Activate.”