Meanwhile....

Orlina knew that when a player died, their gear became functionally useless. Broken. Little more than a cosmetic piece that kept you from waking up naked in the middle of town.

This was never a huge problem for low level players, since the typical mishmash of low-level gear they had was easy to repair or replace. Repair quests were annoying and expensive, and a real burden to anyone who foolishly had all their money on them at death. But they weren’t impossible.

Once you hit the level cap at 50 and started to assemble a real build and join end-game activities, you had to walk a careful line between wearing your best gear and keeping enough good gear in storage for an inevitable mishap. Having gear in storage was a necessity, so that if you ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, you weren’t stuck when you respawned.

No one wanted to be the idiot holding up the raid group because they got ganked before reset.

For that reason, this latest development seemed like an enormous waste to Orlina. She watched with objective horror as the Last of the Strong’s officers dug into the gear tab of the guild bank and handed everything out to guild members lined up across the entire estate.

Orlina and her raid team had worked hard to build the guild a stockpile of gear. Having it distributed through the guild felt wrong.

This was months worth of work bleeding out right in front of her eyes.

She’d worked hard for this hoard. IT was specifically and exclusively supposed to be for the use of the guild officers. The rest of these peons didn’t fucking matter.

But her voice was drowned out by other officers who wanted well-geared cannon fodder between themselves and the thing that stalked them.

Anyone with the guild tag and enough standing to be allowed access to the guild house was benefitting from her hard work.

It was - and she had come to hate this word - unprecedented.

But she couldn’t deny that unprecedented events demanded an unprecedented response.

“You’re sure?” she asked again, her body stiff. “Plate armor with a thick gorget and purple velvet accents? You know that’s impossible, right?”

The little man in the fancy vest squirmed under the pressure of her gaze. “I can tell you as many times as you like,” Barin said, “but it’s not going to change what I saw.”

Orlina turned away.

In accordance with their dominance in Inoha, the rumormonger was on the guild’s payroll. It was just business. But even without his help, Last of the Strong already knew something was wrong. LocalDefense chat had been more than enough to warn them that someone was harassing their recruiters, but when something happened to Juri, it was clear whatever was happening couldn’t be ignored. It was fortunate that Barin arrived with precious intel, as alarming as it was.

“That’s Juri’s gear,” Orlina said, turning back to Fidelis. “Somehow, this thing - whatever it is - is farming us for our stuff.”

Fidelis reacted exactly as she expected. He arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. Instead he carefully stroked his goatee.

Barin rubbed at his cheek for some reason. “He made it very clear that he’s after revenge. Whatever else he’s doing is likely incidental to that.”

“Who do you think sicced this guy on us?” Andrew asked. “Coldshapers? Requiem? Whirlwind?”

“It has to be Sentinels,” Mel said in her typical no-nonsense tone. “No one else has the resources to access something we don’t have ourselves. If there were a way to hire raid-boss mercenaries and set them loose on our enemies, we’d know.”

Clive looked bored. He played with a perfectly out of place strand of hair as he balanced precariously on the edge of the table. “It could be just as Barin says. We’ve done more than enough to earn some revenge.”

“From a rando NPC?” Andrew laughed. Orlina hated that laugh. It was the perfect laugh, manufactured just as much as the uncanny valley face he wore. “Listen. Nobody has ever heard of such a thing. If it was possible, we would know about it by now.”

“Andrew is right,” Fidelis said, breaking his silence. “But Clive isn’t wrong. This has never happened before, but considering some of the drop rates on legendaries, it’s not impossible that the chance of spawning some kind of vengeful spirit is so low that it’s simply never happened until now.”

Barin shuddered. “It was most definitely not a spirit. He was very real. And if I were you, I would be taking this seriously.”

Despite Barin’s doubts, Orlina could tell just by looking around the room that they were taking this deadly serious. Andrew and Mel were attentive and on-task for the first time in forever. Not to mention that she and Clive were actually listening and contributing instead of trading snark back and forth in whispers.

This was the most structure a Last of the Strong officers’ meeting had held in the whole time she’s been privy to them. The only exceptions were the lesser officers who were distracted with handing out gear, and in their own way, they were taking things just as seriously with their own task.

“You’re the informant,” Andrew said with a tilt of his head. “How would you suggest we take this seriously?”

As expected, Barin puffed up like Andrew had just given him the biggest compliment in the world. Orlina almost laughed. Fucking NPCs. They were almost worse than the gear-grubbing little dicks down in the courtyard shoving their virtual junk into her team’s biggest accomplishment.

“Whoever this person is, he must be dealt with,” Barin said. “Preferably tonight. He’s coming for me tomorrow morning, and I’m either going to tell him where this place is, or I’m going to die.”

“Right,” Mel said, pointing at Barin. “Regardless, that also means we can’t let that live. If it can tell this thing where we are, it’s a security risk. Just reset it until next week.”

Barin’s face went white as a sheet at that.

If Orlina cared, she would have told him not to worry. Mel was just doing what she did best: suggesting something ruthless she didn’t actually believe.

But Barin was just a random NPC. A little code that fed off the AI and a bunch of stupid code Orlina didn’t understand or care about.

His fear was of no consequence to her.

“There are only two reasonable responses to this course,” Clive said, gesturing dismissively at Mel. “We can either go on the defensive or the offensive. On the defensive, we do whatever it takes to stop him from getting here to us. Obviously we kill Barin, but then we have to call in everyone else who knows where to find us and kill them, too. And then we need to clean up everyone who might want to troll us by giving away our location for funsies.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” Andrew said with a perfect pout. It turned to a smirk just a moment later. “But you’ve made your point. If we were going to do that, it would be easier to just pick the building up by the foundations and carry it out of the city.”

“On the offensive, though,” Clive continued, as if Andrew hadn’t spoken at all, “all we have to do is find this thing and kill it. Maybe it comes back, maybe it doesn’t, but once we take it out once, we’ll know what it is and how to kill it.”

Fidelis stroked his goatee again. “We don’t live in fear. We are the Last of the Strong. That means we attack.”

The table fell silent for a moment. Fidelis hadn’t asked for volunteers, but the implication had been in his tone.

Just the same, despite their fealty to him, the officers didn’t want to step up.

Orlina didn’t, either.

For all their boasting and posturing and shit-talk, they were afraid. This thing had killed Juri in seconds. She’d asked in guild chat if anyone knew what the fuck he was, and she was dead before she could answer anyone’s call for more information.

Juri wasn’t the best of them, but she was one of the most competent players on the raid team. The officers may have had better gear and spells than her, but she had the mentality of a real raider. If any one of the officers were denied their gear advantage, Orlina would have bet on Juri in a fight any day.

This thing had destroyed her.

And killing her had made it even stronger.

Do you want to deal with this? Clive messaged her. Because this is getting awkward.

Orlina grimaced, focusing back on what was going on at the table around her. Mel and Andrew were glaring at each other across the table, probably engaged in a similar discussion. Fidelis’ expression grew darker by the second, and she wondered who he was yelling at behind the scenes.

I’m open to it, she messaged back, but this is your master plan. I’m not Andrew, looking to steal your idea and pass it off as my own.

“We should gather an attack squad,” Clive said, breaking the silence. “Just a dungeon party worth of people. Make sure they’re 50s, and that they have good gear from the bank. Just huck them at wherever this thing is. It took out Juri, but Juri was solo.”

“And if it’s not enough?” Mel asked. “What do we do then?”

“Then we do it again with a raid group worth of members,” Clive said. “And if that doesn’t work, we send the actual raid group.”

“And if that doesn’t work?” Fidelis asked.

“If Orlina and her crew can’t take down this thing, then there’s no stopping it at all,” Clive said, giving Orlina a deferential bow of his head. “At that point we can come back to the idea of picking the mansion up by the foundations and carrying it out of here.”

“So you want to lead this crew?” Fidelis asked. “This… Attack squad?”

“No,” Clive said, a little too clipped. He moved on before Andrew could call him on it. “Not directly, at least. I don’t believe any of the officers should be dealing with this personally. Until we know what we’re up against, we can’t let it kill one of us. If it does that, it makes the whole guild look weak. Who knows what Sentinels or Whirlwind will try if something like that happens in plain view of the entire city.”

Everyone at the table visibly relaxed.

It was enough to make Orlina smirk. Clive had given everyone an excuse to not face down this thing. An excuse for the guild to just throw wave after wave of expendable underlings at the problem until it went away, without any of them putting themselves at risk.

Then again, she felt relief as well.

“Do it, then,” Fidelis said, gesturing dismissively at the officers and turning towards Barin. “You’re the informant. Find the man and tell Clive where his team is going.” He turned from the table, pausing briefly to grimace at the gear being handed out.

“Clive,” Orlina said, “take Oskar for your group.”

Clive nodded his thanks to her, and with ample reason. Oskar was Orlina’s right hand, and had been critical to a number of their world first achievements with his raw burst output.

If this threat had hit points, Oskar Riis would make sure they wouldn’t last.

“I have some leads,” Barin said, “I should know within the hour where you can find him.”

“I expect this to be dealt with quickly and cleanly,” Fidelis said. “This thing has made for an amusing story for everyone’s social media, but as of this moment, it’s over. Anything that happens from here on out is an embarrassment to us all.” He paused, frowning, before crossing his arms over his chest. “I want the lot of you on deck. I expect the strike force we send will be taking this seriously, but if they fail, we will need to respond quickly and ruthlessly with our next step. If we let ourselves be humiliated, it’ll be the last mistake any of you make as officers of this guild.”

He turned away from the group and waved them away. “Dismissed.”