At some point Raven and Forsythe had stopped for a moment. Both of their expressions turning into a grimace as the notifications came across their screen. Despite the fact that they were only separated by a meter and were about to strike each other, both of them didn’t move as they considered the option before them. Raven moved her two-handed sword to the side and brought it down to the dirt from where it had hung ponderously above Forsythe’s head. Forsythe, recognizing that they were taking a break, lowered the curved saber in his hand from where he had been about to jam it into her ribs.

“There is a lot of reading here…” Raven muttered. There was the vague hope that Forsythe would look over at her and nod, and then he would begin explaining it to her so she didn’t have to wade through all that text. The crux of the matter, she supposed, was that there was an option at the top with three buttons.

-Empire

-Rebellion

-Abstain

Raven had never wanted to make an arbitrary decision more in her life. The Rebellion button called out to her with sweet whispers of the underdogs, fighting the man for a better future. In her head there were laser sword battles, horse-sized scorpions with eyepatches, and liberal punching of a bunch of people that stomped around in very similar looking armor. The armor, Raven thought viciously, of tools. Raven desperately just wanted to pick Rebellion so she could fight the man. She wasn’t even sure who ‘the man’ in this case was.

“In this case, I believe being a Rebel is the only way to go,” Raven stared hungrily at Forsythe, waiting for him to nod and give his approval. Raven needed this. She needed this so bad. Rebel Raven.

“Did you even read this?” Forsythe killed the dream with one tilt of his chin and a narrowing of his stupid eyebrows. Raven had been secretly thinking that he was a lot less fun after he got married, but didn’t bring it up. Hunter was the perfect waifu and Elisha the perfect… everything.

“You’re a lot less fun now.” Raven compromised by expressing her unhappiness without implicating his family.

“Raven, The Rebellion in this case wants to overthrow Amelia as Empress… If they win they can even replace her with someone.” Forsythe explained patiently.

“Empress Raven…” Raven tried it out, and despite the look of utter disgust he gave her she admitted she kind of liked the sound of it. She held out her hands in front of her, marveling even still that having the extra limb made it seem double appealing. The sword, of course, fell with a clatter to the ground. Raven hadn’t quite figured out which hand to hold it with when she decided to hold them out at Forsythe. She would have caught it if it was just the one arm. It was taking some getting used to. “No, no, listen! It’s not a betrayal! We’d be doing her a favor. Listen! Listen! Who am I?” Raven lowered her face slightly and narrowed her eyes, adopting a frumpy frown and lowered her voice. “Empress? I don’t want to be Empress! Forsythe! You could be Empress Forsythe!”

“Empress… Forsythe…” He raised an eyebrow.

Raven noticed he didn’t immediately disagree with her point or her Amelia imitation. She pointed at him with a victorious smile as if to say ‘see? We’d be doing her a favor… let’s rebel against her!’

“If you decide to join the Rebellion--” Forsythe began..

Raven smiled sensing her victory. They would totally be Rebels. It would be friggin sweet.

“-- make sure to make some new friends. I think most of our friends, and myself, will be devoting much of our time to crushing you and your backstabbing new acquaintances,” He finished. “Besides, can you imagine Aidan’s face when we told him we were leaving to go depose his love? A love that has just been kidnapped?”

Raven felt her face getting stormier and more depressed the further he went with his stupid logic. Now that he had said all those things aloud she couldn’t pretend later that she hadn’t thought about them.

“We can’t… do that to him right this second anyway,” Forsythe concluded sounding extremely uncomfortable. He sheathed the saber and turned toward the portal. The tall man slumped slightly.

“So we’re the imperials. The people who are government and… things..?”

“I’m afraid so, Raven.”

“Forsythe, if people are rebelling against our rule that means they’re unhappy.”

“Maybe so, Raven.”

“Does that mean we’re the baddies?”

“...does it help if I say yes?”

“Hell yes!”

They both chose to support Empress Amelia. They chose Empire. The only thing that changed was a cross that appeared near their healthbars. There was a bunch of other information that was becoming available but there was no specific quest text yet. The system was still sifting through faction responses, evidenced by the one notification they received.

---------------------------

Local Announcement - You Have Joined The Empire

Please wait. Information will be distributed once a larger majority for each faction is reached to avoid favoritism.

--------------------------

It was probably so the people who signed up early didn’t immediately run off to start raising contribution in weird ways. It was hinted that there other tasks that could be performed on a larger scale to increase contribution, but that information hadn’t be given yet. The only acceptable way the system provided at the moment to generate contribution or merit was direct combat between factions.

Forsythe smiled and then gestured toward the portal. He was about to ask her what she wanted to do when he stopped and turned around, back to the portal. Raven was already looking with narrowed eyes. At some point during their fight some food carts had shown up, but they had both ignored them. Spectators were nothing new and if someone wanted to earn some quick coin by feeding the onlookers, that was none of their business.

This was different though.

They both sensed blood red names appearing in the stands. There were some friendly names appearing as well, but for the most part it seemed like the stands were becoming a sea of red.

Among the sea some people started to hop down and walk toward them.

Forsythe and Raven frowned simultaneously when they saw a certain figure, instantly alert, weapons at hand and in guarded stances.

“You chose Rebel?”

“...wow…”

-----

Aidan stood up and looked down at Zaeryl, no, Peligree. The look she was giving him a mixture of confusion and concern. She looked so old and tired with her legs folded up under her while she regarded him. Pushing a wisp of hair that had fallen in her face out of the way, leaving a small smudge of clay. Aidan absolutely admired the game engine for the small feat of realism. At other times he would be thinking about what other cosmetic changes could happen randomly if this was just a casual display of how the system had advanced onward.

“Aidan, my sweet, there is no weapon. Ascalon isn’t something that was given to me when I came back to the game. I have only been playing for a year or two myself. My circumstances are… special. There are so few of us left anymore that… well we were given special keys so we could appear as Residents if we wanted. I gave it little thought.” Peligree seemed to have realized she was smearing herself with clay because she rubbed her hands on the heavy apron that she wear on her front to wipe them off. She held out her hand to him, and after a moment he accepted it and pulled her to her feet.

“No Ascalon?” Aidan felt despondent then. He could have really used a super weapon. Fred was hardly the big stick he needed to carry into the new area. He didn’t know what was over there but the man he’d decapitated had seemed arrogant enough that he was probably a small fry. If a mediocre enemy could be that high level and use profound magic, what would a strong enemy be like?

“You don’t need Ascalon,” Peligree said after a moment, a knowing look coming to her eyes.

“I don’t need Ascalon,” Aidan confirmed, nodding. Then he grimaced. “...but I wanted it.”

Notifications interrupted him. Zaeryl stared, confused at his abrupt stiffening, before recognizing that he was receiving an overlay of information. A moment later she seemed to be receiving the same information. She must have had her notifications turned off.

Aidan skimmed the information provided to him and seized on two immediate feelings.

The first feeling was the least natural. Acceptance. Aidan with a flick of his finger picked the option to support Empress Amelia. There was no hesitation on his part. For the briefest of moments he entertained the notion of joining the Rebellion and inciting dissent, but that was tricky and the scheme that appeared in front of him seemed to go deeper than the shallow information he was being provided.

The second emotion was rage. Someone had struck at them while they were weak. The timing of the rebellion event could not have been worse. Without Amelia to go to Blutonsi and set up the Empire with benefits, the Rebellion would have an immediate advantage. This fact was made worse by the knowledge that no one was certain, exactly, when Amelia would be able to return.

“I have to go,” he squeezed Peligree’s hand and released it lamely. He had sort of forgot he was holding it after he helped her to her feet.

“Aidan,” she said hesitantly.

He turned back and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Aidan felt much more in control now. Some of the crazy thoughts about Amelia being stolen slowly settling into just general distress into outright panic. He had been right to come here. “What?” He adopted a half-smile.

“You said… that you’d been good?”

He nodded, rubbing his nose sheepishly. It was a dumb thing to say, he admitted.

“That’s not really your style, we all like you… when you are yourself.” She smiled slightly. “It’s okay to misbehave, if it’s you.”

He snorted and nodded. Aidan was almost about to roll his eyes and say something else when he felt the danger behind him. He turned slowly and noted that the crowd was starting to separate. People with friendly name designations were appearing with frequency, but so where enemy names. The Empire and the Rebellion were sorting themselves out.

Despite the fact that the system was beginning to differentiate them based on faction and they could begin killing each other, there was a weird sort of armistice taking place as both sides began looking at each other with varying expressions. For the most part, everyone was waiting for something to happen. Grim faces and a silence spread throughout the street. It would take one spark and this powder keg would explode.

“...did you choose a faction?” Aidan asked Peligree.

“I would have to shed my Resident status, and somehow I think that a low level potter isn’t something either side requires,” she replied dryly. She backed up. The system notification explained that the Residents would be immune to faction conflicts. This was also a city so there weren't going to be any other dangers to the Residents here. That also meant that the Residents would not step in on behalf of the Transients.

“Good. You should just… abstain…” Aidan said.

“Aidan!” A voice called to him and he frowned, returning his attention to the crowd as two figures stepped out. One of them wore white robes, the other wore dark grey. “Hello! We are here to kill you! How are you doing?”

Aidan recognized the man who spoke and, any other time, might have been amused by the other’s antics. Today was different though. Today the man he was looking at had the Rebellion marker on his name and it was beginning to infuriate him.

“I suppose since you found me immediately this was always the plan?” Aidan asked.

The man smiled and spread his hands. Aidan was always unnerved at how… ordinary the deadly player killing mage was. “Yes! I’m sorry! Today, I am the bad guy. Others have been sent for Raven and Forsythe. Most of the upper echelon of Shadow Fall and some of Ominous. Although, it is kind of awkward because some of the people going for those people are from Shadow Fall and Ominous.”

Aidan could already hear the confused chatter starting to spread through Shadow Fall guild chat. It was immediately apparent that there was actually a small minority within the guild that had chosen Rebellion. Whether it was because they had been secretly harboring anger toward Amelia, or just because they thought it was fun, Aidan wasn’t sure.

Aidan guessed he couldn’t be mad at everyone. This was an event. If Amelia hadn’t been pulled through the portal by crazy yahoos from another world so abruptly, Aidan might have even suggested that most of them join the Rebellion to oust her for fun.

Nevertheless he nursed the small ember of anger in his heart.

“So be it, Rebel scum.” Aidan began to laugh and raised his staff, the Unfair Stick.

It was like a signal. The street immediately exploded as everyone lunged at everyone else.