Parabellum might have been the BLACK coalition’s largest base, but it was not their greatest. That distinction went to High Rock.

It was a commonly held belief that Conquest’s developers deliberately placed most of the ziggurats in strategically flawed locations to ensure that only the largest, best organized, and most dedicated clans could retain control over the valuable structures.

Tannin’s southeastern ziggurat was a notable exception to this rule. It was built in the center of a volcanic island surrounded by formidable cliffs. A long narrow inlet cutting into the isolated landmass’ northwestern coast represented the only gap in these natural barriers.

Paranoid transmuters had done everything they could to convert the already daunting entrance into an insurmountable death trap. Dozens of chain booms and underwater portcullises were installed throughout the channel. A shoal of hagfish lurked behind each gate, ready to exclude copious amounts of suffocating slime if hostile forces intruded on their territory. Should an enemy bypass these preliminary defenses, they would find themselves bogged down in the mother of all chokepoints. Pods of ferocious aquatic beasts dwelled within High Rock’s bay and the coalition’s navy was one of the finest there was.

Tannin’s native pliosaurs were as close to perfection as nature got. Ocean gliders—the most powerful species available to players—were contenders for the aquatic division’s best pound for pound fighters. Their highly efficient four-flipper propulsion system enabled the reptiles to perform agile maneuvers that most other swimmers could only dream of performing. Many prodigious military minds contended that mobility was king, and that notion was doubly true in a 3d environment. Unlike terrestrial animals, water dwellers could easily strike an animal from above and below, and pliosaurs were masters at flanking.

Dullahan plesiosaurs weren’t quite as nimble as their distant ocean glider cousins, nor were their jaws anywhere near as devastating, but they were one of the few creatures that naturally fought in formation. When they clustered together, their transparent necks formed an eerie phalanx that was almost impossible to flank.

The biggest weakness the ocean gliders and dullahans suffered was their size. Clocking in at ten to fifteen tons, they were lightweights in a league of giants.

Luckily for Highrock, the coalition had taken great great pains to bolster their armada with creatures imported from Zantor’s deadly waters. Titanic thresher maws and blackdreads provided the brute force Tannin’s modest-sized aquatics lacked while whale-length hydrocondas amplified their maneuverability advantage by coiling around their foes.

As a high-ranking member of the coalition, Zhu could bypass Highrock’s many defenses by slithering through a linked gate portal. Despite how easily he could travel to the island fortress, Zhu did his best to avoid it, for he associated the coalition’s pride and joy with the thing he dreaded most.

Meetings.

It was astounding how many snore-inducing conferences his clan leaders organized. They set up a mandatory huddle at least every other week, and he was utterly sick of them. Granted, Zhu rarely showed up to any of them, but it still irritated him that they expected him to.

There was no escaping this one though. Sovereign threatened to kill Zhu’s pet polecats if he skipped. Fearing for his digital pets’ lives, Zhu dramatically burst into the conference room.

“Sovereign, you black-hearted blaggard! How dare you hold my noodle kittens hostage!” His playful rage tapered off when Sovereign’s grave eyes fell upon him. Sion, Iris, and the other clan leaders appeared just as glum.

“Good, you’re here,” Sovereign grunted.

Zhu scratched his chin, unaccustomed to seeing his leaders behaving in such a grim manner. The higher-ranking members of the clan always looked at every situation from a glass half full perspective. A few of them might have possessed a genuinely optimistic disposition, but Zhu suspected that their attitude was a calculated act. Maintaining morale was the most crucial aspect of Conquest, for there was no greater threat to a clan than player disengagement. Their frowns might as well have been obituaries.

Seeing no point in asking a question that would be repeated later, Zhu waited in silence. Over the next half hour, players slowly trickled in twos and threes. They would come in, issuing pleasantries only to quiet down once they read the room’s sullen mood.

“The Empyrean is planning to wipe us out in two weeks,” Sovereign eventually declared, not bothering to mince words.

A member of the Landsknechts broke the silence.

“Are you sure?”

Sion answered in Sovereign’s stead. “Positive. One of our guys on the inside said as much.”

The German player slammed his fist into a wall. “Fuck!”

“Well, that’s annoying. But I don’t see why you guys are acting like it’s the end of the world. We beat them before and we can do it again,” Khiva asserted.

“Last time we had Pandemic’s support. This time we won’t,” Sovereign informed them.

“Why the fuck not?” the German player demanded.

“Did you and Vlad have some sort of falling out?” Garm inquired, his tone bordering on being accusatory.

Sovereign glared at his former friend. “No, Vlad still likes us. Just not enough to bail us out this time.”

“What an asshole! He’s got a lot of balls to ditch us after all we did for him!” LongDongSilver seethed, conveniently forgetting that Pandemic aided the BLACK coalition more often than vice versa.

“I don’t get it. I know he lost a lot of resources last time, but won’t his clan be in a pinch if the Empyrean takes Tannin?” Khiva asked.

“Yeah, they would be,” Sovereign confirmed with a nod. “Which is why he’s willing to help us on one condition.” The other players waited to hear their ally’s terms with bated breath. “He wants us to merge into his group.”

Vlad’s offer was met with almost universal outrage.

“Fuck that guy! If he thinks he can strong arm us into joining him, he’s got another thing coming!” CallMeDaddy declared.

The sharply dressed man’s close friend, Gir, was a bit more conciliatory. “Eh, Vlad is, okay, it’s his lackeys that suck.”

“Yeah, they steal shit from us all the time!” LongDongSilver shouted, once again, conveniently forgetting that some of their own members were guilty of pilfering items from allies.

Zhu chose this time to throw in his own two cents. “I say we do it. Vlad’s a wet blanket, and I think his guys are oversensitive, greedy, sukas, but I would rather sign up with him than lose everything.”

“But we’ve always managed to keep our independence,” Khiva said, shoulders sagging in despondence. “Things would be so different if we lost that.”

Zhu shrugged. “Times change. Adapt or die”

Sovereign raised an arm, quelling the many arguments that were being shouted across the room.

“There is a third option,” he announced, pausing for dramatic effect. “We challenge the boss.”

Sovereign’s proposal provoked an even louder response than Vlad’s ultimatum.

“Pull another Zantor, eh?” a bloated abomination that aptly called himself Poison guffawed. “I’m in! Ruining those bastards’ plans would make my day!”

His neighbor, a comely woman with a ridiculously masculine voice, glared at him.

“Blowing up Zantor was funny at the time, but it wasn’t worth it. I sure as hell won’t agree to nuking Tannin. It's our main moon and the only one we have left!”

“Who gives a shit? The Empyreans are going to snatch it from us anyway,” Poison retorted. “I say if we can’t have it, nobody can!”

“I bet we could push off the Empyrean’s next assault by ourselves.” Zhu declared confidently. “Playing defense is a lot easier than going on the attack, and they took a ton of casualties the last two times.”

Sovereign poured cold water on Zhu’s rare display of optimism. “They outnumber us at least five to one and that is not counting the allies they can bring to bear. The odds of us repelling them a third time aren’t great.”

To Zhu’s surprise, Garm backed him up. “We won’t know until we try. We’ve faced worse odds before. Remember that time the twelve of us set up a forward base on one of WSND’s backwaters? They outnumbered us twenty to one and in the end, they had to pay us to leave.”

That happy memory elicited many cheers.

“That was a totally different scenario,” Sion replied. “We entrenched ourselves in a cancerous location on the eve of Chinese new year.”

“Point still stands. We thought we would get crushed in a few hours, but we didn’t. I am cool with nuking this moon, but only if we are at the absolute cusp of defeat.”

“Don’t get our motivations twisted. We’re not just going to challenge the bosses out of spite; we actually plan on beating them.”

“What have you been smoking, Sovereign?” Garm asked. “Everybody that has tried to beat a boss just lost all their shit with nothing to show for it.”

“That’s because everyone that has tried so far were unprepared or were small fries. The only groups that have the resources and numbers to pull it off are too invested in this game to make the attempt. At least, that was the case until now.”

Zhu folded his arm. “Didn’t the devs say that the moon and the visors get deleted win or lose?” he reminded the others. “What’s the point of trying to beat it?”

“Closure.”

Zhu snorted. Just hearing that word filled his mouth with the taste of snake oil. Satisfying conclusions only happened in fairytales. The chapters of a person’s life didn’t neatly end with a pretty ribbon on top. Friends grew apart without rhyme or reason. Accepting the reality of a situation did not magically make things better. Completion of one goal just led to the pursuit of another.

He turned around, hoping that nobody bought that nebulous platitude. He sighed in relief when most of the faces behind him displayed uncertainty or outright offense. Everyone here had sunk countless hours into this hobby, and the thought of throwing it all away on the spur of a moment rankled them.

Wanting to strengthen their resolve against this proposal, Zhu hastily thought up reasons to undermine this plan.

“What about the King’s guys and the other non-English speakers? Have they agreed to this?”

“All of their leaders have.”

Zhu opened his mouth to voice another objection when somebody else cut in.

“In that case, I’m in,” LongDongSilver sighed in resignation. He elaborated further when he received several looks of disbelief. “Let’s face it guys, fun as this game has been, nothing lasts forever. We have been hemorrhaging players the past few months, and it’s only going to get worse. Just look at the BB sect. Hustleman has a kid on the way, Granny Gumjobs is planning to enlist in a few months, and Zhu is almost out of high school. At least this way we can go out on our terms.”

“I’m still going to play as much as before.” Zhu piped up, trying to downplay the bleakness of their situation. It was too little, too late. The flood gates opened.

Karma was the next player to go against the grain. “To be honest, I’ve been thinking of quitting. This game was awesome, but it's starting to get samey.”

“Yeah, honestly, I've been thinking of quitting for a while. It’s practically become a second job.”

“My husband is going to be discharged from the army soon. I have a lot of lost time to make up for.”

“I’m still having fun and I wanna play longer, but you’re right, eventually this game will get stale. If we’re going to get taken out, we might as well go out with a bang. Sides, if anyone wants to keep playing, we could always just buy a new visor.”

“Not everybody can just front up a thousand dollars douche!”

“Yeah, and some of us actually make money off this game! It’s unfair to ask us to give this all up on a whim!”

Tempers flared as the two sides tried to shout the other down. Sovereign restored order with a sharp whistle.

“Enough with all the shouting. We’re not children. Let’s settle this with a vote. Raise your hand if you want to give the boss fight a try.” A little over fifty hands shot up.

Zhu breathed a sigh of relief at the same time LDS shook his head in dismay.

“Whelp, that settles it then. Looks like we’re going to fight the boss.”

“I know math isn’t your strong suit, LongDong, but I figured you’d be able to count.” Zhu sneered.

“That doesn't matter,” LDS said harshly. “We aren’t a republic signing a bill into law. We’re just a bunch of guys with too much free time on their hands. I want to keep going as much as you, but there is no way we’re holding onto this moon when twenty percent of the players here and all our leaders are ready to call it quits. We’ll either end up getting absorbed or losing everything to the Empyrean. I’m guessing the second choice is more likely, given how much we all hate Vlad.”

The room was silent as this sobering logic sunk into the players’ heads.

Sovereign nodded, glad that someone had articulated that unpopular assessment for him. “Let’s have another vote,” he declared, wanting to keep up the pressure. “Who is in favor of joining up with Vlad’s group?” Only Zhu and four others raised their hands.

Zhu bit his tongue.

“Alright,” Blahyi muttered. “You convinced me. I’m in.” Several other players reluctantly grumbled their assent after him.

“Okay, good. We’ll begin prepping first thing tomorrow. By Thursday, we need to teleport to dragon land and gather all the necessary tributes. The tentative plan is to start the boss either this Saturday or the next.”

“Yeah, let’s end things on a high note, you guys!” Poison cheered.

His glee did not spread to the others, but in the end, everyone save Zhu agreed to Sovereign’s plan. Zhu watched his companions depart from the corner of the room, struggling to salvage any humor from this situation. Of course, this couldn’t have happened before he threw his future away. He felt a self-deprecating grin tug at his lips as he stared at the ceiling. “Sputnik. You really are a bastard, aren’t ya?” He supposed he deserved this.

Realizing the futility of brooding on his bad luck, Zhu looked for something to distract him from this unfortunate development. He was just about to exit the room when a voice called out to him.

“Zhu.”

Sovereign and Sion jogged up to him.

“What’s up, buttercup?”

“You alright?” Sovereign asked.

“Of course, I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Listen, I know how much this game means to you—”

“Eh, sucks that it’s ending, but it’s just a game, right?”

“Yeah, well. I was thinking, for old times’ sake, I could offer you a special deal.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you’re not too thrilled about this, so I am willing to cut you loose. I’ll even help set you up with Vlad’s group before this thing kicks off. Just please don’t tell him or anyone else what we’re planning. I don’t want some jackass ruining our send off.”

“If you rat on us, I’ll kill you in real life,” Sion warned him half-jokingly.

Zhu pondered the offer for a moment before he shook his head and forced out a weak chuckle. “Don’t think that’s an option. I’ve pissed too many of his guys off and they’ll like me less when you guys go. My character will probably just get eaten a week after you’re gone, so fuck it. I’m in.”

Sovereign clapped him over the shoulder.

“Good to have you onboard.”

“Just tell me how we’re going to pull this off.”