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December 2100

HQ Renovatio – Rome Dome – Tenth Floor: Player Room

Enzo woke up in a huge room of more than 1,000 square, it was one of the player room of Renovatio, a room filled with game booths, in massive events like the one that Renovatio was experiencing, the management had forced all contracted players to stay in the same building to be better coordinated, this is not unique to Renovatio all the guilds that had the means did the same …

Enzo woke up in the middle of several hundred active game booths with their members inside, he ran to the elevator…

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Cesar had not set foot in his office for at least ten years, at the time of his last confrontation with him about the Dark Portal, most of the meetings or discussions took place either remotely or in the meeting room and Cesar now living in the Martian dome, he rarely had the opportunity to come back here in the main HQ of Renovatio.

As the elevator went up, Enzo, who was exhausted, started to remember all the challenges he had to undergo since he and his companion had left Era, the starting planet of the game…

Enzo entered the room of his office…

Nothing or almost nothing had changed in his office in almost ten years, since his last visit.

Edward as usual was sitting at his desk in front of his computer working…

Enzo angrily approached him and placed both hands on his desk and said, “Why! Why!? Why did you order us to betray Eclipse?

Then he added, “What the hell kind of idea did you have to betray members of the coalition that Lucifer and I worked so hard to build!

Edward answered: “It was a decision of the board of shareholders after a meeting with the other SuperGuilds, the Coalition of the Eternals that we created two months ago has fulfilled its purpose, we have earned billions of credits through this organization, but today our former partners who helped us conquer the planet are asking for reparations for what your friend Apophis did to Cronos I, so let’s either agree to pay for the damage out of our own pockets, or we decide something else…”

Enzo, in incomprehension and shock, answered “Edward! Are you aware of the absolutely castophric situation on Terra? We will not last a week without many allies in this game! We already have over ten thousand of our own members who have lost their levels and had to start a new character because of Azerof! And now you tell me that a bunch of financial assholes are refusing to assume their financial responsibilities, so we have to kill ourselves!”

Edward, devilishly calm, replies: “Yes, in fact I was preparing the letter of dismissal for those who had lost their level…”

Enzo, astonished, replied “How! Did you fire them? Some of them have been members since the time of Wow II!

Edward replies: “Listen and understand one essential thing! World of Warcraft, Horus or any other VRMMORPG is just a business, bad people or sulky people, we have no place in our company that wants to be the best of the best. Selling GC in Credit is only a very small part of our revenue, our main business is in PvE boosting and rare item sales and especially merchandising, we don’t need a ball and chain to slow down our rise.”

Enzo replied  “All the big guilds have main roosters, with members paid several thousand credits a month, I’m not sure my companions and I are the most profitable for your business model, yet you never questioned my contract or my group’s!”

Edward stood up and looked through the window of his office and said “You are nothing but a billboard, when a player sees that ‘Cesar’ finished the first clean on this or that dungeon, our sales on all our products explode, everyone wants the item you looted from the last boss…”

Enzo replied, “If we’re just a mercantile enterprise, why would we betray Eclipse and the Coalition? Wasn’t peace more beneficial for everyone? I remind you that almost all the NPCs in the game are hostile to us!

Edward smiled slightly and replied, “The problem with Eclipse and many other top guilds is that they play to play, and where top guilds fail for lack of resources, Eclipse and Apophis succeed, conquering planets, dungeons and raids. We can’t have a minor guild humiliating us like that, so we’ve tolerated their presence as long as it was in our best interest, but now they’re taking up too much space and threatening our business plan, so we have to eliminate them.

Enzo was in a state of shock…He thought he was doing more than just participating in the fattening of a large trade group…

Edward sat back in his chair and said, “Well, if you’re done with your conscience issues, I have to prepare for the auction of our land on Cronos I, if you still have a conscience, you can step down, there are other people who will do the job for you anyway…”

Enzo didn’t say a word, he left Edward’s office and went back to the elevator, he felt like leaving everything, stopping Horus and retiring to his house on Mars…

Strangely enough, a memory came back to him, the one where he had betrayed his best friend Azazel in World of Warcraft II, at the time he thought he was making a noble sacrifice for the progress of his guild and to allow it to really accomplish something great, But today he realized that it was only to avoid hindering the growth of the guild’s business, even the name of the guild or the Roman cultural references, was probably only a will of the marketing department, only the players of the guild believed, who did this for the PR aspect to honor the Roman glory.

In the elevator Cesar had two choices, he could go to the first floor and take the first space shuttle to Mars and spend some quality time with his family and hide this umpteenth betrayal of his guild leader or he could go back to the tenth floor and do what he couldn’t do ten years ago

“Keep his commitment”