"We are faced with the very gravest of challenges. The bible calls this day 'Armageddon,’ the end of all things. And yet, for the first time in the history of the planet, the species has the technology to prevent its own extinction. All of you praying with us need to know that everything that can be done to prevent this disaster is being called into service. Through all the chaos that is our history books, through all of the wrongs... and the discord, through all of the pain and suffering, through all of our times... there is one thing that has nourished our souls and elevated our species above its origin. And that is our courage."
-- Excerpt from Armageddon
It was finally over and done. The cake had been devoured and the presents opened. The pies had been flung and the jokes made. Though he felt no older, Gravis was officially nineteen. The party had been a good one... plenty of food for both eating and throwing, and both had been done in excess.
Tser was busily moving around the main hall cleaning up confetti and useless posts while most of the other guilders had retired to their respective quarters. It was late... the two-o’clock hour had passed long ago.
Gravis dragged himself groggily across the room and plopped down on the floor. Tser paid him no mind as she went about her cleaning.
"You know," Gravis began, "I’m glad I have a place like this to call home. You guys are better than family to me."
Tser turned off her spam-vacuum and smiling looked at him.
"Well Grav, we’re all glad to be here too. This place has been our home for many years now. We’ve fought for it through hackers and trolls. We’ve held on through Merc’s ranting and BL’s no-message posts. We’ve even survived through Alpha’s constant whining! It’s a great place, Grav. I’m glad you feel at home."
"Thanks Tser," Gravis said simply. "Good night."
"Good night, Gravis. Sleep well."
Gravis picked himself up off the floor. He grabbed his presents and some leftover cake and tiredly walked out of the main hall. Tser smiled to herself and went back to her nightly cleaning and maintenance.
The morning sun shone on Poison’s fanned wings, making each feather readily decipherable from each other. Groggily she stirred awake. The morning after a late party was always hard to deal with. She rose and stretched, claws raking the ground and wingtips barely touching the walls of her cave.
She slowly padded out onto her outcropping which overlooked the great capital city of ITW. It was a quiet morning and there was little traffic on the roads leading to the guild or any other ITW-hosted site. Poison yawned. That stuff never concerned her anyway. She lazily walked around in a circle for a minute, feeling the wind patterns and stretching her legs. She turned to go back through her cave into the guild to get breakfast.
Then there was a strange sound. Poison’s ears pricked up quickly and she spun around. She gazed toward the city in confusion. There were spacecraft... hundreds of them! Thousands! All of them were blasting skyward in many different directions. Some of them launched from buildings in the city, their flames destroying the structures that had just supported them. In a panic, Poison whirled around and sprinted through her cave into the guild.
The main hall had been clean for a conservative hour or so. Then they had come.... The guilders had all come for their breakfast and conversation. All at once everything was a mess again. Tser just stood in one of the many corners smiling to herself. She sighed and leaned on her trusty spam-vacuum, waiting for the first victim. The conversation was lively at the table as it usually was. The air was alive with flying pies and feathers and assorted random objects.
Then, through all the commotion, Poison made herself known.
"Everyone! Attention, please! This is urgent!"
The noise and pastries died down. Everyone looked to Poison for the meaning behind the interruption.
"There’s something wrong at ITW... everyone is leaving!"
There was a bit of silence. An unknown voice in the background commented "Good one, Poison."
They all shrugged and went back to eating. Poison ran to Tserisa.
"Tser? Do you know what’s going on?" she asked wide-eyed.
Tser sighed again.
"Unfortunately, I do. Hold on...."
Calling upon her unlimited powers of administration, Tser silenced the guild with a giant red marquee that stated simply, As of March 5th, this board will no longer exist!
The munching and hurtling ended abruptly. After a long pause, Stormy spoke up.
"Explanation please, Tser."
Tser grudgingly took to her podium high atop the guild soapbox.
"I’m sorry to interrupt your morning like this... I know it’s a Saturday and everyone is kind of grouchy. *Sigh* It is my sad duty to inform you that ITW has been abandoned and will cease to function at one-o’clock this Monday morning. That is all the information I have been given on this matter."
There was a rising volume of murmurs heard among the guilders.
"Please, I would ask you not to panic. We are civilized creatures. We will figure out what to do. In the meantime I’m assembling an ambassador party to journey to ITW to find out what’s going on exactly. When we have more up-to-date news we will vote on what’s to be done. Thank you."
The murmuring began anew and rose quickly to a crescendo. Stormy hopped quickly up to the podium.
"Everyone, please! Tser, if worse comes to worse, there’s always the EZB. Should I get it ready to launch?"
Tser motioned for Stormy to follow her to a side room.
"I don’t want to cause a panic. Prep the EZB. Have Lyosha, Aubrey, Autumn and Gravis help you. Don’t tell anyone. If word got out that we were preparing to abandon the guild there would be hysteria. And there’s no way I could clean that up by Monday!"
"Gotcha," Stormy replied. She hopped off to find her fellow mod-crew and prep the EZB for launch.
Tser meanwhile had other folks to find. First, she went back to Poison.
"Poison, dear? Would you like to accompany the group to ITW?"
Poison looked confused.
"Who else is going?"
"Um... Well actually, you’re the first one I’ve asked."
"And why me?"
"Well... the road to ITW is rather dangerous. It’s full of potholes, trolls and forgotten message-boards."
"And why me?"
"Well, being that you have a wonderful ability to poison just about anything that touches you, you would be a valuable asset to the group."
"Would I?"
Poison thought for a moment.
"... Yeah, all right."
"Excellent. Meet on the links page at noon. We’ll set off then."
"'Kay."
Poison wandered off, not feeling up to breakfast anymore. Tser looked for her next target. She found Raena eagerly slurping up some pie from her silver wing feathers.
"Ugh! What a mess! And I just got done preening!"
"Problems?" asked Tser sarcastically. Raena glared at her.
"Grrrr!"
"Sorry...."
"Eh, it’s all right. I’ll just leave some for later. What’s up?"
"Glad you asked. I’d like you to accompany the group to ITW."
Raena looked around cautiously.
"Who put you up to this?"
"Raena! Seriously! Will you go?"
"Who else is going?"
"Poison."
"And?"
"Poison."
"Both of 'em?"
"... Yeah."
"Okay, I’ll go. But they better both be coming!"
"Oh don’t you worry... she-- they are. Meet on the links page at noon."
"Gotcha."
Tser went off to find Acyd and Jooshie next. She found them chatting with Beta.
"Running up the long-distance bill again?"
Acyd looked up quickly.
"Um... Joosh! You runnin’ up the long-distance bill again?" She gave Joosh a whap.
Jooshie quickly said goodbye and hung up the mIRCphone.
"No."
Tser shook her head.
"I need you two for the group going to ITW."
"Why us?" asked Joosh cautiously.
"Three reasons." She pointed at him. "One: you can breathe fire. We need a dragon in the party." She pointed at Acyd. "Two: he won’t go anywhere without you." She pointed at the phone. "Three: to save money on this month’s bill."
"Well...." Joosh looked at Acyd. "You wanna?"
"Whatever...."
"Acyd says yes. Me too. We’re in."
"Excellent. Meet on the links page at noon. Oh, also: see if you can find Sparhawk. Get him to go along as well."
"Whatever...."
"She says okay, we will," Joosh interpreted.
"Thank you."
Tser left to find her last victim, Dracana. She turned around and looked up. Dracana wasn’t too hard to find. The two-hundred-foot golden dragon was "sitting" at the table absorbing most of the traffic of thrown pastries. She didn’t seem to notice. Tser flew up and landed on her shoulder.
"Oh, hey Tser!"
"Dracana."
"What’s on your mind?"
"Surely you know."
Dracana paused for a moment. "You want me to go with the ambassador party to ITW with Poison, Raena, Acyd, Jooshie and Sparhawk. "Did I get it?"
"As always."
"Yaaay!!! I’m getting better at this!" Dracana boomed referring to her psyonic powers.
"Do see if you can sqeeze onto the links page at noon, will you? You might want to get started soon... it may take awhile," Tser recommended.
"I’ll do my best."
Her party formed, Tser went to go find Stormy and see how her progress had been in finding her crew.
The EZB Windsong was a medium-sized spacecraft. It was well laid-out, though its format was quite different than the guild. It had a few visitors, but no permanent residents yet. Stormy had built it to be a place that would filter out the trolls and spam, since registration was required to enter it. For the most part, it had kept the traffic down and the maintenance easy. Now it might have to be reformatted to have the capacity of the guild and all its newbies.
Stormy was busily adding new decks and advertising for new deck moderators. Thus far she had the lower decks covered, but the main upper decks still needed crew. Tser found Stormy finishing up the bottom deck, the (Life) Support systems. She was busy showing Gravis how to give advice, lend a caring wing and adjust the artificial gravity.
"How goes the preparations?"
Stormy looked up.
"I hate to say this, but we’re gonna be swamped. We have too many decks and too many passengers. We have too few moderators. This is gonna be a loooong trip."
"Fight the good fight, Stormy."
"Wanna help?"
"Uh...." Tser thought a moment. Did she really want to take on another administration job? Or was one enough trouble?
"Thanks for the offer, Stormy. But I think I’ll pass. I’ve been cleaning up after newbies and trolls and whiners for years now."
Stormy looked saddened. Tser smiled warmly.
"This is your ship, your crew. You have a fine mission and the best means by which to make it work. After this Monday, I’m retiring."
"... Tser ..." Stormy sqeaked. "What will we do without you? You’ve always been there to guide us!"
"Oh, hush. I’m not leaving! Are you kidding? I’d have to be a fool to pass up this journey! And frankly, I’m darned curious as to where it will lead us."
Stormy smiled.
"Thanks, Tserisa. You have a place if you ever want it."
Tser and Stormy hugged. It would be very different having the duties of administrator all to herself, but somehow Stormy was going to do it. Tser walked the decks for awhile then left to go set up a new link gate.
The time had come for the departure. Poison, Raena, Acyd and Jooshie, Dracana and Sparhawk all showed up on the links page. There they found a note from Tser.
"Thank you all for coming. As this is a link page and not a chat room, I can't talk to you. So I guessed at what you will say. To make this work, refresh this page after any one of you says something. Okay?"
"Sure," Poison said. They refreshed the page together.
"At least one of you is in the mood for talking," was the new message. The group looked at each other in confusion and bewilderment.
"This is your mission, and don't anybody say 'should you choose to accept it.'"
"But you just did...." Sparhawk shot. *Refresh*
"Shuddup Spar. The mission is to go to ITW by the following route: ITW Once there, contact any higher-ups you can find and see exactly what the problem is. Your primary objective is the information. Your secondary is to try to stop any existing programs that will terminate the board. If they won't save our home, we will. Is this mission clear?"
Everyone nodded except for Raena.
"What about trolls and forgotten boards along the way?" *Refresh*
"Thanks for asking, Raena. Save any refugees. Any hostiles you must remove. Once you have the information, hurry back. We will need to launch soon if all goes according to their plans. Oh, and don't bother refreshing anymore. This is my last message until you return. Thank you for volunteering and have a safe trip." ... Tser
"Well guys, this is it. Let's make the guild proud. Everyone ready?" Poison asked looking around.
A charge of electricity built up around Raena's paw. "Ready here."
Sparhawk loaded his technomancer rifle. It whined in response. "Ready."
"Whatever...." Acyd added.
"We're ready," Jooshie translated.
"Ready!" Dracana boomed. She bounced with excitement.
"Drac!" Spar squeaked.
Everyone looked to Spar who was buried under a pile of links.
"You know better than to bounce in here!" he added, climbing out of the pile. "Is our link okay?"
Dracana shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry... forgot. Uh, yeah, the link's fine."
"Well all right then! Let's go!"
Poison touched the link. Her purple fur and feathers smeared into pixels as she was sped down the information superhighway toward the capital city of ITW. The others followed.
ITW was a mess. It looked as if it had not been used for years. Papers and stray bits of information fluttered and zipped in every random direction. Many main buildings had been leveled by the corporations that no longer needed them.
The group popped out of the information stream close to the center of ITW. They looked around like tourists for awhile, in awe of such a big place. Not many of them had ventured to ITW's main page, and those who had were awestruck every time they visited. The main page was still intact, but many of its functions had been rendered poorly... I mean useless. Rendered useless.
*Cough* Anyway, the team moved on into the capitol building. It was vacant save for one being apparently deemed expendable by the higher-ups: the mail-daemon. The creature was wretched. It was a blood-red dragon-type creature with no wings hunched over a computer monitor. Its four arms were madly typing responses to every single email that ITW would get until it finally died one day. It was chained to the computer. It looked as if it had not seen the light of day for many, many years.
As the group approached it tiredly looked up at them, pausing its typing. A raspy tenor voice rose from its shriveled lungs. "...hello and... welcome... to the ITW main... board... ...how can I be of *cough* service...?"
Acyd, feeling an immediate wave of pity, ran to the creature.
"You poor thing! What have they done to you?"
The creature looked at her through dim but innocent eyes. "...I..." It fell into a racking fit of coughing, sending its chains rattling and sending a few messages to the wrong address. Acyd tried to calm it.
"Shhh... Take your time."
The creature looked at her again. "...I am... Daemon... and I write the mail...."
Daemon collapsed.
"Help me!" Acyd cried to the others.
They all rushed to her aid.
"What should we do?" Raena asked.
"We can't just leave him here..." Acyd stated firmly. "Let's get him out of these chains. No one deserves this!"
"Wait," Sparhawk cautioned. "What if he's ...dangerous?"
"Spar, they wouldn't put a dangerous person in charge of company email," Poison replied.
There was a pause.
"Maybe he IS dangerous...." Poison decided aloud.
"Then keep your gun on him, Spar! We're not leaving him!" Acyd ordered.
Jooshie shrugged at Poison and shot a concentrated bolt of flame at the shackles. They were unharmed. Joosh looked at Acyd.
"What happened? My fire didn't work!"
"Must have a firewall," Spar said, acknowledging the bad pun. He took aim with his technomancer rifle. "Hold him still...."
Spar fired a shot that not only opened the shackles but also destroyed the chains completely.
"I love this gun."
Acyd and Jooshie picked up Daemon and carried him out to Dracana, who couldn't get in the front door and had been elected to stand guard.
"Dracana! We need your help!" Acyd flew up and landed on Dracana's shoulder. "Drac... you see that red dot down there?" Dracana nodded. "That's ITW's mail-daemon, Daemon. He's passed out... can you help him?"
"I don't know... I'll try...."
Dracana picked up Daemon gently. She bowed her head and closed her eyes as she held him close to her.
Images flooded her head, too fast for her to stop. One moment a peaceful conversation between Daemon and apparently his employer. The next, yelling. There was a fight... Daemon lost. He lost his wings.... "He will be sentenced..."
"...to a lifetime of servitude on the mail computer," Dracana reported, teary-eyed.
"That's... awful...." Raena choked.
Acyd nuzzled the still unconscious Daemon. "Don't worry... you're safe now."