Lil Arrow, the boss of 655, made sure that the seriousness with which he took the game was evident at all times. He regularly wrote in the GC that he was not here for fun. And he paid great attention to his appearance. So he meticulously checked his appearance that morning too. His golden cloak fitted perfectly, he had had his face powdered by one of his girls and, with the help of his R4 hairdresser, had just put on his wig with its undulating curls. Lil Arrow believed that a well-groomed appearance conveyed dignity and appropriateness of the wearer and generated respect and appreciation from the other person. His role model in this respect was Louis XIV. He had just checked his appearance in the man-sized mirror that the girl held up to him when the shouting started again outside.


    ''You have no skills!''


    ''Neither do you!''


    ''We don''t like you!''


    ''We don''t like you either!''


    ''How does it feel for you not to be able to enter Z4?''


    ''How does it feel for you to just be incredibly fat and big?''


    ''You look like losers!''


    ''And you look like Jabba the Hutt!''


    Lil Arrow tore open the window and shouted in the direction of the 652 and the 656: ''Just shut the fuck up, both of you! You''ve been getting on my nerves for weeks! It''s time for all this nonsense to end and I can get back to the game with MY people in MY city!''


    He threw the window shut even before a double ''Cry!'' resounded back in all cheerfulness.


    _____________________________________________


    King Mink was annoyed. Once again, not by his opponents, but by his own people. Instead of being grateful and frugal, they hung around in the entrance hall of the clan castle and were bored. They grumbled! They dared to grumble! The game had become boring, by now they had seen and experienced everything that could be experienced here. The opponents had all been defeated or at least pushed back far enough, every challenge eliminated. These eternally repetitive events, the daily login almost an obligation, and everything somehow stupid. King Mink couldn''t believe it. This ungrateful gang! He had invested time, nerves, money and endless amounts of brainpower to get his city to the point where it was now. And now that it was time to reap the harvest and enjoy the success, this Thunder pack was just too dull to realise what was behind the victory. They took it for granted and were stubborn and bad-tempered because everything was now becoming monotonous to them. He had prepared a golden floor for them! A red carpet had been rolled out! And instead of recognising this and being satisfied, they grumbled and some even talked about quitting. King Mink locked himself in his bedroom and indulged in marvellous fantasies of simply burning all the ungrateful members to death himself.


    ___________________________________________


    Impel was desperate. She had been searching for days for her beloved donkey, which had suddenly and quietly disappeared from the stables of the 656 clan castle during the night. She had searched everywhere for it, even sneaking to the clan castle of 652, but even there she had only found an empty stable and two squirrels cheekily jumping around in the tree in front of the castle and throwing nuts at each other.


    Impel put her sack of carrots back on her shoulders and continued her search. Without her little donkey, she realised, the GW map was simply not the same as before.


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    __________________________________________


    ''Lippy, you don''t look well,'' the Thunder brothers greeted their comrade, who came hobbling back into the hall on crutches.


    ''Yeah, thanks, I know that too,'' Lipsyte hissed. ''Those bloody bastards, those squirrels! They got away from me when I fell out of the tree! And I almost had them!''


    ''They''ve had enough of your cellar, brother. I think you need to come up with something new.''


    Thunder Benexi raised his head and wiggled his whiskers mockingly: ''You should have listened to me... I told you, let us cats do it. We have experience climbing trees and hunting small animals. We would have taken the squirrels out of your tree right away.''


    ''Stop making me look incompetent!'' scolded Lipsyte, ''I can do something myself! And I''ll get those squirrels myself!''


    ''Oh yeah?'' grinned Thunder Loki, ''Let''s go then, brother. They''re out in the tree throwing nuts at each other!''


    Lipsyte snorted angrily and, without saying another word, limped towards the stairs and his room.


    __________________________________________________


    Lady Evelyne baked cakes. Lots of them, in fact. She carefully stacked them all on the kitchen shelf and sorted them into boxes.


    Chitadrita entered the kitchen and savoured the fragrant cake air. ''Oh, what are you doing?''


    ''I''m baking the provisions for the journey,'' laughed the lady, ''we''ll be heading back to the city soon. We should be prepared. It''s a long journey. And you can never have enough cake!''


    ''That''s probably true. By the way, my compatriot has been pardoned, have you seen?''


    ''The angry Russian? That''s marvellous. Nice that he was finally allowed to leave the penal colony. He wasn''t actually a spy. Just very, very angry.''


    ''Did he still send you nasty emails?''


    ''Only two or three. Until I told him other people were responsible for him now.''


    ''And what happened then?''


    ''Well, he got angry. Very angry. Did you expect anything else?''


    __________________________________________


    Lipsyte was sitting in an armchair by the wide-open window of his room in the spring sunshine and was just about to open the latest edition of ''Legends'' to enjoy an afternoon of reading when something rustled on the windowsill.


    Astonished, he looked up. There were two squirrels sitting on the windowsill. HIS squirrels. And the next moment he got a nut on his nose. These bastards dared to throw nuts at him!


    Very, very carefully, so as not to frighten the animals, he put the book aside. He moved slower than a tortoise, completely steady and calm. Supporting himself on the armchair, he got to his feet. Only one leg was injured, the other he could use as a supporting leg without any problems. So he could do without the crutches. It was less than a metre from his position to the window sill. Just one courageous jump, one grab, and then he would have them, those damn bastards...


    __________________________________________


    One floor below, Thunder Loki heard a rustling above him. Astonished, he opened the window and looked up. He just managed to pull his head back in time to hear a shrill scream from outside. Everyone flinched. The next moment, Lipsyte crashed to the ground outside the window at full speed.


    ___________________________________________


    Cake bowls were distributed to everyone in the 656 clan castle. ''Put it on your head and don''t put it down under any circumstances!'' the leadership urged the members. ''Tomorrow is massacre day. Please remember to keep the cake bowl on your head at all times!''


    ''And bring it back afterwards, right!'' growled the lady, ''I''m not done baking yet! It''s an absolute bad habit in this game that you keep misappropriating my cake bowls and then I have to run after them to get them back! Who came up with the idea that you have to put cake bowls on your head here anyway, hey?''


    ''No idea,'' mumbled Captain Zaxpool, who had been drunk for days for some unknown reason. ''But there was still icing in my bowl. Now add a decent beer and the evening will be saved.''


    ______________________________________________________


    ''Lippy, you do NOT look good at all,'' the Thunder brothers remarked apprehensively as Lipsyte was pushed into the hall in a wheelchair by Thunder Horny.


    ''Everybody just shut the fuck up. Just shut the fuck up,'' muttered Lipsyte, ''I''d kill you if I could, but now BOTH legs are broken. So I''m putting this off. Anyone got a lot of beer for me? And I''ll give 20 million diamonds to whoever carries me and my wheelchair up to my room. There''s no lift here. Too few toilets and no lift. What a shitty place this is!''


    King Mink pursed his lips and thought to himself. Ungratefulness. At some point, this really should be penalised. The time between GW1 and GW2 would be a good opportunity. Perhaps a public execution? That had already disciplined many a faction. King Mink was beginning to like the idea.


    ____________________________________________________


    In the clan castle of 655, Lil Arrow had finished his morning routine and was ready for the day. He was about to head to his throne room and get serious about the game when the door opened and his right hand man AceAngel entered the room.


    ''''Boss, you should see this...'''' was all AceAngel said, and Lil Arrow knew immediately that it must be something serious. He followed his colleague down the stairs to the lower floors of the castle.


    Together they entered the stable next to the gate.


    Lil Arrow''s breath caught in his throat. In his clan castle, in his stable, stood a donkey. But not just a donkey: he had a pink saddle on his back, a pink hat on his head and pink boots on his hooves. He was a goddamn joke!


    Lil Arrow gasped and gripped his golden cape with one hand and his wig with the other to keep at least these two attributes in balance.


    The donkey turned round and blew his stinking breath into the powdered face of the head of the 655 with a snarl: ''You''re gay!''


    Lil Arrow swooned.