[NAVA HEADQUARTERS]
"Sir!!!"
"What? I'm in the middle of a meeting with important clients…this better be important or you are fired." Roared the CFO angered by the sudden intrusion right in the middle of a meeting with top government officials.
"I'm terribly sorry sir! Please forgive me! It's the Verdant Wall! The Wall has fallen!"
The CFO's eyes grew wide, and his face grew pale. He stammered for a few seconds unsure if he heard the message correctly.
"What? Are you sure? When did this happen? Wait."
Turning to face the men and women on the opposite side of the table, the CFO stood up and said in a mixed voice, "I apologize…we had a major breakthrough just now…and its great news for everyone. Please excuse me for a minute…my associate here will give you a tour of our facility."
Evan quickly left the conference room and ran to his office with the messenger in tow. He slammed the door shut and paced around his office like a caged lion.
"Tell me everything…don't leave out a single detail."
"It happened this morning, at roughly 10:47. The Verdant Wall has fallen and the Elderwood Grove dungeon has been cleared! We couldn't believe it ourselves. So, we asked our IT and Game Development staff to check, double and triple check it. We even sent undercover agents in person…here are the photos they captured."
"Who…how…when…when…" Evan stammered as he tried to form thoughts as he looked at the photos. It looked like a bomb had detonated over the forest…reducing the wall to a pile of burnt sticks.
"Have you notified the CEO?"
"Sir, no. He is out of the office and unreachable at the moment."
"Put out a press alert. Announce to the public that NAVA will be releasing the much-anticipated game expansion tonight! Get Marketing on board. I want to make a big splash…bigger than the one that killed the dinosaurs. Get every top influencer, social media star, promotor, and person with a camera on this! Buy up all the air-time across the world on every major station…I don't care about the cost…this is worth trillions…perhaps hundreds of trillions of dollars!"
"Hold it…we need to control potential misinformation. What are the players saying about this? Has anyone posted videos showing how they cleared the dungeon or anything similar that may pose a problem for us?" Evan asked.
"No sir. Not a word. No one has taken credit for this. However, players are starting to aggregate there as we speak…curious to see what happened."
"Strange. Why would a player not take credit for this…do we know which guild is responsible for clearing the dungeon?" Evan asked.
"It's a new guild named Scavengers…they are small and only have five members. In fact, according to our analysts, one player in particular was responsible for all the work. The analysts are calling him the 'Verdant.'
Evan's demeanor changed suddenly…as if an old memory resurfaced.
He said, "wait…cancel my schedule. All my meetings, cancel them all. Get me all the VPs here now. All of them. I will handle this myself…get me the head of Game Development too, what are you waiting for? GO GO GO!"
[…]
It was the number one news item across the global.
AvalorStream, the social media platform dedicated exclusively for all news, updates, promos, player videos, streams, posts, discussion, etc., was booming with views. In less than an hour, countless videos and images showing the fallen Verdant Wall went beyond viral. One video had over 100 billion views in less than an hour.
Everyone from CEOs of multinational companies, Presidents of world governments, Investors and Stock Analysts, players and gamers, to ordinary civilians…the entire world stopped what they were doing to watch the breaking news being broadcasted on every channel and every media outlet including AvalorStream.
The news coverage and buzz was unreal.
It far exceeded the assassination of JFK, 9-11, the Moon Landing, and the fall of the Berlin Wall all combined. Countless videos went viral showing players standing on top of the collapsed Verdant Wall. Many players could not resist the temptation to see what was beyond the wall and ventured into the unknown. They posted numerous videos and images of new lands including arid deserts, swamps, marshes, evergreens, and thick rolling plains covered in green grass.
NAVA put out a convincing statement explaining that the game expansion was being released that night and that the images were a sneak-peek taken by players that were allowed to help with the beta testing. NAVA went on the explain that the new release would feature expanded content, new terrain, and new Kingdoms.
This was the first major update to Avalor since its release in 2030…and the world went wild.
The stock price for NAVA stock soared by 79%,
The executives threw lavish parties with an ocean of food and alcohol. There were even unconfirmed rumors that two top executives died from a drug and alcohol overdose induced heart-attack during one of the company's parties. The number of new players increased dramatically along with an increase of player time spent in-game.
[...]
[SCAVENGERS GUILD HALL]
"It doesn't look like anyone knows that we are responsible for this." Percy said as he stood by the door peeking out the window with his twin daggers equipped.
"Will you please sit down? You are freaking me out…it's not like we killed someone or committed a crime." Wain complained.
"Sorry. You can never be too careful. It's only a matter of time until the community learns that it was our guild that cleared the dungeon. When that happens, all hell will break lose." Percy warned.
"We are ok for now. Relax a little." Hector said.
!ALERT!
[System Notice - the Scavengers Guild has cleared the Elderwood Grove dungeon.]
[Special Recognition given the Arthos, the Verdant.]
[In celebration, 3 free Dungeon Raid tickets will be awarded to all players regardless of guild or rank.]
"Well, so much for our secret," Kristan said sarcastically.
"What are we going to do now?" Wain asked as he looked at his friends.
"We find the truth…besides, there is not much else we can do right now. Raiding dungeons is off the table thanks to those free raid tickets. Every dungeon will be flooded with players." Arthos said with a determined voice.
The entire trip back, he did not say a single word as he processed everything that had occurred and the bits of information he gained.
He continued, "I have a good hunch where we should start."
"I'm coming with you." Wain said.
"Me too," Kristan offered.
"I will stay and guard our home." Percy said still holding his daggers in his hands.
"I will stay and help Percy." Hector volunteered.