![[drops lectern, moonwalks offstage]](https://guildedage.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/gach24pg26-copy.jpg "[drops lectern, moonwalks offstage]")
Annotated 24-26
I have to admit, Phil did a better job than I remembered of pulling the various threads of this story into the speech. Byron probably doesn’t need E-Merl, Frigg, or Sundar to tell him about the quest-post situation: he’s plugged into the community enough that he already knows.
Gonna round out this trilogy of letting others do the heavy lifting with a comment from Mordecai:
Canaghem and Persson,
They think we’re nothing.
Are we nothing?
NO!
Ardaic and Jarvis,
They think they’ve bought us
HAVE THEY BOUGHT US?
NO… t yet!
-Even though we ain’t got heads of houses
We’re a new guild just by sayin’ sooooooooo,
AND THE WORLD WILL KNOW!
What’s it gonna take to stop the dragons?
Are we ready?
YEAH!
What’s it gonna take to stop the savages?
Can we do it?
YEAH!
We’ll do what we gotta do
Until we break the will of His Grace Miyamoto
AND THE WORLD WILL KNOW
AND GASTONIA TOO
Freelancers have
An axe to grind with you!
Byron actually seems like the guy to make this kind of speech, because for all his trauma, he’s still a believer.
“What’s it gonna take to stop the dragons?”
Are there dragons in Arkerra? Have I missed them? If not why not, if so what’s their deal?
“Do you think we’re stupid enough to get involved in that kerfluffle? We finally get a chance to take a nap!”
Presumably, as in World of Warcraft, the game Kingdoms of Arkerra is unsubtly based on, there are numerous creatures out there who are comparably hostile and dangerous to both the World’s Rebellion and Gastonia, and players who aren’t interested in PvP, or not only PvP, fight them. Mostly offscreen, and further offscreen as the faction conflict comes to a head for the heroes and villains the comic focuses on.
I suppose that’s fine for the game aspect of it (though dragons and the like feature heavily in WoW as time went on, becoming involved in the world story, which drives the PvP as in Arkerra) but what about in the…I dunno, “Real World of Arkerra” if someone’s fighting off dragons the characters would probably at least reference it, and if they are powerful and dangerous you’d think one of the factions would look to exploit them or mention why they don’t. Right now they feel more mythical than like something out there doing stuff.
I’m kind of curious why in a comic sort of about fantasy gaming tropes, and if not a satire of them, certainly in part, a dissection of them we dungeons but no dragons.
If we don’t see it happen, it’s only because there’s no eye-witness reporters bringing it to the authors’ attention.
Which in this setting basically means Best’s quests got interrupted by a literal plothole.