Slowly, but surely, the outlaws were routed. Most had died, and the only few who were alive had already fled. Arms Slave's forces swept through the city to clear out the Dissolutions within, as well as any surviving Outlaw, and reaped the rewards. A small party was held in celebration to their victory, but Arms Slave was not present. He had remained at the gate to salvage what was left of the Wheel Cannons as well as get the Ebony Stryker's war machines back. Though only lost one, which while a hefty price to replace, things could have been much worse.

But in the back of Arms Slave's mind, there was uncertainty. Normally he wouldn't think much about a siege like this. Wasn't the first time he got involved in the defense (Or offense) of a siege before he joined up with the Ebony Strykers, but this felt different. He knew Corpse Collector was behind it, which was why this didn't feel like a complete victory. It wasn't just the fact that he (Unknowingly) missed killing CC himself, but the fact that in the end he knew this wasn't the end. Outlaws are sure to be in short supply now that the Ebony Strykers have proven once again that they were not going to be easy targets, so massive forces like these were going to be rare. But now Arms Slave knew that any of the other guilds who had watched them knows that the Black Guild had the power to fight back, and weren't going to start faltering now.

War was coming. Arms Slave could taste it. The smell of cannons and the blood on the ground. The outlaw threat was gone but now the other guilds were going to go gunning for the Ebony Strykers. Or maybe they'll ally with them so they could cooperate in the take down of the other guilds. Such a guild war hasn't happened in Arms Slave's entire career in Deep Ground. Now he was going to see the beginning, and god willing, the end. This made the sweeper quite happy.

In the excitement Arms Slave noticed he had new messages. One from Eclipse Princess and another from Phantom Regality. He vaguely remembers Phantom as the mage avatar who helped him get close to the cannons. Arms Slave sent him a friends request as well as reading his e-mail. Phantom mentioned Princess being gone, and sure enough her own e-mail basically told Arms Slave that she was leaving the area. She was very annoying, and Arms Slave would love to just fuck her up.

And then he realized something. He [i]did[/i] know who she was. A long time ago, she was one of the targets the Erasers gave him to eliminate. But he went after someone else instead. He went back into his e-mails and looked for the message the Erasers gave him. It was encoded of course, but with just a few minutes he was able to break the code and get a list of names. They were the Avatar names with the real name of the players next to them. No other information was given as it was up to the Cleaners themselves to do more intel gathering, but a name was all he needed.

Calling a few of this friends over he had one more thing to do before he'd log off for the night. He had his buddies gather up the corpses of the dead avatars, at least the ones that haven't vanished yet. They gathered spears and poles, impaling the bodies into the wall of the Black City. A morbid affair perhaps, but it served two purposes: scaring off the outlaws who might try to attack, and sending a message to Eclipse Princess. Once his sordid affair was over Arms Slave went into the city to meet up with his buddies and celebrate. After this last raid, he had just enough EXP to level up.

Meanwhile at the wall, after putting Eclipse Princess on Arms Slave's block-list, the bodies of the outlaws were arranged on the walls in a specific message for her. If she came back from the same gate soon, she would see them before the bodies despawned.

[b][h1]CASSANDRA[/h1][/b]

[hr]

This was... Unexpected. Dark Wraith was in the midst of breaking through Corpse Collector's walls when something finished the job. Dark Wraith immediately used a different hack to scan the entire city of it's players, both hidden and exposed, trying to find out who among them may be interfering. Names of known Erasers, players outside of the Ebony Strykers, anyone who Dark Wraith could aim suspicion on... But instead she found no one like that. One moment Corpse Collector was at the height of her power, and then it was all gone. Some mysterious force had removed the power from Corpse Collector, making her weak enough for even Smitten Kitten to kill her.

Corpse Collector's body vanished. Normally Avatar bodies don't vanish for the benefits of Necromancers, but Dark Wraith could imagine that the circumstances of her death made things different. Fortunately, before Smitten Kitten landed the final blow, Dark Wraith was able to get more information about who the true identity of Corpse Collector was. She got a lot of information in fact, too much for Dark Wraith to just look over shortly. She'd need at least an hour to read through everything and get the important information from it. But until then, it was over. Corpse Collector was defeated. With her army of Outlaws routed, proving once again the might of the Ebony Strykers, Dark Wraith was certain that no more upstarts intended to challenge them. That only left the other guilds to pose a true threat to Dark Wraith, but she had already started collaborations with other Erasers planted in the other guilds to facilitate a beneficial arrangement.

But a slightly more immediate issue was Smitten Kitten. A lone level 1 outlaw. At her level Dark Wraith would have no trouble defeating the cat on her own, without any dead thralls to back her up. But with other players and Moon Rider at her side, slaying the cat was going to be no trouble. But there was a different problem than even that. [color=black]"It seems that this little kitten has succeeded in slaying Corpse Collector, right in front of our eyes at that. Was this your plan all along, little cat? Get on Corpse Collector's good side and then kill her when she was at her weakest, just so you can get the coveted award Moon Rider promised?"[/color] Truth be told Dark Wraith would have done exactly the same thing. Moon Rider claims that she has her ways to getting someone to level 9 in a short amount of time, but Dark Wraith was uncertain if even the Black King was going to give that offer to someone who's shown her contempt to the Black King.