Setting: SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

Date: February 6th, 2026. (8 days until launch)

     He stood there, listening patiently as his lawyer kept talking with big words and a lot of legalize, working very hard to earn the four hundred dollars an hour that as being billed during their call. He had a copy of the contract as well as a copy of the termination papers he was given almost a week ago on his desk, and they had been going through both to see if what was going on was legal. To make the long story much, much shorter... there was nothing Gregory could do to block his ousting from the company he had built. He was going to be fired and there was nothing he could do about it. The company would never call it a firing, but it was more of a buyout. The contract he signed to let the big company buy a majority share in his company gave them the option to release him if they were willing to pay a massive payout to give Greg the heave ho. His lawyers thought the number in the contract would be too rich for even their taste, and it turns out the lawyers were wrong.

     "They're giving us the whole payout," his lawyer concluded, "There's nothing we can do to block it. It's a lot of money, Greg. You could start a whole new company with it if you wanted to."

     "Maybe that's not what I want to do!" Gregory yelled back. "I don't care about the money, I never wanted these greedy bastards to have full control over my game!"

     "I'm afraid they do now," The lawyer replied, "Or at least they will when your two week notice expires. I'm sorry, Gregory."

     "Alright," Gregory said, aware his lawyers had been trying their best. "Keep looking for anything, and I'll do the same on my end. We still have time."

     Gregory disconnected the call, but he was sure the lawyers would keep trying. They could after all bill him for all those futile hours, so they would at least make an effort to earn it. While it wasn't so sure, there was a glimmer of hope they might find something that might save him from being pushed out the door. While the payout was nice, it was still not the way he wanted to go out. He walked across to the other side of his penthouse apartment and into another room, which was his work station. He did all his work on the virtual game from this location, and this was going to have to be where he made his last stand. Since the day he was let go, Gregory had been working on something new to install into the game. Usually he would use several tech to help him with the code and roll the new area out, but that wasn't the case this time. The CEO had been working on this new addition all buy himself and was working around the clock to get it done in time. Something special for the new expansion launch, which was going to be his fuck you to the people who were pushing him out. Sweet revenge inside the game that he loved but was being taken away.

     He looked at the screen and grinned as an idea he was only thinking about was coming into fruition at the last possible moment. He was sure the big wigs at the corporation he sold out to would hate it, but the players would get a kick out of it after the initial shock of it all wore off. The castle was majestic. It was dark, menacing and scary as fuck. His fans would expect nothing less looking at something that was made by the master himself. He was grinning as he continued to input the code and work on what was going to be his masterpiece, but also his final work. After this expansion, there was never going to be another creation with his name on it.

     Gregory himself hadn't worked on any part of the game like this in a very long time. While it's true that he helped with the lore and story of each expansion, he really hadn't worked on an exact part of the game since it's earlier years. Yet this was a case of use it or lose it. There were on do overs after this expansion released, so if Gregory didn't use whatever good ideas he had left right here and now, they would never be used at all. He could tell some things had changed as the coding was a little more difficult but still manageable even for him. While Gregory was tempted to get some help to speed things up, he continued to resist as he wanted to make sure no one spoiled what he had planned.

     As his favorite Sci-Fi move once said; revenge was a dish that was best served cold, and he was looking forward to making his corporate overlords take down every damn bite of the dish he was about to serve. They would suffer greatly if his plan went exactly as he designed it to, and while he would love to be there to see the chaos and panic it would ensue, Greg didn't have the heart to be there. He couldn't be there when it all went down, or someone would try to force him to stop.

     No fucking way, Gregory thought to himself as he strolled back into the main foyer and over to his balcony. Once this train left the station, there's no turning back. Once everything was set in motion, the only way out for the players was to fight, and to conquer the Dark Castle.

     "You'll hate me for it," Gregory said to no one in particular, "But in the long run, you'll love me for it too."

     He stood there at the door to his balcony and realized that time was not on his side, and that castle wasn't going to build itself. He grabbed a few red bulls from the fridge and went back to his work station. The plan was slowly coming together.