A resolve of steel

After more than ten minutes of trudging about dejectedly, Felix found an empty seat at random in a restaurant, while VanCleef ordered their food and then joined him.

Before long, a waiter set a steaming bowl of noodles in front of Felix.

"Go on, eat. I ordered this for you."

Famished, Felix dug in at those words. Since crossing over into this world, he had never enjoyed anything so delicious.

Although the restaurant's waitress had a full figure and a pretty face, unfortunately, she was nowhere near as enticing as that bowl of noodles. The hungry Felix did not so much as glance at her.

Three minutes later, another waiter brought VanCleef two pieces of dry bread so poor in quality that they were almost black. The bread even contained large quantities of plainly visible sawdust.

Of course, according to those conscientious bread merchants, this was "nonnutritive dietary fiber."

Startled, Felix forced the noodles in his mouth down into his stomach, clearing his throat to ask, "Guildmaster, is that all you're having for lunch today?"

"It saves a little money, doesn't it?" After taking a few bites of bread, VanCleef smiled helplessly. Suddenly, he looked at the young man before him with sympathy. "Felix, I remember seeing your name in the Stonemasons' Guild's membership records. I think both your parents, during the war against the orcs-"

Perhaps something had suddenly come back to him; VanCleef abruptly lowered his head, covered his face, and burst into tears.

"What's wrong, Guildmaster?"

VanCleef wiped away his tears. Only after a long while did he say, "Felix, you... you've had a hard life too-ah, enough of that, enough. Hurry up and eat, so you can get back to work when you're done. I'll go and think of something else. Perhaps some other nobles will be willing to help."

Suddenly, Felix found the noodles and meat broth before him had lost their appeal.

His nose stung, and something seemed to surge upward through his throat and brain, trying to escape through his eyes.

That peculiar sensation left him unable either to eat his noodles or to speak.

Before, as a gamer and one of a million Highlords, Felix had always wondered: VanCleef was a son of grinding poverty, a man of the lowest station, an outlaw whose rebellion sounded utterly hopeless, so why did the people of the Defias Brotherhood remain loyally at his side?

Couldn't they simply flee back home and settle down to farming?

What puzzled him even more was that Edwin VanCleef was already dead, slain by five adventurers dispatched by SI:7, and most of the Defias Brotherhood had scattered after his death. Yet once Vanessa VanCleef grew up, all she had to do was raise her arm and call out in Westfall, and many of the Brotherhood's long-scattered members flocked to answer her, bringing their own provisions and following her like shadows, willing to swear loyalty to this unfamiliar young girl simply because she was Edwin VanCleef's daughter.

Now he understood it all-

They remembered the elder VanCleef's exceptional kindness and wished to repay it to the younger VanCleef.

In this world, neither love nor loyalty came without a reason.

Beyond finding answers to these questions, Felix's own outlook was quietly changing.

Before, in his eyes, VanCleef had merely been an NPC "blinded by hatred," someone who had actually dared commit the outrage of challenging the authority of Stormwind City, that city upon a hill, that beacon of human civilization. He and his brothers had merely been enemies to defeat, and the champions who defeated them would receive rewards.

But now, Felix realized that they were all living, breathing people of flesh and blood, people with feelings and loyalties. They felt happiness, anger, and hurt; they had lives of their own, and they cared about others.

Who would take such desperate risks unless their entire life had been destroyed?

Those supposedly "blinded by hatred" were nothing more than people driven into a corner by despair, giving their final, furious roar.

Before, he had believed that nothing concerning the Stonemasons' Guild had anything to do with him. Whatever ultimately became of VanCleef and the others was none of his business. All he had thought about was how to escape this troubled place as quickly as possible and find another way forward. Anywhere would do, preferably Ironforge or Boralus, so long as he was not swept into this maelstrom.

But now, the boundless distance and the countless people within it all concerned him.

He absolutely could not let VanCleef and the others sink into becoming bandits despised by everyone again.

Even if nothing could be salvaged, even if matters truly reached that final step, even if they had to confront Stormwind City, he would make the Brotherhood a band of rebels who stood tall and proud, an entrenched rebel force with its own platform and goals, an armed organization with a clear political mission-not aimless marauders, not bandits who did nothing but run rampant through the countryside.

First, he would use concerns about "damaging their international image" to help the Brotherhood demand their unpaid wages.

After all, Anduin Wrynn's first birthday celebration was next month, and many senior Alliance figures would be gathering here for the occasion. Felix knew the guild could use that opportunity to take action that would damage the Wrynn royal family's image.

If Varian and Bolvar did not want the Kingdom of Stormwind to become the laughingstock of the Alliance, they had better exhaust every possible means to resolve this matter satisfactorily.

Second, if they were ultimately left with no choice but to take that desperate risk, he would use his knowledge and skills to help them conduct a proper rebellion.

He knew nothing about engineering drawings, descriptive geometry, or pouring concrete on construction sites, and he was very much an amateur at Stealth and assassination. But when it came to rebellion, he was far more professional than VanCleef.

After all, judging by the subsequent course of history, VanCleef and the others had driven the Defias' natural allies-the ordinary farmers of Westfall-into opposition to the Brotherhood, instead leading those farmers to regard their class enemies, the farm owners, as their protectors. That alone demonstrated how amateurish the Defias Brotherhood's rebellion had been.

The world Felix came from had experienced thousands of years of rebellions: from the age of slavery and the founding of feudal states to absolute monarchy, and then to the weakest link in the imperialist chain. Every era and every social setting had seen heroes rise in great waves.

Whether the enemies they faced were slave owners, feudal lords, landlords, or emperors, there were abundant glorious deeds of rebels for Felix to study and learn from. That was his greatest advantage.

That year's struggle for unpaid wages had pitted VanCleef against Duke Wishock, and in the end, VanCleef had received nothing. Felix had seen VanCleef sitting despondently on the ground, sobbing too hard to speak, and that sight would stay with him for the rest of his life.

At that moment, Felix thought, If I'm fortunate enough to become the Brotherhood's leader, I must win it all.

And so, in the midsummer of year sixteen after the opening of the Dark Portal, with a resolve as firm as steel, the history of Azeroth took a turn.