Well it's time to say goodbye.

Lets call this thread locked and done. No more discussion is necessary. I'll let the guild know what happened, and you can see the thread on the LC forums.

Melanne.

avenger posted this part:

hey man y u go off do that i though u got everything setteled down come on and i know u come back and read ths so i think u should return both mounts that u have of HealersForHires i don't beleive that they are urs sence ur not in there guild anymore and we still friends but return all u got for the guild plz

It ended up somehow in pers's post looking like an edit. Melanne, please look into that.

http://lastchaos.aeriagames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17428

That post should make it clear to the community.

Translation - "The guildmaster isn't power-leveling me any more, and wants me to help my guildmates catch up, so I quit, and screw you all."

At least, that's the way I read it just now. The only change in my treatment of Persephony as of late was giving him more tools to help the guild instead of giving him my time to help him level faster. Amazing that thought didn't occur to me sooner, but that's exactly what was bothering him. He'd been using us all along, evidently, got what he wanted, and bailed out. When he was the one getting the perks of being right beside me all the time, he was happy as a clam. When I started having him help the rest of the guild level up, he balked and ran away taking stuff that would have helped you all. Mostly, I've outgrown the things he took from you. He had the best of our Hypocrates armor, but it's not as good as Knightmare armor at my level that we'll all be wearing as soon as possible. I don't see him having the spine to come back and face any of you here again. He'll likely hide on K1-K5 and keep himself flagged as offline to avoid having to speak to any of you. He took the mounts Katran had been using, so he didn't steal from me. I'm not going to let my mistake in judgement keep Katran from having mounts, though, so I've given her the ones I was using. I'll train up more mounts, we'll get more gold and more armor, and we'll replace everything he took from us with ease. We'll recover, but he never will. His guilt will haunt him, his honor is blackened, and his name will become a foul word best left unspoken without spitting afterward to clear the taste of it from our tongues. I got duped by this rankings-climber, and he's probably going to keep on using people all his life. We will recover, and we will survive, and when we rule the castle and dominate the rankings he'll be sorry he ever betrayed our trust.

Still no word from Persephony. If I receive no reply by noon tomorrow, I'll have to assume he's shed his honor and dignity entirely and he can ride those stolen mounts straight to ... no, I'll not go there in the public forum.

"It is personal... When you care about your team, when the bonds have been formed and somehow this big ball of tape starts unraveling and tangling. I weep and would walk to Japan to fix it, but after you walk to Japan and it still isn't fixed, you begin to realize that each person has to want to look at his or her part and say, 'Okay, sorry - so that rupture is mine and I don't want you all tripping over something that only I can fix.' Unless you have the inner desire to walk the extra mile with you creative circle, then the circle will be breached. It will Break. The circle's breaking aches. And it is personal. Sometimes we enter into a forgetfulness, thereby treating companions, creative compadres, as if they are taking from us when they are giving. And the decomposing of the harmonic structure that was in place has begun. And the cords pull - no, yank - in your gut. Then every time it happens, you realize that you cannot make others want to look at their part in the discordance. You can say how it's affecting your relationship and what you're willing to do or not do. Then it's out of your hands. Completely out of your hands..."

I give up.

I've already been addressig this issue by directly managing the allocation of gear, and Persephony had absolutely NO right to complain about seniority issues. He had lower seniority than everyone except TheoPheno, but got his dragon bow sooner due to levels to free up the bow he was using at the time for use by lower level guildmates. Also, if seniority were the only priority, hasamaki would have both mounts he rode off with. If anything, I should go back to using the seniority system exclusively to better protect guild assets, even if this results in sub-optimal utilization of our resources. Those who have been with us the longest are least likely to run off with gear and pets, or even worse, the hard earned pet-part gear.

I don’t know what Untamed have offered you... well, I do... but you need to stop right there. You told me yourself you’d never have come so far so quickly without your guildmates. Your friends. So you’re equipped with a dragon bow, enchanted armour, are entrusted with two mounts and suddenly you’re getting shafted, treated like dirt? I know you’ve got legitimate issues you want to put out there and I’ve expressed my support on some points. Creeping out the back door in the middle of the night leaving a note on your pillow, however, isn’t the way to go about it. Grow up and grow some balls.

Is it my mistake for telling Semp I had some things to talk about but wanted to wait until AFTER other things were dealt with? Damn it, Persephony, I supported some of the things you were saying and was brainstorming with you for ideas that could be suggested in changes and you pay me back like this?

Sorry Semp, I didn't want to bring up Persephony's specifics or even Persephony's name until other issues were resolved and you and I could sit down and have a rational debate. Guess that makes it partly my fault for keeping you in the dark while you had so much stress with exams and your health problems. I really didn't want to add to it and just wanted to talk when everything else was settled.

Melanne... too angry to say anything more at the moment.

Persephony, if anyone is the "select few" it's been you. Please return the equipment and mounts if you're leaving. We're not exploiting anyone, and you're simply spouting enemy propoganda. We're a team, and we don't like being screwed over like this so we take cautions. I made a bad management decision by allowing you to borrow two mounts. You proved that by stealing them from the guild. You know, if anyone's been exploited, it's the guild leaders. I've spent a considerable amount of CASH on this guild, and Melanne has spend considerable time on the website. And yeah, I could SO claim that the select few I've bought gifts for from the item mall are exploiting me, but I don't. Let's see, everyone whom I've bought a Japanese armor set for back when they were 2500 AP each, sound off in reply here in this thread. This includes NON-guildmembers, too. Let's see just what a selfish person I am.

I trusted you, and helped you much more than I should have. You have betrayed me and all of your friends by stealing from them. You are expressing animosity for the guild members by refusing to follow the guild rules that helped you get to where you are using our guild's resources. You lack the understanding of our guild to judge my management of guild resources for the betterment of the guild.

The only ones who've been taken for a ride are your former guildmates and you're the one at the wheel. If you have any respect for them at all, show a bit of patience and talk this through with all of them.

It's a shame that this post is the first I hear of this situation. You gave me no time to hear your concerns and discuss them with you before you abandoned your friends. I trusted you, helped you, and you betrayed us all. The mounts will eventually be replaced, as will the millions in gold that you stole from everyone in the guild. I was in the middle of dealing with drama from Litta and Asuka and was kept in the dark on the nature of your discontention.

I really wish you had talked to me directly instead of going to Melanne first, or at least given Melanne the courtesy of waiting until after Mother's Day to have to deal with your problem. Nobody here is a slave. We enjoy LC and our guild, and if we didn't we wouldn't be here. Obligations and Partnerships, not slavery, are a part of Family.

Please do us a favor and stop swallowing enemy propoganda, and instead take the time to logically discuss this with me and the rest of the guild instead of running away. And anyone in the guild is welcome to discuss this matter. There are no slaves here.

My last regret is losing a friend. I've been taken on the hardest ride of all. So has the first person to ever talk to you in game, and her daughter, and everyone else who cared about you and enjoyed your company.