Not too long ago the Taiwanese player Sen sat in this very room, and dared to opposse Dustin Browder by saying close positions are imbalanced. The next day he lost in the NASL. Some say it was the voodoo priest Browder visited the night before. Others say Browder did a ritual dance with Navajo indians ( naked, but no one was eager to imagine that so it was often left out). Perhaps it was the bloody sacrifice of a goat by a notorious Haitian shaman that cursed Sen. One thing the stories had in common: Dustin Browder. That part must be true.
The silence seemed eternal, until somebody started clapping. David looked up slowly, and too his surprise it was Browder himself. A feeling of relief went away as quick as it came, when he suddenly realized the sound produced by the joining of hands told the careful listener that it meant "I will destroy you", more than "Good job". The others followed Dustin's example and started clapping as well.
David was Korean, and Koreans are fast, but no one can escape the mad rage of an American with a gun. He didn't actually know whether Dustin owned a gun, but he knew it was safer to presume every American had at least three of them.
"What a wonderful presentation Mr. Kim". The words rolled of his tongue in the same fashion a genuine compliment would, but the vague smile revealed his true intentions. The others saw it too, but no one dared to raise their voices.
David didn't blame them, the fear made him sweat, and he noticed drops of water running down Matt Cooper's forehead too. The brave man almost spoke up, but his open mouth failed to produce any words.
"Splendid, absolutely splenid", Dustin said with the same vicious smile on his face.
Don't you agree, Matt?", Dustin asked suddenly, while turning his head toward the poor designer.
"Your words described it as best as any words could", he said rather nervously.
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Dustin's roaring laughter went through flesh and bone.
Browder had trouble recapturing his breath after his sudden explosion of laughter. He stood up and faced his employees.
"I disagree", the words were cold as ice. "You can never have enough rocks".
The others nodded.
"We all had a good laugh, but it's time to work seriously again David. I would like your opinion on the new maps. We can only add one more and I really like the one with the 3 ramps to the natural, and rocks at every possible expansion. But that would mean sacrificing the one with dragons in the background, and dragons are the coolest thing ever. The dragon map also has more rocks, can you see the dilemma, David?", Dustin asked.
David was speechless for a brief moment, and then he pronounced the very safe and calculated words "We can just add more rocks to the first map, and add dragons in the background. We could even have a dragon sitting on every rock, to attack players who try to break them down."
Browder smiled, this time the smile was a sincere one. "It's good to have you back, David".
David's relief made him laugh. "That wasn't too bad", he thought.
The next day David Kim had a 119 game long losing streak, and dropped all the way to the bronze league. For 118 consecutive games he had to play Tasteless. He lost them all. After every game Tasteless couldn't help himself and made jokes about stealing ladder points from nerds. After 118 games David didn't have any points to steal left. Tasteless logged off in disappointment.
David decided to play one more to get his points back. However he lost game 119 to the bronze league player "Mr.Bunnypants", who caught him off guard with a 10 minute 3 roach timing attack.
That same day Browder was looking with unreal pleasure at the biggest rock covering the gold base, with of course the biggest dragon defending it, and whispered: "My precious."