Chiraq, Coalition Both Claim Victory After Westhelm Fighting Ends With Pearls Exchanged At Fair Market Rate

Westhelm—Both sides in the ongoing Chiraq conflict claimed decisive victory this week after heavy fighting around Westhelm and Aspasia ended with each side taking roughly the same number of pearls and neither achieving any kind of breakthrough.

The conflict, which began on 17 October when the Triumvirate of Chiraq broke a vault defended by a coalition including SPQR and members of the Dawn Guard Pact, has since drawn in Nara, Westhelm and several other nations. Chiraq declared the annexation of much of northern SPQR after taking a key portal on the first day.

“We took their pearls, they took our pearls,” said one fighter on the coalition side. “Economists tell me it was the fairest trade in the server’s history. Nobody gained anything. Nobody lost anything. Honestly, it was more of a market than a war.”

Analysts at the CivMarket exchange agreed, reporting that pearls changed hands “at a stable rate of roughly one to one,” with very low volatility and a slight premium for pearls of players with good armour.

A Chiraqi commander said the result proved that Chiraq could hold its own against a much larger coalition. A coalition commander said the result proved the same thing about the coalition. When asked to reconcile the two statements, both declined, citing “operational security.”

At Nara’s Dalgon portal, where fighting briefly flared on the second day of the war, a ceasefire held for more than a week, during which both sides agreed the portal was “mostly decorative anyway” and took turns standing next to it. Nara has since ended the ceasefire, citing the arrival of the time to ball.

Military historians say it is too early to predict how the conflict will end. “Wars on this server tend to end in one of three ways,” said one. “Someone’s vault gets broken, everyone gets bored, or a newfriend logs in at the wrong moment and changes everything. All three are still on the table.”

At press time, both sides had requested a brief pause in hostilities to update their wiki pages.