Solemn Declaration leapt off the stage, a heroic response. He next turned around, which was a maneuver that required warning lights when executed in populated areas. “I have no ideas, but I need none. Come here, Rares.” He then snatched Ulrik's glasses and placed them on Saptres Muria's similarly plain face. “Now strategize.”
“Is it so simple as that? We'll see.” Saptres tilted his head left and right. “Hm.”
“Don't close your eyes, stupid. They're glasses.”
“Very well.”
“Ulrik, that's amazing! I can't figure out how you could tell he had them shut. The lenses are so swirly.”
“He would have seen me rifling through his pockets otherwise.”
“I don't think you should do that sort of thing, Ulrik.”
“Fine. But before you condemn me for that, get on Alexander the Great's case for cutting that rope. How about that, Cadmos? Will you go up against Alexander the Great? He's a ghost now, so it will be extra difficult.”
“He's right, Cadmos. Ghosts are tricky,” Burmin Trivvis said.
Ben I. Sloup agreed. “Afterschool Hunters and Modern Incidence Record. Those places are used to it. We fight soldiers, dragons, and robots mostly.”
“And, at a pinch, robot dragons. Oh, but should I admit to remembering something that happened so long ago in the story? I'm not ready to retire yet. The developers haven't implemented little princes and princesses to take care of us in our dotage.” The comments of King Ostros seemed tangential to the ongoing dispute, but Ulrik counted him as a supporter anyway.
“I guess you're right, Ulrik. It isn't fair for me to ask you not to steal from people if I haven't yelled at a ghost.”
“As long as you understand.”
“Aha!” Saptres Muria perked up. “I've formulated a proposal. By the way, I don't have pockets. Regardless, think back to what Captain Hwanimesca said about us.”
“And if I don't know who that is?”
“Maybe you are too old, Ostros.” Cadmos tapped his head. “It's the first thing to go. A buman officer in the nation of Tsinro who appeared in Part 3 Chapter 2. Tsinro is under a military government, and its leaders sent her with me as liaison when I persuaded them along with the neighboring countries of Jufi and Onbu to oppose the aggressive expansion of the empire led by Gracchus. Who presumably is the villain of Part 3, possibly 4 too, but he hasn't appeared yet.”
Ostros winced. “Cadmos, it's not that I forgot. It's that I never knew. We have too many officers, too many story chapters, and too little Perandra Regna for me to pay attention to all of it.”
“There was a National Hunt there not long ago.”
“When I begged foreigners for help in fighting a weird monster and disappeared from the rest of the event. Such as it was. I've decided not to remember that.”
Hemt broke in on that side-story-level conversation. “We're all men of action, class-wise, not counting the one Strategist, so we'd be better off moving out if we're going to keep talking like this. I'd recommend that we not, if I were consulted, but if we have to, let's listen to the Strategist. He looks Perandran, so that should cheer Ostros Perandra here up in a patriotic sense.”
His proposal won with a vote of five in favor, zero opposed, and three Rares. Accordingly, the group began its walk back toward the spaceport while Saptres Muria, who indeed belonged to King Ostros's mighty, influential, and mightily influential kingdom of Perandra Regna, took them on a verbal journey back to Captain Hwanimesca's pointed insults. “The ones that incited this enterprise in the first place. She was right that our simply rendered faces are but canvas ready to accept beautification, even if she didn't put it quite that way. My theory is that we benefit more from accessories than most officers do, since any additions might clash with their busy designs.”
“Hilliarde Feablas, Count Poitnem, and Ozric Orn Pallad. They're like ruffle golems.” Ben I. Sloup adopted a stiff, mechanical walk to accentuate his description.
“The only way I can imagine for someone to wear Uryeong's outfit is that she was born inside it. She grew up over time to fill it out.” Solemn Declaration looked as thoughtful as he sounded.
“And she certainly does that,” said King Ostros, who also looked as thoughtful as he sounded.
“I see you all grasped my meaning. In other words, we need glasses. Not these, to be clear. We need sunglasses and an appropriate setting to wear them, which points us toward either Convergence/Divergence or Modern Incidence Record. One of those has for its setting a city more sparsely populated than you would expect because of apocalyptic rumblings, while the other features overbearing corporations who demand proper procedure and licensing for every little thing. I'll leave it to the group to decide which to pick.”
“Which is which, Saptres?”
The other officers stopped with such abruptness that their feet failed to receive the message in time. In other words, they kept walking, but they stared at Cadmos.
“Cadmos. I know that, and its my policy not to learn.” Ulrik pulled a poster out of his pocket and unrolled it. On the top it read,” Why Learn Things . . .” A star shone in the middle. The bottom completed the message. “When You Can Nova!” Burmin displayed his as well.
“That's it! That's the kind of thing I want Harassers to have.” Ben I. Sloup commandeered Burmin's poster to analyze it. “We don't even have a motivational message.”
“Do Your Strikes Have the Stuff . . .” Burmin began.
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Ulrik finished. “To Buff and Debuff?”
“Pretty good!”
Even Hemt allowed himself to be impressed despite being a Warper, the ancient enemy of Reapers. “Was that really off the top of your heads, or do you have slogans ready for every class that wants them, just as soon as they ask you, just, bam, we made this catchphrase you need but we didn't want to impose?”
“The second possibility is not in fact possible,” Ulrik began.
Burmin finished. “Because Reapers are always imposing!”
“That's true,” Saptres Muria acknowledged.
Scheduling-related circumstances forced them to wait at the spaceport for a flight to Modern Incidence Record. “That is the game which suits our needs, if that wasn't clear. To Cadmos.”
“Thank you, Solemn. It really wasn't clear. I'm not sure why you guys are so shocked about it. I didn't get to go conquering, remember? I was busy with the collab in Holy Legend Army.”
“I stayed home entirely, and yet . . . well, never mind.” Saptres Muria took a deep breath. “Our destination is Modern Incidence Record. It is a modern urban setting that is coming undone because of the emergence of demons, monsters, ghosts, and that sort of thing. Ancient societies and conspiracies are coming to light in these circumstances. You match colors to choose attacks. It's not a match-3 game though, but rather a regular RPG with a gimmicky battle system.”
“Sounds good, Saptres. What about the equipment?”
“There are abandoned TV stations and movie sets all over. Again, because of the apocalypse.”
The winds around the prospective passengers blew hard enough to scatter concert programs and album inserts, spurred by the massive, cantaloupe-shredding propellers of one of Fields of Steam's sky-ruling airships. That is to say, they ruled the sky within Fields of Steam and nowhere else. Air superiority belonged to Brave Cumulus and Project Contrails at any time they chose to insist upon it. The cantaloupe part, however, had no qualifiers. Chaos Cuisine appreciated that function most of all. The contraption landed, a captain whose muttonchops required their own sheepdog welcomed them aboard, and a pleasant flight ensued.
Modern Incidence Record! What sights, what experiences did it offer that could not be replicated by taking a bus downtown? Mostly the demons. Fortunately, those were the focal point of the game. Unfortunately, visiting was not playing. Characters who came in by ship saw streets empty but for some cars parked in front of mysterious buildings, though inside those the drivers were either performing unspeakable rituals or serving as the guests of honor. For that reason tourism stayed low in volume. Airships accordingly handled the route rather than Furious Galaxy's faster and more commodious vessels.
The eight members of the bland gang, the only passengers aboard, disembarked while removing their steam-powered parachutes to hand back to the crew. The city, desolate as it was, roused itself to send out a delegation consisting of one whole guy, much as when someone unaccustomed to tidiness dusts and vacuums his house before visitors arrive and manages to get the main rooms mostly done. “Welcome, heralds! I am Frossard,” Frossard said frossardily. “Your arrival is unremarkable, you suppose in your knowledgeable ignorance. But has it not occurred to you that by looking upon this world, you have created it? An absurdity, it seems to you. Yes, you are repulsed by the absurdity even as you are attracted to it. As if man can behave any other way, as if we would ever work to reduce life's exquisite contradictions instead of deepening them bit by bit! I was here all along. I am able therefore to aver that everything changed when you came, though there is no evidence of that at all or reason to think it. Another contradiction! It's the first of this new world. But there will not be many, for this world won't last long. A newer approaches! Aha ha ha ha ha!”
The laughing native walked away, turned a corner, and disappeared right before their eyes. Or perhaps he would have if any of the officers had pursued him instead of searching a map for locations with the most filchable filming equipment. “I admit that I'd be more inclined to pay attention to that well-dressed man's ravings if he weren't a little pixel guy,” Hemt T. Elf observed.
“Art style is art style,” Ben I. Sloup said. Nor was he mistaken in that.
“Silver Building 4F. Hurry up before we all sound like Cadmos.” Ulrik's warning terrified Solemn, who reared and ran down the street as if all the demons in the city were after him when in fact the locals farmed all those before they caused any problems. The other seven followed more solemnly, scanning the city in the hope that their centaur vanguard had flushed out some mythical creatures for them to beat up as a way to take part in the local color.
Nothing of the sort happened, but the standard attractions offered themselves for appreciation. Boarded up warehouses, discos with basements full of soldiers (both the basement and the disco, that is), sinister hospitals, and a bunch of nondescript young men wearing sunglasses as they cruised down the boulevards, seven of them in one car and one in the other with a camera. Anyone who saw that would surely think only one thing: “I hope I can catch the next dirigible to Magical Menagerie.”
AGN's resident music critic, a pilot from Alloy Saga with too little mechanical effectiveness not to have time on his hands named Crove Cavland, considered Cadmos's debut single “Eclipse Reflection” to be inoffensive at best in his first draft, tasteful in his second, and frankly incandescent in his actual review. Kiosks were set up in every game to sell the album automatically. Below the monitor that looped the atmospheric music video with all its cityscapes and neon added in post, just put junk on the scale up to the predetermined value. The CD popped out of the slot while the scale retracted to deposit the goods.
“Who still uses CDs?” some characters asked.
“That you worry about that and not the extraordinary distribution system marks you as a person of low intellect,” others responded.
“The public beratement I suffered just now lowered my status. I am depressed because of that. I had better buy this single to cheer me up,” the first group responded. Sales soared.
Hemt peeked around a tree and drew back. “That was a good idea to disguise ourselves and insult prospective customers. Very psychological, as expected of a nefarious strategy from Gintus Pelluina.”
“Hey! We invented that!” Ulrik waved his scimitar in the air, which in his opinion proved something.
Gintus Pelluina smirked. “The effort those of your rarity made to trick other officers into building the Outer Darkness for you? An utter failure on account of a predictable reason. The officers who ignored you then had nothing to buy to improve their mood. Your scheme was doomed from the start.”
“Huh. If that's the case, how would you have persuaded them to help us?” Burmin asked.
“Blackmail.”
“Oh.”
“Cadmos must have the goods on you then, since you helped with advertising and Vigilant Patrol,” Saptres Muria said with a smug Strategist smile.
“Exactly so. And if another National Hunt is upon us, and Strufor the Vault is Quake to the woe of Storms such as I, why mention it? Discuss the issue any more and I might be tempted to buy the best-selling new CD. I would be the first on my block to do so, as they say, unless that was Gaelvry Beruvo wearing a mask that I saw in line.”
Indeed, sales tracking showed “Eclipse Reflection” did best among non-Commandment of Hero demographics, the ones with no idea who Cadmos was and no preconceptions as to his boringness. The kiosk in the CoH shopping center racked up a total of two sales from locals according to the security camera, one the mysterious masked UR Quake Warper seen by Gintus Pelluina and the other a much less mysterious R Quake Medic who referred to it as “Ulrik's record” when asked why in the world she bought it. All other officers preferred to listen to compilations of rain noises or videos of people completing sudokus when they wanted to go to sleep, which was never, because they were incapable of becoming tired. Perhaps that explained their poor taste, erratic behavior, and fascination with dress-up.