The hosts asked their guests after the tournament whether they would prefer a pitched battle or a tour, and Ivar lost the vote. The crusaders, aware they had not been able to experience all of Freegate's charms when searching for Kullervo and further aware of the likely results of that contest, agreed to convert their campaign into one of relaxation rather than war. The mysterious entrance to Alben's secret base wrought from materials elsewhere unknown tantalized them, the cramped Barracks made them chuckle, and the Sally room pleased everyone who enjoyed a good fantasy map. Good as in having a bunch of stuff on it, not good in a geological sense. Their visits to the various lounges presented a range of aesthetics for their consideration and possible imitation. Darlotte Glofal's orchids in the Quake greenhouse demanded admiration, and the painting in the Rare closet of a knight who stood firm even threatened by a dragon won praise from every crusader except Fafnir. As for the Inferno gym, the weights withstood the test of Ogres and Demons.

Life contains more than art, as much as artists might insist to the contrary. The officers showed off their secondary storage site which they had been forced to build by an accident that was in no way the fault of any of them, certainly not Quircy Rau, and had been maintained in recognition of the advantages it conferred. For example, splitting up genii among multiple locations avoided many problems.

“Please explain the following: genii. Do you refer to Sprites?”

The officers opened up Storehouse Beta in response to Metatron's queries and led crusaders past shelves of genius carriers. “Our game has the usual weapons and armor,” Quircy said as they walked. “But not just those. One of our slots is filled by these little guys. Each one is the spirit of a place given form. They come from the gacha, so you just know the artists give them weird designs that stand out. A preserve adjoining the Armory held all of them once, but an incident occurred, we learned some lessons, and now we stock most of them in here. I wouldn't feel bad for them, though. We let them out to run and jump and play for brief periods under strict supervision. It's all very humane. For us! OHOHOHOHO!”

Nobody joined her in laughter, which meant more for her. The less jubilant officers pointed out other uses for the immense sheds capable of housing a couple triremes on vacation from the sea, such as track meets, improbable domino chains, and elementercise. Elementercise?

“Why, elementercise is a cultural contribution our Rares made which can't be missed. I'll let Reginald explain more,” Lua DeMereanch Summer said.

“Thank you. Hi, I'm Reginald. 'Elementercise' is a blanket term for a set of routines designed to cultivate and unleash your true elemental source. It's no exaggeration to say it's one of the most adored local customs.”

“One! It's something you made up half a year ago. Not a custom. Two! Ignoring Cadmos is far more adored. Three! Reginald is a dumb name.”

“You don't know anything, Ulrik! Half a year is a long time in a mobile game! And I said 'one of the most adored,' not the most.”

In less time than it took Luau Lua to manhandle a mouthy Rare wearing oversized robes into a genius carrier, Reginald reclaimed a sound system and tape player from a spot on the shelves where he had stored them out of a belief that preparation is better than improvisation, and began his demonstration of an exercise routine while the tape player told the audience what to think. “The galaxy . . . has a heart . . . you . . . have a heart . . . you are the heart . . . of the galaxy.”

“I had long ago developed a similar conception of myself, but found no support from crusaders with whom I discussed the matter,” Asmodeus said.

Merlin dismissed his colleague's levity. “Yes, yes, very wry. But attend! Who is the captivating nymph on the recording whose voice alone has the power to enchant?”

“That's Reginald pitched-up,” a Rare informed him from a tiny prison on the highest shelf.

“Astonishing! Do I go amiss by seeing more of interest in the methods that achieved such a feat than in the performance itself?”

Even the officers who attended sessions regularly allowed that Eclipse exercises might lack relevance to characters from a game with no Eclipse element. As the tour moved on, Lua, with a view toward increasing the reach and monetizability of elementercise, asked Beelzebub what being Corporeal was like.

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“Heavy,” he answered.

The most visually attractive component of the secondary storage site to the crusaders, and especially the Vampires, proved to be the crater which featured at its bottom a spooky castle guarded by walls that seemed to bleed. They reasoned there must be a story behind so strange a scene, and what a story there was.

“We fought a big glitch and a Rare blew us all up. Fun day,” Eten said.

“Can I call myself a warrior, having missed such test of mettle as that?” Ivar no longer wished to restrain his envy. “The sun is crueler than this my gore-letting hand, for it sets not. When will it rise again and summon with it the login calendar that a new journey might begin, a new course of reaving and plunder?” His fellow Warriors raised their axes high and yelled in approval.

“Action! I get you. You want action!” Boxer Andit called a Strategist over. “Hey Pux, I think these guys need action.”

His space sword crackled to life and hummed. Mentor Tendradius Pux said what needed doing. “Your weapons work here. Your skills function. Join us in Vigilant Patrol. A mode of endless battle.” And many did.

Freegate at night! Boring. Freegate at dawn! Not much better most days, but the homebody officers and UTASes saw something stimulating that one morning. Over a hundred characters struggled to tie themselves to the back of the login calendar, or rather to attach a net woven from a festive combination of Red Vines and Green Vines along with New Rope which would bind them to the calendar. Camaraderie and curiosity reinforced each other, much like the schemers hoped Red and Green Vines would, and prompted non-participants such as Count Poitnem and Ben I. Sloup to assist with the procedure. There was a lot of wriggling, more elbowing, and the most cursing, all exacerbated by concerns whether the entire enterprise would succeed when most of the army sat either on the floor or on top of characters who sat on the floor.

“Good luck!” the remainers wished the leavers. They retreated to the sides to avoid cluttering the main menu screen when the day started, from which stations they watched the calendar disappear and the net along with it.

“How amusing would it have been if the net went and they stayed?” Castru asked.

“Moderately,” Jonathan Brightwater judged.

The stay-at-homes were discussing that and related issues, such as whether seeing an officer slip and fall at the side of the Flood pool ought to be called funny or merely startling, when a departer reappeared. Hose going up, a pink skirt going down, and skin between! Hands nonchalantly shoved in the pockets of a black leather jacket! Light brown hair too long to be short and too short to be long! Quircy Rau had returned.

“Hi!” She tugged four times on a rope tied around her waist, its other end not visible to any in the main hall. “Quircy out!” And so she was.

“Would you say it's cute when she refers to herself in the third person?” Ballroom Neur asked.

“Moderately,” Jonathan Brightwater said.

Elsewhere, in the blue land of options, a more exuberant mood reigned. Hooting, yes, and both the pumping and bumping of fists, as expected, and handshakes that earned the name of clenches by their vigor. The host set out for Holy Legend Army with no doubts about finding it and, subsequently, other games they intended to weigh down with the demands of the stronger.

“And if we're weaker? Get stronger!” Boxer Andit set out a plan which appealed in its basic thrust, though the lack of detail might require later rectification. It suited the temperament of the army on the move well enough, which kicked its boots up high and sang marching songs plucked from Holy Legend Army's songbook. Did crusaders do a lot of marching? In the story and lore, yes.

Otsk V. Zops hurled javelins as they went and extended the road of light between the two games. A long road. “Locating other games won't be like finding a book in your own library,” Luerre Voine said. “My librarian refused to come. That's only one factor. The distances might be impractical to cross. It takes us this long to get to another property of the same publisher.”

“Know that you need not labor alone in your thoughts, your worries! My thoughts strain as well to chisel out something seemly from the little lump of what we know. The best tool may be this, if you, Michael, have not abandoned all friendship with that game our cousin, Lunacy Bike.”

So spake Ecke, and in this wise the angel responded: “Yea, for a part of myself I left in that game, or rather a whole self apart.”

Burmin Trivvis knew nothing about how to spake, and therefore he spoke instead. “Oh yeah, Lunacy Bike and Holy Legend Army had that collab, didn't they? Hey, why didn't you attack them? I guess I wouldn't know if you did, though.”

“The thought came to us not whether they or we would take the prize, for their sport is unlike ours, whereas yours is the same.”

Another officer neither spake nor spoke but rather said, “You don't have to beg Quircy Rau to get out of her hammock!”

“Is that a dig, Quircy?”

“It's a rhetorical flourish, Lua. The new plan is this. Michael orders some vehicles from his contact, himself, in Lunacy Bike. Meanwhile, Team CoH establishes a base halfway between our games. We need garages, loot houses, a detainment facility to hold prisoners . . . an ornate throne . . . for me . . .”

The combined forces agreed to ignore that last part and carry out the rest. A more cautious type might have inserted a clause along the lines of “provided Holy Legend Army's Back button is this direction and functional,” but Theena, Saptres Muria, and others of the kind were back home watching the grass grow or fighting a Kamdl War Dragon. Again. No one in the infinite world of options believed any longer in results other than success.