“I learned it's important to slice the meat into even portions. What I haven't figured out is who's eating it.”

“That's wonderful, Burmin darling, but that isn't why we're here, is it?” The winds of Perandra Regna played with Sindze U. Radalo's long blonde hair. “We came here to look for better drop chances of Material Facsimiles or whatever they're called, and so we could all admire our comrades' new, um, panoplies? Is that the word?” Dennet, Ulrik, and Vinnette Melban gave a triple thumbs-up. “Great! I'm excited and not at all envious!”

“Good to hear. Are you envious, Burmin?”

“Not really.”

“Vinnette?”

“Why . . .”

“So no. Ulrik?”

“Yes.”

“Huh? Of what?”

“Of officers who are fighting right now. Go! Go!” With that, the Rares entered the idle version of Chapter 8.

Collaborator Soldiers and Skirmishers kicked off the Part 1 finale, though the mummy-enhanced officers gave them the boot before they could so much as introduce themselves. Even the Medic did meaningful damage, unrestrained by oaths made up by some guy from the player world or by the need to do any actual Medicking.

“Are you envious yet, Sindze?”

“Nooooooooooo.”

“Well, I am. Take me to Trials with you! I'll teach you how to row better.”

“OK!”

“Princess Melban, please.”

With that promise extracted, Burmin redoubled his efforts, from nothing to nothing times two. Chapter 8 redoubled its own efforts to oppose the officers by introducing Mercenaries, tall Quake stumans with huge axes. That is, they were tall compared to non-stumans, not tall for stumans. Who were tall as a rule. They might have caused a lot of Flinching had they not spent all their time doing a lot of dying.

Enemy variety! That was the chapter theme. Subjugated Ganlonders appeared, being lumans with hammers and little Flood icons. Their striated, sandstone-colored skin withstood nothing the Rares chose to inflict on them. “Overkill is not censurable in moral terms! Flames of Dovesk!” That sort of thing.

Wave after wave died. None dropped Material Facsimiles, but they coughed up some Perandran Soldiers, Inferno Wolves, Quake Lions, and so on, as well as Broken equipment, Chipped Mattocks, and more, if anything could be considered more than a Chipped Mattock.

“Think there's a midboss in this chapter?”

“Hm, well, giving it a moment's thought, there's no way Gintus Pelluina would let Cadmos just march straight up to Atran Arx, right? So he probably opposed the royalists here with enough troops that Cadmos couldn't hope to beat them all. He probably had to run out the clock until the Beruvians and Doveskans arrived. But Gintus wouldn't have endangered himself, because as we all know, he escaped and showed up in that event later where he helped defend some Brenlond village or something, and that's when he became recruitable. You know?”

“Whoa, Gintus was a bad guy? He looks so evil, I thought it had to be ironic.”

“Good idea. I name you 'Red' from here on out. Burmin will be 'Shorty.'”

“We're mummy buddies now, so I think I should get a better name.”

“Sure. Hellbow Dennet.”

“Awesome!”

The Rares spent a long, long time in that one wave before they realized it was the midboss. Instead of waiting out a timer, however, they needed to kill enough enemies to compel the Deserter Chief to slide into the scene. He was a man with a pike, a shabby hat, no armor, and a few HP bars. The true midboss was attrition, but Vinnette Melban conquered that foe single-handedly. The Deserter Chief died and freed the Rares to assault Alben's formidable stronghold in western Perandra Regna, Atran Arx.

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“This is just Freegate. Isn't this Freegate? This is Freegate, isn't it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Before beginning this enterprise, I knew two things about the main story. One! Cadmos is the main character. Two! He captured Freegate from the bad guys.” Ulrik laid a hand on Burmin's chest. “Your confession of ignorance today confirms you as being the dumbest Reaper in the game.” He lifted his hand and revealed a newly pinned medal.

“It says, '#1 Dumbest!' and has a little guy with a scythe. Aw, darn.”

“Wherever did you get that cute little thing, Ulrik?”

“I was given it long ago. It accompanied me loyally all this time, but now I must pass it on to a more deserving officer.” Ulrik saluted Burmin. “Hey, more enemies.”

Chapter Eight? More like Chapter Great Outpouring of Hostile Character Designs! Jumbled masses of vines called Rampant Growths lashed out Quakishly while Deserters, Deserter Chiefs without the hat, Stormed it up on Freegate's familiar walls. It need not be stated that the DPS types tied up Deserters in vines and asked them where the treasure was, or that no profitable answers resulted from that process. The Rares battled their way into the courtyard and found it defended by Space Pirates wielding cutlasses with glowing laser edges and enjoying all the benefits of the Eclipse element.

“When did Pirates get so updated and modern?” Burmin asked.

“Reginald said something about when the players learn Alben is a space guy. I may have missed a few things. My mind was occupied with how badly I wanted him to shut up.”

“Yeah, that's probably right, and based on that he must have left the leader of the space pirates he'd contacted while he was in exile on our planet in charge here. That stands to reason, I'd say. Beryllia Ven used to be a space pirate, and I'm sure I've heard mention of some Silesius Ven or something being the Part 1 boss.”

“I figured they put Space Pirates here because they're cool.”

“They really are!” Sindze clapped once and wriggled in place, which the other Rares interpreted as some kind of display of happy feelings. That was supposition at best, since none of them had ever known her to be happy before.

“We have to kill these guys, you know. Sindze.” Dennet released a bolt to accentuate his point. His superfluous point.

“Gladly! Pew pew! Barbed Arrow! Pew pew pew! Whoosh!”

“You think you know an officer,” Ulrik said.

“Then she pretends to fire science fiction weaponry and fly around with a jetpack in the middle of a fight,” Dennet finished for him while he watched Sindze U. Radalo run around between her attacks, leaning forward with her arms out in front.

In order to discover the identity of the mysterious replacement boss, the Rares raged through the courtyard and rampaged though the keep. Space Pirates slashed with their beam cutlasses and harassed them with handheld lasers that inflicted Burns and Defenses Down. A valiant, swashbuckling attempt, but mummy power overcame all, as usual.

The main hall housed the main boss that justified its otherwise unreasonable largeness. Dragons are hard to fit indoors. Alben Dragon roared, straightened its adamant back, and fired an Eclipse beam from its terrible maw.

“We can't go back to normal dragons after all that. Put on a bubble helmet already!”

“Pretty sure that's a robot, Dennet.”

“What about the old Eclipse Dragon?”

“Him too,” Burmin assured him “They're made out of metal, aren't they? Look, this one has bolts and screws in it.”

“I never noticed. Well, anyway. Preparatory Bolt!”

Those Rares had no fear of anything in Part 1, and in fact took turns pretending to ride the dragon while Sindze pretended not to have memorized every last detail about the space-themed Story boss. “He has a blaster arm like M*** M**, or that's what I think I heard, anyway.”

“But I have a dragon like P***** D******!” Burmin Trivvis announced with confidence and bravado, his halberd raised high in a triumphant hand. He then cut his mount's head off with his Nova.

“Is that how that game ended? I never finished it,” said Dennet.

“No. That dragon was good. The only good dragon in this world is one that drops level cap things.” Ulrik paused. “This is a good dragon.”

“Settle down, everybody. I said settle down!”

“Nobody said anything, Dennet.”

“Now we all agree the officers on General Mummy duty yowch! should get the Material Facsimiles oof! first. Sindze, my body can only hold so many arrows.”

“Make room then. Do you need your hand held for everything? Honestly. I gueeeeeeess I have to explain Exceed Crush, too. See, we need a Rare Material Facsimile to raise our cap from 90 to 100, right? We can make one with two Commons. One doesn't do anything. Check my math if you want, it won't change anything. So that should go to somebody who already has one, clearly. Somebody like . . .”

“Princess Melban.”

“What?”

“They let me have one . . . earlier . . .”

“Oh, all right. Fine. All right. Fine.”

Burmin leaned toward Dennet. “Are we sure it's all right?”

“I'm not even convinced that it's fine.”

“No, everything is fine, I'm certain of it. Because we're going to grind this dragon into powder, aren't we?”

“We are, Sindze.”

And they did. The end of Part 1 meant not a peaceful world or even a credits roll, but rather the chance to do it over again. Alben Dragon popped every twenty waves, which was a generous rate compared to what Vigilant Patrol had been imposing. It even dropped another Material Facsimile eventually. Such frequency as that never would have satisfied Ultra Rares, who required 40 Common Material Facsimiles to achieve their three Exceed Crushes, but Rares topped out at a level 100 cap after one. How nice for them. Those URs must surely have been envious.

After that, Burmin and Sindze retired to the Rare closet to consolidate their winnings physically and mentally while the other three rushed to the tombquarters for more action. They met Quille Treten and Hyune Giling, after which they dared the Emergency version of the Trial. Double the Mummy Coins for nowhere near double the danger! General Mummy tried not to let the word get out about that, but failed and paid the price repeatedly. Fifty or so times.