"I christen thee the Seeker!"

Sage smashed a bottle of champagne across the hull of our new three-masted schooner. The NPC captain and crew of this ship wore cleaner, better fitting uniforms than the pseudo-Napoleonic era NPCs of our original boat. They looked like they’d stepped out of the 19th century.

This craft was built to carry cargo. It had vast holds under its decks, three levels deep, and instead of the cannon ports, it was lined with berths for stowing cargo. It had a respawn point located on the deck, but this was a harvesting boat for our crafters and farmers to use.

We had saved up the profits from our node for almost two weeks before deciding to invest in the new ship. Juana and Mama Grace had argued strenuously in favor. I was still thinking we should be upgrading our outpost more. "We haven't had a single other attack since those orcs came, and that's been almost three weeks," Juana pointed out. "Veda says she doesn't expect any trouble from our large neighbors. Everything's calm right now."

"That's got me worried," I had said, but Grandpa took their side, and so did Dwight. Our crafters were making money hand over fist. Whatever the node was raking in was a pittance compared to the gear they were building and selling to the aliens on the outside. "I just hope it doesn't come back to haunt us when a bunch of orcs wearing the armor Dwight's been making come and steal our node from us," I grumbled at the time.

But now, seeing the schooner launch, I had to admit it was a pretty impressive sight. Almost all of Misfits Guild was on hand to watch the launch, as the sun set on our island. Mama Grace and her assistants had an entire luau cooked on the beach and waiting for us. There was an enormous pit in which she had been roasting five wild boars that our farming teams, led by Frank, had hunted on a nearby gamma node island. Nobody had bothered to claim the node yet. I was considering proposing an expedition tomorrow, to claim the node and put up some automated defenses. Even if we only held it for a few days, we had a lot of turrets to spare, thanks to our raid on the beta node during the initial phase. Plus Juana had been wanting to experiment with base defense builds, and this would give her a chance to try out some cannon and turret combinations we hadn’t used yet.

There were loaves of bread baking in brick ovens along the edge of the beach, and tables laden with dishes. Everything from coconut milk ice cream that didn't melt despite the sun, to taro root porridge, to six different kinds of fish prepared every way from raw to roast to dried and flaked. My mouth had been watering from the smells for a good hour.

I helped myself to a large plate, then stood at the edge of the jungle as the party got underway. A couple of our farmers were also musicians. They ate, then went and set up their instruments. It was a motley assortment of guitars, violins, flutes, banjos, and even one accordion the people had looted from home, as well as some drums one of the crafters had built, and a set of coconuts Sage had set in the sand, along with sticks for bopping them. She had announced her intention of jamming with a few sessions hours ago.

I was pleased to see her doing so well. The adults of our coalition tended to treat her like a mascot, or like everyone's little sister. There weren't many children here, thank whatever fortune had been unkind enough to bring us here. Because of that, Sage was almost universally loved and spoiled when the opportunities came up. She sat in the sand and pounded out a rhythm as the band struck up a tune.

I sat on a rock at the edge of the beach eating my fill. Darkness began to fall. We lit four huge bonfires and people began to dance to the music.

Juana came over and sat on the rock beside me. "Having a nice evening?"

"Mostly." I checked my map. Only green dots and the yellow orange of creep. Mitch had set up a series of traps and tripwired explosives, all of which would create equal amounts of explosion and sticky syrup, around the edges of the party area. We had made sure to warn everyone where they were so nobody would accidentally set them off. If some of the creep got distracted from trying to attack our outpost, they would not make it here to disturb the party.

Juana laughed at me. "I know that face," she teased. "You're worried because there's nothing to worry about."

"It's been going a little too well," I said defensively. "I've got to think about what might come next."

"Why?" she asked. "Why not just enjoy the evening, Shad?"

I let out a deep breath. Why not, indeed? It had been six months that we'd been here. Six long, hard, grueling months spent fighting for my life and then, for the last couple, trying to manage assault teams, build a base, and work up to an objective that I still didn't understand.

Juana held out a hand. "Come on, Shad. Let's join the dance."

I let her drag me away from my spot. We joined a line of dancers, slipping our hands into theirs. I stumbled along the sand, trying to keep up as we wove in and out among the fires.

I was actually almost starting to relax. Then I saw Colonel Ames standing at the edge of the crowd. I froze. Juana ran straight into me. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

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"Uh, sorry," I said. I dropped her hand in the hand of the next guy in the line and stepped out of the dance. "I, um, need to see a man about a... thing." I wandered away, over Juana's objections.

Ames had disappeared. I checked my map. There was no way of telling which of those green dots was him. I caught another quick sight of him moving through the crowd, slipping away like he'd never been there. I mentally targeted him, and now his dot stood out as he moved. I could have Trick Shot him if I'd wanted to, not that I did. Instead, I followed him to the edge of the crowd.

He disappeared into the jungle. I stepped into the woods. "Colonel?" I called. "I know you're there."

The dot stopped moving. He was threading a path between some of Mitch's explosives. I took another couple of steps forward. "I think you owe me a couple of explanations," I said. After a minute, his dot retraced its steps.

The colonel stepped out from between two trees, his face expressionless in the dark. "Williams," he said. "I should have known you'd see me."

"Why did you come if you didn't want to talk to us?" I demanded.

The colonel let out a sigh. "It was a temptation I couldn't resist. News about this luau and launch had gotten all over Threshold. Mama Grace was handing out invites to one and all, so I snagged one and came through. You've accomplished a heck of a thing, Williams. You've done everything I asked, and it looks like you're on track to keep it if we don't attract the wrong kind of attention."

I felt a quick swell of pride. "I'm glad you think so, sir."

"It's not just me. Our allies think you've done better than they hoped, but there's going to be another challenge coming up. You'll find out all about it soon enough. I have every faith in your team, but I'm going to need you to make it at least to the second stage."

"Why? What happens then?”

Ames stepped forward. He held something out to me, an envelope. I took it. As soon as it touched my fingers, it melted away. I started to ask, but he shook his head. “You’ll know when you get there,” he said.

Frustrated, I asked him, "Why all this secret agent shit? Why not just tell us what's going on?”

The colonel snapped at me. “Because there’s more at stake here than you know. Do you know how many of us are left, Williams?"

I shook my head, then realized he might not be able to see me in the darkness. "Last I heard, we were doing pretty well. Still over six million."

"And how many of those do you see when you come through Threshold?" Ames challenged. "Hmm?"

I didn't have an answer. Now that I thought about it, I had never seen more than a few thousand people in Threshold. I usually stuck to one pretty small section, but if I multiplied that by how large Threshold was, it wasn't nearly large enough. "I see your point," I said slowly. "We must be spending most of our time inside levels. But that makes sense. We've got to be there in order to earn soul coins."

"Yes, but what levels?" Ames asked. "Hmm? Have you heard anything about the Lotus Eater level?"

"What?" I scratched my head. "That's a book or something? I feel like I've heard that term before."

"Yes, I'm sure the American public school system did an entirely adequate job of educating you, Lieutenant." I could hear the eye roll in his voice. "Lotus Eaters is a term from Greek mythology. A island full of people who spent their time in a narcotic dream. The original potheads, maybe."

I suppressed a snort at that. Colonel Ames was definitely of the age and military background to consider "pothead" a serious insult.

"What if I told you that of the 150 or so portals that we have sent people through, only one seems to be completely non-lethal. No creatures therein to attack. Nothing to harvest. Just all of your wants provided for."

"Is that so?" I asked. "How come I hadn’t heard about those before?"

“The people who find that level, how many of them do you think ever come out?"

I thought back to my first weeks here in the reality engine, of the fear of death at any time. The fear that Sage would be killed and there was nothing I could do to stop it. If someone had offered me an easy existence inside a level without any of that, would I have taken it?

"Maybe we should encourage people to move there," I said, pursuing my thoughts. It went against everything in me. The idea of an easy life when there was a goal to be worked for was offensive. Especially now that we were in phase two and I was part of a team that was actually accomplishing things, not just surviving, but thriving. "There's plenty of our farmers and crafters who are working hard but just don't have their hearts in it. I know they're enjoying themselves tonight. Tomorrow they have to get up and go back to harvesting fish in order to make belts to sell to aliens for a pittance of soul coins. And that's all they can ever hope for, even if they don’t know it."

Ames let out a long exhale of breath, "So you know."

"Our sponsor told us," I admitted. "I know the truth. Sir, wouldn't it be better if we took most of the miners and put them into a, well, retirement home? They're never going to get back to Earth anyway. What's the point in making them fight?"

"The point, Lieutenant, is that their struggle contributes to humanity's chances of something more than just being shunted into a retirement home, as you put it. Or should I say a reservation. I think that's how your grandfather would see it. Why don't you ask him what it's like, Williams, living off of government charity, when all there is to hope for is a bottle at the end of the day to drown out your sorrows? Ask him how many of his people he saw succumb to despair and alcohol back on the reservation where he was born. Ask him what made him leave."

"Well, I think it was because the U.S. government decided not to recognize the Paiute as a tribe back in 1954," I said, "and so he grew up without a lot of the rights and privileges that other tribes had, such as they were."

"And you know as well as I do that those rights and privileges don't mean a damn thing to a man like your grandfather," the colonel snapped. "Go have a word with him. Think about what I've said, and I'll give you some numbers. You can try to confirm them if you want. Your friend Arjun might be able to help. Three and a half million, Williams. That's how many of our people have become lotus eaters. If you don't step up, if they keep losing hope, it's going to be even more."

I had to take a step back and think about what he was saying. Over half of us had given up, found a hole and hidden in it. That struck me as wrong.

Amess continued. "I’m going to be starting a propaganda operation before long. You and your team, you're the heart of it. You are going to be helping me inspire the rest of us to keep fighting, to keep struggling, to get up in the morning and get things done. You just do as you're told. Besides, when you hear the challenge that the system is going to give you, you’d give it a try anyway. Just remember. Make it into the second part of the challenge. You don’t have to win, just get past the door.”