Mak'gar noticed my confused look and slapped me on the back, joggling my arm and slopping beer all over me. "Oops," he said, taking my now nearly empty mug and handing me a full one. "Here, that's better. I understand. You and your people have been so busy surviving, you haven't looked past this day. But I can tell you, you're making an impression here in this phase with us professionals."

There was definitely a lot here I didn't understand and I wanted to change that. "What do you mean by 'professionals,'" I asked. "You mean like, sponsors?"

"Them," Mak'gar rolled his eyes, his lips curled back, showing long, sharp teeth. "They are not professionals. They are merchants." His words dripped, disgust.

The other orcs drank, then turned their heads and spat. "Coin counters," one said. "Paper pushers."

"They sit in their little metal boxes and never get out."

"They certainly never take on any risks."

"Do you?" I asked. I tried to keep my tone polite. "I mean no insults, but here in Phase Two, there are no real dangers. Nobody is going to die or lose an arm. It's not like we've had it up 'til now, scrambling around, fighting for our lives, saddled with debt that we never asked for."

I was aware my tone dripped bitterness and venom, but I didn't really care. Even with the intoxication level turned down, the warm buzz from the beer was spreading.

The orcs nodded gravely. "We speak as warriors to another warrior," Mak'gar said. "You are right. This phase is like a child's game. Bases, soul coins." He spat at the last word. "But it is all to prepare for the real struggle."

"Phase Three," I said. "I know it exists, but I don't know anything about it."

"It's different every time," one of the other orcs said. I noted, in surprise, that she was a woman. She was bald, like most of the others, and her leather tunic concealed any feminine curves, but her voice was high and light. Now that I looked, I saw she had more earrings in her oversized, pointed ears than did the men. "Every reality engine programs its final challenges itself. The System is only able to do so much interfacing."

I held up a hand. "Whoa, wait. I've heard people talk about the reality engine and the System before, and I assumed they were the same thing. The asshole that talks to us and gives us quests, that's the System, right?"

Mak'gar nodded. "It is. Think of..." he paused. "I am sorry. I do not know your species’ technology level. Do you still have a concept of hardware and software as two separate things, or are you at the stone knives level of development?"

"Me, personally, I'm more of a stone knife and bearskin guy," I said. "But our society has computers, if that's what you're asking. I know the difference between hardware and software."

"If the System is the software running all of this, the reality engine itself is the hardware. You can replace the software, but you cannot upgrade the hardware, because it was created by the Progenitors long, long ago."

"Right," I said. "I got that part. Some aliens built all of these reality engines a billion years ago, then disappeared and left them behind for the exploitation committee assholes to claim. Now they're used as giant VR playrooms and tenement housing for the 97 trillion billion beings in the galaxy. And I guess there's different levels of comfort available. Like some of you have the equivalent of a one-room apartment and MREs, while others are living in elaborate mansions with 12-course dinners every night."

The orcs were nodding. "That's more or less correct."

"I just guess it don't understand why there's that kind of scarcity. If the reality engines can generate anything, why doesn't everybody get their own mansion?"

They looked at each other. "Does it look like we care about that sort of thing?" The orc woman asked. "We're here because we like breaking stuff and killing people. That's not permitted in civilized reality engines."

"Really? I would have assumed war games were totally a thing."

"Only for licensed reality engine miners," the woman said. "We are allowed to use training levels and such, but it is not considered appropriate for the ordinary citizen of the galaxy to indulge in violence."

"Huh," I said. "So you're a whole galactic civilization of lotus eaters." I made a note to mention that to Colonel Ames the next time I saw him.

"Since you understand so much, Shad, you must know what your fate is," Mak’gar said seriously.

"Yeah, our sponsor let on. We're stuck here for good. We've been transformed. We're part of the Matrix now. So I guess we're fighting to earn our way into one of those padded cells that you and the others are talking about."

"I do not think you will do well there," the orc woman said. "Perhaps you should consider becoming a professional miner like us."

"I think it is worth his time to consider," Mak’gar agreed. "Though for that, you would have to perform in Phase Three and attract the attention of an important sponsor. Your current sponsor will never be able to afford a Phase Three bid, let alone going forward."

"Oh," I said. "What's the difference in cost?"

"If Phase Two bids cost hundreds of thousands of soul coins, Phase Three bids cost billions," the orc woman said. "We here are fighting to prove to the sponsors of Phase Three that we are worth hiring. If we do not succeed, we will merely return home and wait for the next Reality Engine Exploit. We are clan," she gestured around, encompassing both the Firebrand orcs and the ones with the green logo standing around the fire. "We always do well in these exploits."

Colonel Ames had seemed to indicate that a single well-developed Phase Two outpost would give us the ability to enter Phase Three. I didn't know if he was lying, deceived, or if these orcs were telling me the truth. I decided that it didn't matter for right now. Right now, what I needed was to figure out how my team and I were going to make the first deadline during this competition.

A blast of rainbow-colored light erupted out of the center of the island, accompanied by a swelling burst of trumpets. Instinctively I raised my arms to shield my face, blinking against the brilliant light. As the echoes died away, other party-goers turned toward the cause of the commotion, talking among themselves. Nobody seemed unduly worried.

"Thanks for the beer." I ditched the orcs and raced toward where I had last seen Sage and Grandpa. They were standing with a bunch of our crafting miners. Frank and his team had been drinking at the nearest beach bar. They got to their feet, dropping their drinks, and joined us.

A System announcement popped up, accompanied by the usual voice. [Welcome! Welcome to our Master Crafters! It is time for the non-combat miners to be given their opportunity. Crafting delegations are here to select apprentices for training. Crafters will please present themselves for selection —]

The box blinked away, the voice cut off suddenly.

"There will be no such thing!" A loud voice cut across the noise of the crowd. From the place where the beam of light had erupted, a dozen aliens came striding. They wore elaborate robes in colors I didn't even have names for. Each had a headdress or crown. One looked like something a pharaoh would wear. Another had a circlet of bones wrapped around his orange, bald pate. Only two looked human, the rest space elves, orcs, and other aliens.

"This is a disgrace," the foremost of the new arrivals declared. He was a large lizardfolk with red scales and a crown of purple gems held together in a silvery framework. The gems shifted and moved in circles around his head, orbiting him like his own personal satellites.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Some of the aliens on the beach started to protest. "What's going on here?"

"Silence," the lizardfolk declared. He held up his hand. "We are the Mastercraft representatives for this reality engine exploit. Our protests have been ignored, so we are now forced to take drastic action. Our own apprentices and underlings have been forbidden from joining us. The System is trying to force us to take indigenous workers."

Venom dripped from his every word. I felt my hackles rise at the term "indigenous." Grandpa put a hand on my shoulder. "Easy, Shad," he said. "This is going to reveal more than they want. Let’s listen."

Now the alien miners were really getting upset. "We've got to have trained craftsmen. We need access to supplies in Phase Three. What do you mean you're taking steps?"

The lizardfolk looked as though he was enjoying being the center of attention. "The Council of Crafters has decreed that no indigenous miner shall be allowed access to our secrets. Any Phase Three team who purchases supplies from indigenous miners will be cut off from access to us and our legitimate wares. You may decide now whether you wish to place your faith in a bunch of untrained monkeys." He sneered around at us.

"But you just said your apprentices and underlings were banned. You'll never be able to support all of us."

"Our prices will be adjusted to ensure that those who truly need our services are able to take advantage of them," one of the other master crafters said smugly, her face hard to read under her overhanging crown of woven branches. "We're giving you plenty of warning now so that you have time to save up and decide where your priorities lie. Or perhaps you can put pressure on the System as well. Our pleas have gone unheard. But perhaps the System will listen to you."

"It's not fair!" someone shouted.

"Tell that to the System. It's the one making the rules. The locals have not been so kind as to die in sufficient quantities to let our people in. So we shall pass the suffering along to you." She glanced around at the remains of the party. "And just so you earthlings know, there is no ill will meant. We are still perfectly willing to buy materials from you. The pay scale will be discounted, of course, due to your lack of crafter guild standing."

"You may return to your festivities," the lizardfolk representative said, "now that we have delivered our message in person. We will be reachable through the usual channels back on the Hub once this exciting episode is over."

The twelve crafters vanished. No flash of light, no rolling thunder or loud trumpets this time. They just disappeared.

The aliens around us were in an uproar. "We'll never be able to afford those rates. But we can't do Phase Three with no materials."

"We're going to have to try to use the locals."

"They're not going to have the recipes. You heard what they said."

The rest of our coalition gathered around us. Juana had a distracted look on her face. I knew she must be sending reports back to our people on Threshold, asking them to look into matters.

"I’m putting a hold notice on all sales of materials until we get to the bottom of this," she announced. "We need to understand what's going on."

A System message popped up. [That was rude. Just because you have the ability to shut down important subroutines doesn't mean you should. Terribly uncouth. And when will they learn that no means no?

The reality engine exploitation committee is prepared to invoke emergency procedure 99732-17 alpha. The master crafters have abdicated their responsibility to provide training and recipes for those who will form the backbone of the economy. Therefore there is now a chance that monsters may drop recipes. These recipes will be destroyed upon use, transferring their contents to the crafter who learns them. Until they are learned, these recipes are tradable.

The second stage of this treasure hunt will drop recipes at a greatly increased rate. In addition, the NPC cities now have certain basic trainers available who will freely offer training and help to human miners who wish to make use of this opportunity. Details are being made freely available now and can be accessed by querying the System on your own.

There will be portals opening to the cities in approximately 30 minutes. Make your decisions and report to whichever portal you choose. You will have until the end of this treasure hunt to learn from the city NPC crafters. The workshops, laboratories, and other facilities which were created in these cities in order that the master crafters might teach their chosen apprentices will now be open to everyone.]

Veda sent me a message. The System rebroadcast what just happened. I'm accessing details of the crafting tutors now. There's alchemists and leather workers in Charybdis. You're going to need to send the majority of your people there, I think, since you already have so many leatherworkers. There's a cooking trainer in Scylla. Is Mama Grace there?

No, she stayed in Threshold, I replied.

Damn, that would have been good to get. Is there anyone else there on the team who has a cooking-related class?

I think so. I passed the message along to Juana, who nodded briefly to me in acknowledgement.

Veda continued. There's a construct engineer in Scylla as well. See if you can convince someone to go learn those skills. They're very expensive, but devices to enhance your creep can be incredibly valuable in Phase Three. Your people could probably pay off their debt if they focus on selling construct enhancement devices to the Phase Three teams.

Okay, sure. What was all that about, anyway? It was a great party and then a bunch of angry Olmypians arrived.

Veda replied quickly, The crafting council said they're angry that the System rejected their appeal. They wanted to bring a bunch more of their own people. They went so far as to say that the Reality Engine Exploitation Committee was corrupt and somehow supporting you Earthlings. The number of you who have survived this far into the game is well above average. We should have seen a couple million more deaths, I'm afraid. I know you humans have been better than we expected at working together, but it's still interesting.

A thought struck me. I didn't know if I should trust Veda, but she’d backed us every time, and I wanted to extend an olive branch. There's rumors going around of a level that supplies all of your needs where there's no mobs, nothing to hurt you. The rumor says that's where some of our people have gone.

I've never heard of anything like that, Veda replied. Reality engines don't give anything away for free.

I'd better focus on what's going on here, I said. Let me know if anything else important comes up.

I will, Veda replied. I turned back to the discussion at hand. Juana and Dwight were arguing over who needed to go where. "I’m not going to learn a cooking skill," Juana said furiously. "My mother and I get along much better when we are not in the kitchen together."

Grandpa sent me a message. I have to go see someone. Take care of this. By the time I read it, he was already striding along the beach away from us. I sent him a message asking for an explanation, which he ignored.

"Somebody needs to," Dwight was saying.

"Then do it yourself."

"Veda said we should send someone to learn construct engineering because it's useful in Phase Three and we could make a lot of money," I said. "I guess assuming any of the aliens will buy from us after that edict."

"Oh, they'll buy from us." Juana gave a big shark-like smile. "Didn't you hear that, Master Craftsman? The licensed alien crafters are going to raise their prices through the roof. Like it or not, there's going to be quite a few people coming to us because they can't afford anything else. We just need to make sure we're ready to take advantage of it. Let me see that description of construct engineering."

I sent her the page I just pulled up.

"This actually looks like it could tie in nicely with some of my base building abilities. I think I'll go and see about learning this."

"Are there limits to how many of these skills you can learn?"

"It doesn't look that way, but if we've only got a couple of days, it's probably better that we focus on becoming as much of an expert in a skill as possible rather than dabbling in eight or nine," Dwight said. "They're going to be opening the portal soon. We should get over there."

Another System pop-up appeared. This one said, [To the officers of the Misfits Guild Coalition:

Due to the cost of training, your Coalition’s educational efforts will be subsidized. The first 40 skills you wish to learn will be paid for by the Reality Engine Exploitation Committee. This offer is being extended to all Earthling coalitions.

After that, you will be charged at the regular rate. Do you wish to accept a line of credit from the Reality Engine Exploitation Committee to be taken out of your future earnings to provide for additional skill trainings?]

"How many people have we got here?" I asked Juana.

"95 plus Frank's team."

"Then I guess we'd better take the loan."

"Agreed."

With us and Dwight there, it was enough of a quorum to make a binding deal with the System. Dwight and Juana were going to different cities. We instructed the other crafters to contact whichever of them was in the same city with any concerns.

"It doesn't sound like we're going to be able to help you at all," I told them, "since we've got to do this treasure hunt thing. Good luck."

"What about us?" Frank asked.

"You guys go with Juana," I said. Only eight of the crafters were going to Scylla. The others all heading for Charybdis and the more obviously useful crafting professions like alchemy and leatherworking. "I want to make sure they've got backup. Other than that, you're on your own."

"Got it," Frank said. "We'll try not to get tossed in jail while we're on leave then." I hadn’t interacted with Frank much in the last few months. He’d mellowed out a lot, once he left our team and confirmed none of his kids had been kidnapped by the Exploit Committee. He looked actually relaxed, his top button on his shirt undone.

The portals blossomed to life. Our crafters stood in the line and shuffled their way forward. "Good luck," I called after them. "See you in a couple days."

They disappeared into the light and in a few minutes the beach was only half as crowded.