“Welcome back. Did the results of your Fortifying fulfill your expectations?” Leaznalo sat in his chair as if he had never left, which would have suited him fine had it been true.

“Didn't notice a thing. Did you? Suppose not.” Quille Treten answered.

“And where might little Tramda Olex be?”

“She's in her Tramda tent.” Dennet draped himself over a chair's back and inspected his crossbow.

“Pardon me?”

“She said she made a tent where we would never find it so she could be alone. She stormed out when that whale had more health bars than she thought reasonable. It took all day to kill it without her.”

“I see. When she reappears, be sure to inform her sulking in a tent does not make one Achilles.”

“OK, I won't do that. Did you guys beat the whale? Clyse?”

“We did, and if I'm wrong I'm wrong, but Beruvia seems much nicer than Brenlond.”

“Well, what some people say about Archens, I won't tell you,” Sindze assured everyone as she flipped her hair. “As for Beruvia, we'll judge it for ourselves tomorrow, won't we, team? It's probably filled with Infernos or something.”

“Quakes, actually,” Burmin said.

“Don't tell her that!” Ulrik suplexed Burmin Germanically while Sindze smirked. “Now she has all the information!”

“So?”

“So now you have less leverage to make a deal! You could have made her take one of your fodder-sorting shifts.”

“I don't really mind doing that.”

Ulrik's gains in Attack allowed him to straighten up and suplex Burmin again without letting go, which he demonstrated at the first available opportunity. Owing to gains in Defense however, Burmin kicked out at the one count Dennet slid over and gave.

“Time to assign groups for tomorrow!” Ipons Ulsrada piped up.

“Only if you take one of my Burmin-suplexing shifts.”

“Deal! My Attack isn't as good as yours, so that's something to keep in mind.”

The Rares cheered the Strategist on while they decided how many VP, Vinnette Points for the layman, an Inferno Champion was worth versus an Inferno Reaper, finally deciding they could carry over the same parties to the next day. They determined further that Ipons should try some other moves chosen by plucking scraps of paper with suggestions written on them at random out of Leaznalo's bowler hat.

“We have returned to East Beruvia to continue our progression through the idle mode's chapters.”

“I'm not clear on why you said that, Reginald.”

“I wanted to remind Burmin in case all that suplexing made him lose his memory.”

“No, I'm fine. Strategists just don't have the stats, so don't worry. Except that Eclipse one.”

“I hope your chat is going well. I have killed six enemies. Seven. Get going. Eight. This may be wave one of thirty-five.” That turned out to be a ridiculous exaggeration on Ulrik's part. It was thirty waves.

“This city is only one, single stage in Suppression,” Reginald informed them.

“That's a lot of value, I have to admit,” Clyse said. “I might be level 30 by the time we get out of here.”

That turned out to be a ridiculous exaggeration on Clyse's part. She reached 28. The town ended but the river persisted, separating the foreground highway from the farms in the background. The road's evenly placed blue and green stones indicated a more stable political situation and greater attention to infrastructure than the Brenlond tourism bureau could boast in its brochures, yet enemies plagued even that prosperous land.

Gremlins jumped out of the earth, lanky, hairless orange creatures with pot bellies that threw their own snarling heads at officers for unclear reasons. Nothing Floods did ever made sense. Burmin Trivvis chastised them for their uncouth behavior, while Ulrik and Reginald were there too. So it felt, even though they outclassed their enemies to such an extent that elemental affinities slowed them down less than than occasional Flinch the Intimidating head-toss provoked.

“That one made me Flinch,” Reginald complained.

“Then Flinch them back. Intimidating Strike! That one died instead of Flinching, but you get the idea. I am incapable of suffering Flinch right now. Tell everyone you know.”

“Excellent. You know, my own Skill Star includes Man of the Wharves, which increases my Attack and Defense near water.”

“Great. Let me compliment you on your Skill Star.” Ulrik and Reginald shook hands. Burmin, whose passive bonus for having another Perandran in the group languished inert, did not receive an invitation.

The aspirational Rares advanced up the river, killing hundreds of Gremlins and Beruvian Patrols along the way to West Beruvia. The Beruvia itself continued, but past it the farms yielded to grazing cattle, wooden fences that needed fixing, and small groves of trees that fell short of majestic. Gaelvry's kingdom also hosted guests called Alben Assassins, who might have been more effective and less suspicious without the concealing cloaks, daggers dripping poison, and the nameplates that said Alben Assassin.

“Sorry about this, but which one is Poison again? Up, down, or the same? Also, Vinnette, I've been Poisoned.”

“Stand still . . . Clyse . . . Checkup!”

“We never need to know as long as Princess Melban is with us. Therefore I refuse to learn. Nobody tell her.”

“You say that as if any of us have the slightest idea. I can confirm these Assassins are Inferno, though. Lanmaran Lash!”

In addition to the Poison, the Harasser-like enemies inflicted small, 3% Defense Downs from time to time on hit. Clyse had to stop Taunting, and Vinnette ordered Reginald to cut it out with his Shift Blame skill already, if not in those terms. Warpers never believed in their own resilience. Not after fighting more than two battles.

Later waves included earlier enemies, as was the custom, which created opportunities. “You know, I think maybe I'm starting to figure out this Strategist thing,” Burmin Trivvis said. “Check this out.” He stood square, knees slightly bent, him, waited for a Gremlin to attack, caught the head against his armored chest, and hurled his new projectile at an Alben Assassin that died Floodily and left a Common Inferno Wolf in its place.

“Clever, Burmin. I estimate the rest of us killed five enemies while you were doing that,” Reginald said.

“But did we look as cool? Now watch as I flatter Burmin sincerely.” Ulrik caught a Gremlin head, pitched it, missed, shrugged, and cut the targeted Assassin's head off with his scimitar.

“If you're going to do that, throw the head up, kill someone, catch it, then throw it,” Burmin suggested. Ulrik executed that maneuver as instructed.

“Toss the head over your shoulder maybe?”

“Into a chariot . . .”

Ulrik incorporated those improvements into his routine to praise and applause. Meanwhile, Burmin explored new horizons in batting back the Gremlin heads with his halberd to reduce the time spent per stylish kill. Reginald, for his part, changed nothing. Warper abilities were sufficiently impressive on their own, he maintained. The others agreed that was inarguably true for the higher rarities.

After a long, enthusiastic battle, the Rares overcame all opposition and won the right to progress, though Clyse had doubts about their path, as heroes often do. “Reginald, why are we going back the way we came? We are running forward, aren't we?”

“After learning that the person responsible for coordinating Alben's efforts in Beruvia was impersonating a figure in Aerywe's court, the hero returned and infiltrated the East Beruvia palace to confront the mastermind and resolve the situation.”

“How do the Gremlins figure into that?”

“Don't believe they do.”

“I have a question too.”

“Yes, Two-Star Storm Reaper Burmin Trivvis?”

“Do you think they'll ever make a Gremlin officer? Like maybe for Halloween?”

“I, Two-Star Inferno Reaper Ulrik, can answer that. Yes. She will be a cute girl with twintails.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Looking forward to it!”

Gremlins and Alben Assassins kept attacking them on the return leg, but the Beruvian Patrols ceased appearing to the detriment of the more elaborate techniques developed by the Reapers. The best they could manage without chariots available was pounding Assassins into the ground in a roughly triangular formation and rolling heads at them, but the waves refused to provide ten Assassins at a time.

They passed through the idyllic countryside of East Beruvia and finally reached a new background. The palace welcomed them, all salmon marble and wide staircases. “Are we to take that as a single portrait of Aerywe Beruvo, or are they telling us she covered every wall with pictures of herself?” Clyse wondered.

“I think they intend the first one. My heart insists on the second one. It powers my rage,” Ulrik said.

“Oh, is that a passive?”

“Yes. Not on my Skill Star. Cloton Zvolo has it.”

“We should have invited him.”

“His schedule's all booked up! Flames of Dovesk!”

Alben Assassins alone infested the palace, but mixed it up internally by assigning a portion of their number shuriken and slapping a Storm icon on those. The enemy variety complainers were thus silenced forever. The Floods sure complained about it, to Polsom, to Haybra, to the designers, but not to anyone who cared to help.

Rares no longer bothered counting the enemies, instead divesting themselves of conscious thought, of will, and allowing themselves to become a part of the battle, not warriors but war itself. “Life . . . is war . . .” Vinnette said, and she spoke for everyone.

Then the boss showed up. The Rares recovered their previous selves and jumped on the Alben Agent with all the fury of their early-to-mid 30s stats, which were around 7,134 Attack and 227 Nova Growth (really 22.7, really really 26.1 after the class bonus) for the Reapers. They had other stats too, but never looked at them.

“Inferno Strike!”

“Death of Horses!”

“Cost-Cutting!”

“Public Examination!”

“In Story this is a unique enemy named Appulina Verisa. She uses a kusari-gama, but this replacement is obviously one of the Storm-type Assassins with higher stats.”

“Shut up! Intimidating Strike! Fight!”

“I've been fighting.”

“But I still want to find fault with you!”

While Reginald and Ulrik argued, Burmin Trivvis applied every byte of his concentration to the problem at hand. First he tried grabbing one of the Alben Agent's shuriken out of the air, but in the face of Vinnette Melban's glowering after a few failed attempts, he gave up on it. Next, he seized one of the Assassins accompanying the boss, placed him in front as a shield, and collected shuriken with his body to throw back.

“This is doing less damage than my own attacks, and I'm not inflicting Critical Effect Down like he does.”

“So stop it.”

“Oh. Right.” Burmin flourished his halberd and reverted to his former methods, though with more flair. A pause after a thrust or slice, a spin here and there, and he achieved pizzazz levels appropriate for SRs, or even the more boring URs.

“Do you ever feel like people are talking about you?” Cadmos asked.

“Constantly,” responded Hilliarde Feablas. “In any case, we are agreed that Quircy Rau will take the keys next, yes?”

Back in Vigilant Patrol, the Rares continued thrashing Alben's spies. “Is it just me, or is this boss easier than the last one?” Burmin asked.

“It punishes reliance on crit, but none of us are in that situation,” said Reginald.

“All these adds do small, consistent damage,” Clyse added. “Vinnette handles that for us so much better than burst damage, and maybe even better than the Medics in use at the time like Winze G. Stezlin.”

“I don't know . . . maybe . . .”

“Finishing Strike! That does it.” Ulrik looked around the palace that suddenly knew peace. “Now we look for blackmail material. Aerywe will be in our pocket by nightfall.”

“It's almost nightfall.”

“Then hurry!”

“We're going back, Ulrik.”