“I'd say we cleared about eight out of ten attempts,” Dennet said.

“That sounds great! So that means, if you replaced Dennet with a Storm officer, another Harasser for instance, a non-Doveskan to enable Ulrik's passive, you could clear it just as often, right? Or even more!”

“No.”

“Absolutely not.”

“No chance.”

“What!”

“Not yet, we mean. Right?” Dennet looked around for confirmation and, finding none, ignored that and continued. “We'll keep leveling during the day, and we'll be able to get our gear up to 50 with the shop items. I'm sure bringing a Storm or two would be fine then.”

“Not on Cataclysm,” Hyune Giling said.

“To be fair. No, wait. Why should I be fair for Sindze's sake? Never mind.” Ulrik turned his face to the wall and started juggling his scimitar.

“Awwwwww, you can be fair to me.”

“No.”

“Be fair . . .”

“Of course.” Ulrik sheathed his scimitar and turned back. “We're Rares! Cataclysm might be beyond us no matter what. So we do Emergency twice as often instead. Eventually. Even archers with uninspired designs can help with that.”

“Such confidence. Have you done Emergency?” Saptres Muria asked.

“I have, and he is right.” Hyune pushed up his glasses. “Unfortunately.”

“Hey! What's that mean? You got a problem with Storms? Huh?”

“My problem is with not clearing Cataclysm.”

“Oh. Right.” Tramda looked around for another fight to pick and discovered to her delight Stan playing a sub-optimal game of solitaire.

Public Service claimed all the Infernos, but the moment their shifts ended, they rushed off to Vigilant Patrol and got a couple more levels out of the Chapter 7 fodder. That sufficed to bring their success rate up to eight point five out of ten, or four point two five out of five, or twenty-five point five out of thirty, or sixty-two point zero five out of seventy-three.

“Why not out of one hundred, young Dennet?”

“I haven't leveled up that high yet. Cracking Bolt!”

Encouraged by their steady improvement, Team Mummy took on the Danger version of the Trial a healthy fifty times or so. They came out of it with Mummy weapons, enough Mummy Warpshaped Discs to Warp Enhance them all three times, and a heap of New Cloth and Expensive Wax for Exceed Refining which General Mummy provided personally.

“Is the Mummy stuff definitely better? I'll lose my Vampirism.”

“Mummy stuff? Whyever would persons of low rarity such as yourselves have Mummy stuff?” Surgeon Merilia pulled down her surgical mask and examined the Rares in her Armory with pursed lips.

“This is all theoretical, of course,” Hyune Giling assured her before turning to Dennet. “You needn't replace your better Pirate pieces, but even one Mummy item will grant you Attack Up while above 80% HP and Phoenix. Even one Phoenix stack will revive you with 8% health. I advise at least four pieces for a 32% revive. The rest you may leave as Pirate. Theoretically.”

“Pirate stinks. This Mummy Sword has 5,010 Attack, over 4,000 HP, 35 Speed, and. And! 30 Nova Growth. That's 3 in real numbers! 3.45 for me.”

“What kind of theory might that be? This is all quite discommoding.”

“We're just LARPing. Don't mind us,” Dennet said.

“Oh, like that Eclipse buffoonery? I understand how the wait wears on one, but I suggest more dignified pursuits to pass the pre-Halloween hours. You might volunteer your questionable bodies as medical test subjects, for instance?”

“No, thank you.” Hyune Giling pushed up his glasses. “As our Reaper has discovered, sets bought from Trials have more constrained stat ranges. That is, they are never worthless, though they are never truly outstanding, either. Your Pirate equipment has little chance of measuring up.”

“Quite true. Trials are an excellent source of reliable gear for that reason. I myself am wearing a full Archens set purchased from the Trial against my father, Minister Tamerib. I might inform you much more about the intricacies of gearing during our pharmaceutical testing sessions, perhaps?”

“Thank you, but we have duties elsewhere.” Hyune Giling and the others returned to the Rare closet, where they fulfilled their obligation, demanded by general courtesy and the particular respect officers owed one another, of bragging about how good their new stuff was. Their duty was delayed by Burmin's bragging about how well Laundry went, but they managed to do what needed to be done once he shut up.