“Bippety bopcha, what's new in gacha, SirSuccess here to talk about my third-favorite gacha that might be my first-favorite right at this very moment as long as I'm looking forward to Halloween. After we see who the new Halloween hero is it might drop back to third, and if I don't get that hero, well, third might be the maximum.

“But right now there isn't much going on in my current favorite game, which means this is the perfect time to get views with cheap content I could do any time. Doesn't that make you want to hit the Like button? Of course it does! Now one thing I like about Commandment of Hero is the Nova animations. They aren't as flashy as Slaughter Pandora's, but they aren't as long, either. I'm trying to use my stamina here, SP! You've seen Nova tier lists before, but forget that you did, because I want all your attention. Do I have it? No? Oh well.

“Good content creators post every day, great content creators use a template somebody else made, and guess which I am? Definitely not the good kind, as a little searching will tell you. Now this one has all the characters, all the recruitable ones anyway, but we have to do something about the tier names. S? D? Nope. Bottom tier has to be Trainer tier, because I'm not even sure Trainer E's Nova is finished. I like the guy, but I don't like his animations, and I don't like his name, because I can't say it. We need an MC tier for 'OK, but nothing special,' and I'd say that's where Cadmos belongs, and that goes for his Nova too. Above that is Wolf tier for Novas as cool as my man, Nonneros the Furry Gangster, and then a Minsie tier for anybody that's just whoaaaa, and no, I won 't explain any more than that. So now let's get on with the ranking.”

Level 100: no longer unreachable? That was the conclusion reached by several Rares who reached the Rare maximum close together, or at least approached it. “That's why I think it's about time we start setting up a party. Thinking about the theme, assigning responsibilities, and so on.” Clyse paused to allow comments.

“Refurbishing party.”

“I'm sorry, Vinnette, twist my ear, but I don't know what that means.”

“Refurbishing party,” Vinnette repeated, nodding harder this time.

“That sounds a bit of all right,” Ebulan Prav said. “Put me down for that one.”

“You're level 40, which I think we have to consider outside the celebration zone.”

“I wasn't aware there was a zone for that,” Burmin Trivvis said. “But if he can't vote, I'll throw my support behind a refurbishing party.”

Quille Treten stood and cleared his throat. “Can't say no to a refurbishing party.”

“Well, I'm still not sure what that is, but it has a few votes. Would you three care to join the discussion?” Clyse directed her words at a corner where Ipons Ulsrada, Saptres Muria, and Hyune Giling had put their heads together.

“Nothing is gained by uninformed haste.” Hyune Giling spoke for the Strategist squad. “However, we have completed our examination of the issues and determined a refurbishing party is most likely to produce lasting benefits.”

“Lasting benefits? Excellent. Count me in for a refurbishing party,” Leaznalo said.

Tramda Olex placed a hand on Clyse's shoulder. “Give it up, Clyse. You've lost this one.”

“I'm not opposed to it, but I've never heard . . .”

“Shhhhhh. Shh. Shush. Refurbishing party!” Tramda raised her fist to a chorus of cheers.

For all of Clyse's obstinacy, everybody knew what a refurbishing party was, or at least they did after Vinnette Melban assumed control. She put Stan in charge of buman shaving, Ebulan Prav in charge of luman clipping, and Clyse in charge of buying materials and decorations from Dungeon Express Re:Development. All other Rares were assigned to putting up maple wall panels, fitting ceramic tiles together on the floor, spreading out the new round carpet that depicted concentric rings of swords all pointing toward the center, and extracting Leaznalo from his chair in preparation for complete cushion replacement.

After that, the decorations. A painting of a knight who stood his ground against a menacing dragon? Of course. Sindze ran out dragging Burmin, Quille, and Ebulan to return minutes later with a solar system display from the August Catacombs depths. “That might clash with the dragon painting, even if it's a three or four on its own,” Dennet said.

“Shouldn't we more worried that the dumb painting with a dragon that doesn't even look like our game's might clash with this very stylish and lore-appropriate display? A visitor might wonder that, at least.”

“Sindze is right. Both will stay up to discourage visitors,” Ulrik declared, and Dennet agreed with him in the end.

A plastic palm tree in the corner; a bookcase against a wall populated by thick books that no visitor would ever suspect contained page after page of fanart printed off the internet; a capsule machine in the opposite corner to achieve recursive gacha.

“Not to badmouth the aims and goals of the refurbishing party . . .”

“Best not too,” Quille said.

“. . . But truth be told, it was cramped in here before, and now we're making a grandparents' attic out of the place,” Stan concluded.

Saptres Muria paused in his smoothing out of a promotional poster for the Slaughter Pandora movie and looked over. “Is it cramped? For a few days after Evening Best left, I feared I was developing agoraphobia.”

“And it's colder in here, too,” Clyse said. “I couldn't get my hands on a heater, though. They wanted centaur glue for it.”

“You're talking like sailors who don't remember what to do on shore, but I was on the same boat, against my nature as that is. I get it well enough.”

For the pièce de résistance, which is French for “the part that costs too much,” Ipons Ulsrada commandeered a ladder and the help of the taller Rares such as Burmin Trivvis to tile the ceiling in such a way as to create a design of two silver stars overhead in mosaic.

“That might clash with all our tacky decorations, even if I'd give it a five no questions asked,” Dennet objected.

“Ah, but that's the best part,” the designer explained. “You see all the tacky stuff at ground level when you're just looking around like normal, talking to people, wondering if the door's gonna open and let a zany scheme walk in. Right? You'll only view the ceiling when it's time for it, maybe if you lean back in your chair to think, or lie down in the middle of the room to cry like Sindze does sometimes. Ow! Where'd that arrow come from?”

“That makes sense,” Dennet said, and, mollified, he yanked the arrow out from Ipons's back for him. That marked the end of the refurbishing section of the festivities, and the Rares broke up their labor teams to create discussion groups for bragging about their accomplishments and waxing wistful for older, simpler times when they had to dodge leaks and rotted floorboards.

“Dennet. Come over here.” Ulrik pulled him to the side. “Your mood has been odd lately. Tell me the reason so I can make sure it continues.”

“I was watching another Nova tier list video . . .”

“Say no more. When will they get tired of making those?” Ulrik shook his fist at the uncaring ceiling.

“. . . And I thought about how many I've gotten to check out in person. Not even all the Rares, and only one SR. Ever since I fought with Rhizi, I can only think about how I need to see more.”

“There's a new one that shows you a lot more. It's about an elevator that gets stuck between floors while Rhizi and Cadmos are in it.”

“What's it called? But I meant more Novas. I'm max level now, but will that help me? Can I just go up and ask officers if I can go with them in idle? And anyway, even if they do take me along, I won't see them from the angles players do.”

“Bad news. I came up with a plan to help you a little.”

“What's the bad part? I'd still like that name, by the way.”

“Now I have to do it. 'Always carry out your plan even if it helps Dennet' is the Reaper motto. I voted against it, but democracy disappoints all of us.”

“Excellent news. Will the two of you stop standing on top of me now?”

Ulrik looked down, surprised. “I have to tell Dennet my plan. What better place than this double-cushioned chair? Tell me, Leaznalo. No ideas? Then we stay.” He ceased stomping the upper cushion and returned to the previous topic. “We arrange a viewing spot where you can watch Suppression from a safe and player-like angle. And then? We leave you there. The two steps of this project are both perfect.”

“They sound pretty good, but it seems like there should be more than two parts. For instance, I couldn't just stand on top of Leaznalo and talk to you. I had to kick him to make him stop squirming in between.”

“True. Hm. Kick . . . lick . . . trick . . . I solved it. We lick Adigail Zem. I should have said trick. Sorry about that. My mind wandered to another recent one.”

“I forgive you, but tell me the name of that one, too.”

Several Rares agreed to participate in the operation when Ulrik and Dennet brought it up. Leaznalo did not, but he contributed a bunch of buman shavings so Ulrik could buy some monster cages and fake mustaches through Quircy Rau, the lack of agreement or permission on the contributor's part notwithstanding.

“Dennet. Ipons Ulsrada. Stuff Chapter 1 Basilisks in this cage. Be wary! They have no HP or Defense! You might kill them with an errant twitch or pointed insult. Princess Melban, Clyse. I've written down your lines here.”

“Wow! Another Reaper plan! I can't wait to see it in action.”

“The most sophisticated Reaper plan of all time. But only because Dennet complained about how incomplete it seemed. He was right, but that only makes forgiveness less possible.”