White plastic walls marred by not a single imperfection defined halls in which sat boxes made of black adamant that seemed to drain the illumination from overhead fixtures so that no details could be perceived, not so much as the separation between lid and body. Open entrances along the corridors permitted vision into rooms filled with tangled cables, machines of unknown purpose, and tubes of green glass extending from the floor to the ceiling. Between rooms, Alben had mounted displays of the solar system on the walls.

“We have those!”

“You have those? What does that mean?” The look of puzzlement that Cadmos assumed for half the story scenes came to him naturally.

“The Rare lounge has been redecorated. It is now known as the Rare Lair. No other rarities allowed, in case you were planning to book a trip there.”

“Honestly, Ulrik. Nobody calls it the Rare Lair, and we'd be happy to have you drop by, Local Fisher.”

“Sindze, that invitation sounds like it leaves me out.”

“Oh? Does it?” Sindze U. Radalo nocked an arrow. “The enemy! Ever so sorry, but there's no time to discuss social calls!”

Alben Guardians reappeared for thematic reasons to resist the intruders and foil their attempts to penetrate the depths of their creator's secrets. The eeriness of their adamant forms was enhanced by the sheer whiteness around them, but was diminished by all the other adamant stuff lying around. One girl puking while her head spins around is uncanny, but a thousand are the audience at a Beatles concert.

“Finishing Strike! Cadmos. Were you grown in a vat here? I remember something like that.”

“Oh, you mean the theory that I was artificially created based on how the Champion Facsimile is clearly me? Not that I know of. Otsk is the Harasser statue, and nobody thinks he's fake.”

“But Otsk V. Zops is a legendary hunter, isn't he? So we can understand why Albennereon Fax based his artificial Harasser on him, but how would he have heard anything about you before you met Ostros and Anstralia? It's not at all the same.”

“Are you sure? This base is on Yoerbla, and Figro said it was the first one Alben built and that he contacted Silesius Ven from here. If he made the class Facsimiles out of people he knew before I showed up, wouldn't they be big names on this continent like Advas Poitnem and Jaunty Steppe?”

“That's right! Dad's the strongest on the continent!”

“Your theory is that those likenesses were made later, then?”

“Yes. Think about it. What are they for? I think he was rolling those out to replace these generic Guardians, but he didn't have time to make more than the prototypes before we seized Atran Arx. Make sense?”

“I supppoooooosssse? It's less intriguing though, don't you think?”

“Princess Melban. Can dailies be intriguing?”

“I don't know . . . I've never been in one . . .”

Ulrik's diversion failed, and Sindze U. Radalo and Cadmos continued debating the game lore. Their voices bounced off the walls and down the halls only to be answered by the metallic thunder of fabricated hooves.

“Are those based on Dad? I can't tell. Let's see if they yell at me when I do this to them. Lazy Lure!” The target shrugged off the attack, though its lifebar exhibited a less stoic acceptance of whatever might come. “No complaints about my form. They must be based on some Kiffnesser or other instead.”

The Experimental Guardians appeared to be experiments in giving centaurs rifles. Since Alben lacked the time to create a control group, the results could only be inconclusive, but all indications were that they underperformed centaurs with fishing rods in the following metrics: kills per minute, time survived, score in the bikini top contest. The related but separate bikini top-and-bottom contest stayed off-limits to centaurs for practical reasons.

Battle raged through the halls, the corridors, the halls, and then the corridors again. “What a big place,” Vinnette noted.

“Yeah, it must have taken ages to build. Everybody knows the real reason for its size, though, is that they needed time for Figro to drop a bunch of exposition. You know, about how his real name is Figronderus Furs, and he was so disgusted that Albennereon Fax was exiled to some obscure planet in recognition of his achievements when he should have been executed for trying to create a new artificial god capable of reshaping the universe? And that it turned out the interstellar civilization mostly avoids this planet not only because of the defense satellites that mean they have to sneak in during solar eclipses. The other reason is that their Ralarum starts acting funny, and that powers everything these days, which makes it a big problem.

“Well, Albennereon Fax discovered that the reason for that is a mineral he named Anti-Ralarum, but we natives have called it werptsboon forever. And we've been using it too, in particular for Warper lenses, which led him to study it and decided what he needed to perfect his artificial god was Anti-Ralarum and Ralarum in conjunction. That's why he made a deal with Silesius Ven, and the local pirates too, and some of the Perandran nobles with the idea that they would conquer as much of the former Perandra Imperia as they could. He'd take all the werptsboon and they could have the rest, which is a pretty good deal if you're not a Warper, right? Or if you're an alien Warper, because they use Ralarum anyway. And see? We're already at the boss and I haven't even finished yet, and that was just a summary if you can believe that.”

The New Eclipse Dragon stretched out its sinuous, light-defying body of theoretically impervious adamant and roared, challenging the officers to dare the perils of the great chamber that had lost its ceiling, Ralarum, and most of the walls during exciting story sequences. That was good news for Flood Harassers with blond hair tied to towering pillars of rock in order to get a view of Nova animations closer to that of the players, but irrelevant to the combatants. They hit the dragon in the customary fashion, and it perished the customary way.

“Everybody run this way! Quick!” Cadmos dashed off across the Tasgan countryside and pulled the other four with by the strength of his leadership and charisma, not to mention the bonds of the friendship and camaraderie after so many battles, plus what their hearts had in common which was a love of justice and also hope for tomorrow.

A fleet-footed huntress asked, “Wait a minute, are you serious? Are we going to pop up in the middle of the Suppression fight if we wait there?”

“Yes! It happened once already!”

“Un! Be! Lievable! Just copy the area and place it somewhere else, you dummies!” Sindze shook her bow at the inscrutable heavens.

“I think that's far enough.” Cadmos halted, and the other four ran into him. “Hey!”

“Do you expect us to slow down by ourselves? Have some consideration.”

“Sorry, Ulrik. Sorry, everybody. I got a little excited.”

“Don't let it happen again. Good news. It can't happen again, at least not today. The sky darkens.”

“Oops, time to head for home. That's what my keen fishing senses tell me. Thanks for bearing with me, everybody. I had a great vacation! Officers really are made for action! Not for sitting around coming up with dumb ideas like pyramid parties.”

“Goodbye!” Vinnette Melban curtsied and waved, which was more ceremony than usual for Rare Vigilant Patrols.

Ulrik bowed and whispered to Sindze U. Radalo, who was curtsying, “Is this proper etiquette?”

“How should I know? The last time I tried to go anywhere with a centaur, he bolted without a word before he saw a single enemy. Nobles are just different.”

Local Fisher whisked herself back to Freegate, leaving the other four. “I want to thank you too,” Cadmos said. “I wasn't sure I'd be able to find a party for this.”

“I accept your gratitude. Some may say we needed higher rarities to complete those chapters. Some are right. However! We're already 100 and we can farm red gear ourselves. What good does it do us to advance?”

“Yes, I have been wondering about that. Why are you doing these later chapters?”

“Complex reasons.” Ulrik studied Cadmos to judge if the other officer could ever understand. He came to a decision. “I like fighting and getting my numbers up. That includes chapter numbers.” Vinnette Melban nodded so hard her tiara threatened to fly off her head, though in the end it contented itself to fall over her eyes and require her to fix it.

“Well, as for me, shouldn't I know more about the world I live in and see it firsthand? I can chat with Vinvin all day about her home country, and we really have to to do that, but won't it mean more now that I've seen it myself? And honestly, it would feel just awful if you got an alt based on some part of the story you didn't understand. Or if you had lines in an event about, say, the ancient civilization in what's now the Yoerbla Desert and you didn't even know that they were aliens just like the founders of Perandra Imperia, as Cadmos learned during his journey through there that ended at Starclose Hill where he finally killed Albennereon Fax and his Artificial God.”

“That's how Part 2 ended?”

“Sure did.”

“Cool boss?”

“It was a sort of huge face with fractures and rivets coming out of roiling storm clouds. Pretty ominous, but personally, I would have preferred a new dragon or super cannon. More of an elaboration on existing elements, you know?”

“The problem is this. You want the final boss to stand out, but if your regular stuff looks good, standing out can mean it looks worse.”

“Meeting the expectations of the fans must be difficult.” Cadmos and Ulrik stood deep in thought, shaking their heads and sighing till Vinnette Melban told them Sindze had already left, along with the sun.