One step inside, and a voice greeted them all. “Welcome to Ulrik's Keep! You wish to challenge my lair of traps and unbeatable soldiers? Go ahead! I encourage you. A foe stronger and more vital and optimistic than any you can imagine rules from the highest floor.”

“That was really cool, Ulrik!”

“Thank you, Princess Melban. Have fun in my tower.”

“I will!”

“The rest of you can have fun or not. Decide for yourselves!” A mechanical shriek pierced the invaders' ears before cutting off and leaving them with silence and a harsh struggle before them. The struggle to get out of the first room.

“Ow! Quit shoving.”

“The alphabet says Champions first!”

“Who let centaurs in here?”

The impasse was resolved when Count Poitnem suggested the various parties draw lots out of Clazdius Oranio's hat and stagger their entrances.

“Very shrewd of you to notice the advantages of this large head of mine, my lad. It's gone unremarked for too long, though you were polite enough to make only an oblique reference. Place the lots in here, if you please.”

Hilliarde Feablas split his wondrous artifact Myrioi into ten thousand glistening shards and allowed Count Poitnem to write on them with washable marker. The shards went in the hat and came out again, first place going to Quille Treten's group.

“Time to show what Rares can really do,” Quille announced as he stroked his beard.

Dosellian Urapta laughed. “Such as murdering me, excavating an evil castle, and activating its defenses to murder me again? Impressive feats I admit, but I could do without any more of them, if you would be so kind.”

His bow afterward drew a few laughs, but Quille ignored it and marched in with Sindze U. Radalo, Dennet, Tramda Olex, and Vinnette Melban following him. As runner-up Captain Theena's group prepared to enter a minute later, Quille marched in again starting from the outside entrance. “Kinda rough in there,” Dennet commented as he brushed some ash and blood off his tunic.

The URs and SRs considered it kinda rough too, though without the hint of understatement that made Dennet's observation so piquant. The first floor rooms had gratings over a lava pit that spewed pillars of HP reduction at swift intervals. Anyone with a rarity worth pronouncing and a Medic made it through there and reached the second floor with its HP-grinding buzz saws and an exotic gas that filled the air and lowered Speed.

Those factors augmented the danger confronting them of the Tower Crabs, Tower Wraiths, and Tower Scorptures that inhabited the lower floors, as if their high stats did not suffice. Which they did not. A group like Cadmos's sprayed damage and effects everywhere. Enemies had a chance to hurt and Stun themselves every time they attacked, healing the officers when that happened via Halloween Winze's Sympathetic Galvanism, while those attacks were converted into Flood damage and reduced in magnitude against officers who were all Flood and Storm and other elements at the same time, whichever was most convenient. The miss chances imposed by Gaelvry stacked nicely with Gintus Pelluina's group-wide Evasion and contributed toward Boxer Andit's damage increase for every debuff on the target. “Dunno what was bugging those two-stars,” Andit said as his enormous right glove splattered a Tower Wraith whose fellows suffered nonstop from debilitating lightning shocks like a dumb dragon wearing a helmet.

Teams climbed up and up except for Quille's, high enough to reach the floor that reduced Nova Growth and past that the one that disabled Novas entirely, which incurred the enmity of every Reaper and of every other class, but less so. The permanent Recovery Curse floor raised some eyebrows, and the one where all enemies received the Grit effect that increased Defense inversely proportionally to HP % caused a great deal of grumbling, especially when combined with yet tougher enemies. Tower Sectigers and Tower Gladiators hit hard, lowered Speed, had high Parry, and were pains in general. New enemies began appearing as well. Tower Steam Pigs, which appeared to be iron barrels with decorative animal features and four stumpy legs added for completeness blew out steam that dealt constant damage without so much as inflicting a removable debuff and raked officers with their eye lasers.

Some of the teams with questionable equipment, hand-me-downs or slots plundered to outfit a newer, more Night Shifty officer, began to stall. Total defeat sent more and more groups back to the bottom, or to floor 10, or 20. Even rejected modes had some standards. Stronger crews continued without cease, ones with fewer Surfs Nesettas or Flawless Pedigrees and more Hilliardes and Havamals who did credit to the letter H. Stronger foes challenged them. Statue-like forms unlike the Tomb Wardens and Alben Guardians, carved instead out of ivory into slender giants who held wrists chained by manacles in front of them and kicked officers to express their displeasure. Said kicks also inflicted Eclipse Vulnerability along with a cheeky little Knockdown.

“Ha!”

“C'mon Gaelvry, have a heart,” Boxer Andit said, springing back to his feet without the use of his hands.

“Sorry. That just slipped out.”

The enemy type list grew, but each floor had its favorites. “A given set of ten floors, I have observed, tends to limit itself to one or two elements. If they wish for players to sharpen an array of tools instead of only Eclipses, well, is it time to introduce this abandoned tower officially?” Gintus Pelluina asked as his team climbed to floor 45.

“You're probably right, though I'm not sure everyone would like being called tools.”

“What else does not everyone like? I will accept the first, oh, five hundred answers you come up with and concede the rest.” Gintus stepped out onto the floor. “But here's another unlikable thing to consider.”

An effect never experienced before afflicted the officers there, soon to be known as the dreaded Elemental Reversal. Storms became strong against Quakes, Infernos against Floods, and Eclipses . . . “I'm weak against everything,” Cadmos reported.

“This is your chance,” Dr. Stezlinstein told Gaelvry Bride.

“Grow up, Winze. Anyway. I don't see why they wouldn't have buried this place if they didn't want players to stop recruiting all the brand-new Eclipses.”

“Don't, wouldn't, not. I think I agree? Nothing to do but carry Cadmos, my chicks. Too bad for Beryl's crew.” As Dr. Stezlinstein predicted, the Eclipse-heavy parties struggled with Elemental Reversal. Floor 46 returned advantage and disadvantage to normal, but 55 and every tenth floor after flipped the elements again to impede the progress of what ought to have been the strongest parties according to the consensus of countless videos and confident posts.

Traps that made direct healing harm the recipient but doubled the effectiveness of Regens, organ music that lowered Critical Effect below 100% so that crits were softer than normal hits, enemies that changed their elements when struck by an officer with advantage. The higher floors piled on conditions seen nowhere else in the game and discomfited one group and helped another in ways never predicted by the naive officers at the tower base who imagined they would race straight to the top, but in the end limped there instead.

“We got twenty more floors of this? Hurry up already!” Boxer Andit began to feel the pressure of tedium as Cadmos's group reached floor 80, but what he saw there stopped him cold. That floor consisted of a single chamber with no walls to divide up enemies into groups the game could handle in a technical sense. In the center sat a golden throne studded with rubies. More sitting went on than that. The lord of the keep lounged in the throne with one leg over one arm and an arm flung back over the other.

“There are only eighty floors. I know. I was disappointed, too.” The dark lord rose, an action which allowed his red and black robes to droop over his shoulders and pool around his ankles. “Another disappointment: these robes don't fit me at all. I'll appreciate them more in the winter with how thick and textured they are.” He waved his sleeves around as evidence, and the URs admired the folds and fabric detailed enough that they could almost smell the sheep that had provided it. “I already appreciate the new powers of destruction they grant me. Congratulations on reaching the top. Now die.”

“Wait! Ulrik!” Cadmos stepped forward, his hands empty. “I came to tell you you're making a mistake!”

“Don't see how! Inferno Strike!”

The battle began, but Cadmos, tears in his eyes, held back and shouted, “All that will happen if we keep fighting is that the designers notice and turn this into another grind!”

“What?” Then Boxer Andit's glove filled Ulrik's face.