“Analysis indicates we can take them.” A tall man in a long white coat covered in silver sigils of occult import! A slim cane that could have secretly been a sword but was really just a cane! Dark green hair people not looking right at the game would have sworn was black tied in a high ponytail! Luerre Voine, the latest Eclipse Strategist out of two, announced the results of the war conference. “Holy Legend Army's crusaders are old, tired, and restricted to three skills. They have weird elements. Holy, Land, Evil. Corporeal and Incorporeal. Calling those elements? Let's call a rose a weapon while we're at it.”

“What's wrong with that, greenhorn?”

“Ah. I haven't memorized all your exotic arsenals yet. My mortification is great.” He bowed to Enid Rosebouquet. “In any case. They lack the vitality and optimism of Inferno, the quiet dignity of Flood, the fair dealing and lowbrow humor of Quake, the pomposity and drama of Storm, and Eclipse's well-deserved sense of superiority. But we shouldn't bother anyone not interested with this talk. Definitely don't tell Cadmos. I propose that any officers who want to give Holy Legend Army the business meet in the alt closet after sundown. I'll shut up now.” And he did.

By the time Cadmos returned, many hearts had set themselves on taking it to those jerks and showing them who the more valuable game was, or else ignoring the entire proposal as the vain dreaming of officers with not enough to do. Either way, they listened to the news he brought.

“Looks like I'm going to Holy Legend Army. Big surprise, I know. They told me two others are going, but not who they are, so don't stop guessing. Try to consider everybody's feelings though, all right?” If a single officer had still considered blabbing to Cadmos about the possibility of picking a trans-ludic fight, his last exhortation murdered that thought and buried it deep under Freegate, never to be excavated unless some kind of cellar-building feature or tunneling minigame was introduced.

Instead they asked where he went (“Some kind of room with a folding chair under a spotlight”) and what had happened in Part 3 so far, since the announcement that interrupted his explanation was out of the way (“I killed a centaur assassin and beat up a bat lady, but she escaped”). That drained dry the well of his information, and so the officers returned to generating collab rumors they could ridicule people later for ever believing.

“Let's be systematic. First thing. Do they go the obligatory route? Cadmos, Ostros, Anstralia. The first three free officers. The advertisement for Part 3 route? Cadmos and any two of Ozric Orn Pallad, Smidgen, and Wiffle. Or obligatory plus popularity? Cadmos and who? Count Poitnem? Rhizi? Minsie?”

The officers accepted Jonathan Brightwater's categorization, which presented a problem. They had nothing more to say on the topic. Quircy Rau put in her best effort to revive the conversation. “Time for the guess capsule! Write down your lineup, all of you. I'll put them all in a little box with a little lock, as the Keeper of the Guesses if you will, and when the time comes, we'll have a big reveal and mockery party. You won't have to call me the Keeper of the Guesses, but I think it would make the whole affair more fun.”

Lua DeMereanch, or rather Luau Lua, or rather Summer Lua: Blue Sarong and Veil Version, clapped her hands together. “A delightful game! Come, come, produce the voting slips and box.”

“Um, well, you were supposed to argue about it while I went to get them . . .”

“No time for that.” Mentor Tendradius Pux tossed a coil of rope as thick as his torso into the center of the hall that landed with a thwump and a few screams. “This contest, like all others, will be decided by strength, will, and numbers.”

The crowd cheered, ran into the courtyard, and split into three teams in preparation to perform the popular divination ritual known as three-way tug of war that promised perfect accuracy with the sole exception of Quircy Rau. She dragged herself out, bent over, hands almost touching the ground much as when Nonneros Under the Moonlight equivocated between running like a man or a wolf. She still joined a team, though.

The Obligatories, the Advertisers, and the Popular Plus Cadmoses took hold of the curious three-way rope after checking their boots and powdering their hands. None dared imperil the sanctity of the ritual by taking it easy, a vice they otherwise regarded as virtuous. They braced themselves, waiting for Cadmos to drop the central knot he held.

“3, 2, 1, go!” The triple rope was pulled taut. Arms strained, feet dug in, and tongues formed encouraging words.

“Oblig!”

“Who wins!”

“Atory!”

“We win!”

“Part 3's out, so who's the man? Wiffle, Wiffle, you're the man!”

“I hope so too guys, but I'm a female phoenix.”

“Part 3's out, so who's the man? Smidgen, Smidgen, you're the man!”

“I like that cheer! We hydras reproduce asexually though!”

The third and largest team respected the numerical inferiority of its competitors by not drowning them out with its own cheers, choosing instead to chant in low, unsettling voices something about how all players wanted to “rhizi Rhizi's rhizis,” whatever that meant, even as they dragged the other teams toward them, slowly, irresistibly. The rope's center crossed the line Cadmos had drawn, somewhat south of two-thirds of the participants fell on their faces, and the Popularity Plus Cadmos crew vaunted itself and rushed over to burn down the new lounge and tip over gold-hauling wagons.

“Hold on, hold on. Wait!” Gaelvry Bride ran out in front of her team, train in hand, to addressed her fellow Popularites. “We're finally getting collabs. We'll need the extra space.”

“Build another! We can do it if we all pitch in!” Minsie of the Waves rode the waves of enthusiasm which soon crashed on the shoals of laziness as represented by fellow summer alt Surfs Nesetta.

“Whoa, whoa, hey there sister, I'm not pitching in to anything without the boss's say-so, you get me? Gaelvry's got it right for sure.”

“We have to do violence to something. That's the rule. So what's the target?” Ben I. Sloup asked.

“Write down your ideas first so I can put them in a box and . . .”

Tendradius interrupted Quircy Rau's proposal. “Something that has done us no good up until now and has less chance than the new lounge of helping in the future. Poetry.” At that suggestion the victors took themselves to reciting poems with malice. They put stresses just where they wished, paused at the end of every line regardless of punctuation, and altered the words to make them about collab predictions.

“Whose ax this is I think I know.

He's not in Holy Legend though;

Although his glasses look real smart,

Our Brightwater will never show.”

by Hyl DeMereanch

Team Popularity Featuring Cadmos showed itself to be both cultured and magnanimous by allowing the losers to participate in their impromptu poetry slam. First came the poetry. Second the slamming when they ran out of poems and decided to look through old popularity polls. Many egos were slammed then.