As the host proceeded, those sojourners with their eyes raised in order to keep up with the sentiments of the playerbase made out messages harder for them to understand than the paragraph under each of Tiboleus the Experimenter's skills.

“Scratch me and you'll find a scatterbrain, I admit, but when did we have anything called 'legfest?'”

“I've been crawling closer to the essence of my craft my entire life, inch by inch. Don't get upset about reaching it! It's nothing but fuel for your flame. If only my feelings could reach the players. I should look into better speakers.”

“15% of what? It sure makes people mad, whatever it is.”

Confusion spread like Theena's popularity only to recede, also like Theena's popularity, when certain officers conjectured they must have passed beyond Commandment of Hero's bounds to inter-ludic lands where all complaints could be seen, regardless of which game incited them. That satisfied everyone for the time being, but confusion might return like Theena's popularity after she received the Class Evolution to Duelist Theena, for so strange and wondrous was that realm between games.

The march continued. Far along the tube, where they could see nothing behind or before them, Cadmos turned to call out, “I see Sigmund! We must be halfway. Is everybody excited?” The horde yelled, and it beat swords and bouquets against typewriters and lenses with such fervor that the sound bounced around the tube and echoed back.

“I've heard more echoes than requests for pay raises, and I can say that was no kind of echo,” Wruden Calx said, and Cadmos confirmed the first, dreadful theory that most minds conceived.

“Yeah, there's a bunch of them over there. I wish I could stay, but they put me on a tight schedule. Remember that you have friends to support you and that no matter what happens, you'll still be you. See you all later!” The army halted and watched Cadmos, Rhizi, and Aerywe pass three crusaders coming the other way. A warrior whose hair, gray though he had the face and build of a man in his prime, spilled over his broad shoulders approached, his sword held upright in two hands. Beside him walked a lady elf holding a spear's wooden shaft that looked not so much cut from a tree but grown, and on the other side an edgelord who wielded a howling demon sword. They continued through the Commandment of Hero ranks in silence but for one word.

“Hi,” Sigmund, Ragnel, and Kullervo said.

“Hi,” the officers said back. A similar exchange occurred in the other direction.

While the collaborators crossed over, the two sides examined each other. Holy Legend Army had unquestionably sent an army. Not a legendary one, but somewhat holy, what with the angels and their flaming swords. What else? Elves with bows, some of them wearing green as certain officers insisted on pointing out to a certain Rare; tall, muscled demons cracking terrible barbed whips; little flying fairies and kings and queens with crowns of briar and gold; marauders with axes and helmets with horns; vampires, real ones, not a Kamdlian noble who dressed up for Halloween. There were dwarves and wizards and clerics, knights and samurai and ninja, and ogres with clubs and ropes.

“I take it that Holy Legend Army is a fantasy game,” True Beryllia said, and the knowledgeable assured her it was the most fantasy. What the crusaders guessed about Commandment of Hero after seeing its cast for the first time was unclear. A slice-of-life series about a high school drama club? Cooking game? Why else would anyone wear an apron to a fight?

Whatever their impression, it did not affect their resolve. The crusaders raised their unimaginative arms, incapable of being dissuaded from the trial of swords by mere words. Not that the officers had any words for them besides a single phrase: “Flanzerimous Stradsh!” Or so it sounded when they yelled their skills out all at once. The Champions other than Beryllia rushed forward into the melee, and most of the Reapers and Dumbegists with them, and even a Warper or two as well, The rest of the Warpers, Harassers, and Medics felt pretty good about where they were. Just overall content.

Santa clashed against Asmodeus just like every year, Ulrik crossed swords with the similarly unimpressive Cherub, and Knight-Master Gralles Alianura challenged Juubei as if that matchup had not already been done to death. Up front Skaya punched away with her first curled around her lens as one of the few melee Warpers, while from the rear Quircy Rau, Sindze U. Radalo, Inorrea Vacationer, and more just sprayed stuff everywhere. Arrows, psychic forces, bullets, whatever. They felt confident there behind the line of battle, but soon learned angels and fairies had no respect for lines not drawn in the sky.

The melee became more jumbled than Commandment of Hero's character designs, but only for an instant. Dozens of officers and dozens of crusaders crashed against one another, and in that press they discovered the material employed to construct the collab tube was not a magical super-plastic that could withstand any stress. The walls cracked, the bottom broke open, and the fighters all fell.

“Whoops!” Smidgen exclaimed, and meant it, too. Others said things that ought to remain in that remote land between games where no children capable of learning bad words might ever come. Wiffle, the angels, and the fairies tried to fly, but even magic wings require certain conditions for optimal operation, such as not being sideways or upside-down while a bunch of boxers and clerics grabbed onto them. Both officers and crusaders had cause that day to thank their developers for not implementing fall damage.

“I'm thoroughly and irretrievably opposed to those clouds, if you want to hear my opinions on a pressing matter!” Hemt T. Elf shouted.

“Take heart,” Holy Legend Army's own Ecke the giant called out, “for not everything is as it appears, nor does what appear here have the same qualities as elsewhere, as must mmmmffff!” The fallers reached the clouds long before that speech finished, but the gist of it got through and reminded them to consider all possible futures, not just the bad one. Perhaps the unnatural lights within the ominous cloud indicated a Christmas celebration going on below, or else the experiments of a money mage who sought to cast enchantments capable of turning useless cloud bits into dollars.

The feeling came that the cloud rushed up past them like a PvP meta passing the old characters by, though in reality they knew they fell while the clouds stayed. Philosophers were free to argue if the difference was a distinction, except that no one dared open his mouth just then. The meaning of “freedom” was another possible topic.

The descenders saw nothing but gray until a green flash came, and instinct closed their eyes for them. When they looked again they had reached the other side, and below them was the ground, and their foes and fellows were strange.

“Quirce! Your jacket's gone checkered! Think it'll catch on?”

“Zims! I think your facial textures failed to load back in, but now I've got an idea about this year's Halloween that I'm sure you'll love!”

Observations and discoveries such as those passed the time more enjoyably than pondering the imminent landing, and so characters of every game and rarity sought and found phenomena such as a Rylweadh of Mercy pink from head to toe, a ferocious Ragnar with his cool Viking name replaced by dashes, and a Hell Lord who reported one of his skills had become “ICON46 s218.” What fun they had! Then they hit the ground.