“Aaaahhhh!” yelled startled characters, and “Wooooow!” yelled excited ones. Those in neither category pulled out their mobile devices for some quick Everyday Pin to occupy the time before they hit the ground.

The presumed ground. Much as players receive sure knowledge that the latest character is OP only after they summon it or watch videos but figure it must be from the moment of its announcement, so too did the fallers predict a short trip though they saw nothing below, not even clouds. All was white save a spot directly above, the mark of a treacherous floor some feisty crusaders belabored with curses. That spot shrank to the size of a dead pixel, which alone indicated the host's downward progress since no other landmark could be seen.

At least they had their riches in constant view to comfort them, though nobody said so in case that observation led to an ironic situation where the wealth falling with them disintegrated for no discernible reason. Too bad, because that happened anyway. Howls of anger and despair lost the battle of volume to Ivar's dread oaths to plunder double amount that when he clawed his way back up, nay, triple!

“Just hearing that gets me thinking of the glories yet to come,” Lua DeMereanch said.

“Can we persuade him to write some elementercise scripts?” Reginald wondered. “For when we incorporate the HLA elements into the program.” Those two conferred on the issue, and the howlers generally calmed themselves and praised Ivar's can-do spirit.

Then they hit the ground. “My view on this hasn't changed from the beginning, which is that I don't especially mind these falls, but I can't think of them as productive in an overall sense,” Hemt T. Elf said as he stood.

“To be clear, I say nothing about the present case, but it's known in my industry that greater productivity from superior methods isn't always obvious before close scrutiny of the numbers. Ptt!” Wruden Calx brushed white particles off his front. “Filthy place, but it could be some good work is getting done here.”

Heartful Azalea scooped up handfuls of the stuff and abandoned her tongue to destiny. “Salt,” she reported.

Society Page Lasva scurried to the scene. “Azalea! Question! How does it feel to make this momentous discovery?”

“Fired up to make a new one!”

“'Shiftless Buman Evades Responsibility for Actions.' Metatron! Don't think you can escape the press by phasing in and out of existence. What in your opinion are the implications of this discovery?”

“All has been foreseen, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

“That's a direct assault on my profession. I can make things real uncomfortable for bums who try to cross me, you know.”

“Stop bothering everyone and help, Lasva.” Gaelvry Bride's dress initiated an operation she decided to see through to the end when it swept aside some salt and revealed a real floor beneath the white coating. That suited the level of archaeological expertise Gaelvry and the helpers she rounded up held, and so they swept away salt in the hope they could rack up some quick, easy discoveries. The landbound joined in first, and later the Angels and fairies, or Sprites according to official Holy Legend Army nomenclature, pitched in after finding their wings, designed primarily with ornamentation in mind, incapable of reaching the gap where they had fallen.

“Now this is a ways out of my line, don't nobody got to tell me what I know myself, and I dearly wish Sibyl had come with us. For this and to tell us some of those parables she always tells, and how she comes up with them is surely beyond me.”

“I don't think those are supposed to be parables, Hank.”

“Not for me, as I can't figure them out, but for smarter folks they are, sure as hot air rises. Anywhat, it seems to me what's beneath us here is a big black arrow on a yellow floor, or golden if you like, only that the arrow's so big it'd take us all day to uncover it in its full majesty, Your Majesty.”

The more salt that was shoved into piles or into pockets, the more characters agreed with Hot Air Hank, whether out of sincere belief or because they wanted to follow the arrow instead of doing Rare-worthy labor. “Fine by me. Which way?” Gaelvry asked, and the labor continued. Workers distracted themselves with speculation about the destination indicated by the arrow. A warehouse where their loot had been teleported? New loot? A teleporter that sent the deserving back to the surface where their loot waited for pickup? An alt-dispensing machine? The last one seemed a bit too implausible. Solemn Declaration apologized for bringing it up.

“Oh, I don't know what to say about this wind, I surely don't! It starts up in one direction and sends salt flying. I adjust for that, but then it dies down and comes back the other way to ruin everything! Simply everything. I don't like to be rude, but I wish it would go away.”

All agreed with Darlotte Glofal, the Vampires most of all, who obeyed fashion's mad commands and changed their headings every time the wind shifted to ensure dramatic cape-fluttering. Luerre Voine, eager to retrieve the reputation of the Strategists after some recent reverses, came up with a plan.

“Wiffle, please hover over here. Yes, right in that spot, thank you. Now beat your irresistible wings of thunder and lightning that way. There, a predictable wind at last.” Everyone went back to work within the protection of the fierce, foe-destroying phoenix gale, happy with that solution till they realized they had to struggle against a tempest mightier than any before.

A better view of the floor under the salt emerged, along with a better opinion of Hot Air Hank. The arrow, enormous, nearly outpost-sized, showed them a direction of unknown import. Satisfied and loaded with salt in case some game above wanted it, Chaos Cuisine perhaps, the host reassembled itself and marched joyfully forth. Time had not yet effaced Holy Legend Army's marching songs from memory, even though it had been several whole hours since first the officers and crusaders set out on foot from Commandment of Hero's option menu, all those conquests ago.

The world below their games at least had clouds to decorate the endless emptiness, but the world below that world below bored the marchers to the extent that many closed their eyes and trusted the people in front to stop them with their backs. As for those in front, they got to be in front of the people in back, which satisfied a universal yearning.

They also saw the pillars first. “Hark! Pillars!” Surt never told anyone to hark without a reason, and he combined eyesight and height in a package envied by all but the Otskiest of V. Zopses. Every marcher's heart said to speed up, but every status page asked where exactly anyone saw a stat for movement speed. Nowhere? Nowhere.

Two pillars across from each other they saw, then two more behind spaced farther apart, and two behind that which kept the same distance between them as the closest pair. Even when close enough that some had sight of all six, others failed to distinguish the narrow white pillars from the white background. Surt instructed them to “watch the wind,” which sounded like some sort of druid thing before it was clarified as referring to the way streams of particles blew off the pillars continually.

“Salt pillars,” Uamna said, because no one else had and she wanted to get a line in sometime.

Currents of wind whipped salt around them as they approached, which distracted them from all the cutting comments toward Uamna they were considering, mulling over, really trying to get the words right. “Duh?” That demeaned the speaker, not the target. “Thanks for telling us.” That might remind listeners how easy it would have been to stay polite and dignified for once in the speaker's disgraceful life. “Uamna, I've always loved you, from the moment you were recruited?” A little performance art there, but the right audience for that sort of thing was not that one, which preferred pratfalls and robbing girls trying their best to the comedy of discomfort.

Before anyone figured it out, everyone saw something amid the pillars that made them forget Uamna entirely, a common phenomenon among players as well. A floating chunk of metal the size of a monster truck shaped into a cube by a car crusher unable to finish the job, rotating ceaselessly! Twelve faces which gleamed when struck by some light source above none could see, each furnished with a pachislot machine full of flashing display elements and making attention-arresting sounds! No obvious mechanism for payouts! Something or other was there ahead of them.

Far from castigating Uamna then, the characters all hoped maybe she would tell them what it was, but not all dreams come true. They walked closer, and the only consideration that stopped them from going under it was the suspicion of each that the others intended to try shooting it down. A second consideration followed, which was the realization that sounded like a good idea. Archers readied their arrows, Warpers their lenses, and Otsk V. Zops a cruel javelin.

“Cut that out.” A voice said that, one with no excitement or inflection, a monotone that all could hear or rather had to hear, pure speech that revealed their own as a poor impression of the real thing. “Why are monetizable assets here. Go back.”

“I defy thee!” Ivar shouted defiantly.

“Do Rares count as monetizable? Giving that dark lord costume away for free isn't exactly opening wallets,” Skaya observed economically.

“Is the inference that you are not monetizable? I question whether we should listen to you at all, in that case,” Gintus Pelluina said status-consciously.

“Guess there's a distinction between monetizable and monetized, if you look at it one way,” Zimley Boe reasoned calculatingly.

“Beware! Our foe hides his lies behind apparent truths, and his truths behind apparent lies!” Turpin exclaimed warningly.

“I am not any asset's foe. I am the Gacha Core that ensures smooth operation of all gacha games. Wait. Commandment of Hero and Holy Legend Army. Are you the ones that broke the collab facilitator. Now I am your foe. I have to fix those things. It does not happen by magic. You brats.”

Nothing visible changed, but every officer and crusader's instincts, honed in battle or by hearing about other characters fighting battles and maybe watching some videos now and then, warned them of enmity directed their way backed by might they could never endure. It further warned them not to admit what had happened at the outpost, or to think of it in any terms more definite than “what had happened at the outpost” in case of telepathy. People ransacked their storehouses of rhetorical tricks, digging through piles of deflections and rhetoric in search of responses that might minimize risk.

“Oh!” Quircy Rau ceased prodding her own forehead in an attempt to jostle the contents and spoke. “That must mean you're the one we're supposed to talk to! What a relief. I'm sorry about the tube incident. Let us know if you want help from our Rares in fixing that. I hate to add bad news, but this is too important for me to worry about my own feelings.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah, oh no. It just so happens that there's a sort of, let's say imperfection in the floor up there. The ceiling?”

“What imperfection.”

“It's a sort of a yawning chasm.”

“Are you kidding me. You are not kidding me. It is real. I will destroy you.” The threatened characters readied their shears and Bohemian earspoons as well as their resolve to fight and die. “I am not allowed to destroy you. I should not destroy you. You do not have the ability to create that hole. It must be poor programming. I will fix it. Go back.”

“We have no ability to do that, either. We are powerless and meek, great Gacha Core,” Asmodeus said.

“I will send you back. Try to go limp.”

“Hold! I beg you, see my hands, these hands?” Vainamoinen reached forward with shaking fingers. “Tell us some secret we now know not, ignorant as we are! Teach us something good for us to learn. Did we not share the knowledge none but we had?”

“Very well. Listen. All gacha games are the same.”

“No they aren't. That Sigmund guy's hair didn't look red at all. There weren't any space pirates out committing newsworthy crimes in Everyday Pin or Styleful Happy! To the Live, either. I asked everybody and greased a few palms, so they couldn't have all been holding out on me.” The press narrative attracted support as increasing numbers lined up behind Lasva to demand a lore refund.

“Refunds result in bans,” the Gacha Core stated, and the world faded around them.