The ground greeted the five, who started toward the Serene Shrine only to be met halfway by two mysterious figures dragging a Sadarian, which the visitors had learned was like a Wedarian but different. Brown hair on one and pink on the other! One black leather jacket open and the other closed! Double ZR! Quircy Rau and Zimley Boe had made the scene.

BigGuy30 caught up and asked Ulrik, “Are those people you like?”

“They might be too close for me to say no. Even I can be diplomatic. Hello, fellow officers! Welcome to Always Leveling Titan!”

“I guess I don't need this elf anymore.” Quircy dropped her passenger and waved. “Hey guys! We came to rescue you. Anyone else here? Do we need to break Darlotte Glofal out of a prison for fancy girls? I'm up for anything!”

“Not to our knowledge. We may be forced to defend our associates from you, Quircy Rau.” Mentor Tendradius held straight his sword which hummed, waiting to be used.

“Don't give me that. Like you didn't beat up a bunch of natives yourself and say something about how the battle proved their hearts were clouded.”

“He assured Arrarix his fists were those of an honest man,” Vampire Lord said.

Zimley and Quircy looked at each other, smiling, eyes rolling. The former laughed while the latter spoke. “Yup. Tell me what's going on around here. Wait, what is it they say in this situation? Brief me.”

The five began to explain the nature of the game, its story, rarities, and elements, as well as the traits of Fezarians, Norporians, Sadarians, Wedarians, Uskarians, Zazens, Feralians, Mux, Bax, Demibax, and Enx.

“That's what briefings are? Never mind then. Just tell me what you've been up to. If it's not ambitious enough, you'll pay the price! Me and Zims figured out how to get into the options from anywhere. Tough to beat, but I'm already impressed by your glasses.”

“These give us an INT score. My parents never did so much! Aha ha ha!”

“Wild! We need to get in on that, Quirce.”

“Yeah, good start. What else?”

Tendradius, nettled by his exclusion from the glasses trend, rushed to the next topic. “We ruined the experience curve by killing the strongest enemies in groups with locals. They dug a hole at our request to find the way out. No results yet.”

“A hole?” Quircy dragged the word out for longer than she had the Sadarian. “How big a hole?”

Tendradius looked to BigGuy30, who said, “If you turned the Tower of Aspirants upside-down, I'd say we've made it to about floor 30.”

“Perfect! Send some native bearers to set up our little item in there, and you'll see something new.” Quircy's tantalizing words vanquished BigGuy's skittishness, and he ran off to round up some volunteers. “As for the rest of you, how about you wait in your hole? I'll arrange a fun surprise we can all enjoy together.”

So saying, she pranced off toward the Serene Shrine while Tendradius led the five plus one to the excavation site. Along the way, he asked Zimley, “Is the surprise something other than the method of egress you invented? She already informed us that existed, and therefore the surprise must necessarily be diminished.”

“Ha. Yeah, sure, we 'invented' it.” Zimley blew a bubble and popped it. “I usually leave the story-telling to Quirce, but I got a feeling she won't tell this one. Any of you guys ever hear of Paradise the Enchant?”

“Sure, sure. We thought maybe this was that at first. We got it all crossed up!” Boxer Andit did not sound any more upset about his error than he was about the losses he endured on his way to the top.

“Mm. Yeah. It's got less shading than this game though. None of these locals would fly there, either. They weren't designed to air in an animated show once a week for a year straight, barring New Year's. Too many details. Yeah, so that's where we ended up, just the two of us. The Paradisers were friendly and conflict-free.”

“We raid them next then,” Ulrik said, and Reginn nodded.

“No need. They invited us to their base and let us do whatever we wanted, like look for a login calendar. They don't have one there.”

“Nor here,” Vampire Lord said.

“We looked around the palace and wound up in the courtyard. Crowded place. I guess there's a hint of a town-building element there. They've got a bunch of decorations and stalls. Not my style, more of a cozy vibe. We bought some noodles, Quirce sat on the noodle cart's wheel to eat, and then? She vanished.”

“To the options,” Tendradius guessed.

“To the options,” Zimley confirmed. “What we figured out is that there are items you're supposed to sit on, like benches, and ones you aren't, like noodle carts. All you gotta do is park your caboose where you shouldn't, and bam! It's that simple. We picked up a fountain, sat on the cart, and went into the next game we found.” She opened her arms wide to embrace Always Leveling Titan and all its delights.

“Ain't that something. Never thought of sitting wrong. Think we can get on top of a shrine?”

“Impossible, Andit.” The Strategist, the Eclipse one from space and not the Quake one from Enzet with the jacket, thought harder. “Unless we construct a ramp facing it, ride a skateboard up, and jump off in midair.”

“Dang!”

Even if they owned a skateboard, an item easier to find in Paradise the Enchant than there, it would have been employed for sick downhills along the spiral course the natives had contrived, a much faster way down to the pit's bottom. On foot, the way was long, but anyone who chose to hurry risked an uncontrollable slide. So they did that. The slide thing. While they brushed themselves off and waited, Zimley Boe described the details of Quircy's expression in the second between sitting down and disappearing. “It was like she just remembered CCing an email meant for her mom to an entire mailing list fifteen years later,” she said.

“Thanks for waiting, everybody.” Quircy descended the walkway backwards as she watched BigGuy and Dart haul a circular fountain, in the center of which a seahorse statue spit up water. She tapped Dart on the shoulder at times when he walked too close to the inner edge during the procession. “Zims didn't tell you anything about our adventures that we agreed to turn into a little secret between the two of us, did she?”

“Nah,” Zimley said. “I didn't agree to that.”

“Oh. Even so. All right, set it down right there in the middle. Very nice.” Quircy and Zimley each took a side of the fountain and threw their hands out toward it as if the grand prize had just been unveiled. “Check! It! Out! Your passport to anywhere and everywhere has arrived! Who wants to try it first? All of you?”

Mentor Tendradius Pux pulled the back of Reginn's tunic when he seemed to be about to take a step. “The bold are ready to try anything. What is it we are to try?”

“Come over and sit on it. Right, Zims?”

“Right, Quirce.” Zimley winked at Tendradius.

“Does that include us?” BigGuy30 asked from behind Quircy. She pivoted, backed up a step, examined him from hair to heel, poked him a couple time, opened her mouth, closed it, circled him, leaned forward, squinted, leaned backward, cupped her chin, squatted, and rose again.

“Sure,” she said.

Tendradius, Andit, Ulrik, Vampire Lord, Reginn, Quircy, Zimley, and BigGuy30, but not Dart, all hopped on the edge of the fountain as though the sitcom's opening theme were reaching its last few notes. A shudder, a wrenching of the soul itself, hands squeezing and prodding, checking every inch. Then, a light blue floor and big buttons suitable for use as slides by small children.

“Wow! I used to have this idea that everything was possible, but I didn't have proof before,” BigGuy30 said.

“You didn't have Quircy Rau,” Quircy Rau raued quircily.

“Gotta hand it to ya, Raulette. You came through like nobody ever did.” Boxer Andit applauded her, even though everyone kept telling him that big dumb glove made it sound stupid.

“Another successful scheme,” Ulrik allowed. “Not very zany though. Maybe next time.”

“The prize goes not to the zaniest, but to those most capable of realizing their goals.” Vampire Lord bowed to his rescuers.

Quircy Rau accepted their praise with the same level of dignity as a balloon being filled with water or gelatin smacked by a spoon. Fortunately, the prize goes not to the most dignified and so on, and therefore quivering with maniacal laughter cost her nothing, prize-wise.

One Back button later and the Serene Shrine received a new set of pilgrims, though they spent no time on their devotions. Instead they ran toward the nearby hole, if 'hole' sufficed to describe an excavation of such scale as that.

“I must commend you. Further, I ask that you take this as a real question and not as a veiled insult. A lot of that goes on back in Commandment of Hero.”

Andit backed him up. “Sure does, Big Pux.”

“Why is the bottom of a hole a perfect place for the fountain?”

“Becauuuuuuuse, players can't see it there. Which means we can leave it there. And come and go as much as we want! Pretty good, right, Swordy?”

“You're really going to leave it for us to use?” BigGuy30's voice trembled. “I can't believe it. You're like a goddess, but way nicer.”

“You can say that again. Say it again right now, in fact. Heehee. Ha. Huhuhaha. OHOHOHOHO!”

At the bottom, a contingent of characters waited who had heard the fresh-baked news. BigGuy assured them nothing could be truer than what they had been told, which Quircy proved with a general invitation to embark on a trial adventure. The seahorse fountain groaned under the weight of Demibax backsides, and the route between the shrine and the pit became a chain of bodies linked one to another by their desire to know of marvels never imagined before. Most of the characters had listened to a story or two about the wonders of other games during their powerleveling sessions, but many wanted to hear them all, again, in more detail. This Uskarian wanted details about Styleful Happy!! To the Live merchandise, that Noporian liked Divine Providence's atmosphere of awe, and Arrarix cracked his knuckles when the idea of duels with the strongest of every game arose. Above all, they reviewed the process of starting a remote acquaintance with ways=means in Convergence/Divergence for the purpose of scoring some Universal Temporary Asset Substitutes for themselves to facilitate the vacation plans that even then filled their minds.

The hour came when the visitors decided to leave, but that parting had nothing of sadness in it. The seven outsiders waved, and the locals waved back while they heaped up Tattered Enx Plumage, Colorful Enx Plumage, Radiant Enx Plumage, and Transcendent Enx Plumage with commercial intentions. “Bye! See you soon!” Everyone said something in that vein, and most meant it, too. The officers and crusaders faced away from the fountain, lowered themselves, and departed.