“First of all, I apologize for not getting to you sooner,” said Bruzigan, some time later in the virual space, “but not long after you were attacked, anti-Federation forces occupied the home systems of Arvallei’s family and Ril’egh’s Clan House. Or rather, they captured Arvallei’s family and attempted to do the same to Ril’egh’s, but in the latter case they were pushed back, though they caused heavy casualties. Still, I’ve had my hands full dealing with the crisis, so debriefing you got pushed back as a priority.”

“I understand. In fact, I hope you got a plan in place in regards to Arvallei’s family before coming to me.”

Bruzigan nodded. It had been three days since the battle with Dieter, and repairs and maintenance were going smoothly. Really, I should have entered the 4th Floor by now. In fact, Mewi had already completed it, which was a load off my mind. He’d gotten his best rating yet, a 4.2, which had caught his Class Evolver up to mine, 0% upgrade progress at Bronze. But there were too many questions, and when neither Bruzigan or Arvallei didn’t respond to me until now, I got too distracted by this situation to concentrate well on the next Floor mission.

“The first thing you ought to know, is that Dieter is completely dead. When the Blitzkrieg was destroyed, he appeared in the Chamber of Failure in the Pantheon. Federation forces attempted to apprehend him, but were unable to take him alive.”

“The guy lost all of his lives on the same day, huh. I almost pity him.”

Bruzigan grunted. “You’ve been granted an official commendation for your part in stopping Dieter. Grand Marshal Varstithon was particularly impressed that you managed to recover the items, equipment, and effects from his body, especially his personal comm device. Work on cracking it is already underway.

As for Dieter’s faction itself, it’s more or less disbanded. Quite a few of the enemy factions are engaged in infighting over what pieces they get to pick up from it and how many, giving us more breathing room on that front.”

“I’m glad to be of help, but I’m more glad that we simply survived. We can’t say Dieter didn’t come strong. As it was, if the Rainbow Mage hadn’t intervened, we’d have had a lot more casualties. I expect I’d have lost at least one life.”

Bruzigan nodded again. “We believe their overall plan was to hold all three home systems hostage against the alliance team. You making a point to wipe out the Kinetice presence in Erkolls moved up their timetable. Your group faced slightly fewer forces than we believe they intended.

Of course, as it turned out, if they had attempted to do the same thing on Erkolls as they did on Kordozok and Fliir, the Rainbow Mage would have likely personally slaughtered them. Evidently, he considers this Zone his territory now.

There’s one more thing you should know. The Federation has attempted to approach the Rainbow Mage to request his assistance with the restoration of the Mana Sanctuary. He has neither accepted nor declined at this time. We believe he is torn between his desire to climb the Tower quickly, and a desire for the knowledge of the Tower’s workings the Sanctuaries represent. Keep it in mind, should you have any more dealings with him.”

“Understood.”

“Now, get going to the 4th Floor, Lheticus. I understand you’ve been prepared for some time.” Bruzigan gave me a smirk. “I’m itching to get back to climbing the Tower myself, and I’m tired of you keeping me waiting.”

“All right.” Truth be told, I was nervous about the 4th Floor, even with all my preparations. This was going to be nothing like anything I’d faced in the Tower so far. But at this point, there was nothing for it.

I did contact Mewi for a pep talk before making my way to a Dimensional Gate. I took a deep breath, and once again entered a Tower Floor.

I didn’t emerge where I expected. I was in a small waiting room, or possibly a cell, judging by the intimidatingly secure metal door that was the only apparent exit from the room, containing a comfortable looking couch facing a large holo-monitor.

[Welcome to Floor 4.]

[You are currently located in one of the 10,000 green room cells, in the space station orbiting Yzmar that controls the survival game, used to transport contestants to the island planet’s main surface.]

[Participate in the Final Round.]

[A round in which contestants no longer fight only for their own survival, but for much more, in a game with constantly changing circumstances where the weak of body or mind will quickly fall behind, if not fall altogether.]

[You have passed the Floor 3 mission with a difficulty rating of or above.]

[Your story will not be reset.]

[Analyzing...]

[Your success in tamping down any potential drama in the previous round was outweighed by your exploits in combat, making you quite popular to watch.]

[However, your “sponsor” is awaiting your performance in the final game more eagerly than anyone else. For better, or for worse...]

[You are participating in this game for the fourth and final time, as a ‘finalist.’]

[Please choose your difficulty.]

[]

[You will receive your mission in due course.]

I don’t get the mission right away? Well, I already know what it should be anyway, but there’s a chance the Tower throws something Arvallei didn’t know about at me...I need to be on guard.

I went ahead and sat on the couch. It was as comfortable as the bed in the mansion suite that one night on Floor 2 had been. A minute later, the 3D display turned on on its own. It turned out to be there to show the broadcast of the recap show of the previous 3 rounds the game put on. It was even expressly mentioned that all 10,000 contestants would be watching, and we were advised to use it to check out the competition.

The first half of the program gave more of an overall picture, and a deep dive analysis of, the game so far. Individual and team profiles were gone into on the second half. Each one of those lasted for about 2 minutes, closer to 3 minutes counting each featured playing being introduced. To my surprise and slight amusement, there was a feature of me, though not for Team Firebrand.

The showrunners had done their best to make me look like a flame-spewing psychopath. My slaughter of an entire group in the first round got by far the most screen time. The commentator talked constantly over all the clips of me, the full screen of the first round inferno segueing into a four quadrant 3D split showing me killing one desert spider after another, nonchalantly watching as the Saboteur was killed (and that same face edited to look at more of the people being executed in round two,) my slaughter of Team MacIlister, and my fight against the giant ape boss.

The profiles went on and on, until the show finally ended. The team that would ultimately take the #1 spot and gun for the Floor challenger’s head constantly had not appeared. I put that down to them being the products of a classified military project.

In the next instant, I vanished from the green room and appeared in the throne room of a fine castle.

It was time for the Final Round to start.