The landscape was transformed. No longer could the travelers see only dirt and rocks in every direction, because they no longer saw anything at all to the rear besides artificial clouds more impressive than the showiest phoenix's plumage. “Some dirty bikes and dirty times in this game,” Kindo said.

“Might it be best, then, for us to take to our feet? Time oft passes faster when sped by words on weighty topics in a manner most light. Quiet your engines that we may speak on the subtleties of morality.”

Ivar swerved in front of Acolyte to deliver his response of fumes and dust. “Pffthewfppfpt,” Acolyte said.

“You might have something there,” Kindo conceded.

“I have an announcement,” Ulrik announced. “My glasses grant me improved INT, which of course I used to increase my style. Watch.” To the admiration of his fellows, he jumped off his motorcycle and walked beside it as it chugged along.

“They really are the same speed. I didn't believe it.”

“Wiffle. Here's something else you won't believe.” Ulrik unsheathed his scimitar, turned it sideways like a spatula, flipped the riderless cycle into the air, and began juggling. His black and red robes stored Deadly Eyes and Pure Orbs he extracted for the performance, not to mention a Broken Dagger. He spun around to give everyone a good view of his walking backwards for a few yards before he let the bike hit the ground and snatched the other items. He bowed to the other bikers and jumped back on over the front wheel.

“No, I believe that,” Wiffle said.

Ivar's soul made for boasts and feats sensed a challenge. He leapt up, stood on his seat, and walked forward as far as the wheel, where he ran fast enough not to fall. Kindo and Acolyte did the same, and a contest of endurance began which tested the participants, though still not Wiffle's belief. The five ran, rolled, tumbled, juggled, and even discussed weighty matters such as the feasibility of covering Dust and Highway with moving walkways. “Players would spot that day one,” Kindo said, but Ulrik pointed down where the solution to every problem could be found.

“Underground moving walkways. Digging is great. They gave me a costume for it.”

The relationship between the mentioned activity and the outcome taxed the imaginations of three of the four travelers. Stymied, Ivar asked for clarification on the most important point. “I took you for a monk all this time. Perhaps an evil monk who played your fellows false. Why do you wield a sword for your weapon?”

Acolyte scoffed. “Verily no clearer a proof can there be of that old saying, 'when all you have is a Viking, everyone looks like a monk.'”

“Yes. What kind of monk has hair like this?” Ulrik pulled back his hood to let his spiky black hair sproing up.

Kindo had ignored the issue before, being one of the officers there at the time and therefore tax-exempt as far as his imagination, but that development moved him to say what needed to be said. “A novice who doesn't quite fit in with the order. He dreams of adventure when he's supposed to be saying his prayers and sweeping the floors, but that charming period of his life ends when a vile warband shows up. One of the monks has to find an ancient magic sword, and the young novice is the guy who says he'll do it.”

“I have to correct you on one or two points. That monk you mentioned doesn't have hair like mine. He is also not a guy. He is in fact a mouse.”

“Ulrik,” Wiffle said in the tone of a teacher who had run the numbers on how times a questionable student used a grandparent's funeral as an excuse for an absence. “Mice can't talk.”

“I must have misremembered. In any case. These are not the robes of a monk. Not even an evil one. These are the boss robes of a genuine boss! Because I was the boss. Of an event, a real one, not one of those fake ones we put on in the Rare closet to pretend somebody remembers us.”

“About digging?” Wiffle asked.

“Not directly!”

“No more words on the sword have been said.” Ivar sat back on his motorcycle and sulked while he dreamt of arms.

“He's a Doveskan swordsman, is all. Dovesk's a country in our game. Rains a lot. Tranquil Aflara dumped me into the world, and Wiffle there's from Widder.”

“Countries. I remember when our story had those. And when we had a story.” Sulking turned into sentimentality, as it often does, and Ivar and Acolyte recalled what they could about the Holy Legend Army lore as the barren land around them faded into the vivid, unreal colors they imagined the past to have.

“A war betwixt angels and demons, and the realms where they waged it! A champion arose, his weapon wielded with might, guided by righteousness, and forged from meteoric steel. Another story entire began in the elfin lands, where Ragnel's desire, most deeply cherished, was to go . . . to . . .”

“To find a witch, Acolyte. Some elf or sprite had been cursed, so that her life was worse. And Kullervo! He found a sword, a fell one. That was good. He slew many.”

“Now I'm not saying this to start a fight,” Kindo said. A preamble like that is a good reason not to continue, but he went on. “I respect you crusaders too much for that, but are you sure your game ever had a story?”

“The beginning of one. Forgive us its poor telling. Even so might a tale as simple as that of a birthday party, a surprise to the celebrated, become hard to relate when the party is ever delayed. 'A party was to be held, on some day, for some person unknown, nor did any guests arrive, and I remember nothing of it.' Not otherwise is the story of the crusaders.”

Kindo accepted that answer and wept for the deprived inhabitants and players of Holy Legend Army, except instead of crying, he said, “Huh.” He seemed sympathetic, anyway.

Ulrik offered no sympathy, but instead solutions. “I should take off these glasses. I would be spared from having all these great ideas. Listen. Create your own story with fewer elves and more explosions. Look over there for inspiration.” The tip of his scimitar pointed ahead after a few adjustments to account for the blade's curve as well as the shaking from all the explosions.

Orange and brown terrain turned red on the horizon, or even white and blue for a blink's duration now and then. Pebbles jumped up like they wanted to get down, and the bikes joined in when they rode closer. Who could resist the percussion that was felt more than heard and heard more than most ears could handle? Some parties are invite-only, some are open to all, but that one allowed exemptions for no reason whatsoever.

“That's probably the gas station,” none of them bothered trying to tell the others. Not only did the explosions insist, if not with complete success, on exclusivity as far as audio access, but also, the officers and crusaders felt good enough about their line counts to refrain from padding. Dust and Highway had given them plenty of chances to talk. They needed action.

Their engines rumbled. Indicators on instruments arced right or left. None of that mattered, but the memory of the mayor's wise words kept their feet busy on the pedals, hands on the bars, and minds on how cool they must look.

Closer, they saw the source of the explosions. Ten wheels times two, each taller than a post-apocalyptic biker, helmet spike or improbable mohawk included! A shell of thick plates enclosing a space that could contain robots the operators hoped to sell to farmers, but maybe a third of the size of the one in the movie! Batteries of long-barreled guns up top, and on the side, machine gun arrays capable of rotating for either anti-personnel or anti-air use! “That must be the landship,” was another sentence nobody said.

The four motorcycles pulled up short after observing the fate of other, less foreign bikers. Raiders rode up from the far side of the gas station, henceforth Gas Station North, and experienced the second apocalypse. The landship's batteries separated riders from their bikes, bikes from the ground, and the ground from other parts of the ground. Craters opened up, adding some interest to the humdrum, nearly-level terrain. Ridges and hills formed from displaced rocks, sand, and the dust mentioned in the game's title to welcome falling raiders.

Wedges of bikers riding in threes, sixes, and nines attacked. None of them reached the resource site, and the landship might have been parked in Everyday Pin for all the chance they had of closing in. The land to Gas Station North was strewn with corpses and wreckage, but not for very long. It turned out that raiders despawned pretty fast. The last wave disappeared as the next arrived, over and over till there was no next.

Not of motorcycles, that is. When the landship's guns went silent, the travelers heard a subtler sound, as if a tractor manufacturer decided to show off its wares by holding a parade of twenty of them on the street outside your house when you have to wake up early the next day. The ground rumbled, the air thrummed, and a second landship approached.