Slay Every Dragon! The name said it all, except for quite a few things. While the incautious might have concluded that game had a 0% probability of being about fishing, lacking Beowulf's description, more careful minds would have suspected “dragon” to be a term for legendary fish that would require months of leveling to catch. Even given it was a fantasy game, what kind of fantasy? Classic fantasy with dwarves and wizards with pointy hats? Mythic fantasy with angels, demons, fairy queens, and Beowulfs? New era fantasy with whatever that meant? Blobby humans, rocky humans, and hydras, evidently.

The view from halfway up the hill, the place the host appeared, clarified nothing. Land divided into strips and connected by dirt roads under a wide blue pasture where frolicked fluffy white flocks welcomed newcomers. Any sort of fantasy could include that scenery, even Fields of Steam or Afterschool Hunters. Or Slay Every Dragon for that matter.

Quircy stomped and clapped till everyone looked at her instead of the sheep. “Is everyone here? It's your problem if you aren't. Inorrea, where do we go for some action?”

“The red light district.”

“Inorrea.”

The officer in question pointed, and Quircy led the army up the hill in the indicated direction. Questions marched alongside the horde's warriors, such as if they really needed spies to tell them they could see more from the hilltop and if Slay Every Dragon really did have a red light district. It seemed unlikely, unless Beowulf had omitted vital information. They found no answers at the end of their march, but they did discover a lovely fountain brought in from Paradise the Enchant by Information Gathering.

And a city. Streets, buildings, sure. Spires wrought from red and green glass, connected by aerial walkways in three networks at various altitudes, and among them sets of short structures on platforms supported in the sky by narrow columns. Every level of the wide and tall city was inundated with activity. Seas of humanity swirled around the man-made shoals, the courts, banks, and offices that wrecked the unwary. Pedestrians made way for carriages drawn by automata with the shapes of bulls and bodies of iron and bronze.

Here and there the officers and crusaders spotted the magic forges where elismiths produced elionium-dispersing weapons and no doubt other wonders by the columns of colors, yellow and blue and most of all purple that flared, reached the very clouds, and faded into drizzles of light. “Arms made in such places as those would surely be fine trophies for any knight, but I fear we will find they are all considered player resources,” said Knight-Master Gralles Alianura.

“You fear nothing but the truth, as regards gear won from the gacha. But truth is many-sided, and what is displeasing never covers every side, but only some, and brave men may roll the die and find something better.”

“Huh, you do usually speak different,” Zimley Boe said as she admired Beowulf. “This kind of, ah, what do they call it? Handsome speech? Suits you better.”

“My thanks to you for saying so.” He nodded his long-locked head and continued. “Though much gear is so earned, much is earned also from the blood-field, and there are battles which cost courage but no stamina to enter.”

“All that shameless yelling on the way here when you might have saved your voice and told us it's a G******* F****** clone,” Darlotte Glofal said.

“Are sons clones of their fathers, daughters of their mothers? Is every sword the same and are all axes alike?”

“That's so true,” said Luau Lua. “You can't even say I'm identical to non-summer Lua DeMereanch, and she's me.”

Others told similar stories. “I used to be a Champion who boxed. Today I'm a Boxer who boxes. Made a world of difference.”

“Look at Lament Epoch, then at Commandment of Hero, third at some scathing reviews and videos I can call up, and you figure out what 'clone' even means these days. I can't.” Trainer Eumorsedio shrugged.

“Oh, there are sooooo many examples of how weird identity can get. Why, Count Voine is a gentleman if ever there was one, but if you went into Suppression or Vigilant Patrol right now, guess what? He's a bear there.”

“That's a metaphor. For my strength and tenacity,” Luerre Voine explained.

Quircy Rau clapped. “I never knew! Since that's the case, you lead the charge. For the target, how about that compound that takes up most of a block? That one there, with the portico in front and the pool with the track around it. See it? It stands out, and so do we. Let's get in there and get noticed!”

She tried to give Luerre Voine a good-luck Quircy shove, but the effort failed when her hands met no resistance. Instead she lost her balance and began rolling down behind Luerre, who had required nothing more than a word to convince him to rush forward. In third place ran the entire rest of the army.

They descended on the city like one-star reviews on a game that offers a pre-download before the servers are up. No explanation or civil discussion could turn back their onslaught; rather, only a force equally reasonless could counter it, much as when reviewers give five star ratings to a game yet to release. Could Slay Every Dragon raise such a force? Favorable early indications existed, such as the fact that characters there were called slayers, which sounded tough. Also, they slew dragons. Who does that? Crazy people.

The invaders barged into the compound which Beowulf informed them belonged to a slayer society other than the main character's. They secured the armory, the barracks, the kitchen, and the tool shed without a fuss, since they encountered no defenders. Quircy directed Construction to fortify the entrance building and enliven the lobby with a noodle cart in case anyone wanted a quick meal. She said nothing of the potential for a rapid withdrawal, because followers need to know something of the leader's plans, but not everything. Meanwhile, Information Gathering searched for hidden slayers, Plundering sniffed jars of spices and looked behind paintings, and Exploring asked if it could be excused to explore more mysterious locales.

“No,” Quircy Rau explained. No ministry was excepted from the first post-diaspora large-scale operation slash invasion slash team-building exercise. She would have told them that at least, but a knock came.

There you are, a slayer returning to your society's base to relax in the pool. You have shorts on your legs, zinc on your nose, your backstory about a skilled but lazy elismith whose attempts to avoid work cause more trouble than if you had done your job in the first place. And you live it. You sneak out of fights every chance you get, which is not that many chances, because you place low on most gameplay-focused tier lists, but the sneaking away is easy enough because of that. You turn the knob. The door stays closed. You knock. The door flies open and before you stands a brunette wearing a black jacket, a purple skirt that goes down to not quite there and hose that runs up to not quite here. Someone you have never seen or met. What do you do? What do you say?

“Wow, you're hot,” Evan Wheelwich said.

“Thanks. Don't let him get away!”

Otsk V. Zops and Clint of Spinach City stepped around him and placed calm hands on the native's shoulders. Evan looked at a grim hunter covered in furs extracted from the least neighborly beasts and a broad-shouldered man liable to be mistaken for a superhero if he removed his glasses, said “Huh,” and considered everything other than escape.

“Hi! I'm Quircy Rau from Commandment of Hero. Some friends and I decided to come over to your game and crush you. That's the short version, but there are all kinds of subjects we can talk about if you like.”

“Sick! That's so sick!” Evan bounced a little like a cartoon kangaroo warming up for the boxing match, as much as allowed by Otsk and Clint. “Dude! I've never seen anyone from another game before. And you wanna fight us? Anything to get a break from raids all day, dude. Listen. What if I round up as many free slayers as I can find and we meet in honorable combat on the Titanmarked Fields? Then, after, we party!”

“Sounds great! Wait. Inorrea? Do you know where the Titanmarked Fields are?”

“Do I!”

“Do you?”

“I do.”

“OK. Sounds great! My friends here will let you get to it. Run free! You will meet us there, right? Don't let anyone say Quircy Rau is a poor judge of character.”

“No way I'd let anyone do that. See you soon!” Evan scampered away, weaving from side to side, his arms waving in the air.

“Here's a fun job for you, Otsk V. Zops. Track him. Oh, you already are. Never mind.” Quircy waved and headed back to gather up the troops. “Who wants to go to the Titanmarked Fields? It's you! All of you, and that means pack up now. Let's go to the rumble!”