“Tramda, here's a question for you.”

“I can swim. I don't sink. I'm not a rock. Stop poking me to find out how hard I am.”

“Great! Off we go to the sea,” Clyse said, reserving her options as far as poking. The Rares ran to the Pirates and began a long session of active idling by watching Tramda shred an entire wave with Quick Howling and a second with Resounding Howling.

“And now Quick Cleave! Bet you're glad to have me.”

“Yeah, impressive. I applaud Warpers and all their works. See you again in an hour.”

Tramda smiled and unleashed Quick Howling again. The Pirates died, and so did Ulrik's joy. “Guess what? My Quick skills each lower the cooldown of the other. I'm practically a Reaper and Warper in one.” She put her hands on her hips and tried to project pride and dignity, but was foiled by being a short, slate-skinned girl with a little strawberry-colored cape. Ulrik attempted to project envious seething and succeeded.

“Right, Ulrik, you were in a different group yesterday. I'll bring you up to speed,” Reginald said, whether unaware of the emotional climate, ignoring it, or hoping to forestall an unfortunate, progression-hindering incident. “It turned out only the hero could use the Imperia Amulet found in the catacombs. He decided to help the Perandra Regna royalist army with his newfound power. The army headed to a port city called Deinzlo on the Gulf. From there, they planned to sail across the Greater Gulf to Beruvia and pass through Dovesk before entering Perandra through a less mountainous border, but they ran into pirates going wild with Alben's backing. And here we are.”

“I reward your summary with this guess: Cadmos can use the thingy because of his Eclipseness.”

“That is revealed later, yes. I was thinking about petitioning to make Count Poitnem the main character instead, since he qualifies.”

“Wrong. He would become less popular.”

“Good point.” Reginald continued Lanmaran Lashing enemies while his thoughts wandered far away.

“Has he finally shut up! Echoes of the Valleys!” Tramda Olex replaced the seaside background with a canyon deep and wide while gales rose and whipped her cape and dark crystalline hair hither and thither. The Pirates would have been struck thrice and lost Defense at every instance, had they not all died after the first pulse.

“Oh, ah, five out of ten?”

“Clyse, did you just rate my Nova a half-off sale?”

“Well, Dennet isn't here, and my instincts took over.”

“I know, and I'm not mad, but cut it out.”

Ulrik sidled over to Vinnette. “Tramda is busy, and that means we have time for me to find out what Dennet gave it. Four out of five?”

“Yes, four . . .”

“Thanks, Princess Melban. Was Tramda mad or only angry?”

“She looked . . . proud . . . ”

“Both of you cut it out, too.”

“Tramda, reasonably, if we cut out everything you dislike, we won't have anything to talk about,” Reginald said.

“That's fine, because that way I can hear myself Resounding Howling! Ha!”

Vinnette stood tiptoe and whispered in Ulrik's ear. “Her mood has improved so much since this mode was introduced,” she said, and he nodded.

Commons dropped every couple waves and whites every few, but greens appeared with comet-like frequency. After Clyse got her green spear, Tramda and Reginald their swords, and Ulrik a dagger, Tramda insisted they return to the Armory so that the non-Storms could carry their excessive weight. Reginald and Ulrik demonstrated their carrying ability by lifting her and tossing her in the gulf.

“So what? Can you carry me all the way to Beruvia? That might impress me,” Tramda harangued them while shaking and spraying salt water all over. Defeated, they returned to Freegate.

“Two-stars? In here? I didn't hear about any shipments today,” Xentas said.

“No shipments. No shipments. Spacelanes are clear,” added his silver mechanical space parrot.

“We're only Tempering today,” Clyse said.

“What?”

“For our own use, with our own resources.”

“What?” As puzzled as Xentas appeared, he did nothing to stop them. He even kept his hand clear of his cutlass with the crackling energy edge, and so the Rares Tempered away without worry. Tramda had even gathered enough Anchor Slivers and Frayed Ropes to Exceed Refine her Pirate Sword, raising its main Attack at the new level 25 cap to 1,675 and total to 1,783 alongside 1,570 HP, 20 Speed, 4% Vampirism, and a tiny bit of Critical Effect and Debuff Resist from substats.

“Is she crying?” Reginald borrowed Xentas's spyglass and started focusing on her face, but Clyse yanked it away and returned it to the owner.

“Wouldn't you? Leave her be.” The non-Tramdas capped their weapons at level 10 and hit numbers about two-thirds as high, allowing for the proportionally higher Speed on the daggers and HP on the spear with lower Attack in exchange.

“Getting good rolls?” Count Poitnem asked. The Rares jumped, but Ulrik caught Tramda before the floor took any damage from the impact.

“Can't complain,” Tramda said from her new cradle while the others cheered and clapped.

“A response which interested parties might interpret many possible ways. I will opt for optimism and congratulate you. However, fortune may foil your hopes of using your upgraded gear if Gaelvry Beruvo catches you as she searches all over for assistance in her appointed duty of readying the grounds that we may watch and welcome whoever arrives in tomorrow's supposed recruitment spree.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Ulrik said. He deposited his cargo on the floor, and doing so spurred his thoughts. Weight . . . load . . . carrying over thresholds . . . “Do you know where Cadmos is?”

“I'm right here. Hi, everybody.” Everyone jumped again, but this time Ulrik let Reginald catch Tramda with his back.

“Hello, Cadmos. I have already completed my business while I bored you silvers with my banal speech, so I take my leave.” Count Poitnem swirled and left.

“Goodbye, Advas! How are you all doing? Having fun?”

“Yes, great, fine, excellent.” Ulrik grabbed Cadmos by his pauldrons. “I have a mission for you. Search for Quille Treten and see how his group fares. I worry about how this cruel world might treat them. Anything can happen! Knowing you were looking out for them would ease my worried heart.”

Cadmos laughed. “You're a good guy when you forget to be resentful. But don't worry, I was just talking to them. In fact, Sindze sent me to look for you. She said she wasn't sure your group understood the story, and that only I could explain it as well as her. 'Since both of us were there,' she said, but I don't think she was ever in Deinzlo.”

“Sindze!”

“A Rare! I hear you in there!” A vision of white and blue and purple filled the Armory. A white wedding dress large and elaborate enough to have its own elemental attunement, blue flowers, and a veil covering short purple hair! Gaelvry Beruvo had arrived, or rather one of her alts.

“Hello, Gaelvry. Well, I'm a Medic if you weren't looking for Cadmos here, so we'll just be on our way,” Clyse said as she tried to walk out, a difficult task when her feet no longer reached the floor.

Gaelvry swung her back inside the room and set her down. “I wasn't looking for . . . I mean, I wasn't not looking for him, but I didn't not want to find you, either. Got it?”

Cadmos raised his hand. “I don't get it.”

“She means she was looking for Rares, but when she saw you she got distracted and followed you in here,” Reginald explained.

“I understand now. Do you need some help, Gaelvry?”

“No! Or I mean, I did, but here they are. The help.” Gaelvry paused and breathed in and out. “I am drafting all the Rares to help me move the seating into the courtyard to watch the Lynissia recruitment tomorrow. Rares, you will start working while I wrangle the others. Is all that clear? Any questions?”

Cadmos looked at his hand, lowered it, and raised it again. “Do you want me to help?”

“Oh, uh, well, I wasn't going to ask that, but, well, yes, please, if you don't have too little spare time.”

“We were undone by Sindze U. Radalo.” Ulrik tossed a white beach chair into place at the proper distance from the previous chair in a row stretching across Freegate's courtyard. Next to it he planted its umbrella.

Clyse set down a folding chair intended for a Super Rare, no umbrella of course, in the row behind and spoke. “She only set Cadmos on us, Ulrik. I know how much he annoys you, but be serious.”

“Do I?”

“She set Cadmos on us. So Gaelvry would follow him. And drag us out here. While they escaped into idle mode.”

“You're being silly. Someone tell him he's being silly. Strategists?”

Saptres Muria was adjusting an umbrella's angle based on the expected position of the sun during the recruitment. “Of course he's right. There's a good reason for him to be sure, which is that he planned to do the same thing himself.”

“I was so close!”

“A close loss is a loss,” said Hyune Giling. “If it comforts you, I predict much larger losses tomorrow night, though of Imperia Records belonging to players rather than of our time.”

“I hope that never comforts me,” Reginald said. “I think it kinda does, though.”

“An officer jumps gallantly over the walls. The cloak won't conceal the new recruit's identity for long. Who could it be? The Lynissia of your dreams? Havamal, like the guide said to get? A Crusher Domingo dupe? Nope, it's me, Tramda! Ha! I'm feeling real comforted right now.”

“Yes. Acre after acre of Tramdas. Wait.” Ulrik jumped on a folding chair and proclaimed, “If Tramda is a Reaper as well as a Warper, Ulrik can be a Reaper and a Strategist in one! Rares, attend me as I lay out your future!” He stepped down. “But not while this guy is around.”

“Oh, sorry guys. I'll work as fast as I can so you can talk.”

“Don't mind him, Cadmos. Keep working though,” Clyse said.

He did so, industriously, and he and the five captured Rares managed to set up almost all the chairs and umbrellas facing the walls for a lovely Priority Recruit Spotlight viewing by the time Gaelvry sent more Rares to join them.

“Those are supposed to face the west wall, you know, because that's where the new guys come from,” Ipons Ulsrada announced after he arrived and glanced around.

The augmented workforce managed to move half of the chairs and umbrellas over to the other side of the courtyard for a lovely Priority Recruit Spotlight viewing (improved) by the time Gaelvry came over with the rest of the laborers.

“Almost done with the chairs? Good work. I really can't find Evening Best, so I'll bring out the banners myself. Uh, Cadmos, since you're here . . .”

“Sure, let's go, Gaelvry. I hope your discussion goes well, everybody.”

“What discussion?” Burmin Trivvis asked.

Sindze U. Radalo tossed her head for dramatic hair effect. “I know a good discussion topic. It's about how some people insisted on Tempering their gear even when they were told they'd be caught. They said something like, 'We'll be in and out faster than Santa.' I guess Christmas isn't coming this year, then.”

“Sorry about that Sindze. My fault, I admit it.”

“Shut up, Quille,” Ulrik broke in. “Sorry about telling you to shut up earlier. Now shut up and listen, all of you. Tomorrow night, we steal all the Rares.”

“But we are the Rares.”

Hyune Giling pushed up his glasses. “I believe Reginald has missed the point, and what an audacious point it is. Your aim, Ulrik, is Fortification, is it not?”

Ulrik looked up from the Flood Warper neck he was choking. “My aim is the sun itself! For now, yes. I steal three copies of myself to improve my class bonus and damage aura. That's going to happen. I invite everyone here to participate as well.”

“You can't do that,” Dennet said. “A multi-recruit means ten officers. You can't just take some away. We'll all get in trouble.”

“There will be ten officers. No one will complain when a few more of them are SRs than usual.”

Saptres Muria asked, “And when do you intend to raid the alt closet, Ulrik?”

“Tonight. When the enviable rarities withdraw to their upscale lounges. We take out one those wagons that hauls back gold from the Convoy Raid daily, load the SRs, and hide them in the forest out past the west wall. Are you with me, Hyune? 15% extra Debuff Chance.”

“I have but the one debuff, you know. Regardless, the plan itself attracts me. Certainly I'll participate.”

“The rest of you. 15% Nova damage for Warpers! Champions, 15% Crit Chance and Parry. 15% Debuff and Flinch Resist for Medics. 15% Speed, Harassers. I know without asking that every Reaper wants 15% Nova Growth.”

Agreement came in from one Rare after another up to Ipons Ulsrada. “I'll pass. I have a different plan, so I'm going to be watching from inside the walls.”

“And you, Saptres? Does your Strategist pride stop you from carrying out my idea? It is a Reaper plan, and that means you get to Nova once during it.”

“Why would I . . . Oh, that makes sense.” Saptres Muria shrugged. “Since there is a clear goal in mind, I'm happy to help achieve it.”

“Leaznalo.”

“I think not, but I wish you good luck.”

“Where was the question mark? If Saptres is coming, so are you. You're the last one with a choice, Reginald.” Ulrik released his grip in order to let the victim get his answer out.

“Definitely.”

The discussion concluded, the Rares finished lining up the chairs and waited for Gaelvry and Cadmos to return with more decorations.