“Stop twitching!”

“Don't hum!”

“Is that a dance? Cut it out! Now I'm doing it too.”

Only a little tiny bit of fear, though. Not many officers still roamed the castle. The Armory was locked and Castru gone as he had warned, the lounges were empty, and in the halls only a few Super and Ultra Rares here and there had not yet made it to the courtyard. From there the Rares could hear the music of the pre-spotlight show, the horns and drums of some of the more musically inclined officers who had gathered to enliven the occasion. Gaelvry had directed them to put up a bandstand after careful calculations indicated a spot where the camera could never show the players what had been wrought there. An occasional cheer or wave of loud laughter came through as well. Nobody so much as looked at the two-stars on their way to the closet.

“There you are, Leaznalo. Hope you don't mind being bound and gagged all day. Knew you wouldn't. Off we go.” Quille Treten hoisted Leaznalo over his shoulder Santa-style and carried him off.

“Clyse will meet us there,” Burmin said. Ten Rares followed Quille and Leaznalo to the western woods, spinning around as they walked and jumping at every sound. No Sibyls popped up on the random encounter table, and the conspirators found the Super Rares right where they had left them, still fresh and ready to fulfill a function, if not their intended one. Hyune Giling measured, marked a spot, and directed the dumping of spare SRs there. During that labor, Clyse showed up as promised with Vinnette Melban and Saptres Muria in her train, all three fresh out of Vigilant Patrol Part 1 Chapter 1.

Saptres made his own measurements, picked a spot about two-thirds of the way between the walls and the woods, and knelt. “I might never do this again! Engine Construction!” A trebuchet assembled itself before him, but before it launched its payload, Quille, Ulrik, and Dennet ran up and replaced its counterweight with Leaznalo, who played his part perfectly by not bothering to struggle.

“One out of five, but with an asterisk because we messed it up on purpose.”

“Appreciated. There you have it, a siege engine which will never disappear so long as it is not operated properly.”

Sindze U. Radalo picked an SR, her countryman Orrevan C. Hinks, and loaded him. “We'll miss you when you're gone, Orry, but somebody will pick you up later, OK? The URs will positively insist on it.”

The Rares spent the rest of the remaining time asking what the C. stood for, and the U. while they were at it, or else saying, “Mmf fmm mf.” The discussion halted and the Rares readied themselves for action when an officer appeared until Dennet pointed out, “That's Evening Best. He's running around and neighing his horse heart out.”

The true recruitment started with with a shimmering. The gacha's power and the furious hopes and dreams of the players combined to distort and reshape the world itself, and when the phenomenon ended, Vritia Umox had made the scene. Perhaps she was lured by the pre-show, either out of appreciation for the musical style or conviction that what every party needs is a luman with a bass.

“Oh come on,” Tramda complained. “Lynissia's going to show up before I do. I can feel it.” The others watched without speaking as their newest comrade sprinted toward the wall and leapt over. Midair, a sudden wind tore off the cloak which recruited officers wore for exactly that reason. There was a lot of symbolism about liminality and such involved, and also it looked cool.

The next arrival was not Night Shift Lynissia however, but rather Burmin Trivvis, looking bold and handsome without his usual slight frown. Burmin tackled himself with Ulrik and Quille's help and tossed the cloak to Dennet, who draped it over Orrevan C. Hinks. “You're sure they won't notice?” Clyse asked as the inert SR hurled through the air.

“A recruit is a recruit,” Ulrik said, hoping his unconcerned attitude would convince everyone he had thought about how strange the spectacle would look beforehand.

“And here's Orrevan, home again in time for the holidays.”

“He looks less than thrilled, doesn't he?”

“It's no wonder, as often as he's been recruited. He's taking it nice and easy, same as we are.” Some might have seen a difference between lounging in a chair under an orange umbrella and planting yourself face-first in the ground like a lawn dart, but Ultra Rares had their own notions.

“Next one.” Stan took the spot of Burmin, who was still dragging his own tall and broad-shouldered body, armor and helmet and all, over to the hiding place, a struggle which became less contested because the dupe stopped trying to run forward as soon as the next officer appeared.

Ulrik's cloak added some mystery and intrigue to his dull red tunic with black trim and intermittent armor bits like greaves and pauldrons. Disguising the “I'm a typical bland main character” look of his spiky black hair helped too. Cadmos had the red version.

“The recruit cloak as a costume for everybody would improve a lot of our designs,” Dennet said, examining the cloak as he and Stan stripped it off the Ulrik that was trying to run through the sky.

“The artists' pride might not stand it though, saw they too many players using it.”

“Another SR? What a day to summon! I mean recruit!”

“Nobody goes and pulls to get a few SRs, pal.”

“Better than not getting them. Count your gains and losses is my philosophy.”

“That's a Super Rare sort of philosophy, if you don't mind my saying so.”

“Not at all. I'll take that as a compliment. We have more need of philosophy, sad as it is.”

“Should we let some of the Rares go through?” Burmin asked, back in position.

“Yes. Those.” Ulrik pointed at the new Evening Best. Everyone nodded. “No one will notice regardless once the genii start showing.”

Priority Recruit Spotlights, the term the developers preferred over “We Put in Two Rate Up URs to Make It Harder to Get the One You Want So What Are You Going to Do About It Not a Thing Admit It Recruit Spotlight,” pumped up the officer rates compared to Special Recruit Spotlights or the dreaded Permanent Special Recruit, but the roulette wheel still landed on “genius” 46% of the time.

Spirits of various places started scampering in and bouncing over the walls. Reti Emen with its 8% Attack bonus for 30 seconds or SR Ecund Emen with 15%, Reti Signis who protected its officer against 4 attacks from Inferno enemies and Reti Sulmen who did the same against Storm. Even if the right officers took the wrong way to a player's roster, there was always hope of UR Imus Riblis blessing an account and giving an officer 200 Nova at the battle's start. What if you recruited enough duplicates for Spirit Reinforcement? Instant Nova, the dream of every player with Warpers in the roster.

Officers wore lab coats or wielded typewriters that shot keys at people, but players demanded the actual person look like something. No such convention constricted genius designs. Clumps of pipes with eyes attached rolled by, somehow. A miniature giraffe with each leg its own color, all pastel. An eggshell with four wings, red, blue, green, and yellow. A clump of what it might look like if Leaznalo coughed up hairballs.

The genii distracted everyone from the astonishing ratio of SRs to Rs being recruited, and the Rares piled up extras like a movie filmed on a record high temperature day with insufficient water on set. 10x after 10x passed with no Lynissia, Eclipse or otherwise, but that sort of thing happened sometimes. Often. No signs of particular displeasure marred the proceedings.

Then the ground shook and a seven-colored pillar of light pierced the clouds. The Rares, standing close enough to see any leprechauns in the vicinity, watched instead as the light faded to reveal a recruit, an officer, an Ultra Rare! Green eyeshades which were actually blue worn over dark brown hair that crossed over itself in the middle of the forehead in the latest style!

“Bel,” breathed Vinnette Melban.

A vest with no shirt under it, and a necklace hanging against a small bit of bare skin!

“Felicitous,” Hyune Giling noted. He pushed his glasses up.

The lens he carried, large and round and resembling stained glass, purple in color, the signature possession of the secret strongest Warper in all Brenlond!

“Fasde!” Ulrik burst out. There was no question but that things were getting good.