Cadmos responded only after he realized the other URs and Hemt, far from yelling at the Rare for daring to make such a declaration as he expected, were nodding. “Wait, did you all decide that without me? When?”

“I don't know what to tell you. It was obvious from the very beginning.” Ben I. Sloup pointed at his copy of the AGN price list on which he had circled the music video payola option.

“Huh.”

Everyone besides Cadmos looked at one another with eloquent expressions. “We may have found ourselves backing a true moron. In some ways that will make our work more difficult, since he will require constant handling, but we will benefit from how simple it ought to be to manipulate his smooth, uncomplicated brain.” That was what the URs expressed. The Rs only managed “What a moron,” while Hemt got out something more like, “I always get involved in stuff that goes worse than I think it will, like a moron.”

Saptres Muria realized that, being a Rare, he needed speech to communicate complex ideas. “I found a songwriter in Alloy Saga within our budget. Several, in fact. It seems there's a link between music and mechs heretofore unknown to me.”

“Remember their names,” Solemn Declaration enjoined him. “I may sign some of them once I expand Blandgen Records beyond the purpose for which I created it this morning.” He tried to think of something to add that would justify speaking instead of giving a meaningful glance. “I created it to produce and distribute Cadmos's first album. His only album. What else? I need a bracelet with more Parry.”

Hemt judged that to be enough. “We can go farming for one in sort of an after-party kind of way, but I'm sure saying that exposes my inexcusable ignorance of what goes on in after-parties. I'll research it later. I have a good amount of free time now that I've learned how to use sound-mixing equipment from those Y****** tutorial videos.”

Burmin Trivvis retrieved the huge sacks that had a big gold coin painted on the side they needed in order to conduct their financial business in the proper style. “Are we all set, then? They have lots of cameras and filming locations in Vanilla Stage.”

Music! Stages! Restrooms! The last one led to the others for visitors who entered via the options menu, but the Cadmos cadre stepped out of an Elbe-class transport at the spaceport, as Furious Galaxy characters insisted on calling any place a spaceship landed. When a Fields of Steam airship landed in the same spot, it became an airport in a feat of transmutation ceaselessly studied by alchemists who knew about airships and spaceships. The ones in Modern Incidence Record, for example.

In just the same way, those eight officers intended to alter the chemical composition of Vanilla Stage so that it became Rock City. Rather than alembics and powders, they intended to employ unauthorized filming, the most rebellious sort of filming. Unused auditoriums the players had long since outgrown waited for guerrilla acts to use them. It would have been rude not to. But which? The Commandment of Hero officers, uninformed as to the pros and cons of the various venues, relied on one of their homeland's ancient customs to decide. Ben I. Sloup grabbed the nearest Rare, blindfolded him, and spun him without the smallest concession to restraint or mercy. Where Ulrik's scimitar pointed when he stopped stumbling around, that was the direction.

“I remember doing this with statues, sure,” Burmin Trivvis said as he watched the divination ritual. “I'm not sure it works the same if you do it with a live subject.”

“The difference is the vital principle,” Ben admitted. “The soul points toward its own end. An insurmountable problem with an uncooperative instrument, but Mr. Robes here wants to go the same place we do.”

“I had my doubts fifteen seconds ago, but now I know that we're comrades bound by an unbreakable common purpose. As long as you all call me Mr. Robes.”

“I'm not going to do that, Ulrik.” Cadmos undid the blindfold for him. “But our bond is unbreakable regardless.”

“A bond of hatred!”

As the filming crew set out, King Ostros sidled up to Cadmos. “Why not do what he wants?”

“Because if we get an officer named Mr. Robes later, it might cause problems,” Cadmos answered.

“Good point. I'd better reconsider,” Ben said, reconsidering. “No, they aren't going to do that.”

“Did you say the same thing about phoenix and hydra officers?” King Ostros asked that in the same tone as a prosecutor in a legal drama centered on the defense attorney.

“No.”

“Oh. I suppose you didn't.”

A getter denied his gotcha is a shameful sight. The others averted their eyes from Ostros that he alone might endeavor to bear his humiliation, which was a heavy weight indeed. That freed them up to check out the outdoor sights of Vanilla Stage. Walls, doors, the whole deal. Traffic lights. VS was an indoorsy type of game, not at all a fantasy adventure land where brave heroes entered buildings only if they had treasure or demon kings in them. The most action the outdoors got in those parts occurred when a milling crowd waited for the doors to open on a particularly anticipated performance, and that became less frequent as Construction built grand entertainment complexes in other games complete with dressing rooms where the talents and other performers might enjoy boxes of chocolates specially prepared by having either the coconut ones or else all the non-coconut ones taken out.

The direction indicated by the divination led the eager video makers to a cozy club which catered to the sort of clientele that never gave the owner cause to put up a cage or fence up around the stage, though one was available for theatrical purposes. “That wouldn't match the style of the song, however. We will instead film a standard stage performance and cut in a story that has nothing to do with the band,” Saptres Muria explained.

Ben I. Sloup pitched his idea. “Certainly. A young couple sits at a table far from the band to enjoy the performance and each other's company. There is an argument. The woman leaves the club; the man follows. They make up in the rain.”

Hemt T. Elf shook his head and set his bells to jangling. “If we consider the mood of the song without starting up another argument over whether some vaporwave thing was the right choice, which it wasn't, the conclusion we'll reach in the end is that the rain part is fine. That's all. The rest will be crowd shots of people under umbrellas to parallel the anonymizing tendencies of modern society. The chosen genre contraindicates trying to put a real narrative in there, aesthetically speaking.”

“It should be about the band manager's struggle to raise money before the set ends,” Solemn Declaration insisted.

Cadmos replied while he adjusted the microphone stand to match his medium height suitable for someone who needed to be in the middle of crowd shots. “I'm pretty sure that's been done already, Solemn.”

“Exactly. Why not copy the best? All I need, is youuuuuuu!”

“I'm sorry to say this, but it's indisputable that you can't pull that off without lessons or pitch adjustment,” Hemt told him. “Cadmos can, which is convenient for us, but I adjusted his sections anyway so they sound more synthy, you know, less natural.”

“I will rely on your technical ability as I continue, then. I thought I was being cool . . .”

“Just to be clear, we're just lip-syncing, right? Or else I'm not sure what we were doing in that studio.”

“That's correct, uh, Big Rare?” Hemt wrung his hands, for he felt some agitation at not knowing his bandmate's names. Not enough to learn them. Just enough to stir him up a bit. He got the first letter right at least. “Now we just, if you don't mind, get up on the stage, which understandably wasn't designed for centaurs, but we only have one so we should be able to, there we go. Hey, what are the cameras doing?”

Every venue in Vanilla Stage included cameras capable of autonomously tracking and recording handsome men as soon as, and for as long as, they opened their delicate mouths. That function was necessitated by the game's concert mode, which existed for the benefit of players who wanted to gaze in adoration at the talents they succeeded in wringing from the envious gacha and even more for the benefit of the publisher who wanted players to keep doing that last thing. Normally the cameras stayed inert. Many experimenters had tried to take them down from their mounts to sell on the black camera market, but to no profitable result by then.

Those cameras neither stayed still nor focused on the sneaky stage-stealers. They actively turned away. Hemt walked up to investigate, and the cameras responded by twisting even more to avoid recording his uninspiring visage, so far inferior to the faces once seen in that venue. One pointed straight up and swerved from side to side when he tried waving his hand in front of it. He turned around, whereupon the camera faced forward again. “It's a shame, in several ways, but we might have to concede here.”

“Or perform while standing backward,” Saptres Muria suggested.

Hemt whipped around and gave everyone some holiday cheer by sending his bells tinkling, but the camera was too fast for him. He continued his efforts to surprise the equipment into compliance, which went about as well as when players claimed they totally wanted the other officer on rateup and not the Eclipse, honest.

“Let me try something,” Ulrik said. He adjusted his glasses. “That didn't do anything. Was Hyune Giling lying to us the entire time?”

“About a lot of things, but when did he ever say that pushing up his glasses raised his INT stat?”

“There's no point defending him, Saptres Muria.”

“Or that he had an INT stat?”

Burmin put his hand on the shoulder area of Saptres's toga. “I know you want to stand up for a fellow Strategist, but there's a lot to criticize him for.”

“Yet you believe him over me most of the time.”

Ulrik played with his glasses more. “Of course. It's for a very good reason. He tells us what we want to hear.”

Saptres Muria frowned. “Perhaps that glasses readjustment does work. Fiddle around again and give us a more advanced conjecture.”

“Done. Now I think the cameras decided we aren't handsome enough. I'll try again.” He wiped the lenses on his thick cotton robe, likely scratching them beyond recovery. With them back on he theorized, “They probably just don't work for officers. That's my latest idea. I think I was smarter before.”

“Count Poitnem was once escorted out of a concert because they all swiveled to watch him,” King Ostros reported. “So you're probably right.”

Cadmos readjusted the microphone stand to return it to its original position. “All right, there's no point wishing for technology to function the way we wish it would. What's next, guys?”