The following day, the Losers and Useful Pob met privately with Babylon’s inner council. The meeting was presided over by Dignity and Morton, who served as the Omega and the Mayor.

  Representatives of the council, which had expanded to include the Citizens, were also present.

  Alarel attended on behalf of the Amazons. She warmly hugged Jenna, her adopted daughter, as soon as she saw her and took a seat beside her.

  Billy sat expectantly as Bob gave a detailed, accurate account of everything that had happened during their two days in Belona. Billy admired Bob’s skill in public speaking; the usually shy math teacher had considerable classroom experience, and it showed.

  Dignity listened patiently until Bob had finished his report. She had brushed aside all attempts to grant her some private time so she could mourn Stomparella.

  Mark had inherited his capacity for focus from her, which allowed him to outrank most other players when Immortal Heroes was still just a cookie-cutter MMORPG.

  She kept her composure with considerable aplomb, an easy task when your Charisma is in the three digits. Still, Billy suspected that Dignity was secretly afraid that if she stopped working, she would never be able to start again.

  She paused for a few seconds, musing on everything Bob had said. “What do you make of Discovery’s reaction?” she finally asked him.

  “My best guess,” Bob replied, “is that she was putting on a show for the Compendium or some other entity watching. Immortals have incredible powers, but strange rules also bind them. I believe that helping us would likely constitute a breach of one of those rules.”

  “That explains why she destroyed her own library,” Dignity concluded. “She understood that failing to do so could be interpreted as helping you. It must have been difficult for her. I wonder what Necessity’s ultimate goals are.”

  “It seems to me that Necessity is trying to kill many birds with one stone,” Alarel answered. “He or she punishes Discovery by destroying her homeland, and does so in a way that prevents her from intervening to stop it. He sets these Imperials with their Spirit Cores and allows them to rank up within a locked System, becoming Postulants—essentially weapons designed to take the Icosahedron from Dignity.”

  “My question is, how can these Postulants attack you if they exist in another reality? The Compendium forbids travel between planes.”

  “It's not strictly forbidden,” Dignity clarified. “It is, however, punished by Exile one hour after the trip. That is what Continuity referred to as the Final Hour.”

  Discovery’s face saddened as she recalled everything that happened that fateful day.

  “The rule doesn’t apply to Postulants, but they can only jump between dimensions if their destination is the Icosahedron. Any teleportation ability will suffice; the challenge lies not in the travel itself, but in knowing where you want to go. All of them instinctively sense the current location of the Icosahedron once they become Postulants.”

  Alarel thought for a few seconds, taking these new facts into account.

  “If this continues unchecked, we should brace ourselves for a massive attack from a wave of rank 100 Avatars, or their Progressor equivalent, within the next month. If these Imperials were being trained on Earth, we could launch a preemptive strike; however, Necessity has blocked that option by conducting their training in Belona.”

  The Singer of the Chant was a savvy diplomat, well-versed in the art of war.

  “I hate to admit it, but it’s a masterstroke. Necessity is exceptionally good at what he does.”

  “I must admit I am curious about how Jenna managed to teleport to Belona,” Morton asked. He loved listening to Jenna’s stories. He was a sucker for unexpected endings.

  “As Dignity explained, the main roadblock in dimensional travel is navigation, not the travel itself,” she explained.

  “Since I copied the Compendium inside my mind, I have obtained an affinity for anything heavily imbued with systemic energy. That was how I perceived Discovery’s presence across the universe. She is an Immortal, one of a small cabal of extraordinary individuals. She resonates with the Compendium. I only had to think of her name, and I knew instinctively where to jump. I am not an Immortal, so I am not subject to Exile. As long as I have a destination, I can jump to it.”

  “Can’t help but notice you are using the past tense,” said Dignity.

  “I can no longer feel Discovery. Her or any other Immortal. It worked because it had never been tried before,” explained Jenna. “They have learned to mute their presence now.”

  “Oh, my god!” exclaimed one of the councilmen. “How are you going to get back to Belona?”

  “Immortals are not the only entities heavily imbued with systemic energy. These things also show up in the compendium; they are solidified experience, after all.” Jenna held one spirit core in her right hand.

  “The problem is that the signal they emit is very weak. It is hard to tell them apart, since spatial distance is irrelevant when jumping between dimensions. I could easily try to teleport to the spirit core we left at Discovery’s home and end up at the location of any other spirit core in Belona. Luckily, Billy came up with a solution this morning.”

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  Billy sighed. She finally did it. He had begged her to explain it herself, but she had insisted the idea was his and that he should be the one to take the credit.

  He took a deep breath and explained as concisely as possible:

  “The spirit core in Discovery’s house is located next to a dungeon seed. If Jenna and I merge our minds, we can track the unique signal produced when the energies of both cores mix. There’s no chance for error.”

  “So, you can travel to two points in the universe,” Dignity reflected, “the current location of the Icosahedron and Discovery’s home in Belona.”

  “That was true until this morning,” Jenna said, reaching into a small bag tied to her belt and pulling out five spirit cores.

  “Spirit cores are solid experience. By experimenting with them, I discovered that I could replicate the trick I used on the Icosahedron to hide your status log. They are now emitting systemic energy in a coherent pattern based on Morse Code. I can track any of these cores anywhere in the Multiverse. I can also create more—I call them dimensional beacons. I’m giving one each to Morton, Pob, and Alarel. Joanna has the Icosahedron, so she doesn’t need one. The other two are for Bob and Billy.”

  “You still need help for dimension hopping, right?” Morton interjected. “You’re just the navigator; someone else has to supply the teleportation power.”

  “True. That’s why Pob is also getting one. He has a teleport card too,” Jenna answered.

  “There's something I don’t understand, Jenna,” Alarel inquired, her mind as sharp as Bob’s. “As far as I know, you’re currently the only being in the universe with the ability to travel freely between planes. How has Necessity managed to transport a whole army between worlds? Shouldn’t that have exiled him?”

  “I don’t know. My best guess is that he somehow manipulated another Immortal to create a temporary gate between worlds. If that’s the case, someone else must have gone into Exile in his place,” she replied.

  “But if the solution was that simple, why didn’t Continuity bring an entire army with him when he activated the Final Hour?” Alarel pointed out. Her adoptive mother had a knack for such details. “The way he did it suggests he could only transport himself.”

  “Those are valid points, mother,” Jenna admitted. “The truth is, I do not yet have an answer.”

  “I’m sure you will find a solution soon enough, Jenna, but this matter is not for this Council to discuss,” Dignity said as she stood up from her seat.

  “We had the right to be informed about the situation, and now we are aware of it. However, the plans you devise to address it will remain confidential.”

  Billy understood why Dignity had made that decision. The Coven had shown a disturbing ability to corrupt friends and turn them into foes. The Knife-Witch had countered that danger by blood-binding all the inhabitants of Babylon after she reached level 100. She allowed them their privacy but had set up the link to ensure she would be instantly alerted to any Coven attempt at infiltration. Even so, she was clearly exercising caution.

  “Morton will accompany you as the mayor and assist you in any way you need. You have unlimited access to all the resources at his disposal,” Dignity said. She hesitated for a moment but then smiled warmly at Jenna.

  “Your mother can also take part in the deliberations, of course. I know how much you value her counsel.”

  Dignity briefly looked at the chair where Helena used to sit, a sad expression passing over her face, before she quietly departed the room.

  Three hours later, the Losers, Morton, Pob, and Alarel were planning their strategy in a reserved room at one of the two local inns.

  “This is a tactical nightmare,” Jenna confided to her adoptive mother.

  “The Imperials are just too powerful for us right now. If we confront them directly, we will lose. If we avoid them, they will likely destroy Belona and grow even stronger in the process. We need time that we don’t have.”

  “I know, Jenna. You have at least three different strategic goals: hinder the Imperials, grow stronger, and discover the secret of turning Essence into Experience so that the Beli won’t have to rely on the Compendium to level up.”

  Alarel thought for a minute about possible alternatives. She had been fighting battles for…, well, for one month, but time is a very subjective thing inside a Repository Dungeon. That month equaled 267 years of fighting.

  “You need to act quickly, or the first wave of Postulants will be knocking on Babylon’s doors before you can do anything about it. The way forward is clear: The Losers must separate, at least for now. Each of you should concentrate on a different goal.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Jenna replied sadly, intertwining her fingers with Billy’s under the table.

  “We can’t tackle it like the Compendium wants us to do,” Bob added grimly. “It wants overpowered heroes who face dreadful odds and survive. It wants Omegas it can feed to Limbo. We must do it Earth-style. That’s always worked for the Losers.”

  “I will be the C.I.A.,” Jenna declared.

  “I will travel with Pob back to Belona, gather intelligence, and try to sow confusion in the enemy ranks. We’ll reach out to the Beli Players and organize them. We can even bring some of them here so they can rank up, taking advantage of Earth’s system. Eventually, if we decipher the Spirit Cores' secret, we can transport them to Belona and distribute them to the Players. That will level the playing field. Each extra day the Imperials need for one of them to become a Postulant is a small victory.”

  “I will be Apple,” Billy said. “I will use assembly line techniques to streamline the acquisition of achievement points. I’m going to gather as many points as I can, playing as dirty and cheating as much as possible.”

  “I will be China,” Bob chimed in. “I will steal their technology.”

  “Bob, if I am Apple and you are China,” Billy protested, “shouldn’t I make you do all my work and take the credit?”

  “I thought you did not have the Internet at home,” Bob replied.

  “I had a transistor radio. Aunt Ethel let me have one. I told her I used it to crack the secret code Mark used to communicate with the commies.” Billy’s expression softened as he remembered his late friend.

  Suddenly, Pob’s sharp intake of breath surprised them all.

  “What is the matter, Pob? Are you feeling okay?” Billy asked.

  He revealed a card he had just conjured out of thin air. It depicted Pob, dressed as a buffoon, carrying the luggage of a figure vaguely seen in the background. “It’s back. The Joker is back. I can gain new cards again.”