Chapter 42: Chapter 42: Into the Melee

Primonilise had barely taken a single step inside before they were diving for cover, lying prone below the edge of the balcony as stray fire blasted upwards at them through the tightly packed railings.

Their tucked-away little overlook was safe from the fighting in the chamber below, but the sheer density of bodies in the skirmish meant every stray or deflected attack put their secret path at risk of being struck in the crossfire. And even worse, if anyone started intentionally firing this way, there was hardly any room to dodge.

“Gah, this place isn’t even separate instances?! Really glad we didn’t end up taking the front door now…”

“I-It is a competition, and there’s nothing n-nearly as big that I could see around…”

“Then… probably an intentional choice, yeah…?”

“Less chatting, more… moving, c’mon…!”

Monica was stuck in the middle of the group as they pushed forward, this servant’s entrance path clearly made for people even shorter than the diminutive fox was.

Glass’s hundred layers of coats had been reluctantly removed, leaving only a single jacket over top of their normal gear, the interior of the building somehow much warmer despite the thick layers of ice coating everything even as they still shivered just a bit.

Silk and Prim were completely unaffected as they stayed close to the wall to be out of sight, Moni and Glass hunched over as much to stay hidden as it was to not bonk their head on the roof, and poor Elise was stuck crawling the whole way, both shields stored away as the tower of a woman did her best to squeeze through, unfortunately at the lead of their group as the others were stuck behind her.

“Sorry, I-I didn’t know it’d be such a… t-tight fit through here…”

“Don’t rush her, we have no idea what’s ahead that she’s crawling right into.”

“Sure, but it’s supposed to be a race here! If we don’t hurry up there won’t be anything left here for us to get!”

The caster and crafter kept up their usual bickering, all their attempts at staying quiet completely pointless as even the shouts and clashes below barely covered up their own voices, the constant heated arguing at risk of melting the frozen castle around them.

“Weren’t we gonna… stay quiet…”

“Chkchk, chk chkchk.”

“Y-Yeah, we should really-”

“How do you know this place isn’t already completely looted?”

“Why do you wanna just give up on getting anything from here?!”

“Why do you wanna crawl around in air ducts to pick up scraps?!”

“G-Guys, you’ve both gotta quiet down…”

“Not now, I’m trying to-”

The argument was cut off suddenly as a chunk of the floor behind them was blasted open, a hail of arrows and magic following behind as the secluded crawlspace was now being actively targeted by the combatants below.

Scurrying forward on all fours, their party rushed headlong through the tight, winding passage, the occasional attack being thrown upwards at them as they advanced.

“Look what you did now, all because you were rushing us!”

“No no no, you’re the one who started this!”

“C-Chk…!!”

“B-Both of you, please just…!”

Another, larger explosion rocked the floor under them, almost directly beneath Monica as the ground opened up below her, barely grabbing onto the edge of the hallway before falling into the waiting hordes below.

Prim, left stranded on the other side, leapt forward to try and drag her back up to solid ground as concentrated fire peppered the area around her, quickly getting her pulled back up before she was perforated.

Unfortunately, even that tiny of a glimpse had been enough to incite the swarm.

“That was her, from outside earlier!”

“The Spider’s up there…!”

“That field boss is actually here?!”

“Quick, get her down from there before she gets away again!!”

What had been only passing aggression directed at them before was now fully focused direct assault, from all sides, the numerous guilds within all identifying a much more enticing target to aim for than the other nameless players around them.

Their own floor rapidly falling away behind them, Elise, Glass, and Silk were forced to keep scurrying away down the tight path, Prim and Moni left stranded behind them.

“…still wanna try and take it slow now?”

“Oh just shut up already.”

Despite their quickly worsening position, the kitsune managed to snicker, the other girl trying and failing to suppress a tiny smile.

“Alright, let’s get back over there before we both get washed, shall we?”

“I didn’t plan to be a baseball today, but… go ahead before we get shot down again.”

Already intimately familiar with Moni’s primary problem-solving methods, Prim got herself as close to the edge as she could manage without taking fire, crouched low and wadded up into a Berserker-shaped ball, the fox all too happy to oblige her.

“Blowback!”

A follow-through on her swing launched the halfling straight across the widening gap, the others all managing to catch her safely.

“Now hurry up and jump over here!”

“Right, right, I’m on it! Rising S-”

“L-Look out…!”

The skill was barely past her lips when almost the entire chunk of remaining platform under her began to crumble, her launch angle changing as the balcony dropped, the Gloom Mage blasting forward off of the debris… and shooting directly under the tunnel ahead, the rest of the party lunging forward to try and grab her, only for the speeding mage to slip right past their fingers.

Her altered flight path sent her along the top of the huge room even as the rest of her party vanished from sight, soaring over every last player that had fought their way inside, crashing hard against the top of the main staircase hugging the back of the foyer.

She tumbled hard on impact, coughing and sputtering as she pushed herself back up to her feet right away, already peering down both sides of the central stairs. Sure enough, with the ‘boss’ pulled down to their level, anyone inside the dungeon was now rushing straight for her, already keeping up the torrent of projectiles aimed at her.

With no time to try and jump back up to the rest of her party, she swore under her breath and turned on her heel, rushing blindly into the unexplored reaches of the frozen estate as the glory-starved mob pursued.

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Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

The sound of a pair of still-warm boots storming over ice, leaving damp footprints melted into the floor as a kitsune mage dashed forward, understandably oblivious to the heat damage caused to the lovingly hand-crafted castle hall she was in.

Clattaclattaclattaclattaclattaclattaclattaclattaclatta-

Rounding the corner behind her were a ten more sets of rushed footsteps even more frantic, then twenty, then fifty, and a hundred and more still after that, all storming right behind her, crunching over frozen-stiff stonework.

There was a good hundred or so feet between her and even the fastest of her pursuers, the constant barrage at her heels stacking Dancer’s Weave full almost instantly even as the occasional bolt grazed past her, her speed even more insurmountable than it had been on the launch day’s chase.

Unfortunately, speed was hardly the only factor involved this time.

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“Blade Charge!”

“Slipstep!”

“Blink Arrow!”

All manner of players shot forth from the mass behind her, each and every variety of gap closer available being thrown out as players charged and teleported beside and in front of her, the mage barely managing to weave, duck, dip, and dive around the bodies popping into existence around her.

“Buzz off already you little gnats…! Hazard Fumes!”

She slid forward under heavy greatsword aimed directly at her head, the blade taking out another unfocused player behind her as it cleaved right through their bow in a single swing, the slight gap in attacks enough to finally deploy her gaseous shielding.

Those already leaping blindly into melee range of her were the first to go down, having no time to dodge the rapidly expanding debuff cloud as they dropped like rocks.

Several others were also tagged by the smokescreen as it grew to it’s full range, ballooning around her and leaving anyone unfortunate enough to step so much as a single toe into range totally helpless, immobilized, and poisoned.

Still more of them kept out of range of the bubble, blindly launching off projectiles into the fog as it hid her exact location, but perfectly highlighted her approximate one.

Those petrified by her Hazard Fumes were either rescued by their own guild’s healers or executed by opportunistic players in the crowd before then, each of them being replaced almost instantly by more bodies spewing out of the flood of single-minded glory hunters vying for the head of the elusive “superboss” in front of them.

“Oh c’mon, don’t you all ever get tired…?!”

She kept her head low as she ran, already outspeeding her defense cloud as she accelerated back to her full 300+ AGI speed, the Hazard Fumes slowly scooting along behind her as the bulk of the horde had to slowly edge around it, buying her a precious few second’s lead.

The hall simply stretched on and on and on, tiny side rooms barely large enough to glance into as she retreated, needing some was out but deathly afraid of getting herself cornered somewhere her pursuers could flood into.

A cramped little library… nope.

An incredibly cozy sitting room… not quite.

A room filled with glittering displays of priceless relics… unfortunately, not now.

Door after door after door, nothing but loot and dead ends, the mage growing increasingly more worried about her odds of reuniting with the rest of her guild.

Her search proving utterly fruitless, she cursed silently, pushing away from a last door frame before making a beeline for the end of the hall, just going for distance at this point as the swarm slowly gained on her once more.

And the second she turned the corner, some internal reflex went off, dropping downwards and skidding across the ice on her knees, right into the far wall.

Right over her head swung a massive, impossibly shiny axe, burying itself into the ice and the stone below as she slid on past the failed ambush, getting a good look at a few familiar players.

“Aha, knew our scouts wouldn’t lead us wrong on our little bug hunt, eh?”

“Huh, they actually did come this way, I’ll be. That’s some fine recon, Shen.”

The Ranger beside the orcish Cleric nodded, an arrow already nocked and aimed squarely at the caster’s heart, their demeanor totally unwavering as the human Paladin stood smugly in front of the others, their ornate museum piece of an axe bouncing on their shoulder restlessly.

“And see, I thought it was some secret boss that wiped us all out all that time ago… I’d have never guessed it was another player, clearly using some manner of cheat to dispatch us all at once, and in such a brutish manner to boot.”

“…cheat? No, you were just kinda… uncoordinated?”

“Ha! A likely story! No, with my peerless leadership, only some manner of systems abuse could have broken our impenetrable ranks.”

The Orc behind him snickered quietly, the only other one of the four people here completely aware of the actual events.

“Aye, yes, my brother’s… flawless leadership abilities would never fail us, I’m sure.”

“But I digress! For today I take my sweet revenge, Spider Queen…!”

“…permission to fire?”

“Denied. Her head is mine.”

The axe was lowered into both hands, the Paladin stepping in closer towards her.

“…Shoc-”

“Angel Aura!”

Before her stun fired off, the Cleric shot off a skill of their own, a golden aura enveloping all three of them, the dull lightning bouncing harmlessly off of the glowing shield they’d put up.

“You’re filthy little tricks won’t work again, we’re armed to the teeth with all the status immunities we could ever need to deal with any pests like you.”

“Bit of a hard get, but answers the only problem player we’ve run into so far, doesn’t it? Sorry about that, kid, afraid this is the end of the line.”

“You’re all certainly full of yourselves, aren’t you? Especially for three people facing down one mysteriously lone caster in a team-based competition…”

“...hm?”

“Wait… she’s right, there’s a party size limit, yeah? Meaning…”

The tank’s advance halted, the unerring confidence wiped clean as their eyes darted around for signs of an ambush. The other two quickly took up more defensive stances as well, huddled close together to try and watch more area.

“Having your vile minions sneak about and lie in wait for us, eh? As contemptible as they come…!”

“Big talk from the failed ambusher…”

“We’ve seen those other three with you, and that little summon of yours as well, none of them are fast enough to have gotten here before you, you can’t fool us!”

“Oho, you think this place is all so linear…?~”

“…don’t sense anyone around, but…”

“Ignore her! She’s clearly trying to scare us with… with empty threats!”

Even as the painfully polished and pristine Paladin spoke, his voice dripped with worry, clearly having forgotten their quarry had others with them in their single-minded hunt for her.

“Right, right, silly me thinking I could fool the clearly more experienced and talented player- GO, NOW!!”

She called out from the top of her lungs, all three of her ambushers leaping backwards to meet the counter-attack lying in wait… and, of course, finding nothing at all anywhere at all around them, the mage having taken the opportunity to rush into the middle of them all rather than simply escape.

“Shen, paralyze her, now-”

“Hazard Fumes!”

Poofing out once more on command, the rapidly expanding poison field grew around her, rushing out and over them all at once.

“Clever…! But I just told you we’re still immu-”

“Flash!~”

A harmless little spark shone from her staff, burning through her personal crowd control field as she blew all three of them sky-high, launching herself off and away down the hall, no longer touching the floor as she rode the momentum far ahead of the crowds far behind her.

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