Dawn rose on a new day, and with a big, slow stretch, Monica awoke once again to the riverside clearing and the entrance to the dungeon from the day before. She sat atop the short cliff the door was set into, sprawled out under a shady tree, the morning sun shining off her glossy new armor.

The second she’d left the dungeon the day before, all her fatigue had set in at once, and she’d decided to call it for the day, spending the rest of her early summer day tending to menial errands and laying listlessly in bed, the classic vacation experience.

She logged back in this morning after a long night’s rest (after sleeping at around 2am and getting out of bed almost 12 whole hours later), and let herself slowly acclimate back into the world.

A cool breeze ran over her skin, birds chirped overhead, grass and leaves ruffled underfoot, and the rustle of cloth and clanking of armor filled the glade-

…

She paused for a long second, slowly easing forward from her perch as she peeked over the ledge, towards the pond below.

No less than a dozen players were sat around the area, chatting, sparring, fiddling with armor and trinkets as they paid no attention to much of anything other than each other and the door to the dungeon.

Apparently, several more people had finally stumbled onto this place after she had.

Not exactly interested in another messy player interaction after how her first day had gone in town, she hung back in the shadows of the trees overlooking them all, trying to listen as the pair nearest to the cliff spoke.

“Guh, the last party is really taking their sweet time, ain’t they? Thought they’d have gotten faster after the first run through…” The first man was a mountain of iron and leather, a human Paladin judging by the massive hammer at their side.

“Eh, they’re just kids still, let em have their fun.” His companion, an orcish Cleric wielding a gnarled old wand. “Besides, you’re the one that found this place after someone else had already cleared the place out.”

The human grunted, not dignifying them with a response.

The massive group seemed to all be one huge guild, settled in to farm anything their members were needing from it. Besides the door guards she’d listened over, several other groups were separated out, looking though piles of gear and loot they’d presumably gotten from their own runs through it before.

Moreover, they seemed… more than a bit angry that someone had stolen their first clear of the dungeon away from them, let alone on only the first day of the game’s proper release.

...Perhaps it would be for the best if she left them well enough alone.

Heeding her natural inclination to avoid large groups in this game, she snuck back over the cliff lip, beading a hasty retreat away from the dungeon’s entrance and back into the shrouded woods.

It was far past time she headed back to town, and this time she’d hopefully be less popular among those still idling around-

Crack.

As she slunk away from the glade, heading back towards the winding river leading from town, her attention began to wane, the inattentive fox not noticing the old fallen tree limb below her, the dried, dead wood snapping underfoot loud enough to set a flock of songbirds flying off noisily.

The layer of distant talking and laughing came to an abrupt halt, replace with an air of painfully fragile silence broken only by the sound of clanking armor and mobilizing watchmen.

“You hollow-headed dolts, I thought you were supposed to be looking out for anything else nearby...?! We could’ve been the first ones here if you all could keep your bloody eyes open!”

Voices rose back out, jovial and relaxed conversations flipping into militant and aggressive barking, as the loose guild quickly mobilized, seemingly interested in keeping their quaint little treasure farm nice and secret for a bit longer.

“Up top here, there’s… hells, some kind of mob escaped, looks like!”

A lightly armored scout spotted her almost immediately, and based on her new threads, had come to an… understandable, but unfortunate for her, misunderstanding about them.

The rest of the players quickly swarmed after her as they rose over the hilltop like a swarm of wild animals, the kitsune redoubling her escape efforts as she once more found herself fleeing her fellow players.

Her AGI had only climbed even higher above the average player’s since her previous chase, but this time the cleanly navigable city streets were replaced by tightly packed foliage and undergrowth, forcing her to slow down enough to not careen off into them.

The other players were much more adept in this kind of hostile environment, Rogues and Rangers leaping through treetops in pursuit as armored behemoths plowed straight through the treeline with mages following close behind them as they cleared an advance.

She squeezed Silk tight to her chest with one arm, not daring to abandon her stalwart companion to be run over by the stampede on her heels, doing her best to deter them from following them.

“Shock! Silkshot!”

Not bothering to aim too hard, firing off shots into the crowd as they fell over the moment one of her projectiles so much as grazed them, clearly not expecting such harmless looking spells to fell like running facefirst into a brick wall as they were one by one either stunned in place or webbed against the trees and rocks nearby.

Half the group was picked off as they ran, numbers dwindling as the remainder only chased after her more intently, completely sure at this point they’d found some kind of secret world boss wandering nearby.

Ducking, weaving, sprinting, and dodging their returned fire as arrows and spells arced past her, Monica kept fleeing, trying her best to shake her pursuers off her trail as she took as convoluted a path as she could manage while still not getting herself even more lost.

But eventually her luck dodging their counterattacks had to wear off, a lone arrow finding her leg and grazing the skin enough to slice against it, making her grimace and throwing her off balance as she was sent rolling unceremoniously down the hill off to her side.

“Got ‘er! Down the hill, quick, corner them!”

Shit.

The fox spat out twigs and leaves, finally rolling to a halt at the bottom of the hill, getting up again to resume her escape… only to fall back down again in a heap once more, her struck leg feeling like a block of lead as it refused to move to hold her up.

A glimpse at her menu was enough to notice the arrow that hit her had inflicted Paralysis, not strong enough to completely immobilize her with a glancing blow, but enough to deaden a leg and keep her from continuing to run.

The last four of the enemy party still able to move rose over the hilltop after her, grinning excitedly as they saw her seemingly immobilized as they moved in for the kill.

Two armored knights, a mage, and the archer that had struck her.

Stuck in place and armed with her staff and Silk, she began her first player combat.