“Okay Elise, go ahead and lift your arm here so I can check the joint one last time.”

“A-Alright, here.”

“Hmm, looks like the fire damage is finally fully taken care of yeah, that’s good… um, hey, Monica?”

“…what?”

“Could you stop staring a hole through the back of my head? It’s really distracting.”

“The last time I took my eyes off you, this happened, thank you very much.”

The fox sat on a shelf nearby as their crafter ran some last minute equipment checks for them all, watching her work and gesturing off to her right towards their newest member sitting at their main table, who was idly packing a supply of potions and other essentials Prim had made for everyone into his bag.

“It’s been three days, can’t you just… I dunno, try and play nice with them?”

“They killed me! I don’t typically go around befriending people that kill me unprompted!”

“…chk?”

“Yeah, didn’t Silk also do that?”

“…that’s different.”

“Look, they didn’t even technically kill you at all, I revived you before you actually died way back then. So it’s fine and you have nothing to hold a grudge over then.”

“That’s not… you don’t get it!”

The halfling sighed, tucking her tools away again neatly as she sat down, looking over at their grumpy leader, Elise doing the same as Silk crawled up into her lap.

“I-I don’t think Glass has really been all that bad since I’ve met them, t-they seem nice enough.”

“Oh no, don’t you take their side too!”

“Moni, they’re clearly not holding any kind of grudge on their side… honestly I’m not sure they’d even remember any kind of grudge regardless, but, shouldn’t you try and let bygones be bygones? Be the bigger person and all that?”

“Absolutely not, I refuse to be the adult here.”

She huffed, arms crossed over her chest as she turned away, dropping off of the shelf she was on as she tended to her own final preparations, Elise lifting their guild mascot up with her as she stood and went over to get her own inventory in order.

Prim left the three of them to sort out what of their overstocked inventory they wanted to take in with them, heading over to where their other melee was sitting as they looked over their shiny new guild membership coin.

“Wow… I’ve never been invited to a social thing like this before in one of these games, makes me feel important…”

“Sorry again about the last minute invitation, we were kinda strapped for time.”

“Hmm…? Oh, I don’t mind at all. I hadn’t heard anything about whatever this event is supposed to be until you told me about it, and it seems fun.”

“Glad I asked you, then. And, er, sorry about the… slightly hostile welcome.”

“Hostile…? What do you mean?”

“Uh, well, Monica has kinda been ready to rip your throat out for three days now.”

“…she has? I thought she seemed pretty nice, and I was kinda excited about getting to see her fight again after last time…”

The absent-minded Brawler seemed totally unperturbed and unaware as they tended to their own equipment, the team mechanic giving them a final once-over before giving them a thumbs up, satisfied they were all ready to go.

Today was the start of the first event, and there were still no details at all about what they’d encounter once they got in. So rather than try and prepare for anything specific, she’d just gone ahead and made a generic kit for each of them, a huge stockpile of HP and MP potions alongside several dozen antidotes, cures, and temporary resistance boosts for every damage type she knew of, along with a few personalized items like long-term MP regeneration items for their mage, and single-use Taunts for their tank.

Prim had already spent all morning running back and forth to ensure all of them were totally and completely prepared with everything before they left, finally shepherding them all out the front door. Monica in her town-faring outfit took the lead on their way back to the event plaza decidedly trying not to look at their bright-eyed new recruit as they followed along after them, humming happily to themselves the whole way.

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It was easily three or four times as packed as it was when they’d last come by, masked staff members calling out guild names into the dense crowds as they tried to wrangle everyone to where they needed to be.

They wove through the crowds, nearly losing one another several times as they slowly edged closer to the entry point, an employee waving them over towards them.

“Ah, welcome, you four are… guild Primonilise, here we are. Looks like you’re all set in our books, and there’s no last minute changes to registration needing to be made anywhere. So if you’ll all just follow me, we’ll get you over to the entry point for the smaller guilds.”

Leading them away from the central crowd of players seeking entry, the four of them were directed back towards one of the smaller tents lining the city wall, being gestured to step inside.

“We’ll send a message to all of you once we’re ready to start, so just stay inside the tent here. There will also be a message going out to everyone soon outlining the event structure and what you’ll be doing. Thank you for playing, and please enjoy the event!”

Bowing to the small guild, they quickly stepped back out of their tent, already calling after the next guild on their list and leaving the party alone once more.

All of them sat on the cushy chairs left for them inside, waiting for the start time.

“Not telling anyone what the event is gonna be for until it starts is… certainly a different approach.”

“I kinda get where they’re coming from though. If no one knows what we’re doing ahead of time, it means the bigger guilds can’t just pile up fifty people built explicitly to handle whatever it’s for.”

“O-Oh, that makes sense. But it k-kinda keeps the small groups from preparing enough even still, doesn’t it? I mean, we only have some e-essentials…”

“Mm… it’s probably just gonna be some kind of combat thingy, yeah…?”

“I wouldn’t mind something a little more passive for once, swinging that hammer for too long makes my arms start to cramp up.”

“Gods I hope not, I want something exciting for all this buildup.”

“Yeah, Marisa gets it…!”

“Don’t you start agreeing with me, and please try to remember my name…”

“Oh, right, sorry about that Marie…”

“That’s more wrong, you little-”

All five of them argued and raved and speculated over the contents of the event as Silk crawled out of Monica’s robes finally, the wait passing faster and faster as they lost track of the time they had left to sit here.

Eventually, the entire guild was cut off of their impassioned conversation, all of them caught off guard as the center of the table they sat around lit up, a small figure appearing before them, dressed much more ornately than any of the other staff they’d seen so far.

“Greetings and salutations to all of you lucky enough to be here today! I will be your master of ceremonies today, and as much as I’d love to get all of you lovely people into our event already, first I’ll be explaining the event structure for you all!”

The view of them zoomed out rapidly, now displaying a rough large-scale map, various structures dotting the landscape around them.

“Once you all leave the prep area we’ve set up for your parties, you’ll be teleported into a separate overworld map made explicitly for this event, with no overlap with the rest of the game’s map. On this map will lie a multitude of dungeons, ruins, forests, and all manner of other landmarks for your guilds to explore and challenge.”

Zooming back in on one of the structures, a long list of items appearing beside it.

“Each of these points of interest will contain a multitude of treasures for collection by the first to find them, including a bevy of completely unique rewards. And in addition to these one-time rewards, each time a guild clears a location, whatever that may entail, their group will be awarded a sum of points based on the difficulty of the challenge presented with a bonus to the first team to clear each one. And as a matter of balance, roughly half of the available areas will have a maximum party size that can enter at once, ranging from four to sixteen, ensuring the larger guilds cannot elbow out the competition via sheer numbers. Your scores will be recorded, and the 10 highest scoring groups will receive an additional reward to be released at a later date.”

It faded away to a mock scoreboard, showing guilds rising and falling in ranks against one another.

“This will be a fully PvP-enabled event in all areas until conclusion, and will last for a grand total of one in-game week from the starting time. You’re free to work with or against other guilds however you wish, or explore the event map as thoroughly as you’d like. So, without further ado…”

Behind them all, a large patch of light expanded over the floor, almost too bright to look directly at as it flashed warmly at the five of them.

“I invite you to step into the transportion circles that have just gone online for each and all of you, and begin this event proper!~”

The tiny holographic figure finally blinked out, leaving the party alone once more.

“No point letting everyone else get a headstart, shall we get going?”

“R-Right! C’mon Silk, l-let’s go.”

“Chkchk!~”

“Okay, just make sure we all have everything set before we… hey, stop, wait for us all you idiot…!”

Glass had fully ignored any last minute checks, already having walked straight onto the entry platform, whisked away with a flash of light as the other quickly filed in behind them one-by-one.

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Each of them poofed into the new map one by one, Monica bringing up the rear as she dove in after the rest of them, arriving mid-leap and promptly falling facefirst into the hard earth below.

“Blegh, ech… ugh, I’m gonna be tasting mud for this entire week now, great.”

“O-Oh, sorry, we all kinda rushed ahead, ehe…”

Elise helped the mage back to her feet, dusting her off some before they both joined the others in looking around the area.

They’d been dumped out onto a tall plateau, giving them an incredibly clear view of the world spread out around them. Fields and forests stretched wide in all directions, as rolling hills to one side slowly rose into full mountains, other directions fading off into entirely separate biomes, a wide frozen expanse not far away from their starting point.

“Hmm, doesn’t seem like many other people are around here, good. Gives us time to plan out where we wanna go first.”

Prim scanned the landscape for anything of note, while the others inspected the plateau they were on itself, peeking around the sides before finally finding a narrow path leading down the hillside. The crafter quickly followed along after them as they began descending, several items already manually marked off on her map.

“Okay, we have a few things nearby, mostly a couple caves along the base of this hill once we’re down. Other than that, there’s a pretty big structure in that snowfield to the north that I can’t make out too well.”

“Big structure… that sounds like a lotta points would be there, yeah…?”

“I’d a-assume so, yeah.”

“Alright, that’s our first order of business then. Operation: Snowfort starts… as soon as we get off this damn mountain, why is this path so bloody long?!”

The party slowly descended from their unfortunately out-of-the-way spawn, presented with a scenic view from the cliffsides to hold their attention in the tedium.

Even this early on, they could still make out a few scattered explosions and firestorms dotting the horizon as several of the guilds wasted no time before trying to claim their own territory away from the other guilds, the distant sounds of combat quickly filling the peaceful vista.

Glass hung at the back of the party as Elise headed the group, Silk sitting on their shoulder as they drew closer to the base of the hill finally.

“We almost at the bottom yet…? Feels like we’re just wasting time taking the slow way down here- ack!”

Monica leaned over the edge of the cliff, impatiently trying to gauge how much farther they had to go… and was immediately greeted by a trio of electrified projectiles racing up towards her, another small guild at the base of the plateau spotting their group and opening fire without hesitation.

“You little…! Shock!”

She returned fire blindly, trying to stick close to the rocky wall behind her as she rained her own lightning bolts back at their attackers, Prim and Elise following suit as they tried to take cover.

“M-Moni, over this way, I can c-cover you better from here, and you too Prim!”

“Doing my best here…! Glass, can you try and get over… Glass?”

While the others had immediately dropped into full defensive mode, their Brawler tensed like a coiled spring, a blank expression fully shifting into laser focus as their entire demeanor reset, charging directly forward, booth feet pushing off the stony ground hard as they leapt straight off the side of the cliff.

“Phoenix Crash.”

Twisting their body midair, a massive burst of flame catapulted them straight downwards towards an unsuspecting enemy party, the unarmed human missile impacting one of the players hard enough to kill them outright as they burst into particle effects.

The others leapt back in surprise, a group of all mages redirecting their attention to the newly introduced threat amongst their midst.

Crackling lightning was aimed at Glass rather than their distant teammates, the light-footed melee effortlessly dancing between them as they darted from body to body, bare fists cracking into jaws, ribs, knees, and any other point they could strike at.

The rest of Primonilise had taken the lapse in suppressing fire as a chance to charge down the path after them, stirring up clouds of dust behind them as they ran.

But by the time they touched down at the short-lived battlefield, the last of the aggressors crashed hard into the earth on their back, coughing up blood before blinking out of existence.

“O-Oh, geez… good job with taking care of all of them…”

“…you could’ve at least left me one…”

“Hmm…? Oh, sorry, I got kinda carried away, I guess…”

The sudden flare of competence had already dispersed, the unarmed menace dropping back to their familiar aloof inattentiveness.

“It’s fine, just a bit… disconcerting. But we’re fine as long as you’re all good?”

“Oh, yeah, not a scratch, I think.”

“Great, no having to waste my MP healing the punch-brained idiot then.”

The kitsune had already started walking past them, chest puffed out as she strode towards the scattered cave entrances within walking distance.

“C’mon, we wasted enough daylight already, lets get started on clearing some of these places out.”

Shrugging to one another, Elise, Prim, and Silk all hurried along after their guild leader, the tank grabbing Glass by the arm on their way by to remind the one-track mind Brawler that they were moving on, setting out to finally start off the event proper.