“Okay, good here! Push the last bit now!”

“Got it! Hazard Fumes!”

Familiar fumes filled the narrow passage, Monica edging her way down it until she had the entire end of the passage engulfed, the few enemies still standing quickly being locked down as the others moved in to finish them off without any further fuss.

“And… r-right, here it is! Another k-kinda small one!”

Elise pried open a chest hiding behind where the monsters had barricaded themselves in, proudly holding up a large marked coin for them all to see, the metal disk quickly evaporating away in her hand as a notification displayed for them all.

[Primonilise: +25. Current score: 132.]

This was the fifth such tunnel they’d cleared out as the traveled around near the mountain still, taking their time to rack up points as they slowly approached the arctic region ahead of them.

“Anything else back there?”

“Checking… n-no, nothing else here.”

“Mm… nothing to see here either.”

“Gah, none of these have had anything but points so far. Didn’t they say there’d be actual prizes in these?”

“Maybe only the bigger ones do, but these all just feel like filler.”

Prim dusted herself off with a sigh, already heading back the short distance to the small cave’s entrance, peering around for any other players waiting to ambush them.

“S-Shouldn’t we just rush down the big fortress-looking place you saw, then?”

“I’d love to, but…”

As the others joined her back outside, she popped open her marked map again, showing their immediate area.

“The big snowy area is directly across this big field here, see? I figure we could maybe get there in about an hour or so if we head straight there. But the issue with that is… well, pretty easy to see from here.”

She gestured up in front of them at the open plains ahead. Whereas the map showed an empty and uneventful field, the reality was that at least five or six of the largest guilds were currently waging war over the grassy expanse, magic soaring above the crowds as they crossed swords without pause.

“We could probably just cut through the middle, they don’t seem that scary…”

“Maybe you can, but the rest of us aren’t built for rampant player-killing.”

“…chkchk?”

“Moni, you’ve probably killed more p-”

“Ahem. Look, what about going through over here? We’d be out of sight for the most part, and it’s not too far out of the way.”

Ignoring both Glass and Prim’s comments, the caster pointed to an area slightly off to the side, a long patch of dense forest reaching from the mountain range they were at now all the way into the arctic biome ahead.

“That could work, but we’d be a lot slower going, and we’d be more open to getting ambushed while we’re in there.”

“B-But that still seems safer than wading through everyone here, d-doesn’t it?”

“I’d rather fight through but… I guess going around would be easier, sure…”

“Right then, we’re done digging through caves and we’re heading over through that treeline. If we go now, we can maybe get through before nightfall.”

Agreeing it was probably a better idea than staying here to scrape for handfuls of points at a time, the party moved out, trekking out towards the forest ahead as they tried to keep a wide berth between them and any other players in the area.

----------------------------------------

The short hike from the rocky fields to the woodlands ahead was mercifully quiet, the gang staying low until the moment they reached the thick foliage, breathing a sigh of relief as they quickly began traversing the significantly more secluded path.

“Ugh… maybe rushing through everyone else was a better idea after all…”

“It’s not… t-that bad, Prim, really- hrgh -it’s fine, see? N-No problem!”

The ground was soft and damp underfoot, thick mud squishing under their boots as they trudged through the swampy woods, leaving their less agile party members dragging behind the other two as they tried to not sink into the marsh muck below.

“Yeah, it’s bad, just kinda… mucky, I guess…”

“C-Chk!”

Silk did their best to help tow their stuck tank along behind them, Monica and Glass having to slow down to keep from leaving them behind.

“I promise I’m… all g-good! No worries!”

“You’re almost up to your waist in the mud… maybe we should just head back, there’s gotta be a faster-”

“N-No! I’m not gonna… make us lose even more time here!”

She pushed on harder, every step sinking her deeper in having to drag herself forward with her shields as the others watched.

“Just… gotta… get a little more… brrrbrbbrrblrbbrlblbrrllbbrrbrrbl…”

Eventually there was little more than a blue-hued mass floating just below the bog, a gurgling elf and a mess of silver hair almost entirely engulfed as frantic hands and Silkshots tried to pull her free before she was lost to the swamp.

Dragging her bodily to a nearby patch of solid ground, they braced the defeated Vanguard against a tree as they helped her back to her sense, the tank going deep red from embarrassment as they awoke to their resident mechanic unclogging the mud clots from her armor.

“…okay, m-maybe it’s a little bad, s-sorry about that…”

“No worries, you’re fine is all that matters… just, try and not drown yourself anymore, yeah?”

“I-I’ll do my best…!”

She nodded vigorously, not reassuring the concerned crafter all that much.

“Still… we’re kinda too deep in here by now to turn around now. It’ll be nightfall by the time we’re back out, and we shouldn’t be in the open and exposed in the dark.”

Sighing, the pair of arachnids slowly extracted the sunken shields from the muck, massive metal slabs emerging out onto the clearing with them as the twin melees pondered the issue of how to proceed from here.

“Yeah, time’s not exactly a luxury we have with that start we got.”

“Mmm… maybe we could just… carry her the rest of the way…?”

“…wouldn’t we just sink twice as fast then?”

Flopping down hard onto the ground, both Monica and Silk collapsed as they finally rescued the massive greatshields, gasping for air and scowling at the significantly higher STR duo that had failed to help the tow team.

“But… if she can’t walk through it either way, we need some other way to get her through here…”

“Ugh, I guess, yeah… any of you happen to have telekinesis by any chance?”

“Chk…”

“U-Unfortunately not…”

“I don’t think I do…”

“…hmm, actually…”

“Oh I don’t like when you start having ideas.”

Their kitsune jolted upright, exhaustion vanishing as gears visibly whirred in her head, turning back to the others with a wicked grin spreading across her face.

“I think I can handle our transportation concerns…~”

Plans were whispered to them all, eyes widening with quickly-growing concern for their own safety and well-being.

----------------------------------------

Meanwhile, far on the opposite end of the swamped forest, several familiar faces trudged through the knee-high muck with a small army following along behind them.

“Damned mud… I only just had this platemail cleaned for the occasion, and now it looks like I just plucked it from the trash!”

“Now now, no griping about it. After all, it was your brilliant idea to come through this way to flank while the rest of the guild kept their attention, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t you sit there and sass me, Markus. This is already bad enough without you mocking me too.”

“Oh perish the thought, my dear Granz, I would never mock my own brother and our impeccably wise guild leader over his terrible and poorly thought out schemes.”

The two heads of Night Castle bickered as they stomped through the treeline, the group of fresh-faced recruits behind them sharing glances as they already began to second guess their choice of guild, following along behind the tank and healer duo.

“As much as I’d love to take a faster route around, you know just as well as I do why we’re going this way.”

“Yes, yes, I heard the scout reports the same as you did. A small guild getting wiped by a fleet-footed and totally unarmed Brawler, while a ‘web-covered mage’ hung back in the distance.”

“Exactly! It has to be them!”

“Oh I don’t doubt it in the slightest. And I assume your obsessed hunting for them is out of a desire to defeat them again, yes? And not to make up for some manner of… embarrassment relating to them that you may have tried to have covered up?”

“…o-of course. All I desire is a fair rematch, yes, against the only truly worthy opponent I’ve yet encountered.”

The Cleric snickered quietly, knowing full well the lie being covered up, but choosing to let his prideful younger brother hide his shameful little launching defeat.

Pushing deeper into the dimly lit woods, the members of Night Castle kept low, their Rangers darting across the branches overhead as the scouted the area nearby, one of them dropping in front of the guild leader, dangling upside down from their legs as the Paladin nearly yelped in surprise.

“Gods, stop jumping me like this Shen, one day I might end up lopping you in half.”

“…? Apologies. Reporting back on the immediate vicinity.”

“Well, out with it, are they here or not?”

“Inconclusive on the target in question. However, a small guild was spotted at a distance, including the large blue armored entity mentioned in earlier reports.”

“That’s them! I knew they’d come this way, I told you Markus!”

“Huh, lucky guess… and something about that ‘blue armored entity’ is seems like they might be familiar as well…”

“Oho, making friends amongst the enemy ranks, are we?”

“Hmm… I can keep my secrets if you’re keeping yours, aye?”

“Fine, fine… just no going easy on them if it’s someone you know. Shen, go ahead and try and scout out that guild closer. And if it really is you-know-who’s guild, make sure to leave her for me to handle.”

The Paladin gripped his hammer’s handle threateningly, an ultimately empty gesture that nonetheless rallied the rest of their advance party behind them as the dangling elvish Ranger nodded and returned to the canopy above.

“Ha! I’ll have my revenge in no time at all, you’ll see!”

“Maybe try and be a bit more decisive about it this time- hm? Did you hear something?”

“Eh? Not at all, it’s silent as the… wait, no. You’re right, what is that?”

“Sounds like it’s coming from… this way? No no, this way, I think…”

“Don’t be absurd, it’s clearly from over here! It’s getting louder too, brace yourselves, lads and lasses!”

“It has to be coming from- hells, get down…!”

The orcish healer tackled the wary tank to the forest floor, not a moment too soon as a slab of sheer steel soared directly through the space previously occupied by their skull, another matching one following right behind it as a painfully familiar voice called out an even more painfully familiar spell as they sped past.

----------------------------------------

“Blowback!!~”

“Glass, left, left!!”

“Wait, my left, or…?”

“T-T-Tree, right right right…!”

“Chhhk…!!”

Racing through the dark marsh at unprecedented speed, the members of Primonilise desperately clung to life as they narrowly avoided countless sure-death collisions one after the other, making a breakneck pace through the treeline as they put their previous slog to shame.

“S-Slow us down, I can’t steer f-fast enough…!”

“I didn’t install us any breaks on this thing, just do your best you three!~”

An extremely panicked Elise clung tight to their makeshift ‘vehicle’ as she was forced into the role of pilot, Glass and Prim flanking behind her as they worked to provide any manner of controlled steering with their overbearing STR stats.

And bringing up the rear were a desperately straining Silk and a manically happy Monica, each clinging to a network of spiderwebs as they held everything together.

So with sheer willpower and an overabundance of raw kinetic force behind them, the guild Primonilise shotgunned forward over the swamp below, riding atop Elise’s paired greatshields wired together into a hastily-crafted sled, weaving between the trees as every Blowback knocked them airborne once more.

“Hard my way, hard right!”

“Oh, uh, right, yeah…!”

They catapulted forward, shaving a generous chunk out of a tree as they nearly crashed headfirst into it, the Gloom Mage giving them no time to rest as they were launched again and again.

“We’ll be out of here in 5 minutes, forget about that hour estimate, ahaha!~”

“C-C-Chkchk!!”

“Nonsense, this is the most fun I’ve had in days, we’re all having a blast!~”

“Speak for your- hells, left!! Pull up!!”

Skipping against the surface of the mud below, they barely managed to cross over what seemed to be another guild, but with their speed, they had no way to really be sure.

“Watch where we’re going, you’re gonna get us all killed!”

“I’m not the one steering here, that’s your-”

“T-Too high, stop pulling up!!”

“Pushing hard down…!”

“No you idiot, not that hard let up before we-”

The fox-shaped main engine did her best to pull back on the reins for her hellish creation as Glass drove them downwards nose-first, trying to wrangle them upright again unsuccessfully as their transit system scraped along the ground below, quickly stalling its speed as the rest of the vehicle launched forward, sending all five occupants flying forwards as their ride was forcibly ended.

A long few moments was spent groaning in pain, each of them in various states of disarray as they tried to reorient themselves, Glass, Monica, and Silk all crawling out of the muck they’d been buried in, as Elise and Prim tried to untangle themselves from each other and the foliage they’d crashed into, the tank doing her best to hide her red face as the crafter climbed off of her.

“Ugh… everyone alive…?”

“A-All good here!”

“Chhhk… chkchk…!”

“I… think I’m okay, yeah…”

“Eugh, alive and breathing, no thanks to someone.”

“Well, excuse me for trying to get us through here faster!”

“I think a little slowing down would’ve done a lot for us here…”

“Umm… this wasn’t what we came for, was it…?”

“Of course not, we came for that snow fort, and this is just a big empty… clearing…”

Her voice trailed off as her eyes met what Glass had been referring to, and what they had nearly crashed straight into.

It was a large, ornate stone structure, moss covering most all of it as it sat there, half-submerged in mud and vegetation. A large central pillar bit protruded above it, a pair of platforms attached to an arm balanced along the top point.

“It’s… a scale?”

“Looks l-like it, yeah.”

“It’s gotta be some kind of challenge then, right? Why else would it be here?”

“I guess but… there’s no door or anything on it…”

“Of course there isn’t, dummy. It’s a scale, so it just expects us to balance it out evenly. Easy peasy.”

Demonstrating, the diminutive fox clambered onto the right platform. At once, a light ignited on the main pillar, showcasing an arm leaning slightly to the right side.

“O-Oh, I get it…! Here, me next!”

Elise mounted the left platform with her newly-retrieved and de-webbed shields, the arm immediately shooting back to the other side as the mountain of muscle and metal weighed in.

“I see… so then, I could just…”

“No no, you get on the other side!”

Despite her protests and shooing, Glass joined the caster atop the right platform, bringing the arm once more back to the right side, if only just barely.

“Guess the last one’s for me then, yeah? Make room Elise, coming up.”

“A-Ah, okay…!”

She scooted over as the tiny halfling joined her, the arm moving back to the left, only a smidgen away from a perfectly balanced scale, and no reward for almost solving it.

“…ugh, really? We were so close too…”

“It seems pretty specific too, it has to only be a few pounds off of perfect.”

“Hmm… were there any big rocks or anything around…?”

“...chk?”

“...oh! Right, how could I forget my trusty comrade-in-arms? C’mere Silk, pile on up here with us!”

“Chkchk…!!!”

“A-Actually, shouldn’t we check what’s going to happen first? I kinda have a b-bad feeling here…”

“Hm? Oh, fair, we can check for any notes or anything around…”

“Chhhk!!”

Prim and Elise’s sound and cautious advice fell on deaf ears unfortunately, the eager spiderling joining the Gloom Mage and Brawler on the right platform, the balance arm tipping the last inch as it let loose a loud bell-tolling noise to signal the puzzle’s solution.

“Wait, hang on, we were gonna-”

The last minute interjection was swiftly cut short as both platforms were enveloped in light, a blinding circle wrapping around the five of them all at once.

And when it finally dispersed, all of them were nowhere to be seen, the mechanisms of the scale growing lifeless once more as its occupants were teleported away to their first real challenge of the event.