“L-Leyline Protection!”

A tightly-packed series of thuds struck against Elise’s shields, both of them tightly squeezed together as she firmly held her position, runes weaving below her as she rooted herself into the stone below.

The flurry of bodies pushing in towards her, desperate to get past, were stiffly frozen in place, confusion quickly setting in on the faces of the multitude of enemy players as they were magically stopped and lifted up, serving as a barrier between Primonilise and the rest of the swarm of guilds clamoring behind them.

“I’m s-sorry about this…! Return Volley!”

Tilting her shield wall to the side ever so slightly, she released the stuck players once more, launching them forward with more momentum than they’d started off with.

A bit under half of them rocketed backwards into the mob once more, bowling through others and breaking their own advance, keeping them from ever forming too much of a spearhead. The others were all much less lucky, and instead were sent right over the side of the bridge before they could stop themselves, uselessly scrambling for anything to catch themselves on as they tumbled head over heels into the inky abyss below.

Her cycle of catch-and-release had gone on for several dozen repetitions at this point, the remaining players growing dizzy and weary of throwing themselves headlong into against the immovable Vanguard and becoming pinballs, most of them choosing to keep a safe distance away for now.

The bridge they were on was quite wide and spacious, but still limited in scale. Despite being wholly outnumbered on a scale of hundreds to one, in truth only three or four players at a time could make up the front line of this half-organized mob.

That only accounted for those going in for close quarters combat, however, and ranged combatants continued raining magic and arrows attack items down on them from below, Elise left crouching below the lip of her shields to avoid the indirect assault being flung towards her.

But hunched low like she was, some over-eager attackers tried to bypass the wall entirely, taking her lapse in observation as a chance to slip past.

A handful of light-footed enemies bounded over the eight feet of steel blocking the way, some of them leaping high overhead while others simply teleported behind her, all of them focused exclusively on rushing past the slow tank and making their way to the real prize at the room’s crown.

The bypassing players, feeling exceedingly clever, didn’t even get to touch the ground behind her however, as the moment they crossed the first barrier, they were met with the second.

Fire roared up to greet them, roasting the overeager intruders before they fell into the waiting maw of hammer and fist below, quickly being beaten senseless or tossed into the pit with the others that had been launched in before.

Prim and Glass, snug and safe behind their towering guardian, made quick work of anyone that managed to get through while remaining perfectly protected from retaliation.

“They really just keep coming, huh…?”

“Glad for the excitement. Haven’t gotten to fight anything until now.”

“Well, glad one of us is enjoying bouncer duties at least.”

“Nnn… sorry, I-I’m trying to not let so many get past!”

“No worries, we got it handled fine here, just keep holding them back!”

“Mmhmm. I can keep dealing with them all day from back here.”

The normally quiet Brawler still wore an almost entirely blank expression as they punched and swung and battered anyone they could get their hands on, but Prim could tell he was definitely enjoying himself, even being constrained to hiding back and waiting for enemies to come to him first.

She could hardly blame him for it either. As tired as it was making her, there was some primal satisfaction in getting to rip into other players like this. She’d already splattered her own fair share under her massive hammer even as the faster melee beside her has taken out the vast majority of their shared catches.

“P-Prim, another… hngh…”

“Oh, right, right here.”

The halfling scrambled in her bag, digging out yet another health potion before popping it into their tank’s mouth, the Vanguard unable to drop her guard long enough to heal herself as she was chipped away at.

“Thank you… t-they’re certainly persistent, don’t think many of them have g-given up still, they just keep coming…”

“Sorry to keep you holding them back so long, we just-”

“Just hold until M-Moni gets back, right? No problem…!”

The elf smiled weakly through it, squeezing her slabs of metal tighter as she steeled herself again, eating another volley of arrows as they peppered her defenses.

“How long is that gonna be, though…? She’s not one for fighting slow, but…”

Glass glanced upwards towards the highest pathway, Prim’s gaze following after his, both of them trying to determine anything going on above them.

“I… wish I knew. But I know she’s gonna handle whatever it is that’s up there and be back down here before we know it. So less griping and more punching, yeah?”

They nodded silently, massive gauntlets grabbing a leaping Rogue by the leg before the other crushed them into digitized paste against the stone floor below, joining countless others as a stain on the metal fists.

The crafter did their best to stay focused themselves as well, but couldn’t help worrying about their stranded kitsune.

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

High at the top end of the same towering chamber, the constant chaos of combat was replaced by silence, two silhouettes opposite one another as each one intently studied the other, waiting for the other to move first.

One the side closest to the boss door, Granz Veld stood with his shoulders squared, axe perfectly balanced across both hands, armor glistening in the icy torchlight as they were still embraced by golden light from head to toe, their punchably smug face still visible behind it as their webbing-filled wings hung uselessly behind them.

And on the far side, Monica Furdel held herself as upright as she could manage, using her staff like a cane, her usual speed and composure as her leg remained stiff as ice underneath her, though her own expression was no less confident in spite of it.

Currently, she could barely stand, let alone walk, her opponent had her entirely cornered and was also encased in a perfect barrier against status afflictions, and she was alone at around half health already, without a single point of Strength or Vitality to use.

If he had even a modicum of intelligence, she might have even been worried here.

Their silent standoff remained as frozen as the castle surrounding them, neither of them daring to take the first move, waiting patiently to capitalize on the first mistake the other could make.

Closing the gap herself when she couldn’t dodge would have been about as good for her as just leaping off the side of the bridge into the bottomless pit below. But if he moved forward, she wouldn’t have any room to retreat to…

Before she finished processing the thought, the choice was made for her, as the Paladin opposite her stepped forward, charging dead ahead at the hobbled mage.

“You’ll not escape me this time, fiend…!!”

Painstakingly polished steel clacked against smooth stone as they advanced, their massive weapon lifted high as vengeance-filled bloodlust led him blindly forward.

“Hazard Fumes!”

Her staff rapped against the frozen ground underfoot, calling out her viscous fog once again, encasing herself in a gaseous shield as the armor-clad tank ran her down like an oncoming car.

“Ha, are you truly that foolish? No vile magics such as that will reach past my blessed aegis, blasted witch!”

They guffawed, not slowing themselves at all as they barreled straight into the cloud of instant death without a care in the world.

Sure enough, the golden glow of his healer’s earlier buff still remained, nullifying status effects before they could reach through the apparently divine shield encasing them from head to toe.

However, it was clearly meant for warding off ailments of a normal efficacy from standard-issue foes, and the Spider Queen’s horrifically potent afflictions were anything but average.

Their armor of light kept them from being stunned, but their movements slowed drastically. And while they were not wholly silenced or blinded on the spot, their jaw felt like a block of lead as it locked up, their eyelids growing heavy as the fog encasing her already made it nearly impossible to see her, poison dripping in through the cracks in their holy armor as their mountain of HP began to trickle out.

“Hngh… you… what sorcery is…?!”

“Blowback!”

A staff cracked hard against the base of his spine, a sudden burst of force being unloaded right into it… only to be swallowed whole by their aegis, still desperate to fulfill its duty in stopping her dead.

“Tsk-”

“B-Backstabbing little…!”

Monica managed to push herself off of his armor with enough force to dodge the stiff swing of the axe aimed for her, the clumsy attack no less deadly as he flailed.

Her original method of dealing with idiot Paladins proving less successful now, she did her best to keep close enough to leave them within the cloud while staying out of range of his blind swings, the grumbling tank turning themselves into a blender as the fox continued to elude them still.

Plan one failed, but she continued to her second plan, equally tried and true.

“Flash!”

The cloud covering both of them entirely went up in flames as they were both blown away from one another, Monica harmlessly riding the blast backwards as Granz took the detonation directly, rolling away across the tiled bridge.

She coughed up soot, mostly unharmed but deeply disoriented as she used her staff to push herself upright once again, searching for where her opponent had landed.

He clambered back upright himself, groaning as his body continued trying to lock up, joints stiff under their armor and shielding, beaten down but not nearly battered enough to stay down.

“Little tricks like that aren’t enough to defeat a hero like myself, I’m afraid…!”

Keeping their confident front held up even now, they were clearly starting to tire, panting and groaning as they got back up to their feet again, their heavy weapon now hanging low enough to scrape along the floor as they began walking towards her again.

“Oh yeah…? You sure you don’t feel like crying home to that Cleric of yours yet?”

“Ha! So scared that you hope I’ll simply turn tail and leave? You’re more craven than I had thought, monster.”

“Oh no, I just thought you’d like to get out of here before you start wetting yourself any more than you already have.”

“I-I have done no such… bah, why do I bother conversing with this honorless beast of a woman?! Have at you!”

“Something tells me you don’t really get a lot of time to talk to women…”

The Paladin charged her once more, dragging their axe along the ground behind them as blind anger took hold of them once again.

She’d bought herself enough time that her leg was usably stable again, not quite ready to run a marathon on or perform her usual dancing dodges, but good enough to not fall on her face the moment she tried to sidestep an attack.

And the second point-blank blast had chipped his shining armor further still, the glowing golden light flickering weaker, parts of it wholly snuffed out entirely, starting to give her an opening to finish this as soon as she pried the rest of that shield off.

He closed in fast, managing to lift his unwieldy weapon high above his head before dropping it down once more, lunging closer to the wounded mage.

The blow, however, slipped just past her as she rushed in even closer still.

“Hazard- Flash!”

A combination so thoroughly practiced and burned into her muscles by now that she could cast them both in the same instant. Her palm slapped into the center of his chest, thick green fumes pouring from between her fingers for a split-second before they were instantly ignited, the flames finding only a fraction of their usual fuel, but still erupting with the force of a small grenade in her hand.

The axe’s handle slammed down into her shoulder, hard enough to make her buckle but not enough to stop her as her other hand came up into the Paladin’s side.

“Hazard Flash!”

Her second pyrokinetically-propelled punch met the faltering aegis hard, cracking through it and denting the platemail behind it as well, the knight coughing as their lungs were forcibly deflated by the dual impacts.

“Gah, you-”

“Hazard Flash!!”

A third punch cracked into his sternum, followed by a fourth, fifth, and sixth in quick succession, the diminutive kitsune beating the tower of divine armor in front of her with two bare hands, her knuckles sore and red from repeated impacts as she refused to let up on her barrage of high-explosive jabs.

Granz did his best to try to retaliate, unbalanced and unaimed swings being thrown out haphazardly as their eyes spun, battered and dizzied from the unexpected assault.

Some of those swings even stuck, the caster only able to dodge so fast as the massive blade grazed her again and again, blood staining the white spiderwebs peeking from below her chitinous armored robe, biting her lip as she kept swinging through the pain, not slowing for even a moment.

Hours of pent-up frustrations went into every punch, exhausted and bruised and weary from being fleeing so long, from being chased like some kind of caged animal, and most importantly, from how deeply annoying this oaf preaching at her was.

Slowly, the Paladin was pushed back, step by step, stone tile by stone tile, forcing him backwards towards the platform’s edge as she refused to relent.

“How… dare you…!”

Desperate and going for anything to keep from being thrown off the bridge, the tank gripped his axe tight, swinging it one last time with every ounce of energy they had left in them.

The swing came in from her flank, too fast and too close to pull away from in time, the Gloom Mage throwing her arms up in front of her at the last moment as she tried her best to dull the blow.

As overwhelming as her advantage was, her own stats were nothing against someone with actual STR landing one direct blow on her. The head of the axe missed at this range, but that was her only blessing, the force behind the blow lifting her up and launching her away hard, all the air leaving her lungs as she was sent flying off the other side of the bridge, one last muttered curse slipping free as she vanished over the edge.

Granz stood there, frozen, for a moment, breathing heavily, stunned that the clumsy attack had actually worked.

“I… y-yes, well! Of course, the better combatant surely wins, so it’s no surprise-”

They gloated to themselves proudly and shamelessly, their aegis ripped away and their armor dented and destroyed, tired eyes searching for their quarry to confirm their truly well-earned victory.

Instead, however, they found only a single glob of webbing, stuck fast to the side of the bridge she’d fallen from, tightly affixed to the ice and bricks. And at about the same time, a noise from behind drew their attention, the apparently victorious tank turning about to face the sound.

Nothing save the other edge of the bridge and the long fall down was behind him, yet still something remained louder than the combat so far below.

And when his eyes turned slightly downwards, he found it, a moment too late.

Monica, clinging to her last scraps of health and a last-minute Silkshot, rose rapidly from underneath the bridge, riding the momentum he’d given her as she swung.

He sputtered and flailed and tried to mutter even a single skill to protect himself, all too slowly as the flying fox closed in once again before his tongue could begin to move.

A bloodied fist squarely met his jaw at breakneck speed, cracking against him hard enough to launch him backwards from the sheer force behind her alone.

“HAZARD FLASH!”

The explosion completely engulfed him before he could fully process he was even being attacked, the tank being blasted backwards hard enough to soar clear past the other side of the bridge, cratering into the opposite wall before slipping off and away, tumbling down the tall chamber, slamming into multiple staircases and other pathways on the way down into the inky void.

Monica herself landed in a heap back atop the bridge, lungs burning as she drank down icy air, every part of her body bruised or broken, barely still alive even. The mix of emotions inside her ranged from excitement, joy, confusion, dread, and most of all, exhaustion, not a single muscle in her body wanting to move an inch further.

But she stood once more, her knees weak under her as she stumbled forwards.

Everyone else was still fighting below her, and she couldn’t just run back to them empty-handed after coming this far. Not yet. Not while what they’d come for was so close.

She forced herself onwards, towards the towering door in front of her, massive and resplendent, the boss room hidden away so deep into this sprawling castle of a mansion, untouched and unclaimed by a single soul before her.

With no mana, and sliver of health, and a dream, her bloodied hand pressed against the wood. And with a flash, Monica, and Monica alone, was whisked away into the dungeon’s end.