It didn’t take them long to find a tucked-away little cavern for them to spend the night in amidst the trees, the cave wide enough to actually hold them all this time while also giving them a good view of the icy castle and the area around it as well.

At the harsh insistence of her guildmates, Monica’s offer to take the first watch for the night was declined in favor of forcing the beaten and battered mage to get some much-needed rest. She grumbled the whole way as she was shooed away from the entrance, clutching Silk like a stuffed toy, but a few moments after she’d finally laid down she was already completely passed out on the floor, snores echoing loudly off the stone walls.

Lookout duty instead fell to Prim and Elise together, both of them volunteering to take first shift, and Glass just thankful for an opportunity to rest after the drawn-out brawl in the castle.

The duo sat across from one another, two pairs of eyes facing out over the swathe of snow-dusted plains stretching on and on and on for what seemed to be an eternity, a distant blizzard hiding away whatever lied in the direction they’d agreed to travel in next.

The diminutive crafter thankfully took up very little space in their shelter’s stony foyer, as their mountain of an armored knight left hardly enough space for even her to tightly squeeze in as well.

“O-Oh, um, will you be alright like this? You can go r-rest if you’d like, I can-”

“No, no, don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’d… just feel even worse if I went to sleep after all of that…”

“I-Is something bothering you…?”

The halfling sighed deeply, leaning back into the stone harder as she started sliding down it, an invisible weight pressing down heavily on her shoulders.

“I’m surprised it isn’t bothering you!”

She huffed loudly, throwing her hands up in exasperation before exhaustion quickly pulled her back down, her body stiff and sore despite her earlier insistence that she was completely fine.

“Back there at the castle, and… everywhere else too. I… I don’t exactly feel like I’ve really been an important part of any of this so far, y’know? I’m just a fourth body to fill a space for this whole event.”

“...Prim, you’re plenty important to us-”

“Am I? What am I important for? I can make us items you could just buy somewhere else or equipment neither of them is ever going to need. I guess I’ve got this big hammer, but that may as well be a squeaky toy compared to what Glass can do… and please don’t get me started on what all the walking landmine can do now.”

“W-Well, I feel like they might both be… s-special cases…”

“I know they are but… it’s hard to feel needed when you’ve got people like that around all the time. Between those two each being their own one-man army and you being completely indestructible, all I managed to even do that last fight was hide behind you while Glass handled anyone who actually got by… I just don’t-”

Her spiraling frustrations were cut off short as an armored hand struck down against the top of her head, eliciting a surprised squeak out of the crafter.

“You’re really quite good at l-lying to yourself for someone trying to claim they aren’t good at anything at all.”

“Ow! That hurt, you little…”

“I d-don’t think you’re in much of a position to be calling me little, are you?”

Her eyes panned upwards, rubbing at her sore head as she looked up and over her guildmate, the towering woman staring down at her with a furrowed brow and a stern and stony expression, a far cry from her usual painfully reserved demeanor.

“...yeah, I guess I don’t have room to talk, you damn behemoth…”

The pair spent a long while staring at one another in complete silence, before a fit of giggles bubbled up out of their Vanguard, the Berserker following not long after as they both erupted into a laughing fit, the sound of scraping metal and cloth and stone drowned out by their own hysterics.

“Fine, fine, hehe. I guess I let myself get a little carried away for a while, huh…?”

“Mmhmm. I’m not gonna let a f-friend of mine beat themselves up for no reason like that… I’m glad you’re here, Prim. Or, um, all of us are glad you’re here, I-I mean.”

“…thanks, Elise. Really.”

She turned back towards the snowfield outside, a tiny smile on her face as she sat back up again, squeezed in tight next to the mountain of platemail sharing the entranceway with her.

“Of course. B-Besides, you’ve already done plenty since I’ve been here.”

Elise knocked on her chest plate a few times, a pristine clank, clank, clank echoing out from the glistening metal.

“T-The only reason I’m as durable as you said I am is because of you, you know…”

“Oh, um, I… I guess that’s fair, sure, fine…”

“I… will admit that I know how you feel though… i-it’s hard to share a spotlight with those two sometimes.”

A jerk of her armored thumb pointed backwards behind them both, gesturing at the other half of their guild, a loud, drawn out snore echoing out to accentuate who she was referring to.

“But… it made me feel a l-little better about it all that you didn’t even hesitate to compare me with those two just now…”

“I mean, you’re plenty impressive in your own right, Elise. I remember when we first found you, and you barely even knew how to do more than walk around. And now you’re face-tanking forty people at a time without even buckling! I don’t see either of them taking hits a fraction as well as you do!”

“E-Ehehe… I don’t feel like being a wall is all that impressive comparatively.”

“Nonsense! If tanking wasn’t something to be proud of, then everyone would just be a glass cannon rushing face-first into their problems!”

“...you mean like-”

“Normal people.”

Another round of laughter, the two now squeezed in closer together as they gazed out over the moonlit expanse, any trace of their previous bad thoughts melted away into the falling snow.

“You know now that we actually some time to ourselves like this, this place is really pretty…”

“O-Oh, yes, I think so too… I grew up somewhere like this, a-actually, so I guess I never really thought too much about how nice the snow can be, ehe…”

“Oho? I never really took you for the cold-weather type.”

“To be h-honest, I’m not. Can’t stand the cold one bit, I’d crawl under my sheets at the sight of a single s-snowflake.”

“Hehe, guess I’ll need to make you something warmer after all of this is done.”

“N-No, I didn’t mean-”

The halfling girl had stood up, stretching as much as she could to return an earlier favor, gently bonking her fist against the other woman’s head.

“Ow…”

“See, it hurts, doesn’t it?”

“You’re the one with an actual S-Strength stat…”

“Oh boohoo, is the tank whining about being hit now?”

“Hmph!”

Her counterattack was swift and fierce, clonking a gauntlet-clad fist into the much smaller girl’s head with all the force of a swung pillow.

Blow after harmless blow was exchanged, the already battered pair laughing and swearing in equal measure as they clobbered one another, neither of them to muster enough strength to actually hurt the other at all.

Minutes passed on and on, until both of them had used up every last drop of energy still left in them, left lying on their backs outside the cave’s entrance, facing up at the stars hanging overhead, panting loudly as their breath froze in the air above them.

“...you’ll… haah… have to show me one day…”

“...hmm?”

“Y’know, where you grew up. If it’s half as pretty as this, then… I’d like to see it.”

Elise gulped loudly, her face suddenly as red as the bruises covering her from head to toe, caught completely off guard by the sudden request.

“U-Um, I, uh… I’d l-love to take you some day, i-if you’d like, I suppose…”

“Heh, I’ll hold you to that, then. It’s a da-”

The sudden sound of a throat being cleared made both of them leap up like scared cats, scrambling clumsily to their feet as they fumbled for their weapons.

“…am I… interrupting…?”

A bemused Glass stood over them, head tilted to the side as he looked over the disheveled duo as they lay sprawled out a good ways outside the cave.

“G-G-Glass, no, um, we were j-just, er, keeping watch, l-like we said we would, see?”

“...I see… a little far away but… I guess we’re all fine, so… thanks?”

“Yeah, no problem… did you need something, or…?”

“Hm…? Oh, no, just… I was supposed to take over second watch... so you both could get some sleep, right…? I was waiting for either of you to get me so… I had assumed something happened…”

The two of them paused for a moment, blinking in surprise, before opening their menus, the game time clock informing them that their several minute long heart-to-heart and ensuing scuffle had in fact taken several hours, now already almost 3am.

“...oh. Um, oops.”

“We, uh… w-we got distracted.”

“I noticed.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“I-I think I’ll go get some rest then!”

“…right, yeah, thanks for taking over!”

“No problem… I’ll just come get you all at sunrise.”

Nodding a bit too quickly and laughing awkwardly, Elise hurried off back into the cave’s interior, a much less embarrassed and much more oblivious Prim following not far behind her, leaving a slightly confused but considerably more well-rested Glass to keep watch over them all for the rest of the dark hours.

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

The time they were given to sleep felt infinitely too short, the tank and crafter rubbing at their eyes as they were gently shaken awake once more.

Their Brawler, however, miraculously showed no sign of being even remotely tired after their lookout shift, sporting the same blank expression they usual wore as they prodded at the rest of the sleeping party.

“Sun’s up. Get everything together before we leave.”

“Mrrrr… can’t we sleep in a little later…?”

“Y-Yeah just… a few more minutes…”

“No can do. Gotta get moving soon, something’s moving this way and we should leave before it’s on top of us.”

The two of them both stirred immediately at the sound of his normal slow and meandering tone dropping into his much more serious demeanor. Struggling through their sleep-deprived daze, they redressed themselves in their full equipment as quickly as they could, collecting scattered belongings and camping equipment they’d left out overnight.

“Okay, that should be everything, I think… we can rush out the- hey, Monica, up already! No sleeping in!”

Ignoring her companions rush to slip away, the snoozing fox rolled onto her side, still sleeping soundly despite the commotion within the cave.

“Oy! I said wake up, come on! Up and at ‘em!”

Elise kneeled down next to her, gently shaking their leader side to side, only getting the occasional snore or grumble out of her as she pointedly refused the frantic call to wakefulness.

“M-Maybe we should just go ahead? I think I can c-carry her with us, so-”

She tried to offer the fastest solution to get them out of the overnight shelter, lacking any better ideas for what to do. Fortunately she was cut off by Prim providing one, as her hammer came crashing into the floor next to them both, forming a deep crater as well as launching the kitsune, elf, and spider all a foot into the air, not bothering with waiting for her to wake up.

“Guh?! Wh-huh, what the… good morning to you too, hells…”

“Chk?! Chkchk! Chk chkchk!!!”

Finally forcibly awoken, the half-asleep fox rubbed at her eyes, herself and an equally stunned spiderling slowly getting to her feet and shaking the dust of shattered stone off of themselves.

“What are you all in a rush for, we getting invaded or something?”

“Correct, there seem to be a massive volume of bodies headed in this direction.”

“…wait, seriously? Can’t even let me enjoy my victory rest…”

“Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep princess, but it sounds like we need to move now while it’s still dark out.”

As they spoke, the group quietly headed outside, the first fleeting rays of sunlight reaching out over the horizon and shining upon what Glass had spotted before coming to rush them all away.

Even hidden under the last scraps of night, it wasn’t terribly difficult to find.

A mass of entities lit by scattered torch flames, slowly and inexorably marching onwards, closer on to the hills they’d taken refuge in, echoing sounds of steel and iron moving towards them with murderous intent.

“C-Chkchk?!”

“Geez, they decided to sic a whole army on us all today? Hell of a centerpiece for the event to get dropped in this early on…”

“I… don’t think it’s part of the event, actually. Here.”

Glass handed Prim the pair of binoculars he’d been keeping watch with, gesturing for her to take a better look.

And as soon as she did so, her heart rapidly sank.

“…those aren’t event enemies. They’re… they’re players. A few thousand of them.”

“W-Wait, other players? But… B-But no one was coming this way! We checked before we set out, r-remember?”

“There’s definitely no other large groups this far out other than us, no. But… I can imagine one reason they’d all have to head this way now…”

The boy turned to look at the kitsune standing behind the rest of them, the other two quickly catching on to what he meant.

“…what’d I do?”

“Gave every other player in the world a fat juicy target to go witch-hunting for, that’s what. And it’s not even the first time you did it, either…”

“It’s not my fault I’m so popular with all the annoying types.”

“It looks like w-way too many people to just be the ones from yesterday though…”

“I’ll bet after the Fear wore off for them all, they all called in the rest of their guilds and decided to all band up. Not a terrible idea after a hundred or so were all pushed back by one enemy.”

“So… temporary alliance where they’re all hoping to snag what they all assume to be the real reward from that damn mansion? Clever, but not exactly the most ironclad foundation for a truce.”

“T-They all assume Monica is more of a threat than each other…”

“Can’t say that’s a bad assumption to make after her little final boss debut.”

Puffing her chest out proudly at what she’d decided to take as praise, the kitsune stepped forward past the rest of their party, confidently brandishing her staff as Silk stood proudly beside her.

“Then I suppose I’ll just need to remind them why ran to begin with, eh?”

“Well, It might be t-too many this time Monica, m-maybe we should run for now.”

“Yeah, and if you do get in a fight like that, you’re not going to be able to dodge anything in that form. It’s a terrible idea-”

“Hah, you underestimate The Fox of Fright herself! Not a single one of them will be able to reach me, and you three will get to pick them off unchallenged! A flawless defense to cement our guild’s spot at the top of the scoreboards.”

“...god you really are miserable at naming things aren’t you. But still, Glass, surely you’re against this too, right? Even you can’t take that many people, Feared or otherwise.”

“Hmm… actually, I’m not opposed to the idea. It would give us quite the edge, and I can’t argue with the efficiency of it.”

“I see you’re not entirely a fist-for-brains idiot after all!”

“Oh come on, don’t you start encouraging her… fine, whatever, lets handle it before they get any closer and I start second guessing you idiots…”

“I-I’ll… I’ll do my best if you all are sure!”

“Chkchk!”

The arachnid at their feet flexed two spindly limbs, undaunted and unafraid.

“That’s more like it! Now then, the massacre awaits us! Nightmare Trance!”

The fox snapped her fingers loudly, a familiar hole in reality wrapping around her on command, tendrils of night itself descending as she took on the form of a nightmare made manifest, a horror in the flesh.

…

Or, rather, this was the result they had all expected.

Instead the five of them stood in total silence, waiting for anything at all to happen.

“…well? Go ahead already.”

“No, I already… Nightmare Trance!”

Another snap.

Another complete lack of response of any kind.

“Nightmare Trance! Nightmare Trance!”

A furious flood of snaps accompanied by stomping, screaming, and more than enough swearing followed the failed incantation, though not a one of them encouraged the skill to cooperate with its owner once more.

“Come on! Nightmare! Trance! Start already goddammit, we don’t have time! Nightmare Trance! Nightmare Trance!! Nightmare Trance!!!”

“U-Um, Monica, is… is everything okay…?”

“Are you out of mana or something? What’s wrong?”

“The damn thing just… isn’t working! Graaaaah…!!!”

Frustrated cries leaked into her chanting incantation, fighting with her own ability as it refused to be activated once more.

“Strange… was there anything about a limit on uses perhaps? A long-term cooldown? Restriction on where it’s used?”

“I’ll check, just hang on… dammit…”

Her fingers red from the frantic snapping, she hurriedly opened her menu, scrolling down her list of skills, looking for anything at all, until she finally found it.

[Nightmare Trance]

- Unlock: [unavailable]

- [description unavailable]

- [Characters may only possess 1 Trance skill.]

“…that’s it?!”

“Did they forget to add the description at all…? Did they even mean for this to be available to anyone yet?”

“Looks to be a leftover from testing, or just something that they meant to cut out… that’s rather unfortunate, if so.”

“So… n-no more monster Monica anymore? T-That’s…”

“Oh that just my luck alright, nice dev test artifact, really great reward there guys!”

There were tears in the corners of her eyes, the Gloom Mage ready to beat someone senseless with her bare hand for seemingly taking away her newest toy, after the slog she’d gone through for it.

“I’m sue it’s just a m-misunderstanding is all! We’ll f-figure something out!”

“…yeah. Yeah, right, whining about it here isn’t going to accomplish anything…”

“Mmm. Looks like we’ll be going back to plan A, then.”

Pointing further north still, the Brawler pointed them towards the distant, unyielding blizzard they’d watched last night, storming without end in the direction opposite the approaching army.

“If we keep heading this way, we can most likely disrupt that entire group with the reduced vision and mobility enough that we can start picking them off of us if they decide they wish to pursue us.”

“…I hate that plan as well, but it beats walking directly into all of them…”

“Right, it g-gives us a chance to escape. W-What do you think Monica?”

“…huh? Oh, um… yeah. We’ll head out that way, sure thing.”

Disillusioned and disappointed, the kitsune half-heartedly followed her retreating guildmates as Elise tugged her along by the arm, Silk clinging to her back and offering what encouragement they could muster, the five of them quickly leaving their temporary home, heading towards snowstorm at the edge of this world.