I’d sent everyone their tokens via the party link, sliding one token each into Fig, Frag, and Akilah’s inventories. Jake, Elora, and I were on our way to pick up some food and drinks from the Grand Market when the token in my inventory lit up. I glanced at the two of them, catching the same look of surprise.

  My HUD flashed, replaced with a loading screen that encapsulated my vision. I thrust my arms out to grab my friends, but I couldn’t feel anything. I felt like I was back in the white room, formless, weightless, nothing but a thought. A frozen awareness compelled me to gaze at a flat image.

  The loading screen showed an image of the Labyrinth walls rising around a structure that was less a dome and more of a crumbling series of arches outlining where a dome could be. Static imagery. Where was the decline button? I wasn’t ready.

  I looked at the only thing in my field of vision and saw no way to stop the battleground entry sequence. A timer started. Two minutes ticked away as my armless, mouthless self silently panicked.

  The token had apparently been more than a simple pass to get into an arena. This was a fully System-integrated event. I couldn’t look at my inventory since the damn load screen overrode everything, but I knew one thing was for certain.

  I’d be throwing that little chit of doom right the fuck out as soon as I could. Nothing was gonna hijack my stroll to go get beer and chips from the Market again. I’d agreed to fight, not get re-abducted. Of course, I also suck at reading rules, and I might have missed something about this. Hm.

  When the world snapped into place around me, my rage burst to the fore. I came into being roaring a wordless vow of absolute threat. INTIMIDATE flashed across my HUD as I spun around, looking at the others in the cramped, dark room.

  “What the fuck was that?” I bellowed.

  A satyr in a cloak snorted. He said something in a language I didn’t understand, but I got the tone. He mocked me. I rounded on him, fingers already curled into fists. Frag was the first to catch me, arm across my chest, a steady look in his eyes.

  “Dath, it’s almost go time. One minute.”

  I stared at the satyr, wanting nothing more than to rip his head off and shove it up his own ass. I listened to the voice of reason, which echoed some shrinking thing in the back of my head. Go time. One of the words we’d used frequently in training. It worked to keep us focused when we started slipping. It worked right then.

  My aspect screen came up and outlined the scenario. First team to kill the world boss wins the competition. That was it? There was a pivot toggle to that directive, but instead, I glanced around. I counted twenty heads and found one of them missing.

  “Where’s Akilah?” I barked, scowling at the strangers in the little stone room. The rough-hewn, ancient walls looked to be of the same stone as the Labyrinth. The timer in the corner of my HUD flashed 30 seconds.

  Frag shrugged, annoyingly unconcerned. He was just being practical, but it grated. Everything did. I’d been an irritable asshole since Loogie cocooned and became a hairball in my inventory called [Something Special].

  Jake glanced around, already pulling Fig close for a quick hug before the battle. Elora wrung her hands and switched her casual clothing for her battle armor in a blink. I willed my armor from inventory and summoned Ro’Fatoft. The cool weight of the spear grounded my rising nerves.

  Frag initiated audio, speaking directly to the party where the other strangers couldn’t hear. I eyed them in the seconds ticking down. Each team’s nameplates had changed color to indicate team affiliation. We were yellow. It was clear that though we’d be fighting a world boss, we’d also be fighting each other. I raced through scenarios of how the whole thing might go down and came up with ‘shitshow.’

  Frag: “Watch your backs. Some of these gladiators will try to go after us. We have to burn the world boss down to ten percent of its HP before attempting to take out the competition, but catching them in an AoEs is beneficial to that goal. That’s our best chance of success.”

  Jake: “There’s no one level 10 here.”

  That explained why Akilah was missing. Our overachiever had reached too high a level. I considered the thought, wondering why, when tiers offered perks and levels only offered more HP. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. We were fighting, regardless.

  The barred doors fell open when my timer flashed a big, fat, annoying zero in the center of my screen. The whole room sprinted for the door. Well, except Elora, Jake, and me. Fig and Frag rushed past us, Frag’s long-range plasma rifle clutched and resting on his two-point sling, as if he expected to be running a while. A banner of green hair streamed behind Fig, who darted through the foliage like a rabbit.

  I tried to take stock of the other teams as they exited, angry I’d gotten hung up on Akilah being missing and lost valuable time learning what I could from what I saw. Their classes flashed past, hinting at their skills.

  Our lives depended on that information. I missed it.

  “Shit, go!” I growled at Jake and Elora and broke into a sprint after them.

  Tangled vines hung low outside. I ducked through them as I barreled out, following Fig’s distinctive streamer of hair. The groups broke off, and my minimap revealed part of the field ahead. There wasn’t much light from above, and what there was cast the world in shades of cool green. A lush canopy domed the area, the terrain uneven with soaring jungle trees and thick undergrowth. Paths wove through it, beaten down by design, not by the feet of players. The ground tilted towards a depression in the center where water pooled into an algae-green pond.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The boss crawled beside the water. I couldn’t see it yet, but it showed on my minimap as a long, pulsing shape that crept around the pool in the center. Mob behavior—solid NPC vibes. Frag broke right from the crowd. He and Fig stopped when they got to a big jungle tree with impressive limbs. He let his rifle drop to hang from his two-point harness, looked up, and pointed at a spot. He shook out rope from his inventory.

  Frag: “Going up to get a look.”

  He looped the rope around the tree and started upwards. Thanks to that kite-rescuing task back when I first got to Convergent City, I’d already figured out how to climb a tree with rope and the strength in my legs. I pulled a coil out of inventory and looped it around the tree. Bracing a foot on the trunk, I sidled to offset myself from where Frag was in case he fell. No offense to him, but I wouldn’t be his cushion if he slipped.

  Elora needed no such contrivances. She scampered past us like a hyper squirrel to perch on a sturdy limb. Frag grabbed a neighboring branch and swung himself up. I climbed a little higher, got a foothold, and hung there, anchored by the rope, to look down at our target and the other teams, likewise positioning themselves.

  The thing was easily fifty feet long, maybe more. It had weird, opalescent skin. Some kind of worm, except—not. It had feet like Loogie’s, caterpillar-style. The monster moved with a ponderous slowness, feelers waving ahead of it.

  “Vash’Ora?”

  If it was, that would suck. Hard. Those were supposed to be ridiculously powerful.

  Frag replied in party chat, voice certain. “No.”

  He didn’t say what it was, only what it wasn’t. I looked through the green gloom toward the other side of the map. My map was partly cleared of fog, but some terrain was still hidden, unexplored terrain. It was safe to say the whole section was a jungle, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if the far edges held surprises.

  Jake: “What do you see?”

  Below, Fig and Jake waited for us. Climbing wasn’t Jake’s thing, though he’d be pretty dope once he could do more than glide with his wings.

  Elora: “It’s like someone smashed a caterpillar, a worm, a slug, and a sea cucumber together. It’s a—slurmopillar.”

  Jake: “Cool, I guess?”

  “A slurmopillar that’s over fifty feet long,” I added dryly.

  Elora: “And how is this a challenge?”

  I pointed at the nameplate: [Veliyarix]. The HP bar read 12000. It was a mini-raid boss, at the very least. If we each averaged 100 HP, and there were 20 of us, it wouldn’t be terrible, but it would be tough with PvP. I assumed the main target had some raid mechanics we’d be dealing with. Fighting each other and managing boss bullshit? Fun.

  “HP pool is huge. Not Giant Hawk huge, but we also don’t know what it does. Wait and see what others do. If more than one person goes in, we go. We have to burn it down together, not sacrifice damage dealers to see what happens. Can you two snipe from up here?”

  Frag: “For a while, until we burn [Veliyarix] down. I have to stay on the move after that. Plasma gives itself away.”

  Elora: “I’ll need to get closer. Arrows don’t go as far as plasma, and with all these mondo-sized leaves...”

  I nodded and slid down the tree like a giant fireman’s pole. Thanks to my [Brawler’s Handwraps] and [Slick Carapace Armor] I had a blur-fast descent.

  “We need to stay in range of Fig’s [Harmony Auras] and Jake’s tranq gun. Fig and Jake, move with us, but stay low. Leave the major damage dealing to us and keep watch for trouble. We’ve got this. Watch each other’s backs.”

  We’d drilled for this moment. A hungry heat coiled under my skin as I re-equipped my orcish patarshan spear, Ro’fatoft. I stalked through the undergrowth, slipping between the giant ferns, the cold of my spear running up my hands, the air humid with the taste of loam. Ferns parted, and I got a good view of the depression, the pool, and the slurmopillar. Glancing up, I spotted Elora doing a decent Tarzan impression, leaping from thick vine to thick vine, swinging like a wild monkey to perch on another tree limb.

  Jake: “It has legs, so it’s not a worm.”

  Team Red’s front liners advanced: a minotaur with a two-handed sword thrashed through the thick riot of undergrowth, huffing like an angry bull, and behind him, a centaur with a gleaming tower shield followed, spear in hand. They broke out onto the depression slope where the slurmopillar had beaten its circular path.

  Elora: “It’s shiny and squishy-looking. Maybe a slug?”

  The minotaur roared, triggering an Aura too far outside my range to get a HUD ping on it. It broke into a run, thundering toward the target. The Centaur kept pace, shield raised, spear high. They howled battle cries, already fired up for the attack.

  Jake: “Legs, though, and it looks more velvety from here. It’s not a slug.”

  Seconds before they got to [Veliyarix], a torrent of leaves spiraled in a dust devil that ripped up the jungle floor. It swept across the boss, surged into the pool, and reversed to slash back over it, muddy water and debris flying.

  I launched into motion, angling for the depression.

  Elora: “Leggy sea cucumber?”

  A firestorm hit next, riddling the slurmopillar’s head with a rain of quarter-sized fireballs. A gothy woman burst from the undergrowth, hands raised in what looked like a dance move, and then her whole body thrashed, arms jabbing and slashing in tight, erratic patterns. A handful of daggers rained down, stabbing at the slurmopillar’s head and waving antennae.

  Jake: “It’s definitely land-based… You know what it looks like? I just remembered—”

  “Guys! Go time!”

  Fig began to sing in a language I didn’t know but could feel. Her voice vibrated in my bones, warming my flesh, strengthening my body. Her [Aura of Resilience] echoed in my head. Almost made me like her for real, feeling that.

  [Tactical Instincts: Multiple Hostile Presence] Frag’s push hit my HUD as I crossed into the contested range.

  The witch’s dark eyes snapped to me. A second later, a dagger froze in the air, point aimed right between my eyes. I skidded to a stop as it fell to the ground. [Blade Dance Assassinate: Failed]

  [System Alert: PvP disabled. Prime target above 10% HP]

  I glanced down at the dagger, then smirked at the witch’s disappointed expression. The minotaur and centaur raced up to [Veliyarix] and fiercely attacked, slashing and stabbing. I was close enough to see their damage popping off. [Hit: -7 Cleave: -2] [Hit: -5]

  “Light ‘em up!”

  Frag’s long-range rifle spat a few rounds. I saw the streak of a silver arrow fly from the trees behind me. [Hit: -7 Perfect Paralax: -3] [Hit: -4]

  Mental note: Elora needed a better bow. Her archery proc had yet to go off.

  [Tactical Instincts: Hostile AoE Incoming]

  Instead of surging forward to join the melee, I backpedaled as the slurmopillar exhaled a pinkish gas. I cupped my free hand over my mouth, as if it would help. Distance mattered more. I kept backing away. Jake and Fig flanked me, firing their own plasma pistols at [Veliyarix]. [Hit: -4] [Hit: -4]

  From above, Frag’s heavy plasma bolts rained down, accompanied by Elora’s silver arrows. [Hit: -7 Perfect Paralax: -7] [Hit: -5].

  The minotaur and the centaur were right in the center of the pink cloud. The minotaur let out a terrible lowing. The centaur stumbled and fell. Watching a man-horse fall was awkward, legs flailing and thick body slamming into dirt, torso bending in disturbing ways. They twitched on the ground, right in the slurmopillar’s path.

  “Stay away from the mouth. Got it,” I mumbled into my palm.

  -ARCHIVE-