Amy kept the elite Murloc circling the inner chamber of the cave, her boots scraping over damp stone as she maintained a careful distance. Unlike Flynn, who had poured every last attribute point into Agility and moved like a shadow unbound by gravity, she had split hers more evenly, investing a third into Strength to make sure her arrows actually hurt when they landed.
The tradeoff was obvious. Without something like Aspect of the Cheetah boosting her speed, she simply could not outrun trouble the way Flynn could. So she chose caution over pride and kept the fight contained within the cave, close enough that her teammates could step in if things turned ugly.
Let-There-Be-Light had briefly considered telling Flynn to stay inside as well, but the thought died as soon as it formed. The Rogue's performance so far had been beyond reason. An elite Murloc was tougher and hit harder than the usual trash mobs, sure, but if the normal ones could not even graze this God of Death, then how much difference could a slightly bulkier fish-man make?
Still, he had overlooked one small but important detail. The sudden appearance of the elites had pushed something out of his mind.
The Ranger from the Asian party was still alive.
King of Nibelung was having what he would later describe as the worst day of his gaming career. The emotional whiplash alone was enough to give him a headache. He and a handful of other Asian players had been questing together since the game launched, carving out a respectable reputation in a Starter Zone dominated almost entirely by Western players. They had managed to stay competitive through a mix of decent mechanics and solid luck. People knew their names and that mattered.
And then there was Lady Kazehana.
Beautiful. Composed. Elegant in that effortless way that made you sit up straighter just standing next to her. When she had asked for his help on the teleportation point quest earlier that day, he had felt like he had just won the lottery. Strong green-grade gear and the favor of a woman like that? It was perfect.
Until it was not.
Mid-quest, a group of Western players had rushed them without so much as a greeting and slaughtered them where they stood. In King of Nibelung's mind, that was the moment the day soured beyond repair. Kazehana had been nothing but polite, at least from his perspective. She had greeted them. Smiled, even. And they had responded with violence.
Treacherous and utterly shameless.
Of course, he had no idea Kazehana herself had approached with ulterior motives and had never bothered to inform him of her plans. She had kept that part to herself, and the lack of coordination had contributed greatly to how quickly their party collapsed.
Dying once was tolerable. Ten percent experience lost hurt, but for her, he could accept it.
Dying twice was another matter.
When they corpse-ran back to the cave, planning a righteous counter-ambush, they had instead walked straight into one. The Western players had been waiting around a corner like seasoned predators. There had been no time to react.
Two deaths in a row had knocked Kazehana back to level nine. In this game, if the experience you currently held was not enough to cover the ten percent penalty, you dropped a full level with zero progress. That meant she was back to exactly where she had been the moment she first hit nine. All that grinding, erased.
King of Nibelung was the only one who had survived the second disaster.
Kazehana's order in the party channel had been calm but absolute. Go back, catch them off guard.
And so he had.
He circled outside the cave for a while first, steadying his breathing, rehearsing how he would redeem himself. When he finally slipped back inside, the outer Murlocs had not yet respawned. A lucky break indeed. Then he leaned out at the entrance to Gulu's cavern and saw a Rogue sprinting straight toward him.
His stomach dropped.
For all his grandiose name, King of Nibelung did not possess the heart of a king. The instant he recognized Flynn, his legs felt watery. He remembered very clearly how many of his teammates had fallen to that dagger.
But then he noticed something else. Behind Flynn, an elite Murloc was charging as well.
Right then, a thought struck him. If the Rogue was busy kiting an elite monster, then this was not recklessness. This was an opportunity.
A slow, vicious smile spread across his face. He raised his bow and loosed an arrow. "Die, you donkey shit!"
He did not know where Flynn was from, only that he looked Western to him, probably American. The word was crude and lazy, but in that moment he did not care.
Flynn glanced up, surprised for only a fraction of a second. If anything, he looked amused. He had been mildly annoyed at himself for letting the Ranger escape earlier. Now the man had delivered himself back to him.
The arrow was already inches from his face when Flynn flicked his wrist.
Steel met wood with a sharp crack, and the projectile spun harmlessly aside.
Hair-Stays-Perfect, currently face-down on the cave floor in ghost form, had a perfect view of the unfolding disaster. Death might have immobilized him, but it had not taken away his spectator privileges. His fingers flew over the keyboard.
"That idiot Ranger is back! Night-Stalker's charging him. He's actually charging him. Oh wow, he's almost there. Wait, the Ranger's setting something down. That's a trap, it has to be a trap!"
Let-There-Be-Light did not dare turn around. The boss fight with Gulu was at its most delicate phase, and one mistake could mean a wipe. Still, he skimmed the frantic messages and felt a knot tighten in his stomach. With an elite Murloc behind Flynn and a Ranger in front of him, this was a nightmare scenario. A Frost Trap on the ground would slow him long enough for the Murloc to finish the job.
In theory.
"Oh my god, he dodged it. That's insane. His combo is clean, it's so clean…"
King of Nibelung had indeed placed a Frost Trap at his feet. When triggered, it would coat the target in frost and severely reduce movement speed. To make sure, he fired another arrow.
'Let's see you get out of this,' he thought smugly.
Again, Flynn's dagger flicked upward, knocking the arrow aside. The system still registered partial damage, shaving a small portion off his health, but the hit had lost most of its bite.
Before King of Nibelung could process what he was seeing, Flynn was already in front of him. He stepped left with uncanny precision, avoiding the trap entirely as if he had watched it being laid in slow motion.
Borg's Fang slashed across the Ranger's throat.
"Keen Strike."
The neck was a clear weak point. The critical hit carved away a massive chunk of health. Before King of Nibelung could even process the burst of damage, Flynn's feet slid over the stone, and in the blink of an eye he was behind his opponent.
The Ranger reacted at last, shouting as he threw himself forward in a diving roll. It was a defensive instinct meant to escape back attacks and bait an opponent into stepping onto the trap.
He never realized Flynn had already landed two more strikes across his back in that single heartbeat. They were not critical hits, but Borg's Fang bit deep enough to shred a large chunk of his health.
Amy reached the entrance just then. Without breaking stride, she pivoted and fired a Double Shot.
Two arrows thudded into King of Nibelung's back, and his health bar emptied.
He collapsed face-first onto the stone.
Instead of releasing immediately, a line of text appeared above his corpse.
"You can see my traps?"
Dead players could not speak, but they could type.
Flynn paused, then smiled lightly. "When you set it, you crouched like you were placing something on the ground. You used the same Frost Trap earlier. It wasn't hard to guess."
There was a long pause.
Then the body dissolved into particles of light. He had revived at the respawn point.
The trap, however, remained. Deployed skills did not vanish just because their owner died. Moments later, the pursuing elite Murloc stomped directly onto it. Frost erupted across its scales, slowing it dramatically.
Flynn was clipped by the edge of the effect as well. He tried to retreat, but the elite's heavy strike still connected, knocking a third off his health bar.
'Enough kiting.'
He turned and met the Murloc head-on, circling tightly, as his blades flashed in controlled arcs. He could not dodge every swing, but he avoided enough. After downing a basic health potion, he committed fully to the duel.
For a full minute, it was steel against scale.
Then Gulu fell, bursting apart in a shower of loot. Items scattered across the stone, several glowing with a faint green light. Amy's elite dropped as well. Flynn's target, which had already been whittled down by hundreds of health points from his solo assault, was quickly focused and finished by the rest of the party. It even dropped two green items of its own.
"He's actually a monster," Amy murmured, unable to hide her admiration. "He could probably solo one of these."
Except for Hair-Stays-Perfect, who was still on his corpse run, the group erupted in excitement.
"Light, how many greens is that? Five?"
The loot from Gulu and the first elite still lay on the ground. Items would not despawn for at least twenty minutes, so there was no rush. Now that the final elite was dead, all eyes turned toward the spoils. This was the heart of any game. Kill, level, gear up. Everything else was secondary.
Let-There-Be-Light, as party leader under the Leader Loot setting, was the only one who could collect the drops. He gathered everything into the temporary loot window, counted carefully, then announced in the party channel, "Five green items. Nine white. Some crafting materials. One gold, twenty-three silver. Quest item's already in your bags."
Sure enough, each of them found a rust-covered key resting in their inventory.
—
Rusty Key (Quest Item):
Leads to a hidden cellar somewhere in the Starter Zone.
—
"Huh," someone muttered. "Wait. There's more. What's this…"