Mel chaired the meeting. “So, who’s going to be part of the slayer team?”

  Kim had a suggestion. “Can we put Gabriel on the front?”

  “Aww, is the little baby scared? It’s alright. Big brother Gabe will shield your cowardly ass from the Errant.”

  “Gabriel, shut up. Seriously now, any suggestions?”

  The jokes went back and forth for a while until Mel threatened to step down from her leadership position if we weren’t going to listen to her anyway. That sobered everyone up. Since I’d spent the last month observing everyone fight, I had quite a few suggestions to make and raised my hands in mock surrender, getting down to business.

  “Jill up front. She’s our best fighter by far…” It was painful to admit, but her System shenanigans combined with the stunning growth of her combat proficiency put her at the top of the murder pyramid. She’d been affectionately nicknamed Kristen 2.0, although in truth the skill gap was huge. Her defenses were balanced, she hit like a truck full of bricks and counter gave her bursts of alacrity which exceeded even speed fighters.

  With some proper teamwork, we could trigger it on demand too. Her propensity for the dragonsteel halberhammeraxe, officially her personal weapon now, also upped her area denial capability. She was hard to approach in general, making her well-suited for solo action. The only reason she hadn’t torn everyone apart during sparring was because she practiced hand-to-hand in case of cramped corridors.

  “Then Elias behind as team leader…” Elias was stone cold and would keep to the mission no matter what. Excellent traits in a squad commander for the same reasons I’d assigned him to the job before. Having two lovers fight together might maybe entice them to fight a little harder too, although whether the Spartan principles actually worked with these two in particular remained questionable at best.

  Moreover, his bruiser ability, infest, increased in effectiveness the closer he got. It was one of the more versatile abilities, but decaying shit away was his most common use. As a result, getting past the guy proved nigh impossible and it provided something of a defensive aura for nearby allies, particularly against shrapnel. His stolen quality 100-something sling extended his range as well. The rest of his looted gear left him extremely well equipped to boot. Rather than wear plate, he preferred layers of lighter armor.

  “With Kim to cover them…” An endurance mage was absolutely essential for a team to function and Kim had a ‘darkness’ cantrip now which mimicked the trademark Errant trick of hiding, in this case an area, until a detection bubble bumped into it. He held another predetermined spot.

  The cantrip was crucial for our planned approach of the ice pentagon, especially combined with his illusion high-magic, which created cheap, controllable ‘false havens’ while also faking ‘sanctuaries’, so proper decoys. To top it off, he too picked war magic, grabbing the suppression effect from the small groups category. Like me, he’d gone all in on the min-maxing route, but with a focus on recon and utility. He also manipulated the suppressive area of effect rather adeptly, wearing it nonstop like a cloak of inky, swirling blackness. Basically, the dude went full mall ninja.

  “I’m next in line since I can shoot into melee. We definitely need an endurance fighter to free up the offense, for holding ground and to watch our rear in hallways. I kind of want a blender too but we’re out.” ‘Blender’ was slang for my class but melee focused. Our mace mage kicked it in the games.

  Elias chimed in before I could finish, “A second power fighter would work but I do not think Jeb plans to fight anymore.” Even though everyone fought like a rabid badger nowadays, it didn’t mean they wanted to. About half had essentially taken up non-combat roles. They still planned to do some controlled leveling on the side.

  His words spawned a chaotic discussion, but raising my voice overpowered it before Mel started nuking people, or worse, herself. “We’re also lacking a scout, area offense, and crowd control. I’m thinking a speed fighter, a binder and another mage.”

  “Gabe, maybe you could explain why before you dictate the entire group composition?” Thanks, Jen. We totally didn’t plan this beforehand. She delighted in conspiracy, the pettier the better. It was no wonder we worked so well together.

  “Right. So here’s the deal. We’re expecting hallways for phase one, right? Because we have defenders, we need someone to search around while the turtles slow-walk everywhere. Hallways usually lead to rooms and the pentagon is huge. That’s where the area offense comes in. Since things will inevitably go to hell at some point, we’ll probably want someone who can ease the situation at least temporarily while we adapt, or if we want to reposition, or if we need to lay traps and whatnot. Binder covers all of those. Also those are the roles we can fill, so...”

  “A bomber might slot in nicely too,” Kim said. Shut your emo ass up.

  “I ain’t fuckin’ goin’, if that’s what you’re askin’, had enough of battles for a while,” Barry replied. Killing left a sour taste in his mouth and no matter how hard he tried, he failed to wash it away.

  “What about you, Abi?” Mel asked.

  “I’m not ready for this, unlike you all - I hid during the battle royale. I won’t retire from combat, but there’s a long road ahead and I need to walk before I run.” Fair enough, the whole point of having frontrunners was so others could pace themselves.

  We eventually found the required volunteers. Kwame, the dreadlocked acid power mage, took up the caster slot. I could’ve sworn he was a speed mage, but one of his skills was unimaginatively called ‘line’, doing what it said on the tin. His ability to delete multiple opponents at once had been proven at the river crossing. His bonus point had gone into physical speed, negating typical mage weaknesses to an extent. He’d already been coming into his own back then, and never really stopped improving.

  Carlos, the formerly quiet watchtower guard, happened to be a binder. He also discovered something new about himself during the games, having an epiphany of sorts. Not only did he quite enjoy killing in inventive ways, but he was incredibly good at it too. His style was to, in his own previously rare words, ‘give someone just enough rope to hang themselves with and then kick out the chair’. It meant he specialized in figuring out traps and then baited his enemies into them. He was also pretty smart and we probably lacked some brainpower in our lineup.

  He both hung out with the nerds a lot and held the record for most coliseum puzzles solved – twenty-seven in all. How he averaged more than a conundrum per hour beat the hell out of me. He picked up some ink along the way, not of the permanent kind though.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Rather, he chose sequencing low-magic, allowing him to store premade… sequences, in his skin. It was like programming but for his binder bullshit and a sub-category of ritual magic. I had overlooked it during my browsing. A shame, since it sounded pretty interesting.

  Our speed fighter was a Norwegian named Noah with an overgrown Viking haircut, braided beard, and one partially tatted sleeve. He mostly kept to himself until he started drinking, at which point he did anything but.

  I should have recognized him as another river crossing veteran, where he chucked the big spear, although it wasn’t his preferred fighting style. In all fairness, the dude liked exploring various weapons and claimed a long history of martial arts. But his achievements didn’t end there.

  If we had a trophy for bloodlust, he would own it, beating even me at my worst. Apparently my recollection of the games inspired him to copycat tweety and he hunted down all nine other participants, butchering them like cattle before even making it a quarter ways down. He was all-in on PS and crafted a ton to raise it even further, closing in on an astronomical 600. He and Jeb were famed chatter-slash-drinking buddies in the factory. Unbeknownst to me at the time, he had helped out with the sabot round as well. So technically, he almost killed me too. I guess slaughter comes naturally to some people.

  One of Jen’s other friends, a soft-spoken Middle Eastern lady in her early twenties and unimaginatively named Cleo after the famous pharaoh, took up the endurance fighter spot. She’d also done a Jill and cut her formerly long hair much shorter, mostly out of necessity. Alas, her lightly waving black former mane always curled up at the end. Jen always mentioned how she wouldn’t shut up about it. The reason for her metamorphosis was rooted in her equipment.

  She wore heavily spiked armor into battle and preferred double daggers over a fuck-off sized shield. I found it somewhat ironic and amusing because she was a hugger. Supposedly, dressing in full plate negated most disadvantages of knife-fighting, hence her preferences, as it was an art already mastered by her. She’d chosen to enhance her physical power and was, quite frankly, a whirlwind menace in close combat. I didn’t know much else about her, preferring to stay away from women with knives and a tendency to get in close.

  And thus we assembled our slayer squad. Mel adjourned the meeting so everyone else could get on with their lives, while the chosen reconvened in a few hours for the fine print. Occupational hazards will include repeated maiming, an uncanny appreciation for brutality and possibly death. Even though we were the designated kill-team, a small chunk of our remaining manpower would follow along in part, functioning as logistical support for setting up camp, performing repairs, all that jazz. As the vanguard, we enjoyed some extra benefits, such as priority access to the armory.

  Our equipment stockpile benefitted greatly from our romp in the games. The haul was insane. Quite a few, not just Noah, chose the aggressive route. They relentlessly hunted down the opposition, sometimes even waited out the portals at the end to make sure no one slipped out after them. Ah, ah, aah – no survivors allowed. Now give me your stuff. Although fellow humans were spared, except for a few deeply unfortunate cases. Weirdly enough, the lethality rate had dropped with far fewer alien participants in the latest round and they hadn’t amounted to much in general. Along the way, we’d collected a fair bit of news from around the world.

  The long and short of it was that everyone and everything in the northern hemisphere was utterly fucked, especially during the eclipse, while those in the south generally fared better. Jen was still piecing everything together and a notice would go up once she finished. The difficulty lied in figuring out where exactly everyone was, based on vague descriptions - even if our folks had gone in with a plan for that. I skipped out on the details but the idea was that if they wanted safety and a community which had their shit together, then Freeport was the place to be, about five months from now. Just look for the dragon wing heart-guard, and try not to die in the seventies zone.

  Unfortunately, I had no reason to grab a share from the stockpile. Most of the gear was fucking weird. There were only two swords, both circa quality 100, which already rested in my sheath, along with an emergency toy - a bona-fide dragonsteel blade, only to be used as a last resort. The sabot round concept could suck a dick for a while. I had quite enough of blowing myself up for one lifetime. Breathless had something else in the planning stages for me, but focused on his own long-awaited addition for now. Normally delayed gratification irked me, but only a mention of the two being related changed irritation into joyous anticipation.

  Most of the looted armor ended up heavily damaged, so we prioritized weapons for phase one while Jeb & Co repaired the rest during our absence. Well, due to the rigged nature of the selection process, most who bothered had already been allotted their own high-end stuff. The replacements were mostly intended to fill in the gaps.

  The crew trickled back in, ahead of schedule for once, and Mel ushered us in. A map of carefully aligned wrappers decorated the notice board, with written notes and pin markers all over. She brooked no interruptions and carefully explained the way we were going to do this, fully on the warpath. In proper fashion, she looked the part too in what we had come to associate with mage threads.

  She wore her jeans and the black turtleneck on top still, but she had her own combat gear despite not actually fulfilling a fighting role. We all demanded as such due to her leadership position, even before the games. It was standard mage stuff, since they were unable to wear proper armor. An up-magicked cotton ‘robe’ appeared underneath here and there when she moved, albeit mostly form-fitting rather than flowing, kind of like a diver suit. They were a bitch to make but unavoidable due to the nonsensical restrictions. Kim and Kwame had one too.

  “In phase one, we’re going to start slow, moving up to our side of the river with everyone in tow and set up base camp there. Only you eight will cross, first eliminating any patrols and then breaching the ice fort. While sweeping the zone, Jill will be on priority leveling, the rest of you are backup in case she gets into trouble. Afterwards, focus on efficiency. We’re assuming it can be destroyed like the castle in the sky. Hopefully it can be done from the inside - otherwise we’re going to have to get creative. Any questions?”

  Kwame raised his hand. “If we can’t break it from the inside, how are we going to destroy it?”

  “A fortune in double overcharges and plenty of lost bodyparts. Anything else?” Silence. “Good, for the approach it’s imperative that you find the crater where Joel died,” well, now I knew our lost assassins name, “since it’ll signal the edge of the long range defenses. Hopefully Kim’s plan works and you can proceed from there, otherwise you’ll return to base camp and reconvene. Jen will use her telepathy to stay in touch. If the link breaks in a bad situation then you’ll retreat, but otherwise not. Everyone with me so far?”

  She swept her gaze over our little team, making eye contact with everyone. I winked, pissing her off substantially. “I’m telling Jen about that.”

  “And you think she’ll mind?”

  “Say one more word, I dare you.” Serious now, better shut up.

  “Thought so. Once phase one is complete, we’ll move on to phase two. Base camp will travel along the mountain ridge while you guys systematically clear saturated zones by ranging downhill. We’re planning to avoid the vinesnaps and bamboo zone but everything else dies. You’ll clear the growthstone crags, the phaseworm plains, the forest of death and finally the bunnycrab sphere, making sure to distribute the levels. Clear?”

  We all nodded. “That will mark the end of phase two. We’ll re-evaluate there and base camp should receive a resupply somewhere around that time from HQ, including an experimental weapons deployment platform. We might send you down to solo’s for more levels because everything after this is unknown territory. You will explore ahead on your own, exploiting opportunities on the way. Once again, what remains of basecamp will trail behind, but most will have returned because we need the manpower for our part.” She paused, clearly both excited and slightly jittery.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, you’re going to find and kill that fucking dragon. I want to mount it’s head on a giant goddamn pike for all to see.”

  Cleo spoke up, “How are we supposed to manage that?”

  Mel smiled. “Ryan is prototyping a single-shot railgun.”

  This time, we whistled.

  That’ll do the trick. Medieval motherfucker, meet technology.