"I read the tutorial on this," Ven stated as she looked to Nikola for what to do next, "and there is only a chance that we drop our items if we are felled, it is just more likely we drop what's outside of our inventory."

"And what of our equipment?" Nikola's eyes grazed sadly over her set of armour.

"There is a chance it drops when we die, but that chance becomes slim if it's equipped. They have to try to tear it off our bodies while we're still alive." The Mage put a hand over the boned corset-like area of her robes, digging her fingers in. "But we won't let them do that."

The dark-haired fae, who the green one seemed to be deferring to, peered sinisterly at them from behind the doorway. "This is the party that won the Legendary Armour." His lips turned upward. "Good work."

Violet gasped and stepped backward. "But you're-- you shouldn't be allowed to be so nice to somebody you're just going to betray."

"You catch more Legendary Armour with honey than vinegar, sweetheart." The emerald male laughed as he slid the two backpacks off his back, each one thudding densely against the stone.

"But you were kidnapped, how was this just--"

"-- I was tied up by the party whose stuff I stole, but you took care of them for me, so thanks. I may not have been able to take them out on my own." He took his time wrapping his bow in his slender fingers.

The Butcher's fingers began to itch. She slid her finger along the metal backbone of her blade, savouring its weight in her hand. It glittered in the dreamy pink light of the sky. As she stared into it and saw her own eyes reflecting back, she wondered how many of the flower petals she could soak with the blood of the man who was making Violet's face look so sad.

"Luke, prepare your potions for use. Ven, use your spells when you know you can hit two players at once and always use your staff on somebody I've already hit with my Spray of Thorns, and Violet-- do not lose focus on what we came here for. We have found the Village Leader of Sweetstay, now let us evict him."

While green and black were bunched up in the doorway, Nikola sucked a deep breath in and initiated the battle with a [Spray of Thorns] over Violet's shoulder. The quills spurted out of her mouth and fired in a deadly line toward the two, who were still getting their weapons situated in their hands.

The quills poked through their skin and sunk in in a blanket of pain.

"YEEEOWCH!" The emerald fae flapped his arms and blood-tipped needles began to fall to the cobbled walkway, tinging as they hit the rocks.

Happily, Ven listened to her instructions and began to swing her staff at the two human pincushions, each swing producing a [Silver Spike] that shot toward them.

Violet raised her bow and fired singularly at Green, one arrow after the other racing toward his solar plexus.

Luke was racing toward the elf who had emerged from the bushes. He pulled his shield up above the foliage and strengthened his stance in preparation for Luke's onslaught - and there was one. He unloaded his Class Skills in quick succession, and the elf maneuvered to dodge or block about half.

Luke was keen and precise, ducking out of the way of the elf's deft swordsmanship, but every blow that grazed him brought him to his knees. It would be a war of attrition; a higher-level player who underestimated him vs a low-level player who knew how to tuck and roll.

They didn't know how many others were lying in wait in the surrounding houses and bushes. There could be up to five of them in a party, but there was nothing that said two parties of 5 couldn't work together. Were there 10 level 13 players crouched beneath the leaves?

Nikola looked left, and then right. To her great annoyance, there were indeed others wading in to join the fight, but it was in fact more than another mere party of five. Something like thirty people were pattering curiously toward them, with woven baskets of flowers, patterned clothes and toolbelts. They were the working class of the village, the NPCs who roamed.

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But they weren't roaming now.

"Oh my, is something the matter," asked a straw-haired middle-aged woman in the distance.

"Yes! These people are trespassers in the village-- kill them!"

The NPCs responded to the command and rose their baskets, hammers, belts and screwdrivers with a collective roar. There were a few genuine guards among them, who rose a lance, sword or something otherwise pointy. Then they charged, a mass of screaming bodies thudding toward them and shaking the ground as they approached in a wall of flesh.

Ven gasped at the noise and turned her attention toward them, shrinking backward in horror. The most noise she had ever heard at once was threatening to rupture her delicate, thin eardrums and she gripped her staff hard, her fingers whitening.

She had been told to use her spells on larger groups.

She rose her finger and cast a swirling, angry fireball toward the crowd. It scraped across the walkway and smacked into the village folks, knocking a whole swath of them down like bowling pins.

The two fae gave up on removing the pins from their skin and aimed their sword and arrow at Violet respectively, double-teaming her.

She ducked to avoid the arrow that was fired her way with a girlish scream. The motion put her so low to the ground that the first swing also missed her, but the black-haired swordsman re-oriented his second strike.

Nikola couldn't interrupt the arc of the sword in time, but she initiated her [Cleave] just in time to soar over as his blade connected, the sharp line of her blade carving into his flesh at the same time as his second swing drew Violet's blood.

Whose blood was whose quickly became indistinguishable, the space between his neck and shoulder spurting a fountainous stream as the black-haired girl [Crunching Cleaved] over to Mr. Green. The black-haired swordman's arm slumped and he roared as he tried to use it to swing again, his body [Crippled] from her strike.

The emerald fae was the most prepared person she had ever seen in the face of her Butcher Class Skill, firing a nocked arrow into her chestplate as she fluttered through the air. It felt like somebody had punched her in the chest as the arrowhead tore through her armour and dug itself into her tender breastflesh.

Its force slowed her approach considerably but it wasn't enough to keep her from hitting her mark. She sliced her cleaver into whatever spot on his arm was closest and watched his grin morph into a grimace as she used the butt of her hand to drive her weapon in further, but it didn't go in enough to [Cripple] him, ending her chain.

"What the fuck," the winged man swore as he snapped his fingers. His skin started to stitch together where she'd left a clean gash, indicating he'd just used a potion.

"I thought you said you were Level 7."

"I am a Level 7 Rogue," Nikola responded.

"But that-- that wasn't a Rogue skill," he replied with a crease in his brow, perplexed.

Nikola initiated her [Double Attack], and started it off by chopping at his front while he stood there dumbfounded. She connected, but just barely, as he bounced swiftly backward into the house.

"That was," Nikola responded with a grin as she ran away from him, confident her [Double Attack] would bring her back to him. As she sped away, she caught a glimpse at how everyone else was doing.

The villager NPCs were upon them now. Luke was weaving through them as they tried weakly to smack him with whatever they were holding. He had been doing admirably against a stronger foe, whittling his health down, but now that there were more obstacles his focus was split.

He screamed as the red Warrior elf's sword caught his upper arm. Every time he got hit, he was having to speed away and use a potion just to stay in the fight.

His supply had to be thinning considerably by now.

Violet was peppering the [Crippled] black swordsman with arrows. His front side looked all the more amusing with quills and arrows jutting out of it. But just as Nikola's eyes landed on the two of them, Violet's foe initiated a Warrior skill and surged violently forward.

Nikola tried to get to her in time, but her [Double Attack] pulled her back to Green. She felt her feet rise from the stones.

At the same time, Violet exploded into a mist of glittery pixels around the sword that was shoved straight through her.