Our first six matches were blowouts. It seemed like no other team could counter our combos and our research. The first team we fought tried. They'd clearly studied up on us, and decided to lock down Alpha and Sam, which would have been a great strategy, except I invoked Blessing of Fleet Feet and removed the movement snares they'd been trying to use. After that, it was a rout.

By the time we were facing our last match of the day, we'd reached level 10. "Right," said Pete. "Look at our standings."

We all put up the listing. Our team was perched right on the edge of the 20% cutoff. We all knew what it meant. I met the grim faces of my teammates. If we won this last match, we were going to Ganymede. If we lost, we were going home. Maybe there'd be a second chance, but I didn't want to bet my legs on it.

We had a few minutes before the match started. "The good news is the other team's only a five-player team like us," Rose said.

Pete looked at her sharply. "Are you sure? They're listed as having six."

She grinned. "Yes, but I spoke with one of their team members last night. He was complaining how one of their players had got cold feet. She didn't want to go to Ganymede after all."

"So they're down a player today," Pete checked their stats. "That explains why they've lost their last three rounds. They're going to be desperate to stay in this. If they win, they'll make the cutoff, just like us." This one was going to be bitter. "Do you know which player left?"

Rose nodded. "Their rogue."

I looked at the roster of our opponents and my stomach sank. This was Amber's team. I was going to have to go up against her. As we prepared for the match, I checked my messages. I usually didn't bother because I didn't want to get into that headspace. Nothing from Amber. I sent her a quick note: "Sorry it's come down to this. I'm going to play as hard as I can, and I know you'll do the same. No hard feelings either way."

"Okay," Pete said. "Strategy time.”

“We're going to be facing them on the Gold Mine map," I said. We'd had a few battles on the Gold Mine map already. It was a narrow maze of tunnels spanning three levels with ladders and elevator shafts, slopes that got you from one to another, tight corners and bad vision. Sam and I had spent quite a lot of time in the mines last night. "We need to go for cheese. I have some ideas."

"What's your idea?" Pete asked.

Sam and I laid it out. I could see Alpha was interested. She kept nodding and tapping her foot.

Pete whistled. "That's risky."

Rose shook her head. "No way. This is our chance for a straight-up fight."

"In the mines?" Sam asked skeptically. "You really think they're going to stay put for that?"

"We don't need cheese to win," Rose insisted. "We're good enough to face them without it."

Alpha stepped toward her, reaching a hand out and then letting it fall to her side. "I know you're afraid," she said quietly. "You think that you've got a reputation to uphold, but you don't. You've already proved yourself to us, and that's what matters. Rose, you're better at implementing someone else's strategies than anyone I've ever met."

“That's right," I said, stepping in. "You can do this."

She managed a smile. “Implementing someone else’s strategies? Is that what I do?”

“And we’re going to need it now, because this relies on you,” I said.

She took a deep breath, looking me in the eyes, then nodded. “All right, Colin. What’s your line?”

I grinned. “Keep calm and cheese on.”

We zoned into the mine, onto a descending wooden elevator that rattled and shook as it dropped below. Amber's team would be in another elevator on the opposite side of the mine. There were about two kilometers of passages that looped around each other in a confusing maze. Sam and I had mapped the whole thing out. We sent it to the team now.

"This isn't as bad as I thought," Rose said. "The mini-map is deceptive. The other time we were here I was so busy getting my face smashed in I didn’t get a sense of the layout.”

“The devs have hidden the fact that we essentially have three levels here," I said. "We'll be zoning in on the bottom level. There's a short tunnel next to us with the ladder that leads up to the top level. Just to the left of that is the passage that slopes up to level two. That's where we break up."

To encourage team brawling, rather than just sneaking around looking for opportunities to gank each other, this map had a win condition besides just wipe out the other team. If one team blew up the ore carts in the center of the mine here on the bottom level, they would win.

To do that, we needed dynamite, lots of it. I immediately split off from the rest of the team. I looped upward to the powder room on the top floor. There was a big combination lock on a huge brass door, like from an old-timey bank vault, sealing off the dynamite cache here. It was supposed to be a mini-game. It made a great place for an ambush, but I'd already worked out a way around the puzzle.

I hit the door with a healing spell, which caused me to be able to see, as though I were treating a patient’s injury, the position of all the tumblers. I quickly spun the combination, keeping alert to anyone behind me. The door slipped open under my touch. I leapt inside and looted all of the dynamite into my inventory.

Now I had to get back to the team. Rose had gone right to the load of ore in the center, with Alpha there to back her up. I'd buffed them both with a blessing of protection from Patron Dispoli, who gave them a shield they could use at will. I hurried back to join them.

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Meanwhile, Sam and Pete were scouting through the second level of the mine, where they caught two of our opponents out of position. Pete hit them with an electrified baseball, but they were expecting that and had a counter spell. Sam followed up with an ice cast that hit just as their counter went down, freezing them in place.

He and Pete took out one of the pair before retreating as the second unfroze. Since the other was their tank, they had to get clear before they got locked down and caught out. But now we were up a man, 5-4. I hadn’t spotted Amber yet, and kind of hoped I wouldn’t.

"Second floor passage is clear," Pete said as I caught up to them. He dropped down the ladder to the bottom floor. I followed carefully, with Sam taking up the rear.

I had just reached the ground when Sam screamed. He fell past me, arms thrown out, whole body frozen. I hit him with a shield spell just as he crashed into the ground, taking a ton of damage. I invoked Berena, patroness of life, to get his health back up as three of the enemy team leapt down the hole after us.

We scrambled back against the walls. They were wearing power boots that kicked up fire and dust as they safely landed. Amber was there in the middle, holding a laser rifle. She wore a helmet with its visor down, and she pointed right at me. I could feel them lock their weapons onto me.

"Get clear!" Pete yelled, pushing me toward the tunnel. I ran as Sam tossed up an ice storm. It was supposed to slow them and hurt their visibility, but it didn't seem to have any effect. I could see their red dots on my minimap as I raced toward Alpha and Rose.

"There's still one more out there," I broadcast to my team. "Keep your eyes peeled."

"He's here!" Alpha shouted back.

As I burst into the wide chamber at the center of the mine, I spotted him. The enemy player was in a big power suit, about eight feet tall. Its enormous bucket helmet brushed the ceiling of the mine tunnel. There were rotary cannons attached to each arm. He was shooting at my teammates, who were both dodging and racing around.

I threw out a speed buff from one of my patrons, at the same time hitting him with a Tangle spell from my base toolkit. I targeted his lower legs. His upper torso still spun, the cannons roaring, but the lower legs didn't. As it reached a far end of its arc, the suit waist groaned with the sound of overstressed metal.

"That's your target!" I told Alpha, highlighting it. She dove in, activating her Berserker mode, which swapped out her twin daggers for an enormous axe. She brought her weapon down hard against the enemy's midpoint, just as Pete reached the tunnel entrance behind us.

He had a ball ready to go, tossed it up, and smacked it with his bat right into the mech suit’s head. It exploded with a gout of flame and a loud bang. The enemy player teetered. Rose rushed in. She smashed her warhammer against the mech suit’s knee cap and it tottered over, falling.

Rose and Alpha dove on it, but I was already turning toward the corridor. I could see enemy dots behind us, but not Sam's. I took my combat log real quick and cursed. Sam had fallen.

We were back on even terms, but not for long. Rose and Alpha demolished the mech, and as its user emerged from the protected center chassis, Alpha switched back to rogue and stepped in behind him, slipping daggers up under his ribcage.

Pete turned back to the tunnel as I shouted a warning. He lobbed another baseball forward. There was another explosion. The whole mine shook, a cloud of dust bursting through the tunnel, concealing our enemies.

"Retreat," I yelled.

"We've got the explosives," Rose said. "Let's use them."

"They are channelled. We don't have time."

We all dodged away down a tunnel. I shouted directions to my team and we followed a twisting path back up to the second floor. I kept an eye on my minimap, breathing heavily. “Either we hunt down and take them all out, or we get off the explosion. It's a 30-second channel, and any damage will interrupt it.”

"I say we take them," Rose said confidently. "It's four to three. We've got the numbers advantage."

Pete was shaking his head. "Not without Sam to slow them down. You didn't see that fight. They are powerhouses. They've got their tank and two damage dealers, and I think the tank has some restoration abilities because he was keeping up the others. Their range is way longer than mine, too."

"All right," I said, panting. "This is what we're going to do." I checked my map and smiled. "This is going to work," I said. "See how we damaged that tunnel when Pete hit his ball? We've got this."

In pairs of two, we raced about the mine, placing bundles of my dynamite at strategic junctures. The enemy was a pack of three hunting us. If they caught either of our teams, it would be bad. Rose and Alpha reported that they'd set their last bundle, just as Pete and I set ours.

"All right. Blow it.” I activated the dynamite. Thirty seconds felt like an eternity but finally the whole mine rumbled. Dust clouds filled the air as the shaking went on and on. Beams collapsed behind us, and whole tunnels caved in. I checked my map, hoping it had somehow caught the enemy team, but it hadn't. I received a quick message from Amber.

"Nice trick, but now we have to kill each other since you've just blocked off the ore deposit. Fine with me. You're the one who had all the dynamite."

Their dots blinked out. They were using a stealth ability. "Be on the lookout," I warned the others. "They just went dark."

Pete and I headed for our next rendezvous. Just as we'd reached it, Alpha shouted a warning. "They're here! They—!”

I saw the mini-map dots appear. Alpha and Rose were two corridors away, not far at all. I could hear the screams and sounds of gunshots and weapons clashing from here. I turned to Pete. "Do it! We’re out of time!”

“I sure hope you’re right.”

I stood right in the center of the room as Pete pulled out another baseball. He tossed it up in the air in front of him and slammed it with his bat. The ball arced right toward me. As it was about to hit, I invoked Ghost Lady Varmage, patron of spectres, and we all went incorporeal. That was the key. Incorporeal meant I could pass through certain barriers at will.

Pete raced away toward the girls. The baseball dropped right through me, hitting the ground beneath my feet. It blew a hole in the floor, disrupting the boundary between floors, and I dropped one floor below into the supposedly sealed off mine room.

I raced to the undisturbed mine carts, placing my dynamite around them. Pete sent me a message. "One down, but he got Rose." A second later, "Alpha's down."

Then my combat log recorded Pete as dead. There were only two of the enemy left, Amber and the other damage dealer. Amber sent me a message.

"Sorry, Colin. You're a great kid, but this is over now. Why don't you make it easy and come on out?"

I was already ten seconds into channeling the dynamite. I didn't answer.

"I can see you. Where are you? Oh, you little shit!" They were right above me. Amber was sprinting toward the hole in the floor. Ten seconds to go. Amber launched herself through the hole. I couldn't do anything. She pointed her gun as she fell toward me. If she hit me, I'd reset, and we lost.

Fortunately, it worked just as I’d hoped. Amber bounced off an invisible ceiling back up into the level above.

"What the fuck? Colin, you wanker!"

The dynamite blew up. We all returned to the lobby. [Match concluded. Victory!] the system informed us.

Rose grabbed me around the waist and spun me around. “We did it! We won!”

Alpha threw back her hood. A grin twisted her scarred face. “I’m going to Ganymede.”

“I’m going to get my legs back!” I cheered, pumping my fist. “You guys were brilliant, you did it exactly right.”

“No, you were brilliant, Colin. We were watching from here. The look on her face when she bounced back - how did you know that would work?” Pete asked.

“Same rules that governed walls. They wanted to make sure we only used designated ladders and chutes. So they slapped up an invisible wall everywhere else. But —”

I was interrupted by the system.

[Please wait. Complaint has been lodged by your opponents. Please wait. We will now go to an adjudication.]