Good armor on this crafter. Hadn’t helped him much.

Troupa the Archer stood over his last victim. He retrieved his Vorpal Arrow, courtesy of the last group they had ganked. In his head, ska music played its shuffle beats. He hummed the melody out loud, in the zone. What an absolute champion.

His drone hovered by his shoulder, buzzing annoyingly. A good match for his build but he hated the thing. Its stupid AI had made so many mistakes since the start of the game. Whished he could kill it himself. Not yet. Still needed it to win this train wreck of a game.

The real blame went to that lucky scout though. They had him for sure. Twice in row. Yet he lived. That cursed cripple. Ran to Art Delvers for protection, had he? Well, that wouldn’t last long. They were in the end game now.

He kicked the dead crafter for the heck of it. The chat approved.

“Smack him good.” Tip | 25$

“Crush their head.”

“Imagine how they feel. Their silly Wonder almost finished, and now they’re all dead.”

What an insane drivel. What was the point? Especially when they didn’t tip.

He kicked the corpse again. No tip for it this time.

Troupa the Archer started on the long flight of stairs to get down the ugly Wonder. Pyramid of the sun or something. The crafters had wasted all their time on it. Built some defenses and all. Like Quad Nail, the absolute champions, gave a crap. They had breached similar builds a thousand of time.

True they were down one player, but not their best anyway.

These stairs were absurdly long.

“Alert! Alert!”

The damn drone was acting again. It pointed far away to the horizon, shaking with panic, its laser lost to the distance.

“Did you bust one for good this time?” said Troupa.

He almost started a good rant but stopped. Was that the orange beacon? The marker for second place. Coming at them. Fast.

He shouted at Armee. She was still swinging at her victim. Much lower that his own position near a broken ballista covered in red pixels.

“Stop wasting you time and look up.”

She swung twice more. Predictable. Looked at him.

He shouted, “someone is coming for us.” He pointed. “Look at the beacon.”

She looked for the beacon. An embarrassing amount of time. Then grunted in amazement like a cavewoman. If it wasn’t for the way she swung that axe, he would have dropped her long ago.

He shouted at her again. “Let’s find Suzoo, we need some crowd control, or he’ll escape again.”

His gaze wondered around the structure, looking for their mage. Always distracted this one. The group wouldn’t survive a single fight without him. That was a given. He was the brain. The damage dealer. An absolute champion.

He caught the orange beam at the corner of his eye. Something was wrong. It had already reached the base of the ziggurat.

“Alert! Alert!”

Troupa punched his Bonded Artifact. He knew already. Useless thing. His honed reflexes picked up his bow. Arrow retrieved from his quiver. Notched. Fingers on the string, he pulled. Raised the missile to eye level. His drone stabilized, targeted the runner.

Here it was. A blur of metal. The cursed thing came in fast. Much too fast. Legs shredding the ambient air. A casual hop to the first step of the temple. That was 15 feet high. The second hop cleared two.

A purple core flew along the runner. Caught in a porcupine ball of… of wands?

Armee found the time to shout in rage. The trail of dust behind the scout pointed straight at to her. The dude attacked their tank first. The fool.

Coils of red rage crackled in and out of the axewoman’s arm. The scout reached her. The two forces met, and she swung. At nothing.

The scout materialized in front of Troupa. Uncomfortably close. Might as well be hugging. Oh. The pink sword was in his stomach. How quaint.

Down there by the ballista, absurdly, a pink puff of neon pixels engulfed Armee as she swirled, carried by the force of her own blow. A beam of concentrated sun hit her in the chest. Burned a hole. She fell to her knees, raged at the sky then fell forward. Dead. In one shot. What was that spell?

Troupa didn’t found out. The scout’s exit slash detached his torso. The archer’s top half flew down to the next temple step. His vision swirled, attached to his limp flesh. His legs stayed up there. Debuffs blinked in panicked red at the bottom of his interface. He was done for. Hadn’t even shot a single arrow. What a joke. They should have killed that scout long ago.

Up there, somewhere, his friend the Witch shrilled. Quickly drowned by loud magical explosions. The temple shook. His own useless torso wiggled.

His Bonded Artefact wandered off. Unconcerned.

What a shit patch.