Sealed into a tight space by a giant wasp thing.

‘Transformation event’ Cycle of Life.

Maya’s mind immediately jumped to the worst possibilities she could imagine. Surely she was overreacting. This was an allegedly child-safe world, for all that it was populated with humans and therefore inherently unsafe, so the game itself wouldn’t have anything too disturbing.

Right?

The stun effect wore off. Maya immediately started trying to break through the dark substance blocking the entrance, but the alcove restricted her movements too severely for her to gain any leverage or momentum.

She also couldn’t get her hands into position for any spellcasting aside from Spark. Curses on whoever invented somatic casting requirements! She tried Spark, threw it against the thick papery wall, but it was not flammable enough to react satisfactorily.

The Vasp Queen’s laughter still echoed through the walls.

"Bo? Bethel? Justa? You still in here?" Maya called.

"Yes," Bo and Justa both answered. Good. At least they could still hear each other, if a bit muffled.

"Bethel?" Maya called a bit more loudly.

"I think she opted out," Justa said. "Not that I blame her."

"Any idea what’s going on?" Maya asked. "You’ve been here before."

"Never like this. This is weird."

"I like it," Bo said. "Breaks the monotony."

"If it’s monotonous go somewhere else," Justa said.

"Nah, I’ve got plenty to do here yet before moving on."

"Is there anything we should do now?" Maya asked. The Vasp Queen had fallen silent at last, only the buzzing of her wings and ominous rustling sounds could be heard.

"Not die," Justa said with great gravity.

"Thanks."

They were quiet a long moment.

"She’s not going to, like, lay eggs in us or something creepy like that, right?" Maya asked, unable to stop thinking it.

"No, of course not," Bo said at once.

"It’s not that kind of world," Justa agreed. "If you’re into that kind of thing, try 12038."

Bo scoffed. "I don’t want to know why you know that."

"No you do not." Justa sounded quite smug.

"So what is going to happen?" Maya asked, before they could really get started. "I assume we’re not going to stay trapped here forever."

"Probably not."

Maya tried to think of any kind of cycle of life that didn’t involve them being eaten, and failed to come up with any. "You’re sure we’re not going to be baby wasp dinner?" she asked a bit tremulously.

"Yes," both her fellow prisoners echoed as one. "Not that kind of world," Justa repeated.

"I do wish whatever it is would hurry up and happen," Justa complained after several more minutes. "If we’re late getting to the Gorgon’s Gorge, all the good spawns will be taken and we’ll have to wait another day."

Maya rolled her shoulders, feeling uncomfortably cramped in the enclosed space. Something clinked as she bumped against the stone, and she froze.

"Did you hear that?"

"No, what?"

They were all silent, then Maya shifted again.

*clink*

"Is it getting brighter in here, or is it just me?" Bo asked.

Maya blinked, and realized that it was brighter. Not by much, but she could make out the outline of the material closing them in, differentiate it from the stone. "Yeah, it is. What do you think’s happening out there?"

Her feathers itched and she was starting to feel cramped. She shifted, trying to get more comfortable.

*clink scrape*

"Probably the boss is laughing at us for being gullible," Justa posited, then coughed loudly several times. "Sorry, dust or something. You should clean these things once in a while, Miss Stingy Wing!"

Maya laughed weakly, then swayed dizzily against the stone of the alcove. It wasn’t just her stomach feeling weird now, she felt vertigo, like she was standing with her back to the edge of a cliff.

"Is anyone else really bothered the longer they think about the fact that it was called a transformation event?"

"Nah, 9352 is as tame as they come. It’ll be something fun, trust me."

"Right now I’m very bored," Justa responded, voice rasping. "If they’re trying to get me to opt out, they should have put a BOREDOM warning up front."

"You have the attention span of a six year old."

"Are you judging underage uploaders? You hypocrite."

"No, I’m judging you."

Then Bo started coughing as well, while Maya tried very hard not to pass out.

"Are we—" Maya started, but was interrupted by sudden intense itching in her throat, that set her coughing violently.

"For there to be balance, there must be life!" The Vasp Queen’s voice echoed through the cavern, loud enough to override the increasingly desperate coughing of those trapped in its walls. "Rise and prove yourselves of value. If you succeed, I will reward you upon my return. Now, come forth!"

Maya felt decidedly unwell, and the closed in space was really starting to get to her. She lunged for the former opening, and to her surprise it tore as easily as thin cardboard. She flopped out onto the floor of the cavern where she lay for a long moment, gasping and unsteady, vision weirdly distorted as she tried to regain her equilibrium.

"Oh," Justa rasped. "I see."

Event Mission: The Vasp Queen needs time to repopulate her swarms. Your party has been granted control of the region under her power for the next 38 hours. Ensure the safety of the Vasp Queen to prove yourselves.

Maya got up onto all fours, and realized that her body had become coated in a thick glossy carapace. It mimicked the shape of her body and feathers, the patterns similar, but the colours shifted to black and red. Fur coated the back of her hands and arms, somehow growing in the shape of her feathers, leading to an odd mixed impression.

She stood unsteadily, the cavern blurring at the edges of her vision, which seemed wider than usual.

"This is weird." Bo’s voice rasped, but she sounded almost awed. "Stria, you look good in black."

Bo’s raptor chirped and clinked up against the ranger’s lizardine-shaped black and red-furred side, seeming unbothered by its master’s transformation.

"I was expecting worse," Maya admitted, flexing her black-shelled fingers. "Is it permanent?"

"Probably not." Justa sounded disappointed. Maya had to admit, the new look was especially striking on the already insectoidal sprite.

"So, we’re the area bosses now?" Bo tapped the air a few times, then frowned. "Wait, it’s a marathon event? I have to leave in another couple hours. I don’t have time for a marathon."

"I can stay the whole time," Maya said. "I had a couple other things scheduled but they’re not important. If you want to log in when you can, I think we can do this."

"You realize in another couple hours the place will be swarming with other players, right?" Justa asked.

"Well, so what?"

"So, fighting other players isn’t like fighting NPCs. NPCs don’t have equipment bonuses. They don’t strategize the same ways. It’s very different."

"I know that. But we have dungeon resources, right?" Maya mentally summoned any panels relevant to the new mission, and quite a few popped up at once in response.

"What’s the transformation bar for, you figure?" Bo asked. "Aesthetic, stats, or what?"

The moment Maya started to wonder what she meant, the bar stood out immediately.

Shared Transformations: Decoy Queen (1 remaining), Drone (100 remaining), Soldier (20 remaining)

Personal Transformations: Guardian (active)

"I’m going to test this," Bo said.

A moment later she shifted in place, transforming into a standard vasp drone. She flew around, bumping into things, then transformed back into her guardian form.

"Okay, my ability bar changed while I was in drone form, and my base stats were significantly shifted. Equipment bonuses carried over, though. It doesn’t use up a slot to activate it, at least not for so short a time."

"I’m guessing it’s lives," Justa suggested.

"Probably so. Guardian said one remaining when I was in Drone, so I think we only get one chance in these forms."

"So, when we die, instead of respawning, we’ll be able to switch into a different one of these transformations to continue the defence?" Maya asked.

Having witnessed Bo switch back and forth so casually relieved a lot of her concerns. This actually sounded like it could be a lot of fun.

"Presumably." Bo kept waving her hands through the air, flipping through her interface.

Maya returned her attention to the available screens as well, scanning them briefly. A moment later, the transformation bar shifted slightly, and she glanced over to it. Drone had dropped down to 99 remaining. She turned to look around, and saw a drone hovering beside Justa.

"Justa! What are you doing?"

Justa shrugged. "Found the summon button. Or do you want us to be limited to waves of 3 at max?"

"If we start summoning willy-nilly we’ll run out very quickly," Maya pointed out. "Do you think the AI can run them better than we can?"

"Not better, but differently," Justa said. "AIs are good at this sort of thing, and more importantly it’ll prevent us from looking too out of place. If word gets around that it’s a PvP dungeon event? We’ll be swarmed before we even figure out what we’re doing. We need to keep it as close to the default instance as possible. That way, we can spring surprises on them when they get complacent, and they won’t know what hit ‘em."

"Surprisingly well thought-out point." Bo summoned a pair of drones and a soldier. "You three, go hide in the ceiling. Be ready to drop down and attack at our signal."

The summons did as commanded without hesitation.

Bo grinned. "Yeah, I think we can do this. At least until we have to go." She glanced uneasily at Justa, who was frowning at invisible interface elements. "Are you alright with this?" she asked.

"Hm? Oh, yes. I don’t have my heart set on the Gorgon’s Gorge, this is a fine substitute. It does make me wonder what else we’re missing out on. Every time I think we’ve got this game figured out, something new shows up."

Bo frowned. "Are you copying this onto the wiki?" she demanded, hands on her red-furred hips. "Right now? At least wait until we’ve finished the quest first!"

Maya stopped pretending to read her menu screens and turned curiously to the ice mage.

Justa shrugged. "I won’t commit until we’re done, but this is new info. We can’t keep this to ourselves."

"We don’t even know what triggered it!" Bo exclaimed, and her raptor hissed and chirped in oblivious agreement.

"That’s fine. Someone will figure it out."

Maya pursed her lips, trying to figure out how to handle this. The World 9352 wiki was notoriously useless, but there had been a large influx of new players recently. It wasn’t surprising some of them wanted to improve the public information available. But it was unfortunate she had to be in a group with one. Strange things tended to happen around tricksters, and if Justa and Bo stayed around for long she might not be able to hide her involvement indefinitely.

With a 38-hour quest, there would be far too many opportunities for her to slip up. Especially—

Oh. Oh dear. She had practically guaranteed a poor start to tomorrow, stacking up her luck debuff to -20. She’d been planning to wait out the 18 hours until it wore off at -100, but with an ongoing dungeon assault to run, she couldn’t afford to. If she didn’t roll immediately at midnight, they’d probably wipe.

How did the Path of Life cycle quest work? Would giving it an honest effort be sufficient, like with the Trickster’s quests? Or did she need to succeed at all costs?

A problem to be solved later. Bo and Justa’s ongoing argument, which Maya had been ignoring, suddenly cut off as something else demanded everyone’s attention.

Alert! Incoming player invasion. Decoy Queen must be in place within 1 minute. Prepare for encounter.

"Oh. That was fast." Bo glanced over at her raptor, who stood grinning in the corner. "What to do about you, Stria. Can I apply the transformations— oh, look at that." Her companion creature popped into a small drone form, buzzing smugly around her in a circle. "You’re so clever," Bo said in a very different voice, petting the drone on its head. "Try to keep out of danger. I don’t know what’ll happen if you’re killed."

Stria bared her overlarge vasp fangs, fur bristling.

"Oh, fine, I know you’ll never be able to stay out of a fight. Alright, you can attack, but only from behind or when they’re distracted. I don’t want you getting killed."

"We’ve only got twenty seconds to decide who’s taking the decoy," Justa pointed out. "Anyone want it, or shall I?"

Maya shrugged. "I don’t care."

Bo waved toward Justa in affirmation, and a moment later the sprite popped into the Vasp Queen’s form. It loomed over them, then fluttered up to the ceiling and flew around in uneven circles for a moment before settling onto the ceiling with its wings folded like it had been before they’d entered the room. Maya had a hard time associating the simultaneously lithe and bulbous creature with the sprite who’d recruited her.

"You should get changed," Bo said, then popped into a soldier form and flew up to lurk in the ceiling cavities. Maya chose a drone for herself, then spent several seconds trying to figure out how to fly. She did it by instinct at first, not knowing what she was doing, but the moment she started to think about what she was doing she lost it and flopped to the ground.

Don’t think about it. She tried to focus on the what and not the how, and it seemed to help. When she tried to move up and to the right, her wings fluttered of their own volition and she moved there. When she tried to think about how she was doing it, her flight faltered and she struggled to stay upright.

Player invasion imminent.

No more time to practice. She flew up to the ceiling and landed, oddly nervous and excited. Time to see what their first set of opponents would be.