Maya checked her quickbar to see what abilities she had available. The vasp form had shifted her base stats to its own default, leaving her with an interesting new build. Most of her vasp abilities seemed to be close combat based, but she did have a couple ranged options available.

Sapping Sting, Draining Bite, and Claw were all close range attacks, while Sting Dart and Frost Spit could be used at a distance. Froststrike looked like a converted version of Magestrike, but the somatic requirements were so different from casting as a humanoid that she knew it wouldn’t translate over. It also only targeted the area directly around her in a sphere, so she’d have to get in close to utilize it to full impact.

But it did get her thinking. She really needed another high luck day so she could work on converting her higher level spells. An area attack with cold damage would be so much better for controlling the battlefield! She definitely wanted that available in her non-transformed state.

Three players entered the room, then stopped moving as cutscene mode engaged. For a moment, nothing happened, then the decoy queen dropped from the ceiling to hover above the center of the room.

It had taken a bit to get used to the greatly widened field of view, but it proved itself valuable here. As she clung to the ceiling she could see the entire room below with ease, multifocus simple with her enhanced vision.

"You have come too late, foolish little travelers. My children are many and you are few. Die!"

Then everyone stood frozen for another awkward moment, the cutscene remaining engaged.

Maya thought she saw the decoy queen wince in apology as the scene finally unfroze, but then the players charged and there was no time to think.

The first to enter was a large heavily-built woman with a giant shield in one hand and a club in the other. Her bar appeared on the enemy side of Maya’s interface, followed shortly by those of a two-sword warrior behind her and a felinis ranger behind him.

Lestiayis, level 16, health 100%

PIRATE, level 16, health 100%

Veridin, level 15, health 100%

Okay. Three against three, not terrible odds. Except for the fact that all three of them were over level 15, while Bo was the highest level on their side at 14. Maya’s frankly ridiculous racial bonuses from the glitch that had bumped her to tier 5 would help balance that out, but Justa was still only level 11.

But they also had a hundred summonable minions. That had to count for something.

Maya wanted to ask if they would be replaced after each fight, or if they were supposed to make their initial 100 last the whole 38 hours, but talking was out for the moment.

She watched the other NPC vasps descend, then waited to see how the battle below would play out.

Their NPCs were … not doing well. Not at all. The fight seemed incredibly one-sided. The players were high level enough to put the zone to shame, and they proceeded to do so with brutal efficiency. Maya didn't know what the encounter was supposed to look like, so for now she held back and followed the lead of the two who knew what they were doing. She crawled across the ceiling in her vasp form, getting a feel for how it moved, and found the instincts provided by the game were solid.

Things were not going well at all. Bo was spawning more drones into the ceiling, Justa was fighting as the decoy queen, but made little headway against the well armed and organized party.

Maya waited until they were all facing away, then dropped down behind them to stab them from behind. She got one hit in, dropped the ice-shifted Magestrike at their feet, then flew back up as fast as she could. Not quite fast enough. Their ranger drew a bead on her and an arrow slammed into her body with a dangerously solid force. -22 health. Then Maya slipped out of sight into the safety of the ceiling nest.

"Watch out for surprise attacks from above," Veridin shouted to the others, switching her attack flawlessly back to the false queen. "I think their strategy is scaling up."

"Good," declared the tank, Lestiayis. "It would be boring otherwise."

Maya considered dropping back down, but realized that technically, they were within attack range. She fired her sting dart and ice spit while waiting for Froststrike to cool down.

She dropped down again, leading with a Froststrike the moment they were in range, then following up with Sapping Sting and Draining Bite in quick succession on the ranger. The felinis cursed and started firing rapidly at Maya. Each hit brought her health further down, but she’d begun with over 300 health even with having her stats reshuffled by switching into a different sort of creature.

"Guys, miniboss or something, it’s not going down!" The ranger switched between fast and high power but slower attacks, focusing all her attention on Maya.

Maya mentally smiled. Miniboss, eh? She didn’t mind being called that. Her health was at around two thirds still, but continuing to drop.

The Decoy Queen buzzed up into the air, and summoned another wave of regular vasps. Maya caught sight of Bo and Stria, distinctive by their relative sizes, joining the wave.

She glanced at their summon bar. They’d lost twenty of their hundred drones already. She really hoped the number would reset for future encounters, or they’d be in big trouble. But no time to worry about the future yet. She’d dropped to half health and falling fast. The ranger had been joined by the others and they focused all their energy on the stubbornly not-dying vasp that was Maya.

She kept moving, easily evading any attacks the tank swung at her, but less successful in escaping the ranger. Pirate was also dangerously fast, slashing out with both his swords in rapid flurries of strikes that she couldn’t easily escape.

Still, she dealt a decent amount of damage before they were able to finish her off. None of the invaders were below half health yet, but the ranger was close.

You have been killed by player: PIRATE

Please choose a new transformation.

Drone was greyed out, no longer available. So they only got one chance at each transform? Maya started to select warrior, then frowned. What would happen if she chose Decoy Queen? It seemed to be lit up and available. Should she try it?

No, no she should not. She clicked warrior and her base stats shifted yet again. This form was significantly faster, had more health, but otherwise shared the same abilities as the drone version, only shifted to fire instead of ice. Or maybe the abilities were Maya’s own, and the vasp form she chose wouldn’t impact their base form, only their element.

Either way, she appeared within the hive on the ceiling, ready to resume the attack. She smiled as the Decoy Queen stabbed straight through Pirate’s guard, paralyzing him on the spot.

Maya gleefully swooped down to maximize damage on their immobile target while they had the chance. She left her back open to the tank and ranger, but with a steady sequence of attacks from her and Justa in the Decoy Queen, Pirate soon dropped to the floor, unable to hold them off any longer.

Maya grinned as another dozen vasps joined the fight. Bo and Stria had been maintaining their attacks as well, she assumed; she’d lost track of where they were in all the chaos.

Maya joined in the wave, trying to lose herself among the similar-looking NPC mobs, but apparently the warrior form was notably distinct because Veridin kept firing unerringly in Maya’s direction.

They were down to less than half of their drones by now, but between distracting the invaders and taking out their primary melee DPS, Justa’s Decoy Queen form still sat at 40% health, while Veridin hovered at around half and the tank was still at 70.

Maya wasn’t sure they could do this. It would be a close race between wearing down Lestiayis’s health or she and Veridin taking out all the available mobs. Once the tank was down, they could swarm Veridin no problem, but Lestiayis had that infuriating intercept ability. Now that she was only protecting one person instead of splitting her attention between two, she had become a nigh-impenetrable wall between the felinis ranger and the swarming vasps.

The enemy players seemed to sense the same time limit quietly ticking away, because they stopped chasing Maya or the others and focused all their attention on the Decoy Queen.

Without intervention, Justa would go down first. Maya gathered an unsteady swarm to interrupt, hoping to divert the players, but they seemed determined. If they fell, they were taking the decoy with them.

That wouldn’t do.

Maya closed with the tank and kept up a steady stream of attacks, enjoying the added speed boost the soldier vasp form had over the standard drone. She found a single-target high speed attack, Swooping Stab, which allowed her to move at incredible speeds for a brief time and used it as quickly as its cooldown possibly expired.

From the actions of the rest of the swarm, Bo and Stria were doing the same. Lestiayis hunkered into a shielded stance that cut damage and refused to come out, blocking their attacks at her partner, while the ranger steadily pumped arrows into the decoy.

They weren’t going to make it. Veridin could deal damage to Justa faster than Bo and Maya could to Lestiayis. The tank didn’t even bother retaliating against the swarm focused on her, her full attention on dodging Justa’s increasingly frantic attempts to stun her.

Until Veridin abruptly stopped.

Maya frowned in confusion as the ranger sat down, eyes closing. She hadn’t been hit by anything. What was she…

Oh, ho! She must have run out of stamina! Maya wanted to cackle, but in her vasp soldier shape it came out as a crackly buzzing. Close enough.

A quick glance at her own status, and Maya saw she was close to hitting the same limitation. With her furious flurry of indiscriminate attacks, she’d burned through her available pools fast. She’d long since expended her last spell, energy being significantly lower in vasp form than her usual stat distribution. The vasps didn’t put anything into attunement.

Maya wished she hadn’t used all her energy now, as she fought to get past the tank and failed to reach the meditating ranger. She was certain it was a recovery ability of some sort, and if she could interrupt it, maybe…

But Flamestrike was her only aoe attack at present, and required a sizable chunk of energy to cast. Energy she simply did not have available. Curses.

Then their brief respite was over. The ranger got back to her feet, drawing her bow as she did, and resumed her attacks on the heavily injured decoy. Justa’s last few percents of health ran down, then disappeared completely. The decoy fell to the ground with a heavy thunderous crash, rippling out a shockwave that knocked Maya and all the other vasps from the air, as dust flew in every direction.

Maya saw a debuff appear, leaderless, which dropped all her stats by half. That seemed harsh! She barely had any stamina left as it was.

Justa rejoined the fight in drone form, but the reduction of stats - most especially of speed - left them incredubly vulnerable. With the tank no longer occupied dodging boss attacks, they began to make quick work of the remaining swarm. They obviously knew this was coming, going through the motions to mop up the rest of their adversaries without the slightest hesitation.

No wonder they’d been so focused on bringing down the queen!

But the victory wouldn’t be as easy as they’d planned. Even with her stats reduced, Maya still had more than the usual power for a vasp, and Lestiayis had been tanking for a while. Her health continued dropping, eight percent, six, five…

Then Veridin finished off the last of the AI-controlled drones, leaving only the three players. Maya looked around for Stria, but didn’t see a smaller vasp anywhere. She hoped the raptor was soulbound and could be resummoned.

Lestiayis’s health dropped the last percent, even as one of Maya’s fellow vasp impostors dropped with an arrow through the face.

Veridin’s health was still at around 40%.

Maya waited for the guardian form to appear, but no one emerged as her own health dropped heavily beneath the ranger’s attacks. Veridin was dealing damage faster than they were, evading attacks while striking unerringly.

They’d come so close! Maya tried to push her sluggish, debuffed vasp body into greater speed, greater strength, but then an arrow through her bulbous abdomen dropped her beside the others.

You have been killed by player: Veridin

Please return to your spawn location.

Maya frowned as she drifted incorporeally over her deceased vasp husk. That was different. Spawn location? She glanced at the ceiling, then remembered the alcoves and hurried to the harpy-shaped one. Once inside, the guardian form option lit up. She selected it, but before she could reappear the opening sealed over, leaving her in semidarkness.

"What?" she whispered.

"Sssh," Bo’s voice answered, so quiet Maya could barely hear it. "Wait."

They waited. Maya heard the sounds of fighting slow, then stop entirely. Footsteps. Then, at last, silence fell.

Player party successfully diverted.

The cover over the alcove vanished, allowing Maya to return to the main room. There was no sign of the triumphant ranger, Veridin must have withdrawn already, not realizing there was an additional room to the encounter this time. The bodies of their fallen summons had disappeared, leaving the room empty but for the dead tank and warrior. A minute later, they vanished as well.

Maya glanced at the transformation bar, and frowned.

Decoy Queen: 1

Soldier: 1

Drone: 1

"So they don’t come back," she said, resignedly. "That’s going to make things difficult." She glanced at the countdown on the transformation event.

37 hours remaining.