How did I get myself roped into this? As I stood in the bounds of one of the raised dueling areas, I questioned myself for the umpteenth time. Even now I was beating myself up for not being the voice of reason here, but it seemed like neither Nella nor Alara were willing to back down on this.

A smattering of students saw what was happening and gathered round to watch the impending fight, only further souring my mood and increasing my pre-fight jitters.

Ultimately, though, (and especially while her crushing grip had been on my shoulder) I wasn’t going to turn Alara into a liar, not to mention that we really did need Oachin to join our party. On top of that, if not quite as vocal as Alara had been, I was admittedly of a similar mindset. Emin was one of the nicest guys I knew -- if someone was going to yell at him and call him a deadweight, then it was only right for us to teach them some manners.

Still, even after all of that, I’d nearly tried to back out. Nella was level 17, and while I was pretending to be a slightly higher level than I was, I was all the way down at 12. Of course, according to her brother, a lot of her stat points went into Charisma, and her class itself was only half fighting-based, but even so, the gap was huge.

In the end, it had been one final thing that kept me from withdrawing. One thing that made the fight seem winnable. I looked about the dueling arena, noting Emin by my side, sweating bullets; Nella on the far side, fired up and ready to go; and lastly…

“And so we meet on the battlefield once more! While it is regrettable that I was not able to demonstrate my full might to you in a solo match, with the aid of my cousin, I will have my revenge this time around! Hah!” Daymon’Larin stood to his cousin’s side, his rapier pointed upwards as he laughed like some sort of cheap villain.

Unless he’s gotten some new tricks since we last fought, it’s practically a two-on-one. I’d have to keep him from targeting Emin too much, but otherwise his attacks were pretty pitiful.

As Daymon devolved into some sort of monologue, I gave a light punch to Emin’s shoulder. “Hey, you feeling okay? Any brilliant battle strategies you got going on up there?” I flicked a finger upwards, gesturing towards his head.

Emin… Well, Emin wasn’t really having a great time of it from what I could tell.

“I- Uh. Fine. I’m fine. I just- I haven’t actually fought much, you know?” He chuckled nervously. “A bit of a novel experience for me.” He cast a quick glance over to Daymon’s rapier, clearly not liking what he saw. “I’ve never been- Never been stabbed, you know? But it’s good! Good that we’re doing it now, I mean. Glad we can do this here instead of having me go through this in the dungeon. It’s just, you know, I’m having trouble with the idea that I’m probably about to get stabbed for the first time.”

Sorry bud. Wish I could give you some of my Pain Tolerance. Or actually, I was pretty certain the Bio-Transmogrifier was able to use his class skills to turn his pain receptors off. Still, that didn’t mean getting run through with a sword would be a pleasant experience.

“Well, I’m going to try pretty hard to make sure you’re not getting stabbed by Daymon, yeah?” I did my best to sound confident, and to my credit, Emin did seem to calm down just a bit.

With the rush of everything, we hadn’t had much time for him to tell me exactly how he planned to use his skills. Both for our cohesion’s sake and to simply take his mind off his nerves, I was about to press for more details; however, before I could do so, Nella shouted from the other end of the arena.

“No more talking! We’re ready to fight! Oachie, signal the start!” She called out to her brother who stood at the sidelines.

Well, guess it’s time to see if this was an awful idea or not.

Oachin looked to each of the four of us, verifying that we were all ready. Seeing no point in dragging things out, I nodded, and if perhaps a bit reluctantly, Emin did the same.

And just like that, our fight began.

All right, Daymon first. I’ll take him out fast so that Emin-

The far side of the arena exploded.

By the time I grasped what was happening, Nella had already closed half the distance of the arena, propelled forward by some sort of Jet Step-like skill, only much, much, stronger. Instead of trying to put Emin out of the fight immediately, however, she was headed directly towards me. A savage, almost feral grin donned her face, and paired with her absurd levels of Charisma, the oddly conjoined beauty and bloodlust brought a shiver to my spine.

“You first!” she hollered as she flew forth.

Lacking the time to shoot an arrow at her, I quickly summoned up my plate armor and enhanced it with water mana, opting for the highest level of protection until I had a better sense of how strong she was. The pickaxe followed a moment later, and I swung forth, timing the blow to bring her flight to an unfortunate end.

Of course, it could never be that easy.

Right before the blow would have connected, Nella held her palms out. Twin explosions boomed out from her hands, arresting her motion and slamming into me.

Starburst (x2) hits you for 0 damage.

A dopey grin graced my face as I took in the battle text, a small sliver of my attention skimming through the various resistances that had reduced the damage. It was the flat damage reduction on Resist Magic that had won the day here, able to fully absorb the blows after my other resistances were taken into account.

Better yet, with my Strength threshold and the secondary effects of my recently acquired Collision Resistance teaming up to make me extra hard to knock back, the explosions didn’t even stagger me.

Nella displayed a brief glimmer of surprise as she registered my unaffected state, but sprang back into motion before I could capitalize on it. Each of her movements was punctuated with a burst of fiery mana, allowing her to accelerate at rates far greater than what her Dexterity would normally allow.

Two jet-fueled hops, and she’d circled me. Before I could twist about to face her, she leapt forward once more, thrusting her palm forward directly into the sheet of water which surrounded my chestplate.

The force of the blow itself did nothing at all, but as I quickly realized, it wasn’t meant to. With her frighteningly wide eyes, Nella locked eyes with me for the briefest of moments before uttering a single word.

“Bang.”

At point blank, the resulting explosion rammed into me. A far cry from the earlier blasts, it was more than my knockback resistance could handle, and I was sent flying back.

Starburst hits you for 28 damage.

Twenty-eight. I can work with that! I dismissed my armor, and with the lack of extra weight, I managed to right myself instead of crashing to the ground. The moment I had my feet beneath me, I summoned it back again.

Still, I was too slow to go on the offensive. Another jet-fueled dash, and Nella was back upon me once more.

“You’re sturdy! Let’s try a bit more oomph, then!” Her palm flashed out and connected with me once more, and I cursed the fact that my Dexterity was still lagging so far behind most of my other stats.

In a repeat performance, I was sent rocketing away, this time even harder than the previous. Having realized the blow wouldn’t be enough to put me out of the fight, Nella followed up, hot on my trail.

All right, this is ridiculous. The damage wasn’t awful, but I needed some way of dealing with the incredible level of speed.

Would frost magic even work on someone who can explode at will? It was worth a shot, at least -- of all my enhancements, frost magic was the only one I had which could slow someone down. I flooded my armor with the icy mana and swapped my pickaxe to my knives, coating them in the substance as well. With my recent skill points spent on Arcane Armament, it was the first time I’d ever used the skill with my knives in battle.

Nella neared, flinching away at the unexpected temperature shift. It was just barely enough for me to score a hit, flicking one of my knives down to score a superficial cut to her wrist.

You have affected your target with a stack of Frigid, reducing their movement speed!

The noble hissed as the skin around her wound grew blue. “A slow? You think that’s going to work on me?” Fire erupted out of the wound, and the blue receded. At the same time, the flames cauterized the tiny line, sealing it over and stopping any bleeding.

Great. So, she’s too fast for me, can deal with small wounds, and can dispel my slow effects. What do I even have here?

The only thing I could really think of was a war of attrition. I couldn’t be sure exactly what her Wisdom looked like, but of the two of us, she had to be burning a bunch more mana. Especially if dispelling the slow debuff took additional mana, all I had to do was slowly winnow her down.

Of course, perhaps that would have been a valid option if this was a one-on-one fight.

With Nella’s speed, our entire exchange had taken place in the span of a few seconds. Even so, however, that was more than enough time for the other two combatants to act. I shifted a small sliver of my attention away from the Rising Star before me, expecting to have to intervene to keep Emin safe from Daymon.

It was something of a shock, then, when I discovered I needn’t have bothered.

“Agh! What is this? What have you done to me? If you put any value in a gentleman’s duel, remove it immediately and face me with honor, coward!” Daymon was stuck at the center of the arena, his sluggish movements posing no threat to Emin. The skin around his hands and legs appeared to be exuding a thick, viscous sap-like substance which was mucking up his motions. On top of that, something seemed wrong with his legs.

A jittery voice sounded out in response, growing more assured with each word. “Ah! A good- A good question! That would be the embalming fluid of a Teretheran Sap Snake. A fascinating species, really -- It encases and stores its victims much in the same way a spider would, but using the substance you’re experiencing presently instead of webbing.” As if an eager student at a show-and-tell, Emin removed a piece of sticky-looking snake skin from some hidden pocket in his robes, showing it off to Daymon.

“I’ve also taken the liberty of enhancing your defenses by swapping the skin on your legs with that of the Steel-Toed Sloth. Unfortunately, this likely will prove an issue for your speed should you not have sufficient Strength.”

Daymon flicked his rapier downwards, the motion somewhat awkward with his fingers all gummed together. “I see the coward is in a party with cowards. No matter! I have just the thing for this situation.”

Has Emin always been this scary? And does he just walk around with all of those animal samples at all times? So much for not being ready for battle.

Still, I should take out Daymon while I have the chance. It doesn’t even matter if he actually has a way to get out of all that -- If he’s gone, then Emin and I can team up on Nella.

Unfortunately, the flaming battle mage had no plans of letting me go to help. Even as Emin had started his explanatory monologue, she’d been moving, dashing in to deliver another Starburst. This time around, however, I was ready for her.

Friction Feet. Heavy Step. Encumber. With the bonuses from passing my Mana Feet trial, I activated two variants at once, weighing myself down and increasing the friction below me. A cast of one of my newer spells only furthered the effect.

Cursing myself for not thinking of it earlier, I cast the spell once more, this time on Nella. She cried out as her weight awkwardly changed, but by then, she was already in striking distance. A hand tapped my chestplate once more, this time seeming to take a second to charge up.

Boom.

Starburst hits you for 43 damage.

You are bleeding!

I could feel as my armor caved in from the blast, and without pause, I unsummoned and resummoned it, repairing the damage. Even as quickly as I’d done so, however, the metal had dug into me, resulting in a nasty chest wound.

To my credit, however, my preparations had worked. With all the skills and spells preventing me from moving, I held my ground, retaliating before the element of surprise could wear off.

With a pulse of additional mana from Overload Weapon, I slammed the twin knives into Nella. She jerked away right before the weapons connected, resulting in them sinking into her shoulder rather than somewhere more vital. Still, it was hardly a glancing blow.

Empowered by the additional mana, the frost effects went to work, the area around the wounds growing icy at an incredible pace. Not attempting any sort of immediate counterattack, Nella jumped back, nearly tripping from the extra weight of Encumber.

“Tough one! Guess I should stop playing around, then!” Flames burst out from around the frostbitten cuts, once again removing the debuff and sealing them shut. “Looks like we’re not getting anywhere with explosions, so what about this?” She brought her hands together, the flesh on her palms turning red-hot at an alarming rate.

Hoping to interrupt her, I hastily switched to my bow and arrow, sending a quick water arrow out, but even with Encumber still on, she jetted to the side, easily avoiding it.

When her skill finished charging, I was not nearly so lucky.

A thick bar of molten, liquid flame shot out from her hands, and I was a moment too slow at dismissing all the effects I’d used to tie myself down. I contorted myself to the side, but even so, the flames carved out a chunk of my abdomen, reducing my armor and flesh into a slurry of slag.

My mind became nothing but a stream of obscenities and invectives as I pushed through the blinding pain, unsummoning and resummoning my armor once again. Forgoing my attempts at draining Nella’s mana, I switched to my life armor and started firing off my healing cantrip.

“Hit! Guess we don’t need to bring out the big spells for you, then. Medium it is. Impressive, right? Why don’t we do it again so you can appreciate it a little more?” Nella started charging up again, and I added on to my litany of curses, this time voicing a few of them.

Knowing that the plate armor would do nothing to protect me, I switched to my apron, intent on dodging rather than blocking. I pulled up Flash Feet, ready to lunge to the side at a hair’s trigger.

Evidently clued in to what I was doing, however, Nella dashed forward like she had time and time again, intent on firing her skill at too close a range for me to dodge. If she got close enough and I suffered a point blank hit from something like that, there was no way-

“Cousin! Your speed is far better suited to dealing with this cowardly ant! Allow me to occupy her while you finish him off!”

Daymon’Larin has challenged you to a duel. Accept?

What? Of course not. What is he even think-

Class skill ‘Duel Me!’ has been activated! Duel accepted!

For the duration of the duel, you are immune from most outside effects and are unable to affect anyone save for your opponent.

Duel starting in 3, 2, 1…

A torrent of liquid fire splashed over me, only to harmlessly fall to the ground.

“Gah! I had her, you fool! Waste of perfectly good mana. You can’t even handle one measly support class? Fine. Your cousin will fix your mistakes.” Fuming, Nella spun about, racing towards her new target.

Crap. Crap, crap, crap.

I admittedly wasn’t sure exactly what sort of defenses Emin had available to him, but something told me he wasn’t going to hold up to her attacks quite as well as my armor had. I had to end things fast.

Each movement elicited a wince from me as the burnt mess of my side made itself known, even as I healed it. With Pain Resistance helping to dull the sensation, however, I pushed through.

Daymon stood halfway across the arena, now free from Emin’s effects. His legs returned to normal, and the sap seemed to slough off of him, restoring his range of motion.

“Now that I am unfettered by those craven tactics, allow me to-”

Flash Feet. Jet Step. Swap to pickaxe. Earth enhancement. Overload Weapon.

I swung with all my might at Daymon’s chest.

Congratulations! You have won a duel!

Not bothering to pull my punches, the blow nearly snapped the duelist in two.

Sorry Daymon. Wait. No I’m not.

I spun about, hoping to get to Emin before Nella could reach him, but the effort was in vain. As fast as I’d raced to Daymon, Nella was faster yet.

Sap was starting to ooze from her skin in much the same fashion it had for Daymon, but it wasn’t enough. The same flames she’d used to counter my slow effect were put to good use once more, her entire body awash with flame as the sap boiled and bubbled away.

Then, as she neared the defenseless bookworm-

Boom.

A body went flying back from the force of the explosion.

Only, it wasn’t the body I’d expected.

Nella crashed to the ground, blown back by the unexpected force. She attempted to rise to her feet, but even with the heat she’d applied to it, the sticky sap glued her to the floor.

Emin began ever-so-slowly walking towards her. A few burns littered his face, but he paid them no mind.

“Detonating Ashfern.” He removed a dried leaf from a pocket, rubbing at it with his thumb. “Fascinating plant, and one it took me quite a while to acquire. It thrives in fiery environments, and when mature, it releases a compound that explodes when exposed to flames. The blast serves the dual purpose of protecting it from the many flame-based herbivores in the area while also serving to spread its seeds much farther than most conventional plants are able to.”

Nella yelled, yanking one of her arms from the ground and angling it towards him. Her palm grew hotter and brighter and hotter and brighter until-

It dimmed out, a layer of black coating her hand.

“There are actually quite a host of animals and plants with flame-retardant capabilities. They can often be hard to come by, but luckily, the Chamber of Knowledge keeps a few on hand for their interesting properties. This effect in particular comes from the bark of the aptly named Charbark Oak. The oak lives in dry environments prone to frequent forest fires, surviving thanks to a number of chemicals in its wood which have char-forming and vapor-inducing properties when heated.”

With Nella effectively trapped, I was fairly sure I could have ended things at any second with a well placed arrow. Instead, I watched and waited. Emin’s calm and collected steps painted a picture of confidence that I’d never seen from the researcher before. If he looked like he was in trouble, I’d intervene, but only then.

With an almost bestial cry, Nella summoned up a burst of light. It slammed into Emin, and a host of new burns dotted him, along with some pinpricks of blood.

Still, he neared the prone form of his opponent.

“A handy tool, being able to turn your own pain receptors off. You know, if I were a slightly meaner person, I believe I’d be able to graft those receptors onto you, but that feels perhaps a touch petty, wouldn’t you agree?” At last having reached his destination, Emin took a seat a good meter away from Nella.

“I will confess, I actually expected to be showing off my skills today. I envisioned us finding a team of five and then bringing us all together to demonstrate what I could do. I brought a good selection of specimens to use! I can’t say I pictured this exact turn of events, but I would like to thank you for allowing me a good opportunity to provide examples of how my skills might be of aid in a team fight.”

A few more patches of black appeared on Nella as she attempted to trigger fire skills, all while she raged impotently, thrashing about on the ground.

“I’ve explored a number of paralytic and poisonous plants and insects as well, but my class skills are rather resistant to direct bloodstream effects, I’m afraid.” Seeming to suddenly return to his old self, Emin sheepishly rubbed at the back of his head. “A bit awkward, actually. But I- uh. I don’t really have any ‘finishers,’ you know?” He turned his head my way, showing off a lopsided grin. “Would you- Would you do the honors Tess?”

Not even going to try to get her to surrender? Well, no skin off my back.

From where I stood, I charged up a wind arrow, dumping a fight-ending amount of mana into it. It tore through the air, far faster than even Nella during her dashes, spiraling into her, and at last-

Congratulations! You have won a duel!

As the enchantments in the training arena went to work, healing everyone back to full health, one final thought stood out more than the rest.

Emin’s actually kind of scary, huh? Who knew he had it in him?

With the conclusion of the fight, Emin and I left the training arena to the congratulations of a fair number of the various onlookers. Of course, those onlookers included Alara as well, which meant we had to suffer from a particularly bone-crushing hug, as well as some excited shouting which might as well have counted as a sonic attack. Oachin gave some more subdued congratulations as well.

After a bit of de-sapping, everyone was back to tip-top shape.

Everyone including Nella.

The Rising Star stormed over to where the four of us stood, her wide eyes boring into Emin. After a moment of tense silence, at last, she spoke.

“You’re not bad! We need to do something about your whole getup and outfit choice, but that was very impressive! It takes someone very powerful to go toe-to-toe with me, even if your friend softened me up first!”

I rolled my eyes at the attempt to save some face, but if she wasn’t angry at Emin for beating her, I wasn’t going to say anything.

As if dismissing the three of us from her mind, Nella turned towards her brother, throwing her hands to her hips.

“Oachie! I will admit that you have found a good team, even if they aren’t nobles. I approve!”

Before another word could be uttered, Alara rushed forward, wrapping the siblings in another side hug of death.

“Excellent! I am glad you have come around to the great merits of Dark Plant Man, Haughty Blast Woman! I would have had to fight you otherwise, but now we will be great friends!”

The two siblings squirmed under her grip, and Nella started to say something about her new nickname, only to lose her wind as Alara strengthened the hug.

Despite his recent ordeal, Emin looked on at the scene and started to laugh. A moment later, I couldn’t help but join him.

She’s going to be a handful, but something’s telling me we can handle it. Or, at least Alara can.

And just like that, our dungeon delving party was formed.