Ducking to the left, Ian barely managed to dodge an arrow fired at him from across the cavern. Diving for cover behind a giant stalagmite, he turned to see Ashlyn calmly loose an arrow back at his attacker, garnering a pain-filled scream. As she walked towards the opposite pillar, she loosed a second, causing the wailing to cease. She was angry, and he knew she was taking it out on the other team.

Honestly, he couldn't blame her. They had been informed she was no longer allowed to bring in the moon prowlers after completely dominating their first two single-elimination rounds of the competition. Mara, Spot, and Socks had decimated the last group in a forested map before the adventurers in either party had even seen each other. After some deliberation from the council of Guild Masters, they were considered to be an unfair advantage since they were each as strong as a max-level adventurer for the current tier. Having no way to explain the moon prowler's exceptional strength without making their skill sets public, they were given no recourse but to accept the ruling.

When one of the foreign guild masters on the council had 'demanded' to see Mara's status screen, Mavis had to cut her feed during Ashlyn's in-depth explanation on the proper way the man could pleasure himself with a cactus.

When the call had resumed, the man had said that Ashlyn needed to be pulled from the tournament and have her adventurer's license revoked. Much to Ian's surprise, Mavis calmly told the man to step down from his position, and if he refused, Vision would come visit him. What shocked Ian further were the nods of approval from the other Guild Masters on the call as the man publicly announced his resignation and actually had excused himself—though Ian noticed the man had also become visibly terrified.

While the rest of the board went smoothly, they had ultimately decided that without the information, they would have to ban Mara, Socks, and Spot under the pretense of fairness. Ashlyn had understood and even accepted the ruling, admitting Mara especially was becoming a monster, but it didn't mean she wasn't upset at the outcome. Now the other team was facing her displeasure, notably the archer she had just finished off within seconds of starting their third match.

"I also got one of them pretty good," Selenia said from where she was hiding with Lana. "I'm not sure how long it will take their healer to get them back up and moving, or if they even will be able to. I think I bent his armor into his chest cavity, so there is a good chance he isn't getting back up again."

"Damn," Ian swore at the mental image while Tram grunted and shook his head. Shrugging, he moved to the edge and quickly peaked out to see half the other team doing the same from their own cover on the opposite side.

"What's the play?" Tram asked after pulling his head back behind cover.

"I think Claire is the perfect person for this job," Ian replied, looking over at the woman in question. "You can fire your daggers to the far side of those pillars without the need to visually see them, but you're going to need to be closer, right?"

"Probably about halfway across the cavern at a minimum," she replied, taking a quick peek at the other team herself.

"Well, I'll run to the next bit of cover diagonal from us to draw fire, and you are going to head to the one straight in front of us," Ian told Claire. "Lana, you are going to hit one of the pillars they are hiding behind with your stupidly overpowered wand while Ash and Nia watch the sides."

He looked over at Tram and nearly smacked himself on the helmet. "Actually, Claire. You are going to follow Tram to the next stalagmite. Stay close enough that he can protect you, but not close enough that a kinetic blast wand would take you both out."

"I really hope that thing is one of a kind," Tram said with a shudder as he looked at the bone wand Lana was holding. "What it did to Jace gives me nightmares."

"Try having his flesh rain down on you," Ian said with his own shudder.

"La la la la la, I can't hear you, so shut up and never talk about it again," he replied, shuddering again.

Ian chuckled before giving everyone the ready signal. Getting a thumbs up back, he took off running towards his next position.

He got about ten paces before their opponents started screaming. He got hit with a wind blade, but the range was far enough it just pushed him slightly off balance for a second instead of cutting into him. When he hit the halfway point, a click sounded from behind him, causing him a momentary sense of panic as he was downrange of the spell.

When a deafening explosion sounded a second later from the other side of the cavern, Ian pushed himself even harder over the last ten paces to reach cover. As he reached it, breathing hard, he looked back to see Lana step out from behind cover and raise her wand again.

Click after click began to sound, causing explosions that began to echo through the enclosed space. Ian could barely hear, but he thought he heard snippets of screaming. Suddenly, the entire world began to shake, and he began running towards Lana when he realized what was happening.

She was just standing there, staring wide-eyed as he picked her up in a princess carry and began running back to the cave they had teleported into. He saw Nia and Ashlyn both running towards it as well. Turning his head, he saw Claire and Tram both sprinting after him as fast as they could go.

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As they reached the tunnel, the rumbling got louder, and a cascade of cracking and pops from the cavern caused Ian to turn around. The ceiling was caving in from the other side, and the pressure was breaking the pillars as it began to progress towards them. Ian's eyes went wide as a single man was trying to run towards them without a weapon in his hand. Ian could barely make out his terrified screams piercing through the racket from the cave-in.

As he watched, Selenia and Ashlyn stepped forward and simultaneously hit the fleeing man with an ice spear and an arrow. As he went down, the light of the dungeon teleport began to block out his vision as the ceiling started to rumble overhead.

"Oh, thank the fucking curator!" Ashlyn said, moving over and slumping down against the wall when the group found themselves back in the portal room.

Tram turned and looked at Lana—who was still being carried by Ian—and pointed his gauntleted finger at her. "No using that wand in a cavern ever again. For any reason. Ever. Seriously. I'd take it away from you, but I don't even want to touch it!"

"Agreed," she replied, shuddering at the thought of being crushed. "I didn't even realize that was one of my fears, but it is way up there now."

Ian silently agreed as he carried Lana over and sat her down beside Ashlyn before plopping down next to her. He didn't like killing people, but facing another person didn't scare him. Having a dungeon cave in on him was a completely different story. He felt it as his body tried to calm his racing heart. Looking over, he saw Lana looking at him completely wide-eyed.

He couldn't help it as he started laughing. Planning, strategy, and skill hadn't made a difference. What was supposed to be a hard fight was quickly finished by Lana using her wand to decimate everything around her. She had literally turned the dungeon into a weapon to take out a team that had been touted as the 'Second Chance Killer' from the other side of the country.

"I think he's broken," Claire said, as she squatted down to look Ian in the eye.

"Me?" Ian chuckled, looking over at Lana. "Talk to Miss Magical Battering Ram here about being broken. What is the average INT stat for a level five thousand adventurer who focuses on magic?"

Claire bit her lip for a second as she thought about it, drawing everyone's attention. "I see what you're getting at, Ian. Without any skill purchases, it is around twenty thousand, but add on Intelligence and Enhanced Mind, and they have another six thousand. However, they don't usually have much more than that because they spend points on wisdom, spells, and mana enhancement skills. Most of their spells have prerequisites, and a lot of their points go into that, just like mine did."

"Without getting into details since there are people around, the dungeons made for our matches aren't really designed with the level of destruction Lana can dish out right now, correct?"

Claire snorted as she looked over at Lana who was still holding her wand. "Unlocking kinetic blast would take most of a level five thousand's SP. So, they would only be able to use it a few times. However, I also don't think that is a rank one version of kinetic blast in that wand, so it is probably outside of the realm of possibility for a normal adventurer who doesn't have a godlike awakening skill."

"So, the wand is really powerful right now," Lana said with a shrug. "It isn't that big of a deal. All of us have the ability to quickly dispatch people around our level right now. I'm a healer and will continue to push my skills to fulfill that role for us."

"Lana, right now you are a god with that wand," Ashlyn said, bumping her shoulder.

"In bed," Selenia said, nodding with a completely straight face.

That set off another round of chuckles, with Lana joining in even with her scarlet face.

"Are you all done catching your breath?" Mavis called as she entered the room with a couple of other AO staff members. "You completely demolished that dungeon, and now there are calls to ban that wand from the matches."

"That is horse shit," Ashlyn said, hopping to her feet in outrage. "First, they take away my friends, and now they want to take away her primary method of defending herself? She and Ian got that weapon fair and square, facing monsters any of these scrubs can fight."

Mavis gave her a huge grin. "That's what I told them, but they still want the weapon evaluated. Honestly, I don't know what they want out of this one because you literally got it while you were on stream. I even showed them the clip. I guess there are folks worried that it might be something that can be created outside the dungeon using higher-tier materials…not that there is anyone currently alive who can create items like that."

"Not yet," Ian said with a smirk.

"Not yet," she agreed with a wink.

"It is kind of ironic it dropped on a stream with millions of people watching, and other groups are calling it into question," Lana commented.

"Indeed," Mavis replied. "However, that is just how the world works. It's going to be interesting to see how the next tournament works out with many of the new groups here swearing that they are now sticking with our branch of the AO and turning down all clan offers.

"Your project is already bearing fruit," Mavis said, giving Ian a heartfelt smile. "Most of the newbies are wearing new pieces of armor made by Jimmy, and if that isn't enough, Eric is creating these healing crystals out of easy-to-farm quartz from a couple of newbie dungeons. He's either trading one of them for two units of quarts or selling them for only twenty bucks a pop."

"Yeah," Claire said with a chuckle. "When Viteck Potions offered him millions to sign an exclusive sales contract with him, he told them to go shove it up their ass. Apparently, he doesn't appreciate the way they are artificially keeping the potion prices high when the ingredients are being purchased for just a few dollars per potion."

"And those vipers sell them for thousands," Mavis nodded in agreement. "Just let me know what you need, and I'll help in any way I can. We haven't had a death in over a week, and I will move heaven and Earth if we can make this the new norm."

"Thanks, Mavis. I have some more ideas, but they will have to wait until after the tournament," Ian replied.

"Cool, now you all go to the main office and get that wand evaluated by someone other than Claire. The last thing I need is for people to question her professionalism in my presence."

"I love you too, Aunt Mavis," Claire said, giving the woman a hug.

As they walked out, Tram removed his helmet and turned around to face everyone, blocking the exit.

"Seriously, though," he said, his eyes haunted. "No more caverns or caves for at least a few weeks. I think that just overtook my fear of being eaten alive."

"That bad?" Ashlyn asked, her usual snark nowhere to be found.

"Yeah," he said woodenly. "I need to go out into the sun for a bit."

"Come on, bud. Let's get you outside," Ian said, turning his friend around and guiding him out the door.

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