Day Seven was going to be our last one before we relocated. We'd hunted too heavily in the area we planned on, so continuing would make our trap obvious.

  However, day seven also went oddly. As usual, we started late in the day, but were finding far less than expected. As the sun set, giving us the higher density we preferred, instead of Vogglers from levels 40 to 43 we got Vampiric Voggler, Level 45: It doesn't actually need the sharp teeth. If it gets a grip, it will chew on you, squeezing all the blood into its belly and spitting out the meat and bones.

  I was careful, and found out quickly that these could be much, much more dangerous. They weren't directly more dangerous, but they seemed to have been rigged with an exploit. When the ruptures were ticking, they would spray blood everywhere. If there were multiple together, the blood from one would spray into the mouths of the others and start healing them.

  Basically, I couldn't spread ruptures out to slowly tick down a whole group, I had to focus them down one at a time, as they didn't heal from drinking their own blood.

  Just after finishing off and looting a cluster of three vampiric vogglers, I spotted the signs I'd expected to.

  Maddy: They're here. 4-high.

  I had her in the Biggie Bjorn, adding an extra challenge to a simple workout by run-skating through tree-branches while throwing attacks at beasts that could gnaw down trees. I'd been doing a lot of tree-running, and it had given me a good sense for how trees moved. Behind and to our right, a good distance off, there was an invisible weight in a tree. It was about the same weight as me carrying Lacie.

  I kept going, almost turned, then sensed another.

  Maddy: 9-low.

  I needed to turn, but couldn't risk it looking like the motion was due to spotting them. Lacie, sitting in the Biggie Bjorn, was doing her part: She was talking. Right now, she was talking to me about a show called One Piece, which she had always said she wanted me to have watched, but recommended I not watch because it would take literally until the end of time to finish. Every once in a while, she would give me notes.

  Lacie: (Chipper) Woah, really?

  "Woah, really?" I said. I was a shitty actress as I read my lines, but we were relying on the aliens being bad at noticing it.

  Spotting a broken tree, I used that as a reason for my turn just as I spotted a third, this time getting the thinnest sense of someone in heavy-but-flexible armor, as my blindsight range brushed him. Then I saw more concerning things.

  Maddy: 187.

  That was our code for any suspected murderer crawlers. All I actually saw was a smear of blood across a tree, but we hadn't made it, and these hunters had no reason to kill a voggler and hide the body.

  I spotted some still trees, behind them, that suddenly shifted.

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  Maddy: The murderers were already moving on us. The hunters are tracking both them and us, likely planning to strike when we start fighting.

  Lacie: Are we on-time?

  Maddy: Late.

  Lacie: Fuck.

  I couldn't speed up without alerting people, but we were shy of the particular hill we were aiming for. I just kept going, hoping for the best. There was the glow, and the crackle, and I dodged a lightning bolt from Chue.

  This was so much harder with Lacie, who immediately shut up, entirely focused. Unsurprisingly, as they had been watching us, Carlita and Trenton were up ahead, each taking down trees with powerful swings, limiting my options.

  Maddy: 17.

  Lacie braced. We'd numbered a lot of options, like calls before a snap. The shorthand wasn't because we needed to encode them, but because we needed to be able to call them swiftly and I sucked at the chat interface.

  As I dodged around Carlita, I unhooked the Biggie Bjorn, sending Lacie stumbling—we were still going way faster than she could manage—past the pair. The odds went my way and I spotted a good kaeshi waza opportunity, kicking Trenton's foot as he tried to step into a slice. He stumbled hard, completely wiffing.

  Jenny was in a better position, lunging at Lacie from an angle I couldn't touch. I whipped off a Breaking Ball, which she darted past. Lacie did her big, weird move, and turned into a tree.

  It wasn't instant, but it was fast. Maybe two seconds and she was thirty feet tall and solid as teak. Jenny's knife dug in, a trickle of dense blood dripping out, but Lacie's health barely moved.

  Now I had my back to her, facing off against Carlita and Trenton, sending a powerful Heavy Fastball head-on into Carlita's massive tenderizer, hard enough to check her blow. I'd told Lacie that, even though it wasn't a core part of any of my skills, if I focused hard enough I could use elements that a few skills enabled to protect her, and it wouldn't put me at any risk.

  Basically, between dodge and kaeshi waza, I could spot weaknesses in attacks. A quick enough fastball could foil those attacks.

  I had, of course, lied. I think she knew I was lying. The truth was, focusing on that meant dodging attacks against myself was more difficult. I didn't need long, though. Just a few more seconds.

  Maddy: Reach?

  Lacie: 10 seconds.

  Darn, I'd been expecting five. I couldn't deflect Chue's lightning, but my Jailbait Barrier was fully charged, so I just blocked it with my chest. It leaped back, draining a third of my reflection bar and sending him to half health. I managed to spin while ducking Trenton's slash and body-check him clear, then hit Carlita's hammer with a fastball.

  Lacie: Go.

  I hurled the knife in a breaking ball towards the hill we were approaching.

  "You're just delaying the inevitable," Carlita snarled, recovering and coming in again.

  There was motion in the trees. Not towards us. Away. They had realized something was wrong. I hoped they hadn't been quick enough.

  There was a roar, a hint of boss music, and the world froze. Lacie had just been healing herself—she was back to 100%—and spamming the EXTREME Big-Game Hunters Super-Spin Token for all she was worth.

  Lacie had a theory. She theorized that, because we were both fairly low damage, any smart hunters would be able to escape before we accomplished much. However, she had given a lot of thought to the details of how that token from her lucky-bastard box worked. There was actually a lot to it.

  It did something to randomize how the boss was going to be modified, and also to randomize an extra bonus. No explanation of those bits.

  It also meant you couldn't back out of the fight. It sealed us in, just like the boss rooms on the first two floors. Importantly, it would seal the space around the boss and the party engaged with it. That meant it had to encompass both it and all of Lacie. Lacie, as a tree, could send her roots quite far.

  While she sent her roots as far towards the hunters as she could, I had waited for the signal and then threw a breaking ball to engage the boss.

  Once her token was used, nobody would be able to leave while the boss was alive.

  It was a big play. We might die. We also ensured we had a chance to get these hunters, and an upgraded boss reward, too.

  Now, one big question remained: What the devil was EXTREME Big-Game Hunters Super-Spin Dueling Wheel Event!?