Stepping out of the column and into the nexus chamber, Palinus was greeted by the smiles of the rest of the team. They seemed as confident as he felt going into the rift.

"Looks like quite a bit of essentia still, V," Seline said to Vesuvia, who was looking closely at the nexus gem, "So we probably don't have to worry too much about running out of avatars, do we?"

"We have arrived at the right time. If we had come later, the village nexus might have been drained even further, and this would be a much more difficult battle." Vesuvia replied.

"Right, well, we are going into the unknown then. They could be opportunistic shepherds siphoning the nexus since the town was abandoned by the legion, or they could be something more sinister." Silene reminded them. "If they are shepherds, we respect the code."

The team nodded in acknowledgement.

"Formation one, then, let's go."

Without further chat, they separated and started down their respective lanes. Formation one was their standard formation with Vesuvia and Seline down the bottom lane, Palinus by himself in the mid lane, and Bruchts in the top, with Rufian roaming the forest.

They had several different combinations, but this one was the safest with escapes and control abilities in each lane, and Rufian's manoeuvrability was helpful in providing quick support and effective ganking potential.

The terrain of the rift itself was different from the rifts down in Erulea. The forest around them was less bushy and included the white trunks of the birch trees that were common in the overworld forests. The enemy rift shined a blue light above it, indicating a different attunement from the Silvan and Erulean rifts they had fought against previously, and Palinus found himself excited to see what that meant. He could already see the tower of the opposite side, made of a craggy, dark stone and covered in blue runes.

He hadn't seen his opponent yet, and he told the team quickly so they would watch out for a potential ambush.

"Mid lane not yet spotted," he spoke to his team with his finger in his avatar's ear.

"Nothing top." Bruchts reported

"Nothing bot," Seline added.

It was difficult to know what that meant; if they were a group of shepherds, then they might need to take the preparation time in the rift to organise themselves. Alternatively, if they were a cohesive force, it might mean that they were lying in wait to ambush them and take an early lead in the rift.

For several minutes, they waited anxiously, eyeballing any brush in their lane and waiting for the minions to spawn.

He was sure he had heard something in the tall grass, but he dismissed it as his overactive imagination, mixed with some anxiety.

They hadn't had a real fight since the first rift, and it felt different. He knew from his training that generally, real-world rifts were pretty safe, and this was going to be a likely stomp by his team, who were each getting much stronger and more able in their own right. Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to go wrong; there was quite a bit riding on this rift if they were going to win the rift trials. They needed to keep their lead and make sure they could take the little village smoothly.

There was a sense of relief when the blocky stone minions began to appear trundling down the lane, especially when Palinus spotted a man with a slingshot walking down the lane with them.

"Spotted one Mid. Looks like a slinger," he reported.

"One top, a defensive warrior," Bruchts said from his lane.

"Two Bottom, a big guy with two axes and a stoneman witch." Seline said, "It sounds like an odd mix; they might be shepherds, but stay on your toes."

The minions clashed in the centre of the lane. The weird-looking Erulean minions whacking their bone swords into the stone minions, who responded with their own stone weapons. Their ranged minions flicking sharp shards of stone.

His opponent in the lane fired similar projectiles. He was impressive with the sling, taking rocks from a bag at his hip and launching them with a casual flick. They rocketed into the Erulean minions with a thump and did slightly less damage than Seline might with her arrows, though he could fire a touch faster.

Seemingly in no rush, the slinger attacked the minions from his maximum range and plugged away, ignoring Palinus. He guessed that the man was just happy to collect the essentia and wasn't interested in a fight. That suited Palinus fine, and he pulled out his whip to do the same.

They quickly fell into a routine of decimating their own minions and ignoring each other. The slinger did slightly more damage with his attacks alone, but he didn't activate whatever ability he had. Palinus knew he had one with his class listed as a Savage Slinger and he could see a calculus on the man's arm that he guessed was some sort of attack ars.

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Trying to avoid escalating the situation Palinus refrained from channeling his own ars and allowed the wave to come towards his side of the lane, he lost out on some essentia over time as it crashed under the tower but it wasn't a massive deal and worth fighting for.

Advice for skirmishers like him was to avoid choosing an ars until he knew the situation, once he hit level 1 he would take both his veil and shield ars, but until then the potential utility of one or the other might make the difference in an level zero fight.

"They really just seem to be shepherds." Vesuvia commented, "Though they seem pretty competent…"

"Same story here," Palinus replied, "I am being edged out just slightly, but he doesn't seem interested in a fight."

Level one was coming up, he could feel the essentia in his body rising and the feeling of tightness that accompanied the impending level.

A break as the lane reset and the impending level up got Palinus thinking about his progression. They had only tiered up to two recently, but Palinus was already thinking about the next tier up. It felt amazing having his body and essentia suddenly improved, levels in the rift were ok, and it was fun to be able to run faster each time they levelled up, but it just didn't feel the same as taking that empowerment to his real body in the overworld. What he really wanted was a nice new calculus, maybe something that could empower his vitis.

Striking out with his whip, he got a head start on the wave to try to mitigate the damage difference as he moved and whipped at the leading melee minion, the essentia of his vitis lashing against the stone minion.

*Thunk*

Suddenly, something struck him in the head, it felt like he had been hit with a club as he shook the stars out of his eyes. His body was already reacting with a step backwards and his weapon raised, when the next projectile came towards him from the slinger, he was better prepared.

*Thunk*

But it didn't matter as the projectile hit him on the shoulder it still dazed him and he realised that it must be an ars causing him to be [Dazed] for a brief moment with each strike. As soon as his body responded, he threw himself backwards, trying to get behind the ranged minions. His mind felt lethargic as he tried to get himself back in position.

"Palinus, look out!" He heard Rufian shouting.

It took him a moment to realise that he had heard him yelling; it wasn't a team talk in his ear. Even as he made that realisation, the purpose of the warning became clear as a massive spear pierced him in the side. The little man with a bushy beard, green with moss, wielding it, pushing the blade as deep as he could.

Trying to push himself backwards and away from the sling and the spear, Palinus found that the spearman must have been using some sort of ars to bind him as he couldn't dislodge the spear and his struggles simply made the wound more vicious.

*Thunk*

Another stone from the slinger made him lose his faculties for another half second.

"Palinus under attack in mid, roamer here," Rufian said to the team. Just as he appeared, running out of the bushes towards the fight. "I am jumping in to save him!"

"We are fighting too." Vesuvia reported back

*An Ally has been Slain*

The announcement took them off guard. As he faced his own struggle, Palinus assumed that it meant Bruchts had been on the losing end of his own fight.

"Ugh," the spearman twisted the flanged tip of the long boar spear, and Palinus was sharply reminded of his problems. He couldn't shake the fog in his mind, the pain and shock of the attack clouding his ability to think.

He tried again to pull away from the spearman, but tugging at the spear only made the pain worse as he felt his avatars flesh torn up by the wings of the spear holding it in place with some sort of ars preventing it from coming back out.

Desperately trying to escape he finally considered his ars, it was an emergency and he realised that he needed to do something drastic. Quickly selecting his Saturnine Veil ars he cast the smoke veil to try to hide from the slinger.

"YAAHHH!"

Nearly simultaneously Rufian swooped in fist first to strike at the spearman, his lock on ars making him fly unerringly towards him.

Without a second thought, as if their opponents had been ready for them, the spearman disengaged. His spear popped out of Palinus's flesh like a stopper on an amphora. As Rufian soared towards him, he shuffled backwards at an angle towards the brush beside the lane. By the time Rufian's fist struck the spearman, he had his spear up and ready to strike back at the flying enhancer. He accepted the blow of the fist even as he struck with his own blow into Rufian's stomach.

Before Rufian could follow up with another blow, he had already stepped back into the brush, obscuring their vision and making Rufian's left hook whiff, only hitting a few blades of the long grass.

In the obscuring smoke, they could see the slinger following parallel with them, stepping into the brush to support his teammate.

"Don't follow Rufi!" Palinus yelled, realising that the skirmish was lost.

He was on half health, and their opponents were full; there was no way they could safely follow into the brush, even with the veil as an advantage.

"Splintery cocks!" Rufian cursed.

"The roamer escaped my counter towards bot," Rufian reported as he stepped away from the brush. Palinus could see the rage in his face and the frustration as he managed to contain himself. "I need to run around the long way to bot to support. Make sure that you don't get caught if they come back."

Nodding in understanding, Palinus watched his friend run off through the forest, taking a looping path away from the middle of the map.

The nerves of the next minute were overwhelming. In his own lane, the slinger came back around and was calmly collecting essentia as he waited for the smoke to clear. He just needed to wait.

"Pal! It's that fake shepard-" Rufian started to say before he was cut off.

He struggled to focus on his lane as he was bullied by the slinger, who barely allowed him close to the minions. Then there was a flurry of notifications.

*An Ally has been Slain*

*An Enemy has been Slain*

*An Ally has been Slain*

Something had gone terribly wrong.

"They dove the tower…. We got one, but V and Sel are down." Rufian reported morosely, "Pal… It's that guy from our first rift, he looks bigger and well… he's scary now.

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