It only took a half-second to cast to the spell, and as soon as it was done, the energy coursed backward through his body, welled up from his stomach and streamed out of his mouth. His jaws opened as wide as he could stand, and a torrent of ice-cold air shot out of him right toward the enemies. He turned his head back and forth, trying to evenly distribute the attack into a conical shape in front of him, and he silently celebrated as both of his assailants' steps were snared by the spell’s chilling effect. They inched closer to him at a drastically-reduced pace, a little over half of their health bars left, and then, with only another second before they would be able to strike him down, Lucas bolted. He only had the basic amount of Stamina the game afforded every new player, so he would only be able to maintain a decent speed for a short time before slowing, but he knew that neither Nick nor Valerie was likely any better off. Plus, he didn’t have to go far.

Lucas sprinted back out of the room and into the hallway, only stopping once to see how closely they were following. By his estimate, he had roughly a four-second lead before the duo caught up with him and mauled him to death. He began charging up another Firebolt as he ran, hoping to finish both of them off in one go, but as soon as the flames started to course through the staff, he noticed that Nick’s Holy Energy was being channeled into his scepter. So, you’re gonna try the same trick on me again . . . Lucas held his spell until the very last moment and then canceled it right before Nick’s Force Shield activated and snapped into place.

Lucas slid to a halt and instantly turned his attention to channeling Zap rather than running. This time, when the shield collapsed and disappeared, Lucas fired the already-charged spell. The vibrant blue-and-purple streak of Lightning arced through the air, briefly lighting up the hallway before speeding through the doorway and smashing into Nick. The man was dead before he even hit the floor.

You have killed Nick, another player. You have been awarded 10 EXP. A beginner’s magic staff and 14 copper have dropped upon death.

“Why are you doing this, Negative?” Valerie whined. “This isn’t fair! How can you do this to us?”

Lucas didn’t know what to say, so he just silently swapped back to Frost Breath and ensnared the Rogue before she could get close to him. It was over for her. Without Nick to cast defensive shields or to heal the damage Lucas inflicted, Valerie was in an untenable position since her opponent could essentially just kite her around for the rest of the fight, slowly damaging her with ranged attacks while staying just out of reach. This strategy was annoyingly predictable but still a tried-and-true, time-honored method of killing melee fighters as a mage, and it was exactly what he intended to do. Given how little damage the Frost Breath did, however, Valerie still had ample time to complain while he was doing it.