The stampede hit the basin like a wall of teeth and noise.
Vaelira, the A-tier Arcane Puppeteer, rising star of Nova Circuit, heard it before she saw it. A rumble that climbed through the soles of her boots and settled in her ribs, deep enough to make her fillings ache. Then the horizon moved. Creatures poured through the natural corridors between feeding grounds in a flood of scales and chitin and blind, shrieking panic, predators running alongside prey, the ecosystem of the upper elevations emptying downward into the zones where the rookie-track guilds hunted.
Her interface flickered. The competition standings pulsed with updates. Iron Halo dropped ten thousand points. Then another ten thousand. Silver Talon hemorrhaging.
People were dying.
"Form up!" Vaelira's voice cut across the panic like a blade. She lifted her wand and the air around her shimmered with arcane energy. "Shields forward, ranged behind, nobody moves until I say so!"
