118: Frost

Rain stood before the swirling boundary of the lair, the tumultuous wall of ice and snow only creating a whisper rather than the roar it should have. He could feel the cold against his skin, but only when he was right up next to it. Detection told him nothing. The barrier was magical, and the spell didn’t work on magic.

He couldn’t even circumvent the issue by searching for something like air. He’d done some experiments, both with this lair and with the Fells. A lair’s envelope worked something like the resynthesizer plugin for Gimp, filling in the interior volume by extrapolating from the surroundings. The effect was noticeable, but only with extreme focus. He’d need Mana Sight if he wanted to find lairs he didn’t already know existed.

Rain flipped down his visor, then wrapped a scrap of fabric around his head to cover the mouth slit. He pulled up his hood, then raised his arm and gave the signal to advance.

Icy magic whipped at his cloak as he crossed into the lair. The murmur of the magical barrier fell away behind him as he advanced, the crunch of his footsteps the only remaining sound as the temperature plummeted. In the distance ahead, he could barely make out what looked like a building. Everything else was just a sea of white. Snow was falling lazily from the fake gray sky in fat flakes, limiting visibility. Silence pressed down on him as the cold cut through his cloak.

The stillness was broken by the arrival of the others. Linksight flared stronger than usual as each member of the delve team entered, the lair’s interface populating with their names and information about their vitals. Rain frowned, then concentrated, forcing the panel to display itself in a more compact and efficient layout. The system didn’t fight him, even when he pushed it to group people by the roles he’d assigned them. It did, however, flatly refuse to switch the vital displays over to absolute numbers.

Essed Frostbarrows

Rank 9

100%

Frontline

Health

Stamina

Mana

Carten

100%

100%

100%

Samson Darr

100%

99%

100%

Mlemlek Ko-Latti

100%

100%

94%

Lyn Aleuas Draves

99%

98%

100%

Backline

Health

Stamina

Mana

Rain

100%

98%

100%

Val

100%

94%

100%

Jamus

99%

99%

100%

Tahir

100%

98%

100%

This was a subjugation party, and as such, it was stacked toward their strongest members. The goal was to clear the lair of danger and to capture any essence monsters that they found, rather than kill them. The party’s average level was 7.75, which, while less than the lair’s rank, was about as good as they could do. Rain was a bit concerned, but Ameliah said that they should be fine as long as they were careful.

Contrary to Rain’s expectations, the formation of the delve team had gone smoothly. He’d started it off by stating the party’s goal and suggesting that anyone above the lair’s rank be included in it automatically. Nobody had argued, resulting in the instant selection of himself, Carten, Jamus, Staavo, Ameliah, and Tallheart.

Ameliah and Tallheart had declined, as he’d expected, as had Staavo, who had said that he would just slow them down. Rain disagreed with that assessment, missing foot or not. He suspected that the real reason the old scholar wanted to stay behind was so he’d have more time to work on the steam engine that he was trying to build.

Rain shook his head, remembering their breakfast conversation on the subject. The idiot is going to blow himself up. He’d better include the damn relief valve like I told him to. He sighed, turning his attention back to the task at hand.

The next members of the party were Samson and Val, who Rain had explicitly picked for their capabilities. Again, there had been a surprising lack of argument. He was finally starting to feel like people were respecting his leadership, something he was decidedly not used to. In any event, that had left two slots in the party, one for the frontline, and one for the back.

After some discussion, Lyn had been selected as the frontliner. It had come down to her and Telen as the two remaining melee fighters with the most experience, and she’d won the coin flip.

The backline slot went to Tahir, the hunter, and he’d earned it by using his bow to win a makeshift target-practice competition. He’d beaten his fellow hunter Hanes, as well as Kettel and Ava. Mahria had declined to compete.

Kettel was livid at losing, of course, but he could deal with it. He’d agreed to the competition, after all. In truth, Rain was somewhat relieved. Bringing a Fire user into a Cold lair sounded like common sense, until you considered that their two options were a little girl and an impulsive teenager who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. The two of them were probably still taking out their disappointment on the targets. Hopefully Ava could teach Kettel a thing or two about how to aim.

Rain put it out of his mind, turning to face the others. They were all bundled up against the cold, the arctic camouflage of their cloaks looking particularly apt in the whiteness of the lair. Jamus ruined the effect somewhat, his orange hat looking like a traffic cone someone had placed jauntily atop a snowman. His orange robes, at least, were covered by his cloak, as were Mlem’s. Carten was the least covered of the lot, his cloak hanging from his shoulders and leaving his armor mostly bare. The exposed Force Steel was rapidly being coated in frost, but the cold didn’t seem to be bothering the big man in the slightest.

Rain cinched his own cloak tighter, keeping his arms inside the protective curtain of fabric. Because his gauntlets were so finely articulated, there was no room for even the thinnest layer of forceweave between his fingers and the metal. His hands were already getting cold. Fortunately for him, he didn’t need a weapon to fight. He could stay in his cocoon.

The lair was cold. Unnaturally so. Ameliah said that the temperature could either be an effect specific to this lair or simply from the higher concentration of environmental Cold mana inside. It wasn’t at the point where they would need to worry about instant frostbite, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable.

The obvious solution to this problem was Immolate, of course. The spell did work, but there were issues. Firstly, the effect was muted inside the lair, at least as far as the environmental impact. It remained to be seen if there would be any consequences concerning the damage numbers.

Environmental mana mattered when it came to spells. Ameliah had helped him run some tests this morning, her Mana Sight proving invaluable for figuring out what was going on. Immolate, it turned out, acted something like a catalyst for environmental mana. If there was a lot of Heat mana around, the aura’s effect was magnified. Eventually, the environmental mana would be depleted, at which point the heat output of the spell would drop sharply.

Most spells that had an environmental component were like that, apparently. Mahria’s Froststorm was a good non-aura example. Other spells—mostly single-target things like Firebolt—actually leaked mana into the environment when used. The amount of leakage depended on the skill of the caster.

Kettel’s shitty aim, it turned out, was just a side-effect of his abysmal mana control. Ameliah had warned Rain about using Immolate anywhere near Kettel after he’d been casting for any length of time, saying that the result could be explosive.

In any event, there wasn’t exactly a lot of Heat mana to be had inside this lair. Rain could still make a significant impact on the temperature if he boosted the power, but even with his regeneration, his mana was far from infinite. Plus, there was the second issue to deal with. The lair did not like anything melting its snow.

It tended to put it back.

Aggressively.

Rain shook his head, watching as Samson fought to jam a long pole into the hard ground, atop which burned an evertorch. That was to be their marker for the entrance. The falling snow seemed to swirl a little faster near the dancing flames, though that might just have been his imagination, as evertorches didn’t actually put out a lot of heat. They were basically the LED bulbs of flame-based lighting solutions.

“We going in, or just standing around?” Val asked, his voice muffled.

Rain tore his gaze away from the flames. Val was right; it was time to stop testing and just get on with it. Ameliah had confirmed last night that this wasn’t a trap, but it still wouldn’t be a good idea to dally here too long. He took one last moment to compose his thoughts, then addressed the group. “Right, here we go.” He nodded to Carten. “After you. We move in formation like we practiced.”

The party started making their way into the lair. Fortunately, the snow was packed firmly enough to walk on without their boots sinking more than a few centimeters below the surface. Carten’s footsteps crunched as he trudged toward the shadow of the structure ahead. The others followed in a loose formation, scanning the whiteness for danger.

For his part, Rain was using Detection to keep a lookout more than his eyes. Occasionally, he’d pulse the skill, activating it mid-stride to accommodate the momentary blackout from Aura Focus. He needed full power for more than just the range boost, as the snow wasn’t just snow. There was something magical about it that interfered with the spell. Even at full power, Detection’s range was only three-quarters of what it was supposed to be.

It wasn’t far to the building, which turned out to be a single-story farmhouse. Rain pinged for monsters with Detection, frowning at the lack of a response.

I don’t like this.

He pinged again, checking for wood. The intricate details of the building’s construction almost overwhelmed him, even muted as the signals were by the falling snow.

“We goin’ in?” Carten asked, looking over his shoulder.

Rain shook his head. “Not yet. Knock first.”

Carten laughed. “Right you are, Captain Little Mouse. We’d best use our manners.”

Rain rolled his eyes as Carten moved up to the door.

The brutal impact of the turtle’s shield against the building was anything but polite. There was a crack of splintering wood as the door was blasted off its hinges, and a cascade of snow crashed down from the roof. Carten had jumped back in anticipation, barely avoided getting buried.

The party waited.

“Looks like no one’s home,” said Mlem, after a few moments of silence.

“Okay, now we’re going in,” Rain said. “Val, light.”

Wordlessly, Val summoned his Lunar Orb. The pale illumination from the construct looked eerie as it filtered through the falling snow. Val sent it darting into the building, and Carten followed it through the door, Samson and Lyn close on his heels.

“Clear,” Lyn called after a moment. “It’s a good-sized room with one hallway at the back. Everything’s covered in frost.”

Rain and the others crowded inside as Carten moved toward the hallway, his armored form blocking the view. Rain looked around, examining the room. It looked like a combination kitchen and living area. There was a frozen hearth on one wall that held the cold ashes of a fire. He could tell that it hadn’t been a particularly affluent dwelling, but everything was neatly arranged. It looked perfectly normal, as long as you ignored the snow that had blown in through the shutters. There was no sign of violence other than to the door, which he was presently standing on.

“Bedrooms,” Carten called from down the hallway. “No monsters. No bodies.”

“I wonder where they went,” Mlem said, lowering his hood and shaking out his mustache, which had been coated in frost. “I can’t say that I have ever heard of a building within a lair. Most bizarre.”

“Have you ever even been in a lair?” Val asked as he examined a knife that had been lying out on the counter.

“I confess that this is my first,” Mlem said. “I have seen much of the world, it is true, but lairs are a new experience for me.”

Val snorted, dropping the knife back to the counter with a clatter. “Worthless.”

Rain frowned, squeezing past Jamus to get back outside. He was feeling a bit claustrophobic in the cramped structure, especially with everyone piled in there. Besides, it wasn’t like it was any warmer, and he wanted to be able to see if anything was coming toward them. Mlem is right. This is strange. Where are all the monsters?

“We going to search this place for valuables?” Tahir asked, poking his head out through one of the windows.

“No,” Rain said, glancing at Tahir. “We’re moving on. None of it is real. Gimmen, you know?”

Gimmen’s Folly was a fable about an impoverished miner who had stumbled upon a lair where even the walls were made from solid gold. After praising his luck, Gimmen had set to mining the gold with his trusty pick—never mind how he dealt with the monsters—collecting a frankly ludicrous quantity of the precious metal. Then, he’d hitched up his old donkey and hauled his overladen cart to the nearest village. Gimmen had lived there like a king for three days, after which he’d been abruptly lynched by the angry townsfolk, outraged when the gold he’d given them vanished.

“You’re sure?” Tahir asked.

Rain shrugged. One of his experiments this morning had been taking a rock from the lair. It hadn’t vanished immediately, so he’d stuck it in his pack. That pack was still outside, as he’d only brought his smaller messenger bag with him. The rock would vanish, he knew, but he wasn’t just going to take a fable at face value, even if people said the premise was true. He’d test it for himself. If they ever did find a lair made out of some ridiculously valuable substance—gold, gems, printer ink, whatever—he’d have his own data to rely on.

Of course, I’d test it again in that situation. There’s nothing to say that every lair is the same, after all. Hmm. What happens if you, like, eat or drink stuff from a lair? Rain contemplated the still-falling snow. I don’t think I want to test that one, particularly.

Suddenly, a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He snapped his head in that direction; then, when he didn’t see anything, he flared Detection. The spell came up empty. There was nothing out there.

“What is it?” Tahir asked. He’d come out of the building, as had the others. “Did you see something?”

“I thought I did,” Rain said, admonishing himself for letting his thoughts wander. We’re in a lair, damn it. I need to stay alert. He shook his head. “It might have been just the snow.”

“OI! OI! OI!” Carten roared, making Rain jump horribly. “STOP HIDIN’ YA ICY FUCKS!”

“Damn it,” said Lyn, shoving Carten away from her. “That was right in my ear.”

Carten laughed. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, grinning at her.

Rain took a deep, steadying breath, then shook his head. “Carten.” Once the big man looked in his direction, Rain tilted his head sharply away from the light of the torch they’d left at the entrance. “That way. Quietly.”

Jamus cleared his throat. “Pardon, Rain, but we are here to kill the monsters, are we not? Perhaps Carten has the right idea?”

“Exactly,” Carten said, nodding. “I was thinkin’ I could sing a little song. That should bring the beasties runnin’.”

“Please, no,” said Val.

Rain considered it, then shook his head. “The idea of pulling is to break off small groups, like I explained before. If Carten starts singing, every single monster in here will rush us all at once just to make him stop.”

“Hey!” Carten said, laughing. “I’m better’n what’s ‘is name.”

“True,” laughed Mlem. “When Shet started up that awful ballad yesterday, I thought somebody was strangling Romer’s cat.”

“Enough,” Rain said, starting to get annoyed. “What did I say about chatter in a lair?”

Carten opened his mouth to protest but shut it when Jamus elbowed him in the side.

“Sorry, Rain,” Jamus said, rubbing his elbow. “Carten, just do what he says. He is the captain, and he’s right. Remember what Ameliah told us the last time?”

“Oh, fine,” Carten said, turning to face Rain. “We’ll do it your way.”

Rain nodded to him. “Thank you.”

Carten harrumphed, but the group formed up and resumed their trek through the snow. Samson caught Rain’s eye and gave him an encouraging nod. Rain nodded back, thankful that someone at least was remaining focused.

The light of the torch behind them faded into the storm as they walked until it was no longer visible. There was no evidence of the town, only an endless plane of white with an occasional snow-laden tree. They kept going for twenty minutes like that, even Carten starting to look a little more serious as the silence pressed down on them. It was hard to tell, but Rain thought the air was getting even colder as they advanced into the lair.

“Rain,” Lyn said softly, her whisper making him jump. She was staring out into the snow. “I thought I saw something.”

Rain followed her gaze, using Detection as well. There was nothing there.

“There,” Val hissed. “A shadow.”

Rain whirled, seeing him pointing in the opposite direction. He used Detection again, this time boosting it to the absolute limit with Aura Focus. Once more, there was nothing.

“Ghosts in the snow…” Mlem muttered, shaking his head. “The lair is playing games with us.”

“Continue, or turn back?” Samson asked, looking at Rain.

Rain turned slowly, surveying the frozen landscape and their tracks leading back into the storm. He pinged again with Detection, checking their position.

“I’m not turning back,” Val said. “Let the monsters play their tricks. When they come for real, I’ll be ready.”

Rain frowned. “Keep going, Carten. We’re still following the road, more or less. I can sense it under the snow by the lack of grass.” He stuck a hand out of his cloak to point, immediately regretting it as the cold air rushed in. “The town should be that way. If it’s there at all,” he said quickly, then bundled himself back up, lamenting the loss of warmth.

Carten nodded, resuming his march. The silence seemed to grow ever more oppressive, and Rain was convinced that the cold was growing sharper, nipping at his skin through the slit in his visor and billowing up from beneath the hem of his cloak. Still, he resisted using Immolate, even to warm just himself. Once he gave in to that temptation, he knew it would be difficult to stop. Detection was more important, as was keeping his mana up with Winter, as cold as that was making him feel.

Finally, a dark shape swam into view ahead of them. As they drew closer, it became recognizable as a wall of tree trunks, sunken into the ground. They approached cautiously, heading for an opening in the wall where a wooden gate stood open, marking the spot where the presently-buried road led into the village.

“Essed did not have a wall like this,” Mlem said softly. “The lair has changed things.”

“You getting anything, Rain?” Tahir asked. The normally composed hunter had an anxious expression on his face.

Rain shook his head. “Still nothing.”

“I don’t like this,” Lyn said, holding her spear defensively as they crept closer to the gates.

“Shh,” Jamus hissed, suddenly. “Listen.”

Carten stopped in his tracks, and the party froze, listening hard. Muted by the snow and the distance, Rain heard a low rumbling.

“A millstone?” Jamus asked.

“I don’t hear anything,” Tahir said, cupping a glove to his ear.

“No, it’s there,” Val said. “I can hear it too.”

Mlem shook his head. He looked oddly composed, compared to the others. “Essed had no river, and there is no wind.”

“Okay, Carten,” Rain said. “Now it’s time to pull. Go knock on those gates, just like you did with the farmhouse. Everyone, be ready if something comes out.”

“But you said there are no monsters,” Tahir said. “What is he pulling if there are no monsters?”

“The lair might be waiting to spawn them,” Jamus replied softly. “Remember what Ameliah said. It isn’t like outside. They don’t need darkness, not in here.”

“Entering the village might be the trigger,” Rain said, nodding. “That or they’re there, and I just can’t sense them. Some monsters can hide from divination.”

“Have I mentioned that I don’t like this?” Lyn asked, gripping her spear tightly. “I can’t fight something that I can’t see.”

Carten grunted, approaching the gates. He looked back, and at Rain’s nod, slammed one of his shields into the wood. A loud thunk sounded flatly, the echo consumed by the snow. Carten hit it again, then twice more, but other than some falling snow from the wall, there was no reaction.

“Harder, Carten,” Rain said, approaching slowly, the group following. “Break the gate, if you can. I don’t want it swinging shut and trapping us in there. I’m getting that kind of vibe.”

Carten nodded. This time, his shield blurred, so quickly did he slam it into the wood. The thick timbers split as the force of Carten’s strike tore them from the nails holding the door together. Rain watched as Carten smashed the door a few more times, alternating shields until it fell completely from its heavy hinges.

Shield Bash? Rain’s eyes flicked to the party display, noting that Carten’s stamina had barely dropped. His own had fallen further than that just from walking. He shook his head. “Okay, we’re going in. Carefully.”

The party moved forward, passing through the wall and into the town. Wooden buildings rose around them, none taller than three stories. A thick layer of snow carpeted everything, hiding details from view. The sound of the millstone was clear now and growing louder.

Wordlessly, Carten led the way, the front line fighters forming a defensive circle around the mages. Samson and Mlem hadn’t drawn their swords, but they had thrown back their cloaks in preparation. Rain scanned the windows of the buildings as they crept forward, which felt like eyes looking down on them, black and lifeless.

“What in the depths?” Samson said, pulling Rain’s attention back down to ground level. They’d rounded a corner and located the source of the sound. Inside an open-fronted building, the mill equipment was visible under the protective cover of the overhanging roof. It was the circular type, with a large rolling stone meant to be hauled along a track. The stone was presently turning on its own, with the harness that would have held the work animal dangling from the axle.

Carten led the way closer, almost needing to duck as he passed under the overhang of the roof. Now that he was closer, Rain had to fight off a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold as he watched the harness dragging along the ground.

“Ah, fuck!” Val swore suddenly, light flashing from his fingers.

Rain had not been nearly so fast to react, though he’d seen the same thing Val had. A form had appeared, exiting a shadowed doorway at the back of the room. Val’s beam had struck it before Rain had even registered it was there. He watched, his heart thudding in his chest as the form collapsed to the ground.

“The hells is it?” asked Carten, edging toward the fallen creature, leading with his shields.

“Gods…” Jamus cursed as the form twitched, then hauled itself back to its feet.

Rain stared, frozen in shock. It was a man, his face deathly pale, and with ice and snow coating his workman’s clothes. There was a charred hole over his left eye where Val’s spell had struck, but no blood. Also, as far as Detection was concerned, the man didn’t exist.

“Clumsy of me…”

Everyone took a step back as the man spoke. His voice was slow, sounding like nothing more than the dry rasp of the wind over the snowy ground. The figure bent, retrieving a sack that he’d dropped when Val’s magic had struck him.

“What the fuck is this?” said Lyn, her eyes wide, fixed on the man as he made his way to the mill, carrying the sack.

“Hit him again, Val,” Jamus said.

Wordlessly, Val raised an arm. The next flash of magic took the man full in the chest, and he collapsed again, a trail of smoke rising from the body. He didn’t stay down for more than ten seconds before he groaned and began pushing himself to his feet.

“Damn…uneven…floor…” the man whispered, his words coming even more slowly now. The charred circle over his heart didn’t seem to bother him as he upended his sack into the mill, having slipped in behind the slowly-moving axle. He turned, but before he’d even started to move away, he vanished, though the discarded sack remained. The millstone ground to a halt moments later, as if whatever force had been animating it had departed along with the specter of the miller.

“Well,” Mlem said lightly, “I suppose I won’t be sleeping tonight.”

“What the hells was that?” Tahir asked, staring at Rain.

Rain shook his head. “I have no idea. Detection said it wasn’t there. Some sort of illusion?”

“Not like anything I’ve ever seen,” Val said. “And I know a fair bit about the subject. If it was an illusion, my spell should have just gone right through.”

“Gah!” Tahir swore, stumbling back from the millstone. He pointed. “Bones. He was milling bones.”

A flicker of movement caught the corner of Rain’s eye, and he whirled, raising his arms defensively, uncaring of the cold. A sudden wind whipped his cloak, sending snow swirling into the mill from the street. There was a dead woman standing there, holding a purse and digging around in it with one hand.

She looked up, her eyes glassy and lifeless. “I’ll take…millet…three copper’s…worth…” she said, the words seeming to come from the wind instead of her mouth.

Rain jumped again as she vanished in a swirl of snow. “So, this is horrifying,” he said, lowering his arms and pulling his cloak back around himself.

Carten set his shields down with a thunk, straightening. “Ghosts. Bah.”

“Fascinating,” Jamus said, adjusting his hat. “I’ve heard of strange things happening in lairs, but the truly odd stuff was supposed to only happen in those of Arcane aspect.”

“If the lair is causing it, what do we do?” Lyn asked. “Are we supposed to fight them?”

“I don’t know,” Rain said, shaking his head but keeping his eyes on the street. “The miller reacted to Val’s magic, but it didn’t really stop him. Not for long.”

“Can they hurt us?” Tahir asked.

“It would be best to assume that they can,” Jamus said, sounding entirely too calm. He turned to Rain. “Detection didn’t register them at all?”

Rain shook his head. “No. They’re not monsters, but they’re not human, either. They aren’t even entities, which is as vague as I can get.”

“Hmm,” Mlem said. “Perhaps they are merely…ambiance.” He gestured, and Rain saw the specter of a little girl tumbling down the street before vanishing in another puff of snow. “Some…memory of the townsfolk that died in the Shift, perhaps? Are there any bodies around?”

Rain shook his head. “No. I checked.” Rain pinged again, then gestured to the mill. “Those bones are real, but they’re not human.”

“There’s more of them now,” Samson said, pointing out at the street. “I just saw a man with an axe, and now there’s a woman down that alley leading some animal, maybe a horse. She has its lead, but the end of it is just floating—And, she’s gone.”

“I vote we burn the whole place to the ground,” Lyn said.

Rain frowned, though the suggestion didn’t sound entirely unreasonable. “We can’t do that,” he said after a moment of consideration. “The snow would—” he paused, looking out at the street. The swirling flakes had stopped, leaving the air clear, yet still dim from the overcast sky.

A shrieking roar suddenly split the air with a sound like shattering glass, pressing on Rain’s mind as much as it did his ears. He shouted, but the sound of his own voice was drowned out by the continuing screech. More and more figures were flashing into existence, the street filling with dead townsfolk going about their daily business. Soon enough, there were dozens of them, then hundreds, appearing and disappearing rapidly.

Abruptly, the sound stopped, and all the figures turned as one to face them, dead eyes staring with icy hate. None of them vanished as they stood there, waiting.

It was almost a relief when health bars began flickering into existence above their heads, the accompanying name tags identifying each of them as a ‘Frozen Memory of Essed’. Their levels were low, varying from one to three. Rain barely had time to process this before the building across the street exploded, a shaggy bear-like creature bursting through the wall of the second story and crashing to the ground behind the line of dead villagers.

The creature rose up on its hind legs and roared, the sound of its call nothing like that of a normal animal. It was the same cry as moments ago, sharp and piercing, digging into his brain like an icepick. Its teeth were wicked, and far, far too long, looking like they were made from ice. Swirling tentacles of frost suddenly burst from its back like wings, spreading out and snaking toward the dead villagers. As each tentacle made contact, there was a sharp cracking noise, and shards of ice erupted from the villager’s forearms, creating jagged icy blades, stained black with frozen blood. The beast’s breath seethed out as a frigid mist, wrapping around the villagers and hardening into icy plates.

The bear-thing’s health bar appeared as it dropped back to its paws, icy maw snapping shut with a crunch of breaking ice.

Frostbear Spirit Caller - Level 13

Rain’s eyes narrowed. His heart was thundering, but not from fear. His terror had been replaced with icy focus.

We’ve got this.

The villagers charged.