Chapter 23: Ice Cave (Patreon)

The Oh situation has resolved itself.

-        Message attached to a Windrider’s leg.

William Oh died once. Spent seven days dead before his errant hand found him and dug him back up.

For three nights, The groundskeeper saw the disembodied hand scratching at the earth above the boy’s coffin, like a dog desperately trying to unearth its master. He realized that the hand was sinking deeper and deeper, until on the third night, it vanished beneath the earth.

Even though the phantom hand had vanished, the groundskeeper could swear he could almost hear the scratching of displaced earth whenever he walked by the burial site.

He swore it grew louder at night. The groundskeeper dreaded what would happen when it finally made it to it’s goal.

Four nights later, the groundskeeper returned to an empty plot of Earth, and the legend of William Oh continued.

-        Unverified. It’s believed that the story was a result of concealing an attempted graverobbing by the groundskeeper. Imagine his horror when the coffin didn’t have any of the Relics he’d seen William Oh buried with.

“Good morning Sunshine.” A hideous voice echoed in Will’s ears.

Will gave a sharp inhale that instantly turned into a full-blown cough as he inhaled dirt and dust that had settled in his outlandishly dry mouth and throat.

He coughed so hard that he couldn’t see. The tears streaming from his eyes caught the dirt in his eyes and carried them out, turning his world into a glob of blurry lantern-light.

Something heavy and sloshing was shoved into his hand.

Wineskin.

Will mastered the coughs for just long enough to take a swig of lukewarm water, swallowing half and coughing the other half in Steve’s face.

“Ugh,” Will gasped, his voice hoarse as the liquid finally started moving things in his throat, allowing him to take a ragged breath and ask a question. “Did it work?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” Steve said, wiping his face. “The people who gawked at your ‘corpse’ weren’t wearing signs saying ‘Informant’. News will spread, though, so it should at least buy you little time. At best, a lot of time.”

“As long as we fill the grave back in, that is,” Loth said, motioning for them to stand aside.

Steve pulled Will out of the coffin and Loth’s insects carried a handless corpse into the coffin before they began hastily pushing the dirt back into the hole, doing their best to re-pack the earth to the same consistency it’d had before.

Loth even went out of his way to individual replant all the sprouts that had been beginning to grow on the surface of Will’s grave.

“So, umm…”

“We didn’t kill anybody,” Steve whispered. “We just got lucky. Kid got killed a couple days ago, and I told his Party I’d bury him for free, long as they didn’t ask questions.”

“Fair enough.” Will whispered back. “How was my funeral?”

“There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Loth said.

“We paid some professional mourners to really sell the bit,” Steve whispered.

In a matter of minutes, the grave looked completely undisturbed. Even then, Loth’s insects swarmed the site, picking up bits of soil and smudges of dirt they’d missed and packing them back over the coffin.

“How long was I out?” Will asked.

“A week, as planned.”

“It felt like nothing,” Will marvelled.

“A week’s the longest I’ve ever tested, I’m not sure when or how the effect expires if I don’t dismiss it, so maybe we could’ve gone longer, I just didn’t want to risk you waking up in the box and suffocating.”

“Huh, have you ever considered using that ability as a personnel storage technique?” Will asked. If it could keep someone fresh in an airless box for a week or longer, there might be some utility there…

“Yeah, that might be valuable in the upper floors, where food is at a premium. Good thinking, Boss.”

“Glove,” Loth said, retrieving Will’s gauntlet and strapping it onto his wrist. “Cloak.”

Will settled the vaporous fabric over his shoulders, then put his mask over his face.

“Amulet.” Steve said, dropping it over his head.

“Pants.”

“Boots.”

“Wristguard.”

“Belt.”

“Axe.”

Will stood still and allowed them to put on his equipment, making the process almost instantaneous, and much faster than what a man with one hand could accomplish.

It was a little weird having people help him put on his pants, though.

Will checked his Charges. They were completely topped off.

16/16 Charges remaining.

He glanced back at his gravestone, hewn from the salt of the mines and destined to gradually wear away in the rain as new Climbers came and took his place, fading as rapidly as new Climbers streamed in, creating their own legends.

Here lies William Oh.

A hyperbolic young man, full of potential,

cut down before his prime.

F’s in chat.

“let’s go,” he whispered.

Sneaking out of a graveyard in the middle of the night was child’s play, and there were no town walls to speak of, since they were on a floating island.

Steve showed them how to assemble a temporary bridge by luring the barnacles on the side of the wall into extending their feeding apparatus, tangling together into a walkable surface.

In the middle of the night, they fled Skyhold, aiming for the final resting place of a bunch of rich kids.

They still needed to pay off Steve’s Corpse Fine or the church would send a debt collector after them, which was something none of them wanted to happen.

They arrived at the spot and spent the rest of the night resting before they headed down in the morning.

It was a hidden path, concealed beneath an outcropping of stone. One simply had to hang from it and swing themselves down onto the narrow passageway below.

“How did you get back up that?” Will asked, looking up at the stone overhang above them. It was no trouble for Will and Loth, but Steve was rather inept at climbing, and Loth’s insects had to carry him over the ledge.

Something the priest was entirely uncomfortable with.

“There was a rope.” Steve said, brushing the heeby-jeebies off, despite every insect being accounted for.

“Did you cut the rope?”

“No. I left the rope there for several nights until it became obvious that no one was coming back. I considered telling the authorities what happened, but then I realized how much loot they had on them, and that it was worth more than the debt for breach of contract.”

“Cold.” Will said.

“Indeed.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one that got ‘em killed, despite what the official records and their parents claim. Their special babies bit off more than they could chew and I barely escaped with my life. You think I can heal a head that got hit so hard that it detatched? Or someone who got torn in half? Nuh-uh.”

Will paused on the narrow switchback, Loth nearly bumping into him.

It occurs to me that we need to put our game-face on.

“Loth, prep us an emergency exit. One even Steve can use.”

“Right.” Loth nodded and went back up to start creating a rope ladder.

“Steve. Tell me everything you know about the spawning ground and its inhabitants. Especially where exactly it starts.”

Steve did so.

The spawning ground for the yetis was a few switchbacks further down, when the trail turned inward and led to a cavernous entrance to an extensive cave network, formed largely of the ice.

The underside of the mountain was extra cold, never feeling the warmth of the sun, and as clouds passed by the underside of these ranges, ice grew faster than it sublimated, creating a solid layer of ice in some places.

This place being one of them.

“Wow, it’s kinda cold in here,” Will whispered as they made it to the entrance.

It was a massive hole in the ice layer leading further into pitch-black nothingness, with a deceptively smooth bottom to walk on, as it the inside of the cave had partially metled time and again, filling the bottom of the cavern with a flat sheet of ice.

“Kinda cold?” Steve demanded, arms wrapped around himself, shivering despite the cold-weather gear he’d packed.

“Do your thing,” Will said to Loth, who began trapping the way back to their exit against anything taller than seven feet, smoke rising from his roc-down jacket.

Will tentatively stepped through the ominous entrance onto the smooth frozen floor.

Aspect of the Goat caused the perfectly smooth ice to rise up and fill in the treads of his shoes, like inverse ice-gear.

Huh. I guess Ice counts as a mineral.

Steve waited at the entrance as Will walked down the hall massive hall. The noise seemed to be swallowed by the hoarfrost glittering in the faint light of the entrance.

Will knelt down and pressed his hand to the immaculate ice floor.

Amulet of the home Field Advantage loaded.

Inside the glass vial at the end of the amulet, a small ice cube appeared and began lazily spinning.

It probably wouldn’t serve any purpose against the creatures who lived here, but back up on the surface, a sheet of slippery ice on command might work rather well. Especially if Will was able to treat it like normal stone.

Will had considered loading some ankle-turning rocky terrain, but he hadn’t seen anything nearly as aggressively spiky as he’d wanted yet, so he would go for slippery instead.

Will pulled out several of Loth’s glowbugs and threw them into the distance, beyond the reach of the dim light of the entrance, revealing an endless expanse of ice and darkness that seemed to go on forever.

In the distance the floor had a lump of ice, partially covered in hoarfrost .

Will walked over, continuing to scan the walls, not seeing any sign of the creatures.

He knelt beside the lump of hoarfrost marring the perfect floor and wiped the growing ice crystals off of it.

Will squinted, still unable to quite make out what he was looking at through the ice.

He looked around and then pulled out his weapon, hacking a bit of the ice away.

Clunk.

Clunk.

The ice sloughed off, revealing a boot.

A boot with a foot in it.

An expensive boot, Will mused. Faint evidence that a party of six Climbers with Floor-inappropriate gear had died here, where Steve had said they did.

Will glanced up again.

Still just hoarfrost everywhere.

Wait…is that hoarfrost moving?

Will lunged backwards as a patch of the wall whipped out with clawed hands nearly the size of his torso.

Something Steve had forgot to mention: Yeti fur and hoarfrost looked nearly identical. He’d been surrounded this entire time.

ROOAAAR!

The creature’s red face split open, revealing massive canines as it’s roar caused other ice patches on the walls to wake from their slumber. In front of, and behind Will.

Especially behind him, the available light grew dimmer as a wall of fur and claws formed, blocking his exit.

Or perhaps they knew he was here all along and were baiting him with the boot.

Best assume this is a planned ambush.

Gravity Charge.

15/16 Charges remaining.

Will picked a point on the ceiling halfway between himself and the exit, jumping as the Ability kicked in.

The yeti was too feral to be surprised by Will’s sudden ups, charging forward and grabbing Will’s leg.

Crap.

BOOM!

The world went white for and instant as Will’s back and neck was slammed against the floor.

Thankfully, gravity was pulling him the other direction and his spine was reinforced by Gravity Charge, so the monster’s tactic of slamming its prey’s upper body into the ground wasn’t nearly as effective as it would normally be.

Will whipped out his axe and chopped off one of the creature’s fingers.

It screeched, releasing him.

Will kicked off its other hand before it could get a grip on him and shot upwards at a forty-five degree angle, putting him face to face with another Yeti, whose eyes widened as he sailed towards it’s face.

Will headbutted it.

Typically, headbutting things that were at least two feet taller than oneself was ill-advised, but Gravity Charge made that a viable means of attack.

The yeti staggered backwards as Gravity Charge carried Will up and over, his momentum not stopping like any sane creature would expect.

Will drove the tomahawk into the creature’s skull, flipping his body around and riding it’s twitching corpse back to the ground.

Will’s full weight was resting on his tomahawk in the creature’s skull, springloaded to fall towards the exit. He set his feet on the creature’s shoulders and pulled the tomahawk free, leaping further into the cave system, away from his set point.

The wounded yeti reached out to snatch Will out of midair, but missed as Will’s momentum died just in front of it’s hand.

Will hooked his tomahawk into the creature’s arm, yanking himself forward against the pull of Gravity Charge as the creature flinched backwards.

A hand closed down around his leg from behind, followed by another around his chest.

A sudden image of being ripped in half made Will break out in a cold sweat.

He whipped the tomahawk around and triggered its Active.

14/16 Charges Remaining.

A mind-shredding chord sounded around him as Will buried the axe in the monster’s wrists.

The Yetis around Will backed away as the psychic attack was boosted by the Sting Ring, causing them to smoke faintly from the acid damage.

“Whoops!”

Will fell upwards as he was let go, missing a hold on a nearby thrashing wall of fur.

He tumbled out of their reach and landed on the ceiling, dislodging a rain of hoarfrost as he smashed into the ice.

Groaning, Will stood up, looking up at the yetis.

From his perspective, they seemed to be standing on a perfectly smooth ceiling, snarling and jumping at him, trying to reach him so they could tear him to pieces.

This is Abyss on my inner ear, Will thought, turning and running deeper into the cave, the orientation of gravity instantly changing as he got away from the point he’d marked with Gravity charge.

When it felt like gravity was pulling him straight down the ceiling, as if it were a cliff he were climbing, Will jumped off and let Gravity charge slingshot him back towards the entrance.

He dipped low for an instant before he began falling forward and up again.

Cancel.

Will flew past the point he’d marked, momentum carrying him on a shallow arc over the heads of the snarling yetis and their grasping claws.

Will landed at the entrance and immediately began sprinting out and up the switchbacks.

The first yeti that came through had a snare tighten around it’s neck, lifting it off the ground and strangling it.

And the next.

And the next.

The following yetis shoved past the strangling yeti-curtain at the entrance and began scrambling up the switchback after Will.

One was decapitated, another lost their hands. A third was stuck in place and crushed, the fourth was perforated by dozens of poisoned blades.

The fifth and sixth got another snare. Will glanced at Loth.

“I ran out of ideas, okay!” Loth said defensively.

“I didn’t say anything!” Will said, raising his hands.

“They don’t look like they’re slowing down. One second. Don’t move.” Steve said, pulling out a mannequin on a rope before lifting his hand, forming a whorl of dense magic. He shoved it forward in a conical wave of magic that rippled through the line of charging yetis.

As one, they faltered, seemingly confused about where they were and what they were doing.

“I’m a big bad adventurer!” Steve said in a high-pitched voice, holding the mannequin in front of himself and wiggling it to give it a semblance of motion. “Can’t catch me!”

Steve threw the mannequin off the side of the cliff.

The yetis shook off the confusion and locked onto the target, diving off the cliff to pounce on the decoy.

…inadvertently tossing themselves off the edge of the floating island in the process.

They probably wouldn’t get XP for those, and definitely not loot, but it was better to have the numbers under control. Will approved.

“Any more?” Loth asked.

“I think we got the biggest chunk of them,” Will mused. “it’s probably ones and twos now.”

“…Let’s go mop up.”