The Daily Grind - Chapter 170 (Patreon)

I'm not sure how happy I am with this one.  Maybe I just got used to writing relaxed character stuff, who knows.  Anyway, as may be obvious, this is part of a small string of dungeon-y chapters, and I hope ya'll enjoy.

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“You’re a genius!  Like a human astronaut!”  - Friday Nights, The Masters -

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Six people blipped into existence in an abandoned campsite outside of Alice Springs, Australia.

Technically - okay, not even ‘technically’ really - they were violating the ongoing quarantine procedures for travelers.  Pandemic restrictions were relaxing as more and more people got vaccinated, but there was still a proper protocol for arriving in the country, and ‘teleport wherever you want’ absolutely wasn’t it.

They were all vaccinated though, and recently tested too.  Even Arrush, who might actually be exempt from the legal ramifications of their actions, being non-human.  According to Deb, ratroach bodies took to vaccines in general with frightening efficacy.

Taking in the scenery in front of him, James stepped forward and stumbled over something in the dark, swearing as the heavy pack he was wearing unbalanced him. They had planned for a huge number of dungeon based problems, and somehow, he’d still forgotten that there was a *time difference*.

Behind him, Alanna and Anesh removed their hands from his shoulders, Alanna swearing as she tripped over the same rock James had, while Anesh stayed put as he pulled his phone out and engaged the flashlight.

James did the same, as did Nikhail behind them, and as their eyes adjusted, they got a decent look at the empty campground they were in.  Arrush, not needing light to see perfectly, made a stilted motion and stepped away from the humans.  The last member of their group, Alex, almost immediently tilted sideways as the person she was leaning on shifted away, her own heavy pack unbalancing her with a yelp.

The six of them were the planned team for this initial delve.  James, Anesh, and Alanna all basically just had dibs.  Arrush had been asked because the ratroaches needed all the help they could get with things.  Nik and Alex were… well, not exactly ‘filler’, but they were both very interested, and hadn’t been in nearly as many dungeons as a lot of members of the Order.

Reed had complained that James was stealing his best research assistant.  Harvey had complained that James was stealing Response’s best medic. Nik had complained that he basically never got to do delves, and yet somehow had two jobs in the Order.  James had snatched him up for this as soon as he’d shown an interest, but had made the concession to Research and Response to not poach any more of their members for this run.

In contrast, Alex didn’t seem attached to any particular project in the Order.  In fact, James wasn’t actually sure what the girl *did*.  He’d been kind of surprised to find that the answer was mostly just background research for other projects, and then trying to guess at how blue totems worked in her free time.  The answer left her basically unattached, and she was happy to tag along.  She legitimately loved dungeon exploration, and James was pretty sure she loved it more for the danger.

Sadly, much as they had wanted to come, Rufus and Ganesh were excluded on the grounds that anyone the wind could pick up and throw off a cliff were just off the guest list.  Similarly, while they’d talked to the camraconda population about it, none of them were confident enough in the mechanical arm harnesses to test them under these harsh conditions.  Well, Frequency-Of-Sunlight was.  But she was vetoed.  And not just because her girlfriend was worried about her.

“Kinda cold here.”  James commented.  “Isn’t it supposed to be warmer here in the later months?”

“First off, it’s *barely* October.”  Alanna corrected him.  “Also, it’s night.  Everywhere is colder at night.”

Nikhail slid his pack off.  “So, what’s the plan, glorious leader?”  He asked.

James sighed and looked around.  “Well, what time is it?”  He checked his phone.  “Okay, we’ve actually got about an hour until sunrise.  Let’s just take a bit to relax, then get our gear on and start moving in the right direction.”  He glanced in the right direction, then back down, shaking his head as he instantly lost the ability to remember the mountain.  “Planner’s trick is so weird.  I *know it’s there*, but I can’t… ugh.  This is gonna be a headache.”

“I’m gonna look *this way* for an hour.”  Alanna said, dragging her feet through the packed dirt as she turned to face away from their destination.

“For some reason, I thought you guys would be way more… professional?”  Alex looked awkward as she spoke.  “Like, I know you all a bit, but I figured on something like this.”

“Oh, we’re capable of it.”  James admitted.  “But we’re not in the dungeon yet, and I don’t feel like staying serious for a whole walk there.”

Alanna checked their map.  “On that note, judging by where the last group was when they got dungeon-napped, we’re maybe a mile away.  So, right near the place.  Which… actually might explain why this campground is empty.  Yikes.”

“Nah, I just booked it ahead of time.”  James told her.  “Well, Karen did.  It’s fine.”  He looked around as everyone found a seat on a rock or part of the ground, and set their packs full of gear in the middle of their group.  “Arrush, you doing alright?”  He asked the newest member of the Order.

The ratroach gave a slow nod, like he was uncertain.  “New smells.  And something familiar.”  He spoke through his awkwardly shaped mouth.  “I will adapt.”

“Alright, just let us know if you need help with anything.  Telepad travel can be uncomfortable.”

They took some time to relax and try to mentally prepare for what they were about to attempt.  At a certain point, Alanna stood and started stretching, and a couple of the others followed her example.  A half hour of nervous waiting later, the sky started to lighten, and they started taking turns to change into the cold weather gear and armor combo that they had prepared.

The heavier coats and gloves could wait until they actually entered the dungeon, and it would be uncomfortable to make the hike there if it started to warm up any more.  But it wasn’t worth trying to change clothes in a blizzard, and they were *mostly* all used to long walks in armor already anyway.

Arrush actually had custom armor plating, and seemed… well, James wasn’t used to reading the ratroach’s emotions.  But when presented with the bundle, he stared at it for several minutes as he held it with all three of his hands, clutching the package like he was worried someone would take it back.  He’d almost held back from giving Arrush the custom fit Status Quo glove, worried the big ratroach would cry if he was handed it too suddenly.

He was the last one to get changed, with James helping him into some of the armor.  The ratroach tried to control it, but James noticed how he flinched when touched.

“Hey.”  He muttered softly to their new recruit.  “If you’re uncomfortable with anything, just let me know, okay?  I know it’s hard to remember, and no one will blame you for reacting otherwise, but we aren’t… I mean, you’re a person, okay?  That matters to us.”

The big ratroach hadn’t met James’ eye, but had nodded regardless, which he took as a win.

Backpacks were rearranged and reshouldered.  Sips of water and snacks were had.  Last minute bathroom breaks were taken.  No one said much during this idle time, and even James eased up on the jokes, mostly just playing Sudoku on his phone while waiting for everyone else.

They weren’t actually using their own phones, really.  They were just copied smartphones with no plan.  All of them in durable waterproof cases, with a slot on the front of the armor’s webbing to be tied into so they could have a recording of the delve for future reference.

The rest of their gear was a mix of standard mountaineering, and standard delving tools.  Ice picks and pitons, rope and climbing rigs.  But also sidearms, sharpened hatchets, reflex coffee thermoses, a set of blue orbs each, one of the copied Status Quo material-breaker gloves, a trio each of exercise recovery potions, and a half dozen other little dungeontech tricks and tools.

Also, the Order now had enough random computing power chugging away in the basement of the Lair to operate a number of the immunity programs that their AI had been harvesting for them, and Anesh had been slowly copying in the miscellaneous part of their weekly duplication rituals.  Not all of them were incredibly useful, but everyone here was sitting at a minimum of five percent protection from both venom, and wood.

They hadn’t gotten one for cold.  But James remembered Momo’s debrief, and the discussion of the tree creatures.  So wood was on the menu.

And, of course, everyone had been given an armory kit of purples.  All six of them, if they hadn’t had it already, had gotten an extra meter and a half of safe fall distance, a couple prevented broken bones, an extra half liter of daily blood production, and a degree and a half of temperature tolerance.

A half mile into their hike, Alex posed a question to the group while they approached the dungeon’s territorial boundary.  “Hey, why aren’t we just flying Pendragon in there?”  She said.  “I know Dave doesn’t need to pilot her or anything, right?  Shouldn’t we… dragon?”

“Dragon would be so cool…” Nik mumbled.

“We’re not bringing Pen because she’s huge, and we actually don’t want to attract too much attention.”  James said.   “This is one of those spiteful feeling dungeons, remember.  I don’t think it’d react well.  Also, the big girl just doesn’t do well in the cold, according to Dave.”

“Neither do I, but you brought me!”  Alanna griped.

“Hey, you and Anesh agreed!  No complaining until we’re *on the mountain*!”  James cheerfully reminded her as they kept walking up the slope of the terrain on the approach to the dungeon.  “That was the deal!”

“We’re approaching the line.”  Anesh said, interrupting the banter with a final check on his GPS.  “Should we gear up here?”

It was posed as a question, but he pulled a set of ski goggles over his eyes, and slipped on the mismatched set of dungeontech modified gloves regardless.  The others followed his lead, James trying to not feel stifled as he covered so much of himself in a protective shell that wasn’t yet needed.

The sun was just touching the horizon, turning the sky into streamers of color that all of them took the time to sneak glances at, when they crossed some kind of invisible line.  They were still in the middle of the Australian wilderness, still approaching a mountain that seemed to never get closer, but suddenly, there was a feeling in the air.  A feeling of being watched, not too closely, but with the grim certainty that action was being taken.

James felt it on the back of his neck, and he tensed up instantly, along with a near-instant reaction from Arrush.  A second later, Alanna and Anesh got the same feeling, though less specific.  The others didn’t react to it, and almost bumped into the forward members of the group as they slowed down.

“What’s up?”  Alex asked tentatively, still not quite comfortable with casual delve team conversation, but trying her best.

James opened his mouth to say something, when motion in the dirt to their left caught all their attention.  “Group up!”  James called over the sudden wind and kicked up dirt.  Twenty meters away from them, an oval of twisting lightning was forming in the air, growing steadily and beginning to move toward the party. “Here we go!  Everyone stay calm, pair off, and get ready to land and start moving!”

The dungeon net sprung into motion, whipping forward at an appropriately lightning speed.  Anesh and Alanna linked arms, leaving James to step back and pair off with Alex, feeling the other girl vibrating with either fear or excitement.  Behind them, Nik stepped closer to Arrush, and while the ratroach tensed, he didn’t shy away from gripping arms with his own delve partner.

This took seconds, and in that time, the mountain’s combination trap and doorway had closed the distance, and wrapped around them.  The sky shifting from sunrise colors to a crackling dark void as the electric edge sealed around them in a dome.  And then they were *falling*, sensations snapping into place around them one by one as they crossed the edge between the real world and the dungeon’s domain.

James landed in the snow, legs sinking down until the line of pure white cold was above his knees.  If he hadn’t sunk so deeply, he would certainly have fallen, but the soft powder stabilized him just enough.  Next to him, Alex pitched forward, and he braced his feet and pulled her back upright.  Months of magically assisted high intensity exercise and a more active lifestyle than he’d ever had before had made James stronger, which he knew in the abstract, but it was still a strange sensation to just move an entire human without much effort.

Then the wind of their transition stopped, and there was the barest moment of stillness.  Before a new wind kicked in; a baleful howling that threw sharp handfuls of ice crystals into their faces and threatened to drag them off all on its own.

“Everyone here?!”  James heard himself yelling over the sound of the wind.

Ahead of him, two figures pulled themselves out of a snowbank as Anesh and Alanna stood up.  Off to the side, Nik helped Arrush up, and James saw the ratroach say something, but couldn’t hear it over the wind.  Whatever it was, Nik jerked away kind of suddenly.  He’d check to make sure that wasn’t a problem later.

For now, everyone had a little more to do.  Winter coats were pulled out and put on, before the cold really started to set in.  Anyone who didn’t have masks and goggles on already made sure to fix them in place now.  Even Arrush had a more or less properly fitted set of winter gear just for himself.

It was cold.  It was *really* cold.  But they weren’t a group of unprepared hikers.  They’d come ready for this, and between the wetsuits, the face coverings, and the extra thermal layers, none of them were in danger of freezing anytime soon.

Around them stretched the dungeon.  Winter’s Climb, the name felt *small* compared to the vastness of the place.  And yet, somehow, it settled into James with a cold comfort.  It was winter, and they could climb it.  Yeah, this was doable.

Momo had described it, but actually seeing it in person was something else.  The sky felt too close, and not even twenty feet behind them was the edge of a cliff, beyond which was just more sky and distant mountains barely visible through the white and black curtain of wind and ice.  Ahead, the peak was so tall it wasn’t fully visible.  Up and up and up it went, a somewhat gentle slope at first, but rising at a higher angle as it pierced through a cloud layer.  Beyond that… there was more.  He could feel it.

There was no sun or moon.  No way to tell if it was supposed to be day or night.  Instead, the sky radiated a dull, pale light that made the shadows of the landscape jump out without ever making it feel like they had good visibility.

James saved his voice, instead using hand gestures to get everyone’s attention, and get them moving.  The snow whipped around them, a slurry of ice crystals that would have been far more threatening if they weren’t wearing protection from the wet.  But for all the wind and weather, visibility here was still not too bad.

There was only one way to go, really.  Up and forward.

They could have circled around to the side of the slope, and there may be secrets to find there later.  But for now, they needed to explore, and the simplest way to do that kind of scouting was to take the cleanest path first.

The team spread out slightly, moving side by side as pairs as they started heading upward.  They took a little time to get their bearings, but despite being a huge and impossible space, the dungeon wasn’t actually that *large*.

It was strange, because of how it *wasn’t* strange, and James almost got distracted thinking about it as he followed the trail plowed in the snow behind Anesh and Alanna.  The sky was wrong, and the sheer scope of the mountain made him feel tiny.  But mountains did that anyway.  And unlike Route Horizon or Officium Mundi, there wasn’t anything truly impossible about the landscape yet.

Though not for lack of trying.

James swore as a blast of wind sprayed more wet snow into his face.  A quick wipe with the back of his glove cleared his vision, and he felt like he was warming up more than cooling down in his protective gear.  But it was still getting worse.

Next to him, Alex swore and stumbled as she hit a rock under all the snow.  “How far up does this go?!”  She yelled over the wind at him.

“No idea!”  James replied.  “This might be the whole way!”

“Can we even fight in this?”  She asked, her voice loud enough that Anesh and Alanna paused and turned back to check if everything was okay.

“We’ll figure it out!”  James said, and patted her on the shoulder.  “Let’s keep moving!  Maybe the wind ends somewhere!”

The slope they were on only seemed to be maybe a five degree incline.  And yet, every step felt like it took ten times the effort it should have.  The snow held them back, the wind shifted to blow directly against them, and James almost lost track of time as they proceeded upward.

The landscape wasn’t barren, though the vast majority of what they could see in their close proximity was a white blanket, dotted in places by the tops of rocks poking through, or just pockets of snow casting deep black shadows.  Beyond that, there were larger boulders that showed off rough grey stone capped in white, potential breaks from the driving snow.  Or singular trees, proud coniferous forms showing off green branches that waved in the winds.

They avoided all of them.  They weren’t desperate for a break, they weren’t starting to freeze.  It was better to keep pressing on, than risk one of the obvious early traps.

James wondered, not for the first time, how Momo had survived this while wearing *jeans*.

Just as James was starting to think the wind was going to be a permanent feature here, he saw Anesh and Alanna straighten up in front of him, and start to spread out.  Pushing a little extra oomph into his footsteps, he urged Alex forward and a few seconds later, stepped through a curtain of calm.

Behind him, the wind blew and sleet fell.  Here, as suddenly as stepping through a door, it was quiet and placid.  Only a light drifting snowfall that gradually added to the powder around them.

“Oh thank fuck.”  Nik exclaimed as he pushed forward, Arrush an armspan away.  He wiped the slush off his goggles, and James took a moment to clear his own vision before pulling the goggles up to his forehead to get a better field of view.

“Nice place.”  Alanna said, sliding her mask down to take a breath of the air here.  “So, how’re we doing so far?”

James took stock.  “Well, no monsters.”  He commented.  “Yet.  I think we’ve gone, like, three hundred feet?  I’m not tired.  Is anyone tired?”

“I’m tired!”  Nikhail exclaimed.  “But not tired enough to stop.”

“I feel like I’ve had a workout.”  Anesh admitted.  “And I think we’ll keep getting more of one.  Behold.”  He pointed behind them, and they all turned.  Arrush, who had been rotating one of his legs to try to stretch it out, stepped back as he saw what Anesh had indicated.

The wind was getting closer.

Just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, James grabbed a couple nearby bits of rock on top of the snow, walked back through the trail they’d forged, and set them one after the other on the ground in plain sight.  Then he turned and walked back, the others following him to a distance from the wind wall to watch.

Sure enough, after about a minute, the wind had passed the first rock, the dark sheet beyond which there was a howling gale and falling ice either moving or growing to get closer to them.  A minute later and it took the next one.

“That’s about a foot a minute.”  James said into the quiet of their newly discovered area.  “Anyone want to bet on if this just keeps going?”

“Okay.  That’s bad.”  Alanna nodded.  “So, we keep moving? If we make good time, we can stay ahead of it.  We go *way* faster than a foot a minute.  We can buy enough time to rest farther up.”

“Good plan.  Anyone need to take a break? Nik? Arrush?  You two okay?”

“Fine.”  Nik waved him off, despite leaning over on his knees and breathing heavily.  The ratroach just nodded still watching the wind wall.

“Alright.  Let’s keep going.  Looks like there’s gonna be a problem in about five minutes, and I really don’t want to face it in high winds.”

The problem James was talking about was the next part of their climb.  Ahead of them, suddenly spiking to a steep angle, the hill rose up and, while they could see where it started to level off again, it was well after the trees started to get thicker.

If they wanted to, they could circle around the base of this rise.  But there was a visible drop over on the right, and to the left they’d need to navigate a pair of boulders so large they were miniature mountains of their own.  Not impossible, but clearly designed to lead them up this one particular path.

But that was fine.  They needed to know what they were facing, and walking into a trap prepared was often the best way to disarm it.

With every step up the incline, James could feel the cold getting a little sharper.  It still wasn’t *nearly* as bad as it would have been if the wind was screaming at them.  But bit by bit, degree by degree, the challenge was increasing.

And they weren’t even as far in as Momo and the others had gotten.

They stopped before the first tree.  Waiting for everyone to catch up, and catch their breath.  James turned to look behind them, at the distance they’d covered so far, and got a mild sense of vertigo looking down at the snow below.  It just stretched on, and on, and on.

In his hometown, where he’d grown up, James knew of a super tall hill near his family’s house that he’d liked to climb up as a kid.  From the top of that hill, he could see the lights of the city below, and even knowing as an adult that he was only seeing a thin sliver of the whole thing, it still filled him with a sense of greater perspective and scale.

So far in the last hour of trudging through the snow, they’d cleared a height of at barely twice that hill.  And looking down, he felt less like he had a grand perspective, and more like this was harder than it should have been.

“Alright.  Keep an eye on the trees.”  James said, turning away from the path they’d cut.  “The ones the first team fought had things drop out of the upper branches, but I don’t want to trust that there aren’t a dozen different tree-based hazards.”

“I’ll go first.  Draw anything out.”  Alanna commented.  “Just don’t let anything eat me, alright?”

James tried to think of a joke, but he was too focused on the task at hand, so he just offered a nod and smile instead.  The group formed up into a wedge, following Alanna as she stepped up and past the first tree.

There was a *twang* that cut through the air like a musical note, and then a rush of motion and a slapping sound as something whipped around from behind one of the trees and nailed Alanna so hard it carried her off her feet and four trees deep into the small grove off to the right.

And then, the trap springing as their cue, a score of points of motion shifted overhead.  Long brown multijointed limbs, centered around no particular body, just more limbs, unfolded from their camouflaged spots in the tops of the otherwise bare trees.  They didn’t have faces, didn’t have anything except their limbs and hands with fingers like splinters.  But all five of them fell into the snow with practiced ease, and kicked up plumes of white as they started rushing the delvers who were still standing.

James unhooked his hatchet, pulling it up to a solid grip and thanking the foresight of whoever had suggested using the tactile feedback pen on their gloves.  With his other hand, he slapped Alex’s shoulder.  “Cover fire!”  He yelled, stepping forward shoulder to shoulder with Anesh and trusting the girl to make use of the two of them as a front line.  He didn’t even know where Nik and Arrush were, and with the stick things closing in, didn’t have time to check.

The first one closed the gap, jetting ahead of the others.  It looked almost like they were *swimming* through the snow. But when it put on its final burst of speed and lunged through the air, James timed the trajectory of it’s jump, pulled on his enhanced agility, and slammed the hatchet’s edge into one of the joints between two of the branches reaching for him.

It bled a thin green sap, painting the snow and turning the spot it landed into a slushy mess as it thrashed around blindly.  James didn’t know if it was out of the fight, but it had lost a lot of forward momentum, and that counted when it came down to the seconds that mattered in a fight like this.

Behind him, off to the left, gunfire popped off as Alex took somewhat imprecise shots at the rest of the pack.  At least one scored a hit, but there was no time to celebrate, because then the others were on them.

James ducked the one that came at him head on, but the second ignored Anesh hacking at it’s side and scoring a glancing blow, and instead hit the snow between them and pivoted to try to sink its claws into James’ leg.  It didn’t penetrate, but it *did* get a good grip, and yanked with more strength than its mass should have allowed, sending him sprawling to his back with an oof as the air left his lungs and he breathlessly gasped.

More gunfire, and a splatter of green, but Alex wasn’t a marksman, and she was firing too high to try to avoid hitting James.  Which, to be fair, he would *appreciate*, but when the last one of the things fell on him he didn’t much care if she took some risky shots.

He grabbed the branch thrust at his face, and twisted it around his arm in an attempt to break it, but the wood flexed and held, pulling like wet clay.  With his off hand, he snagged a loose grip on his axe, and started hacking with as much force as he could muster, planting lines of bleeding green on the sides of whatever branch he could reach as the rest of the creature scrambled to cut through his coat and armor until the hatchet stuck and he lost his grasp on it.  Then, James remembered what was *on* his left hand, and he mentally tapped the command to his glove to [Break Wood], lashed out with a closed fist, and was satisfied when a fracture split the creature down the middle with a resounding *crack*.

Then Anesh sank his own axe into the back of the stick thing’s biggest central branch, the closest thing it had to a body, and it twitched just a few more times before falling onto James limply.

He shoved it off himself, finding it dramatically lighter than it had felt a second ago, and staggered to his feet.  The stick figure on James was the last one to fall, and Nik was already helping Alanna to her feet from where the clothesline strike of the trap had utterly failed to kill or maim her.

“Everyone good?”  James’ voice sounded strange in the crisp air but muffled slightly by the snow, even the flattened area around where he’d just been wrestling with a tree monster.

Anesh chimed in almost automatically, dozens of dungeon excursions with James having prepared him for the moment after a fight.  Shortly after that, Alanna gave a groan of assent and a thumbs up, followed by a yelled ‘yeah’ from Nik.  Arrush didn’t say anything, but hadn’t actually participated in the skirmish, so was mostly okay.  But the Ratroach did step forward, leaning down to peer at James with his misaligned compound eyes.

Then he raised a hand, gloved finger poking out to tap James’ cheek.

James winced and flinched back.  “Ow!”  He yelped.  “Wait, ow.  Shit, I think that thing cut me.”

“James.”  Anesh said, stripping gloves back to tilt James’ face toward him.  “This isn’t good.”

“I’ve been cut before, it’s fine.  Known issue with this kind of job.”  James said.  “We’ve got a medkit, it’ll keep until we get…”  He trailed off, raising a finger to tap at his face, initially enjoying the tactile sensation radiating through the glove and into his fingertip, but then flinching in pained concern.  “What the fuck?”  He muttered.  “What’s… ow?  What?”

There was confusion in his voice, because the feeling of the injury on his face wasn’t one of a wet cut, or dripping blood.  But of rough wood, etched in a line down his cheek.

“Everyone back from the sticks!”  Anesh called, ignoring his own call as the others moved back, shuffling divots in the piling snow as the moved.  He crouched down, and gently shifted one of the dead creatures sideways, moving one of its appendages to hold up the end.  Long stick-like claws that glistened in the dim grey light, slowly frosting over as the thick flakes dropped onto them.  Anesh held it up to eye level, and carefully pulled some extra perception from Alanna.

There it was.  A single drop of a thick green fluid, right on the end of the claw, channeled through a thin furrow of a tube.  Venom.

“Alright, good news.”  James reported.  “It’s not spreading.  Bad news, I may be part ent now.”  He was itching at the mark on his face, where a line of bark had grown out of the line that had been cut down his face.  “Okay.  So.  Anesh, are we good?”

“Yeah, they’re all down, and if it’s not spreading, I don’t think there’s anything else we can do for you right now.”  He sighed, breath steaming in the air before being whipped away by the frozen breeze.  “We’ll have you checked out when we get back.  Fortunately, it doesn’t look like too much of your flesh is converted, so you should be able to get it… cut out… ugh.”

“Wow, gross.”  Alanna groaned as she moved in to huddle up with them.  “Alright, everyone come on in.”  The three newer delvers shuffled to join them as she waved them in, leaving the group standing in a loose circle.  “So.  What went wrong there?”

Alex looked down at the ground.  “I… panicked.”  She said, almost tripping over herself to speak.  “I didn’t know what to do!  I didn’t want to hit James, so I just shot into the crowd, and didn’t do anything!”

“Also Alanna stepped on a trap.”  James pointed out.  “Was there any sign of that?”  He asked his partner.

“None.  The wire was in the snow.  I have no fuckin’ idea how we’re supposed to find those.”

“Long stick?”  Nik asked.

“We didn’t bring a standard issue ten foot pole!”  James slapped his forehead.  “I regret this every time!”  His excited words muffled by the white drift around them.  Anesh, in a reply, simply turned and slowly pointed at the pile of dead stick creatures.  “They don’t count, Anesh, they’re full of venom that *apparently turns you into wood*.”  He sighed.  “Anyway.  Alex, you did fine.  We didn’t have time to set up a firing solution, so shooting to prioritize not hitting us was a good idea.  Also, Nik, good job going for Alanna.”  He looked around.  “Not bad for a first fight. We’ll improve.”

“Not bad?”  Alex had a wide eyed look.  “There were ten of them, and they almost killed us!  How did Chevoy get everyone out of here alive!?”

“They had a camraconda.”  Anesh reminded her.

“Why didn’t *we* bring a camraconda!”

James shook his head.  “Because we plan to go up past where a snake could safely climb.  We already kind of have.  Morgan carried Color-Of-Dawn out of here.  Which… yikes.  Impressive as all hell, but not something I wanna do.”  He took a deep breath, pulling his mask back up and wincing as it caught on the new tender bark skin of his face.  “Alright.  Anything else before we move on?”

“I did nothing.”  A harsh rasp of a voice cut through the snowy slope.  Arrush had spoken up, still hanging back from the group slightly.  If James didn’t know better, he’d think the ratroach looked guilty.  Or at least, expecting punishment in some way.  And James did know better.  It didn’t take the subtle gesture from Alanna to let him know what Arrush was feeling.

“Yeah.”  James shrugged.  “We didn’t have a specific spot for you.  We need to get better.  Got a role you think you can fill?”

“I… don’t know?”  Arrush rasped, switching without thinking about it to Spanish.  “I could… go first.  Find traps.”  He sounded uncertain.

“I’m better suited for that.”  Alanna answered.  “Look, not a scratch.”  She slapped the front of her armor.  “How ‘bout flanks?  Hold back, take care of anything that jumps anyone.”  The suggestion was latched onto like a liferaft.  Arrush nodding nervously, the antenna wrapped in thermal cloth bobbing in the wind as he did so.  “Hokay.  Now what?”

“Well, they didn’t drop anything.”  James said.  “Which we kinda new.  Any kill notifications or something?”  Head shakes all around.  James took a second to take a close look at the two who were least experienced with surviving dungeon fights, noting the slight shaking from adrenaline wearing off.  Internally, he suppressed a wince; this wasn’t the place to stand still, but they’d need to take a break soon.  So he did what he could, and motivated them to press on.  “Then I’m afraid it’s time for *more walking*.  Everyone say thank you to your boots.”  He grinned, turning to incline his head and look toward the ridge past the grove of trees where the ground leveled out a bit more.  “Further up.”

James started walking, taking point this time next to Alanna, between five and ten feet to her left.  The two of them cutting trails in the snow for the others to follow, his leg muscles definitely feeling the exertion, but not starting to sting or ache yet as he turned his armored self into a makeshift trailblazer.

If he’d been sucked in here, unprepared, James didn’t know if he could have survived.  As he walked, he looked to the side, to where the slope was cut up with ridges like a series of steps, thick brown dirt and chunks of muddy stone jutting out of the white snow, splotches on the otherwise pristine landscape. There were only a couple scattered trees that way, if they’d climbed that side instead of taking the smoother slope, maybe they wouldn’t have to deal with the sticks, but he didn’t fancy trying to get in a fight with something while also contending with the bad footing of standing on a sharp ridge.

It wasn’t just the terrain that made him pessimistic.  It was the cold.

The cold wasn’t exactly hitting James too hard.  He was insulated by methods both mundane and magic.  But just because he wasn’t rapidly plunging into frostbite didn’t mean he couldn’t feel it.  Around the edges of his goggles and mask, where the wetsuit ended on his neck, the cold snuck in.  Nothing too bad, just a creeping chill that was almost welcome, almost refreshing, compared to the heavy warmth of his gear.

But it wasn’t getting any warmer.

When that first casual scouting party had been pulled in here, Chevoy had been in khakis. Morgan and Liz had been in *shorts*.  Color-Of-Dawn hadn’t even been wearing anything at all, and camracondas *did* feel the cold.

James was pretty sure he’d be dead by now if he’d been in shorts.

He didn’t waste too much time musing on that.  Instead, he kept alert, kept his eyes on the landscape ahead.  They couldn’t spot tripwires, sure, but as the trees thinned out that was less of an issue, and James became more concerned that they were going to run into the snow golems Momo had described.

Another set of steps, and the trees faded away entirely, except one or two near the scattered boulders.  The slope was starting to steady out, and they were nearing what had looked like the top half an hour ago, but now just looked like more hill.  Pulling in a heavy breath, James paused to look behind them.

They weren’t high enough up yet, and probably never would be, to see over the stormy clouds that formed a curtain behind them.  But from here, James could see a massive edge that plummeted to nothing, curling out from behind either side of the slowly advancing storm.  A canyon so deep and intimidating that it gave him vertigo even from miles away.

While he watched their backs as the others kept moving up toward him, gradually closing the gap between their line, he swept his vision around, making sure anything that was moving wasn’t doing it toward them.  And then, paused.

To their left, where the step-like ridges had long ago dropped away to form a small valley that hemmed in their options if they needed to run, there was another path.  Or, not exactly a path, but a point that James’ brain locked onto and hurt to look at.

“Yo.”  He elbowed Alanna, who was performing a similar sweep on the other side.  “What’s that look like to you?”  James asked as he pointed.

Alanna turned and stared, the motions noticed by the four others approaching, who also glanced that direction.  When she spoke, even muffled by the face covering, it sounded annoyed.  “Like two places at once.”  She gave an irritated huff.  “Part of it goes off a cliff, part of it’s a path down.”

“I think it’s a path up, but yeah.”  James shook his head.  “Gotta watch out for those, I guess!”  He declared.  “We’re almost over the top.  Let’s start looking for a good place to set up camp and take a break.”

“How far up do you think we are?”  Alanna mused.  “Farther than they got, right?”

“Probably.  I don’t really recognize anything from how Momo described it, but that’s sort of the problem with places like this.  Hard to describe sometimes.  But I think, unless it shifted, that the place they stopped would have been at the base of this particular hill.”  James shifted his backpack around, trying to get the strap to dig into an itch on his shoulder.  “But we don’t know how this place passes out rewards.  And…”

“And we’re stopping so we can have a base to explore from, yes, thank you.”  Anesh walked past, panting as he trudged through the lanes in the snow but not stopping as he hit fresh powder and kept going.  “If I stop moving, I’m not getting up for an hour, so let’s go!”  Their boyfriend kept going, taking the lead.

A sheepish looking Alex slid by them.  “Should he be yelling in here?” She asked, pausing only briefly to talk before moving to catch up to Anesh.

“Not even a little.”  James said.

And yet.  It was easy to let his guard down here.  So far, this whole dungeon had felt… almost normal?

Oh, sure, there were venomous literal woodland creatures.  And the bottomless cliffs.  And the storm that was slowly chasing them.  That was all neat and weird, sure.

But the landscape looked too much like what he remembered from ski trips to Mt. Hood as a kid with his family.  So far, the most injury Winter’s Climb had managed to inflict on him was the mental pain of remembering spending time with his dad learning to snowboard, and then remembering that his dad didn’t remember he existed.  The cold and wet couldn’t get to him for now, the view was spectacular, and while the whole place looked bigger than it should have, it didn’t feel too different from just going out to a random spot in the Oregon wilderness in mid winter.

Then he took that last step up over the lip of the slope, onto relatively flat ground next to where Anesh and Alex had stopped dead, and changed his mind.

In front of them, stretching for hundreds of feet, was a lake.

Sort of.

It looked like what would happen if you dropped a rock into a pond.  Cracked waves like a wall around the outside, a spire rising up in the middle, a single teardrop of liquid flying up into the air.  Except, it wasn’t water; it was ice.  The entire lake, or at least, the parts that were in the process of splashing up into midair, were all frozen solid.

The lake itself *was* mostly liquid, though it had heavy chunks of ice floating in it.  Wetsuit or not, James had no intention of going anywhere near that.

There were cattails around the edge.  A few frosted over thorny vines.  It looked beautiful, even if the drop of ice hovering in midair was defying physics and flashing at them in a strange and persistent pattern of refracted light.

Beyond the lake, a three story tall edifice of grey rock sat, cutting off any further easy progress upward.  It stretched right into a scattering of trees that rapidly became something James would call a forest, and right a half mile or so before it disappeared into another blackened curtain of moving storm.  Above that cliff, James could just make out another rising wall of stone, waiting just beyond a platteau.

“Is that crystal thing trying to hypnotize us?”  Alex asked, confused, pointing up at the center of the lake’s frozen impact site.

“Oh, probably.”  James said, craning his neck and staring up at the glittering ice crystal.  Something told him he should go touch it.  But the thought was instantly noticeable as alien and intrusive.   “Yeah, I think so.  I can sort of feel it.  Either it’s not very good at it, or we should keep our goggles on and not look too closely at it.”

“Cliff looks like a good place to set up camp.”  Alanna said. “There’s an overhang, almost a cave over there.”

James nodded.  “Okay.”  He said.  “Let’s get moving.  Not too fast though; skirt the lake, keep an eye out.  We still haven’t seen any of those snow things.”

Nothing lunged at them out of the muddy bank of the frozen lake, nor did any parts of the ice try to kill them beyond the ongoing mild hypnosis effect, which did actually stop as soon as they turned away from it.  Which was still a *problem*, because they did need someone watching the lake, and then someone watching that person, just in case.

But it wasn’t more than another half hour of careful movement that they had made it to a spot that was dry, and sheltered from the worst of the wind whistling across the ice and exposed rock.  A fire, composed out of wood transported in a duplicate wallet of holding, crackling in the center of the little rocky overhang.

“Not bad for the first half day.”  James mused to himself, looking out at the rising icy walls around the lake, still keeping watch for anything hostile.

They’d take a break here, before they got back to work.  ‘Tonight’, if it even got night here, they’d rotate guard shifts while they slept in turn.  Then tomorrow, more climbing, more exploration.

For the rest of today, though?  Once everyone was feeling better, it was time to start poking around what they’d found so far.

Were there secrets under the snow?  Was there fruit on those vines by the lake?  Some kind of natural resource within easy reach?

They were here to explore.  And for once, they’d come in the first time prepared to actually catalogue what they found.

James couldn’t wait to see what was out there.