The Collector began its mana recharging meditation, drawing into a still pose upon the icy snow. The goblin swarm had retreated into the shelter of the cavern for a snap freeze had floated its way over the location.

The freeze manifested in the form of a thick, condensed fog of white that washed over with howling, raging winds, completely neutralizing visibility and rapidly introducing temperatures so low that they neared dangerously close to the point of absolute zero itself.

The Collector itself instantly iced over when a freeze like this passed over, ice instantly forming around it in clustered chunks, but that did not damage its vitals at all for the Collector maintained a measured Flow of mana within itself that kept its bodily functions continuing.

In fact, the ice even formed somewhat of an insulating layer around it, and the highly magically charged air of the freeze leeched in even further into the Collector through the ice.

By becoming encased in ice while its pores were open and dedicated to funneling in magical energy, the Collector increased its magical energy regeneration. The only downside of course was that it was obviously trapped in ice, and indeed, had an ordinary specimen such as a tinkerer seen the Collector as it was now, they would have thought the Collector expired, perished in a tomb of ice.

But the Collector was fully conscious within and could simply surge out its magical energy to break itself free at any given moment of time.

While encased inside its layer of meditative ice, the Collector watched the movements of the carrier unit and his hunting party.

The first part of the carrier unit's foray into the cavern had been uneventful. The cavern itself was empty, though the Amorak Alpha known as 'Loktal' had noted that there was the faint scent of a Primal Amorak. However, the scent was so faint that the Alpha had determined that quite likely, the Primal Amorak had left the area long ago.

This left the initial cavern a perfect resting place for the goblins and allowed them shelter against waves of snap freezes.

The cavern funneled downwards, and the further inside, the warmer it became, with the structure ending with a pool of clear, glowing cyan water. This water had incredible healing properties, allowing the goblin swarm to drink of it and maintain themselves far better over time.

The water also was tinged with warp energies, and when the carrier unit and his group had entered them, they were transported down to the first layer of the mountain's dungeon. Here, the carrier unit found himself traveling through long, winding pathways of ice-studded rock.

The Collector transmitted mental directions to the carrier unit, for the Collector could perceive where the primal energies of the land congregated towards its heart.

The first layer of the dungeon was one littered with Glaciated Serpents that lived in these mountains. The serpents would lie dormant on the ground, attached to walls, or stuck on ceilings, their white, icy scales camoflauged in the environment.

When the elites approached a dormant serpent, it would become active and aim its eyeless, angular head towards them and fire a bolt of bright blue energy.

This bolt was exceedingly dangerous, capable of immediately freezing an entire limb, completely destroying it at the cellular level by rupturing every individual component with an outburst of ice crystals. In essence, the opposite of the Breath of Life's restorative ice crystals.

The carrier unit had lost an arm to an ambush like this and had been forced to shatter the limb, with the Collector immediately restoring it with a minor input of magical energy. However, the serpents were not difficult to kill for they possessed high levels of primal energy with weak comparative physical bodies.

Thus, the elites made short work of them with their purifying lightblades, turning the serpents into exploded, fiery chunks. From then onwards, the Amorak Alpha focused its scent on detecting the serpents, for after it had taken in the scent of one fallen serpent, it could commit it to its memory.

There were no traps in this layer, only a larger cavern to which all the paths fed out into. Evidently, judged by its arena-esque layout encircled with towering, spike-like ice crystals, something of a secondary boss room.

Here, the elites encountered their first major hurdle.

==

Thokk held on to his purifying lightblade.

Unlike Goromir who preferred twin daggers and Kandak who used a spiked club, he wielded a longsword. This, he had requested from the Sovnar for the Sovnar was also a master of artistry and crafting things.

Thokk had seen an adventurer's sword a long time ago, when he was still a small goblin, and he had thought it was such a wonderful and new thing, and he had asked the Sovnar to replicate it. He talked about how the blade looked so smoothly carved, how there were fancy fire patterns on the crossguard, and how the handle looked so sleek to hold.

The Sovnar had replicated all of these requests perfectly, giving Thokk a long sword that any tinkering smith would have marveled at due to not only the artistry of the flames rendered along its cross-guard but also how well it was balanced and structured, as if forged for sheer efficiency.

With this sword, Thokk would never let the Sovnar down. He watched as a massive wolf man thing attacked Kandak. The wolf man, a Primal Amorak as the Sovnar had said, was terribly strong, being larger than Loktal by only a little bit but somehow being so much stronger and faster.

At first, when Thokk and the rest had entered this boss area, they had seen the Primal Amorak nearby a large pool of healing water at the area's end, lapping at it to tend to a severed arm. Upon sensing them, the Primal Amorak had reacted with immediate hostility, and it moved with such speed that Thokk had trouble perceiving it.

The booming sound of the Primal Amorak's audible heartbeat echoed throughout the cavern. All of its veins bulged out from under its skin and through its fur, and steam simmered around it in a hot aura as it moved with savage ferocity.

The Primal Amorak had run circles around them in this state until Loktal had entered a similar one, also making his heart beat louder to make himself stronger. Loktal had managed to tackle the Primal Amorak down before being flung away, but this was enough time for Kandak to toss his club away and grapple the Primal Amorak.

Thokk was six meters away from Kandak as he roared with his arms encircled around the Primal Amorak's waist. Golden energy surged around Kandak's heavily armored, carapaced body, concentrating especially on his hands as they dug into the Primal Amorak's back, at the center of the monster's gravity to try and control it.

The ground under Kandak shattered as the Primal Amorak roared and struggled slashing at Kandak's exposed but armored back. Sparks skittered off Kandak's back carapace as the Primal Amorak cut into it with its one remaining arm.

Thokk took a step forwards, but he did not run forwards to strike with his lightblade longsword, trying to find an opening to strike, but the Primal Amorak's reddened eyes were also keenly aware of Thokk and Loktal, ready to counter them.