As planned, Jude and Daniel went in first. Brandt followed closely behind, with Madi and Orrin taking up the rear. The rooms were supposed to be large on the other side; about 200 yards back, the same width, and vaulted ceilings that you could just make out.

The room they entered was significantly larger. Orrin could barely make out the back wall through all the snow, and he could not see the ceiling. It looked like a sky, but had the same tint of dark blue the safe room floors usually had.

Ice? He thought briefly. He couldn’t figure out how high up it was.

None of that mattered compared to the monsters they saw up ahead though. Shambling along slowly towards the party. Two colossal behemoths of ice, the humanoid shapes stepped forward in near-sync. A frozen leg broke as it left the ground behind it and regrew before planting itself on the ground in front. Each step leaving a five foot tall column of ice. The ground was littered with the ice trees.

Orrin used [Identify].

Ice Elemental- HP 400/400

“Ice Elemental. Four hundred health. Madi hit the one on the left and blind it. Everyone else attack the one on the right.” Orrin yelled and proactively hit both with a [Lightstrike].

He stood by the door and pulled out his bestiary.

“What are you doing?” Madi screamed at him as she ran forward to cast her spell. “This is no time for reading.”

“Knowledge is power,” he replied, already flipping through the pages. There you are.

Ice Elementals are formed from cores of wild ice magic. Attacks against the ice body are meaningless, and adventurers should take care to retreat if confronted, as damaging the core is mostly luck. Each Elemental keeps the core in a different part of its icy body, that can be regenerated at will. The height of an Elemental displays its strength, with anything taller than five feet being a five star (*****) monster.

“Don’t waste your time attacking the body, it won’t do any good...” Orrin trailed off. Nobody was listening to him.

Daniel and Jude were hacking the legs off the right Elemental, while Brandt was trying to flank it. The one of the left was walking in slightly larger circles. Madi had already hit it with [Shimmersight].

Orrin ran forward and slid to a stop next to Madi. “They’re doing no damage to it.”

“Are you kidding? Look at Jude, he just took off half its thigh with one hit.”

Orrin pulled up an [Identify] box on the Elemental being attacked and threw it to Madi. “See?”

She gasped and then started winding up another spell. “I’ll blind it. You pull them back and get them to listen.”

Orrin moved closer but kept his distance. The Elemental was taking large unwieldy swings with its arms at the much smaller fighters. It had to be fifteen to twenty feet tall.

“Daniel. Jude. Retreat.” He ordered, waving his hands to try and get their attention.

Jude listened and fell back, but Daniel swung twice more at the legs. Gertrude flew through the first leg but got stuck in the second. The mass of ice creaked and began to tilt back, its balance gone.

“Brandt, get out of the way!” Orrin screamed. The knight held his small shield up in front of him as small chips of ice began to fall. He ran sideways and barely missed being crushed beneath the Ice Elemental’s body.

The monster shivered on the ground, the ice pulling into a vaguely rectangular shape, and then pushing back up into its previous form.

“It’s like the fucking metal guy from Terminator.” Daniel appeared next to Orrin.

“Asshole, listen to your overwatch!” Orrin pushed Daniel. He actually teetered for a second. This extra 30 stat points is no joke!

The elemental was back on its feet and took a step forward. Then Madi’s spell hit the lumbering beast.

Daniel looked sheepish for only a second. “Sorry, but did you see how much damage I’m doing?”

Orrin gave him a dead face and threw the same box as earlier to the hero. “Absolutely nothing.”

Brandt made it back. Madi and Jude ran up as well. With both Elementals blinded by Madi, they had a few minutes. The party crept closer to the door again. One of the monsters was walking away from them, while the recently knocked down one stood still.

“What gives?” Jude prompted. “We were doing alright. Why pull us out?”

“And please be more careful, Daniel.” Brandt used his sword to dislodge some slivers of ice stuck to his shield. “I’d rather not become a smear on the ground.”

“You were doing no damage. These things have a core in them somewhere. Only that takes damage, the rest of it is like a big rechargeable armor piece,” Orrin explained. “Have either of you encountered something like that?”

Brandt and Jude shook their heads.

“Could I just crush the entire thing?” Daniel asked.

“You saw how it got right back up, right?” Madi commented. “You took off a leg and a half and it was walking in seconds.”

The party was quiet as they all thought.

“So what do we do?” Daniel looked to Orrin.

Orrin shrugged. “Dude, I don’t have the answer everytime.”

Brandt took his helmet off. “Damn this thing gets hot. What if we attack together? Everybody take a limb, Jude takes the head or center mass. Orrin can let us know if anyone hits it.”

“It has four hundred health,” Orrin countered. “That’s going to take forever.”

Jude smiled. “So like a normal dungeon delve without our solution kit here.” He jostled into Orrin. “Time for us old timers to show you kids how it’s done.”

Old timers? They can’t be out of their early twenties. Orrin just shook his head as the fighters started strategizing.

“I could cast a few [Lightbeam]s,” Madi supplied.

“I’ll hit an arm with [Lightstrike],” Orrin said. Might as well waste the mana.

The second Elemental was far in the distance now. The first standing with its side to the party. They moved around into position.

“Attack,” Daniel whisper-shouted.

Daniel swung for the upper leg again, intending to cleave the limb off. Brandt stabbed at the ice of the other leg. Madi and Orrin hit the two arms. Nothing changed on his [Identify] box.

Jude wound his hammer over his head and jumped from behind, bringing the metal down on what would have been the neck. The ice groaned and cracked, a fault line appearing down the middle of the chest.

“Still no damage,” Orrin yelled.

Daniel shoved Gertrude into the crack and wedged the sword deep. Then he hauled the handle to the side. He let out a roar of a yell and the Elemental split in two pieces.

The side of the body to Orrin’s right melted down into water and then flowed across the ground towards the still frozen left side.

“There.” Brandt yelled and struck something only he could see.

Ice Elemental- HP 348/400

“You did fifty-two damage,” Orrin yelled out. “Again. Quick.”

Brandt struck but not quickly enough. The ice reformed around the core and ice pushed down, creating new legs. In seconds the outer shell body stood tall.

It took a step towards the party.

“Shit,” Madi started winding up another spell. “When it reforms, it must have shaken my shimmer.”

She hit the slow moving target again. “Having this much Intelligence is paying off. I can totally see your math adding up, Orrin. My spells cost so much less.”

Orrin just nodded. “Same plan?”

This time, Daniel took the center and used [Gravity Strike] to cut the Elemental in two. The top half stayed solid and landed on the slush that had been legs and hips a moment before. Brandt and Jude went wild.

“Over here.” Brandt pointed and began to hack.

“Move,” Jude held his hammer high and brought it down in a [Fallen Star] attack.

Ice Elemental- HP 83/400

“It’s down to eighty-three,” Orrin yelled out, keeping them informed.

The rectangle of icy doom formed again. As the Elemental fully formed, Brandt let out his own [Power Strike], carving a swath of ice from the Elemental’s side.

The chunk of ice stayed solid. Brandt quickly struck it with his shield as hard as he could.

A small softball of deep blue ice, with flickering lighter blue veins rolled to a stop near Orrin’s feet.

Madi hit it with a [Lightbeam] before Orrin moved. He swung his sword, completely forgotten until this point, and hit the core.

It shattered and the lights inside dimmed. The small ball of ice lay inert at his feet, the cracks letting off a final glimmer before going dark.

Experience Gained: 200 XP

“Nice!” Daniel ran and slid to a stop. “And we have one more.”

“I got a level,” Madi said, her eyes already flickering over her invisible boxes. “I only need a moment.”

“Better make it quick,” Jude answered. “I think your original spell wore off.”

The other Elemental was heading back.

Orrin’s sword fell from his grip and he sat hard on the ground.

Fucking Elementals.

The second monster had been slightly bigger than the first. They’d had to cut it down three times before they got the first hit on the core. After that, Brandt and Daniel made sure to keep an eye on where it was. The monster didn’t move it around too much during its rebuilding phase.

Experience Gained: 200 XP

All in all, they’d been fighting for only thirty or forty minutes, but it was a lot of spell slinging and even more physical exertion.

Orrin had tried casting an Inverse buff on the Elemental but nothing happened.

“Maybe I needed to target the core?” He muttered to himself.

“Stop overthinking,” Daniel plopped down beside him. “Enjoy the victory for a minute. Strategize later. You did amazing.”

Madi sat down too. “He’s right you know. We would have wasted who knows how long figuring out that fight. Smart to bring a bestiary.”

“I’m just surprised Brandt didn’t know what it was.” Jude leaned on his hammer haft, digging the head into the dirt under the snow for balance. “Aren’t you always yelling at the recruits about being prepared?”

Brandt’s helmet was off again, his hair a matted mess. “Oh shut up, Jude. I can’t know every monster backwards and forwards.”

“The kid did,” Jude countered.

“I cheated,” Orrin held up the bestiary and then slipped it back into his [Dimension Hole]. “Might not have the time if the second door is something too fast.”

“We’ll deal with that tomorrow,” Brandt said. “We can go back into the hallway and start camp.”

“No, we can go more,” Madi argued.

“You used how much mana?” Brandt asked. “I know I used so many skills I’m going to feel it in my bones. And there is no rush. Orrin, you’ll wake up early tomorrow to cast those spells again. I want to start earlier. But only one door a day. Let’s not push too hard.”

Madi grumbled as they made their way back to the hallway. Brandt carried the cores of both Elementals in the crook of his arm.

Despite the earliness of the day, Orrin had to admit he felt tired. The fights he’d been in up to this point with monsters had all been relatively quick. The constant repositioning and few spells he’d had to cast hadn’t worn him out, but the loss of the adrenaline of the fight left him weary.

“We did better today,” Brandt said over more soup. “Working as a team and responding to Orrin and Madi’s plan. Let’s keep that up tomorrow.”

“Most of us anyways,” Orrin said with a look at Daniel.

Daniel tilted his cup of soup back and then sighed. “I said sorry. I was just in the zone.”

“You have to be better. Brandt could have gotten hurt.”

“Alright, alright. I promise to listen better.”

Madi laughed. “You two are like an old married couple.”

Daniel and Orrin scowled at her.

“Okay. Orrin and Madi, last watch. Wake us up whenever. Your [Utility Ward] stops when we sleep right?” Brandt asked.

“Yeah. I think that was the trigger for it to reset last time.”

“Then I’ll take middle watch again and-“

“You took it last time,” Daniel injected. “You and Jude get some uninterrupted sleep tonight. Let me take middle watch. For my fuck up.”

Brandt smiled. “I won’t turn down the offer. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

Orrin crawled into his sleeping mat and fell asleep quickly. It felt like seconds later, Daniel was shaking him awake.

“Orrin, something’s wrong with Jude and Brandt. Wake up. You need to heal them, now!"