“I can’t believe that dungeon scout made it this far alone. He must have had some impressive stealth Skills. The fish must have sensed him on the ice and got him though.” Frowning, I lift up the clothes with Telekinesis and poke them with a finger to store them away in my hold.

“We’ll find his family later if we can. We have to get moving.”

“Lucas, wait.” Erika and Kayla walk up to me, each holding a chest in hand. “These appeared over there when the trout died. They were hidden in a crevice.” She cocks her head to a side of the room where I can see a small indentation in the rock.

“Oh, huh. Actual treasure chests.” Taking the chest that Erika hands to me, everyone gathers around. It’s a bit frosted over the lid but after a few pulls, I wrench it open.

Inside is a small ring made completely of ice. It’s appearance is quite similar to that of the fish before it died. Looking down at the trout carcass now, it’s missing a considerable amount of meat, now packed into the preservation paper as it became a loot drop.

Taking the ring out, I hold it up so everyone can Inspect it.

Floeglide Ring

Quality: Very High

Traits: Floeglide

Description: This ring grants you the ability of floeglide, allowing the wearer to swim through ice as if it is water at the expense of mana. Warning: Does not grant the ability to breathe under ice.

“Sounds dangerous... Lucas, don’t you have that waterbreathing Perk?” Colt glances between the ice and the ring.

“...Fine, I’ll try it” Slipping the ring on, I don’t immediately fall through the ice like I thought I would. Once I input mana, however, I slip right through as if I had been standing on water previously.

‘Oh fuck this is cold.’

Attempting to breathe, there appears to be a carryover from my Amphibious Respiration Perk. Steadily breathing, the cold lances through my lungs. Unlike the waterbreathing potion, my lungs actually fill with ice, somehow still supplying me with oxygen regardless.

Once I swim back to the surface, I take a few breaths of air, coughing up some chunks of ice before I deactivate the ring.

“Well, that was fucking unpleasant. It works though.” I spit out another cube of ice.

“That settles that then. Everyone in agreeance that Lucas gets the ring? Or is there anyone here willing to breathe ice to get more than thirty seconds of use out of the ring?” Cassandra turns between everyone, nodding. “Perfect. Let’s open the other one while we walk. Let’s keep an eye out for traps.”

Sensory Perks on, I walk with everyone else and force open the other chest with a sharp snap from the ice surrounding its seam.

“Oh, it’s a coat.” Lifting it up, I show everyone the beige parka with a white fur-lined hood.

Chillguard Parka

Quality: High

Traits: Warmth, Fluffiness

Description: This parka is lined with the furs of a cuddleup hare, granting it the ability to produce comforting warmth as well as extreme fluffiness to the jacket as a whole.

“Wow, that got dark fast. Poor bunny.” Frowning, Becky snatches the coat from my hands and happily equips it.

She eyes everyone else who seems to want the coat. “I made you all warm clothes for free. I get the jacket.”

No one can really contest that, so we allow her to keep it. The kids don’t want it at all, anyway, and they start to whisper about Becky being a bunny killer.

“Everyone stop!” Grabbing on to the kids next to me, I prevent them from walking further. Everyone else ceases walking as well.

“What is it?” Erika looks around before her own eyes go wide. “Oh, an actual pressure plate. How should we get around it?”

The entire floor in front of us in the hallway is a large pressure plate that almost seamlessly fits in with the rest of the floor as the edges of it are disguised as cracks.

“Looks like there’s some kind of spike-swinging mechanism in the ceiling. Wow, a real-life pendulum trap. A little corny, if you ask me. It’s made of wood though, Colt, if you’d do the honors?”

He smiles at me. “Sure thing.” With a gesture of his hand, I see the wood shift and burst into sawdust in my field of perception. When we step on the pressure plate, Colt keeps up a barrier of wind that blows all the sawdust away from us after the trap door mechanism in the ceiling opens.

“Good catch. Looks like we all need to be on our toes.” Caleb nods to me.

“No problem. I have a pretty unfair ability to sense elements in a sphere around me, so it was an easy catch.”

On the trip, we encounter a few more traps of various constructions. With each of our abilities, we manage to disable them without issue. The trickiest trap is a strange, grey runic trap that almost blends in with the stone of the cave. Fortunately, my Aetheric Supremacy picks up on the mana no problem.

None of the enchantments making up the trap are familiar to me, so I spend time committing them to memory with my Analytic Eyes Perk, creating a schematic for me to study later.

Afterward, I have everyone stand back while I carefully figure out some of the trigger enchantments in it. These runes feel like they’re an entirely different language from what I’ve been learning. The lines are less geometric and much harsher in form, almost like they’ve been inscribed with a paintbrush.

Finally, I find something that vaguely resembles a trigger rune I recognize. Holding my breath, I blast it with mana, erasing it from the rest of the runic makeup and disabling it.

Level up! Due to coming to understand a different runic language at a basic level as well as learning different ways to structure enchantments, your Talent: Adept Enchanter has reached (22/50)!

‘Two levels? I guess I did figure out a lot. The layout is way different than anything I’ve tried before. It seems like the equivalent of the Aspect runes for this language can fit more Intent runes on them. They’re a bit more chaotic though. I’ll take a sample with me to study.’

With Geomancy, I break up that piece of earth from the ground and store it away so I can study the rest of the runes later, rather than just a schematic.

We find a few more runic traps as we begin to see more light at the end of the hall and I disable each of them, storing the various runes on chunks of rock in my hold.

“Who could have placed these runes anyway? They look pretty fresh to me but that could just be the rune type. This dungeon is pretty recently created too, so that’s confusing.”

“No clue… the rest of the traps looked freshly made too. No dust or anything on them.” Colt glances around, a shimmer on his eyes indicating he’s using some kind of Perk or Skill to spot traps too.

The source of light becomes known to us moments later as we cross a curve in the tunnel. An ornate stone double door not unlike the one from the trout room is slightly ajar and the orange flicker of firelight comes from it.

There’s a runic trap far more complex than the rest we’ve seen on the door, walls, floor, and ceiling. Becky helps me out with this one as she's the most experienced in enchanting aside from me.

Plenty of familiar runes show up but they keep regenerating when any of us erase them. Becky spots the culprit, a small rune inside a crevice of the door that glows every time we erase a rune.

Wiping away that rune with my mana after carefully recording a schematic of it, we disable the rest of the trap, each gaining another enchanter level for our efforts. Two in Becky's case.

My head swims with ideas for applications of these new runes. I have no idea what they actually do yet, but I plan on testing some of them once we’re home so there’s a safer environment to do so in.

Slowly, I open the door with Caleb flanking me after making sure there are no more runes on the other side that will trigger.

On the other side of the door is a group of tents made of various tanned hides and cloth. Tall, white-furred humanoids sit at a large fire in the center of the small encampment. They have pale blue faces with heavy wrinkling.

Their jaws show a hefty count of long, sharp teeth and a set of dark grey horns adorns their heads. They’re the spitting image of a yeti as I recognize it.

With a quick headcount, there’s at least ten of them. Oddly, when I try to Inspect them, nothing comes up. ‘...That’s never happened before. Except with other Construct sapients so…’

“Hello! Um, well met!” Engaging my Disarming Presence, I try to appear as friendly as possible. Everyone else glares at me before they try to Inspect as well and realize what’s going on.

One of them wearing icy blue robes stands up and proclaims to those around him. “They mean slay our goddess to escape the dungeon! I smell the violence in the air!” All of the furry humanoids draw their weapons and have a look of instant fury in their eyes.

“Heretics!” Another one raises his poleaxe in the air. The rest follow suit shouting about us being heretics.

“Wait! We don’t want to fight! Can we just talk?”

The fervor of the group is too high, unfortunately, and they simply charge us, weapons drawn. I note the same enchantments from the traps we encountered adorn their weapons as well.

“Be careful, everyone! Those same enchantments we disabled earlier are on some of their weapons. I have no idea what they do but it can’t be good!”

A heavy maul clashes on to Argo with a resounding clang as I block the first hit aimed at me. The ground under my feet cracks from the hit and I feel my muscle strain under the blow. ‘Fuck he’s strong.’

Pushing him back, I use a Thunderclap to sweep his legs out from under him. Ice gathers at his feet and my foot crashes into that, dispersing the force but surprisingly not breaking the ice.

The yeti hefts his maul once more to swing at me. ‘Oh no you don’t.’ Hooking Argo around his maul handle, I yank it down and push off of the ground with Argo to land a Thunderclap on his head. My foot connects and he’s sent skidding across the floor.

“Chart Course.” The area around me maps out in my head as I spread beacons to the edges of the room. Everyone is in pitched combat and I can hear the clank of weapons. Checking on the kids, they’re all fine behind Caleb, Kayla, and Vincent.

My opponent gets up, shaking his head. Not wanting to give him the advantage, I activate Lightning Cloak and a Crashing Wake around myself and dash at him. He’s caught off guard by my lightning-fast approach but brings up a large icy shield in front of himself.

Muscles coiling under my skin, I unleash pent up force and slam the shield with a Decimating Impact. A large crack runs through it but it doesn’t break. ‘Damn, how strong are these people? I can’t Inspect them so are they really… Construct-enhanced not Restruct-controlled?’

The shield breaks in half and forms into two razor sharp icy blades which fly at me. “Flame Swathe!” Fire jets from my hand as I pour mana into it, the ice blades simply cut through it, maintaining their form.

“Storm’s Rage.” Lashing out with my aura, I smash the two ice blades, finally shattering them. I move in on the yeti, swinging from the right toward him. He guards and the ground under his feet cracks from my force but his weapon doesn’t break.

‘Good equipment too… way better craftsmanship than I can make. Let’s see if he can handle this.’ Lightning gathers around me and I fire a bolt directly at him. Once again, ice coats him and deflects the lightning without issue.

‘Damn, must be pure water. No conductivity.’ My aura rears up and smashes into him, sending him skidding back.

With a crack of thunder, I Circuit Jump toward him, not letting up. I swing Argo down at him on the ground with a Decimating Impact but he rolls out of the way just in time. A crater forms under him upon impact, destabilizing him.

Frost gathers on the crater, however, and ice spikes stab up at me while I’m in the air. Circuit Jumping out of the way, the force pulls me from the attack. The yeti jumps out of the crater and a red aura steams out of him, shifting his skin from blue to red.

Ice coats his maul, making the head about three times bigger than it was previously. The yeti bellows and bursts at me with speeds even my eyes have trouble following. Shifting to a defensive stance, I block his first hit but it knocks me off my feet and I’m sent flipping through the air.

Wind gathers around me as I use Aeromancy to stop myself and I drop to the ground. We meet in several more clashes, pitting brute strength against brute strength.

‘Watery Grave!’ The water gathers around the yeti’s legs, confusing him. The slow and the confusion of the attack lets me finally jump in and land a solid hit on his sternum. With a sickly crunch, I smash him into the ground.

Ice wraps around me in sharp needles, ensnaring me. ‘Marlinspike.’ The spike spins around me, breaking the holds on me.

“Not today.” Lightning gathers around Argo as I coat him in a Galvanizing Wake and slam it into the yeti with a loud crack of thunder.

He’s gone from under me before the hit lands. With Aetheric Supremacy I see a path of mana from him to another yeti. The one who seems to have teleported him looks exhausted from the expenditure but both drink potions and look better.

‘I’d say potions are cheating but I use them too.’ Following their lead, I down a mana potion to bring my resources back up.

A scream from our side catches my attention. Looking over, a yeti with a sickle has cut off Vincent’s right arm. It smokes with the grey light of the enchantments I saw earlier as blood pours out from it.

The yeti moves in on Daniel who has several clay spires set up. Moving to help them, the yeti from earlier returns, no worse for wear than he was at the start of our fight.

A giant draconic visage made of ice slams into me as it appears from midair. Just feeling the mana in the air I can tell that attack was a hefty expenditure on the yeti.

The jaws sink into me and I feel chill spread through me. My sauna cloak activates and I fight back against the cold.

Swinging Argo with full force, I shatter the dragon made of ice at the cost of a sizeable chunk of mana with a heavily empowered Decimating Impact.

The shards simply fly at me so I erect a Batten Down to guard from it. Striking out with my aura from within the shield, I catch the yeti by surprise and land a gash on his elbow. A tendon in the area snaps and he screeches in pain.

Dropping my shield, I Circuit Dash at him with a Crashing Wake and slam him down with another Decimating Impact, putting far more mana into it this time. He tries to guard it but with muscles severed in one of his arms he can’t muster the force and I crush him under my attack.

Following this, I stomp down on his head with a Thunderclap. With his head crushed in and brain matter coating my boot, I’m fairly sure of his death so I move in to help the others.

Vincent looks extremely pale and his arm isn’t recovered at all. Without two arms, it appears he’s having trouble drawing cards to use his magic. The three kids also have scores of cuts on them and they’re panting with exhaustion.

Pulling both a mana and healing potion from my hold, I down them quick and move in to assist the kids and relieve some pressure from Vincent.

Catching one of the yeti’s in the back of the head by surprise with a Decimating Impact, he crunches to the ground, splattering blood on me and everyone else around us. The yeti already on the ground is the one that had the sickle. Her body is in two halves now and she’s dead as well.

Hearing a shout, I look towards Colt in time to see him finish off a yeti coated in ice armor with what amounts to a blender of wind blades. The armor shatters and the small cuts continue to gather on the yeti until he falls to the ground, dead.

Another one whose skin is extremely pale falls in front of Erika and Pierce. Caleb and Kayla turn after a yeti near them drops to the floor, smouldering in all of its wounds.

Becky turns to us, soaked from head to toe in blood, frowning at her dirtied parka. Cassandra notes Vincent and begins to run over to us.

Everyone seems to have taken down some yetis. From the varying appearance of all their robes, I appear to have taken down the leader.

With them all taken down, I move in to help out Vincent. Setting up a Transfusion tether, I coat the stump of his arm with it. The same grey light shimmers on the affected area. Daniel, Maria, and Charlie’s small cuts also have the same glow.

My prana refuses to soak into this area so I can’t staunch the bleeding. “What is this? I can’t heal you!”

“A curse. The Construct message says I’ve been cursed.”