The tiny crack shot off into the dark, fracturing shards of ice from the wall and ceiling as it went. A louder, echoing crunch reverberated down the cave back towards the group, who looked up just in time to see the ceiling collapsing down on them. Everyone who could, leapt out of the way to avoid the worst of the falling ice, as the floor beneath them also fell away in places. Jadon, incapable of avoiding the ice, tried to shield his head, but the falling chunks were too large and a strike to the head left him unconscious.

After a few moments of shifting ice and snow, and the caverns fell silent once more, every member of the group unconscious from the battering they had received.

The first to wake from the collapse was Beth. Blinking her eyes open, she could feel a thin trickle of blood going down her face, although the worst of it had already dried. She looked up and saw the ice of the ceiling much lower than she expected, barely an arm’s length from her. She moved to stand up and realized sharply that she was pinned beneath a couple larger portions of ice. As she tried to shift one of them, the slab of ceiling above her also shifted slightly, slipping suddenly down towards her, stopping when she stopped pushing the ice off of her.

Beth reached into the bag that was still at her side, thankfully, and tried to pull out her handmade gloves. Unfortunately, the bag was also partially pinned down by the ice.

Swearing to herself and trying to keep her breathing steady as to not disrupt the ice too much; she pulled on the bag strap, slowly but firmly, attempting to prise it from out of under the ice.

It was not working. The bag wouldn’t budge without moving the ice also. Beth swore again and looked around, spotting smaller, fist-sized shards of ice and rock that had come loose during the collapse. She stretched out as much as she could to grab one and then rolled it down to where the bag was, wedging the ice in between the larger block and the floor. With this small bit of leverage, she slipped the bag out from under the ice block and shimmied it up, closer to her head and shoulders so that she could more easily pull her gloves from inside and slip them on.

Beth rubbed her hands together, trying to cut off a portion of the ice block above her so that she would have room to slip herself out without disturbing the larger slab of ceiling, however the more she cut into the ice, the more the movement shifted the threatening block above her.

I’m going to have to give this some thought, Beth figured trying to work out the safest way out her predicament, whilst also wondering where the rest of the group was.

Iarkspur’s head was ringing. She had dived to the side next to Ephin and something hard, likely the ice, had connected with the back of her skull whilst she was midway through her leap. Consequently, she blacked out in the air, landing roughly on the hard ground, the front of her head also slamming into the icy floor as she slid to a stop. Ephin fared even worse, she noticed as she dragged herself to a sitting position.

Ephin must have jumped also, but been hit with the ice sometime after, and frequently. One larger block must have hit him whilst unconscious as Iarkspur could see the unusual shape of his skull, possibly from being crushed. She wanted to check if he was okay, but she also didn’t want to interact with him in case she made it worse. Her hand hovered as her indecision rocked her. She watched a thin trickle of blood creep out of Ephin’s nose and pool on the floor, freezing relatively quickly after it landed.

After a little rest involving a panic attack and getting herself calm once more, Iarkspur looked around at their surroundings. They were completely closed off on all sides, like a room with no doors. She could see daylight streaming into the area just past one of the ice walls, however she couldn’t see any way to get through or around the ice. She pulled out her pouch of seeds and threw a couple at the ground, hoping to be able to dislodge the ice and prise apart the wall to let her through. The plants that sprouted from the seeds could not find purchase with their roots and the cold quickly took them as they grew rapidly, shriveling and dying before they could be of any use. A few more attempts with various seeds and Iarkspur gave up, slumping to the ground beside Ephin, surrounded by dead plants.

Guy was grateful. A large slab of falling ice had missed him by just enough for his armor to shear off some ice shavings. His head was ringing from some chunks of ice hitting him hard and he wished he still had his helmet for that reason. However, he was still alive and almost unscathed, somehow. The larger block of ice that had just missed him, had punched a large dent into the floor that Guy was only now realizing had been hollow. The ice the group had been walking across was not simply frosted ground, but a sheet of ice covering a chasm. A chasm that Guy was unnervingly close to. He steadied his breathing and slid slowly across the floor, distancing himself from the large block that stuck halfway through the floor.

The block shifted a crashed through the floor, dragging large splinters of ice with it, leaving a gaping hole. Guy flinched as the ice collapsed, the hole spreading wider and closer towards him as he was pinned up against a wall, desperately hoping the hole would not spread any further. His steadied breathing quickly sped out of control and Guy felt himself begin to slip through the floor.

Yelping and scrambling against the wall and remaining floor, he was embarrassed to feel a soaked wet patch down his legs where he had begun to slip. He looked down in shock, not thinking that that was something even he would succumb to and was met with both positive and negative findings. On the good side, he had not wet himself out of fear. Unfortunately, his newfound affinity for water was affecting him now, as his fear was heightened. Everywhere he was touching was rapidly switching from ice to water and, with a hollow floor, that was the last thing Guy wanted.

As his fear kicked in further with the knowledge that he was melting through the ice abnormally quickly, the melting sped up even more. Guy started clawing at the wall he was next to in an attempt to avoid falling through the floor as the ice fell around him. He had to jump as lightly as he could from patch of ice to patch of ice, whilst sticking close to the wall, as he was melting through the floor at a faster pace by each passing moment.

The floor fell beneath him and he fell with it, grabbing at the remaining outcrop of ice sticking out above the dark pit. His watched with despair as the water began to pool under his hands as the slowly sank through the ice. It was his last chance. He closed his eyes and held his breath, trying to reset his breathing. He kept the air in for ten counts before slowly letting it go and opening one eye. The water had stopped, as had his hands.

Hesitantly, as he was quickly losing his grip on the slick ice and losing his stamina holding up his body and the armor he was wearing, Guy reached out to the wall and tried to melt his hand into it, to create a hand hold. He felt both his hands start to melt through the ice and stopped immediately, recounting his breath, and tried again. It was now or never.

His hand started to pass through the ice and he held his breath. He did not fall. He allowed himself a smile and curled his hand, forming an easier to hold ledge. He reached up and did the same with his left hand, also passing his feet a short way into the ice so that he was now clinging to the wall like a spider. He couldn’t see properly through the wall, but could see the glint of daylight, so he took a gamble and held on tight.

Guy placed his palm on the ice wall and pushed his entire arm through, feeling the air on the other side. He leaned back slightly and pushed himself through the wall, like headbutting but without resistance. As he fell through, he stopped the melting just before he hit the ground, pulling his foot through the last bit of ice.

He looked around as he stood up. Guy was at the bottom of a pit, the sun was shining, which meant he couldn’t quite see into any of the other ice portions of the cave in due to the glare of the light. Instead, he figured he should make his way out of the pit on the off chance the others were already waiting for him up there.

It was slow going, but Guy managed to melt away periodic hand and footholds the entire way up the pit, praying to as many gods as he could remember the entire time, he climbed higher. Eventually, he reached the top and clawed himself up, collapsing in a heap due to the exertion of pulling himself up, whilst in almost full armor.

Guy allowed himself a moment to catch his breath before sitting up and looking around. Featureless snow dominated much of his view, although he could see it simply cut off, or drop off, not too far back the way the group had come. He was on the top of the frozen spiked formation they had seen when approaching Vernox and, it seemed, most of Vernox was this altitude also.

Guy pulled around his bag filled with supplies and found the coil of rope that Ephin had given him when they prepared to help the church. He looked back over the edge into the pit, satisfied that nobody in the group had made it out yet. He plunged his sword into the ice and used it to anchor the rope, which he allowed to run down to the base of the pit, along the line of hand and footholds he had made.

Now to wait, he thought, once again taking in the bright white view.

The cave was dark. Jadon was on his side. He was still strapped into the chair and the large amount of debris had knocked him over after knocking him unconscious. He groaned, stretching out his back as much as he could, feeling the bruising and hearing his spine pop. He planted his hands on the icy floor, and strained to push himself upright. Thankfully he had gained a bit of muscle in his upper body after pushing himself for the past few days.

He tried rolling himself forward and found he couldn’t get any traction from his wheels, so he unclipped where Beth had shown him and unfolded the armrests into attachable skis and pulled out the poles from the back of the chair. He pushed himself a short way down the cavern, hurrying forward as he saw an opening to the daylight ahead. Then he heard a grunt a little way down the cave, followed by the sound of ice shifting a little.

That must be one of the others, he thought. He didn’t know what he could really do in this chair, but he didn’t want to leave anyone behind. Are you hearing yourself? He thought incredulously. Well, if it makes you feel better, a grunt like that could only be from Guy, so if you wanted to leave him behind… Jadon shook his head, chuckling to himself quietly as he slid down the cave to get to where the sound was coming from.

“You know, you sound like a flipping gorilla,” Jadon laughed as he rounded the corner to where he thought Guy was struggling. He squinted at the form and then quickly pushed himself backwards the way he had come. The being stepped into the main pathway, where the daylight was lighting the cave. Jadon looked at where a normal person’s head height would be, and then he carried on tilting his head up until he made eye contact with the creature. It was covered in fur and had four legs, four arms and four eyes. All eyes glared down at the man in the chair and it charged.