Logan was able to do his normal morning prep of absorbing his elementals’ spells, granting him MP to use throughout the new day that approached. The investigative magi had left not long before the party had gone to sleep, and Echo Radar revealed that Logan was alone in the woods to do his routine.

With Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Spark all available and out for combat, Logan had quite a party all his own. The first two on his list had particular roles in the upcoming dungeon full of icy foes, while Spark was there mostly for backup and drawing attention if needed.

Thirty-three days were left on his quest timer, if Logan cared at all for the bonus objectives his team could get it done in under three days. The Spellthief was still wary that the bonuses might apply to his portal home, but he was sure his party would be able to get it done.

Cassius was the strongest person he had met so far, a level 26 that also specialised in fire-type attacks. His shortsword was an artefact called Blazing End, something he had won from a previous raid, which Cassius was quite adept at with his title of Raid Master Cass.

From what his ally had spoken of, and shown off during the goblin invasion, Blazing End could absorb almost any fire sent its way and redirect it at the wielder’s will. It also granted a few weapon-specific skills to Cassius, making him quite a unique enemy to face on the field.

Outside of that, Logan found out that many artefacts grew with their wielder and could be repaired several more times than normal. Instead of having to buy higher-level weapons, and suffering degradation with each repairing session, an artefact would be something you kept for a long time. That explained why Cassius would use weaker weapons when he didn’t need to waste his artefact.

Returning to the camp had Logan treated to the sight of Marcus prepped and ready.

“Sleep well?” Logan asked with his elementals behind him.

“Mostly, seems I am a bit agitated, woke up earlier than usual”, Marcus replied.

“Hopefully that gets sorted by our next rest.”

“He just needs to get to fightin’, let that energy flow out of ya!” Celsius added, cheerfully.

“Let our betters decide for themselves, Celsius”, Spark responded.

“Can we get on with this?” Fahrenheit ended coldly.

“I’d leave you these fellas if I could”, Logan offered.

“Maybe it-” Marcus began but was cut off by a waking Patavava.

“Two magi waking me is better than a gang of them”, the gashriek thought aloud as he stood up.

Leaving their conversation for later, Logan helped the other members with their morning routines.

“Essence of power, grant onto others. Enhance Strength, Sustained”, Marcus chanted for a second time.

Cassius looked like quite the dominating sight with a boost to his Strength, similar to Koma with her Agility being increased. Logan had attuned to his staff as before, while Patavava didn’t need to do much to ready his staff gauntlets.

Passing the wide maw into the cavern had the entrance become blocked by large icicles, crashing from the floor to the ceiling with several loud noises. Cassius looked over the ice for a bit before ringing back his fist and planting it solidly into the centre, causing the ice to explode outside.

“Easy enough to break, this is what gave you a bit of trouble I take it?” Cassius asked as he looked at the ice reform.

“Yeah, took a Flame from me or several mace strikes from Kreya.”

“Alright, if we need to, retreat to this and I can deal with it, or blast it yourself if needed”, Cassius ordered as he turned to move back to the front of the group.

Logan wasn’t able to access more than the HP and MP of his allies, but seeing Cassius break the ice with his fist displayed quite the gap in Strength from his previous companions.

Reaching the main entrance chamber showed it to be crystal clear as before, the remains of Logan’s allies having been removed. “Not even any blood”, Logan remarked under his breath. Alongside the disparity of a battlefield, no one could spot Lieutenant Frost in this chamber.

“He most likely activates when we reach the midway part of this chamber. Logan, if you wouldn’t mind”, Cassius spoke as he held the flat side of his blade to the Spellthief.

“Flame Shot”, Logan called out, shooting a tuft of fire into the sword that absorbed it without issue.

Glowing gold, Cassius had his shining blade at the ready as he moved forwards. The team followed him in a staggered formation, Marcus and Logan at the back surrounded by the elementals.

As Cassius hit the centre of the chamber the floor started to shake just like it had when Logan first came here. Flashes of corpses flew through his mind, Logan’s nostrils flaring at the scent of blood that wasn’t there.

A massive collection of icicles crashed from the icy floors to make a pyramid, before exploding apart to reveal the previous yeti-golem. Its fur had been cleaned, though scars showed it to be the one Logan had fought earlier.

Letting out a roar that made Logan shake inside, the memory of his last confrontation rushing to the front of his mind, the yeti charged at Cassius.

With a massive fist thrown at its foes, the yeti looked like it was about to send Cassius flying. Instead, Cassius met the fist with his own, a shockwave pushing away dust and ice away from both of them. Winning the trial of strength, Cassius pushed away the yeti’s arm before drawing his blade upwards to slice at the monster.

Stepping backwards allowed the yeti to dodge the first attack, but the following slash sent out a scythe of flames towards the monster, singeing its chest harshly as it roared out in pain.

Smashing a fist into the floor had several icicles jut outwards at Cassius who jumped back to avoid them. The yeti then roared to form its usual mist around itself.

“Marcus, Fahrenheit!” Logan called out to his team who came running, “That’s the shards!” he yelled again at his team.

Marcus ducked behind Logan, while Fahrenheit stood tall in front of them both.

Patavava held up a hand as he chanted, “Barrier”, causing several blue hexagons to appear in front of his palm. Koma ran behind the caster to also benefit from the defence.

With Cassius behind the icicles, he was safe from the following barrage of icy spikes that were sent in a 360-degree attack. The spikes shattered against Patavava’s barrier, and Fahrenheit blocked the remainder against his master and friend. As he was made of ice, the damage meant nothing to him.

Spark was able to dart around to dodge most others, while Celsius only took half the damage as the spikes melted through his body of fire.

Jumping over the icicles, Cassius swiped out with his blade again into the yeti, gashing its defending arm. Landing solidly he Rushed forwards to plant his blade deep into his foe’s leg.

With the use of Dash, Koma was able to bridge the gap and let out several painful slashes into the yeti’s ankles, causing it to fall to its knees as Cassius lept backwards.

Making a circle with his opened hands, Patavava formed a large ball of flames before sending it soaring into the yeti’s head, exploding into a dazzling display of cinders. Logan sent out Flames of his own, Marcus firing a crossbow aside the ranged attacks of the elementals, Fahrenheit making sure to block any ice coming their way.

Grabbing an icicle above, the yeti swung wide to batter its aggressors away, who were easily able to dodge the sluggish movements.

Landing a solid fist into the floor had it shake once again, though Cassius had been alerted to his move ahead of time by Logan. Bringing his blade back he chanted, “Severing Slash”, having the blade shimmer slightly with afterimages before he sliced clean through the yeti’s arm.

A quick jet of blood shot from the wound all around as the yeti fell to its elbow as its arm was severed just below, the shaking of the floor halting and no walls crashing upwards as they had done before.

Trying to let out a final roar, the yeti’s mouth was instead treated to an explosion of flames from Cassius’s blade. The yeti slumped to its side as it stopped moving.

Logan stared at the corpse for a while, slightly stunned at how quickly it went down, but also downtrodden at how much was given to reach this point.

“That’s the killers dealt with, now their associates. Logan?” Cassius spoke as he walked to the Spellthief.

“Right, nothing else here, only that corridor”, Logan replied as he snapped out of his daze.

“This place is much easier than the raid we just did”, Koma spoke as she walked back.

“Assigned to rank 10s, no wonder”, Cassius replied.

Patavava was busy at the back, harvesting the yeti for its parts.

“I did not expect you to deal with the monster so quickly”, Marcus picked up as he approached the team.

“We were just good counters, my blade is fire, and the mages cast it. If it weren’t for the lack of intel on its attacks or its surprise appearance, your team might have been fine”, Cassius calculated.

“It’s this bloody quest system at play”, Logan cursed in his head.

“Components all taken”, Patavava informed as he jogged back to the party.

“Alright, we are down only a couple of skills. Let’s move”, Cassius ordered as he began to walk to the next hallway.

“Quite efficient, aren’t they? Or, maybe speedy is a better term? Are more dangerous dungeons like this?” Marcus asked Logan as they held back to the rear of the team.

“They’ve probably done enough to know most tricks and traps. Follow their lead, I say.”

Walking to the hallway didn’t take long, and its design was identical to the one that led them into the caverns. Clean ice from walls to ceiling, reflecting the parties’ image back at them. Stalagmites of ice forced the party to zig-zag, stalactites painting a deadly ascent to the top.

It wasn’t long before Logan’s Echo Radar picked up activity ahead of them.

“There's a chamber ahead, several cliffs of differing heights that lead to offshoot corridors. Looks like thirty or so monsters in there.”

“Logan, Dimensional Jaunt Koma to the highest part. Patavava, I’ll take you up to the middle portion. Marcus and the elementals clean up the ground floor.”

“Got it, boss”, the two guildies responded.

“Sure”, Logan replied, holding back his own advice on the subject.

Replacing his artefact blade with a less fancy shortsword, using his storage ring, Cassius prepared for a much easier fight. “It is unlikely they will be a strong force with that number, I wager goblins with that count”, Cassius calculated, “stronger foes would hold better formations at least. We’d find harder foes deeper in aside from the entrance abnormality.”

Walking to the edge of their corridor, before the enemies spotted the party, Cassius looked back at Logan as if to say “No change?”

Logan clicked his fingers to update his mini-map, the dots had shifted a bit but were mostly in the same locations. Giving a thumbs up to his leader caused Cassius to turn back, placing a hand on Patavava’s shoulder as the two spearheaded the charge forward.

Looking to the mid-section, Cassius and Patavava warped into the centres with blasts of wind, appearing in the middle level of the chamber. Logan and Koma were next, the Spellthief eyeing up the room to take it in before his own teleport.

The ice chamber was quite vast, curved walls went in and out, countless tunnels going into every direction, though Logan’s map noted many stopped within a few feet. Wide bridges made of translucent ice filled the gaps between several larger corridors that went on far beyond Logan’s Echo Radar. As before, stalactites hugged the ceiling that stood around 200 feet high.

Eyeing the top bridge, Logan mentally commanded a ring to take him and Koma above. Warping in and out with blasts of wind, the pair landed on the solid ice bridge. Meeting their gaze was twelve icebolds. 4’ tall creatures made of ice, resembling a mix of goblin and wolf.

“Identify.”

“Icebold - Bold. Level 6: 56/56 HP, 6/6 MP. A secretive race of ice-made creatures, the icebolds are a race of the bold species. With skin of hard ice, the icebolds' interior is made up of cold-blooded organs that thrive in any temperature below 10c. These carnivores always travel in packs, standing at 4' with little muscle mass showing past their ice exterior.

Skills: -

Spells: Frost, Infuse.

Reduction: Damage 3.

Resistance: Damage 0%, Earth 0%, Fire -50%, Holy 0%, Ice 100%, Lightning 0%, Shadow 0%, Water 0%, Wind 0%.”

Drawing up two curved daggers, Koma had her blades shine blue before she threw them forwards, the daggers spinning and curving in the air as if they were boomerangs. Slicing into two icebolds ahead of her, they continued to the sides as they cleaved through three on each side.

Dashing forwards she landed a solid kick into one of the icebold’s stomachs, landing a spinning slash into the other’s head. Her previously thrown daggers spun around before returning to her original position, stopping dead in their tracks, then shooting back towards their owner who had moved away.

Backstepping, Koma had her flying daggers slash through the two beginning icebolds another time, landing in her open hands as she sheathed her other dagger. Blood splattered across the bridge and Rogue, her deathly display showing off her experience at fighting multiple foes.

Logan wasn’t sedentary either, throwing his arm back and forth as he let loose Force blasts one after the other, hitting the icebolds to the floor, their icy skin scraping on the icy bridge. Leaping left and right, Logan was able to quickly draw a dagger at his hip or rib to drive them into the backs of his foe.

Backstabs drew a bloody set of damages in the 20s, keeping his extra damage at bay to steal 6 MP from his foes.

The other levels were also full of major slashes from Cassius, felling his foes in single swipes. Patavava let flow a stream of spells to explode across the bridge. At the very bottom was Marcus and the elementals, Fahrenheit blocking Frost spells against his partner, protecting the Devout from almost all damage coming his way.

All the fights across the separate levels were going wild on the side of the humanoids, even in their split-up positions. Their wide-reaching attacks worked much better in this design, allowing them to deal with the icebolds in a much more efficient manner.

If not for the quaking, the horrible shaking of the ice.

A pit of fear rose in Logan’s stomach as his head darted around. The walls began to crack all over, as did the bridges the party found beneath their feet. He didn’t know what was going to come of this, and Marcus was out of sight.

It wasn’t long before the quaking got worse, large portions of the walls shooting outwards, crashing into the sides of the bridges. Faltering to a kneel and hand on the bridge, Logan thanked whoever looked over him that he was not crushed.

Instead, the walls had connected all the gaps between the separate levels, cutting off the party from their fellows.

Throwing out a Force at another icebold, a dagger landing in the head of the last, Logan and Koma finished off their confrontation.

“The fuck happened here?” Logan exclaimed as he investigated their newly-changed locale.

“Above damn it all, it’s a dungeon shift”, Koma replied as she drew a bloodied blade from a corpse.

“A shift?”

“Yeah, they do this sometimes, spellforced dungeons like to change on ya”, Koma continued as she jogged to Logan’s side.

“Fuck”, Logan exclaimed as he snapped his fingers, “Cassius? Marcus? Patavava?” he yelled into the translucent floor that blocked his vision to his allies.

The only reply was shifting lights and shadows just barely noticeable through the ice, accompanied by a hand on his shoulder by Koma.

“No doubt the shift split us up, or rather, solidified our split. Can you scan them?”

Logan looked at his mini-map, his Echo Radar couldn’t pierce the ice, but his party menu still listed his party members in good enough health.

“They’re fine, but I can’t find them.”

“Fuck, fine”, Koma started as she looked around, “Can you blast the ice apart?”

“I-” Logan began before seeing the experience numbers appear.

“Give me a second”, Logan continued as he stood over a new part of the floor.

Closing down a window that alerted him to Fahrenheit reaching level 6, Logan aimed his hand at the floor and commanded, “Flame Shot”, blasting the ice with a swathe of fire.

As the flames dispersed, Logan only saw slight singe marks and a small portion of water that let off a puff of steam. His anxiousness about falling through diminished.

“Flame Grasp”, he chanted as he knelt down and enflamed a larger portion of the floor, but to reveal only a slightly larger divet in the ice.

“No good?” Koma asked almost rhetorically.

“If I use up all my spells, maybe. I can’t tell how thick this floor is though”, Logan replied, noting he used 2 of the 24 MP he stole from the icebolds with MP Thievery.

“Not uncommon. Cassius and Patavava should be fine. Your friend may be freaking out a bit though”, Koma mentioned.

“He’s got my elementals, they work well together. He’ll be fine”, Logan spoke as he stood back up.

“Shifts typically ‘allow’ us to regroup. Either through open corridors or blasting down weaker walls.”

“So we just keep going?”

“That is what Cassius would do, if he isn’t going to try and break the ice either. I doubt he’d be able to though.”

“Keep calm and carry on, I suppose”, Logan spoke as he let out a sigh.

“We’ll have to take things calmly for sure. Without our Devout, we can’t heal our injuries as well.”

“I can cast Necromantic to heal myself, though I can’t do that to help you”, Logan informed.

“You’re a slotter, got many of those prepared?” Koma asked with a raised eyebrow.

“A few”, Logan lied.

“Let’s hope they last us till we meet back up with the others.”

--- *** ---