Steven studied the walls of the fort.

The ice and snow had been shaped to resemble dark bricks and were adorned with tapestries of incredibly thin ice.

Scenes of battle and feasts were carved onto their surfaces.

It gave the building a timeworn feel, despite the fact it had been snapped into existence earlier that day.

Margie stepped up beside him and studied the wall.

“That’s pretty nice,“ she said with a low whistle.

“Do you think the System enjoys it? Making these little Scenarios, adding these tiny details?“

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure the damn thing has a field day. But I won’t lie. It is impressive.”

Margie hummed and straightened her hair. The iron-gray locks were restrained in an intricate braid that hung just past her shoulders, and Steven was always impressed by how she managed to keep it from getting dirty in the middle of a fight.

He glanced at her. “Time?”

“Two minutes.”

He nodded. Margie’s Skills had run out almost as soon as they finished the fight, so they had opted to wait for them to come off cooldown before pushing on.

Steven opened his mouth when a snowman rose from the ground.

He almost attacked on reflex but managed to stay his hand.

The snowman looked at them, then turned and started hopping down the hall.

It looked identical to the others they’d seen, except with a blue scarf instead of a red one.

“Okay…” Margie trailed off, and Steven didn’t blame her.

“What the hell is that about?“

The system coughed. “Ahem, since you have cleared a fort, it will begin to produce snowmen for you. These snowmen will go and work at clearing out your snowzilla. The more forts you clear, the more snowmen you get, and the faster your zilla gets freed.”

…Steven couldn’t say he ever thought he’d have a snowmen workforce.

After a second to take that in, he and Margie started walking back toward the others.

Its icy walls were like a maze, and as they navigated the fort, Steven couldn’t shake the feeling that it was easier than it should be.

He wasn’t lost at all, and was he moving faster than he should be?

With the adrenaline of the fight, he hadn’t really noticed. But now that he was just walking, he noticed it was a little faster than it should be, even when accounting for Micheal’s buff.

Why…

Steven brought up his character sheet.

Steven Kalio

Spiteful Defender: level 9

Rarity: uncommon

Slots: 2 active, 1 passive

SKILLS

Hand-Shield

Effects: materialize up to 2 stationary shields the size of the castors fist

Range: 10 feet

Duration: 10 minutes

Energy use: small

Cooldown: none

---

Lumbering Tower-Shield

Like the Unique Creation, this shield is slow, pretty simple, and unreasonably strong.

Rarity: rare

Effect: materialize a slow-forming but incredibly durable tower shield before the user.

Range: 3 feet

Duration: 30 minutes

Energy cost: medium

Cooldown: 5 minutes. Dismissing the shield lowers the cooldown.

---

Lighting Rod : passive

Effect: shields conduct electricity

Energy cost: none

Cooldown: none

---

Kinetic Give

Rarity: uncommon

Effect: Imbue inorganic material with increased elasticity and resistance to blunt strikes.

This effect can be added to shields, regardless of range.

Range: touch

Duration: 2 minutes

Energy use: small/variable

Cooldown: 5 seconds (does not apply to shields)

---

AUGMENTS

Paci-Fist

Alarm Bells.

Shield Pull

I AM Seeing Enough Movement.

A Lot Goes A Long Way

I’M TAKING MY SHIELD AND GOING

HOME!

TRAITS

I Could Do This For Like 20 More Minutes

Overclocking

Scenario Pioneer

Gain 10% increased movement speed while in a Scenario. You are far less likely to get lost while in a Scenario.

THRESHOLD TRAITS

All Tingly.

SP: 7

TP: 9

---

He blinked. He’d forgotten about Scenario Pioneer. Now that he was benefiting from its effects, though, it was certainly nice.

They found the others in a room that overlooked the yard and the small army of snowmen marching toward their glacier.

The dome overhead had vanished, allowing them access to the next fort.

Steven was itching to go. There were probably people in it already, and he wanted to help.

“Okay,“ Margie said. “One minute till my cooldowns are done, so we can start heading over now.“

They nodded and fell in line.

Steven sighed as they made it through the front gates. That had been challenging at a few places, but they had made great time. They were getting stronger, and seeing that progress in real time was satisfying.

Margie reached down, her hands rippling with red and black in turn.

They started jogging towards the next fort.

Steven took a deep breath. They had this…probably.

~<>~<>~

Micheal stared at the wooden walls with suspicion.

They were snow, technically, but that didn’t make them look any less strange.

The problem was that the wooden walls of the second fort weren’t made of wood planks. Or snow made to look like wood planks.

It was made of snow and ice shaped like trees. Living, interwoven trees that formed an entire fort.

It was amazing, but also, a tree fort? It was just weird. The trees twisted, doubling back on themselves as the walls climbed. Branches split off, twisting around to form the doors, and the steps were made of stumps.

Micheal knew he probably shouldn’t be drawing a line here and considering how much other weird shit he’d seen. And a tree building wasn’t uncommon in fantasy novels, but seeing it?

Micheal shook his head.

Del glanced at him. “What is it?”

He narrowed his eyes at the building. “It bothers me.”

“Why?”

Micheal waved emphatically. “Tree building!”

Del blinked at him slowly. “Yeah…and?”

Micheal shook his head. Never mind, let’s just go into the stupid fort.”

Del laughed as they fell into formation.

Micheal took a position at the back with Margie.

His stomach tightened, fear and anticipation mixing in his gut. He knew he was being useful, and it made sense to taunt from the back where the others could cover for him, but sitting at the back like this still made him feel like he was hiding.

He wondered if that feeling would ever truly go away.

The fort's front door was already open and led into a long hall lined with protruding icy branches. The branches had been sliced to pieces to make a path.

The next room was large, circular, and torn to shreds. Gashes in the walls, chairs, and tables in pieces, and the residue of snowmen scattered about.

Micheal whistled as he noticed a couch made of solid ice had been cut clean in half.

“You know, something’s telling me the group here has some sort of cutting Skills, just a hunch.”

Markus chuckled. “I don’t know what gave you that impression.”

Micheal stared at that cut. Perfect, almost as if it had been a laser beam.

As he looked around at the carnage he felt that same mix of fear and frustration rise in his gut.

What was he supposed to do when there were things like this in the world?

A one second taunt wouldn’t save him from someone who could turn an entire room into the inside of a blinder.

He shook his head and moved on.

They entered the next room, but it was more of the same: sliced carnage and signs of slain snowmen.

Micheal paused. “Anyone else hear that?” Everyone stopped. Faint screams, crashes.

Combat.

They started running without a word, charging through the next door and straight into mayhem.

The room was a massive ring that dipped down in the middle—above that hung a raised platform large enough for two people to move around.

Micheal knew that since a snowy elf was currently fighting a man with glowing orange plates of armor around his knees, hands, and feet.

He was thirty-something, with short black hair, dark skin, and broad features.

The man ducked under a swing from the elf, which tore straight through the air above him, leaving a green streak that slammed into the far wall.

Micheal tore his eyes from the fight to see the ring below it.

Two more people fought a small horde of elves.

One was a short woman with red hair and dark clothes.

She fought with a black two-handed sword, its edge glinting with dark light.

The elves dodged around the blade, not even trying to block.

And those too slow to get out of the way got sliced into pieces, the blade cutting into ice and snow like it weren’t even there.

Next to her was a tall, tan man with a shiny bald head. He was carrying a long spear made of the same dark material as the sword and was doing his best to ward off the horde with wide sweeping strikes.

Micheal finished taking all that in and came to a simple conclusion.

They needed to end this fast.

“Taunting on three,” he said as he jogged to the right.

“Ready,” Steven grunted.

Markus started running, his Skill blazing around him.

Noodle and Buford joined him, their own Skills shining against the white surroundings.

Micheal took a deep breath and then screamed, stuffing his Skill into his voice.

Waves of blue rushed out, crashing over the snowy elves and seizing their attention.

The elves all spun, their gazes locking onto Micheal.

Energy rushed out of him, leaving him drained. But simultaneously, a comforting light began to swell around his feet.

A volley of icy arrows, two spears, and a handful of Skills sailed his way.

Micheal smiled, terror and relief mixing together.

He wasn’t being useless.

Micheal ran, his feet pounding into the floor as he took off, his Augment letting him move faster than ever.

The arrows shattered on the floor, the spears sailed behind him, and one Skill missed entirely. The other, a blast of pure ice, he hurtled.

And as every monster's eye was on Micheal, the others struck.

A shield slammed into the elf fighting on the raised platform, dragging it off the edge and right toward Markus.

The old man drove his fist up, his entire body behind the motion.

The elf had the fanciest robes and a certain air about it that made Micheal pretty sure it was the boss.

Its face still crumpled as another shield appeared over its back, driving it down into Markus’s fist.

The boss’s head exploded into a shower of a icy chunks, and all the other elves froze.

Micheal wasn’t sure if the fort was cleared from that or not, but the two below were quickly joined by Noodle, Buford, and Del. They made quick work of the elves.

And as the last one fell, a notification filled Micheal’s view.

Fort cleared!

Experience split with party!

Micheal smiled at the strangers, who turned to regard them with suspicion.

Micheal waved. “Teamwork!”