After a night in the dungeon, it was time to descend the stairs to explore the rest of the dungeon. Fortunately, my eye-sight had returned after I had used healing for about ten minutes. I guess that's what I get for having a light-sensitive race. After the fight, Sigmir had exchanged her Ice-Axe with the Narrentöter, combining it with the Ice Shield and had taken some time to get used to the combination.

I had placed one attribute point each into Intelligence and Intuition, even while dreading the neglect I showed my other, physical attributes. I had talked with Sigmir and she had advised me to focus on my main attributes at least until I reached the First Divide. Now Intelligence was at 26 and Intuition on 22. I'd have to think about which to strengthen next to gain the next bonus faster, I hoped to be powerful enough to reach the First Divide at level 50. According to Sigmir, my body was strong enough but my magic was what set me apart. She told me that the shaman in her village took a lot longer to use magic, using rituals and strange concoctions. In addition, she had never heard of someone changing and modifying their magic on the fly like I did.

When I tried to meditate on my Darkness Runes, a rune manifested in front of my eyes but when trying to understand it, I got a brutal headache. When talking it over with Lenore, the one who came closest to understanding my brand of magic, we agreed that the rune was probably a higher rune regarding Death and it had manifested due to the influence of the Dungeon.

The staircase downward was narrow but straight and still illuminated by the strange, green moss. We kept vigilant, not sure what to expect down here. Trying to hear our enemies was probably a waste of time - if there is one thing undead should be good at, it’s being still. No breathing, no need to move about to stretch tired muscles, no bodily functions to act up at inopportune moments - all that aided them in keeping silent.

After the experience we had in the first room, we had tried to keep silent as best as we could, so a sudden, soft, mechanical 'click' was like thunder in the still air.

Sigmir stumbled a little when the step she had just stepped on moved downwards, causing her to lose balance. At the same time, out of a small, almost invisible opening at the side, a thin crossbow-bolt shot out. It was a good thing that Sigmir was quite a bit taller than the average humanoid, the bolt struck her arm, most humanoids would have taken the bolt to the head.

Now that the trap was triggered, a ticking sound, like clockwork, was audible. Ylva told us that she also heard the sounds of running water. So the trap was a purely mechanical mechanism and reset with water-power. Ingenious.

While internally marvelling at the construction of the trap, I got busy taking care of Sigmir's wound. I was quite afraid that the bolt might have been poisoned so my first action was using blood runes to drain any blood that may have been contaminated. Then I cleaned the wound with water and linked my healing magic with her body, trying to get the same view I had used when I found the malediction she was under. The trance felt somehow crisper than before and I was able to make out small amounts of a foreign substance that spread out from the wound and were slowly destroying the surrounding flesh. I was able to influence them with blood magic, even if it gave me a pounding headache, and remove them from the wound. Then I closed off the wound and repaired the internal damage I had done to Sigmir.

Skill increased You increased your skill: Blood Rune-Mastery [38/100]

Skill increased You increased your skill: Blood Magic [18/100]

By now, the ticking had stopped and Ylva reported that the water-sounds were gone as well so Sigmir used her Lok'nar to push down the trigger-step to disarm the trap. Another bolt flew out, striking the other wall and falling to the floor. I carefully picked it up and saw that it had something smeared on the tip, convincing me that I had acted correctly with Sigmir's wound. For some reason, a short time after the trap had been triggered, the dart and the poison coating it started to vanish.

After we crossed the trap, I created a long pole out of Ice and had Sigmir hang her axe at her belt and take it. Then I explained the ten-foot pole concept to her. Back in the olden days, when role-player either meant someone with a special sexual fetish or someone who likes to mess with pen&paper, the ten-foot pole was a simple pole the first person of a group used to put pressure on every plate before them and trip any tripwires to spot traps. As neither of us was trained in trap-discovery, I wanted to revive the idea. After a short moment to regain the spent Astral Power, we continued our way.

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I had to suppress a snigger when I saw Sigmir with her long pole tap out the way before her with Ylva at her side. Now, all that was missing were dark glasses and an armband and she could take a handicapped parking spot. Lenore must have picked up on the thought and her cackling laughter echoed in my head.

To make sure that no magic would catch us out, I peeked from time to time with Lenore's Magic Sight to spot possible magic traps. A peek took a little Astral Power and Stamina but not too much, especially as I was able to see down the stairs to the end.

When we reached the end of the stairs, the corridor looked like it mirrored the one upstairs. To mix things up, we turned counter-clockwise this time. Due to our careful advance, our pace was quite slow but even with the slow pace, we soon reached to first room and shortly before we got there, Sigmir placed the pole to the side to take out her Axe, readying herself for combat.

And combat we got, as soon as we reached the entrance, we saw what I can only describe as zombies. They looked as if someone had forgotten a corpse in the freezer for too long.

Dead, grey flesh, almost no hair, tattered leather armour, some with bits and pieces of metal, old, jagged weapons and dead eyes.

Observe told me that we were facing six Draugr, levelled 37-40. I instantly used the spell that had worked so well against the skeletons upstairs but my dark radiance simply washed over the dead flesh without any visible effect, not even a twitch. While Sigmir blocked the door and hacked into their limbs, I used Lenore's Sight trying to figure out what went wrong. With her sight, I saw that the dead flesh outside was just that, dead flesh, shielding the bones and magic under it, I was almost unable to make out the magic that animated the Draugr, only their eyes had a slight glow to them in my sight but I doubted that I'd be able to destroy them like the skeletons upstairs, even if I hit their eyes.

I tried shooting Icicles into them but other than stagger them backwards a bit, it didn't do much, even if I let them explode. It would take a lot of them to strip off enough flesh to get to the magic under it and dispel it. When using the shuttle it was easy to cut deep groves into their flesh but it did little to destroy them.

Then I had an idea, during one of my 'U-Tube’- click marathons I had stumbled upon a guide to Zombie Survival. They had theorised that getting into truly cold areas would help as the zombies would freeze stiff, making them unable to move. Down here, the rocks and air were cold but not icy.

I drew up a beam of pure Cold and channelled it into the Draugr group. The struck body-parts ceased to move forcing them back to get their limbs unstuck. I guess the magic that animated them helped with thawing them out but it took time to do so.

With that I was able to restrict their movement and Sigmir happily waded in, hacking off frozen limbs with her axe and smashing them back with the shield. Seeing her like that, I had an idea for later; I wanted a shield of my own to protect myself and inflict some blunt force with my Ice Magic. The Shuttle was great to attack with, agile, light and fast but that made it bad when it came to blunt force or blocking, it was simply too light and brittle to block a serious strike. I'd have to make myself a smaller version of the shield Sigmir was lugging around right now.

The combination of freezing and hacking them apart worked like a charm, but to truly kill them, we had to decapitate them. I shuddered at the thought of being unable to freeze them or using lighter weapons like spears or rapiers, even normal swords. Fighting them would be a nightmare in more than one way. Still, Sigmir was easily able to destroy them after I froze them, going so far to step back and switch weapons, trusting me to use the shield and Ice-Magic to keep her safe and hacked them apart. Luckily they had no blood to splatter about or the room would have made a murder-scene look tame. After we were done, the corpses looked a bit like they had been in a blender. My mind started to think of inappropriate jokes to keep the terror at bay. Looking at dismembered bodies turned my stomach, even without blood.

Draugr died You gain 2 000 EXP. For killing an opponent without a Traveller in your party, you gain Bonus EXP For killing an opponent with the Dungeon Traveller-Bonus in effect, you gain Bonus EXP . . .

Skill increased You increased your skill: Ice Rune-Mastery [43/100]

Skill increased You increased your skill: Ice Magic [49/100]

Happy with the increase in skill-level, I left the room and sat down to regain my Astral Power and make myself a shield. Again, I tried to weave the crystals together and I thought I got closer but there was no qualitative change in the shield. It was just the same as I had made before.

Then, we continued our way forward, me scouting with Lenore's Sight and Sigmir tapping with her pole.