After fighting the second boss and resting for an hour or two, I wanted to try out my new toy. Channelling Astral Power into it was easy and the vines shot out with surprising speed, showing me the error of my ways. My arm had been relaxed, hanging down and pointing to the floor. The four vines that shot out struck the floor, bodily lifting me up and knocking me ass-over-tea-kettle. I heard Ylvas chuffing laughter and when I sheepishly looked up, I saw Sigmir had to hide a smile and suppress her own giggles. Well, I did look the fool just now, so being laughed at was to be expected. Still, I pouted, causing Sigmir's giggles to break her suppression and come out in full.

Now, seated on the ground, I tried to use my Ice-Magic to actually control the vines and it was quite intuitive, almost like using my own arms. They could extend about fifteen feet and my control increased with focus; if I just focused on a single vine, I could almost use it like a single, incredibly flexible finger. There was a deep, hidden part of my brain that had seen enough hentai to get ideas.

However, momentum and inertia were a bit annoying. If I simply started a swing and let them rip, it became a question of the tail wagging with the dog but I was able to accelerate them with my Ice Magic and keep them controlled without inertia affecting me in any way.

The whole thing was confusing, when used with Ice-Magic nothing was fed back to me, when I lost control, for example if I smacked something and wasn't careful, I was liable to throw myself across the room. With a little experimenting, I realized that the rules it operated under were rather simple. If I didn't use Ice Magic to cancel the forces working on the vines, those forces were transmitted into me.

To fully use this new toy, training was required. Lots and lots of training.

But now was not the time and here was not the place,

Before we went further down, I wanted to do another thing: formalize a Freezing Spell so that I didn't have to do it by the seat of my pants. I hadn't formalized that many spells, it felt a bit like a waste of time, more often than not throwing them together worked just fine but a small, nagging voice told me that against serious enemies, that would not cut it. So I first formalized the Anti-Magic I had used on the first floor, a triangle version, a pentagon-version and a heptagon-version, then I did the same with the Ice Beam I had used on this floor.

As I tested things out, the Ice Beam worked best with five runes, three Cold-, two Freezing-Runes, with the Cold-Runes creating a triangle of their own. When I tried the same with the Heptagon-version, it felt wrong, four cold-runes didn't mesh well for some reason and using more freezing-runes than cold-runes gave me a wrong impression as well. With the Anti-Magic, it was different, three Devour-Runes, two Dark Radiance-Runes and two Curse-Runes gave a symmetry that worked well and strengthened the whole, at least it felt that way. There were some forces at play here that I didn't quite understand.

Still, the formalisation gave me one skill-point each with Darkness-Rune Mastery and Ice-Rune Mastery.

My experiments had cost us a little more time than I thought but at least Sigmir and Ylva would be well rested. After a short meditation my Astral Power was restored and I was good to go.

Now, it was time to go down the next set of stairs, to see what awaited us further down.

I re-created our ten-foot pole and checked the stairs for magic which was fortunate. Halfway down the stairs, one step had a strange, glow to it so I used the magic I had used extensively on the first floor to disarm the spell. My first, non-channelled spell wasn't enough, it only reduced the glowing by about half, so I used it again and one triangle-spell for good measure. With that the glow was so dim, it almost vanished and Sigmir carefully walked forward. As she stepped on the previously trapped step, the magic activated but instead of a powerful flash, it was a pathetic spark. Sigmir then told me that it had been similar to a light pinch, I guess the full spell would have been some kind of pain or kinetic spell, designed to take out a single person.

Thanks to our trusty ten-foot pole, the next two arrow-traps were triggered safely and circumvented while they were resetting. They were rather cunning; there was just one step between the two traps so even if you managed to dodge the first bolt, chances were you got onto the step with the other bolt and that one would get you. But the mighty ten-foot pole solved the problem without trouble.

When we got to the end of the stairs, I knew that this floor would be different. What greeted us, were two alcoves directly across the room from us, one held a Draugr wearing armour and holding a great-sword, the other a Skeleton, similar to those who'd accompanied Sally. Observe told me that the Draugr was just that, a Draugr, level 41 and that the Skeleton was a Skeleton Warrior, level 42.

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Once more, Sigmir took the lead and engaged the Skeleton while I swiftly used my newly created Pentagon-Ice Beam against the Draugr. I channelled a bit of power into it and within a few, short moments, the Draugr was out of the fight for now. The Skeleton-Warrior was able to hold against Sigmir and they were exchanging blows, with Sigmir pressuring him into giving ground.

I wanted to finish the fight fast, so I used my newest toy and wrapped a vine around his ankle, and when he wanted to step back, I pulled. I had to keep a great deal of focus on my Ice-Magic, and it took more power than I expected, but it worked like a charm - taking his leg forward just as he shifted his balance backwards left him flailing wildly, and Sigmir took advantage of it with glee. She was already striking but with the skeleton unbalanced, she put her full weight behind it, striking in the gap between helmet and shoulder and breaking enough bones to cause the helmet to roll away when the skeleton hit the ground. Well, not only the helmet rolled away, the skeleton's head was still in it.

Hacking apart the Draugr-popsicle was no challenge at all, it was almost unsporting to hack it apart without letting it thaw. It was just annoying to peel it out of it's armour.

Still, they gave nice EXP and gave me the small bump needed for level 43.

As we moved on, we soon saw the next side-chamber entrance and down here, they were guarded. The moment we stepped into sight, a Draugr and a Skeleton-Warrior started to step out of their alcoves guarding the entrance and from the sounds within, they were not the only enemies.

Now, with the enemies in the corridor and no door in sight, it was impossible to use our tried and true tactic of Sigmir blocking the door and me taking cover behind her. The corridor was too wide for that, our enemies would be able to get by her.

I tried to freeze the Draugr before it really got free but the Skeleton-Warrior used its shield to block my beam, leaving a thin coating of frost on it's shield but not impressing it in any way. I think if it could laugh, it would have. Seeing that there was little point in waiting, Sigmir got out her Axe and started to run at them. Feeling that being next to her was better than being away from her, I followed, straining to keep up with her longer legs.

While running, I channelled a small stream of Astral Power into my new bracelet, having the vines extend slowly without breaking my stride. The vines were quite useful, bludgeoning attacks in opposition to my normal cutting or piercing strikes. Just before Sigmir reached the Skeleton Warrior, I struck with the vines against it, trying to unbalance it and partially succeeding; instead of smoothly letting Sigmir's axe glide off it's shield, the axe struck right into it, creating a deep dent in the material and maybe even causing damage to the bone below.

At the same time, the Draugr started in on her so I let go of my vines, causing them to drop and took hold of Sigmir's shield, helping her to brace against the strike. Ylva jumped at the Draugr, frustrated that she could gnaw at the undead flesh until she got sick of it and the Draugr would only be marginally worse for wear. Still, it was distracted for a moment, so I drew three runes and added two more with rune-projection to throw an Ice-Beam at it, giving us a little time.

Out of the entrance, another Draugr was shuffling out and Sigmir was still dealing with the first Skeleton Warrior, so I reached for my vines again, this time using them to hold the Draugr in the doorway for a moment so I had time for another Ice-Beam against it, this time channelling it for a couple of seconds so it would be stuck there, blocking the doorway to give us time. Focusing on Sigmir and her opponent, I tried again to unbalance the Skeleton and this time it worked better, giving Sigmir time to take off it's shield-arm. A dim, cracking sound forced my attention back to the first Draugr, it was slowly shaking off the effect of my Ice-Beam, forcing it's flesh to move again, cracking the frozen parts, thereby creating the noise. It was still mostly stuck, so I grabbed it with my vines and used my shuttle as a guillotine, taking it's head off which took quite a chunk of Astral Power, creating enough momentum with the shuttle and not letting the Draugr move with my vines.

A quick look told me that I had roughly sixty percent of my power remaining. Controlling the vines as I did took an insane amount of Astral Power.

Looking into the room showed me that there were three Skeleton Warriors and two Draugr, inside, one Draugr still frozen and currently falling forward as the Skeletons pushed it to get by.

I turned back to Sigmir and saw she had finished her opponent, just in time to join me in handling the rest. The three Skeleton Warriors advanced on us in a slightly staggered formation, trying to maximise their numbers advantage. Suddenly, Ylva leapt to Sigmir, touching her arm and flowing into her Hallow and Sigmir's Eyes turned yellow, looking just like Ylvas. In addition, the red aura she used from time to time appeared, stronger than I'd ever seen but tinged with silver light.

Then she gave off a loud shout and slammed into the skeletons, striking with a strength and fervour that seemed insane, I managed to get close enough to anchor a regeneration-spell into her and stood back, focusing on channelling power into her and watching her go to town. Her aura wasn't able to stop the strikes against her but it blunted them so what normally would be a crippling strike, was now a shallow wound that I was able to quickly heal. The first three enemies fell swiftly, but while she was duelling with the forth, she started flagging. Still, she managed to destroy it and now only the Draugr that had been frozen remained. Sadly it had gotten mobile again and Sigmir was staggering, no longer able to fight. The Draugr wanted to strike her but there was no way in hell I'd let that happen. In my anger, I reached with all four vines and with a flexing of my magical muscles, I ripped the Draugr apart. When I looked back to my Astral Power, it was at about 5%, I was running close to empty. But it had been enough.

Without even looking at the EXP, I walked over to the staggering Sigmir and helped her to walk back, towards the stairs. This floor would take some time to clear.