For a split second, Zeke was falling through the air, but his momentum was suddenly arrested when he hit the ground. Fresh snow flew into the air at the impact, and it took him a long moment to gather himself. Slowly, he gathered his knees under him and pushed himself upright only to realize that he was absolutely freezing.
And entirely naked.
After looking around for a moment to make sure that there was no immediate danger, he retrieved some of the cold weather clothing he’d used back in the mountains of the Radiant Isles from his storage. They weren’t fashionable, and they were more than a little worn, but soon, he was clad in heavy pants, sturdy boots, and a thick sweater. On top of that, he donned a long coat that had been made of some fur of some unidentifiable animal. Or monster, he supposed, given the nature of the world he’d left behind.
Even clad in warm clothing, Zeke clutched his arms across his chest as he felt like he was freezing in place. If it was above zero degrees, he would’ve been incredibly surprised. And given that he’d grown up in a sub-tropical climate, that was not a pleasant realization. Still, he pushed his discomfort aside so he could take stock of his surroundings.
And aside from what seemed like ubiquitous snow, there really wasn’t much to see. Everywhere he looked was a rolling landscape of snowy hills. Every now and then, he’d see a pine tree jutting from the sea of white, but even those were sparse. And there was no other vegetation. In the distance, Zeke could see a few dark smudges on the horizon that he suspected might be the foothills of some mountains, but with the falling snow obscuring his view, he couldn’t be sure. He glanced in the opposite direction, but he saw nothing but an endless expanse of desolate cold.
His breath misted as he sighed, and already, he could feel the whiskers of his beard gathering frost. So, he retrieved a spare shirt from his storage space, then wrapped it around the lower half of his face. Then, he repeated the action over his forehead and ears, leaving only his eyes bare. After that, he pulled the fur-lined hood of his coat over his head. It wasn’t perfect, but it would keep at least some of the cold at bay.
Thankfully, Abby had had the presence of mind to buy a pair of thick gloves before they’d set off into the mountains of the Radiant Isles what felt like an eternity ago. With his endurance, he’d never really needed them back then, but now, they were going to come in very handy.
Now that his immediate needs were satisfied, Zeke cast his gaze inward, focusing on [Mark of Companionship], and after only a moment, he was happy to feel a slight tug toward the west. Another pulled his attention to the north, while a third had him looking toward the south. At first, Zeke couldn’t tell which of his companions belonged to which signal, but it only took a bit more concentration before he felt the distinctions between the three.
Pudge was to the west, his emotions muted but untroubled. That was a relief; Zeke had been nervous about being separated from his companion. Not for his own sake, but rather, for Pudge’s. The infernal bear had never been on his own before, and though he was capable enough to carve his own path through the new world in which they’d found themselves, Zeke couldn’t help but be a little nervous.
Talia’s signal to the north was far weaker, likely because it wasn’t bolstered by a soul bond. He hoped she was okay. In a lot of ways, she was just as vulnerable as Pudge. Zeke had no idea how bear aging worked, but he often thought of Pudge as a teenager. In that respect, they were similar.
Of course, Zeke wasn’t really much older, even if he sometimes felt like an old soul trapped in a young body. Some of that was due to his experiences – the troll caves alone had felt like they’d aged him a decade – but it was also because he’d always felt older than his actual age.
Finally, he focused to the south, where he felt Abby’s signal. He hadn’t even realized it, but he’d never removed [Mark of Companionship] from her, which meant that he had the ability to track her down, now. However, he wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to see her again, much less search her out.
Sighing, he shunted that awareness into the back of his mind and turned his attention to his current predicament. In a lot of ways, it wasn’t so different from when he’d arrived in the troll caves. It was just as inhospitable of an environment, but he was a very different person than he’d been back then. Not only had he been through a host of life-or-death experiences, but he’d grown far more powerful than any Earth-bound human had ever dreamed of becoming. Finally, he also had plenty of supplies in his spatial storage.
No - it was a completely different situation.
Still, he couldn’t help but remember what Oberon had claimed. This was an opportunity to grow. And the dwarf had also insinuated that it would be incredibly difficult to survive. So, as uncomfortable and potentially deadly as the frigid temperatures were, Zeke expected to be assailed by something far more dangerous.
First, though, he wanted to use the skill that had come with his new class. However, when he tried to activate [Colossus], he got a rude awakening in the form of a Framework notification:
[Colossus] (E) – Skill locked. Complete quest to gain full access to [Colossus].
Zeke frowned, then navigated to his quest screen. He was relieved to see that the quest he’d been given by Oda was gone, but it had been replaced by a new arrival:
Quest Attained! Gather thirty (30) high-quality blood mithril ore, thirty (30) netherite, and thirty (30) black adamantine. Reward: Skill [Colossus].
Inwardly, Zeke cursed. The blood mithril ore he had left over from when he’d created his armor was low-quality at best. In fact, according to Taggert, the smith he’d worked with back in Jariq, nobody had ever found anything better than average-quality in the Radiant Isles. So, he was going to have to mine – or buy – the ore on his current plane. As to the other ores, they were completely unknown to him, which didn’t bode well for his ability to easily complete the quest and gain access to his skill.
As annoying as that was, it had nothing on the shock he felt when he examined the rest of his skills, which had been uniformly altered. First, he focused on his most useful ability, [Life Scythe]:
[Life Scythe] has been altered by {Arcane Colossus}, resulting in a new skill: [Metallurgical Repair].
Annoyed, Zeke focused on the skill:
[Metallurgical Repair] (F) – A derivative of an evolved leeching skill, [Metallurgical Repair] allows the user to draw earthen energy from his surroundings and use that energy to repair his colossal body. Upgradeable.
Zeke had no idea what a colossal body was, but he hoped it didn’t mean that he needed to unlock the other skill in order to use it. He’d leaned on [Leech Strike] and its evolved cousin, [Life Scythe] since the very beginning, and suddenly not having any ability to heal himself would leave him feeling extraordinarily vulnerable. So, it was with some trepidation that Zeke activated the skill.
A sigh of relief misted out from between his lips when he felt the skill take hold. The mana swirled all around him, digging through the deep snow and into the rocky ground below. With every swirling pass, it dragged something from the earth, and when it returned to Zeke a few moments later, he felt refreshed and energized. That told him a few things.
First, apparently he now possessed a colossal body, whatever that meant. He had no idea if it was just a name granted by his new class or if it came with unlisted benefits, but he suspected it was a good thing. Second, the skill worked just as the description claimed, yanking earthen energy from the ground and using it to repair any damage he might have incurred. In the absence of damage, it relieved his fatigue. Third, the skill cost a trickle of mana that he expected would increase dramatically depending on how severe his wounds were. It seemed powerful, but it would definitely take some time to acclimate himself to the new skill.
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So, he moved on to the next skill, [Armor of the Colossus], which only resulted in a system message:
Skill Unavailable! Complete skill quest to gain access to an upgraded version.
Oberon had hinted that the only way he could stabilize his [Armor of the Colossus] skill was if he took {Arcane Colossus} as his class, and at the time, he thought he’d have to apply the class’s runecrafting abilities to repair it. However, it seemed that the system was going to take the reigns, which was both annoying and relieving. Annoying because Zeke wouldn’t get access to the skill until he gathered the various ores and completed the quest. But relieving in that he didn’t have to tackle the job on his own – which was a dubious prospect, at best.
In any case, he moved on to [Mark of Companionship], which was unchanged except for the addition of the ability to locate his friends. So, he moved on to [Avatar of the Beast], which had been transformed into a new skill called [Avatar of the Colossus]. Its description was:
[Avatar of the Colossus] (F) – Derived from [Avatar of the Beast] Vastly increase a target’s physical prowess, augmenting Strength and Endurance of a companion. Caster will experience a lesser increase. Upgradeable.
The skill seemed to retain its general purpose, though it only augmented strength and endurance now, instead of all physical stats. However, Zeke suspected that it would provide a much bigger boost to strength and endurance, now. In addition, [Avatar of the Beast] had a soft limit of two recipients before the mana usage exploded. [Avatar of the Colossus] seemed to have discarded that weakness. Finally, it now would affect him as well, though he had no way of knowing the exact percentages of the increases. Still, anything was better than nothing.
Finally, he found that both [Unleash Momentum] and [Weight of Two Worlds] were completely unchanged. It seemed that he would have to adjust his fighting style a little, especially without [Life Scythe] or [Armor of the Colossus] backing him up. Even so, Zeke suspected that his class had resulted in nothing but upgrades – or it would when he completed his quest.
Before he could worry about that, though, he needed to figure out where he was going. He looked around again, but finding no other landmarks with which to orient himself, he chose to move toward the mountains in the distance. At the very least, they might offer some resistance against the ever-present wind skating across the tundra.
Hunching his shoulders against the cold, Zeke made his decision and set out. Immediately, he realized that traversal of this new environment was going to be far more difficult than he’d first suspected. The snow was almost two feet deep, which put it at around his knees. That meant that he had no choice but to force a path.
His stats were well up to the task. In fact, he felt far stronger than he had before his ascension, which was a bit of a surprise, considering that he didn’t have [Armor of the Colossus] running. By all rights, he should have been much weaker without the significant stat increases that had come with that unstable skill. Instead, his entire body felt more powerful than it ever had before – a characteristic he had to attribute to the bonuses he’d received with his class. He didn’t see anything heavy to lift, but he suspected that his strength had almost doubled. That gave him a hint of how impactful those increased tiers really were.
Those thoughts occupied Zeke’s mind as he trudged along, plowing through the deep snow drifts with a machine-like pace. More than once, he almost stumbled into a hidden crevice, but thankfully, none of them were wide enough to swallow him whole. Still, he did pick up a nasty sprained ankle, which he healed with a quick surge of [Metallurgical Repair]. It only took a trickle of mana, which told him just how powerful the skill really was. So long as the cost wasn’t exponential, he could completely heal himself with only a tenth of his mana.
It wasn’t as efficient as [Life Scythe], but the effect would be far more immediate, which would just have to do. In any case, it highlighted the necessity of completing his quest as quickly as possible. Unless he missed his guess, [Colossus] would likely be another armor skill. And if nothing else, his experiences with the undead horde had taught him just how necessary good armor was, considering his fighting style.
And he hoped that there would be some synergy between [Colossus] and [Metallurgical Repair], even if he didn’t know precisely what form it might take.
Slowly, Zeke drew closer to the mountains, but soon, night began to fall. The temperature dropped right alongside the darkness, and eventually, Zeke decided to summon his tower. When he did, he got another surprise; the tower had evolved once again, completely discarding the old stone-like appearance in favor of the more evil structure he’d seen during his time in Mal’araxis.
It looked like nothing so much as a metal spire, albeit a crimson one, and the top was ringed in a crown of aggressive flanges. There were no openings aside from the front gate, which was at least three times Zeke’s height and ten times as wide. In front of those metallic gates was a sturdy portcullis that rose of its own accord at Zeke’s approach.
It wasn’t until Zeke stepped inside that he realized just how cold he’d been. The interior of his tower looked remarkably similar, though it was telling that the statues depicting Abby were gone. That, as much as anything, told Zeke just how much his opinion of the woman had changed. So, without further ado, he severed the connection between them.
Immediately, there was a part of him that regretted it. After all, they’d been through a lot together, and he’d held out some small hope that they’d reconcile. However, the betrayal had been too complete, and he didn’t think he’d ever be able to make himself forget it. Even if he wanted to stay with her, it wouldn’t be fair to either of them. The lack of trust would inevitably breed resentment. No – a clean break was better. Hopefully, he’d never see her again.
With that, Zeke went upstairs. Once he peeled all of his layers off and went into the bathroom to shower, he was a little stunned by his appearance. In a lot of ways, he looked similar to how he’d looked before [Armor of the Colossus] had altered his appearance. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, and powerful legs marked him as a warrior. His hair was long, and his beard had grown out of control – neither of which were rare occurrences. It was difficult to worry about such things when your life was on the line, after all.
But those features weren’t what had grabbed his attention. Instead, his eyes found their way to the tips of his toes, which had begun to turn bright red. He hadn’t grown up in a cold climate, but it didn’t take a lot of intuition to recognize the onset of frostbite. So, he activated [Metallurgical Repair] once again, and he was unsurprised to see the skin take on a healthy huge. However, the rest of his body lit up with metallic red light emanating from what looked like a million tiny cracks in his skin. As he channeled the skill, his body had taken on an appearance that suggested he’d been broken into a thousand pieces, then glued back together. Once he stopped channeling the skill, the lights faded, and soon after, the cracks did as well.
Curious, Zeke retrieved a high-quality dagger from his spatial storage and ran it along the back of his forearm. It took a little doing to get through his incredibly tough skin, but when he did, he was alarmed to see that his blood had taken on a metallic sheen and looked almost like red-tinted mercury. Once again, he channeled [Metallurgical Repair], healing the tiny wound. Predictably, those same cracks reappeared.
After a little testing with [Weight of Two Worlds], Zeke figured out that any time he used a skill or channeled mana, the cracks would reappear. They didn’t hurt anything, though, so he thought they were just a side effect of his colossal body.
With his experimentation done, Zeke hopped in the shower and bathed under a steaming hot stream of water before settling down for the night. But as tired as he was, he couldn’t sleep. So, when the morning came, he wasted no time before donning even more layers and heading outside.
He glanced back and dismissed the tower. However, even as it dissipated into motes of mana, Zeke’s instincts screamed at him. As a veteran of a thousand battles, he trusted his intuition explicitly, so he didn’t hesitate to dive to the side, narrowly avoiding some kind of projectile that whistled past his ear.
“Devil be damned!” growled a rough voice.
But Zeke never had time to investigate the speaker, because a second later, a hundred little impacts descended upon him. The first felt almost like being hit with a baseball, but the second was significantly more severe. And the next, even more so. By the twentieth, Zeke had collapsed onto the snow and curled into a ball to protect his head and vitals. Never had he wished for armor more than at that moment.
Under the barrage, Zeke could scarcely move, so he didn’t even react when someone clamped a collar around his neck. Suddenly, the bombardment ceased, and Zeke unfurled his form to see a dozen white-clad figures standing around him.
Then, he tried to summon Voromir, and he was shocked to find that nothing happened. He tried to activate [Weight of Two Worlds], but the only response he got was a chuckle from one of the figures.
“Oh, you’re a strong one, big boy,” came an amused and slightly accented voice as one of Zeke’s attackers stepped forward. He pushed back his hood to reveal a grey complexion and a black beard.
But that wasn’t what really caught Zeke’s attention. Rather, it was the man’s stature. He was short – maybe four feet tall – and almost as wide. More than anything, he reminded Zeke of Oberon, which meant that he was looking at another dwarf, albeit one that seemed to have had all the color drained out of him.
More, something told Zeke that he’d found the challenge Oberon had described. Now, the only question was whether or not he could survive.