“Explain, spells. How do those work?” I ask

“No.” He responds promptly, and slaps me upside the head. “Now hurry up, and get to weaving so we can break you into the D ranks.”

I stop him. “Well hold on, what affinity am I?” I ask petulantly.

He sighs annoyed. “You know.”

I frown, “No-” I close my mouth. “I do.” I smile at the swell of heat in my chest, as it swirls. Fire. “I have a fire affinity. What should I enhance?”

He nods. “Depends. Do you want to be a ranged wizard, or a melee fighter, or some mix, like me. I don't really take advantage of my element much, at least as you can see because well… My affinity is weak. My strength is the product of countless hours of training. But you actually have a decent affinity so you could probably become a wizard, or mixed, if you want.”

I sigh. “Ok. I think I could do a mixed fighter.”

He nods. “Great choice, I wouldn't waste a fire element like that, they have great potential for destruction.”

I beam up at the praise. “So, I don't know, muscles? Organs?”

He sighs, and leans in close. “If I were you, the three I would choose for my D ranks would be muscles, brain, and aura. Brain mostly because you can never go wrong with being smarter, and you also are running a city, so you really need it. Muscles, because they are super useful for melee, aura because you can use spells if you want, but if you want to be a mix of spells, and melee, you want to use your aura more than spells. Your organs you can do once you're more powerful. Maybe if you were on the verge of death, but you aren’t.”

I nod. “Ok.”

He shudders. “And you’ve never known true fear until you’ve seen a ogre sweeping through a crowd of men, gigantic fucking hammer in hand, wiping men off the face of the earth, every spin leaving a whirl of flame behind, boiling men in their armor like lobsters.”

I chuckle, and I'm snapped back to the present, where I stand with my friends at the entrance of the dungeon, my brain having sped up rapidly already.

“How deep are we going boys?” I rub my hands together, and Aeryn throws me a dirty look.

“I ain't no fuckin boy!…” she throws out there.

I laugh, and fix my mistakes. “Sorry… how deep are we going ladies?”

Harkon laughs at my joke, but Theo glares like a slighted child, and shifts away.

I chuckle, and Luther does as well, while responding. “Well, I heard the seventh floor just opened up. And by the way, this dungeon is fucking flying! I've never seen a dungeon create floors this fast.”

I nod, “Yeah, well, I've never been anywhere else.”

Luther shrugs. “Let's aim for the beginning of the seventh floor.”

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I nod along in agreement, Theo, begins walking, Harkon, rubs his hands in anticipation, and Aeryn shrugs in indifference.

“Ok, let's go,” and we make the plunge. The first couple floors, we tear through without issue, and quickly brought to the fifth floor, where a similar scene as the last time meets us, we enter the palisade, and are quickly met by a force of goblins. We slaughter the goblins, with only minor injuries. One of the goblins had managed to knick Harkon with a thrown axe.

We quickly gang up on Serp, and bring him down with only a minor fight. And we begin to trek to the 6th floor. We enter the sixth floor, and Luther quickly wraps his coat tighter around himself. “I'm glad I wear this long coat.” He chuckles, and rubs his biceps. He reaches into his coat, and removes multiple pairs of snowshoes, which he passes around to everyone, who quickly don them, and begin trekking over the snow.

Everyone throws their head up at the rapid fire crunching noises of hooves cracking through layers of frozen, windswept snow. A buck crests the hill, and cries out, before waving its head around, and charging down the hill, antlers down. The snow shifts beneath its feet, and seems to propel it onwards.

Theo steps forward, and when the antlers intercept his chest he grabs the creature by its chest, spins it over his shoulder, and throws it into the snow, where it is quickly spiked to death by a thin stone spear rising from the ground.

He chuckles, and picks at the gouges on his chest where the antlers intercept. Aeryn quickly chastises him, and heals him up.

I turn away from the sight of the healing, and spin in awe at the tiny world encased in this cavern.

We continue forward, we reach the edge of the floor, but can't find the way out, we follow the edge of the cavern, until we make it back to the entrance, we search for longer, before eventually finding a narrow cave, in the ice. We enter, and eventually find the entrance to the boss room, which we enter.

The boss room is pretty big, with a couple trees scattered throughout. We quickly step through the snow drifts, the powder soft, and fluffy. Luther taps my shoulder and points off at some footprints in the snow.

We step closer to the foot prints to inspect them when.

“AAAAAHHHHH!” A scream rings out above us, and we all jump. A gobbo jumps from the tree, his skin a pale icy blue, a dagger clutched in his left hand, and staff in his right. As he drops from the tree he waves his arm about, and a sudden gust of wind blows, dousing us with the thick powder, and we can't see anymore.

All of a sudden a sharp pain rings in my right thigh, and I scream, lashing out, my sword missing the little goblin by Inches.

Luther hears my cries, spins, and fires a shot at the boss, the boss raises his arm, and an icy wall rises, intercepting the missile. He cackles, and lashes out with his staff hitting me in the stomach, and stunning me.

A thud resounds, as Theos fist hits the beasts, and he lifts from the ground, flying, and intercepting with his own wall of ice. He screams in outrage, and he swings his staff again, the snow underneath Theo shifts away dropping him on bare dirt, before more of the powder is dropped on top of him, burying him.

Harkon dashes forward, attacking the boss with a swing of his whip. “Milo! Get Theo out of there!”

I nod, and dash to the place where Theo was, and start digging, but as I dig I will the air around me to heat up with my affinity, and to my surprise, it does! Not fire or anything but warmth, which melts through the snow, and I quickly intercept Theos head, and I free his mouth allowing him to breathe.

He grins at me, and I continue to dig him free, freeing his arms, and at that point I abandon him to go help my party as he can free himself, only to find the boss riddled with holes from a crossbow, and hundreds of little nicks from Harkon's whip.

I sigh, and in relief, and turn back to Theo to find him having already mostly freed himself.

Aeryn rushes to my side, and quickly begins healing my injured hip. I sigh, and thank her. “Any good drops?” I ask Luther.

He chuckles, and passes me a beanie with words knitted into it. Frosties Silk Hat

He laughs, “The Frostlins named Frosty!”