Zalia came around the mountain, arriving back at where she remembered the door to be. She immediately noticed something was wrong as the door was cracked and smashed open. Dropping her kill and stringing her bow, she carefully approached as she nocked an arrow. The only tracks she could see were that of about fifteen goblins and nothing else, though she did see patches of icy frost marking the door and hallway beyond. Coming into view of the whole hallway, she could see within it a frozen figure.
Zalia quickly ran up to the small goblin and realised they were quite literally frozen, still like a sculpture of a running goblin, looking over its shoulder,
"Some kind of ice magic," she thought.
Moving further into the hallway, she could hear whispering sounds coming from beyond occasionally overlaid by a shout of pain.
Quickly running towards the city, Zalia came out of the hallway to a terrifying sight. Floating in the middle of the huge space were three figures. Two smaller and one larger though all holding the same form, they were made of six disconnected pieces of sharp, crystal-like ice roughly shaped in a humanoid figure. Each of the smaller ones was of silver and the large one of gold rank, much to her dismay. There wasn't much she would be able to contribute to this fight.
The thing that made it a terrifying sight, however, was the hundreds if not thousands of pin-prick eyes glowing red all around the walls of the space. From each of them, a whispering chant emanated that filled the room with an almost visible sound. She knew what this was and had in fact seen two of the goblins working their lava magic in unison before. That had been to simply open the door but she was excited to see what happened when an entire city worked their magic in unison like this.
Zalia watched as the three icy creatures shot out dozens of spikes, each exploding with an ear piercing shattering sound. Dozens of eyes went dark as they did so but the chant didn't stop. It came to a crescendo as what must have been an entire mountain of lava flowed from the floor of the mountain and surged up towards the creatures. The two Silver rank ones were almost immediately dissipated with the hissing sound of ice melting and an unworldly scream that sounded like an iceberg shattering. The third and highest ranked one lasted a bit longer, creating a shield of ice around itself as the lava melted ever inwards. It fired off some last ice bolts and managed to take one goblin with it before its shield shattered and it too hissed away giving its final scream.
Zalia watched as a large number of the goblins passed out immediately, a few others bending down as if to catch their breath. The large majority of them seemed fine though so she wasn't worried. Unstringing her bow she made her way back, picked up her kill and started quickly making her way to Glemp's home. She hoped he hadn't suffered an icy death at those creatures' hands. Along the way she did notice that the ones passed out were all of iron rank except for the singular Tin rank one she saw,
"Well at least I'm not the only one," thought Zalia, "probably the only one at my age though."
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She received a few stares that were hostile once more on her way to Glemp's home. Arriving, she popped her head around the corner to find Glemp leaning over a counter muttering to themself.
"Oh thank god," she said, seeing Glemp safe and sound.
"Yes, which one," Glemp said, looking up.
Zalia simply smiled, not quite ready to get into that topic just yet and ignoring the question,
"So, I brought you something Glemp!" said Zalia, as she dumped the dead creature on their floor. She pointed at it looking at Glemp proudly, "look!"
Glemp scampered over quickly, inspecting the body,
"Yes, yes, very dead, good job Zalia of the snow. What is this poison I see in its veins, very potent yes, very," asked Glemp, looking up at her.
"Why one of my very own make of course. Got some berries, got some leaves, mashed them together and bam, poison," she replied.
Glemp looked at her, dumbfounded,
"No, no no no. That is not how research works, not how alchemy works!" Glemp said, looking back down at the creature, a little irate.
"It's how it works for me, my instincts told me so" Zalia stated.
Looking ever more frustrated, Glemp looked back up at her once more,
"No no no, have you been eating those you hunt like this?" Glemp asked.
"Sure have," she said.
"No, you are a ghost, not alive, not alive. Resistant to poisons?" Glemp asked.
"Nope," she said as she sat on one of Glemp's benches, getting out a few berries to eat.
Glemp gave her a real odd look, Zalia had no idea why,
"I have an ability that means I have to eat less? I think it slows down my metabolism and feeds my body with magic or something. That plus a healing ability means the poison is neutralised before or as my body absorbs it… I think," Zalia said, after a few seconds of silence.
"Ah, yes, yes. Explains much. You should try some of this poison on yourself, yes indeed," Glemp said before getting back to what they were doing.
"Huh," Zalia said under her breath.
She popped the last berry in her mouth before getting out one of the poisoned arrows. She gave it a moment's hesitation before cutting into her arm. Immediately, she felt a cold burning going through her veins. That feeling when something is so hot it feels cold. She groaned before falling to her knees on the floor,
"Oh, holy shit," she moaned.
Getting out a little bit of Frozen Heart, she started chewing it. She could feel the poison slow down and relaxed a little bit, letting her healing do its work. She only relaxed for a moment however, before the poison reached her heart and was promptly pushed throughout her entire body. She let out a pained scream as her entire body lit on fire, seeing a single message before she passed out.
Congratulations! You have learned the passive skill 'Poison resistance'.
Tin - take reduced damage from poisons and poison based magics.