I was walking up the side of a cliff face. I mean standing straight up, my body perpendicular to the mountain.

The wind cut through my clothes even though I was wearing every layer I could get my hands on. Three coats, a big wool scarf that itched like crazy, long johns, ski socks, an undershirt that stuck to me and emphasized my gut, Auroch skin boots with a thick lining. Not a bit of it did any good. What the hell was I thinking going to a place like the Wailing Alpine? There must be a million tropical dungeons, why am I wasting my time up in the Land Beyond the Wind? Well, I know the answer to that.

I wanted a fresh start after that group kicked me, after drinking myself half to death. The doctors hauled me in when they found me passed out in the street. They were worried the cold would get me. So there I was, wrapped in a blanket, sipping a big mug of tea while some string bean of a doctor is gripping his clipboard, trying to tell me as diplomatically as possible, that my liver is on the brink of giving out.

“If you stop now, I can’t promise a full recovery, but the thing about the liver is, as long as you don’t hit that point of no return, it’ll bounce back. If you do keep drinking past that point though, it’s game over”,

Now that I wasn’t moribund they kicked me back out on the street with a hefty bill. Not to mention they repossessed my bracers, my medical debt still being in effect and mostly unpaid. I thought, it’s another week until my next installment is due, so two choices lie ahead of me: keep risking my neck every day, every month for the rest of my life to foot the bill, or go to debtor’s prison on the Island of If and rot there, suffering in much the same way as I would’ve as a free man, but at least someone would be paying for my bed and board.

I chose neither.

I split town, and took the train to the very end of line, at which I stowed away on a merchant vessel, and rode it till they reached their first destination, where they kicked me off.

That place happened to be Kristiana, a singular city, in which I walked the streets and starved like a dog for a good while, before I could scrounge up enough supplies to hit my first dungeon there.

I’d heard a lot of good things about the Wailing Alpine. Full of Yetis that are walking sacks of XP as long as you stay out of the range of their claws. Some good loot in relatively easy to find places. You just had to keep clear of the Jotun, and make it past possibly the most difficult part of the instance, the entrance. Which I guess isn’t that helpful of a designation, as it’s not the kind of Ancient corridor I was used to, but rather a sheer cliff face.

I cozied up to this local character who referred to himself as a Trollmann, whatever that means. He told me a nifty trick to get up the mountain with minimal risk, or at least with less risk involved than trying to ascend it otherwise. For some reason, no one knows exactly why, if you use a Water Walk spell and step on to the mountain’s face, your feet adhere to it as if it were the surface of a lake. Much better than having to deal with the system of hooks, ropes, pulleys, whatever they use to climb it normally.

That’s how I found myself then, strolling past fellow adventurers struggling their way up, their labored breath visible in the cold. Behind their immense scarves I could see terrified looks. As I passed one he held his arm out in a supplicating gesture, not saying a thing, hoping that I would do something, anything to help him up the cliff. What could I do, though? I was having a tough enough time as it was maintaining a water walk spell as I made my ascent. There’s no way I could’ve held the both of us. I told him, “Don’t look down”, before continuing on my way, not bothering to look back for both our sakes.

Holding any spell for a long time isn’t only mentally demanding, but physically too. I don’t need to tell you how mana works. You don’t need to be an adventurer to know that tapping your body of its vital essence puts a certain strain on your faculties. It’s a common enough sight to see wizards losing their lunch after too much mana consumption, together with dizziness, fainting, joint pain, headaches, and, if you really mess up, overexert yourself, well, a heart attack isn’t out of the question. Add that to the fact that most spells require your total attention to hold, if not some amount of chanting or sigil-writing thrown into the bargain. To keep myself stuck to the cliff face I had to chant every now and then some Ancient mantra backwards and forwards, with the pronunciation at least mostly correct, or else I’d fall to my death. I’ve suffered through some truly terrible grammar lessons as a kid, the teacher in his robe, a ruler in hand, having you read some dusty tract before the class with a predilection for ten-dollar words, but all of that had nothing on this. I was chanting Ancient like it was nobody’s business as I passed those other adventurers, my arm raised to keep the sigil going.

Every irregularity in the mountain’s face kept me on my toes. The wind got stronger the farther up I went, and it wasn’t long before I couldn’t hear myself over it, my magic words were completely drowned out. I was chilled to the bone. Exposure was a common cause of death for adventurers, at least for ones who didn’t do their research, went into places like this one without warm clothes or fire magic. I thought it was a terribly mundane way to die. Especially for the man who’d killed an Orc King in one hit, but I guess it doesn’t do you any favors to get a big head about adventuring. I’m only human, after all. What could be more fitting for a veteran adventurer than being caught off guard, anyhow? After years in the business seeing for an instant dungeons as something to be trifled with, and in that same instant being struck down for their hubris? That’s downright poetic.

Stolen novel; please report.

Questions like these could wait, however. I found myself at the top of the mountain, still perpendicular. I wondered to myself, just how was I meant to get out of my standing position, and up onto the ledge? Put my foot out? Blink up there? No, I had no idea how Blink would go, being completely horizontal and all. I was struggling to balance this line of inquiry together with my focus on the spell, and it's a funny thing, my puzzlement was so great, I was focused so entirely on the logistics of my escape, that that the fear of falling was in a way subordinated.

A hand reached out. I took it. The slight form of my savior put every ounce they had at their disposal at hauling me over the ledge, and so assured my rescue. I went tumbling into the snow, panting heavily and maybe throwing up in my mouth a bit. I got up. The man in front of me was a specimen only too typical for the men beyond the wind; I had expected a race of titans, of blonde beasts, and while they were indeed blonde, the rest of them was anything but mythological. Skinny arms, pot belly, an admittedly impressive combover that was doing all it could not to be unraveled by the roaring wind, that was the man in front of me, and most of Kristiania.

“Jan Erik”, said Jan Erik. We shook hands. “Name?” I told him my name and he filled me in on his situation. Jan Erik was a first-time adventurer who thought it was a get rich quick kind of deal. He found out soon enough that it was indeed not, and that he’d stranded himself on top of a mountain full of Yetis with nothing but a white-name sword. I asked him about his hearthstone, that don’t they have those things up here, and he said that he forgot to change it since moving, so if he hearthed now it’d take him back up north towards where the Hanseatic Leagues dock.

“That’s quite a predicament Jan Erik”, I said. “But I really must be getting a move on”, and made to leave.

He grabbed my arm. “Vær så snill, please”, and made what I suppose were meant to be puppy dog eyes. I shook his hand off, and went my way. Jan Erik trailed after me.

We went through a frozen grove of wiry black trees. The winter sun shone through them and lit up the frost that stuck to the branches. You think of the northern lands as being dark, but it turned out the sun was strong enough, and now that I was hit directly by its rays as well as panting with exhaustion, I found myself sweating under my long johns. The light was refracted by the piles of snow, melting them slightly, and I cursed myself for not buying a pair of tinted glasses. How was I supposed to make it through a dungeon squinting the whole time?

Jan Erik wasn’t letting up, calling my name and made appeals in both his native language and in surprisingly good Common. That’s one of the funny things about Kristiania. I doubt that the average joe in the Southern Lands could find Kristiania on a map, if they even knew about its existence in the first place, but people here could converse freely in Common, and I had in fact enjoyed long dialogues in local taverns with them, like speaking my language was nothing.

“I’m begging you”, he implored as we crunched our way through the snow. I stopped and turned around to address Jan Erik. A faint blue line passed over his scrunched-up face, cast by a naked birch to my left.

“Look, I can’t do this now. I’ve got my hearth set to Kristiania, so if you wait here I can come back and get you once I’m done with the dungeon. But you can’t follow me in there and mess up my stealth, ok? Stay here”, I said.

“Please, take me in there with you. I want to level up”.

“That’s not happening”, and I made to leave. He grabbed me again.

“I have money. I can pay you if you let me go with”. I had to think about this.

“Umm, no. First time in this dungeon. Can’t take any risks. I wish you well”.

I was going to continue on my way, and into the Ice Cave that was yawning from across the grove, when I heard a sound that made me stop in my tracks.

The distant call of a Yeti.

I drew my sword and crouched down, assuming a ready posture. Three of them, each approaching from a different direction.

I told Jan Erik to make himself scarce which, unlike my earlier demands, effected his immediate observance.

The Yeti that came from the Ice Cave was charging towards me, arms flailing, murder in its eyes. I lunged, maintaining a crouched position midair, with both hands on the hilt of the sword. The blade struck and I landed gracefully in the snow, digging my feet in to keep my balance. Blood shot out from the Yeti’s chest in a messy jet.

I whirled around and took the top half of the beast off, bringing the sword above my head, then made for the second Yeti who was still barreling towards me unfazed, as if I hadn’t just divvied up its brother in arms. It caught my weapon in its claws, struggling to keep the blade away from itself. I Blinked behind it, and got it through the back, ducked past the claw attack, a wide swipe, of the last Yeti, then retracted my sword.

I went for its neck, it only just managed to dodge in time. I wasn’t letting up: now that it had made some distance between me and itself, I shot a bolt of electricity into its chest. It wasn’t enough to down the Yeti, but the second of paralysis it did manage allowed me all the time I needed.

Its right arm was severed, and plopped onto the snow. It threw a desperate haymaker with its remaining arm. I leapt back to dodge it, Blinked towards and a little above the Yeti, and sent my booted foot, fitted with a spike in the back, to cling onto ice, right into its face. It tumbled over, bleeding out. I drove the blade into its heart.

Cleaning my sword with a bit of snow, I see Jan Erik fumbling his way back into the grove.

“Fy flate”, he exclaimed. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”.

“How do you get to Albion Hall?”

“What?”.

“Nevermind”. I sheathed my blade and made for the Ice Cave, Jan Erik hot on my heels, asking question after question.