Robin and Rober opened a set of double doors and were blasted by a roaring blizzard of snow, ice, and wind that hurled them backwards. They landed with a thud, but were back on their feet in moments. The pair responded by activating their new Cold Shield skills, causing a thin distortion of the air to surround their bodies. Shards of ice flew at them, hissing and crackling with terribly cold wind, but their shields held fast and deflected the onslaught. It seemed to give the pair the confidence to walk into the ice storm and start taunting the beasts.
Sam and Al followed, unleashing a devastating combination of Fire and Lightning to tear through the beasts in front of them. The ice around them shattered and molten droplets rained down in their wake. A few realised past the last monster, they stumbled upon a Y-intersection. I cautiously approached to investigate.
Down the left side, small geysers of fire spewed from the walls and floor; and on the right, frigid winds howled out powerfully from the walls, floor, and ceiling. Each stretched out man realises before turning and disappearing into the distance.
I heard a small grumbled curse from Coach Liv before he spoke. “It’s a gauntlet. Looks like the cold gauntlet is at its strongest right now, and the hot is at its weakest due to the cold. The question is, do we need to go down both sides, or will one side be enough? The other problem is the beasts. Will more beasts spawn when the temperature swings the other way? So, if we do split the team up, we can’t just send one person down one side and the rest of us down the other, which brings up the last issue: if we do split the team evenly, will the smaller groups be strong enough to deal with any beasts that pop up? Signore Barducci, any input?”
My Handler answered, “We split the team. We need to clear both sides.”
“And how do you know that?” Coach Liv asked.
Barducci pointed to a small plaque mounted to the wall that read, “All levers must be activated to proceed forward.”
Coach Liv grunted and then quickly split the team up. It was him, Al, Plvoer, Sam, Beau, and Rober going right, and Signore Barducci, Yui, Robin, Han, and me going left.
“We’ll wait for the next temperature change. Then my group will go down the cold side. When it changes again, your group will move down the fire gauntlet. Everyone understand the plan?” Coach Liv asked. He got a round of nods from the group, and I thought I detected a forlorn note in his voice as he added. “Hopefully, we’ll all meet on the other end.”
The temperature swung hot eight minutes later, and Coach Liv and his group moved into the ice gauntlet. I could only wince when I saw Rober get hit by the icy cold blast. They were quickly healed but it often caused timing issues. I watched them until they were out of sight.
“Mister Belov, we should be watching our side. Start trying to learn the timing,” my Handler suggested. It may have sounded like a suggestion, but I knew it wasn’t.
I slowly turned around to face the path of the fire gauntlet. My group was relying on me to find a way forward, and I desperately wanted to know what lay beyond, but my eyes were only able to show me so much. The farther I looked, the less I could make out. With my vision limited, I relied on my other senses and Synesthesia to tell me what lay beyond. I focused on the smell of burnt wood and sulphur that drifted with each burst, how it grew stronger just before the roar of flame made sound. Closing my eyes, I could see a buildup of energy before each explosion, and highlighted within it were lines of magical energy that seemed to cling to the air. I opened my eyes wider, suddenly able to take in more of the gauntlet than I had ever seen with just my vision.
I carefully watched the cycle of fire bursting out at irregular intervals. When it seemed like I had enough information, I started to follow the pattern of the purple-tinged mana. It travelled down the hall, gathering and then dispersing, until it reached a strange collector-like object. When enough mana was collected, fire would burst out of one of four spouts in a seemingly random order. After noting the rotation and timing of each spout, I started to recognize the same pattern in other spouts. A broad smile crossed my face as I realised I had discovered the way out.
“Why aren’t we going?” Robin asked.
“We have to wait for the pattern to be perfect,” I said, trying to keep their trust in me. Yui shook her head but sheathed her sword and, along with the rest of the team, readied herself to run. The corner of my Handler’s eye twitched, and I wondered if he was proud of me or if he thought I was foolish.
I closed my eyes and tasted the mana in the air, unsure if I was doing the right thing. When the moment came, I stepped forward and prayed that this gamble would pay off. “Follow closely and don't stop unless I do!” I shouted as the flame jet went out directly in front of us.
Two fast steps forward followed. Then a side step and a short sprint forward. I dove to the left and came up running. I heard my team following close behind, some struggling more than others, but no one got hit by the fire despite the jets going off right next to them.
I shuffled left, hopped back, shuffled left again, and then ran a dozen paces forward. I halted abruptly and whirled around, my heart in my throat, waiting for the next break in the fire that would allow us to pass.
“Why are we stopping?” Han asked, sounding worried.
I could feel the tension radiating off of Han and could hear his heart beating rapidly. “One minute for the path to open up again. We’re safe here, I promise.” I tried to reassure him that we were safe, but I had no idea if my promise would be enough. His heart thudded in his chest, seemingly unwilling to slow its pace. I knew it must have been a terrifying experience for him, but there was nothing I could do but wait until the path opened up again.
Like clockwork, the path opened up again, and I was moving. Diagonally left, then right, then left twice, then right once and left three times before the path was wide open in front of me again. But I knew it was a trap. I could only move halfway down the path before I needed to sprint right and then forward again as the fire would move.
My heart raced as I heard an agonising cry of pain behind me, but I knew there was no time to look back. We were running for our lives, and if we were to stop for even one moment, we'd all become cooked alive in the raging inferno. Desperately, I sprinted onward, until we reached an elbow in the path that doubled back on itself. Finally, there was a small reprieve—a tiny pocket of space unencumbered by the blazing jets.
“We wait here for the temperature to change again,” I collapsed to the ground, lungs heaving from the strain of the run and from the heat of the air around us. The rest of my team dropped, sweat streaming off of them and breathing hard. Yui and Barducci were the only ones that didn't stop to rest, instead tending to Robin, black charring across the back of her left leg showing where she'd gotten hit by a flame jet.
I left her care to them and closed my eyes again. I needed to learn the pattern of the next part of the gauntlet. I reached out with my magical senses for any sign of the cooling mana that awaited us. I traced the pathways of mana, noting where the convertors were and patterns where the cold energy flowed.
However, before I could map out the way forward, the temperature dropped, and a burst of blue energy formed around us, the clean scent of ice after a storm thick in the air.
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"Ice mutants!" I shouted in warning as my eyes opened and I scrambled to my feet.
Five abominations of ice formed within moments, their twisted forms merging the features of kin with various beasts. The creatures blocked the way forward out of the tight quarters of the room.
Robin leapt up from her seat on the floor, her leg only half healed but mace in hand, and she charged into the twisted ice creatures. She shouted, "Come on, you beasts! I'll turn you into ice chips!"
She swung her mace and bashed the closest creature, a five-legged monstrosity with sharp icicles protruding from its head. She ducked as the beast swung a sharp ice claw at her. But she remained calm and shouted out, “Left to right, knock them down one at a time!”
Our team didn't hesitate to respond. Han crouched down, his hands on the stone floor, and he chanted. A moment later, sharp stalagmites burst from the floor and walls, one punching straight through the head of one monster, decapitating it. Another stabbed a creature in a leg, and the rest did damage but also acted as obstacles stopping the creatures from surrounding us.
Her ninjato sword in hand, Yui was a whirling dervish amongst the monsters. She leapt from wall to wall and somersaulted through the air as if weightless. With every swing of her blade, chunks of ice flew from the monsters' bodies as she slowly chipped away at them until eventually they weakened and collapsed into piles of snow.
Barducci chose to use two weapons: a hammer and a warpick. He switched between them masterfully, using the hammer to smash into ice monsters and shatter them into pieces before swinging the warpick in quick and precise strikes that hit weak spots I couldn’t even perceive. If my Handler ever decided to change Jobs, I was certain Weapon Master would have been one of his Job choices.
With my knives, I struck at the beasts’ knees and joints, thrusting a shadow blade into a space and then using Shadow Manipulation to expand the blade, causing the joint to crack and crippling the limb before melting back into the shadows to avoid a counterattack.
The tight space and Han's stalagmites helped us take the monsters one and two at a time but also meant we were trapped between fire to the left and ice to the right, the former of which was turned up really hot. Han took an unfortunate step and got burned badly across his back and the back of one of his legs trying to dodge an attack from the last ice creature.
As soon as the last beast fell, I moved to the gauntlet. I knew where we needed to start. I just hoped we had enough time to heal Robin and Han and run the path. It took a minute for me to find the point in the rotation of the cold jets. As soon as I did, I called out, “Ten minutes until we need to go.”
Yui was beside Han quickly, repairing the damage and ignoring his screams of pain until he passed out. Yui began to move in a slow and ritualistic dance, her eyes closed and her arms reaching out towards the air around her like antennae. She murmured words of power under her breath as she danced, gently pushing the energy around Han until it glowed with a light so bright it was almost blinding. Her movements became more urgent as she shifted from side to side, faster and faster until finally the light disappeared completely and Han’s burns were completely healed.
“Robin, pull that lever,” my Handler ordered, pointing to the wall just between the fire and ice gauntlets. I was happy he was paying attention and trying to get us out of there.
“Healing is done,” Yui said with a tired voice.
“Han’s unconscious. I’ll carry him,” Robin volunteered after pulling the lever.
I heard Robin behind me picking up Han with help from Signore Barducci.
“Time to go,” I shouted, taking the first step into the frozen gauntlet, my team following me in.
A chilling wind swept through the hallway, carrying with it a gust of cold air that instantly turned my sweat to shivers. The floor was frozen solid and slick, and I had to be extra careful with each step. Robin and Han were nearly lost on a patch of ice, and I almost slipped while descending a steep path filled with spikes made of ice and blasts of cold air that were meant to push us to our deaths. With every step, the passage seemed to stretch onward, freezing blasts of mana at every turn, the journey seemingly never-ending. We had been navigating this gauntlet for over an hour when we finally reached another safe area at a left-hand turn and another lever.
“We will stay here and rest for a while. Han needs time to recover,” Signore Barducci ordered as he moved to check on the young kin. “We need him awake for the next leg of the gauntlet. I know Robin can carry him, but the risk of another group of beasts waiting for us at the end of the next leg is a real threat. I don’t want us blundering into the same situation or worse. Understood?”
No one argued. We were all too tired. I sat down against the wall and pulled out a mana bun, happily chewing on it while Yui looked after our wounds, mostly frost burns that had started to accumulate. She healed the damage with her medical knowledge and mesmerising spirit magic.
We rested for an hour. We knew the other group might be much farther ahead of us by now, but we hoped they eventually chose to rest as well.
With the longer period of rest, I was able to get very familiar with the next leg of the gauntlet. I just had to wait for the right timing.
Finally, the air around us started to warm, and I announced, “Next shift in temperature. Be ready to go.” There were groans as everyone got up, and Han finally awoke and was able to travel on his own. Then my Handler pulled the lever on the wall, and with a nod from him, I was off, running through the maze of blazing flames licking at my sides. I heard shrieks of pain and smelled burning flesh behind me but kept going, shouting instructions for my teammates trailing me.
Thirty-three minutes later and with two and a half hours left on the clock, the hallway ended, and we stumbled into a massive but empty octogonal chamber. To the left, I could hear and smell jets of cold magic, and I knew we’d reached the point where the two teams were supposed to meet up. But the other group was nowhere to be seen. There were no stairs or doors that I could make out—just an icy wind blowing through the tunnel.
Barducci surprised me slightly when he spoke softly into my ear from behind me. “Start studying the other path. You might need to go get them . . . if any of them are still alive.”
I didn’t want to consider that they might all be dead. That would mean the Hero was dead and the world would be doomed to face whatever cataclysm was headed our way without him. I quickly pushed that thought aside and focused on the icy gauntlet. I needed to find the way back through.
I sat and closed my eyes, tracing the magic pathways through the other part of the lair. It was confusing to track the magic in reverse through the traps, monsters, and dangers. Going back there seemed almost impossible, at least, impossible to bring my team with me. I opened my eyes and frowned. “I found a path through, but there is a problem.”
“What’s that?” my Handler asked.
I frowned and then sighed. “Going backwards means going against the natural flow of traps. It’s going to require every ounce of speed and agility I have to avoid the dangers, and I can only hope my Shadow Cloak will hide me from anything waiting at the junctures. So I’ll have to go alone. I just don’t see another way thro—”
A deafening BOOM rattled the room, shaking the floor beneath our feet. I couldn't hear my own voice as I shouted questions. Then, a section of the floor in the centre of the room began to move and open like a massive jaw. Robin, Yui, and Han all scrambled back from the edge of the revealed ten-foot-wide abyss, not wanting to fall inside. The grinding of gears reverberated down into the darkness as though it were growling a warning for us to stay away. Then, suddenly, all was silent, and I could hear my own voice echoing amongst us again.
“Everyone, the boss is coming,” my Handler warned. “Spread out. We don’t know what’s coming out of that hole, and I don’t want us bunched up when we face it.”
There was no hesitation from my team. Robin pulled her shield from her back and stood ready to our left. Han went to the other side and started to call up stone shards through the floor, ready to launch. Yui, her delicate figure swathed in a silk kimono, was silent and stood next to my Handler, her curved ninjato sword in hand ready for battle.
I was surprised to hear Signore Barducci say more, “If the boss is coming like I believe, it must mean the last lever was pulled. We need to hold it off long enough for the other half of our team to join us. That means no crazy tactics. No stupid risks. Fight smart and mentally prepare yourselves for a long, drawn-out fight.”
“Then my Alphonse is alive,” Yui said with a sigh. Smiles from the other members of the team told me that I hadn’t been the only one worried about his survival.
I heard the grinding sound move again, coming closer to us. A mechanical lift was slowly bringing something up from the depths below us. I pulled out my knives, holding one in each hand. I was as prepared for this fight as I was going to get, yet I was not prepared for what came out of that hole.