“Now that’s something special,” CJ said under his breath, before slipping the item into storage.

“Everybody ready?” asked Rubio, as he reached for the cold steel ring that served as the door handle for the heavy wooden door.

“Wait. We should pile up the armor. After I’ve got some mana back, we can probably take all this metal with us when we leave. I’d bet Roger could do something with it,” stated CJ, with is thumb and forefinger stroking his chin in contemplation.

“Hang on. How low on mana are you?” asked Elena, fully facing CJ now.

“Less than fifty points. Plenty of mana for some card throwing. The dungeon description mentioned waves. I assume we’ll have plenty of attackers. I’ll be back up to full in no time,” answered CJ, nonchalantly.

“Really?” asked Monty, “There are at least four waves and a boss. Mr. Trinchar, that gives me an idea. Remember when you said they were all shit with firearms?”

“I don’t see what that has to… clever. Call me Rubio, Monty. We have no need for titles in the field, but your idea has some merit. Everyone take out your personal weapons. I expect this will be a target rich environment. We should reserve our costly skills and abilities for later waves. CJ, how much ammo did you take from the biker’s stash?” asked Rubio.

“About half.”

“Great. Let’s set up that landing with the snow door as a fallback position. You and Jenn go up and organize the ammunition as best you can. Elena, Monty, and I will check out the ground floor of this place and see if there is anything we can use for the fight. Once separated, please be sure to use the party chat to maintain communication. Nobody dies. Got it?” asked Rubio rhetorically.

CJ and Jennifer started back up the stairs. This whole time CJ kept thinking how much warmer it was inside the tower than up top where they entered. The amount of snow covering everything outside was a good indication that it wasn’t going to get much colder. Halfway back to the snow door, the flames on all the torches turned from a burnt orange to blue with flickering white edges.

“Pick up the pace. My instincts are telling me that’s a bad sign,” said CJ.

Down on the ground floor, Elena and Rubio finally managed to get the door open and a solid foot of snow covered everything. Outside in the frigid courtyard were knocked over wooden carriages with a healthy amount of ice covering them. At each corner of this square interior wall were lit sconces. What looked like stalls for horses but contained only snow to their immediate left. Further into the square was an erected gallows complete with a noose. The snow only made it halfway up the stage. Beyond that was a portcullis with the top left section bent inward toward the courtyard. The bars were made of thick iron. Something must have hit that with a tremendous amount of force. Rubio then looked to their right to find the doors to the keep were smashed in and snow moved freely through the doorway.

Monty hopped up on the snow and it only slightly depressed. He looked back at Elena and Rubio before speaking.

“I’ll go check out the keep. It’ll take you two forever to get over there through all this and we didn’t bring a dump truck with a snowplow on it. I’ll come back as soon as I’ve given it a once over,” explained Monty, before he started scurrying his way toward the keep.

Rubio just nodded and dug into his slate to message the others but stopped once Elena tapped him on the shoulder. Her skull faced bikers helmet pointed its chin at the closest sconce on the wall. It wasn’t long after that they got a message from CJ.

New Message from Party Leader CJ: The torches up here just changed from normal fire to blue and white.

New Message from Rubio: Same down here. Can you see over the wall?

New Message from Party Leader CJ: No, we didn’t open the door. Just dumped up a bunch of ammo. Jenn is arranging the boxes by caliber. I’ll sprint up top and take a look.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

With that CJ took off running up the stairs. Not getting tired seemed like a godsend in this moment as he practically flew upwards. He started taking the stairs two at a time but had to stop before almost slipping on some ice as he rounded the corner near the top. Climbing up through the hatch was more a challenge than he would have liked.

Maybe I’ll spend some points in strength next level.

Finally, he peeked out of the first arch to the west. Snow. Then he checked the northern facing arch, castle wall, courtyard, and more snow. He turned to the east and paused. What he saw was of course more snow, but this time there were lines in the snow. Lines from CJ’s point of view. He was sure if he were closer, they would be furrows in deep snow. Eight to ten lines pointing directly at the castle. He quickly checked to the south and saw eight more lines.

New Message from Party Leader CJ: I think we have incoming from the East and South.

New Message from Rubio: You think?

New Message from Party Leader CJ: Well, it looks like something is pushing its way through the snow. Like that tunneling cartoon rabbit. They aren’t moving very fast.

New Message from Rubio: Stay up there, I’m coming to join you.

New Message from Psycho: I’m all done here. What should I do?

New Message from Rubio: Stay put.

Rubio said goodbye to his daughter and told her to wait for Monty. He made his way up to CJ and watched as his grey stamina bar started to drop to unsafe levels. He paused just passed Jennifer on the stairs to catch his breath. In that moment he thanked God that stamina regenerated faster than mana. He could feel the cold creeping into his bones, so he didn’t want to linger for too long. Finally, he made back to the ceiling hatch that led to the tower’s final level. Slinging his rifle over his back, he used the remains of the knight fused with the hatch to climb up.

"Any change?” asked a winded Rubio.

“My toes are going to start falling off, but I don’t think that’s the change you mean. The lines got a little closer, but they didn’t move very far,” quipped CJ.

Rubio swung his rifle around and looked out toward the east. Through the scope he could see a lot closer than CJ. The lines in the snow were making steady progress toward them. Every now and then he noticed motion at the very edge where the snow met the empty space. He watched it more carefully until, he was sure.

“Some kind of claw. Whatever they are, they are digging their way toward us. If it wasn’t for the snow they’d have been here already,” said Rubio.

“Not using party chat for this conversation,” CJ said with a serious look on his face.

“No point until we know more. Monty went to check out the keep. There’s about a foot of snow covering everything in the courtyard. Fighting out there for us would be suicide. Depending on what Monty finds, we may be better off just trying to hold this tower. We can bottle neck whatever they are in the stairwell. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel. If we’re lucky. There will only be sixteen targets,” explained Rubio.

“But this is only wave one. If the waves are exponential, we could be in trouble. Let’s say the numbers double in wave two. That means wave four has sixty four enemies. We don’t have enough ammunition for that,” expounded CJ.

“I was thinking about that earlier. We do have the armor of the dead soldiers. I could make more ammo but that just means we need to make every shot count. Also, how many decks do you have left?” asked Rubio, curiosity painted on his face.

“I’m full up. There was a display of playing cards in the toy section at the CVS. One of the first things I stored,” answered CJ.

“I think you may end up using all of them if we can’t figure out a better way. That means wading into the enemies so you can keep regenerating mana. Your power set is so strange. It would be more useful if you could hurl an explosive firebomb or something,” mused Rubio.

That thought sparked something in CJ’s mind. Would he have been able to do just that had he chosen the elemental tree for his class? What would those options have been? He now had his new flame spitter bracelet that Roger made for him but ten mana per use adds up. With his mana at its current low point, it was more cost efficient to focus on the cards.

New Message from Monty: There is nothing in here. It’s like someone came through and stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. I can see the outlines on the walls and floor for where furniture and painting used to be.

New Message from Rubio: If there is nothing in there, come on back. We have incoming.

No sooner did Rubio send that message than all the torches changed color again. Now the fires were burning with a black flame that changed the light spectrum for the whole castle. It was like they were bathed in the rays of a giant black light. CJ was staring at the torches in contemplation when the back of his neck practically waived like a flag. Then he felt his mana churn as it shot through his right arm and bloomed in his hand. Multicolored fire coated his palm before it settled on the same spectrum as the torches in the courtyard.

New Spell Learned: Polychrome Flames- Rare utility spell/Fire magic. Cost 5 mana. The caster can manifest flame in any color of the visible spectrum. The flames will give off heat, but they do no damage.