A few hours later, I’m woken up by Ismund again. Looking around bleary-eyed I see more corpses littering the area once again causing me to wrinkle my nose.

Is it my shift again? No, he’s packing up again, that can’t be right…

Ismund was already going up the hill with the exit, his voice echoed, “We’re leaving.”

“What?”, getting to my feet drowsily I do my best to jog down the ravine a bit so I line up with the door before I go up the hill. before climbing the hill I find out I’m sore. Very sore. Every time I took a step my muscles made their presence painfully obvious. If they could scream I would have a concert.

Getting a bit closer I ask, “How much longer do we have left in the dungeon?”

Letting out a barely audible sigh, Ismund tells me, “It should be the boss room next.” pursing his lips in annoyance he speeds up.

Well somebody’s crabby. I hope he’s wrong about the boss room. Wait, but if he is I’ll be in here for longer… both options are bad. Let’s just hope all goes well… yesterday didn’t go too bad. We could have died, that would’ve made it worse.

A little bit later I’m able to look over the hill again and see the door out.

And then we can just walk across the hallway and worry about the,… what’s it called,… fight room later. The halls… Oh no, no, no. I forgot about that.

Stopping me from being able to do anything else, Ismund grabs hold of my wrist again and tugs me along a bit faster than I would’ve been able to do otherwise.

Thankfully this time I was able to see the end of the hall right out the gate because it was so much shorter. I don’t know how or where they came from, but the rabbits were chasing us again. However, I’ll admit, It was a lot less stressful this time since I knew it was coming. That said, my palms were developing frost on them because of my sweat and I was still a nervous wreck. Thankfully, despite my soreness, I was able to run more easily than before. I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t about to complain.

“Ismund-”

“I know.”

Before the timer runs out, Ismund snatches a rabbit jumping in his direction and kills it.

Just about there.

After just a little bit longer we reach the new fight room which is pretty small compared to the other ones we’ve gone in before. Unexpectedly, there was no actual boss in here. Just A giant frozen waterfall, and some trees with metal protection and a half dome to keep people from climbing the trees.

“I guess I’ll need to get some maps…” Ismund mumbles to himself, then tells me, “The dungeons expanded and added more rooms. I don’t know how many.”

I’m surprised he talked actually. He’s normally quiet unless I say something, and even then, he doesn’t always say anything back either. Now how are we going to keep ourselves from falling in a pit?

Before I can even start my search, Ismund’s already succeeded with a dead squirrel in tow.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Wait, what? I thought there were just rabbits.

Looking up at Ismund, he just shrugs.

Whelp. Okay, whatever.

Pulling out his sword, Ismund splits it in two and stabs each blade into the ice making a sound like clinking glasses each time in time with his grunts.

“How am I supposed to get up!”, I yell up at him, he was making quick progress.

Looking around and patting myself down I note that I have my Bowie knife and a butter knife. I could go up the wall with these but it’d be risky.

For now, I’ll kill some squirrels.

Conveniently enough for me, the squirrels were spawning at the base of the tree before they climbed it using little holes in the metalwork I couldn’t use.

I can be helpful. I grin to myself at the thought. I hadn’t ever really seen that as a possibility. I wouldn’t have been fine with it if it weren’t for them ignoring me.

I hope it stays that way.Killing another squirrel I notice something. They’re holding walnuts. What’s up with that? I mean, I know they’re squirrels but the nuts probably have some sort of malicious purpose, right?

I’m soon answered, as I look in Ismund’s direction where I see the nuts dropping from the flying squirrels onto his general area. Once they hit something they explode flinging their hard shell everywhere.

How’s he going to avoid that?

As I continue watching I can see that he wont really. thankfully they don’t seem to be doing much damage. That being said, he had some new scratches. Watching him, I do my best not to think about how I’m going to get up there.

At this point, Ismund was about halfway up the waterfall. Going back to my butchering I try to figure out a way to kill them the quickest so they don’t suffer. A little while later One of the squirrels stares at me unnervingly unlike the rest. After a few moments pass its beady eyes meet mine until it hisses at me and jumps.

“Ah!”

I kick it away, but it latches onto one of the strings of my boots and starts climbing up my leg, pulling on the skin and tearing it In some places. Panicking, I use the hand holding my butter knife and try to stab it, to no avail. Dropping it, I grab the squirrel with my free hand, unfortunately, it had already bitten me by then. As I was trying to hold it in place It was wriggling in my hand and trying to pull a piece of my leg out. letting out a pained grunt I stab it in the head with my Bowie knife.

The squirrel was gone now, but not my injury, nor the pain.

“Gosh! This hurts so friggen bad.”

Doing my best to stay calm I take long slow breaths and try to think of a solution.

It’s not bleeding that bad right? I’ll just let it freeze or something. Yeah… It’s not that bad just… hurts a lot.

Giving myself a wan smile look back at where the squirrels are spawning, more hesitant this time around.

I was killing them a bit more frequently than I was supposed to because it’d help Ismund and so I wouldn’t have to worry about watching the clock. It’s probably fine if I do the absolute minimum, right? I’m not exactly keen on being attacked again.

Looking back over to Ismund I can see that he’s only about a foot or two away from flat ground. But he wasn’t moving for some reason. Looking at him over again I can see that he’s still breathing.

Well of course he would be a dummy. Otherwise, he wouldn’t still be able to hold on. Unless he entered Rigor Mortis in a matter of seconds. I would also get a notification I guess, wait no. The System is down. Right.

Looking at him I can see that he’s occasionally trying to pull himself up, only for him to go slack hanging again.

That would be a tough climb. Especially with him making all the holes in the ice on the way up.

Suddenly, his sword disappears into his inventory with his left arm going slack. Hanging there he swayed back and forth for a bit. But after a second or two the sound of a large crack can be heard, echoing throughout the cavern. At that point, he re-summons his other sword and starts climbing down by putting his weapon in the grooves he’d already made.

“What happened?” I ask, walking up to him, favouring my left leg.

He was red-faced and covered in frost from what I assume was frozen sweat. His arms also shook from exhaustion, especially his left one, and was that a bit of blood on his shirt?

“Nothing. Just putting in some divots for us to climb up.”

I look at him skeptically but decide to let it go for now.

“Would you happen to have any spare bandages?”

Letting out a grunt, he looks at the squirrels at the base of the tree.

Is that a yes or no?

Before I can ask he’s eating some jerky and heading up the ice again.

This time he goes up slower, but it’s steadier. For whatever it’s worth. After a bit, it’s clear he’s favouring his right arm.

What happened?

Stopping my thinking I head over to the squirrels before it’s too late and we’re sent into, well wherever it is you get dropped into.

Would the ice wall eat Ismund to get him there? Would gravity increase? … Better not to find out.

A few squirrels later, Ismund’s reached the top.

Better get this one early.

I kill one of the walnut lovers early and It’s revealed to be a bad move.

WHY!

Running for my life I hold each of my knives and make a grand escape towards the ice wall before they reach me. After I get about three feet off the ground all of the squirrels disengage and head for the trees.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Also, what do I do now?

Looking around me I figure I’ll try to climb. Breaking out in a nervous sweat, I accidentally attach my hands to the knives from my clammy hands freezing over.

Dang it! I guess I’m locked in.

Slowly, and carefully I climb up the waterfall, using my feat to help wherever possible. About a third of the way up I find myself too exhausted to go any further.

After heaving out a few breaths I ask, “What do I do?”

“Just deal with it. let your arms go slack, bones are stronger than muscles. Use your legs as much as possible too. ”