ISMUND

I feel something tapping on my arm, “Your shift.”

Sitting up straight I rub a bit of grime from my eyes and look over to where she’s lying.

Standing up I informed her, “That’s enough of a break, we’re heading to the next room.”

Drifa groaned, and rolled over, “Just one more minute? Please?”

I arched an unimpressed brow, “No. We’re leaving.”

Frowning unhappily she rose to her feet.

We only have so much time where we’ll still have rations. She can clean some meat sure, but we also need food for when we go back, and I don’t know that she’ll be quick enough. I’ll also need some money if we’re going to get more rations. Pelt’s seemed acceptable, bone would probably work too. I’ll worry about that after I fight the boss, there should be plenty of materials. The problem will more or less be getting the materials before our time runs out…

Pulling out both of my swords I test my range of motion.

Okay, great. My other arm wasn’t doing so good. But I think I’ll be fine now… it stings still and it’s kind of open but that’s fine. But soon here I’ll need to take the stitching out.

Looking over at Drifa I could see that her knives were in her hands. Looking back towards the door, I run through it.

“Give me more warning next time!”

I already told you we were leaving.

I try to keep my pace slow enough she can catch up… but even with her improvement, it’s not enough.

She’d better get there.

Teleporting one of my swords into my inventory I grab her wrist and pull her forward.

I should probably grab a few fresh monsters for slicing if I can.

A rabbit got close to my feet and I kicked it ahead of me.

“It might be a boss room.”

Drifa huffed, but managed to talk a bit between breaths, “It’s,… not…,” she took in another big gulp of air, “System says… the energy concentration isn’t high enough… but we’ll be there soon.”

Bending down I scooped the rabbit I had kicked ahead of us and threw it further so it hit the wooden door.

Wabump!

I’ll probably want another one. It might be like the first room.

Slowing down a bit, I slice another rabbit out of the air before grabbing another one’s arm and throwing it next to the other dazed monster. Removing my other sword I give Drifa a hard tug so she’s in front of me.

“Agck! What was that for?”

“Open the door!”

I wasn’t in the room yet and I could feel the blast coming from it.

Scooping the bodies from in front of the door, I made one final leap forward.

Okay, done.

Now that I was in the room itself I could feel the powerful gusts of wind that was making water fly up from between the icebergs on the ocean and freeze to whatever it hit. Drifa’s hair had more frost stuck to it than usual and seemed… stiff, to say the least.

“Hold this.”

Drifa walked over to grab one of the monsters in my grip but her foot slipped from underneath her.

“Umph!”

Falling down in front of me she tries to push herself up a several times while sliding before she gets up, causing me to frown.

Oh boy. Doesn’t spell out an easy time getting across. We’re not even on the moving ice yet.

Flushing self-consciously she took the creature from my hand careful to avoid its hind legs and face.

“Okay, I’ve got it now.”

You sure do.

Finishing tying the two rabbits up and onto my belt.

“Let’s get moving.”

Drifa looked forward then turned back towards me, “Can you go first so you can show me how to do it properly?”

I frowned, disgruntled.

I’m not really a fan of frozen bodies of water, getting frozen and all that. But… If I’m not able to get across then I don’t think it’s even possible for her to.

Giving myself a mental shrug I head forward and take a jump across, careful with my timing.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Tha, thump.

Turning around I wave her forward.

C’mon already. The longer we’re out here it’s more likely we’ll fall in.

Drifa backed away from the edge while shaking her flushed face while wringing her hands.

“I-I don’t know that I can do it. I’ll j-just wait till it gets closer to here. The gap is larger than me! How am I supposed to get over there there?”

She looked up at me pleadingly for a moment.

“No, get across. You just have to jump. It’s more likely that I’ll drift further away from you. Not closer.”

She started to sniffle, “Well… you’re taller than me so comparatively this is smaller to you than me!”

I let out a breath and pinched the bridge of my nose.

“That doesn’t change that you need to get across. Move it. I’m not gonna’ wait here all day.”

Instead of doing anything helpful or productive she backed away from the edge and sat down, holding her legs.

Snapping the toothpick in my mouth I grabbed a new one.

I guess I’m going to be fixing this.

Letting out a breath of annoyance I leap back to where she is and grab her wrist and pull her up while she tugged back uselessly.

“You’re going to be doing this sooner or later anyways. I can’t imagine that you’re planning on going back there?”, I said pointing back to the monsters running into the forcefield separating rooms.

She shook her head.

“So then what’s the plan? Sit here and die because you were a coward who couldn’t jump?”

She didn’t nod, but she didn’t disagree either as she stood still trying to drop back to the ground. Which I tugged back up firmly with ill-disguised frustration leaking from my voice.

“Well how about this. Would you rather know for certain you’ll die or have a chance?”

After a few moments she finally croaked out, “A chance,… I’m staying here.”

Face palming I pull her closer to the edge, “That’s stupid. Come on.”

“Aah! What are you doing?”

“Jump.”

With her wrist in tow, I ran to the edge of the ice we were standing on and jumped with a clean landing on my part. Drifa, on the other hand, had her toe nick the water before landing a bit shakily, and the water quickly froze, giving her boot a very strong toe. I let go of her wrist.

“Next one. The room’s pretty new, so it’s short.”

She seemed distracted from the situation for a moment.

“How’d you know that?”

I pointed at the exit, “Old rooms are harder. If this was older the room would be longer. We’re only a few icebergs away.”

Drifa looked around wearily, “There’s some rabbits, um, monsters coming closer from the edges of the room.”

She’s learning.

“I know.”

She looked up at me worriedly.

“They’re so far away. How are we going to kill one of them in time?!”

I lazily gestured to one of the screaming rabbits I had just cut that was dangling from my belt.

“Oh.”

Before she could start talking more and go on one of her rants, I ran to another glacier. And the next, and the next. As I’m jumping across the pieces of ice I find myself occasionally stabbing my swords into the ground to stabilize myself when a large wave crashes. Unfortunately, that meant that my clothes were getting stiff with all fo the ice coating it.

Clomp.

Fshhh, shh, shh.

Clunt.

Fshhh, sh.

Good, She’s following. A bit slow.

I stand where I’m at for a while waiting for her to catch up while keeping my balance as the waves rocked my chunk of floating ice. While I’m waiting I hear some rapid staps coming from the side. Turning around I see the crazed face of another monster. It looked like a snowshoe hare wearing… snowshoes. The only reason it didn’t slide was because there were some metal grooves on the bottom of the shoes. As I’m sizing up my approach a large wave hits my piece of ice.

FOOOOM!

“Ung.” Recovering from the initial hit, I whip out my swords and stab both of them in front of me as I go up and up with the glacier till I’m looking up at the dungeon’s ‘sky’ with a sense of weightlessness overcoming me as my legs dangle below.

Is it going to flip?

Thankfully, I felt the wind blast against my face as my iceberg slapped back down into some waves below me, creating some massive ripples that were swarming away from me causing some smaller chunks of ice to buck and sway.

“Okay we’r-”

The monster from earlier figured this was a good time as any to jump onto my teetering piece of ‘land’.

It was above me with its mouth wide open, almost smiling, revealing its many horrible teeth and its eyes were wide and bugging out of its head with anticipation.

Unfortunately for the creature, it had its arms outstretched leaving its chest completely exposed.

Unsummoning my sword from the ice, I lift my hand and resummon it into its chest causing some blood to leak onto my face and freeze.

Gross. I guess I won’t be able to keep it for the trap but…

Pulling the snowshoes off of its feet I compare it to my own feet.

Too small.

Looking behind me I can see Drifa one iceberg away from me clutching onto her knife that was gouged into the ice for dear life. After a few moments, she seemed to think that it had settled down enough. And looked over at me as I peeled some of the blood from my face.

Hurry up.

As if she could hear what I was thinking, she sized up the iceberg I was on and jumped. When she landed the mass of flat ice bucked a bit and she fell on her side when she landed. But, other than that, she was fine.

“Try these on.”I handed her the grippy snowshoes.

After a moment of examining them, she nodded and slid them over her boots. It was a good fit. Looking back at me she squinted.

“Why didn’t you keep them? Faulty?”

My mouth thinned.

Looking back at my feet and then to her own she sat for a moment processing before exclaiming, “Oh!”

Rolling my eyes I put my swords away and jump to the next platform.

“Hey, I’m pretty good at this now!”, I hear from behind me.

I’m sure you are.

Taking a moment to pause I make another incision on a monster hanging from my belt.

Taking advantage of my pause Drifa ran to the next platform which elicited a large crack sound. She looked confident but I could tell a lot of it was for show, probably to herself.

I don’t think she’d turn around so quickly.

I looked at the ice she was standing on, but I couldn’t see any obvious breaks in it.

I wonder what that was. Probably two ice bergs crashing together.

Ignoring the noise, I jump across to where Drifa’s standing.

We’re just one or two away from the exit.

Instead of my decent stopping like usual when it hits the iceberg I continue my descent.

Crap.

Breathing out, I take a final gulp of air before I feel the water race into my shoes pants and shirt and around my face while it all almost freezes instantly upon contact.

I cant breath. It was fine when I was frozen in water before because it froze me as well. But now I’m just stuck.

Before I was sure I was just going to be stuck in the dungeon I could feel that I was being tugged up from my feet. My eyes were open but all I could see was the dark ocean below me.

Health status.

> [Suffocating.]

>

>

> [Estimated time remaining before loss of consciousness: 1:54 sec… 1:53 sec]

Should’ve been more observant.

After a few more moments I could see the edge of the glacier and then finally the ground until I was flipped over. My lungs were burning and I wanted to take in a slug of air so bad.

She should’ve been more careful when she jumped across, or warned me if she saw the crack. She’s so inept! No… ugh, I shouldn’t be blaming her. I did this to myself. Chances are she didn’t even

hear the ice crack. I’m the one… at fault.

Thankfully the ice wasn’t that thick, it seemed like she could probably break through. Probably.

In my periphery, I could see her pulling out her knife in one of her hands, the other one was… frozen to the ice surrounding my elbow. Bringing her knife up she started to bring the pommel down to hit

me until another large wave hit and rocked us. Instead, she stabbed into the ice beside her and held on. I could barely see her other arm that was stuck to me straining in obvious pain. After a moment the rocking subsided, her pupils constricted for a moment, and then she brought the knife towards my face as my vision was starting to get spotty.

What are you doing?! You’re just going to stab my face! Well, maybe I could breathe through a hole in my cheek…

I couldn’t really see anything anymore, mostly just a haze of black with a few dull colours splashed in. It felt like I was spinning even though I knew I was mostly still.

> [00:09 sec]

Clink!

> [00:07 sec]

Clink!

I felt something sharp nick the edge of my nose. Thankfully, the same thing gave me the sweet relief of oxygen.

> [You are no longer suffocating.]

Thank goodness. Now what?

Taking the pommel of her knife she hits it against my shin.

No! You hit it against joints. That way I can move. Ugh.

After a while she eventually got to my knee, but only after she got rid of most of the ice in the surrounding area.

Sure hope that ‘Help’ title is working for her.

Suddenly she went rigid, most likely from some sort of notification, and started hacking her hand free.

Right. Don’t want the trap to trigger.

Looking around indecisively she quickly gouged her butterknife into the ground and tied her coat around its handle and onto my wrist in a quick n’ sloppy knot.

Whelp.

I watched her jump away with her other knife brandished.

Looking up at the sky was all I could do along with stretching my one free leg a bit, and occasionally using it to stabilize myself.

A while later Drifa was back, breathless, and was tightly holding onto a the monster’s long ears, she had apparently dunked the rest of its body into the water to make it immobile.

… Smart.

As another wave hit it completely loosened the knot that was holding onto me. Letting go of the monster she grabbed my frozen arm and pulled me back up. As we rocked back the other way my elbow slammed into her chin making her yelp afterwards.

Looking to the side she spit out some blood and turned back towards me with intense concentration and a tear frozen to her face.

She spent the next while hurriedly smashing the rest of the ice off of me. A short while later I was able to break myself free. Or, at least free enough that I could move. The ice sort of functioned as

armour.

Crappy armour, but still some protection. Hopefully, it doesn’t get in the way of movement though. At least it was my bad shirt.

“You’re back!” Drifa chirped.

“Mmm.”

Brushing off the ice on myself I eventually reached my hair and tried to get rid of it. It was unsuccessful, it was frozen solid.

Drifa snorted, “You have a helmet now.”

Frowning, I glared at her.

Not the time for theatrics.

Breaking the monster corpses off of my belt I throw them into the water.

We need to get more before the timer goes off.

“How much time do we have left?”

Drifa was knocked back to her senses and belatedly told me, “Fo-forty seconds.”