They sat by the fire in companionable silence for about ten minutes before Bert brought back another trunk and then joined them by the fire’s warmth.
“One more log,” Bert said shivering. “That’s it. Getting too cold out there.”
Fritz walked over to the tunnel's entrance and stuck his arm into the bitter, shearing wind. He pulled it back almost immediately, his hand stinging from the cold bite of the snowstorm.
“No. I think not, Bert,” Fritz said seriously. “One more time would be a risk. Even with your Vitality. If you had something like an ice resistance Ability or Treasure maybe you’d be okay, but I don’t want you to risk it.”
“Oh. Thank the Gods!” Bert exhaled dropping and pretence of stoicism and rubbing his hands together rapidly in front of the flame.
Fritz returned to his place by the fire and with nothing else to do, and feeling the room spin a little as he walked, he decided to sit. He held his hands to the warmth waiting for the bout of dizziness to settle.
The storm rumbled and the winds wailed, snow eventually sealed the entrance to the cave, blocking the worst of the storm’s bellowing cries but filling Fritz with a profound sense of unease. There was a pressure that pushed in from the walls like he was caught in some trap. Trap Sense lay dormant so he assumed it was just his own anxieties and the inability to keep moving upwards grating on his nerve.
The temperature dropped even lower, and the stone became icy cold, leeching the heat from them as they remained in contact with the floor or walls. The cave was dark, the wall of snow blocking out the shrouded sun struggling to shine through the storm. The only light in the black and shadow came from the dancing flame. They had put away the glowstones because Fritz found it difficult to concentrate as the dizzying luminescence of the amber stones nauseated him. The others didn’t seem so affected, so Fritz supposed it was a byproduct of his head injury.
He rubbed the painful egg-sized lump on the back of his skull and winced. No one paid him any attention, they all seemed to be consumed by their own thoughts. Not content to be doing nothing Sid got up and busied herself with the bear and cat pelts, cutting and pulling more and more of the bear's shaggy hide away from its flesh.
A low mood seemed to take the crew, maybe it was the oppression of the cave, maybe it was the cold of the burgeoning blizzard or maybe it was just being stuck in place with their own frustration and worry congealing into bitter clouds of gloomy thought.
Grumbling and shivering Sid lay down the steaming wet pelts by the fire for them to sit on, so as to retain some of their body’s warmth instead of it being slowly drained away by the rocky floor. Fritz and Bert scrambled quickly to sit on them and Sid joined after a moment, choosing to sit beside Fritz.
“I regret throwing away my boots,” Bert said throwing a branch into the flames.
“I knew you would,” Fritz replied cradling his sore head.
“Then why didn’t you stop me?” Bert said annoyed.
“Why would I, you never listen. Even when it’s about your safety,” Fritz groused back, feeling his stomach lurch and anger well up along with the pulsing headache that had crept up on him while he ate.
“I have Vitality, my bones mend, it's fine,” Bert said defensively.
“What happens when you lose a limb or your head?” Fritz argued back.
“I don’t know, I guess we’ll see,” Bert said dismissively his face cast in a slight scowl.
“I don’t want to see that,” Fritz stated angrily.
“Well I don’t want to be here,” Bert admitted through his clenched jaw.
“Well we are,” Fritz said defiantly.
“We could have left, we’re Pathers now,” Bert said obviously getting some grievance off his chest. “We could be outside, met up with Toby and Jane and the girls. But no, we have to keep pushing, keep climbing. Nothing is ever enough for you.”
Fury boiled in Fritz’s dazed mind at the mention of Toby and Jane and he saw again in his mind them abandoning him and Bert not once but twice. Something snapped in his chest and he yelled, “They abandoned us! Abandoned you! You may not know this but while we fought for the dagger, for your life, they ran again! We need more Power! Always more Power! How can we be free without Power!? I will be free and I will drag you with me whether you like it or not.”
Bert’s face changed, the bitter scowl replaced with a bitter grin, the grudge he had been holding washed away by Fritz’s tirade.
“I didn’t know that, Fritz,” Bert said sadly then sighed. “The last floor was really rough, must’ve put me in a mood. I can still feel my skin melting at times. Don’t mind me, I’ll be better in no time.” A shudder, distinct from his shivering, rippled over Bert.
“I will mind you, Bert, you’re my brother,” Fritz said wearily, his rage sputtering out suddenly leaving only the hurt of betrayal, worry for Bert and the pounding of his head.
Sid coughed, and they both startled, having forgotten she was there. Fritz felt embarrassment burn in his chest and his face alight with heat.
“You guys done?” Sid asked seriously.
“Yes,” they said together sheepishly.
“Good. We’ve only got to get through this and then it’s three floors left. We’re more than halfway done, don’t break on me yet,” Sid warned, her face as serious as Fritz had ever seen it. She nudged his shoulder with her own seemingly to take the edge off her comment and gave him a weak, tired smile.
Seeing the rings under her eyes and her obvious fatigue Fritz said, “Want to sleep first? I’ll watch the fire, make sure it doesn’t go out.”
“You sure?” She replied in aching tones, stretching her legs and putting her hand to her mouth suppressing a yawn.
“Yeah, you and Bert sleep, I’ll keep an eye out. I heard you shouldn’t sleep with a head injury anyway,” Fritz justified also stifling a yawn and ignoring his bone-tired weariness.
She nodded and began to lie down after placing her pack between herself and Fritz.
“Might want to take off the breastplate, metal tends to get cold,” Fritz suggested.
She waved him away with a grunt and lay her head down, covered herself with her oilcloth as a blanket and pulled her legs and arms in close, curling herself up like a cat. Fritz saw that she was out in moments, her breathing quickly slipping into the soft rhythms of sleep. She’s cute when she sleeps, Fritz observed.
Bert on the other hand was a snoring beast, tossing and turning every couple of minutes, the contrast couldn’t have been more stark. Fritz sighed. He had always wondered how Bert got any rest at all with all the erratic movement he made while he ‘slept’, but he supposed that was just how Bert was. He must have been born under some kind of restless star, mischievous comet or some other unruly omen.
Fritz took his eyes off his companions, stared into the flickering flame and listened to the wind’s howling. He found himself being slowly lulled into a half sleep and shook his head, then rooted through his pack pulled out his Technique book ‘The Observations.’ He began to leaf through its pages, trying to keep himself focused and awake rather than looking for any new insights or inspirations.
The hours wore away as he read, his head slowly began to feel better. He lightly snacked on the monster meat, making sure not to stain the small journal with grease. In his hazy state, he thought he noticed something odd about the packed-together text and their arrangement, there was something there but he couldn’t quite decipher whatever the book was trying to tell him. He kept touching upon one word though, one he knew was filled with some hidden meaning purposefully shrouded, some unknown weight left unenlightened.
His Awareness caught on the word ‘Authority’ and it itched in his mind. The packed and telling passages referred to it as if it were a secret among Kings, Warlords and Tyrants. Something the journal equated with ease. It said they were one in the same no matter their beneficence or generosity. There was one thing they shared in common though and that was rule over the Spires and the lands around them. Fritz’s head ached and he was unable to glean any more from the book’s contents when Sid awoke and stared up at him with a bright blue eye.
She yawned and Fritz could no longer suppress his own tiredness, yawning wide and uncaring.
“You look terrible, get some sleep. I’ll watch now,” Sid said sitting up slowly and handing him her oilcloth sheet.
Fritz was so tired he barely responded, he took the still-warm blanket and grunted in appreciation. He wrapped himself tight in the slick, scratchy fabric and the darkness took him.
His dreams were free of blood but no less harrowing. He was running through shadowed cobblestone streets. Hiding in his bedroom closet. He was a child again, was he ever anything else? Peeking through a small crack in the door, seeing the towering, armoured men crush and steal, hurt and kill, burn and maim, making pain. He was weak and watching, unable to stop the grave injustice, both in front of his eyes and everywhere else. Paralysed. Terrified of their strength and the price he would pay to oppose. Everything was so heavy, his shoulders sagged, he was falling through the floor under the weight.
The closet floor gave way or wasn’t ever there at all, it didn’t matter. Nightmare, Fritz, wake up. He fell through the endless black, but the weight never left him it was getting more painful, more burdensome and heavier, always heavier, right there in his chest pulling him down, pinning him to the falling floor. He cried out for relief, to be freed.
She heard and turned her gaze on him. He couldn’t see the terrible black eyes but he knew without a doubt and with every fibre of his being that she saw him. There was a chain, even darker than the blackness around and it bound him to her, it wrapped tightly around his centre right by his heart and she held the other end in her hands. He struggled against the unbreakable links and through the cold bond he could feel her pleasure. She enjoyed that he fought, that he strived to break his fate and take revenge no matter the price. She smiled a terrible, beautiful smile.
He woke with a yelp, startling Sid beside him. Her shocked visage was quickly replaced with a scowl tinged with care and worry.
“Nightmare?” Sid asked.
“Maybe, she was there too,” Fritz tried to explain blearily as the dream began to dissipate, flittering away, fleeting like the shadows of birds soaring overhead.
“She?” Sid inquired with an odd expression on her face.
“I don’t know. It's all jumbled up and fading away,” Fritz said, trying to hold onto the memory with his muddy mortal mind. But it was gone within moments, leaving only a strange sense of captivity or perhaps unwilling and unwitting service.
“We’re running out of wood,” Sid said puncturing through his hazy thoughts.
“Already? How long was I asleep?” Fritz said glancing around the cave, his eyes clearing into his normal attentive intensity. He spotted less wood on the fire, probably to preserve what fuel they had and the thin layer of rime over the stone further away from their small source of light.
“Dunno, hours and hours,” Sid stated with steaming breath. “Can’t see the sun.”
The wind was still wailing as powerfully as it had been before he slept, and the cold was even more bitter and brutal. He shuffled closer to the dwindling flame, and its wonderful warmth. Bert continued to snore loudly.
“How much longer do you think the storm will go on?” Fritz inquired not really expecting an answer. It was frustrating to be stuck in this cave, forced to stay in one place for so long, unable to progress.
“Find a weather mage,” Sid said unhelpfully. “Or better yet pick up Weather Sense or something.”
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“Now that would be the most boring Sense to pick. Especially in Rain City.” Fritz pointed out.
“What will the weather be like today? Oh, rain? What about tomorrow? Rain again? How about the rest of the week? Can you believe it!? It will rain in Rain City for the whole week! Who could’ve predicted that oh wise weather mage?” Fritz sarcastically performed.
Sid smiled along with his little act and said, “Might be good for storms though. And Spires.”
Fritz tilted his head acknowledging her point in a half-nod and with a smile of his own. His emotions felt raw after the dream and he was having a hard time keeping his mind under control, but Sid’s presence soothed him and sanded down the edges of his horror.
They sat there, smiling at each other. There it was that pretty smile again, even if her lips were dry and pale from the cold. Fritz peered into her bright blue eyes and she met his gaze with her own, unwavering and intent. Suddenly there were a flurry of feelings racing through his chest, swirling around his now rapidly pounding heart. He felt a closeness, a bond of trust and some sort of gratitude mixed in with something else, something he couldn’t name. All those things and more pulled him toward Sid.
They were sitting close together Fritz now realised, her shoulder rubbing up against his own. In that moment, sharing their warmth, he wanted more.
He leaned his head closer to hers and her pupils widened as his face drew near. He could hear her heart speed up, sounding in compliment to his own rapid beat. Sid slowly craned her neck, Sid closed her beautiful blue eyes and Sid gently lowered her lips towards his, setting them on an inevitable collision course.
“You’ve got this, Snail! Spray them! They will never take our friendship!” Bert yelled in his sleep as he tossed about.
Fritz and Sid jumped. Broken out of whatever trance they had been caught in, they both shuffled a couple of inches away from each other. Both were blushing furiously and Bert continued to snore, completely unaware of what had almost happened.
What had almost happened? What were they about to do? Bad idea, Fritz, really bad, no matter how strong, how pretty she happens to be, Fritz admonished himself. He knew it was also something of an unspoken, and sometimes spoken, rule for Climber not to get entangled with ‘others’ in the team while in a Spire. It could raise unknown ‘issues’ and create a whole lot of tension, competition and bitterness. There were lots of complications that a Climber couldn’t afford in the life and death situations in a Spire. Climbers mingling freely was not one of the complications most teams wanted to countenance.
That’s not to say that the romantically involved didn’t go in Spires together. But it was generally accepted that new relationships blossoming, especially after some great danger, in the Spire were heavily discouraged; and rightly so Fritz thought. They had almost fallen prey to one of the great blunders, one he thought he’d never have to worry about. Especially with Sid of all people, though that was before he got to know her.
You could cut the tension in the air with a fish blade until Fritz cleared his throat, “Whoa, must have still been caught up in a bit of a dream there,” he lied.
“Wasn’t it a nightmare,” Sid replied stiltedly.
“Well the first part was,” Fritz said easily. “But the second half might be some dream I’d like to return to. Out of the Spire of course,” He continued with more difficulty, trying to make his feelings clear in vague terms.
Sid looked away, stood up and moved to the other side of the fire and sat. She pulled her scarf over her mouth and mumbled something he could only just hear, “not keen. I have plans outside.” Fritz would be lying if he said the answer didn’t hurt, didn’t crush him, but he bore it with his false smile.
“Well, it’s not important,” he said, eliciting a flashing glare from her grim, resolute eyes.
“I hope the storm breaks soon, without wood we’ll freeze,” Fritz continued.
They sat in silence, listening to the howling wind and the crackling of the small campfire. The hours passed. Bert woke from his sleep and upon noticing the strange mood in the air said, “What’s going on?”
“Wood’s getting low,” Fritz and Sid said together. Bert looked from one to the other and gave them a smug, knowing grin.
“We better huddle up while we can to keep warm,” Bert supplied extremely unhelpfully with a near disastrous wink.
“Maybe once we’re actually freezing,” Fritz suggested.
“Well, I’m freezing!” Bert exclaimed and hugged Fritz to his side, sharing his considerable warmth.
“Maybe it’s because of the sleeveless vest?” Sid said drily.
“I’m no weather mage but maybe it's because of the blizzard,” Bert espoused smugly, to which Sid rolled her eyes but a small smirk poked through her gruff exterior. Fritz couldn’t help but chuckle as some of the tension left the cave, escaping with the smoke.
“On the bright side, we’ve got plenty of bear meat,” Bert continued. “Better cook it up while there’s still a fire.”
Sid nodded and pointed to a stack of bear steaks and other hunks of monster meat that she had obviously cut while they slept.
Bert stood and started hauling over the thick slabs of frozen flesh and spitting them on the length of scorched wood they used for the great cat's spit. He could see why Sid hadn’t done it herself as the frozen meat proved to be almost as tough as rock, still, Bert’s strength and Concussive Blow were up to the task and the meat was over the fire within minutes.
They watched as it roasted, taking it off when it was done and putting more meat on. They obtained a sizeable amount of provisions this way, definitely enough for the next couple of floors in Fritz’s opinion. Unfortunately, the bone mould bear tasted bad, like sweet, starchy leather. It was probably as bad as the metallic fish, if not worse. The heavy meat also had an entirely unpleasant chalkiness to it, that lined the mouth with something akin to bone meal. It caused Fritz to cough even as he chewed the tough flesh.
“Yuck,” Bert choked. Sid spat to the side and attempted to rinse out her mouth from her water skin but found it frozen solid. She instead pulled some snow free from the slowly encroaching wall of ice and used that to clean her tongue instead.
“Do you think it’s worse than the fish?” Fritz said scowling at his meal and almost wishing for the cat meat again. Almost.
“Yes,” Sid said.
“Yes,” Bert agreed.
They sat there eating cooking and coughing for some time until the wood ran out, they even burnt the frame and spit having no further use for them without fuel. The small chimney quickly filled with snow and ice leaving them in a deep dark, with only the flickering embers of the last log gleaming softly in the gloom.
That’s when the cold came in truth. Fritz and Bert were already huddled and it didn’t take much time for Sid to join them in the huddle of oilcloth blankets, monster skins and shivering people. She wrapped her arms around them and they did so in return, but Fritz winced as her brutally cold breastplate sapped the warmth from his skin.
“You’re still wearing that piece of metal, take it off it's freezing us,” Fritz complained.
Sid looked uncertain, almost fearful, but after a vehement nod from Bert she unclasped and opened it with trembling numb hands and threw it off and away. She rejoining the huddle, with a sigh of relief as they all pressed together. Fritz tried not to look at her and she seemed to be doing the same, it was a testament to the biting cold that he barely felt anything from her touch. No sudden heat of desire or longing, just a want to be warm again.
“Wish I was back on the snail floor, so warm,” Fritz hissed choppily through his chattering teeth.
“Shut up,” Bert and Sid said.
He did so, and the hours wore on. The wailing wind seemed like it would never end, that the snow would never stop falling and that the frost would be forever. The blizzard hit a crescendo the cave seemed to rumble and the air outside screamed. Fritz pulled his crew tighter and prayed under his breath to whichever Gods could hear him “Arravankis, Ton’var, Jorved, Alestria, Far’Zael, Devalle, Hargott, Res’quotal,” he muttered those names and more besides. Over and over. He thought he could hear the others doing the same, though Bert seemed to be listing off food rather than praying.
The cold was terrible, he was completely numb but also burning, he barely had the strength to shiver. Ice built up around their huddle and Fritz felt his eyelids freeze closed. The brutal cold stretched on and on as if it would never end, their prayers stopped and Fritz thought he would die for sure. His heart slowed, he could only hear it as a distant drum, he felt the need to sleep but he fought the fugue with all his furious will. So cold. Just a quick nap.
He was beginning to nod when he felt a change in the air, like the storm had passed. The rumbling, howling winds grew dimmer, soaring away to torment and cover some other land with endless cold. It was over quicker than it came and the sudden quiet felt eerie and unnatural after the constant barrage of ice. The cold remained longer though and they hugged each other close, shivering and hissing out burning breaths.
Slowly the cave warmed and they found themselves no longer shivering, their small huddle was iced over and their clothes and blankets cracked as they broke free from their now uncomfortably warm embrace. They brushed off the ice as they stood and Sid took out her amber glowstone, illuminating the still-dark tunnel. They looked at each other in the swirling light and without saying a word began to put away their equipment and prepared provisions in their magical packs.
They were ready to move out of the cave in less than a minute, and Fritz wanted nothing more than to never see it or feel that sort of cold again. Leaving behind the stiff and frozen-to-the-floor hides, they gathered at the snowed-over entrance and Fritz motioned to the wall of ice, saying, “Bert, your arm, as always, is needed.”
Bert stretched his back, rolled his shoulders and flexed his muscles as he sauntered up to the snow. His fists rippled and he struck out with both arms in a palm strike, blowing away the interposing ice and letting the sun shine through.
They grinned under the sun’s warm rays and Fritz cheered while Sid let out a high whistle.
Bert bowed, but they ran past him, scrabbling into the hole he made and crawling out into the bright day and its clear blue sky.