“This is a BRAINVAULT Sigma-ACTIUM-X Cranial Dreadnought (Invictus Type). It is a fortress for your skull. Your skull is now a mighty bastion. You can break anything with your skull. The only limit is your spine. Relax... The lights will attract the enemy. Help them to relax as well... Your enemies do not have a skull fortress. Their skulls are like meadows. Play in the meadows. Gather the flowers from the meadows. Gather them with electrokinetic trauma. Smell the flowers. Isn't that nice? You are safe in your skullfort.” -Destiny 2, An Insurmountable Skullfort-

_____

“Hi there. I have a business reservation for several rooms, under Lyle?” James greeted the clerk at one of the several hotels in Alice Springs, Australia.

He’d been actually kind of surprised to learn that the town was sort of a tourist destination, and had a disproportionate number of hotels for its size. Partially because he’d been here before, and really hadn’t gotten that impression from it the first time around. But that was just something that could happen with first impressions of cities, James supposed; especially when you were more interested in skirting the places outside the homes and businesses, where the wilderness crept in, and the local dungeon loomed unseen.

This gap in James’ knowledge extended to essentially everything about the town. Like how he didn’t know that it had about twenty thousand more residents than he’d assumed, or that there was an airport there. Which really was his own fucking fault for not doing more research himself. He’d sort of blindly trusted Momo’s ongoing complaints about not being able to get a direct flight sometime in the past year, and hadn’t ever needed to follow up on that because he teleported everywhere.

He still didn’t need to know. He’d still teleported here, and they weren’t going to be staying at the admittedly welcoming resort for very long. But he liked having accurate information.

The hotel clerk, who had silently acknowledged James’ existence before beginning to type into his computer, spoke idly. “Here for a team building exercise?” He said like making small talk was a matter of rote.

“Hm?” James pulled his eyes back from where he was watching the rest of the group out in the parking lot. The resort wasn’t really a hotel, exactly; it was a series of independent buildings that you could rent and stay in. The front lobby had a lot of scuffed white and green tile, and a feeling like it didn’t belong in a time period James recognized. Or maybe that was just his cultural bias coming into play. “Oh, right! Yeah, technically, something like that.” James answered with a smile that tried to not show off that he was making a hidden joke.

A dungeon expedition in the most hostile place they’d found was going to build team cohesion, after all.

“Well, I’ve got your booking.” The man started setting electronic keys in folded cardboard pouches on the desk between them, shifting the little silver bell aside to make room. “Ten units for eight nights. We’ve got your group a little split up, in two big clumps.”

“That’s fine.” James didn’t see a problem, since they would probably not be in the place for most of the time. This was just a place to stay tonight, so everyone could be rested and - most importantly - exposed to the Climb’s antimemetic effect in advance, so that a navigator could inoculate them. “Anything else?”

The clerk checked something on his screen. “We’ll need a card on file, including for the pet depo.”

“The what now?”

“Deposit.”

“No, I know what…” James waved a hand. “I’m not ignorant of the existence of an Australian tonal dialect, I’m trying to say we don’t have pets with us.”

Cocking an eyebrow, the clerk looked at James like he’d seen one too many American tourists try to get away with something. “Says here you asked on the phone if we were okay with nonhuman residents.”

“Yeah, I did do that.” James nodded. And then, as his tired brain caught what the guy was going for, he tilted his head back with a long “Oooooh. No. Sorry, I meant nonhuman sophonts. They’re listed under our total guest count.”

It felt a little bit like taking a step off of a ledge, and hoping that you’d learned how to fly between the first step and the last. James was familiar with how it felt to be casual about magic and dungeon life around his home, sure. There were, at this point, at least a couple hundred people and their friends who lived and worked close enough to the Lair that they’d met a camraconda or seen Momo or Nikhail do something irresponsible but funny.

This wasn’t quite the same. This was somewhere else. Somewhere far from home, even with the knowledge that there was just a single telepad page between him and his living room. And so James felt his pulse quicken and his words slip out a little too fast as he admitted to a random employee at a resort hotel that he was a wizard and half the people with him weren’t human.

“Look, if you’ve got a dog or something, I don’t-“

“Hang on.” James leaned back and waved out the front doors of the hotel office. There’d been a few other people out there; maintenance staff or other guests driving or biking off for the day, but the angle of the layout made it so the guy he was talking to couldn’t see any of the Order milling around farther out in the parking lot. He got someone’s attention, and then through a series of increasingly frustrated motions, eventually got two people walking into the front office.

“Whatcha need boss?” Ann asked, trailing after Knife-In-Fangs.

“Him, mostly.” James pointed at the camraconda and turned back to the clerk. “There. Nonhuman. Not pets.”

“What the fuck is that?” The clerk leaned over the counter to stare. “Some kind of-“

“If you call me a drone I’m going to use my powers as a knight to fuck up your paperwork.” Knife-In-Fangs stated in his digital voice, the familiar tuned cadence of his artificial speech rendered flatly unamused. “I can do that.” He added for emphasis.

The clerk didn’t stop staring. “Is this like a Muppets thing?” He asked.

Knife-In-Fangs faltered, the narrow camera of his head dipping down in a loop of a flinch as he took in the question. “That one is new.” The camraconda admitted.

“Yeah, though not actually unflattering. The Muppets rock.” Ann informed her partner with a shrug. “Was this it? Is this why we’re wasting time?”

“Yeeees.” James said. “Though I am only just now realizing I could have solved this problem by paying a pet deposit and saved the effort.”

Knife-In-Fangs turned along with James to watch Ann stomp out, the woman unwilling to participate in the charade anymore, apparently. Then the camraconda turned back to the clerk. “This has actually been an issue for me lately.” He said, like he was confiding in an old friend. “When you appear inorganic, there is no real threshold at which you can convince someone you are a person in a short amount of time. It is hard to get service when you do not have the luxury of taking the time to seduce someone.”

“There’s so much to unpack in that statement, holy shit.” James rubbed at his forehead before pulling out the bank card that he’d been given for one of the Order’s accounts. “Here. Put it on this, and let’s escape this situation.”

“Sure.” The clerk took the card without looking away from Knife-In-Fangs. “So, like, who programmed this guy? Is this an art thing? Just to fuck with people?”

“I warned you.” Knife-In-Fangs stated cheerfully.

James took his card back and swept the stack of keys in their little pouches with the wifi password off the desk. He spoke in a rapid fire staccato of words. “Alright thanks for the help this has been great I’m really sorry if he means that have a good night!”

“It’s…” the man didn’t get a chance to comment on the fact that it was midday before James was out the door, making an effort to encourage Knife-In-Fangs along with him. “Sure, bud.” The desk clerk shrugged. That had been utterly weird, and he was really curious about the camraconda, but not curious enough to chase down a guest using a corporate account. “Fucking weird day.” He muttered to himself as he caught a glance of one of the paper drakes being led past the office’s front door. “Sorry mate, I’m charging the pet depo.” He settled on as he watched the dragon prowl by.

_____

Winter’s Climb presented the Order with a few unique challenges in terms of a long term delve, that the other dungeons under their control didn’t.

For one thing, while people could talk about it, if you looked at the mountain from Earth, and then looked away, it wiped your memory of its existence. This was problematic when you needed to move two dozen people to the spot where the dungeon tried to grab people.

The solution to that one was pretty simple. Navigators could punch person-sized holes in the memeplex that kept that effect going, given a few examples and some time. Assignments could also handle it more broadly, but it was just easier to hang out and watch a beautiful Australian sunset for an evening while a few orange spirits inoculated everyone against the effect.

The other problem, the one they couldn’t really prepare for or test against, was that whole ‘grab people’ thing.

Winter’s Climb didn’t exactly have a door, like the other dungeons did. Officium Mundi and the Akashic Sewer had their doors, Clutter Ascent had a trapdoor, Route Horizon had an arch of highway signs that James had been blindsided to learn weren’t real highway signs and no one ever commented on that. But the Climb didn’t have any kind of artificial threshold that it could tie its boundary to. So, James imagined it doing the dungeon equivalent of throwing up it’s arms and going “Fuck it! I’ll make my own!”

Which was why anyone who got too close got snapped up by something that would look like ball lightning, until an instant before it closed in on you and you could see the mirror surface showing somewhere cold, wet, and hostile.

Someone in Research, acting on an instinct, had gotten Ethan’s regular Climb team to test out using lightning rods to dissipate the effect. And it wasn’t clear to James if it was more or less worrying to know that it had worked. If the lightning was gone, the gap to the dungeon was too. They’d backed off on that instantly, on his orders, not wanting the Climb to think they were trying to starve it out and adapt some weird new tactic to kill their delvers.

The problem with the unorthodox threshold, aside from it being fucking terrifying to experience, was that it wasn’t clear if they could fit this many people in. Or how the dungeon, one of the most responsive ones they’d found so far, would react.

All there was to do was to try. Well, try, and be prepared with multiple backup telepads for escape.

The supplies for this one were a lot more extensive. Climbing gear, pulley systems and platforms for moving supplies up cliffs, flares, portable heaters, multiple backup sets of clothing for everyone, backups for everything really.

The Climb was hostile, so James didn’t feel like playing fair.

The third challenge was in that hostility itself. In the Ceaseless Stacks, they’d just had a base camp that had been… relatively safe, honestly. The Library was dangerous to roam around in, but if you just stood still, nothing really seemed to happen. So they could have a support team and a place to rest, and then send out smaller expeditions while already deep in the dungeon. The Climb? Absolutely unacceptable risk.

They’d need to keep together, both so no one got lost to the endless storm, and so no one got lost to the things that lived in that storm and really liked to ambush delvers. To that end, everyone had been given a crash course in real world mountaineering tactics. The skills didn’t quite match up to what was needed in a dungeon, but knowing how to refind a group’s trail if you got separated, how to manage a hiking line, and how to judge when it was time to get yourself out, were valuable skills anywhere.

The team for this expedition was a bit different, too. It was somewhat harsh, but they didn’t have the option for anyone who couldn’t handle themselves this time. They also had a much more limited number of camracondas, because while camracondas absolutely could take care of themselves, they just didn’t do well in mile after mile of snow that went up to their throats, and the expedition didn’t have enough paper drakes coming along to carry them all.

The fact that the team included a trio of paper drakes was also why they opted to telepad half the group to a spot near the Climb’s illusory mountain foothill, rather than drive out to where the roads turned to rough dirt and the natural world took over from the outskirts of the tourist town. They still had to drive a little, because they needed to move their gear, and the helpers that weren’t going in with them would take the vans back and wait around to pick up the delvers later when they made their escape. To them, it was a free vacation to a really beautiful part of the world.

The paper drakes were a part of the Order James often kind of forgot. They were the same ‘species’ as Pendragon, but Pendragon wasn’t a dungeon creation. So the fact that people had replicated what Dave had made was fascinating, especially since they seemed to have the same life cycle in a way. The creatures were smart, but smart like a particularly clever dog, not like a human. At least, as far as they showed usually. There were six of them around that were large enough to be actual mounts, being raised and cared for by their handlers, but not all of them were tactical assets.

It was, James firmly believed, critical that they didn’t tie the value of a life to what it offered them. And so when one of the drakes ended up being more of a pet than a delver aid, and two others staunchly refused to go to the Climb specifically, that was fine. They didn’t have to. It was simple. Even if it meant this expedition only had two camracondas. The dungeon just didn’t care if it wasn’t fair to people without legs, which was, at best, quite rude.

“Alright.” James arched his arms over his head, stretching out as he repeated his statistically favorite word. “Head count. Let’s make sure no one got left behind!” He commanded the people standing around him on the red rock and scrub grass.

The actual expedition leader, Ethan, started moving past everyone and checking them off on his list. James was here for moral support, when it came to the process, he deferred to the guy who had done the first eight hours of their trip over fifty times.

“Arrush isn’t here.” Ethan reported to James, running the back of his hand across his cropped blonde hair. “And that kid is?” He pointed.

“Oh, Morgan, yeah.” James nodded, not overly worried by the presence of the youngest member of the expedition. Well, youngest human. “He’s fine. Arrush is out because his lung growths are off-cycle, so he’s not in any condition for sustained exploration. I didn’t plan around it properly, but he’s doing okay. Any other problems?”

“Nope! We are ready for action!” Ethan cheerfully reported. “Everything’s accounted for, infomorphs are all in close contact, everyone used the bathroom, and we are ready to go get that bread!”

James took a deep breath, enjoying the early evening air. “I know that you know that I’m out of touch with The Youth.” He said smoothly. “So why would you say it that way?”

“Because it’s funny?” Ethan asked, before nodding to himself. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s just funny. Also aren’t you excited? This is so cool!”

It was hard to argue with that. Ethan was possibly the most enthusiastic person in the whole Order, on par with even Sarah. Though for some reason, James always felt more annoyed by him than by his friend. Which might actually have been unfair. “I need to do some self-evaluation later on that.” James said out loud. “Alright, everyone move into positions, let’s get this show moving! Camracondas mount up, stay in your trios, and if we get separated by the entrance, don’t be afraid to telepad out immediately!”

Ethan moved to the front with his designated teammates, raised an arm, and then dropped it, beginning a hike across the invisible line that marked how far out Winter’s Climb had influence in the real world.

It all felt a little abrupt. A little less joking and a little more professional stoicism than last time. Maybe a little colder, appropriately. James decided to work on that part.

Their group must have looked quite odd, in full winter climbing gear on an otherwise pleasant evening where the tallest thing around was a rock formation twenty miles away. Maybe they looked odd to Winter’s Climb too, because the dungeon reacted to the expedition’s crossing of that border with rapid prejudice.

The crackling electric boundary of the portal formed six hundred feet on their left flank, charged them at high speed, and engulfed every member of the group practically simultaneously. They only had to maneuver a little bit at the last second to make sure all their gear made it through.

Despite the sudden assault of the chill environment, James counted the transition as a perfect success.

_____

Long Delve Roadmap - Winter’s Climb - Roster

Delver Segment :

Ethan (Summit accompanying)

Marlea

Spire-Cast-Behind

James (Zhu accompanying)

Alanna

Daniel (Pathfinder accompanying)

Momo (Speaker accompanying)

Knife-In-Fangs

Bea

Simon

Ruby (?)

Alice

Charlie

Support Segment :

Keeka

Deb (Mercy accompanying)

Nikhail (Aidimy accompanying)

Bill

Morgan

Lacey

Mars (Planner on standby)

Rufus

Drake Team :

Rudger (Summit accompanying)

Elegan

Lumy

Reserve Threat Response :

Cam the Azure

_____

“Video games lied to me about cold damage!” James heard someone bemoan the situation as they got their bearings and prepared to move. He thought it might have been Alanna, but voices got a little harder to distinguish when everyone covered their mouths with scarves and ski masks.

It was a fair assessment, though, he figured. One second he’d been too warm; the gear donned in advance practically stifling as they approached the entrance. But now?

Now he stood in powdery snow that came up to his knees, five mile an hour wind pushing at him almost gently. James was still warm, still felt like his shell against the outside world was on the edge of claustrophobic. But he could feel the cold out there, just on the other side of the cloth and neoprene of his equipment. Waiting for him. Trying to worm its way in.

For Alanna, and many of the others who had come in without full coverings, it was probably pretty bad. The entrance of Winter’s Climb varied in temperature, but this was probably an easy five degrees centigrade before the wind got involved.

At least it wasn’t snowing, yet.

The sloped ground underfoot was easy enough to walk on, but it seemed that many of the inexperienced members of the expedition were having trouble with the way the slope promised to turn any fall into a one way trip off the edge of the cliff behind them. There was a sense, looking back at where dark grey clouds swirled around mountain peaks like fangs in the distance, that you were on the ledge of something over an infinite abyss. It probably wasn’t true, dungeons didn’t seem like they actually did bottomless pits. But it felt that way.

“We’re somewhere else!” Ethan caught James’ attention as the team got the supply sleds properly lined up. Bill directed his helpers into making sure nothing spilled, while the delvers swept out in the immediate area and made sure nothing was going to attack them. Everything felt rather peaceful, for this dungeon, but Ethan still seemed worried as he moved towards James with the kind of odd walk that deep snow made someone who was experienced do to get around.

“What?” James asked like an idiot.

“This isn’t the normal entry!” Ethan clarified himself. “Look, see the mountains?” He pointed out at the distant peaks. “There’s two normal drop points. If you look out from here, one has a needle spire on the left, then three low peaks. The other is tall, low, tall, low.”

James pulled his goggles off, letting the chill push against his face as he got a better look. “This doesn’t have that.” He said. This was more like a low row of jagged rock, like something had broken pieces off and stabbed them back in. “So we’re somewhere new. That’s good, right? We’re here to explore.”

“It means our maps up aren’t good.” Ethan said. “We can do it! I mean, I believe in us! But I don’t have any of this one memorized. I’ve never seen it before.”

James hummed. It was entirely possible this was the place the Climb stuck people who tried to bring an army in. “Okay. Let’s get moving before it starts storming on us. Everything good Bill?” He shouted at the big man who was quadruple checking the straps on a cargo sled. Bill just shot James a thumbs up, which was as good a sign as any.

The expedition formed up into an oval formation, those who were comfortable with combat on the outside, and the slightly squishier medics, technicians, and support delvers on the inside with the supplies. At least, for this one delve, they didn’t need to start with hundreds of extra pounds of water. There was snow everywhere; all they needed to replenish their canteens was a fire, a pot, and a brooch that could purify food.

They started moving, the wind at their backs, the slope gentle and inviting. There was only one real direction to go, and the dungeon made sure it was upward.

The trio of paper drakes led the way as a vanguard, with one of them shaking herself like an irritated cat every thirty feet to slough accumulated snow off of laminated page scales. They flattened enough snow that it was slightly easier to follow for the support crew, though the other delvers moved at the edges and had to form their own trails in the white powder.

Ahead, gnarled dead trees poked out of the snow, many of them seeming to be standing only by leaning on frost covered grey rocks. Branches stood unmoving in the wind, the dead wood inflexible and almost as dull in color as their supports. Nothing interfered with the expedition as they trudged through the thick snow, and upward to what would hopefully level out into clearer ground.

“Heck, I forgot how exhausting this is.” James groused to Alanna. The two of them were covering the left flank, and while he was suspicious of the tree they were passing, it didn’t contain anything alive, and seemed no more dangerous than any other potential firewood. “The walking. With the boots.” He clarified to his partner.

Alanna just grunted. Not that she didn’t agree; she was plenty strong, but she was a runner and a fighter, not a hiker. And just because they had sleds for the heavier stuff didn’t mean she wasn’t wearing a hefty pack herself. All that weight added up. But she wasn’t going to give in to complaining after ten minutes of walking. There’d be plenty of time later.

James pivoted to someone else who would understand him. “Zhu, you see how exhausting this is, right?” He asked the navigator. Well, he addressed the navigator; but Zhu wasn’t manifested, and was so deeply buried in James’ thoughts at the moment that it was unlikely he heard him. “Dammit.” He looked over his shoulder at someone he thought was Daniel under the winter clothing. “This is-!”

“Exhausting, I know!” Daniel called back. “Stop telling us! Pathfinder doesn’t have legs and she won’t stop telling me!”

With a quick smile of vindication at the words, James turned back and focused on their ascent.

It wasn’t long before the wind shifted. There was no sign of anything causing it, but it didn’t go unremarked that the direction switched to pushing into their faces just as they had the elevation to see a steeper rock slope ahead. The rocks, dusted in snow, had hardy bushes and a scattering of still living trees growing from them. And with the open terrain around, it was easy to see that the ground rose up around the edges of it after a few hundred feet in each direction, like where they were standing was just a bowl in the earth and they’d found the edge.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

If they were only a few people, climbing the rocks would be simple, if not exactly easy. It wasn’t a sheer cliff by any means, but the angle would take work. With their cargo sleds, though, it made more sense to hug the wall and stay out of the wind, and circle up and around to where the rocks evened out.

“Hey, uh, I know I’m not the most experienced in the Climb.” Daniel started tentatively, raising his voice into the wind. “But this is a trap, right?”

“Probably!” James and Alanna called back in unison before James continued. “We’ll veer left, ignore the mini-cliff, and end up about there.” He traced a path across the landscape with an outstretched finger. “Spire! Signal the others, please!” He called up to the camraconda riding on the hefty paper drake that was just ahead of them.

Spire-Cast-Behind, wrapped in a tube of a parka over her armor, nodded in brief acknowledgment before raising mechanical arms out like a spider to literally flag the expedition into a change of course. The Order’s delvers reacted so smoothly James felt a smug warmth in his chest, everyone easily shifting to allow their formation to stay together as they turned and changed their marching direction.

“Movement!” The call went up from the far side of the formation as they tromped across the rougher terrain. As soon as they’d diverted, it had been clear that they’d been on a kind of natural path, leading smoothly to the rocks, because when they stepped off the ground stopped being so kind. The rocks under the snow wobbled slightly when stepped on, or sprouted thin roots or vines that could have snagged anyone not being careful. Nothing too serious, but enough to know they were forging their own path now. And when the other side of the expedition started calling out, it drew attention to the top of the little ridge ahead.

The trees were shifting. But not the trees themselves, the things living in them; branches that weren’t branches at all but limbs of long stickbug creatures moved against the wind, gripping onto the edges of the bare trees. One or two per tree, which wasn’t an unmanageable number, but there were trees all up the craggy rock slope. If they’d made straight for the wall, every one of the thirty or forty stick creatures would have been perched above them, too.

Instead, the expedition was on track to pass by at a distance of a few hundred feet. Not far enough to be comfortable, but when the only cover was a few snow capped rocks and a small crater in the dirt, it would be impossible for the creatures to charge them without a response.

Winter’s Climb was a lot of things, but in one way, it was far more fair than most other dungeons. Oh, sure, it would slap anything flying out of the sky with razor winds and spikes of ice. It created creatures that were as aggressive and spiteful as they were cunning. It seemed actively willing to try to kill everything that came into it. But, unlike almost every other dungeon the Order knew of, it didn’t care if you used a gun.

It was almost refreshing.

The next fifteen minutes of hauling sleds up the last lip of their chosen slope passed in tense silence as the delvers and the stick creatures eyed each other across the open field. But the creatures were cunning, and, deprived of their ambush position, it wasn’t long before they just let the expedition go. The trees receding down the slope behind them as they continued their hike upward, eventually stowing the guns they’d brought out just in case.

The angle of the slope stayed consistent. Just enough to be a little extra tiring. And James was disappointed, because even up here, past the first obstacle, there was still just an endless expanse of powdery snow, with no easy ground in sight.

And the wind didn’t shift back either.

He adjusted his goggles, took a deep breath of chill air, and kept moving. Everyone else did the same. They had a long ways to go yet.

_____

“I shouldn’t have asked to come along.” The words were quiet under the gear, but Keeka still heard what Morgan was saying as the young human rested on the edge of one of the cargo sleds.

Keeka giggled to himself. Young. What a silly word. He was younger than Morgan was, but it didn’t feel that way. But Morgan had needed to learn everything the hard way. So it was probably fair.

Keeka overheard a lot of things. He didn’t think anyone knew just how much better he was at hearing now that he’d fixed his ears and antenna. The two sets of organs worked together to let him sort of double check things people said or sounds nearby. Before, it had kept him on edge, always jumping at every little sound and whispering shadow, hunter’s instincts turned up to constant paranoia. Now, he’d made himself softer, less useful. But better at language. The more complex sounds easier to actually listen to without mistakes.

Listening to people was a delight, even if he still was shy all the time. He’d been teaching Arrush how he did it, so when his boyfriend was ready, he could experience it too.

For now, though, he got to enjoy the other side of his change. Talking. “Why?” The ratroach asked Morgan as his smaller arms held a bundle of firewood in place to be tied down by his more dexterous paws.

Morgan jolted like he hadn’t expected Keeka to hear him, and certainly like he didn’t expect a challenge. “Uh… I’m slowing everyone down.” He said through breaths that were already coming heavily and a little ragged. “I made us take a break, and I’m not good at this. I thought I could…” he trailed off and shrugged weakly like he was dismissing his own words. “I’m not as tough as I thought.”

“We are taking a break because we need to take breaks.” Keeka reminded the teenager with a soft chitter of words. “Look.” He pointed a claw at where the camracondas were rotating mounts, making sure the paper drakes didn’t get worn out. Then regretted it as the bundle of chopped wood from the fallen tree they’d needed to clear from the path spilled.

Morgan groaned as he rose to his feet to help Keeka pull the wood from the snow and replace it on the sled. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just get this later? When we camp?” He asked.

“Might not be any.” Keeka shrugged. “Or enough. And this isn’t too much weight!” He tried to make it sound boastful, but wasn’t sure if it worked. There was a quiet moment as Morgan helped him stow the collected material, before the ratroach spoke up with a quiet shyness. “You aren’t the only one.” Keeka said.

“What?”

“Not the only one worried.” Keeka clarified. “That you’re in the way.”

Morgan made a rude sound through his warm clothing. “You’re not tired though.” He accused Keeka.

The ratroach slumped, letting his shoulders and extra limbs be pulled down by the weight of his parka and the tight coverings on his tails. He was trying to be nice, and commiserate, and Morgan didn’t seem to want to let him. And, young as he was, Keeka didn’t actually know how to react to that.

It was almost funny, it could have been amusing if it didn’t actually make him feel… wrong. Like he really wasn’t supposed to be here, wasn’t supposed to be around all the humans and camracondas with their normal lives that he still didn’t fully understand.

“Sorry.” He muttered to Morgan, not sure why he was apologizing.

Morgan sighed, a long plume of foggy breath flowing into the air in front of him as he did so. “No, wait, hang on.” He said, stopping Keeka before the ratroach could make his escape. “I didn’t mean… I’m sorry. I said something stupid, and I don’t know what, but I didn’t want to make you sad, okay?” He shifted his feet nervously, pushing soft snow around with his boots.

“Okay.” Keeka found himself saying.

“Weren’t you on the last one of these?” Morgan asked, his curiosity making the words feel less hostile. “I don’t think they’d let you come back if you were… I dunno, in the way?” He looked up to see Keeka’s glittering eyes staring at him over a pointed muzzle, the ratroach slowly turning to look over in James’ direction. Morgan followed his gaze, then locked eyes with Keeka when he looked back. “Okay, yeah, well…!” He threw his gloved hands up as far as he could without feeling like he’d run out of stamina entirely. “At least James wouldn’t let us in here if he thought we’d die, right?”

Keeka thought about it long enough that Morgan got a worried look on his face. “No…” he eventually admitted. “He would… make us stay away.” The thought was oddly reassuring. Even if they weren’t helping, at least they weren’t that much of a problem for the expedition.

“Alright, well, good.” Morgan sighed again, this time in relief. “Also that gross potion really helped, and I think I’m ready. When are we moving?”

“Three minutes.” Keeka said without having to check. “Spire-Cast-Behind will signal. Your place is behind Bill’s sled.” He had the timing and formation memorized, it was easy to reference.

Morgan gave him a narrow eyed look that Keeka wasn’t sure how to interpret. “Right…” the teenager muttered. “I’m sure you’re really unhelpful…”

Keeka wasn’t sure, because he was still trying to learn, but he was pretty sure that was some kind of sarcasm. He’d ask later, when they rested again.

_____

Moving was slow.

If there was one thing the Climb did for the humans that visited it, Rufus figured, it was reinvigorate a respect for things like paved roads and motor vehicles. Having to walk like long legged ducks to get around in the thick blanket of unsullied snow, and having to exert physical power to haul the supply sleds along, looked exhausting.

The stapler was above all that. Literally, since he was sitting perched on one of the paper drakes and watching the area carefully. But there was a part of him that felt a bit bad; he did genuinely want to help, but he wasn’t large enough to put down any real force when it came to moving cargo. And his arcane options were limited, which was the reason he’d wanted to come along in the first place.

“You two doing good up there?” Simon’s voice spoke up during a lull in the winds.

Knife-In-Fangs craned his body over the side, inexperienced enough to almost unbalance their mount. “We are managing.” The camraconda spoke. Rufus agreed enough, and waved a couple legs in a salute. “Are you sure you are not cold?” His camraconda riding partner asked.

Rufus wasn’t. He didn’t feel cold like everyone else, it seemed. Though his legs were a little stiff, and he probably wouldn’t do well dunked in the snow. But he didn’t need a custom fitted parka like Knife-In-Fangs had.

Before he’d left, Ganesh had presented him with a crocheted hat, which was more than enough. It wasn’t perfectly fitted, but his drone friend hadn’t been willing to go as far as the expedition was into a place where the weather itself would take personal offense to his presence. So this was his contribution.

Tugging on the red cap, Rufus let a couple of his legs idly scratch at the drake’s back. Eldagen seemed to like it when he did this, and it was an okay way to pass the time as he kept watch, which was the best aid he could provide at the moment.

Currently they weren’t going up the mountain. Knife-In-Fangs, not needing to exert himself to speak up, had explained it to Rufus when the stapler had indicated he was confused. “Look ahead.” The camraconda had said. “Not to the leveling off, but beyond. See the cliff?” Rufus had seen it. A wall of grey stone and blue ice almost completely shrouded by the gathering grey of the growing snowstorm. “We cannot climb that, and it will be our next obstacle. But if we circle now…”

He’d left it open, and Rufus understood. This place had eddies and whorls in space, like his homeland did. Their party couldn’t scale a vertical mile, but they could spend as much time as was needed to simply find a way around.

Every minute or so, Rufus would look to their right, and see the cliff still there waiting for them. Blocky rectangles of grey and black stone, hours of travel away, but waiting all the same.

Under his hull, clung to firmly by his extended pen legs that he wasn’t actively using, Rufus felt the paper drake swaying with every step. When the wind didn’t push against them, he could hear the oddly unfamiliar noise of soft snow being compressed by a step, echoed over and over as the expedition forged forward. The air tasted different than anything he’d known before; colder than the chillest parts of his home, but somehow less alive than even the structures he’d lived in on Earth. Like it was empty of anything but the snow and the rocks and the wind.

There was still chatter and casual conversation from the others around him. Nothing dangerous had struck yet, except the ambient weather itself. So it was a surprise to Rufus when he spotted something that brought a set of his fangs out.

The natural trail they were following in a long hiked circle around the ‘base’ of the Mountain was about to lead them past a rock. It was large enough to put a small cabin on, sticking out of the snow like an island over the sea. A small cave at its base actually had brown and faded green, a splash of colors that were otherwise devoid from the delve so far. That wasn’t what caught Rufus’s eye though.

There was a sense of danger from a stretch just past the rock. Something in the snow, something that didn’t fit. The white blanket on the world here looked less like a neatly made bed and more like somewhere a person had slept last night; wrinkled and wavy, even if it was settled down now. Rufus didn’t know what it meant, but he could see Knife-In-Fangs, and the other camraconda on the drake ahead of them, were both focused on the cave. Everyone was, it looked like.

A series of taps got his riding partner’s attention, and some rapid gestures got a quick point across. Knife-In-Fangs looked again, but couldn’t see what Rufus saw. Still, he raised a flag with one of his mechanical arms, and the expedition slowed so that a trio of delvers could cross the fifty feet ahead of them and check. Carefully.

Rufus watched and held his breath as they approached. Maybe he was wrong, but also, they might be about to get hurt, and all he was doing was sitting here as a passenger. Was one of them James, or Alanna? He couldn’t even tell.

One of the delvers shouted something, and another extended a folded metal pole to stab into the snowbank a few times. And everyone tensed or jumped or swore as there was a wooden crack that sounded amplified by the snowy ground, and something whipped out of the covered ground at high speed.

It didn’t hit anyone, they were being too careful. Someone - oh, it was Alanna - laughed and kicked the stick trap, before taking the pole and using it to trigger another two of the things in quick succession.

Rufus watched, and when his worries settled, he thought. This was clever for a dungeon. The rocky island and the little cave were a good distraction, drawing attention away from the real trap ahead. His home didn’t do things like this, it just put traps in places and let them do their job. Or maybe Officium Mundi had so many things that drew attention that it never needed a trick like this; every drawer and filing cabinet was a distraction after all. Now, he was no dungeon, and maybe they weren’t as active in the creation of their spaces as the Order theorized, but if he were making this trap, he’d change a few things. Make it a little cleaner. And also, don’t waste the little cave like that.

As soon as the stapler had the thought, he lunged forward without pausing to consider if he might be wrong. Grappling his legs around Knife-In-Fangs’ body, and hauling the camraconda to look that way. Stop watching their delvers ahead, look at the distraction that isn’t a distraction.

Rufus’s own eye tracked over the cave just as the shadow in it stirred, and then stood, awoken by the sounds outside. And then the creature moved, a thousand pounds of brown fur and muscle and a round face that maybe the dungeon thought was cute when it made the thing but then it added too many teeth. He was trying to get Knife-In-Fangs to stop the monster when it surged forward, cutting through the snow with hopping bounds that may as well have just ignored how hard it should have been to move in the stuff.

A pair of shots sounded, people reacting to the sudden charge. But the thing was fast, and heading straight at their group. The potion woman, Bea, stood up to it, planting herself between the creature and the support team. And it ignored her; a single coincidental paw slamming into her head and flattening her figure into the snow in a perfect imprint of her body before it just used her as a stepping stone and kept charging, heading straight for where Bill and Lacey were hauling sleds along.

Morgan, idiot child that he was, ran at the thing like he was planning to tackle it. As much as he could run in the snow, anyway. And he got a few steps toward it before it opened its hideous jaws and roared with a sound that shook the snow loose from the rocks around them.

Then, finally, Rufus’s pull brought Knife-In-Fangs’ eye in line with it. And the camraconda reacted perfectly, freezing the creature mid-bite before it could rip Morgan’s arm or leg or entire upper body off.

Please don’t blink. Rufus silently willed the camraconda.

Five seconds later, Alanna threw herself at the thing with a swinging haymaker, roaring her own challenge, before pulling up short as she realized it was frozen. Spire-Cast-Behind got her own eye on it too, and the immediate crisis was averted without any blood shed. At least, Rufus hoped so. He wasn’t sure if Bea was okay, but someone was pulling her out of the snow and she didn’t look dead.

“Why the fuck is there a bear here?” Rufus heard Bill shouting. The big man having fallen on his ass in shock as the dungeon monster charged him.

“Yeah, this isn’t fair!” Momo added as she stumbled over something under the snow and leaned into the paper drake Rufus was riding for support, panting for breath. “Bill’s supposed to be the only bear here!”

“Hey!”

Keeka patted Bill on his armored and swathed arm with a pair of gentle hands. “D-don’t worry.” The ratroach chittered through his scarf. “Th-that is a good thing. People l-like bears.” Keeka reassured the big man as he made eye contact with the frozen ursine that had been about to kill them.

“So, like…” Morgan looked around at everyone. “This is just a bear, right, though? Is this a dungeon thing?”

“This looks like a brown bear.” James agreed.

“Do we kill it?” Ethan asked, looking around at people like he was worried underneath his goggles and face mask. “I don’t wanna kill an animal.” Rufus found that odd. Would he have had no problem if it were a dungeon creation? “I don’t even like killing the stickbugs.” Ethan added, answering that question neatly.

James shrugged. “I don’t think slaughtering anything is worth it in here. So Spire, Fangs, keep an eye on this guy until we’re way past, okay?” The camracondas called back ascent, and the delvers helped get the sleds around the frozen bear as quickly as they could. No one wanted to stick around here too long. Ten minutes of hiking later, once everyone had started to relax, Rufus looked down to see that James had made it to the flank of their paper drake, and patted it with a gloved hand next to where Rufus had resituated himself. “Hey. Thanks buddy.” The long haired human told him.

Rufus just shrugged a couple pen legs. But inside, he felt a swell of satisfaction in being recognized. Then, though, he had one important question. It took a couple points and a motion that almost made him fall off before Knife-In-Fangs repositioned his tail to keep Rufus in place, but James did eventually get his meaning.

“Oh, the bear? Yeah, I dunno if this one was made by the dungeon, but those just exist out on Earth. There’s a lot of places where you can find them in the wild. I’ve never seen one up close before, that thing was terrifying when it moved, but that’s pretty normal for them.”

Rufus gave a bobbing nod to show he’d understood. And then, tightening his grip on Elegan, he resolved to never go outside ever again.

_____

“Holding up?” A woman’s voice drew Bea’s attention.

Not enough for her to stop staring at the snake that she’d snagged. The creature was a series of segmented rock pieces arranged with overlapping plates. Some kind of slate, it seemed. The head lacked detail, but the rock itself seemed like a shell for flesh underneath. Which explained why it had fangs; it might need to eat. “I am capable of continuing.” Bea said in her monotone cadence.

“Okay, well…” One of Marlea’s bodies approached her. “You sorta got choke slammed by a bear? So it’s cool if you need a rest or something.”

Bea watched the snake twist in her grip, the stone grinding as it pushed its flexibility. Definitely a shell over something else, she decided. But why had it tried to strike her? Was it territorial, or just threatened? “I heal quickly.” She told Marlea as she raised the snake’s head up to peer at its eyes. They didn’t look smooth, instead having facets like a cut gem.

“Kay.” Marlea accepted the explanation. “There’s weirder shit going on, I guess. Did you catch a rock snake?”

“Yes.” Bea answered as the creature tried to bite her hand again. She didn’t slacken her grip, keeping a perfectly consistent pressure on it that held it firm, without threatening its shell. “It is interesting.”

Marlea got closer, but stayed off to Bea’s side, and away from the snake. “Yeah, these things are kinda wild. We’ve seen a lot of them in here, they’re one of the things the place likes to hide in… crags? Is this a crag?” She looked up at the ground next to them.

Bea didn’t correct her, but it wasn’t a crag. It was simply a place where the ground was uneven, so from their perspective down here, it looked steeper than it would when they were farther up. There might have been a mild spatial contortion as well, which was something she had found interesting two months ago, but after learning the math for, had fallen out of her curiosity for.

Continuing to examine her catch, Bea noticed that Marlea wasn’t leaving her alone. The networked girl was watching her, almost cautiously. Bea would have sighed if she were emulating her victim, but instead she lowered the rock snake and turned to meet Marlea’s eyes. “Yes?” She asked.

“Hey, chill girl. I’m just making sure you’re actually alive. You talk like you’ve got a concussion all the time, it’s hard to tell.” Marlea raised a hand defensively, the other leaning on the pole she used to test the ground as they walked.

“Do you want me to talk differently?” Bea asked. No malice in her tone, no anything really.

Marlea shrugged. “Not really. What, am I supposed to tell you not to be different? I’m the most self aware person on this entire hill, I can’t be that much of a hypocrite.” She flashed a toothy smile at the inhabitor. “I actually am just making sure you’re doing okay. You got body slammed by a literal bear, I wanna remind you. And now you’re staring at a snake.”

Looking back at her subject, Bea spoke. “I find it interesting.”

“Cool.” Marlea shrugged. “I’ve gotten bit by them too much to wanna get close, but I’m glad you like it? Uh… the fangs and eyes are actually sapphire, if you’re curious.”

“I am.” Bea looked back at her. “Why?”

“Why does the snake get jewelry? No clue.” Marlea laughed with the body she had farther away, startling the people near that part of her. “All the stuff in here… okay, all the stuff that isn’t the bear… it acts weird. Because it’s all different. There’s no ecosystem, that lil guy doesn’t eat anything. But it’s like every rock snake is programmed to ruthless aggression, all the time. The stickbugs have their own patterns, too, like they’re waiting for a threshold of damage before they run. It’s kinda weird? I dunno.”

“They were made with instructions.” Bea spoke her thought aloud. “Interesting. Can they be changed?”

“What, like, will the snake eventually chill out? No clue.” Marlea admitted. “Why, want a pet?”

Bea considered the artificial serpent she was holding. “Not at this time.” She decided. And then, with an abrupt motion, she pulled back and pitched the snake overhand, the creature stretching out as it flew into a spinning line of grey rock. It went a lot farther than Marlea expected before dropping into the snow. “Perhaps later.”

“Nice arm.” Marlea nodded appreciatively. “Oh, here’s a fun rock snake fact; they dig their own little holes in the stone. Like, they chew through it over time. You can see the bite marks.”

“That is an interesting snake fact.” Bea said, her dull voice betraying none of the sharp curiosity she actually felt at the words. The emotion was painfully new to her, even after months of experiencing it. “Do you have more snake facts?” She asked, trying to share that curiosity without having to lean on the mask of the dead human she was wearing.

Marlea bumped a shoulder into her, comfortable getting closer now that the offending snake was gone. “Girl, I know way too much about this place’s snakes. Here, swap places with Ethan, and we can talk while we hike.”

_____

Wind screamed around the boulder, uneven gusts coming down from above and bringing with them waves of stinging icy crystals. The sky, always covered in a layer of looming grey clouds, was now a dark mass with barely any light let through. Moving against the wind was hard enough, but in a second, someone was going to be asked to run.

A crack of sound cut through the howl of wind through the spindly trees and exposed rocks, an icy projectile slamming into the boulder that some of them were taking cover behind. Another one of the things landed like a siege payload in the open, leaving a tiny hole in the snow that was quickly filled over. But the size of the muffled impact couldn’t be taken for granted; if that had hit someone, it would be broken bones at least, possibly even through their armor. A hit to the head could be lethal.

Ethan peeked his goggled eyes around their shelter, and counted. One hit on the rock, one in the open. Another one breaking a tree branch twenty feet farther up. One more in the open. Four… five… six…

He slapped James on the shoulder. “Go!” Ethan felt weird giving the paladin orders. But he knew this dungeon. Possibly better than anyone else. He was good at this, so James deferred to him.

On cue, James pushed himself out of his crouch and sprinted at an upward angle, tracking toward the tree with the uncomfortably rectangular bark patterns that was wide enough to shelter several people at once, though not wide enough for a drake. In time with his motion, Spire-Cast-Behind nudged Rudger into motion with her tail, the drake rising up and letting her see over their cover. The snow slapped into her visor, and she wouldn’t have long before she was out of visibility, but the pattern for this leg of their route was - while dangerous - predictable.

A caltrop of dark blue ice, almost invisible against the rest of the snowstorm, flung itself out of the clouds as soon as James was out of cover. It wasn’t exactly aimed at him, but every delver, every time they moved from point to point, had to contend with a single shot fired randomly near them. The only answer was to watch the skies and be cautious, which risked the pattern of ice spheres restarting, or to simply risk it.

Or to have a camraconda sharpshooter freeze it in place for three seconds, which was more than enough.

James slammed his shoulder into the bark of the tree, legs burning, heart pounding. Then the spiky ice formation crashed to the ground and rolled across the snow. Ethan let out a sigh of relief, as it stopped outside the small trench they’d made by running people in the same pattern over and over to move forward.

Ahead of them, Marlea and Knife-In-Fangs were directing everyone to the next patch of cover, a constantly moving line of delvers being checked off one by one as they made it to the next rock or tree or shallow gulch they could shelter in. Ethan looked up. They were maybe five or six more runs from the plateau ahead. On Earth, that would be about a minute of walking in a straight line on a sidewalk. Here, that meant almost half an hour of exertion and nail-biting tension.

If they hadn’t confirmed that there was a structure ahead with both a drone and a navigator scout, he would have put his foot down and made them camp in the half-collapsed laundromat they’d found. It would have been a tight fit - and even that was an understatement; someone would have had to sleep on the drakes - but it would have been safer than rolling the dice.

Maybe pushing it was dumb on the first day. But they’d come all this way, they’d made it so far. And they hadn’t found anything except the frost-covered pair of socks in the last potential safe zone that Keeka said ‘smelled like a dungeon’. Everyone wanted to make it just a little farther. And, more importantly, they wanted to have a place where they could lay out their sleeping bags and have room to collapse in comfort.

“Five… six…” Ethan counted, not letting himself get distracted. “Go!” He tapped Bill, the big man not moving as fast as Ethan would have liked, but still crossing to the tree as space on it opened up. “Spire, you ready?” He called as the pair found themselves the last ones in line.

“I am ready to nap!” She yelled back. “Give me a nap, Ethan!”

He smiled to himself. That wasn’t the relationstick they shared, but it never stopped her from asking. “Go!” He slapped Rudger’s flank, the drake tucking his wings up before charging forward, the utmost trust in his rider. Rudger was a good drake, and Ethan was gonna give him a printer ink cartridge as a treat later.

Then it was his turn. Ethan took a deep breath, hyperventilating to recharge his Breath reserves from the last time he did this. He had to move without cover, because the camracondas couldn’t catch stuff at the back angle. But that was fine, because he had more than one Mountain spell already, and he knew what his were good for.

When he started running, he breathed out, and exhaled magic. His blood cooled, his lungs ached, but it wasn’t a huge cost, and then he was watching his run from three different directions. A trio of Ethans, all of them him, like pieces of a mirror all moving in sync. Each movement shifted only enough that he didn’t trip and fall.

The ice spike hit one of him, and Ethan kept running. Then he and one of his mirror selves converged on the point he’d been charging to, and he was fine. And, not for the first time, grateful that the spell was weirdly uncomplicated in letting him know that all that was happening was a series of reflections of him, and not him sacrificing a duplicate like he’d heard Anesh did sometimes. That would be… weird.

It still hurt getting hit, kind of. Ethan wished that shield bracers were smart enough to know that they only wanted the ice falling from the sky over a certain size to be blocked, but he knew that was basically just a dumb wish that wouldn’t happen.

“Can I have a nap now?” Spire-Cast-Behind was taking hissing pants as she asked him from the blocky tree, Rudger covering his neck and face with a flared wing.

“Not yet!” Ethan kept his excited nature up, even now. “Five… no, four more crossings. Does this area do the spikes, have you seen yet?”

“No.”

“Well that’s free then!” He grinned beneath his ski mask. “You can do a few more! We’ll be there before you know it!”

“I hate you.” Spire-Cast-Behind lied at him.

“Come on, this is great!” Ethan laughed as he counted falling hailstones, picking out the pattern. “We’ve got this! Just a little farther!”

“I hate you!”

“Okay! Three… two… one… go!” Ethan tapped the next person on the shoulder, sending them running.

_____

Long Delve Roadmap - Winter’s Climb - Nightly Camp Agenda

Area Security

-Central sleeping area, no private rooms unless secure

-Check main area for gravity traps thoroughly

-Triple check headcount for new friends

-Motion sensor alarms on all doors and windows

-Sweep as much of the structure as possible, if possible

-Seal breaches for heat retention

Rest and Recovery

-Snowmelt and purification brooches for water

-Alert expedition before starting fires, dismiss the prompt to leave as a group

-Potion doses for exercise recovery and oxygenated blood mandatory

-Medical checkups on anyone who was injured

Expedition Meeting

-Debrief on days encounters

-Check supplies for losses or damage

-As time allows, scout ahead and discuss route

-Attempt identification of any discovered items

_____

Winter’s Climb Long Delve - Acquisition Log - Day 1

One (1) possibly magical belt.