Chapter 94

Pain. Every breath was pain. My flesh tingled and prickled, my blood throbbed and pulsed beneath my skin, which had constricted and tightened, as if trying to hold in any and all heat it could. I thought the third floor had been chilly as we climbed the mountains. I was mistaken. That was nothing compared to the fourth floor. Nothing compared to the pure frozen nightmare that greeted me the moment I stepped through the portal.

The cold was the first, most noticeable, feature of the fourth floor. My body was jolted instantly by the intense temperature difference the moment I arrived on the floor, and my gasp and accompanying curses frosted the air before me. Nyle and Lyn’s own curses followed shortly after as they arrived, but I couldn’t even take amusement at their joint suffering. I was too busy fighting the sudden, uncontrollable shivering that threatened to overcome my body, while I anxiously rubbed my hands together, the fingers already growing stiff.

“I’m just putting this out there,” Lyn said as she walked beside me, her eyes scanning out at the scenery. “This floor is terrible.”

“You don’t say,” I said, white mist billowing from our mouths as we spoke, as we breathed. There was a slight howling wind that kicked up the white, powdery substance that lay all over the ground. It crunched slightly as I tested out my footing. All around us was an endless, white expanse. I had to squint as I scanned the area, the light from above seeming to bounce and reflect off the surface of the ground. I could see shapes moving here and there, noticeable more for their bulk than anything else. Large, shifting mounds of white, that may have been humanoid, but I couldn’t tell. Other white mounds seemed to lay about, perhaps slumbering? To our left, the white expanse turned blue, and I watched, wide eyed, mouth agape, as something broke through the blue surface.

Bone white, a massive spike, the size of a man, erupted from what I realized was a massive body of water. It was a horn of some sort, I realized, as the creature the horn was attached to rose out of the blue water, sending waves rippling all around it. The top of the creature’s head was dark, making it seem to perfectly blend in with the water, while its underside was a whitish grey, best I could tell. The creature rotated sideways as it began to sink back into the water, revealing a massive fin. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a monster, or a regular creature, of this frozen hellscape.

“Wyll said it was cold,” Nyle crunched across the frozen ground to join Lyn and I as he looked out at the water, watching for any further signs of life, “but I feel cold doesn’t really cover this.”

“He was right about one thing,” I continued to rub my hands together, but I could tell my efforts were in vain. My fingers tingled uncomfortably, and my flesh was turning red. “Compared to this, the third floor is much, much more hospitable.”

“Can we even fight properly on this floor?” Lyn turned to look at us. Her flesh was already pink, moving to red, just like mine. She was shivering, we all were. But more than that, as she spoke she held her hands up, showing her reddened fingers. She bent the fingers and winced slightly. It was clear they weren’t as nimble as they normally were. “I seriously doubt I can fire my bow properly in this cold.”

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“Yeah, I think you’re right.” I moved my own fingers, opening and closing them. They were stiff and felt swollen. Trying to hold onto Claw and Fang with frozen fingers didn’t sound like an effective way to fight.

“Should we skip this floor then, and head straight to the fifth?” Nyle held his hand out, and a fireball appeared in it. He held it there, its warmth rolling over us. My skin prickled and itched as the cold that had taken hold clung stubbornly to me, trying to resist the sudden heat from the flames. The fireball was effective, but we all knew you could only hold a spell like that for about a minute, before it sputtered out, and the mana was wasted.

“That’s really our only option,” I said as instinctively moved closer to the flames, wanting to greedily absorb as much of the heat as I could, before it faded away. “We don’t have the gear to deal with this cold.”

“I bet there are amulets or rings that can make you resist the cold.” Lyn said bitterly. “Or perhaps a higher constitution can make you immune to it as well.”

“Probably,” I agreed, “or at the very least, warmer gear. You’ve at least got your cloak and boots,” I said accusingly to Lyn, who was, even at that moment, pulling the fur lined object around herself, to try and keep her body heat in. “I’ve got nothing but the Climber’s Regalia to keep me warm.”

The silk clothes were nice, sure, but they were thin, and the cold wind cut straight through the material, sapping the heat from my body at an alarming rate. It was painfully clear we couldn’t afford to just stand around in front of the portal, talking about what we needed to do. We had to get moving. The sooner we found the portal to the next floor, the better. If we ran into any hostile creatures, hopefully we’d be able to handle them. With our self-imposed leveling time-limit though, we didn’t have the luxury of leaving the Tower…again, just to grab warmer gear so we could kill enough monsters on this floor to level twice. It made more sense, given the current circumstances, to skip the floor entirely, and rush to the fifth floor for some monster killing.

Of course, that didn’t mean I’d be happy ignoring the fourth floor in the future. What I’d seen in the water intrigued me. And cold weather aside, I was really curious to see just what the fourth floor had to offer. I knew the Mining Guild spent time on the fourth floor gathering special ores and resources. I also knew the Hunters Guild came here. Meaning, the floor obviously had important and useful resources. There was no other logical reason I could think of, after all, for people, especially non-climbers, to spend any time in this frozen landscape.

But that was for a different day. For now, we needed to get moving, and fast. Because as Nyle’s flames went out, and the cold began its assault full force on us, I noticed something else. My health, which had been full when we’d left the third floor, was no longer full, and sat now at 109 of 110. Sure, it was only a single point, but it sent a… chilling truth through me. This cold, this extreme low temperature, was actively doing damage to us. If we didn’t have a way to keep ourselves properly warmed, and with our low constitutions, we could very easily die on this floor. Not to monsters. Not to dangerous creatures like gorillas. But purely from the cold. For some reason, the idea of freezing to death bothered me even more than facing down the potential mauling of the Den Mother. At least the latter would be over quickly.

“Let’s get going,” I said, shivering as I shook my head to clear my mind. I turned in the distance, guessing more than anything in the direction we’d need to head, and started running. Or… at least… that was the plan. The fourth floor and the Tower, however, had different intentions.