Michael and Chantelle followed me into the stone paved courtyard. The forty meter walls on all sides crowded over the courtyard, and there was a single bare tree that rose twenty meters up at one end in a circle of dirt.

Chantelle was studying the rubble of the stone balcony that was next to the exit of the thread portal as I collected it up. I felt my face heat up.

"It held up when I landed on it when I was getting you." I said. "But.. I kind of broke it when I jumped on it this time."

Both Chantelle and Michael craned their necks to see where it had come off, thirty six meters up.

"You fell from up there?" Michael asked. "And got up afterwards?"

I compared some forces for a moment. "It was only a little more force than when you tried to crush me with a spell." I said.

Michael looked more shocked. "You resisted my air prison physically?" He asked. "I assumed you were using some sort of counterspell."

"I'm a Champion." I said. That seemed to be a pretty blanket explanation for strange abilities. "I don't actually have any magic myself, though I do have other abilities and one of them helped to survive the fall and your spell."

Chantelle was frowning. "Where are we exactly?" She asked.

"In the middle of the keep." I said. "I don't suppose either of you has tracking magic you could use?"

"No." Chantelle said. "And the only time I was brought up from the dungeon was to be taken to the throne room. The other times I was teleported directly from there."

"We'll find the throne room then." I said.

I pulled out the high ranked winter priest robe from my Pocket Dimension. It was still covered in gore from the head priest of winter and I looked at it with distaste. Having a disguise would mean that lower ranked priests would avoid us, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it.

"Why don't you just clean it?" Chantelle asked.

"It's enchanted, my power doesn't work on it." I said.

"Pass it to me." Michael said.

I did, and he studied it intently for about a minute, Chantelle watching whatever he was doing. When he passed it back to me I could push my power into it, and converted the gore to air leaving the robe perfectly clean. I swapped over to the new robe and led the way to a door into the keep.

The door was unlocked and we made our way into the hall behind it easily. The throne room was the largest room on this floor, and if it matched the layout of the keep in the winter realm there was a large hall that led from it to the front doors. We just had to follow the hallways to the front of the building and then head across until we ran into that hall.

The halls that we were following were the same maze that I was in before, either for servants or spies. Michael cast a spell that provided us with light. With nothing pressing demanding my attention I started to hook up my new heat vision. And nearly ran into a pair of grey robed people as we turned a corner.

I was moving to knock them both out when Michael locked them down with a spell. A few moments later they fell unconscious, but Michael didn't release the spell. I frowned at him.

"What is the advantage in killing them?" I asked.

"What is the advantage in leaving them alive?" He asked back. "They were responsible for my village."

"I killed the one responsible for your village." I said. "These are servants, they had nothing to do with it."

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

It didn't feel as though Chantelle cared one way or the other whether we killed them, but after a few moments more Michael ducked his head and released the spell.

We continued through the narrow halls and two turns from where we had left the servants we came across a long straight hall. Along the left wall there were latches for spy-holes spaced every five meters and I could hear talking coming from the other side of the wall.

I stepped up to the nearest spy-hole and looked through into the throne room. There was a table set out below the dais that the throne was on and around it there were twenty priests sitting in high backed chairs, and another one sitting on the throne. One of the priests sitting at the table was Ryan, so this was a meeting between the highest tier of winter priests, and it looked as though a new head priest had been chosen.

I stepped back and motioned for Chantelle to look through the spy-hole.

"Which way to the dungeon stairs?" I asked in a whisper.

She looked through and then pointed to the right, which would take us to the corner of the wall that the throne was against.

We made it to the end of the straight hall and were forced to turn right when it came to a dead end. The first left after that led to a set of stairs, which likely went over the exact hall that we wanted to use to get to the dungeon. I went back to the hall that ran along the throne room, having to brush past both Chantelle and Michael as I backtracked.

There must be doorways for the servants to pass from the hidden halls to the main areas. I had about half of my heat vision nerves hooked up through micro-portals to new inputs I had set up for my digital side. They were passively just running as my digital side learned how to interpret the data, but it was pretty simple.

The curves of my eyes set them at odd angles to my vision, but I had an exact model of how they were placed. I turned back to face Chantelle after writing an overlay for my vision and she showed up as a white-orange glow. I turned back to the wall in front of me and started moving my eyes back and forth slowly to scan it.

There was a gap under the wall that was leaking heat into the servant hall, and it would open to the hall heading to the dungeon. I put my hands against the wall above the gap and pushed. When nothing happened I pushed harder until finally something snapped with a sharp crack and the wall fell outwards.

I quickly grabbed the edges before it could fall to the ground and stepped out into the hall, placing the section of wall to the side. I had snapped the hinges, apparently the hidden doorway was supposed to open inwards, though it was also likely that it needed magic to open.

We made our way down the wide hall with Chantelle in the lead and she took a smaller hall to the left. As soon as we turned I saw two ice golems at the end twenty meters away. I burst into a sprint, drawing my sword as I went.

The ice golems separated from the doorway they were standing in front of and coordinated all four of their blade arms to attack me in a staggered pattern. As I came within range of them I easily cut through each of their arms, then shoulders, heads, and hips. They were still animated, but they couldn't move their separated pieces. I nodded in satisfaction.

Michael and Chantelle caught up to me, Michael eyeing me a little warily, and we went through the doorway and down the stone stairs that spiralled beneath the keep. After one revolution, about ten meters down, there was a landing with a three meter tall heavy iron door to the right of it.

"They're through there." Chantelle said. "There is a guard room that has ten winter priests in it and then another door to a large holding room. That's where everyone is being kept. There are two other doors in the other walls of the room that are the same heavy iron, but I don't know what is behind them."

I nodded. Either more prisoners, or reinforcements for the guards, maybe in the form of ice golems. I squared off in front of the door and brought my sword above my head, gripping the hilt with two hands.

I slashed downwards, using half of the energy in each of my arms, and there was a deafening screeching sound as my sword tore cleanly through the ten centimeter thick iron. I followed through on the strike and went down on one knee, burying my sword in the stone below the door, completely cutting it in half.

I let go of the hilt of my sword and shoved the two halves of the door. One half swung inwards on its hinges and the other fell into the room. A deep bell-like tone started to echo loudly through the keep at ten second intervals. The priests in the guard room all had the gold embroidered robes and they had already started chanting when the door fell in.

I came up from kneeling ready to dash into the room to stop whatever spell they were casting when Michael's hand landed on my shoulder, stopping me. He stepped past me into the room and a moment later the chanting had cut off. Chantelle and I entered the room to find all twenty of the priests collapsed on the ground trying to gasp for breath.

"Don't you know any other spells?" I asked Michael.

"Of course I do." Michael said. "This one just has the most utility. I suppose you want me to let these ones live too?"

I shook my head, stepping back out to get my sword.

"The head priest had them here to kill everyone." I said.

I stepped up to the iron door opposite the one I'd cut down. The doors were held shut with a solid but simple iron latch, I cut through it and pulled the door open. Chantelle flew through the door and into the arms of a woman that was just on the other side in front of a crowd of people.

"Though it looks as though they didn't do it." I said.