The labyrinth of fire and ice that awaited us was almost exactly as expected. The cavern walls were alternately burning hot or freezing cold, with icicles dripping from the ceiling or small pockets of flame spurting from fissures in the ground.

What was unexpected was the series of intertwining bronze gold pipes that ran through the walls, along the corridors, and vanished into the depths in a twisting maze of metal. Very faintly from somewhere deep inside the labyrinth we could hear a slow throbbing ‘thrub’ sound, as though a giant heart were beating.

Our slow exploration was interrupted at semi regular intervals by the appearance of flame or frost aspected monsters, with a smattering of the ancient spider drones. Lakshmi pounced on the later with glee and practically ripped them apart before they could do more than hurl a few steam blasts at us. The flame and frost drops were quite nice as well.

Several new ingredients to try out! I thought as we gathered them up.

“You know, it’s a shame that your seer sight doesn’t extend to detail.” Lakshmi said crankily. “I swear this is the fourth time we’ve passed this way.” She pointed at a specific tangle of pipes.

“It’s not.” Soriya sang out ahead of us. “I’ve been keeping track.” She tapped her temple lightly.

I let out a quiet sigh of relief. At least someone is.

We came to a dead end, the pipework we’d been following vanishing into the wall ahead of us. Lakshmi gave Soriya an arch look and said “Oh really?”

Soriya shrugged carelessly. “I didn’t say I knew the path, I said I’m keeping track. We’re bound to make a few wrong turns in the process of finding our way.”

We trudged back the way we came, fighting a few more monsters and guardian spiders along the path.

Regardless, whether or not Soriya truly knew which way she was going (I was inclined to believe she did) we soon found ourselves descending deeper into the caverns. There was a distinct pattern to the flame and frost regions, and the dungeon’s pattern slowly revealed itself as a crisscross pattern clearly was laid out in such a way that we had to cross from one region to the next in order to progress.

Camaxtli spoke up. “Lakshmi was correct. There clearly was a power generation system in place here. The components are still present. Why they were shut down is the question for us to determine.”

“Why do we need to determine it?” Asked Eshaan.

“To learn it’s purpose.” Camaxtli turned and looked at Eshaan blankly.

“Right, but I mean, why do we need to know what it’s for?” Eshaan said cheerfully.

Camaxtli blinked repeatedly. “You… do not think there is value in learning its function?”

Eshaan shook his head. “Not really, no. It’s not going to give us an advantage to solving the maze, and it doesn’t give us any advantage in combat, so why bother?”

Camaxtli stood flummoxed, blinking, opening and closing his mouth.

I coughed. “Eshaan, I think that knowledge in its own right is useful. We don’t know how it might help us, but it could help us. It’s a potential weapon, and it’s not wise to just ignore something that might be useful.”

Eshaan frowned. “I don’t really get it.” He said doubtfully. “If you say so. But we can’t stay down here forever, we’re in a hurry aren’t we?”

“Hm, well that’s true, but it does not harm to try and pick up knowledge when it’s laying right in front of us?” I said.

Eshaan shrugged again. “If you say so.” He made his doubt clear.

Around an hour later, we came to a central hub, where a tangle of the pipework joined. A large open area was spanned by a bronze gold bridge, and inset in the far walls were two large gates. All around the area, broken pipework spewed steam upwards mingled with frozen waterfalls of liquid clogging several exit vents.

Well, this could not scream ‘boss arena’ any more clearly. I thought wryly as I surveyed the tangle of pipes, ducts, and valves.

Camaxtli slowly looked around the room, then pointed. “Our transit appears to be blocked. Observe. This location appears to be a central control nexus of some sort. Perhaps due to poor maintenance, it appears to be disabled. It should still be possible to reroute the still functional pipes to unlock one or both of these gates.” After a pause, he added. “Which would seem to be necessary to progress.”

“But which gate?” Eshaan asked.

“Oh that’s easy!” Lakshmi chirped. She pointed to one gate, and then the other. “This one’s fire, and this one’s frost. So we just need to apply a little force-”

She reached towards one of the red wheels on the pipe works.

“No, wait!” I shouted, grabbing her hand. “Whichever gate we open, there’s sure to be a big fight behind it!” I pointed. “That one will be frost aspected, and that one will be fire aspected.”

Lakshmi blinked at me. “A seer vision?”

I coughed and blushed. “Uhm. Yeah.”

Lakshmi took a step back. “Well then.” She put her hands on her hips. “Which fight do we want to tackle first?”

Camaxtli stepped forward. “If the fights are going to be aspected in this manner…” he trailed off, slowly swinging his gaze over the pipe works. “Curious. In order to open the fire gate, significant quantities of frozen matter will be shuffled forward…”

Soriya perked up and clapped her hands together in excitement. “Oh! So if we let in the fire beasty, we can direct ice at it from all the pipes?!” What a fun boss arena!” She grinned with excitement.

Camaxtli’s eyes flickered and whirled with color. He muttered “This is highly illogical” to himself before reluctantly adding “But it appears that this is the case. Likewise, if we wish to open the frost gate, significant quantities of steam and flame will be shuffled to the fore.”

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An idea suddenly leapt into my brain and wouldn’t leave.

“Hold on a second! What would happen if we were to repair the control room?” I asked.

Camaxtli blinked and then slowly swept his eyes over the pipes again.

“I am… unsure, Lilyanna.” He looked around the control room and then called out. “Lakshmi, would you join me? I will attempt to see what this room might have done before.”

“Hm? Oh, this is a fairly standard flux relay subsystem.” Lakshmi trotted over to Camaxtli. “See?” She pointed to some arcane part that I couldn’t identify.

“This part here feeds into that over there, then down to the complex here.”

“Intriguing. But that would imply that the two gate rooms were to be accessed at the same time. That makes little sense. Were ancient power systems commonly used as fighting arenas?”

I giggled and Lakshmi laughed. “No. I think that the beasts moved in after the fact.” I said.

“Very interesting. If true, then it is likely that the accumulation of elemental energy is what drew the beasts in. Or perhaps even created the beasts through an infusion of ordinary creatures.”

“Wait, I’m missing something.” Eshaan said. “When did you become an expert on repairing Ancient technologies, Lily?”

I smiled. “well, never honestly. But I do happen to have access to an Arcanum that should do.”

“Oh! Forge, right?!” Eshaan slapped his fist into his palm.

Lakshmi grinned. “This is going to be amazing. A fully functional Ancient power plant?! And I get to watch it repaired with Ancient System powered magitech?!”

Soriya smiled. “I agree, this is going to be worth a paper. Or even a doctoral thesis!”

I glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that we don’t have time to drop off research papers.”

Soriya shrugged. “There will be time after our adventure.”

I blinked, then giggled. “Well. I guess that’s true. That’s the power of positive thinking for you.” I clapped my hands together. “Alright! So we could repair all this! Lakshmi, Camaxtli… aside from being very cool, what will that do? We could easily open the gates, I suppose? But… could we avoid the fights entirely?”

Lakshmi stroked her chin thoughtfully, while Camaxtli tipped his head to the side, thinking hard.

Finally, Camaxtli spoke up. “I do not think we will be able to avoid the fights. In order to gain access to the most likely path towards the Arcanum, we need to have access to the systems beyond the gates. However, if as you say, these are ordinary beasts infused with elemental energy there is another option. It is common knowledge that creatures of opposed elemental energies dislike each other. Perhaps… we could open both gates at once, and encourage them to fight each other. This would make things considerably easier for us.” He said.

He tapped his sword against his leg, then added thoughtfully. “Though, I must caution. I feel the fight is likely to wreck whatever repairs might be made. So perhaps it’s best to open the gates first, before attempting repairs.”

Lakshmi spoke up with excitement. “But if we do a few repairs, we can control the gate! As it is, we can basically just jam them open, and wait for the beasties to show up. But if we repair it, we can open it, then close it again!”

Eshaan’s eyes lit up. “Right on top of it! Nice!”

My eyes widened in surprise and then I smiled. Well. I had really hoped I’d thought of a clever way past this particular challenge… but slamming a monster with a gate to its head seems like a win! I thought happily.

I was surprised how calm Camaxtli appeared though, given what I’d told him about the likely outcome of meeting the Arcanum. I wonder what he’s planning to do? Though, really, I’m going to find out very shortly.

I huffed a sigh and shook my head. “Alright everyone. It looks like we have some plumbing to work on.”

A chorus of good natured grumbles broke out, and we set about our task. In the end, we wound up flipping a coin to determine which beast we’d fight first. Ice was the winner, and we scrambled around the pipeworks opening and closing valves, shunting steam and knocking open frozen outflow pipes, until the frozen gate slowly started to creak open.

Once the gate had opened sufficiently, a sibilant hissing mingled with the sound of ice crystals chiming against each other filled the air.

I glanced over at Soriya, who held Ægishjálmur in a relaxed grip. “Serpent?” I asked.

She nodded casually. “Serpent.” She said.

With a rush, a shimmering ice serpent flowed into the room with liquid grace. Before it could even open its mouth, the group unleashed a torrent of fire based attacks. Camaxtli and Lakshmi spun half open valves in reverse, and the half open gate that we’d winched open crashed downwards onto the serpent’s spine, pinning it in place.

The serpent let out a bellowing roar of agony, and a blast of icy fog roared out of its mouth, chilling us all to the bone. The pain of injury remained a common thread in all our fights, and I spared a thought to wonder just how much damage this attack was actually doing… and if it was at all comparable to being shot.

The fight was no cakewalk, but the giant gate pinning the serpent to the floor made it considerably less of a challenge than it might have been otherwise.

{Barrier} and {Holy White}, Soriya’s {Flare} and {Infernal Black} roared across the battlefield, while Camaxtli and Eshaan darted in from the sides slashing at the serpent’s exposed flanks.

I felt foolish doing my {Encourage} cheer, but the improved strength and precision of the strikes from Eshaan and Lakshmi more than proved its worth. Within a few short moments, the serpent hiss-roared it’s last, a final spray of razor sharp ice shards scattering across the room and shattering against my {Barrier}.

We stood there, panting softly, the faint drip of blood hitting the Ancient metalwork under us.

“Alright! One down, one to go!” Eshaan cheered. “Awesome work, everyone!”

I smiled, moving around to mend our hurts with a well placed {Heal}. Soriya and I slugged a few mana potions, and Eshaan asked.

“Ok! Everyone ready for round two!?”

I sighed with a fond smile. How can he be so enthusiastic about fighting to the death with some crazed elemental beast?!

The flame beast was an enormous salamander, which breathed fire and smoke. A similar pattern to the first repeated, the dragonlike creature rushing forward, only to find the heavy gate slamming closed onto its neck, pinning it to the ground with a roar, and the sound of cracking bone. I honestly felt bad for the poor thing. It wasn’t even evil so much as… terribly misguided.

The drops are nice though. I felt terribly conflicted, the ice and fire meat from the beasts, as well as the teeth and claws looked to be powerful augments in their own right.

And I can make salamander potroast tonight, with snowberry compote on top! Oh, and I can make demiglace from the serpent! I thought happily.

When the roars, flame, and smoke had died away and the last of the battle wounds had been treated, I summoned forth Forge.

“Child of Æther. You summon me to repair a machine of the Makers? I am… pleased.” It said. I felt the strangest sensation of honest gratitude from it.

Perhaps I insulted it by asking it to make boardgames? I worried. I should ask.

Forge swiftly set to work, and glowing shapes of bronzegold metal coalesced from the air, broken wreckage from the area and the pipeworks around us bending into shape with metallic shrieks. As the pipeworks slowly shifted into place, and welded themselves into a functional whole, glowing runes of Ancient’s writing flickered into existence, and illuminated holographic panels appeared displaying system information which meant little to me.

Lakshmi, Eshaan, and Camaxtli were entranced however, darting from one newly restored functional piece to another, poking (or not poking in some cases) at the glowing holographic control panels in awe.

“Child of Æther. I have completed my work.” Said Forge in a low rumble. “I am… weary. This was a taxing work, if satisfying. I will be unable to aid you for some time.” It paused, its voice a softer rumble of gears and hot metal. “Thank you.” It said, and then vanished into the strange demi-realm it inhabited while it rested.

I didn’t even know Arcana could get tired! I thought with surprise.

With the exceedingly technomagical control center back online, and Lakshmi and Eshaan firmly corralled away from poking every button they could touch, we mapped out the access paths to the Arcanum, and then entered the access code.

I took a deep breath, and nodded. “Ok, Ice. It’s time to meet you.”