by Simon Archer
“Well, this is fun,” I said with a smile as I moved up onto the cracked altar and stared into its murky depths. “I’m having fun.” I sucked in a deep breath. “So much fun.”
Though I’d have rather jumped in to get used to the temperature difference, I decided to ease my way in. I couldn’t exactly see how deep the hole went, and I wanted to make sure that I didn’t smash my skull open on an outcropping of rock that wasn’t immediately visible.
The water was cold, like ‘colder than a polar bear’s toenails’ cold, and I didn’t really enjoy it very much even though my trainer had made me jump in ice baths from time to time. I hated having to do those too, but now I was grateful for the experience because otherwise, this Dungeon Challenge would have ended here and now.
So, teeth chattering like crazy, I sucked in a breath and dunked my head under the dirty water. I came up a second later, and the feeling of the air on my flesh was enough to make me want to cry. I didn’t, of course. I merely pulled my soaking wet body out of the broken altar and waited there while I shivered.
After a quick ten count, I got back in the water, and thanks to the miracle of physics or whatever, the water didn’t feel nearly as cold as it had a moment before. Don’t get me wrong, it was still less than ideal, and my nipples could have cut glass, but I was shivering a hell of a lot less.
Satisfied that I’d somewhat acclimated to the frozen depths, I took a deep breath and plunged downward into the tunnel. I had to feel around because it was way too dark to see down here, even if I had wanted to open my eyes. It didn’t take long for me to locate a grate in the side of one of the walls about six feet down, and even though my lungs burned for air, I grabbed hold of it with both hands, put my feet on either side of the grate, and yanked.
I felt it budge enough to let me know I could pull it out, but it would take a while. I gave it one more good yank and then made my way back to the surface where I gulped in several lungfuls of sweet air while clinging to the side.
My skin was starting to hurt now, and each breath came out in clouds of white fog. The smart thing to do would probably have been to leave, assuming I could somehow do that, but if I did, I wouldn’t win. And I wanted to win.
See, I had this theory about small things.
First, you skimped on something small, then you’d do it again and again. And none of those things would matter much in the grand scheme of things. A package of M & Ms here, a skipped lap there, and before you knew it, you weren’t doing as well as the guy who had maximized his time.
“I’m not giving up,” I snarled as I hauled my frozen body out of the hole. Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I jumped into the hole feet first.
I shot downward like a bullet, and as I reached the apex of my dive, I reached out and felt the wall. While I didn’t feel the grate, I knew approximately where I was thanks to tracing my hand along the stone before, so I quickly made my way to the grate and grabbed onto it.
Once again, I braced my feet on either side and jerked on the grate, only this time, I used my Aura to enhance said strength.
“Come on, you son of a bitch,” I cried out in my head as my muscles strained and corded and Aura burned through my body at a perilous rate. My lungs burned with the strain, but I didn’t relent. I kept pulling as hard as I could.
Then, just as my Aura was about to run out completely, I flew backward with the grate in my hands. My back smacked into the other side of the tunnel with enough force to knock what little air I had in me out of my mouth. That was when I also realized the grate was dragging me down into the depths of the tunnel.
As my feet touched bottom a moment later, I quickly shoved the grate into my inventory before pushing off the ground with all my remaining strength. I shot upward through the water while kicking as hard as I could. The surface felt so far away, and as I kicked at the water, it didn’t feel like I was going anywhere.
I started to feel light-headed, and my body felt like it was trying to swim through tar, but still, I pushed. It was nearly impossible because my lungs were going to explode, and despite all my anaerobic pool training where I’d swam a beach ball down to the deep end of the pool and held it down for as long as I could, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.
My Aura was almost gone, but I forced what little I had left into my stubbornly slowing body and kicked with the enhanced strength. I rocketed upward, my hands stretched out in front of me as I broke the surface a moment later.
I clung to the side and sucked in a huge lungful of air, coughed several times, and then sucked in more. I wasn’t sure how long I hung on to the broken altar and focused on my breathing, but I was sure my coach Mick would have been very displeased.
Still, I eventually recovered, and though part of me wanted to swim back down to the new tunnel and investigate further, I instead pulled myself up onto the altar and opened my inventory. Then I pulled out the grate and studied it since I hadn’t actually seen it down in the murky water below.
It was surprisingly shiny, and near as I could tell, it was made of some kind of blue stone that seemed to weigh a ton but wasn’t otherwise interesting.
“Well, this seems really useful,” I muttered as I put it to the side and looked down at the hole. This next part scared me because I knew I was going to have to dive back down and enter the new tunnel. Still, I did have a plan to get an extra few seconds of underwater time. So, after waiting until my Aura had recovered, I picked up the heavy ass grate, held it against my chest, and jumped in.
Thanks to the added weight, I rocketed down through the water while counting off in my head. At the count of three, I shoved the grate back into my inventory and then reached out in time for my hand to catch the upper edge of the hole in the wall.
I took half a moment to steady myself and plant my feet against the back wall before pushing forward through the new tunnel. Unfortunately, I soon reached a dead end, and after feeling around for a few moments, I found nothing of much interest.
Frustrated, I made my way back to the surface to catch my breath. I repeated the process a few more times, but each time, I couldn’t find the way forward. I knew it had to be in the new tunnel I’d opened up since there was nothing else in the main tunnel, but I certainly couldn’t find it even with my Sense skill in Overdrive.
It had been too dark to see the one time I had opened my eyes in frustration, and as I climbed out of the hole and stared at the ceiling, I sighed.
“It’s too bad none of that algae grows down there,” I mumbled before sitting up like an idiot. “That’s it!”
I leapt to my feet so quickly that I almost lost my balance on the slick stone. Then I shiver-walked over to the nearest wall and looked up at the moss clinging to the ceiling about ten feet overhead.
“If I could pull some down, I’ll be golden,” I murmured as I stuck my fingers in the grooves of the ancient symbols and tried to pull myself up.
I wasn’t the best free climber in the world by any stretch, but I’d done my fair bit of climbing work on the rock wall back at my gym while wearing weight clothing. That said, my fingers and forearms were burning by the time I’d managed to inch myself up the wall while using just the grooves in the symbols for handholds.
Then, holding myself in place with one hand, I reached up and began to gather as much of the algae as I could.
You have learned the skill Herbalism. Increasing your skill will increase your ability to gather herbs and other plant life.
I smirked at that. When I had first started playing, I’d often taken the time to level up both Herbalism and Prospecting early on so I could make money quickly, and though I would often abandon training both skills later on in favor of ones with more advantages in the end game meta, I had a soft spot for them. Still, the thought that I was once again going down the same path made me smile.
“Good old Herbalism,” I said as I grabbed the last of the moss within easy reach, and judging that I had enough to at least get an idea of what was in the tunnel
, I made my way back down the wall which was considerably easier than getting up since I just sort of let go.
I barely felt the impact in my legs as I landed and scampered back toward the altar, excited as hell. It was time to figure out this damned puzzle.
A moment later, I was moving into the side tunnel with a fistful of glowing moss in one hand. Instantly, I understood why I couldn’t pass. While I hadn’t noticed it before thanks to the darkness, I now saw tiny markings in each of the corners, and when I touched them, they cycled through a series of four shapes.
It was a puzzle of some kind, but as I stared at it, I couldn’t help but think each of the four shapes looked familiar. Fixing the images in my mind, I made my way back up to the surface and looked around for clues while catching my breath. I’d just seen it somewhere… but where?
“Oh, I’m an idiot,” I mumbled a few moments later as I pulled out the grate to go back down once more because etched into the grate’s corners were the same four shapes.
This time when I went back down, I cycled through the shapes until they matched the ones on the grate. At first, nothing happened, and I was beginning to wonder whether I’d done it correctly when there was a whooshing sound.
I heard what sounded like grinding gears just before the entire wall in front of me fell away, and I was sucked out into oblivion.
17
The only thing worse than being ripped out of the tunnel in a vortex of suck was smashing into the netting at the bottom. I hit so hard that the breath whooshed out of my body, and as I lay there, trying to suck in gasps of breath, I vaguely realized I had a problem because what was coming toward me was very, very spiderlike.
And what I’d struck? Well, it wasn’t ground at all. It was a massive spider’s web.
“Fuck,” I murmured as I tried to scramble to my feet, but it was difficult because the goddamned web seemed to be made of slick, wet ice, so instead of sticking to it, I just slipped and fell on my ass.
Worse, I could see the huge spider about a hundred yards away as it crept toward me. Its body was all hard angles that glinted like rough-cut sapphires in the pale light of the luminescent blue moss clinging to the walls. As its beady, soulless blue pebble eyes fixed on me, I couldn’t help but shiver at the sight of it. Even from here, the thing seemed truly massive, like in the way a horse is massive, and I wasn’t quite sure how it managed to move along the web without cracking the crystalline structure.
Which was pretty much when I had, well, the best idea ever.
I whipped out my sling, took a pebble from my pocket, filled it with Aura, and let it fly at the spider’s feet. Sure, maybe it was a friendly spider, but judging by all the frozen bodies of ants lying around the web, I was willing to bet it considered me food and not a friend.
As the rock struck the ice at its feet, the huge spider reared back like a warhorse, revealing the blue black-widow hourglass on its torso. The creature’s front legs stabbed angrily through the air while its mandibles worked feverishly. Gobs of green goop sprayed from its maw and sizzled when it struck the ice around it.
I didn’t care though because I was already pulling out one of the soldier mandibles and letting it fly with all the power Auric Smash could muster. I hadn’t had long to charge it, but even still, a green glow enveloped the blade as it tumbled through the air, trailing sparks like a comet. It smacked into the soft underside of the spider’s carapace just below the joint where it met the head with a heavy thunk that threw the thing heavily onto its back.
The creature’s legs twitched as it tried to struggle, but the ten-inch mandible sunk in nearly eight inches, which was more than enough to pierce the creature’s heart. Or, at least, I hoped so given my relatively rudimentary knowledge of spider anatomy.
That said, I didn’t take any chances. I quickly scampered toward the creature in a sort of bear crawl that let me use the parts of the ice web like a makeshift ladder that, thankfully, didn’t wobble much. I was on the creature a second later, twin mandibles in hand, and I plunged them into the underside of the creature’s neck and quickly took its head off.
Once it stopped moving, and I got the message letting me know I’d killed a creature, I raised my hand to use Aura Extraction.
Again, the spell failed, and just like with the golem, the spider quickly dissolved into a pile of icy shards that left behind a chunk of blue crystal in the shape of an hourglass that seemed to pulse and throb with energy.
Heart of Ice Spider.
“Interesting,” I murmured as I stowed it in my inventory, and then because I was naked and freezing on an ice web and didn’t see any more spiders, I quickly set about getting myself dressed.
It was strange how much better I felt once I was clothed again, even though I was on an ice web over what looked like an endless pit of darkness. Thankfully, I could see flickering light a few hundred yards overhead and realized I was going to have to climb my happy ass up to it. The walls, while slick with ice, had a bunch of outcroppings on them that would make handholds, but I decided the web might be a bit easier since I didn’t want to try to make crampons and ice picks out of ant mandibles. Something told me that might not end well, even though I’d done my fair share of mountaineering adventures both in and out of Terra Forma.
I quickly did the bear crawl toward the wall where the edge of the web spiraled up the side like a giant frozen ladder. Then, since my hands were frozen, I took a moment to sit there and stare at them like a dumbass. Admittedly, it took me a lot longer than it should have to come up with the obvious answer which was to pull off my shoes and put my socks on my hands. Then I put my shoes back on and hauled my happy ass up the icy ladder.
It was tough because my hands were still frozen from the hard ice, and each movement threatened to make me slip and fall to my death. I had to go slow, which was both excruciatingly frustrating and excruciatingly painful, but somehow, I managed to scale the three hundred plus yards of frozen spiderweb.
And yes, when I reached the top, I just pulled myself onto the snowy embankment and laid there, lungs heaving. It was strange. I had done tons of training on ladders and what not and was in pretty great shape overall, but even still, I was horribly out of breath.
“You always think you’re trained until you try to do something,” I murmured. It was one of Mick’s favorite sayings, and I’d often found it to be true. No matter what you did, it was never enough, and even when everything was going well, something could pop up that you’d never expected. “Which is why I always expect the unexpected.”
Still, after putting my socks back on my feet and getting up, I was a bit shocked when I made my way toward the wall of the cliff face. Because while it hadn’t been visible from my perch on the edge before, now I could clearly see the figure of a woman etched into the stone. Her figure was adorned with the same symbols I’d seen in the room with the golem, and her torso was covered with that same black widow’s hourglass I’d seen on the spider.
The thing was, the figure etched on the wall seemed familiar. I’d definitely seen it somewhere, in some scrap of lore, and as I searched my memory for the answer, my eyes widened in shock.
“Queen Mab,” I murmured as a shiver of fear passed through my body. “The gatekeeper to the Cold and Dark. The lady of the Dead and Hungering.” As the words left my lips in a frozen cloud, I could have sworn the etching’s dark, frosted eyes fixed on me.
Another shiver racked my body, but this one was different because it sort of came from the core of my being and reverberated out of me, almost like my very soul was afraid to stand before her.
While I’d never encountered the Dark Lady in the game, I’d heard the tales from a few fellow gamers, and they never seemed to end well because she was a frosty, cruel mistress. Hell, even the wikis had said little about her, and all the videos I’d ever watched never were quite clear on her fleeting desires, since she often just killed those who found her outright.
“What is it you seek, adventurer?” The words rolled
over me like the icy, freezing rain, like the cold, uncaring earth as it swallows you whole. No, that wasn’t quite right, it was like the endless void of death. “Is it death? Because that is a gift I am able to grant.”
The etching’s face twisted into a cruel, contemptuous smirk and her eyes seemed to shine with a malevolence that caused the whole of the wall’s face to glow with blue light.
“I have not come to seek death,” I replied because it was true, and well, honesty was the best policy. Even still, I was terrified beyond measure. I wasn’t quite sure what would happen if I died here. Would I respawn back outside the dungeon, on my world like in Terra Forma? Or would I go to the great beyond and Zaxcs would take everything?
“Oh?” It was a curious titter with more than a little amusement behind it. “Interesting.” That final word was marked by a crackle of ice as the etching’s glow began to fade until only the symbol on her chest was glowing with soft, blue light.
As I stared at it, a thought occurred to me, and I quickly pulled the Heart of Ice Spider from my inventory and held it out. As I did, the feeling of correctness washed over me. There were no words or anything, nothing but that cold, cloying feeling in my gut receding a touch, but it was enough.
I pressed the Heart into the spot on Mab’s chest, and as I did, the entire world exploded in a flurry of ice and snow as a wind that could have carried me down to the frozen banks of Hell itself whistled across my tiny ledge.
“So, it is death you seek.” The words glowed in the air before me in burning sapphire script, spoken to power by her very will, and as they melted away into bits of blue ash that littered the snow at my feet, Queen Mab stepped forth from the wall.
She was inhumanly beautiful, with long flowing white hair and skin of the palest blue moonlight. Her eyes were entire voids of sapphire seemed a bit too big for her perfect face, almost like an anime character brought to life. A shroud of frozen silk drifted down along her curves, hiding the important bits while letting me see enough to let me know they were truly magnificent. And then there was that strange cold emptiness that radiated off her like a living thing. Shadow seemed to cling to her every move as she raised one delicate hand into the air in front of herself and held out her palm expectantly, then she arched one pale white eyebrow.