The Ice Lands

by William Dickey

  You have completed the second step of the quest: †Investigating the Permerine Shrine†

  You have successfully figured out how the Shrine is related to the unusual weather. Now all you have to do is find a way to stop it.

  ‘Yes,’ Mai agreed. ‘But why would you put one device on the side of the building to heat this entire place. There must be more of them.’

  It was a lot of work and I had to take many more risks than I would have liked, but over the next few days, I snuck around whenever I could and tracked down all the AC units. One thing I had going for me was that I knew that the backside of the AC units had to be exposed to the open air, so I only needed to search the exterior walls of the first floor. All told, there were seven of them.

  “I wonder why they did it that way,” I mumbled as I made my way back to the murlimp sleeping quarters with a pair of large empty pails that were our toilets.

  In order to get time alone and with an excuse to be walking about, I volunteered for a few less than pleasant choirs including doing laundry and emptying the latrines. Contrary to conventional sense, the laundry was actually the worse of the two. As it turned out, murlimp ball sweat was stickier and smellier than their fecal matter, which was a fine almost coal-like powder whose only challenge arose from how easily it was rendered airborne.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mai asked.

  “I mean, why use an AC unit type device? There has to be a better way to heat this place up,” I explained.

  On Earth, people used AC units because they wanted the cold air. If you wanted to heat something up, it was far easier and more efficient to directly turn energy into heat, like a space heater, or to literally burn something, wood, coal, or gas. Even if the daemons had a magical means of bringing up the AC unit’s efficiency, the device still had the weakness of requiring to be installed in an outside wall.

  ‘It could simply be that the cold air is their primary motive, the heating of their fortress is just a side benefit,’ Mai suggested. I didn’t understand the implications of that statement right away. I was too distracted by the next thing Mai said. ‘The real curious thing is: how much heat they are producing.’

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  ‘I can see all the units and they are too big and use too much power to just heat this place. The ducts above the machines must be redirecting a lot of the heat to other parts of the facility, perhaps to distribute the heat more evenly but I haven’t seen any other vents anywhere pumping out hot air,’ said Mai.

  “It could just be that the vents are on the ever mysterious sixth and seventh floors, where it’d be hardest for the heat from the machines on the surface to reach,” I said.

  ‘Perhaps, but I know what materials the outside of this structure is made of, I know how difficult it is for heat to pass through. I know how much it would take to heat this place up and those machines are producing way too much,’ said Mai.

  “Maybe there is damage to the lower levels that allows a lot of heat to escape,” I suggested.

  ‘If that is true than why is it so cold outside. Those seven large, magical AC units are cooling on a planetary scale. If there was a big heat leak here, wouldn’t it counter the cold experienced outside,’ said Mai.

  “They must be using the heat for something else,” I said.

  This information was mysterious and thus troubling, as any unknown variable would be when creating machinations with so much on the line, but there was no more that could be done with it, so I set the information aside. I didn’t have a full picture of the situation, but I had the best I was going to get. I took a day or two, came up with a plan, checked and rechecked it, making improvements along the way.

  It was risky, daring, and perhaps completely simple and insane, but it was the best I could do with what was available to me. The next bit was the hardest part, I waited. I was only going to have one chance at this and I needed everything to be perfect.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  “Come in,” said Lilith. The short un-modified murlimp obeyed and entered the lab.

  Originally, the lab room had been neat and tidy, but after only a few days, vials of disorganized liquids, chemicals mixed in with samples taken from the prisoners, covered much of the place. What little workspace remained was covered with scattered papers containing various test results.

  The mess was contrary to the order Malphestos demanded, but Lilith wasn’t worried. She still had a few days before her master returned, plenty of time to clean up, and getting results as quickly as possible was more important. She wanted basic panels for all the prisoners completed before Malphestos returned. She knew the only way to get him off one subject was to distract him with another and only with the preliminary data compiled could Malphestos dive straight in.

  “What is it?” Lilith asked as the murlimp approached her.

  “Urgent,” the murlimp growled as it thrust a piece of paper towards her. Murlimps were simple minded so you’d never trust them to verbally deliver a message and would write something instead.

  Lilith took the paper and read it: Accident in the Beezletz’s lab, need all available hands, including yours. -Distlemander.

  Beezletz’s lab was on the fifth level, and focused on something like mana quantization, Lilith wasn’t too sure. Different groups pretty much kept to themselves.

  Lilith was annoyed at the distraction, at having to stall her work even though it probably wouldn’t be for long, but she had no choice in the matter. She had orders.

  ‘That’s six,’ said Mai as I took out another AC unit. The machines were delicate and not meant to take a beating so it only took a swing or two with my halberd to destroy one.

  “Where was the seventh one again?” I asked as I kicked the other half of the machine outward, leaving a large exposed hole to the outside.

  ‘Really, what would you do without me?’ Mai waved a hand and a yellow arrow appeared a few feet in front of me. As I moved, the arrow did as well so it could guide me all the way.

  The next AC unit would also be the last one. Everything had gone as planned. Once I learned of the existence of the AC units, I pretty much knew what I had to do. I needed to destroy them all.

  This would quickly cool the whole building down, weakening or outright killing daemons inside while making it possible for my companions to escape. They couldn’t go anywhere while the ambient temperature was a thousand degrees. As a side benefit, this would also take care of the original mission, as the AC units were the cause of the frigid weather.

  If I wanted to be sure to freeze the whole place over, I needed to destroy them all. Naturally, given how they were spread across the first floor, I couldn’t take them all out so long as the place was swarming with daemons. Someone would notice the place cooling down, guards would be sent to defend the remaining AC units, and I’d be hunted down before I completed my task.

  So beforehand, I went to a lab on the fifth floor, the lowest floor I was permitted to enter, and spilled the contents of several vats. I didn’t know what was in them but from the warning labels knew they were all either toxic or highly unstable.

  A couple minutes after I left, as I was headed back up to the first floor, I heard a rather large explosion. I hadn’t intended that, but figured it would make things even easier. After that it seemed like almost all the daemons went down to the fifth floor to try to straighten things out, allowing me to run free on the first floor and destroy the AC units with impunity.

  The cold causes all stats to decrease by 5 %

  Unless you get warmer, stats will continue to decrease.

  Despite weakening me, for once I smiled at the notification. It meant the plan was working, it was already too cold to be suitable for daemons and given time, things would just get worse. I knew from Mai that murlimps were one of the few types of daemons capable of naturally surviving on the surface. Most of the daemons wouldn’t do as well. Of course, that still left a few super elites like Lilith, but I’d cross that bridge when I c
ame to it.

  I turned the last corner and the final AC unit came into view.

  ‘Hulk smash,’ Mai cheered and that was exactly what I did. I didn’t bother with the halberd this time and simply rammed straight through it. My heavy murlimp body moving at top speed hit the AC unit with tremendous force and the device was sheered in two along the plane of the wall. I quickly circled back and kicked the rest of the machine through, clearing the hole.

  My HP dipped slightly from the hit, but I didn’t care. The rush of adrenaline from crushing something with overwhelming brute strength was more than worth it.

  You have completed the quest: †Investigating the Permerine Shrine†

  You have successfully stopped the source of extreme weather phenomenon. Unfortunately as things are, this victory will be short lived. It won’t be long before the machines you destroyed are replaced.

  Congratulations. You have received the new quest: †Total Annihilation†

  Quest rewards for completing †Investigating the Permerine Shrine† will be frozen until †Total Annihilation† is completed.

  †Total Annihilation†

  Clear out all the daemons to the point where they will never come back.

  Difficulty: ********

  Reward: ???

  The continuing cold causes stats to decrease by additional 5%

  Total loss due to cold: -10%

  I took all the information in stride. It was a bit annoying that my rewards were delayed, but ultimately the messages changed nothing. I knew from the start that I needed to remove this place completely if I wished for a lasting resolution.

  ‘Don’t celebrate yet, you still have a lot to do,’ said Mai as she updated the tracking arrow so that it no longer pointed to the heap of scrap metal that had once been an AC unit. Instead, it pointed to my next objective, where my friends were being held.

  “Sinmo romu erogirf. Sinmo romu erogirf. Sinmo romu erogirf,” Lilith chanted. The remaining fluids spilled across the floor gathered themselves up into a large block and froze. Lilith didn’t know exactly what was in the stuff, but given the possibilities, she figured it was probably hazardous, even to daemons.

  “Avresnoc cnah mamrof.” Lilith cast another spell to help insulate the frozen blocks of chemicals she’d made. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have remained frozen blocks for long in this burning environment.

  Lilith called over a few daemons and told them to take the blocks upstairs and toss them outside. There it was cold enough for the blocks to remain frozen even after her insulation spell wore off and besides even if the chemicals in the blocks did leak, it’s not like it’d affect anyone. It was a frozen wasteland outside.

  The daemons took the blocks away and Lilith found another task to do. There was no shortage of work to be done. It had already been a couple hours since she’d received the message telling her to come here and help and it seemed that everyone in Niflheim had shown up to participate, yet the work was only half finished.

  When she’d received the message, she’d assumed it was going to be some minor job. Lowly support staff like Lilith were frequently called to such things when someone needed an extra hand.

  The mess turned out to be far worse than anyone could have predicted. Lilith found it difficult to tell exactly what happened in all the chaotic remains, but it seemed that some chemicals spilled. The resulting mixture exploded, causing more containers to rupture, resulting in a cascade of problems that enveloped the entire fifth floor in a toxic shroud.

  A few daemons had died. Many more had been sent to the infirmary. Never before had something like this happened at Niflheim in the decade or so the daemons occupied it.

  Lilith helped a couple of the other lab assistants go through and salvage what components they could from the damaged lab equipment before everything was cleared away, leaving nothing but a few empty rooms with cracks in the walls and ceilings. The damage to the room was relatively light considering how big the explosion had been.

  “Hey, is it just me or is it starting to feel a bit chilly in here?” asked one of the lab assistants from the third floor.

  “I was using a bit of ice magic in here a few minutes ago,” said Lilith. She herself had noticed the chill as well but assumed it was related to that. Still, as she thought about it, it seemed strange that it would have had such an enduring effect.

  “No, it’s not that. It actually feels a bit better here. It feels like it was colder over there,” said the lab assistant, pointing back towards the center of the complex.

  At first Lilith, like the others didn’t think much of the cold spot, but as the next few minutes passed, she couldn’t help but notice it gradually get worse. She also noticed that the daemons she’d sent with the frozen chemical blocks hadn’t come back. It made sense that they would take their time, no one enjoyed cleaning up a chemical spill, but even so, they shouldn’t have taken so long.

  “Lilith.” One of the lab assistants approached her. It was Sarin, a twig of a girl Lilith had chatted with a couple times in the cafeteria. She was shivering. “Do you think you could go take a look upstairs? Something is wrong.”

  Sarin had been cleaning up closer to the staircase, so she had felt the chill more acutely. Furthermore, she was a fire elemental and was more susceptible to a chill. As to why she went to Lilith, it was widely known that Lilith had once been one of the super elites who made up the Reconnaissance Division and was consequently one of the few daemons in Niflheim capable of going onto the cold surface without special gear.

  “I’ll go take a look,” Lilith agreed. The situation was curious and after working so hard in the back corner of the fifth floor, Lilith could use a stretch. Lilith made her way towards Niflheim’s only stairway. At first, she’d thought that maybe Sarin was overreacting, but by the time Lilith made it to the stairs, she knew the little fire elemental had been right. Something was very wrong.

  Lilith made her way upstairs quickly, not wanting to sit still and freeze her ass off. With each floor, the temperature dropped precipitously. It was so bad that by the time Lilith reached the third floor she had to stop to apply her thermal defenses.

  “Artnoc sugirf egetorp. Artnoc sugirf egetorp. Artnoc sugirf egetorp,” Lilith chanted, more out of habit than of need. That was one spell she’d relied on for months on the surface and could perform it quite literally in her sleep.

  Once the spell was up, Lilith felt much better and continued to advance. Between the second and first floor, Lilith spotted the bodies of trio she sent up with frozen blocks. They’d become frozen blocks. Lilith didn’t mourn them, she’d hardly known them, and continued onward thinking, ‘What the hell is going on, today?’

  When Lilith made it to the first floor, she headed straight to Niflheim’s front and only door. There were few ways for Niflheim to be exposed to the elements and someone either forgetting to close the door or being unable to close the door, seemed the most likely scenario. But when Lilith made it to the door, it was shut and everything looked completely fine.

  Lilith moved on, rushing now. Something was very wrong. Down a couple corridors, she found what she was searching for, a square hunk of metal sitting in the middle of the hallway that had been one of Niflheim’s heating units. Lilith walked past the large whole left in the wall. Her spell dulled the cold air that emanated from it, but it still was cold enough to cause her to shiver. To an unprotected daemon, it was instant death.

  Lilith looked over the scraps of metal that had once heated this place. The machine hadn’t accidentally malfunctioned and exploded. The damage was external. Lilith quickly moved to the next heater and found the same thing. You’d think that Lilith would feel worried or nervous, but she was actually excited. After her failure in the south, Lilith was basically stationed as a slave in Niflheim. She worked hard, doing her job as best as she could, not only to survive Malphestos but in the hopes of earning recognition and being allowed to return to her old reconnaissance position or something similar. However, things didn’t
turn out so easy, it seemed that no matter how hard she worked, there was simply no way for her to be impressive in this dull laboratory.

  This was her chance. There was an intruder in Niflheim, messing with its operations and killing residents. If she caught the culprit and prevented a complete disaster then Lilith would surely be well rewarded. A return to her former glory was within reach.

  “Tegua mutcepsa. Tegua mutcepsa. Tegua mutcepsa.”

  Lilith’s eyes glowed a faint purple. In this state, she could see through walls although with some difficulty. She used this power to scan the area quickly. She saw a couple more corpses from a straggler or two who hadn’t come to help out on the fifth floor, but nothing that moved and hence nothing that could be the intruder.

  Lilith increased the mana flowing into her eyes and increased their penetrative power. These eyes burned through a lot of mana, especially when turned up to a high degree like Lilith needed to see through multiple metal walls, but if she found the intruder it’d all be worth it.

  Lilith spotted movement on the other side of the first floor. Lilith didn’t know who or what it was, there was too much interference to see it clearly, but she had found her target.

  Ch. 28: Scorned

  I made my way down the narrow hallways of Niflheim. Countless experience and level gain messages rolled in as daemons across Niflheim started freezing to death.

  “This is actually working out,” I said to Mai. It always seems that no matter how well you plan something you hadn’t considered comes to disrupt it, but this time... “Everything looks to be going fine.”