The five of them headed back out to the frozen lake’s center and explained his plan, “We need to split up, I’ll stay in the middle, the rest of you need to walk from me towards where your crystal points. I’ll use light magic to make myself as bright as possible so that hopefully you can see me at all times. To be safe, when you get to your point count to twenty then come back.”
Everyone nodded and they all faced different directions, Eli counted off and they all started walking, crystal in one hand and weapon in the other, Except for Beau, but he was in his armor which made his hands more like molten hammer weapons than him being unarmed. Eli stayed still and cranked up his light magic so that he would be bright enough for them to hopefully not lose sight of him. As soon as all four of them disappeared into the snow storm, a rock dropped into Eli’s stomach as he slightly panicked that the reason the crystals had to be so far away was that it was meant to separate them.
Every second was tense and filled with worry, letting the tense thoughts float in his mind he realized that he was more worried about being responsible for their death than he was about them dying. Except for Lucy, her entire life had been decided for her and she was never given a choice, he had a bad feeling that following him was going to get her killed. Only about five seconds had passed since he lost sight of them, they probably weren’t even to their spots yet, he needed to think about something else so he focused on possibilities for what would happen next. It could open a cave to the boss, it could summon the boss to them, it could do nothing and the puzzle was harder than he thought, the possibilities just went on and on in his head.
Trying to recapture his thoughts, he focused on what he could to prepare, so he conjured a light version of his cudgel so swinging it wouldn’t move him around on the ice so much… Then he just stood there, he could not think of one other thing that he could do to prepare, since he didn’t know what would happen any other preparations would make one scenario easier and three others harder. Eli decided that he should count, so that he could have a better grasp on the time that has passed and to give his mind something to do. But he only made it to eight when, out of complete nowhere, a giant monster materialized in front of him in an instant, with four minions that literally hit the ground running in the direction of his people.
The boss monster was a vicious looking mix of the bear and fox he had seen earlier, it had a polar bear front half that faded into an arctic fox back half. And just like the foxes, it also had lovecraftian nightmare teeth, there over a hundred of them and they all looked like jagged needles somewhat similar to piranha teeth but more plentiful. The suddenness and closeness of the boss had seemed to startle them both and they were just looking at each other, only a few feet separating them. This pause only lasted for a second though as the boss quickly realized what it was looking at and lunged forward for a bite. Eli barely noticed in time and was able to jump up as its head came forward, and Eli grabbed the fur on the back of its head to try and brace himself.
This had not been the genius plan he thought it was as his strikes with his weapon not doing much damage and he felt that it was going to dislodge him soon. Getting a handle on what he was doing, right before Eli was about to make a clean hit, the boss used a dash skill and he landed on the ice with a chunk of fur in his hand. This was a concerning development, mainly because he had planned on holding onto the boss to avoid the difficulties he had from not having a good grip on the ice. While still reeling from having to come up with a new plan the boss monster bear fox thing turned and charged at his mouth open and a frosty roar vibrating Eli’s bones a bit.
His body was still glowing so he decided to try something, he blinked himself into the ice, but only about a foot deep so the light coming off of him would be obvious. He blasted his fire node into his body as fast and as hard as he could, his skin caught fire and the ice around him started to boil. Only a few seconds later as the boss was approaching and pawing at the ice, Eli exploded in a steam explosion under the ice. It wasn’t a very large explosion, only being a foot deep into the ice, it could only hold so much pressure. But it had gone off almost perfectly in the boss monster’s face, spraying it in the face with ice shards temporarily confusing it while it used its giant front bear paws to try and clear the ice shards away.
Eli wanted to use this time to check on everyone, but he had to let them figure this out on their own. Those monsters are fast, but Bethany is faster so she will probably finish hers first then go help Lucy. The two boys were both defensive fighters, so they could last a lot longer in a fight even if they are outclassed. Focusing his hearing he only heard two fights going on still so maybe they were doing ok, no one screamed that he could hear so he hoped everything was alright. The bear fox boss monster was starting to collect itself, but its vision had to be blurry, if not from the injury, then from the blood running down its face. They both knew that the next exchange would be dangerous, but waiting wasn’t an option.
Doing his best to maintain control on the ice, Eli jumped up and towards the boss in a long arch. It was a total newbie move that would normally get him bit in half in mid air. The monster would look up to make sure Eli wouldn’t land on him or come down with an attack, right as it looked up, Eli threw a very spiky throwing cudgel into its already damaged eye. The boss monster stood on his back legs to its full 24ish foot height then fell to a seated position, as its front paws came down to the ice it let out a roar. The sound was dizzying but the frost magic that came with it was the tough part, even with his fire node warming him, throughout the eight or ten second long breath attack, icicles formed all over his body, melting then refreezing.
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Eli and the boss were both very still after the breath attack, the boss was dealing with its inability to remove the spiked object in its eye, and Eli because his skin was mostly frozen solid. The funny thing about frozen skin is, its dead and as his internal temperature defrosted his frozen skin, it fell off. So all of the skin on the front of him slowly fell off over the course of twenty seconds or so and in that time the boss’s eye that he hadn’t hit was starting to heal enough that Eli could tell it was regaining its sight. He didn't feel pressured by the fight but he was worried about his people, so he didn’t want to drag this out very much if he could help it. His best plan was to use a faint toward its good eye, it's a believable target and something it would commit heavily to in order to protect it.
The problem with this plan was he didn’t know where to strike instead of the eye, he still couldn’t grip anything well enough to really get a weapon swing or a smash to be worth it. If he used a bladed weapon maybe he could go for the throat or leg tendons or something, but he didn’t know. However, the monster wasn’t going to give him time to make up his mind and it used its dash skill to come right up to Eli in a flash. He had seen this before and noticed a slight shimmer around it so was ready and had jumped a few feet off the ground towards where its good eye would be when its dash skill was over. His guess was not perfect but close enough to scare the boss into twisting to hide its eyes and bring a paw up.
That's when Eli saw it, the back of its skull was wide open and there were little bumps where its spine started. He pretended to continue his swing as if he hadn’t noticed the bear fox dodge, and right when he would have been off balance from over committing to the swing, he blinked. The boss had thought that it was going to catch its foe off-guard and off-balance with its quick dodge, but when it countered at just the right moment, it missed, and then it was knocked unconscious. Eli knew it wasn’t dead, it was just knocked out and it wouldn’t stay that way for long, so he jumped a few feet off the ground and conjured a heavy cudgel, crushing its skull and part of its spine.
Now it was dead, after a few deep breaths he gathered himself and looked around trying to see which of his companions would need help killing their boss minion, but all four of them were standing there looking at him. They all had grim facial expressions, and Eli was clueless as to why until he looked down at himself noticing he was completely covered in blood and brain. A quick blink back to the ice, left the gore behind and he was partially clean now, his own blood and sweat and grime aren’t left behind when he blinks so there was that. The snow storm was slowing down and Bethany and Eli were radiating heat to try and give the others a few seconds of warmth. However, with the wind and snow coming to a stop the cold was abating and they were able to see more clearly every second.
With the weather clearing they could now make out what the map had been, it was an oval lake surrounded on all sides by cliff walls that were impressively high, probably 200 feet or so. The safe room cave was in the center of a wall where the wall was closest to the lake center. The shocking part was that even higher than the cliff walls, there was a platform suspended above the center of the lake by metal poles that extended all the way to the top of the cliff walls. The platform was circular and from underneath looked like it had magic runes etched underneath.
Cody was the first to speak, “How do we get up there?” everyone just kept staring up at it, it was easily the most magical looking thing that they had seen ever. Even Lucy, who supposedly comes from a world that's had magic for millennia, her jaw was open just as much as everyone else's. The runes glowing underneath it were so artfully crafted that it was like priceless painting to their eyes. Then a spot on the edge started to sink lower than the rest, then another and another getting faster and faster.
“Stairs,” Lucy said in barely a whisper.
Starting from a point on the edge of the platform, stairs were falling down to them, they weren’t attached to anything and the runes on them shifted in color slightly as they fell. By the time the first stair to fall had reached the ground the process had stopped and the group just stood there in awe of the magical beauty they had just witnessed. Everyone had a tear in their eye, except Bethany, belatedly, Eli noticed that she didn’t seem impressed at all which made him aware that something was wrong.
“Whats wrong?” Eli asked, turning to face away from the stairs and looking her in the eye.
“That was soul magic, it was slight, but it was meant to mesmerize the viewer,” Bethany said.
Then Eli realized how she had avoided it, she had a deep wound in her side, it wasn’t bleeding, but it looked like she was regrowing a rib bone. The pain from the healing must have been what distracted her mind enough for her to notice it. It didn’t seem dangerous but the concept was dangerous. He hadn’t noticed any magic at all, which worried him, but the more immediate worry was trying to figure out why the magic was there in the first place. If this floor of the dungeon is over, what was this for and why didn’t he notice it? Turning back to the group, a slight tap on the forehead woke them out of their stupor and without a better alternative, as a group, they started walking up the stairs.
