As we crawled deeper into the dungeon, there were a couple more attacks of the stupid worms, sometimes even multiple at the same time, turning the small tunnel into a rather odd dodgeball-court, with us desperately avoiding the sudden lunges. It helped that Sigmir realised that the worms only came out of frozen parts of the wall, not out of rock or earth and were only able to rapidly burrow into those parts afterwards. Less possible attack-angles made it easier to anticipate their attacks and I had a feeling that their ability to literally eat my attacks was very much connected to their ability to burrow through the strange, glacial ice that made up the dungeon. In addition, their tunnels almost instantly froze over after they vanished through them.

Part of me wanted to investigate further, finding out how the did their thing, but the revulsion was stronger, keeping me from taken a closer look.

Finally, we left the narrow, almost claustrophobic tunnel and entered a larger area, apparently created when a couple of large rocks crashed against each other and were pushed up by the relentless glacial movement. The ground seemed to be a single, huge rock or boulder, polished smooth by countless eons of slow moving ice and snow.

From the chamber we were in, three additional tunnels branched off, each heading deeper into the moraine.

“Careful. I have a bad feeling about this.” I told the others. My gamer-instincts were screaming that this would be either a boss or a mini-boss room, not that there was anything that really hinted at it, other than my instinct. The others fanned out a little, so we all had space to dodge, just in case I was right. Taking a glance through Lenore’s sight, I noticed that a particular part of the ceiling was glowing with Astral Power.

“Above us!” I yelled, just as the rocks that had looked like part of the ceiling came crashing down, forcing Sigmir and Rai to dodge aside. Luckily they had been warned, or things might have turned out bad. Not that they couldn’t turn out bad anyway.

The rocks were not as random as I had believed them to be, a couple of larger rocks were linked by smaller rocks, gravel ice and even a few, frozen branches. Sigmir and Rai stayed back while the thing collected itself and got up, not for reasons of chivalry or fair-play but because they had no idea what we were facing and how it would move. Attacking a prone foe was only a good idea if you knew that the prone status was a hindrance to them, not an advantage. Charging in and getting rewarded with a boulder to the face was a bad idea.

It took a few second, but then, the thing was standing on two larger rocks, looking almost humanoid, with the two rocks it was standing on as legs, two smaller, asymmetrical rock-formations as arms and finally, a huge, ellipsoid boulder as torso and head. The whole thing was about a head taller than Sigmir. Unsure just what we were facing, I tried to observe it and learned that we were facing a so-called “Clast Elemental”, and it was an admirable level 57. The level shocked me deeply; so far, we had faced no foe above level 40 in this dungeon, and now, a jump to level 57? That seemed deeply problematic.

Adra got out her bow and started shooting, even if it seemed like a pointless gesture. I hesitated to even try - it was, after all, a rock, held together by magical ice. So, throwing more ice at it seemed like a rather pointless waste of Astral Power. Better to save my power, healing and buffing my allies. I did, however, try to reach out with my Ice Magic, checking if I was able to influence the icy parts of the elemental. To my surprise, I was able to feel them but, as expected, completely unable to assert any influence on them.

Adra managed to chip off some ice but her arrows clearly had little effect. Sigmir stepped up, shield raised and glowing with her red aura, dodging the first strike made by the larger and thicker arm before hacking into it with her axe. Her strike chipped off some more ice, if we continued like that, we could make shaved ice, soon. After her attack, the thing’s counter strike was blocked by her shield and she was forced to take multiple steps back, to keep her balance. Rai jumped also in, chipping off more ice and even a few small rocks.

The only positive thing was that the thing was slow and cumbersome. It ignored Rai and Ylva, maybe their efforts were simply not worth its attention, and focused on Sigmir. She was unable to evade all attacks the thing made, but managed to block the few that she could not dodge with her shield, taking some bruises - but nothing my Blood Runes could not deal with.

After the first few exchanges, it turned out that the fight was more tedious than anything else. Our enemy was incredibly hard and strong, but its slow speed allowed us to fight at our leisure. There was no need to risk anything by experimenting, so I stayed back and kept my power in reserve, to heal when needed. Whenever my Astral Power was topped up, I channelled some of it into strength-buffs for Sigmir - her axe was the most useful tool we had to deal damage to the stupid elemental. Even Adra decided that making more arrows out of her Astral Power was a pointless waste and started to poke the thing with her pointy stick. Not that it showed a lot more effect, but a bit more.

It took us almost twenty minutes of constant fighting to slowly whittle away at the stupid elemental, Adra, Ylva and Rai focusing on a single leg, or rather the hip-junction, chipping away the connection to the leg while Sigmir chopped whatever she could conveniently reach without overextending herself.

Finally, the leg they had been attacking broke away and the thing toppled over, the various parts shattering on impact with the floor. It seemed more a rule-of-cool animation than an actual physical effect but I was happy nonetheless.

Clast Elemental diedYou gain 5 000 EXP. For killing an opponent 3 level above you you gain Bonus EXP For killing an opponent without a Traveller in your party, you gain Bonus EXP For killing an opponent with the Dungeon Traveller-Bonus in effect, you gain Bonus EXP

Something drew me to the fallen Elemental, the smell of something delicious, emanating from the crack in the largest boulder. I had never smelled anything like it it smelled like the magic I was commanding, only more so.

Stronger, clearer, crisper. I was lacking words to describe the smell, only that I was salivating to get my hands on whatever was smelling like this.

While the others had sank down, regaining their strength after the fight, I straddled the boulder, slowly letting Ice seep into the crack, before pushing it apart, widening the crack, until, with a loud, shattering sound, the boulder came apart and I saw what I had been smelling.

In the middle of the boulder, encased in rock, had been a single, silvery-white gem, about the size of a fist and radiating icy cold. I inspected it and learned that it was called “Eternal Ice”, so maybe not a gem. Or maybe a gem with a special name.

Reaching out with my Ice Magic, I got a serious surprise. When I grabbed it, I felt a freezingly cold sensation transmitted back into me, painfully cold. I could not hold onto the gem for long, just long enough to pull it from its place and grab hold of it with my hands. The cold instantly transmitted into my hands, causing me to start shivering for the first time.

“Fascinating. I think we will learn quite a lot from this thing.” Lenore stated. She was not interested in Ice Magic, but when I learned, she learned as well, often drawing inferences from my furthered understanding to use with her own magic.

“We will have to study this thing a lot. I think it might lead me to the pinnacle of Ice Magic, maybe even allow me to understand a rune or two.” I felt giddy with the possibilities. Judging by the temperature, the Eternal Ice might be a higher form of ice compared to my Hard Ice. So, understanding how it worked, what it was, might propel me to unknown heights.

But first, I wanted to take care of the others, they were in need of dinner and rest. Trusting that the rock beneath us would keep us safe from the annoying querders, we set up camp, it had been a long day of hiking, fighting and discovery.