“It’s okay.” Holding his hands over Emilia’s motionless form, Christoph channelled mana through his gauntlets warmed the area. Ice, there was ice everywhere. Where before there had been fur, a solid layer of ice covered the cat-girl’s body. Her limbs were frozen in place, and her blue lips shivered with each passing moment. “You’re going to be fine.”

Hands trembling, Christoph resisted the urge to tear the frozen chunks free. The thin layer of sleet on the skin of her stomach had long since melted away, but there was just so much fur. Should he melt the ice directly? No, the spellform he was using was a flamethrower-type enchantment, and keeping a handle on the rate of mana was all that he could do. He’d already burned the skimmer pulling her from the saddle, he couldn’t risk doing the same to her exposed skin. There was nothing else he could do.

For a moment, he thought of a steel hallway, dark and cold. Pushing the memory from his mind, he forced himself back to the situation at hand. Even a mere second of inattention would be enough to engulf his companion in flame. Because of the directional nature of the enchantment, he could still feel the way his tears were freezing halfway down his cheeks. Was there really nothing else he could do?

Fingers twitching, Christoph looked up at Emilia’s face. She just looked so cold. Her eyes were blank, now, and she hadn’t spoken since. She couldn’t feel her ears… Could he warm them for her? Reducing the flow of mana to a trickle, his hands shook as they approached her head. Even with his blurred vision, he could see that they were much too fragile for him to possibly touch. His hands flared with heat, and flames licked at the beast-woman’s form for a fraction of a second. Regaining control of his mana, he returned to warming his partner from afar.

“I’m sorry.” His voice came out as a sob. “I’m so sorry.”

…

“Hey, Terminal?” Christoph tapped at the keyboard, waving the doll over to his side. “Look here.”

“Yes?” Leaning around the young boy, Terminal tilted her head at the monitor in question. “Is there a problem?”

“No, just look.” Pointing at the screen, he rotated the schematic, highlighting a particular section of the 9th hallway. He was old enough to have memorized the layout of the lab, but he’d only recently found out how to work the computers and still had trouble recognizing the diagrams. “What’s this part here?”

“It seems to be an emergency exit,” Terminal replied. “Exit 9, to be exact.”

“There’s a person.” Turning in his chair, the child looked up at the doll with wide eyes. An onlooker might have described the boy as a young teenager, but his physique was rather deceptively well-developed. “Can we let them in?”

“We cannot.” Terminal rose from his side, standing straight. “A reminder: lockdown is in effect awaiting Lady Josephine’s return.”

“But-”

“You do not have permission to lift the lockdown,” Terminal said. “Full access permissions are scheduled to be transferred to you in 5 years, 4 months and 6 days.”

“I’m going!” Suddenly leaping from his chair, Christoph rushed out of the room before the doll could react. “I want to see them!”

Terminal had full control of the facility itself, but he knew she was not allowed to restrict his movements personally. Running down the hallways, he passed through several automatic doors and across numerous walkways before making his way to hallway 9. Finding the door, he pressed his hands up against the steel surface. Through the small window, he could see a human from the outside world moving around. What were they doing out there?

“Hello?” A woman’s voice reached his ears, and Christoph jumped in surprise, almost unable to recognise her words. She sounded nothing at all like Terminal did. “Is someone there?”

“Hi!” Tapping at the glass with his palms, Christoph smiled up at the woman outside. “My name’s Christoph!”

“Hello Christoph.” The woman paused, looking around her surroundings for a moment. “I’m Jess. Are you parents home? I think I’m lost.”

“Uh-uh.” Shaking his head, Christoph stood up on his tip-toes, peering out through the window. She’d moved things! Things outside never moved! “It’s just me and Terminal here. Josephine left a long time ago.”

“Terminal?” Jess slumped against the door, forehead leaning on the window pane. “Look, I got lost exploring the basement of that old church. I’ve been wandering around here for hours and I’ve seen spiders so big, you wouldn’t believe it. Can you help me get back to the surface?”

“I don’t know how,” Christoph replied. “Is the surface nice? I’ve always wanted to go back.”

“You’ve always…” The woman stared down at him through the glass. “What do you-”

“That’s enough,” Terminal’s said. For a moment, Christoph thought the doll was on the other side of the door. Turning around, he saw her behind him and realized it had only been her reflection in the glass.

“Terminal!” Bouncing on his feet, the boy tapped at the window excitedly. “She’s outside! Can I go outside, too?”

“We should leave,” the doll said, resting a hand on Christoph’s shoulder. “Let’s go play in one of the other sections.”

“An android?” Jess waved at Terminal through the glass. “Can you take me back to the surface? I’m lost, and none of my stuff seems to be working under-”

“Let’s go, Christoph,” Terminal said, crouching down beside him. “The heatseekers will be here soon.”

“Hey, you can’t just ignore me!” Pounding on the steel frame, Jess called out to the doll again. “You can’t leave when someone’s in danger! What kind of android are you?!”

“Ah.” Christoph stood on his tiptoes, looking past the woman outside. “Heatseekers.”

“Heat-” Turning around, the woman froze in shock. The walls and floor of the narrow hallway were no longer visible, buried beneath a twitching mass of slender legs. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the spiders weren’t simply large because of their species. They had been designed that way.

“Come now Christoph,” Terminal said. “I’ll race you back to section 12?”

H-hey.” Jess glanced through the glass over her shoulder, fingers tapping on the door as the spiders moved closer. “This isn’t funny, let me in already.”

“Let her in!” Christoph said, tugging at Terminal’s arm. “Can’t she come play with us?”

“The laboratory is on lockdown,” the doll replied. “You don’t have the permission required to unseal the doors.”

“Get away from me!” Pounding on the door again, Jess called out to Christoph this time. “Hey kid, your droid’s broken! You have to let me in!”

“I can’t,” Christoph replied. “I don’t have permission.”

Kicking out at the heatseekers as they approached, Jess jolted as a pair of steel fangs lanced into her leg. A sudden coolness surged into her calf, the sensation quickly replaced by a blaze of heat. Steam rose up over the hallway as the acid began to burn into her bones. Taking their cue, the horde of spiders swept forward, metallic legs clicking as they covered the flailing woman.

“Hey! Leave her alone!” Beating against the door, Christoph felt the steel grow hot under his tiny hands. “Don’t be mean to Jess!”

“Christoph.” Terminal tugged at his shoulder, pulling his attention away from Jess’ pitiful cries. “You shouldn’t be here. There’s nothing you can do.”

“Terminal?” Christoph looked up at the doll, tears welling up in his wide eyes. “Why are they doing that to Jess?”

“She’s an intruder,” Terminal replied, smoothing his hair away as the woman’s screams trailed off. “The heatseekers are there to keep you safe.”

“Christoph!” Somehow, the woman still had the strength to call his name. “Help me, Christoph!”

“I’m sorry,” Christoph said, hands burning as he pressed them up against the glass. “There’s nothing I can do.”

…

“Christoph?” Emilia’s voice snapped him back into the present, his hands jumping as she slowly stirred. Cracking the ice as she sat up, water dripped from the cat-girl’s fur into the puddle below. Ear twitching, she blinked up at him. “Why is someone screaming?”

Screaming? It took Christoph a moment to process the question, his surroundings slamming back into him all at once. Jolting upright, hunger welled in his gut as his burns began to fade. Screaming… Turning away from the beast-woman, he looked back towards the disk of ice behind them.

“Coin!” A flash of mana accompanied Lily’s cry. “Coin!”

Warming the ground beneath his companion, Christoph double-checked her condition. Most of the ice was gone by now, and her breath was coming naturally as well. Vaulting up onto the ice, he made his way towards the centre of the platform. Lily and Quester were standing upon the ice, and he could see Ruth crouching over an unconscious Regal nearby. Coin’s spear stood upright between a mass of half-frozen golems, but there was no sign of the spearman himself.

“Wake up.” Steam rose around Lily’s hands, and Christoph caught a glimpse of Coin’s face in the ground below. She’d uncovered his face by melting a patch of the ice away, but the rest of his body was still buried a foot below the surface. “You have to wake up!”

Pushing Quester out of the way, Christoph used his gauntlets to melt a swathe of ice around the spearman’s frozen form. Carving out a rough silhouette, he lifted chunks of the human-shaped sheet of ice free. The ice directly around Coin’s body had already melted into water, and he could see the signature of Lily’s sprite dancing within the adventurer’s chest. Had she used it to warm his very soul? Pulling the half-naked man up onto solid ground, Christoph turned towards where Quester was standing above them.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Rising to his feet, he pointed down at the still form of the spearman. “Not only Emilia, you target your own party members with your spells?”

“What we do is none of your business.” Quester’s face remained blank, his words coming impassively. “Regal-”

“I heard you telling her to cast the spells!” Christoph said, stepping toward the plain-looking man. “Don’t blame this on Regal.”

“That’s right,” Quester said, a large knife appearing in his hand. “I told her to do it. Do you have a problem with that?”

Christoph’s sword arced through the frigid air, the crystal blade sweeping towards Quester’s shoulder. Twisting around, the adventurer moved to catch the blow on the flat of his knife, sliding back across the ice as he blocked the attack.

“Not even close,” Quester said, shaking the cold from his joints as he came to a halt. “Even one-on-one, I hope you’re prepared to die for that.”

Using one of the half-buried golems as a foothold, Christoph launched himself towards his opponent. Hopping from stone to stone in order to avoid the corrugated surface of the ice, he levelled another attack at the adventurer’s head.

Ducking under the sweeping blade, Quester slid across the ice almost naturally, feet bobbing with the curves of the frozen ground. Gliding around through the half-buried form of the golems, he bit down on the back of his knife and used both of his hands to propel himself not towards Christoph, but away from him.

“You slippery…” Leaping between the exposed golems, Christoph used his left hand to melt the ice from their surfaces before landing, avoiding the environmental hazards altogether. How could the bowman keep his balance on something like that? Careful not to melt any of the golems free as he chased after the adventurer, Christoph struck out at him whenever he was within reach.

Grinning past the thick steel of his knife, Quester sailed backwards across the ice, dodging the crystal blade whenever possible and only pausing to use his knife when absolutely necessary. Drawing a pouch from his belt, he tossed it towards his airborne opponent, closing his eyes at it met the heat from Christoph’s left hand. Ignoring the roar of the explosion, he kicked off the golem behind him and reversed his momentum, slashing at Christoph’s leg with a second knife as they passed each other.

“Whoops.” Taking the hunting knife from between his teeth, Quester held both his weapons up towards his foe. “Did I hurt you?”

Blinking to clear his vision, Christoph paused atop the flat surface of a golem’s broad back. An explosive? If Quester had more of them, it’d be dangerous to continue relying on his flamethrower enchantment to clear a path. Shaking his leg as it began to heal, he recognized the dull ache of poison from within the wound. Feeling his hunger welling up, he remembered Quester’s position within the Sacrilegious Shield. The plainly dressed man was not here to fight monsters, but to kill people.