A massive force shook the cavern and Tyren let out a tired sigh for the tenth time today, bringing his large winged shield to his chest. Holding his blue steel baton out from his shield, he stood and waited for the creature to approach. Even deep beneath the earth where the rock sat stubbornly, as dense and as hard as iron, this monstrosity's weight caused cracks to spread throughout the floor. Protruding malformed spikes dragged across one of the cavern's walls, slicing through the hardened rock like a knife through lard.

Tyren shuffled back while sweeping his gaze over the disgusting thing, tracking the distance between them, as its feet moved through the rocky wet terrain and out onto the subterranean swamp. Multiple pools of stagnant water and muddy filth were passed by till finally, one of its larger heavier chitinous legs pressed down into one of the many sinkholes of mud and fungi. The massive thing's weight sent the leg deep into the squelching, pulling, trap of nature. Its terrifying fused body of flesh, chitin, and hide made the small hole into a gaping crater, its size and weight making the suction increase as it responded to being trapped by thrashing wildly.

This was the moment he had waited for. Tyren leaned down and plunged his baton down into the murky green slop by his greaves. Tyren’s voice fell quiet, drowned out by the shrieking and thrashing of the abomination, keeping his words light and soft, his focus drew inward, settling completely on the incantation and the glimmering silver inlaid baton.

“From the taste of snow,

I call upon the winters cold

beckon thee icy winds to blow,

The world, brought to hold.”

Flash Freeze

Steam began to rise from the baton in Tyren’s gloved hands, the enchanted rod rapidly drawing heat from the slimy swamp water, at the same time as the icy incantation took effect. Around Tyren the underground swamp began to freeze, thick beautiful intricate lattices of ice formed across the surfaces of the cavern. Moments later, thick plates of greenish ice wrapped around the ankles of the monster, and around the knee of the trapped leg, digging into its flesh, scraping against the chitin, and freezing the thick hide. With a furious roar, Tyren tore the baton free from the ice and charged the immobile enemy, shouting as he slid across the ice on graceful practiced feet.

“NOW!”

As he skated across the ice, solid streams of purple and blue light impacted the monster's knees, each coming from a different side of the cavern, the vibrant colors illuminating the dark cave. He used the newly granted vision to slide down into the icy crater, skating in a half circle around the omnivore’s trapped leg before slamming the jeweled tip of the baton against the back of its knee. Once wedged in place against the joint, Tyren murmured the simple trigger word.

“Release.”

An explosion quickly followed by a small heat wave happened as all of the pent-up heat the baton had accumulated ejected directly into the vile thing’s vulnerable joints. Quickly pushing off the melting ice after the strike, he leapt from the crater and darted away, throwing himself behind a small cluster of mossy boulders. He managed to do so just as the huge thing tumbled forward and hit the icy floor with a BOOM.

Its impact showered shards of sharp ice and various bits of stone shrapnel into the pile of rocks he was huddled behind. Then he heard the distinct crackle of electricity, followed by the tear and pop of displaced air, yet another noise he’d grown so accustomed to in the last three weeks. He stood from behind the boulder, bracing himself against the stone, shield raised to cover him, body tense as he prepared to fight. Only to let his arm fall back down when he saw the creature motionless on the rapidly melting floor. His eyes followed the spine of the creature up to where a slender silver katana was being pulled free from a section of twisted fused flesh on the back of the monster’s neck.

“Arcane! Aqua! Did you have to wait till I was almost under the beast to hit it?”

Tyren loudly complained as he stepped off the slush and onto the nearby solid rocky ground. He hopped up several large boulders, his metal greaves leaving deep imprints on each stone as he moved.

One final long leap and Tyren pulled himself onto the ledge his little party called home. Already waiting above, two mages crouched around a small fire pit. One in a deep purple mask with gray mottled robes was flicking a small ruby against the stone ring of the pit to set some tinder ablaze. The other, in a light blue mask and matching mottled gray robes, turned to regard Tyren.

A shiver ran down his spine as he approached. Despite the masked scrutiny, no greeting or reply came. What bothered him more than the lack of speech was the sense of emptiness the blank mask and large robes exuded. The longer the vacant mask remained turned towards him, the more hairs on his back stood up. A chill had just started creeping down his spine at the thought of what could be behind that featureless blue mask when the robed figure turned away from him and back to the firepit.

“How many times are you going to try, Tyr? They CAN’T talk, it’s not like you’ll catch them whispering behind a tent one night.”

The soft sing-song voice came from the shadow of a nearby tent. When Tyren's only reaction was to roll his eyes, a piece of shadow broke away. Slowly the silhouette of a slender small woman in hooded leathers became clear in the dim light of the temporary camp. She skulked around the ledge, her dark emerald tail and matching ears twitching and jumping with each movement, clear signs of her fraying nerves to Tyren’s eyes.

“How about you, Styl? When are you going to do more than just lure the beasties? How about backing me up in case something goes wrong?”

Tyren fell back into the same conversation they’d been having for a week, his voice monotone and his posture slumping now that he was back inside the camp’s wards. When no response came from the twitching scout, Tyren withdrew to the largest, but simplest of the tents.

Lifting one of his pauldrons, Tyren took a quick sniff beneath the armor caused him to recoil in horror. Horrified by the stench he dug through one of his travel packs, coming up with his last sliver of soap; a mixture of wood ash, lye, and animal fat. Splashing some water under each arm, he furiously rubbed till bits of grime sloughed away.

Satisfied, he stowed the tiny amount of soap left back into his packs and moved back out to take a seat by the now roaring fire, just in time for the Swordsman to join the rest of their party. Tyren waved a gloved hand in greeting, which the Swordsman ignored, instead sitting on a small log beside the masked magicians. While they ate, Tyren watched the Swordsman; out of all of them, he was by far the strangest. A large conical hat woven of reeds, a series of cloth masks and mismatched paper talismans hanging from the brim, blocked all view of his face. The plain blue robes and charcoal gray sash appeared clean each morning. Whether the man had some way of cleaning his clothes overnight, or had an obscene amount of spares, he wasn’t telling. Then there was his sword.

Tyren had seen plenty of swords before, he had even trained a bit with a falchion and a spatha, but the strangely humming, curved blade, slender guard, and elaborate style of fighting caused him to question where exactly the Swordsman came from. But the absolute worst thing about the man was his sandals; open sandals with straps of leather binding them to his feet. Beneath them, he wore pure white woolen socks and even after trudging through miles of underground dirt, forests, tundras, and swamps, they were just as clean as the rest of the Swordsman.

Tyren tugged on his pauldrons self-consciously, taking a quick look at his sweat-caked undergarments, before quickly pushing the armor back into place.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Tyren said as he recoiled from the still filthy odor.

“On what? You want mid-shift of the night watch suddenly?” Styl responded with her mouth half full of food.

“What? Oh feck no! I mean, I’ve changed my mind about the first thing I’m doing once I get out of here.”

Tyren had been reaching for the ladle, the visceral response to being volunteered for the shite duty causing him to freeze and shout his denial.

Styl just stared at him, as he shoveled the lumpy stew into a bowl, before giving in.

“Alright spit it out, what is it now?” She asked with an exasperated sigh. “Some sweet idea about seeing your parents first, or that fiance of yours, or maybe there is a princess in a tower you’d like to rescue.”

“A bath,” Tyren responded between mouthfuls of mystery meat stew.

“What?”

“I decided the first thing I’m going to do when we get out of this freaking dungeon is take a bath. Or else nobody will recognize me. Abyss, they might smell me coming and think I’m a monster.” Styl gave a huge snort at Tyren’s response, her body slowly rising from the edge of the firelight and beginning to move away towards the shadows of the campsite as she spoke.

“I’ve told you a hundred times now, it’s not a dungeon, it’s a Labyrinth. And with the amount of money we’ve made, no one is going to care WHAT you smell like.”

Tyren finished the last of the too chunky stew in silence, turning to look at the other three members of their party. He groaned as he watched spoon after spoon disappear beneath the masks or under the hanging cloths and talismans without so much of a hint of skin showing.

“I don’t suppose any of you know what the difference between a Labyrinth and a Dungeon is?” He stood as he asked, brushing the dirt off of his armor.

“A Dungeon has a beginning and an end, a Labyrinth has neither.”

Tyren whirled around immediately at the flat bored voice to find the Swordsman had turned to look at him.

“You can TALK!? We’ve been down here for a fecking month an’ you can talk!?”

Tyren stumbled back towards the fire, his face twisting in shock, irritation, and confusion.

The Swordsman leaned forward and pulled more of the mystery meat stew into his bowl, completely ignoring Tyren’s outburst.

“Why? Why say nothin’ for so long?”

Tyren was back at the campfire standing over the man, his jaw clenched, several muscles visibly spasming as he pressured the Swordsman for a response.

“You didn’t say anything worth responding to,” The monotonous, apathetic voice that came out from beneath the wall of cloth and paper was in some ways worse than the silence of the empty masks.

Tyren felt old instincts rise within him, his hand wrapping around his baton’s handle as his temper flared. His teeth ground together, a hard smile formed on his lips, and his eyes began to reflect the cold steely rage within. Abruptly he exhaled. Tension froze in his body, as he closed his eyes in the middle of their campsite, trying his best to picture home.

When he could smell fresh dirt, hear the creak of old wooden boards, and picture his aged father waking before the sun was in the sky, he let his eyes open once again. Now calm, he glanced down to where the softly humming, silvery blade lay in its dull maroon sheath strapped to the Swordsman’s waist. Tyren let a partially feigned yawn escape his lips, excusing himself from the warm campfire to retreat into his small tent, laying out his worn bedroll for yet another futile attempt at sleep.

Tyren woke to darkness with no light of their camp's lumen stones, or glow from a banked campfire. Instead true, heavy, oppressive darkness had settled in about the camp. Tyren shifted slowly, moving carefully to not make any noise, he pulled his large shield over his chest. Then his fingers shifted through his bedside packs till he found the soft silk and velvet of a particular pouch. Taking just a pinch of the expensive fine powder inside, he held open his left eyelids with one hand and used the other hand to sprinkle just a few grains of the powder down onto the eye below. Three breaths later and the powder had dissolved; a few rapid blinks to clear away the itch, then he repeated the process with his right eye. His hands slid up to cover his mouth, muting the sound as he whispered the activation phrase,

“O’ Tincture of bright,

Please cover my sight,

Dire light.”

By the conclusion of the spell, the color was leached away from Tyren’s sight and the world was now cast into distinctive shades of gray. A sense of urgency filled Tyren now, even as he found his armor, he struggled to listen, to hear any sounds, to feel any movement. He balanced urgency and caution while tugging on his bracers and gloves. Locking the shield into place on the left bracer gave him the mobility to open the tent with one hand while the other brandished his metal baton. When he pushed open the tent flap, and let in the cold outside air, the smell that had torn him from his tired slumber washed over him in full force, no longer blocked by the treated canvas of the tent.

A sweet metallic aroma wafted heavily through the campsite; it lacked the oily rotten smell of the deep monsters, instead, it was the rusted sugary smell of a humanoid’s blood that filled the air, a lot of blood. Tyren crept forward in a crouch, checking the closest tent to his, and peeling back the tent flap revealed Aqua's still body. Their ever-present mask lay discarded on the ground. The revealed face caused Tyren to recoil, a desiccated bloodless mimicry of a human peeked out from beneath the heavy robes.

The grayscale vision cast his companion’s normally colorful form into eerie shades of gray as Tyren swept his gaze over the interior, noting the undisturbed packs, the expensive alchemy kit, valuable ingredients, and the distinct lack of any signs of a struggle, of any sign that Aqua had resisted, or been able to resist. Shuddering, he let the tent close behind him. Staying crouched, he used a practiced, but slow crabwalk. He kept his baton parallel to the ground and shield braced as he slowly shuffled from one tent to the next, circling an empty silent campsite.

Styl's tent was empty, Arcane's tent was a replica of Aqua's, and when he finally reached the Swordsman's tent, he swallowed; the sudden gulping sound so terrifyingly loud in the dark campsite that Tyren cringed and stopped, eyes scanning the surroundings for any movement. His gloved hand moved the tent's canvas flap to the side, his direlight-clad eyes scanning the interior. A terrible wrongness filled him as he stared into the vacant tent; it was not just empty of the Swordsman, it was empty of everything. Styl had not been in her tent, yet signs of life had been there, her bedroll worn, packs mostly empty and dirty to the side, even a small whetstone in one corner. Inside this tent, however, was nothing. No packs. No bedroll. Not even a speck of dirt. The inside of this tent had never been used. Tyren tried to think back, had he ever seen the Swordsman sleep? Or for that matter even enter the tent? When no easy answers immediately came, he moved away from the camp.

Putting distance between himself and the dry husks that were once his companions, he moved up the cavern wall along a short perilous path to the perch he knew Styl would have watched from. He had just crested a rocky ridge and came into sight of the particular high-up ledge when his reflexes triggered, his knees gave out, and he rolled forward away from the blow.

The crack of displaced air had been his only warning. The strike came from not a humming silver katana, but from a curved wicked dagger. From his position on the ground, Tyren registered the sandaled feet. He immediately threw himself from the ridge and back onto the flat open ledge below, dropping over twenty feet to land with a less graceful roll accompanied by a muffled grunt as he narrowly avoided landing on a tent. On the ground now, he led with his shield and flung himself to the side upon coming out of the roll. The prediction saved his life as a crack of air sounded out and a blade impaled the space where he should have come to a stop. Standing now, he turned to face the Swordsman, who had still not drawn his sword. Tyren noticed it then, the liquid dripping from the weapon. Even in shades of gray, he knew those telltale thick drops running down the edge of the blade could only be blood.

His body shifted into position, front foot parallel to the target, body turned to create a smaller profile, winged shield pulled into place so its width covered his torso. Tyren’s baton hid behind his shield, waiting to strike. His body moved automatically even as his enemy vanished, cracks of displaced air filling the slaughterhouse their campsite had become. Behind, left, right, behind, Tyren's vision jerked to follow the sound always late, and when the blow finally fell, it was from above and behind, the curved dagger driving down just inside his collarbone and directly into his neck. The white-hot searing pain shocked Tyren; it hurt. It hurt so much more than any of the claws, blades, or fangs that had ever marred his flesh. Pain flared inside of him, threatening to overwhelm his preparations. When his strength began to slip, the baton which he held in a reverse grip, struck out from under his arm. Driving the jeweled tip directly into the chest of his killer. Cold rage filled his eyes once again, a sneer forming on lips coated in blood as he spat out the final word of the whispered spell.

"GLACIAL DECIMUS"

The huge mass of icy crystal filled the cavern and the shimmering edge of the ice ended just below the perch Tyren had tried to reach. When a full candle had passed, a feline silhouette slid down from the rocky outcropping and silently fled the cavern. Behind her, the sounds of cracking ice and rushing air filled the frozen graveyard.