Meanwhile, Logan continues his run…

Sprinting down the icy corridors of crimson hues, Koma and Logan were making as much haste as they could to aid an ally in danger.

“Logan, a wall”, Koma informed as she jumped to the side of the corridor.

“Flame Shot”, Logan chanted, a ball of fire getting hurled at the wall, crashing it outwards to reveal an adjoining corridor.

Sliding into the new hall, Koma spun her head around before spying on one path of three. “That way”, she shouted as she started to run again.

Logan ran after his companion, the corridors not looking much different to him. Clicking his fingers, Logan’s mini-map was updated once again and he saw, what he assumed to be, the same as his ally, the corridor that led to where they had been split up.

Koma held out her arm to Logan, and realizing it was a command, Logan took hold of it and commanded another ring. Their bodies warped into their centres and blasted outwards at the bottom floor of the shift chamber they had teleported in previously.

Countless corpses filled the hallways and the chamber itself, more leading off in the corridor that led to the beginning chamber.

“Marcus had to deal with this many? Quantity for damn sure”, Logan exclaimed.

“Logan, again”, Koma yelled as they got an eye on the introductory chamber.

Logan grabbed onto his ally and teleported them once more, exploding at the exit to the first chamber.

“Marcus!” Logan yelled.

Marcus was standing, not tall, but slouched and covered in red. Celsius and Fahrenheit at his side in combative positions, aimed towards the corridor Logan and Koma had emerged from. Vials littered the floor, along with two broken daggers and wood shards.

Titling his head up to look at the noise, Marcus responded, “Took your time”, he splurted out as he fell to a knee.

Logan ran to a sliding kneel by his friend, picking out a healing potion and feeding it to Marcus. He could see his friend had just about run out of MP and MP restoring potions, though his overall stats had increased, as well as Fahrenheit who now stood at almost 5’ tall.

“Logan, there was”, Marcus started to speak with a pained look on his face, though stopped as he saw Koma.

Logan looked at the Rogue, curious as to Marcus’s gaze. “Koma, can you look around, see if there are any more enemies or holes in the walls?”

“Sure”, Koma replied swiftly as she began to scout around.

In a hushed tone, Marcus continued, “There was a goblin, who knew about you. They asked about a ‘champion’ as Krekka did.”

Logan’s eyes went wide at the mention, “Where are they?”

“Dead. Impaled them with rocks”, Marcus replied with a bloody smile.

“Good. Their power was probably comparable to the locale. Krekka was against a city, but yours was only against a single team”, Logan theorised aloud.

“They said they were a tool, like me”, Marcus continued while his smile diminished.

“Fuck, a below PC?” Logan worried in his head. “Anything else?”

“His amulet, it changed the cave to red, and summoned all these goblins”, Marcus answered as he sat down.

“So it wasn’t a shift?”

“No clue, but when he died it shrieked and shattered.”

Logan thought for a few seconds before replying, “Ok, he may have been a random occurrence. If he asked where I was it was just bad luck he found you first. You did amazing to hold all this off.”

“What do you mean, it was easy”, Marcus chuckled with a wince.

“Clean”, Logan chanted, removing the blood and dirt from his ally, “it’ll be best if we rest here before continuing on.”

“I agree”, Koma spoke as she returned to the pair.

“How’s the place look?” Logan asked.

“Full of the dead, I doubt more will be coming, this would be a majority of the dungeon’s low-end forces. Just be glad it wasn’t frost snakes as we had faced.”

“Those goblins aren’t much stronger than wolves, whereas the frost snakes can be on par with a silversteine”, Logan calculated.

“I’m happy with what I got if that’s the case”, Marcus chuckled once more.

“We’ve not done much this day, but regrouping with the weakest part is a big step regardless. Let us Harvest the corpses and rest for what’s left in the day”, Koma announced.

“I can do that, you’ll do the traps?” Logan asked.

“As before, not much I can do for the holes, but the hallways will be set up. Our hallway didn’t connect to the middle, so Cassius must find another path to us.”

“Got it”, Logan replied as he handed the Goblin-Killer dagger to Marcus, “I don’t have anything weaker, so hopefully you’re good with this if it comes to it.”

Marcus took the level 11 dagger in his hand, the blade shaking somewhat in his grasp as his level didn’t allow him easy control over something with such dense spellforce in it. “Now we’re back together I can rely on my crossbow a bit more.”

“What you need now is rest”, Logan ordered as he moved to cut the ears from the goblins.

“Sounds good”, Marcus replied as he laid his head down on his pack.

The rest of the day went by with a multitude of busy work. Logan cut the ears from over two hundred goblins, using his Clean mick to make them not insufferable to cart over via the vehicles outside.

The bodies were piled into the dead-end corridors to make escape easier, as well as to block off any other rushing adversaries. The sheer number of them meant that it took most of their day, Koma moving the corpses whilst she stripped them of their weapons and coins. The elementals also did their part by carting the bodies to Logan to Harvest, turning the icy chambers into what seemed like a meat-packing plant.

Logan quickly investigated the goblin mage on their passing, showing it to have been a level 8 goblin whose drinking of classed blood allowed him to be a better caster. Its attributes were a bit higher than other level 8 enemies, possibly alluding to it having extra points placed into Intelligence. There were no lasting marks of it being a partner to another PC though.

Logan had to close down the windows as they popped up to inform him of changes, though at the end he looked back at the one that detailed his increase in skill.

Along with the normal skill information, Fol informed inside Logan’s head that his current chance of Harvesting common components was 49%, with a 10% of gaining a legendary tier. Logan was even able to obtain a few legendary goblin ears with the sheer number of them he cut off.

It wasn’t a great sight to see, but after being cleaned and placed into sacks, they were left near the final corridor that led to the icicle barrier to the outside. The clanking of maces filled the room with the sounds of a smithy, a comforting sound when it wasn’t being done by enemies.

Without counting the price fluctuations on the components, the hoard was just over 3 gold’s worth. Not a whole lot when compared to the effort, but the items gathered in the hoard that Logan found earlier would make up for some of it, plus the hoards they hadn’t found yet.

It was an amazing choice on Marcus’s end to buy up so many MP-restoring potions, though he couldn’t have ever guessed he would have used them all in one confrontation.

With a full team of 10s, this would have been a hard fight, but winnable nonetheless. Logan’s previous team could have handled it.

Examining the difficulty of the fight, mostly with the sheer number, Logan had to guess that was the reason why he could now see that Marcus had two unspent skill points. Though that was the first time he saw an event grant more than one. Could the other have been defeating a partnered NPC, or rather, monster, if that was what the goblin mage was?

Fol advised Logan that if Marcus were to level up yet again, reaching 10, then his choice of skill would widen just like his had. Fol had a certain skill in mind. Partnered Growth, a skill that would double Marcus’s experience reward from foes. Though similar to Marcus gaining two skill points, this skill cost two.

Going from 10% to 20% was a massive boost to an NPC, it essentially halved the number of foes he would need to defeat to gain further power. Without Logan at his side, Marcus would benefit majorly from that choice. After conferring with Marcus during the last segment of time before they all went to sleep, the choice was set in stone, if he were to level up before Logan left.

It was quite handy that Fol had upgraded at this point, the breadth of his knowledge allowed Logan a better insight into who he had called System to this point. As well as a being that would scan the skill selections for better choices.

With part of the team back together, they all rested for the following day which would hopefully regroup them all.

31 days remaining…

Logan woke up before anyone else, as usual, his body slightly sore though he was sure that Marcus would be more.

Wanting to try out MP Thievery on his summons, Logan gave a swift punch into Celsius’s back. Sadly no Backstab text popped up, it seemed that elementals didn’t have enough of a weak spot to take advantage of with their shifting bodies, so he would not be able to squeeze out any more MP from them.

Submitting to the normal Spell Absorption and Charge Transfer in the chamber away from the entrance, Logan soaked up 15 MP from Celsius and Fahrenheit. Using 4 he resummoned Spark and absorbed a further 7. For a total of 18 MP, that would be his max from this routine as Fahrenheit reached level 11 the day prior.

Returning to his team after a long stint of absorbing, Logan helped them ready themselves for the day ahead.

“Like we theorised before, the lower floor of this place should be mostly clear with Marcus’s effort. We might not run into traps, but keep an eye out if I miss any”, Koma started.

“Since the walls can open up holes to express corridors we can expect ambushes, if there are monsters to enact them. So we’re staying quiet, right?” Marcus added.

“Right. No yelling or blasting down corridors if we can help it. While it would speed up the process, it relies on being near Cassius and Patavava to work. We could wind up in a worse position with no reward for the risk.”

“I can scan the paths we’ve taken, but it will be hard to see if either of them walk in our prints”, Logan informed.

“Let us continue searching the lowest floor. If possible, Cassius would probably head to the top first if he had the choice”, Koma put forth.

“We can definitely clear out a higher number of foes this way”, Marcus said.

Koma eyed up the elementals for a second before responding, “The stronger elementals will come in handy”, she said offhandedly as she began walking towards the corridor.

Marcus shrugged as he moved into the middle of the formation, with Fahrenheit at his side. Logan took up the rear with Celsius and Spark.

The newly reformed group double-checked Marcus’s previous left hallway, the encroaching forces possibly having backup monsters within the holes in the walls. Thankfully, the previous hallways had been mostly cleared out in the rush towards the alert.

Entering the second of three corridors had the party find two more splits, with further splits afterwards. Finding deadends allowed them to mark many paths off their list, though two rooms had a similar trap and four goblin ambush setups as others. They were quite far from the shift chamber which might have explained why they hadn’t joined the alarm group.

Koma was able to spot both traps easily enough and had Fahrenheit charge into both rooms to set them off and draw the Frost spells of the ambushers. His immunity to said damage made these encounters flawless on the side of the humans.

Crossbow bolts, arrows, daggers, and elemental barrages from the summons ended the fights before the aggressors could do anything more than scream. It was much easier than the top floor, though some of that was attributed to the number of allies in a single team.

The team eventually passed the hallway that Logan and Koma exploded their fake wall into. Double-checking their hidden passageway didn’t reveal much else to them, though through Echo Radar Logan was able to determine the location of another hidden wall before Koma did, mostly due to how weirdly the corridors were designed.

Blasting it open with a Flame Shot revealed another hoard of deposited materials, though this one was clear of any corpses. The groups’ noses flared at the strong smell of berries and herbs, mixed with a singeing sensation of their nose hairs and their skin prickling up.

“Ugh, this place has finished pulling the spellforce from the bodies, it’s so dense in here”, Koma spoke as she held a scarf to her face.

Logan moved his hand through the air, it felt as if it were floating atop invisible energy waves. “Why has nothing been made of this ambient spellforce?”

“It must take a while to seep it into the ice and move it to where they need it. It takes a few days for a monster to form, no wonder it stays around like this when the Ice King takes a decade.”

“Will we be fine in here?” Marcus asked as he peeked his head in.

“For a while, our bodies can only handle so much. Let’s have the elementals take out the goods for us, some may have degraded too much if they were weaker variants though”, Koma advised as she walked away.

Logan ordered his summons to ferry the bags and gear out of the room into the hallway, it took some time, which allowed Logan to ask about the smell.

“Most humanoids clean themselves better than monsters, the last thing you’ll smell from their spellforce is the soaps and such they use to clear their exteriors. Monsters typically leave more of a dirt and meat smell.”

“So we basically smell what was on their outside? It picks apart the bodies and leaves only the residues on the skin?”

“Pretty much. Once you’re reduced back into spellforce, nothing is really left. It’s why we cremate most of our corpses, to release the spellforce back into the air.”

“Desma prefers we bury our dead in the forests, to nurture their growth with our bodies”, Marcus added.

“Either way, this cannibalistic option, clawing the spellforce from corpses, it just feels sacrilegious either way”, Koma spat.

“I agree. Though I am sure Madamra orders her underlings to perform these types of rites”, Marcus acquiesced.

“You said there was no word on this dungeon doing something like this before? Now we’ve found two. Were previous groups more concerned with clearing the place out in that case?” Logan thought aloud.

“The ever-changing nature of this place made it hard, but it is possible previous clears’ were undertaken by people with weaker senses.”

Interrupting their discussion, Celsius spoke up, “All done, we left the eroded blades and armour in the room.”

“Thanks”, Logan replied as he began to shift through the items.

“It isn’t surprising the number of creatures that inhabit this place if it has more than one of these rooms hidden about”, Koma spoke as she looked over Logan’s shoulder.

“The hall should send some investigative adventurers to search the local areas for signs of outside movements. See if the monsters were actively hunting people to bring here”, Marcus announced.

“That will be part of my report”, Koma accepted.

Logan placed vials in several bags, handing two to Koma, one to Marcus, and one into his own bag-inventory.

“Not a whole lot of worth, the potions seem diluted quite a bit, and the spell rings are all sapped. A few trinkets to sell but nothing that’ll help us immediately. Either way, we got a bit more coin from this room”, Logan calculated.

“I hope we find a proper hoard, not one that’s been eaten up like this. Might end up a loss if we don’t”, Koma mentioned offhandedly as she looked down the corridor.

The team started to move away, though Logan moved into the room for a few seconds to test a theory. Placing a hand in the air he mentally commanded, “Spell Absorb.”

But nothing happened, except for Fol speaking into his mind.

“Logan, I think your skill will only work when a spell is being cast. This room just holds ambient spellforce, it isn’t a ‘spell’ right now.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting much, but I didn’t want to leave it without trying”, Logan replied in his head as he jogged back to his team. The skill had worked with the teleporting star back with the other hunters, but that essentially used a spell, this room was just formless power.

Progressing through further corridors, the trio accompanied by a trio of elementals found many more dead ends and slopes upwards. Marking off many paths, Logan saw how few enemies were left on the lowest floors. Either it was to make it easier on the weaker group, or Marcus had dealt with them in the alarm wave.

The team had yet to meet any ice golems or snowball sprites, leading them to believe that they were relegated to the middle floors. The first was quite resilient, while the second was fast and magically powerful. Patavava’s dwindling MP showed how much work he had to put in alongside Cassius.

As they progressed through the ice caves, the party eventually began to hear and feel the low-toned beating of a drum. Slight shockwaves were sent across the walls, outwards from a single point ahead and above them.

“That’ll be Cassius’s Dhuss Drum”, Koma announced.

“What’s that?” Logan asked.

“It’s an item he got commissioned, sends out a far-reaching Come Forth style effect. He’s drawing in foes so that they don’t go down or up.”

“So, we’re close then”, Logan replied as he looked up the corridor, dust being pushed aside from the drum pulses.

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