Ice magic holds the power to still the very heartbeat of the world, turning breath to frost and life into frozen statues that shatter at the slightest touch. It is the eternal beauty of frozen silehe embodiment of winter’s wrath.

  - Kryostria [The Frozen Sce], Elder Frost Dragon.

  Aliandra

  Distilte of Queng – level 53 (Ice / Water / Fire)Apply: Quench a source of Living Fme. Charges: 20Created by Morwynne Fizzlebang – “Do not drop!”Potion

  Ali examihe potion Morwynne had set carefully oable before them. It radiated an aura of cold so intehat it caused water to de of the air onto the gss and the tabletop around it, freezing into sparkling crystals of ice. It was a remarkable creation; various affinities of mana swirled together within the vial. The liquid was a deep cobalt blue, and it slowly stirred around within the vial without any appareernal force as if animated from within. The ice mana was tinually freezing the liquid, while the fire mana thawed it. Both were mediated by the presence of the water mana and somehow the entire co spired to sit there, stable within the vial, with just the slight glow and ice crystals to show that something plex was going on within.

  “This is delicate, so ha with care,” Morwynne said, none of her usual iive and profanity present in her instrus. “The ingredients you provided were quite potent, you will only need a drop. That’s why there are twenty charges. If you bump it too hard, I think the mana potentialities might decohere and there might be some exothermic realig of the thermal matrix.”

  “What?” Ali blurted out.

  “It’ll detonate,” Morwynne expined, spreading her hands dramatically. “Boom.”

  Somehow, Ali wasn’t all that surprised. After all, this was the first time she had been iy Powerful Potions when some co hadn’t actively been in the process of ‘dec’ its ‘thermal matrix’ right when she arrived.

  Morwyrieved several tainers. “These are the extra Essence of Ice from dismantling the Death Knight’s gear. The cost of hiring the water mage, and the eo dismahe gear, miseous ingredients, and my bor es told.” Morwynne waggled her hand briefly, “Give or take. Or if you prefer, you pay with one of those Essence of Living Fme. I know that’s a little in my favor, so I’ll throw in a couple of trays of mana potions for your thirsty friend to make it worth your while.”

  There was a cough from , but Morwynne just grinned wider at that.

  “That’s fair,” Malika said, retrieving another essend handing it over, and thely pig up the distilte and st it.

  “Thank you!” Morwynne said. “The essence was super fun to work with. I even earned a level up!” The excited, hyper-eie Ali had e to associate with the Gnomish alchemist returned in full force. “If you ever find more work like that, please let me know. Even the engineer and water mage I hired were so excited to work with such advanced reagents, that they gave us a dist.”

  “We might just do that,” Ali said. “After we figure out the other two doors.” She was already someprehensive about what might be entailed to unlock the Rune of Hellfire, but that roblem for ter.

  “Oh, and don’t use it on the elementals directly,” Morwynne said. “It will damage them, probably a lot. But a punch is a lot cheaper.” She giggled at her own joke and waved happily as they all turo leave.

  As Mato closed the door behind them, Ali heard a ctter of something being dropped and gss shattering, followed by a muffled bang and some -colored smoke billowed out from uhe door. The tinuous stream of dwarven profanity that ensued could be heard quite far dowreet.

  Malika

  They took a day off to rest, and besides the hand-to-hand css she gave at the guild, Malika decided to spend the time meditating and solidating her gains with light training.

  Soul Monk has reached level 48 (+2).+20 attribute points.

  Of the twenty points she had gained for the st delve, she spent five ea wisdom, dexterity, and endurahese were the attributes that had the rgest impa her skills and rerunning all her drills and forms had been suffit to familiarize herself with her new gains. Two points went to vitality, just due to the ridiculous fire damage down in the dungeon, and then she had spent one ea strength, perception, and intelligence – all of which provided important synergies with her main skills.

  Martial Artist has reached level 26.Soul Strike has reached level 29 (+2).Healing Mantra has reached level 32 (+2).Perfect Body has reached level 19.Soul Armor has reached level 25 (+2).Sed Wind has reached level 14.Soul Sight has reached level 10.

  Appraise has reached level 15.

  The day, armed with the fancy potion Morwynne had made, the team decided to fight their way down to the Landing again, clearing all the respawned elementals.

  Only this time it was vastly easier.

  Malika could scarcely believe just how much difference her skill adva in Soul Armor, and two more levels, could make. She felt like she barely o heal – which wasn’t teically true – but, by parison to the panic-fueled rollercoaster of damage aion that had been her experience of the dungeon up till now, this series of fights felt positively breezy. Even against the highest-level Living Fme boss elementals, she could now hold her own. She might not have the ridiculous armor ah Mato did, but with the fire elixir and her Soul Armor, she now enjoyed a whopping forty-five pert redu applied to all sources of fire damage. Nearly half of any damage she failed to dodge, or block, was effitly eliminated by her Soul Armor.

  Definitely my favorite skill right now. See? Keep pushing through and the gains will e. At least there was no more need for meditating in va baths. Although… if it had gained her su important upgrade… Perhaps it’s time to sult with Rezan again? At the very least, she meant to read through the other books of the hs whe back to the library.

  Soul Armor’s resistance bonus scaled up with every point she had ied into wisdom but so did Perfect Body – further increasing her most important attributes. With the dramaticrease in her resilience against the ridiculous fire damage, the few extra points of vitality she gained went even further. Instead of relief like the first time, it was with a sense of joy that she finally stood over the corpse of her e of the Living Fme boss after a fight that had been noticeably less frantic.

  “That was much easier,” she said.

  “It seemed so,” agreed.

  “You have no idea,” Ali said. “Remember, my Acolytes see your health.”

  “It’s impressive they didn’t die of stress st time, then,” Malika joked. She bent down to collect the essences dropped by the elementals, walked out into the Landing, and approached the fming rune on the massive stone doorway. With a small infusion of mana, she called the strange, potent, and frightfully expeion Morwynne had crafted to her hand.

  Distilte of Queng.

  “I hope this thing works,” she muttered, trig just a little healing into her hand to prevent her flesh from freezing, takireme care not to jostle or bump the rge vial of slowly swirling blue liquid.

  “It will work,” Ali said, with ued fidence. Malika g her, but she just smiled back.

  “I hope you’re right,” she said. “Here goes nothing.” Reag toward the Rune of Living Fme, she uncorked the vial. Beside her, she could see the energy in Ali’s diaphragm freeze as she held her breath. So, she isn’t that fident after all, Malika realized, trying to ighe irrational spike of worry that it wouldn’t work for some reason. She tipped the vial, letting a small drop of the liquid trickle down the smooth stone surface of the door. A sharp sizzling sound apanied a dense puff of cerulean-blue smoke as the drop touched the ruhe air filled with an acrid chemical odor that made her eyes tear up instantly.

  For a moment nothing much happened, but then, deep within the ter of the Rune of Living Fme, a small flicker of blue ice appeared, slowly growing outward in crystalline form as it ed the fme, freezing it ihe sizzling sound tinued apanied by the sharp crag of stone, until finally, the whole thing stopped, a beautiful fme sculpture now made entirely from cobalt-blue istead of fire.

  “Now there’s something,” Mato said, giving off a low whistle of appreciation.

  Click.

  A long, vertical crack appeared exactly up the ter of the stone door, followed by a shower of a dust, fragments of stohat had been welded to the door by the ui.

  “The mana shield proteg the door is gone,” Ali announced.

  “You’re up,” Malika said, nudging Mato.

  “Right,” he answered, shifting to his Bear Form and brag a massive shoulder against the thick sb of stone in the doorway. Then he pushed.

  Malika’s skin crawled with the heavy grinding of stone scraping across rock, and then the door swung open to reveal the mines beyond.

  Beyond the doorway was the most immense cavern Malika had ever seen – a vast sprawling chamber of rock. Evidence of different levels of excavation were haphazardly ected by ramps and paths. Many huge pilrs of stone had bee brag the ceiling as if the miners had left them there relutly, simply because they needed something to hold up the vast weight of rock that hung overhead.

  “That’s big,” said, his eyes sparkling as he surveyed the terrain.

  Malika could almost imagihe dwarves delving down here, hunting for ore and minerals with their skills and picks, but instead of miners, scaffolding, and carts, the entire space was lit with the glow of tless roaming elementals of fire, and pools and falls of va spilling out of fissures in the walls and draining away to who knew where. “A lot of monsters,” she pointed out.

  In the distance, on the lowest terrace, she stared down on an amphitheater of stone and the singur elemental of fire that, even from this distance, dwarfed anything she had ever faced.

  “What is that…thing?” Ali whispered.

  “Inferno,” said quietly, squinting into the distance. “It is a raid boss, and it identifies as a fire elemental called Inferno. Unique.”

  “That looks like it might be fun,” Mato said, having transformed back, but he too spoke in a quiet voice, staring at the monster in the distance.

  “Inferno? Just like the rune?” Malika asked.

  “Yes,” answered. “I’m willing to bet we have to kill that to open the door.”

  Well, Morwynne might get her wish to make a new potion.

  Aliandra

  Variant: Fme Broodmother added to Imprint: Spider.

  Ali was happy the clear down to the Landing had gone much smoother, and even happier that Morwynne’s expensive co had defeated the Rune of Living Fme. But what made her happiest was her spider variant. Even with their improved levels and vastly better uanding and experieh the fight, the Fme Broodmother was still a formidable foe. She mostly used Sparkling Oozes on it now, but that meant switg up the bulk of her forces in the middle of the clear, and then once again for the Living Fme e boss. A substantial amount of time ent on summoning.

  Now she was doing it again. With the two levels she had gained from both the Fme Broodmother and the Living Fmes, she had increased her wisdom attribute substantially and now had at least a little breathing room in her mana pool.

  “Looks like a Shard of Fme and some new elemental type called a Magmite,” said, calling the first group they would face within the giant mining cavern. “Magmite is sixty.”

  “Ok,” Ali said. The Living Fme boss was still not easy, by any stretch of the imagination, and she had lost several minions to the explosions and the tremendous auras of fme. But without those in py, she decided to resummoorm Shamans for the part – the lightning damage was certainly effective, provided she could keep the low-level Goblins alive.

  Finally ready, she got up and studied the monsters. “ you identify that?” asked, pointing right at it, but Ali didn’t need his dire, it was clearly visible to her just from the dense knot of unfamiliar mana in the area.

  Shard of Fme – Elemental – level 41 (Fire)Magmite – Elemental – level 60 (Lava)

  “The va elemental?” she asked. Its dirty e body shimmered iense heat, almost invisible in the river of va that cascaded down the ramp and vahrough a sinkhole to somewhere deeper underground.

  “Is that what it is?” said. “Explorer was struggling to identify the damage type. It just updated now.”

  “It updated just because I told you what affinity it has?” Ali asked, suddenly curious.

  “Explorer has the knowledge trait,” he said. “The more I learn…”

  “Aah, that makes sense,” Ali said. His skill sounded surprisingly simir te of Learning – it couldn’t manufacture knowledge from the void, but if she knew anything peripherally relevant, it could help her draw inferences and clusions with startling accuracy. Right there and then, she made a mental o ask Ryn to prioritize more trag books for their library acquisitions. And probably a few of the more esoterister pendiums.

  She gnced back at the elementals they faced and could see why would call them together, right beside the squat Magmite, perched upon a half-melted rocky outcrop he river, hovered the Shard of Fme, presumably basking in the heat and mana welling up out of the va itself. “How should we do this?”

  “Let’s have Mato tank the Shard and Malika on the Magmite. We kill the Magmite first,” said. He sounded a little uain but, given the fact they had never seen the va elemental before, and none of them had any idea what it might do, that was not too surprising.

  “Ok. I’m ready,” Ali said, adding her firmation to those of Mato and Malika before vanished and headed out into the furnace of heat through the doorway. She was getting a little better at trag him with her mana sight, able to see the soft pulse of the holy restoration magic healing him against the searing, scorg heat.

  An arrow fshed into brilliance right as it struck the Shard of Fme. appeared, sprinting back toward the door as his stealth illusion dropped. The Shard of Fme glided across the rocky ground, hissing with surging fmes. The dark e Magmite lurched up out of the va, casg liquid rod waves of shimmeri as it surged forward, body grinding as the retively cooler air caused ks of its surface to darken like interlog ptes.

  “There’s something else!” Ali shouted as the sharp eyes of her Kobolds caught sight of ing from the river of molten rock. Several misshapen blobs hauled themselves up out of the depths of the va river, spshing molten rock across the rocky banks. Extrusions appeared and vanished, stretg forth from their amorphous shapes t themselves across the ground. The surfaces of their bodies immediately began to b, hardening and crag as they came into tact with the cooler air, leaving fissures and cracks that glowed an angry red from the heat within. Cooling ks of rock were immediately reabsorbed into their bodies, and they left glowing trails of molten rock behind them like deadly slug trails.

  Lava Lurker – Ooze – level 35-40 (Lava) x5

  “Five oozes!” Ali yelled and, as gnced backward, she added, “Lava affinity.”

  Malika called over, “More oozes for your colle, Ali.”

  “Switch targets,” said, modifying their strategy on the fly with crisp, clipped dires. “Malika, take the Shard. Mato, get the rest. Separate them and kill the Shard first.”

  It took Ali a few moments lohan him to puzzle it out, but as usual, his strategic thinking made sense. While Malika had much-improved resistao fire damage now, Mato still sported a vastly rger health total and far better armor. His Swipe and his Challenging Roar were area attacks, suited for seg multiple targets simultaneously, while Malika would fare better against a single foe. Not to mention, the Shard of Fme o be separated from everything else if they were to stand a ce of killing it without it regeing.

  Malika and Mato shifted positions smoothly at the doorway as bolted between them and into the Landing. The group of fire and va monsters had spread out behind him, with the faster Shard of Fme almost keeping up with his incredible speed, and the ungainly Lava Lurkers bringing up the rear.

  Ali focused her senses, studying the unfamiliar va-affinity mana as the first elemental foe glided into the room to receive a sma assed for a face from Malika’s fist. The aura of fme spilled into the Landing as the Shard of Fme surged across the threshold, now chasing Malika. A broad volley of Firebolts sprayed out and Ali was suddenly fully engaged, summoning barriers in rapid succession to save her minions – most of them too low-level to survive more than one or two direct hits.

  With a surprisingly wet smack that unched droplets of va into the air and a deep roar, Mato gathered up the Magmite and the five animated blobs of angry va, dragging them into a er in a growing puddle of melted rod leaving the stench of singed fur and burnt flesh lingering in the air.

  Ali kept her senses grounded in the perception skills of her Acolytes. Mato faced an unknown level sixty elemental, and she had no idea what it was capable of. It lobbed a blob of molten rock at him, which spttered across his guard, burning as it dripped down his armor and hide. Instantly, her Acolytes responded with their stro healing spells. But, while his health took heavy damage from the onsught of ooze tentacle sps and va boulders, it seemed her healers had it under trol. A massive Swipe that trailed traces of green nature-affinity mana sprayed molten rock across the wall, and Mato’s health stabilized dramatically as his personal healing skill settled upon him.

  Ali shifted her attention to the Shard of Fme. Malika dodged with mesmerizing grace, holding the monster far from the heat of the va elementals. “Attack,” she said, reying her and in both Goblin and Draic. A delicate formation of lightning magifused the Shard of Fme, the only visible sign of her shaman’s vulnerability curse. Instantly, it was followed by a triple strike of Lightning Bolts as three mail-cd shamans sprioward it following the two Hobgoblins. The slower attacks of the Bone Mages and archers followed soon after, and then suddenly all her Kobues appeared, striking with their Ambush and daggers.

  Ali was just getting used to the ato and Malika’s health when the Magmite lofted a heavy molten boulder right across the chamber, aimed at her Acolytes. She responded in an instant, summoning a heavy barrier in front of the wide-eyed Kobolds, but to their credit, they barely hesitated in their healing spells. The va ball sptted with a resounding smack against the golden barrier, def into a glowing pancake from the force. The moment Ali dismissed the barrier, it fell to the ground in a sizzling mass of heat and viscous bing va. Across the room, a formation flickered in the colors of va affinity, and then the Magmite suddenly appeared in the new molten puddle.

  “Teleport! Magmite!” Ali yelled, scrambling to throw up barriers and move her kobolds as the elemental unched a radial volley of sizzling ro all dires.

  “Shit, aah…” said, scrambling away.

  “Bone walls!” Ali srying to predict the volley of va bolts while figured out a pn. Bone mana surged behind a barrier and several sturdy walls of boerialized, penning the Magmite into a small enclosure. Not for long. It tinued spewing a rain of high-velocity va ks at the walls, and they began to smoke and crack as the heat and impacts took their toll.

  “Kill the Shard quickly,” urged, turning the chamber into noon-day brightness with his powerful Righteous Fury skill. “Let’s do this!”

  The Shard of Fme was below half health already, but as Ali turo focus her attention on it, a rge mana surge erupted from behind the makeshift bone prison taining the Magmite. She didn’t even have time to call it out before a torrent of fist-sized molten gobs of rock fountained up and outward from the Magmite, raining down upoire battlefield.

  In panic, Ali summoned barriers to protect herself and her healers, but the va boulders nded on the Shard of Fme too, and, to her horror, she saw its health rising in jumps and jolts with each fming impact.

  “It’s healing!” Ali yelled. In that moment she banished all her barrier magistead summoning a rge shield above the Shard of Fme, proteg it from the suddeeor storm. First ohen two, and even a third Kobold fred with holy light as they all activated their Devotion skills in quick succession, trying desperately to keep up with the sudden room-wide assault.

  In the shadow of the Shard, Kobolds and Goblins scrambled to take advantage of the overhead shield, but several were too slow, crushed to a pulp by sizzlieors and burned up by the aura of fme. Even the ohat survived were given e, every sirike against the Shard of Fme was met with retaliatory bsts of fire from the elemental.

  Ali grimaced as one of her Acolytes was unlucky enough to be struck by three boulders in quick succession, smashed to the ground as a smoking pulp. Two of her Bone Mages took unfortuimed Firebolts aeors simultaneously and were knocked into a pool of va. Their mana reservations snapped nearly instantaneously.

  “Shard down. Malika, get that Magmite .” ’s voice remained surprisingly calm amid the chaos, and Ali took some measure of fort in that. At least one of them was not panig.

  Malika reached the Magmite as the bone walls crumbled and came tumbling down. As she pu, the fountain of deadly va ceased abruptly. But the elemental immediately teleported away, arriving, spicuously, on top of another k of va it had unched. Alone again, it began ung more ks of va at whatever was nearby, and Ali’s attention was fully occupied with predig aing to block as many as she could. It was not like the elemental of va had a face or anything resembling a clear front, and the va bolts were fired in whatever dire it wanted, making guessing its target quite a challenging task.

  Malika outpaced everyone, and reached the Magmite in record time, while the much sloblins and Kobolds scrambled across the rocky ground, trying to avoid the molten debris that littered the floor. But by the time her melee minions reached it, it teleported again.

  “Fuck, that’s annoying,” Malika grumbled, but she was after it in a fsh.

  After a frustrating game of cat-and-mouse with the Magmite telep all over the show every twenty seds, it finally stopped. But instead of relief, Ali reized the magical formation within it. “Meteor storm!” she yelled, throwing up barriers above the healers this time and urging them to group up to reduce the damage. But amid the freiic of barriers and falling va, there was a kind of blessing – the Magmite remained rooted to the spot, and the rogues and shamans tore into it with a fury outmatched only by Malika’s speed.

  “It’s almost dead,” Ali called out, after cheg with her Acolyte’s Healer’s Sight. Sure enough, a few seds ter, the animated va colpsed to the ground in a sizzling, bubbling pile.

  Right as Ali breathed a sigh of relief, an intense burst of maed from its corpse and a huge detonation shook the cavern. The Kobolds stumbled, falling to the ground while shards of rock rained down from the ceiling. Ali threw up a defensive barrier just as the shockwave hit her, preventing herself from being smmed into the wall, but every other creature in the cavern was bsted away from the explosion. Well, except for Malika, of course. She dodged it.

  Twues, already low oh, died instantly, their corpses tossed into the va like limp rags. would have nded in the va too, but he summoned his wings and was now flying over the va carrying Ali’s st remaining rogue which he had fished out of the pool. It still dripped va from its smoking scales. Her st Bone Mage died ht from the impact, and she found herself down to one Acolyte, two shamans, and the two signifitly more robust Hobgoblins. The only Acolyte bowed its head to use its Prayer ability with her mana pool run pletely dry. Aah, bigger minions…

  Mato, still tangled up with five va-affinity oozes, stood in a pool of molten rock caused by the proximity heat emitted from their bodies. His fur ermaly on fire while his stantly regeing flesh cooked.

  “Malika, I’m out of heals!” Ali yelled.

  “Gotcha,” Malika said, sprinting into the fray. Mato’s powerful regeion skill meant he wasn’t in critical shape, but without the help of her Acolytes, the oozes were very definitely winning – but Malika arrived, and her healing magic fshed, rest a rge k of his health and Ali re-engaged with her remaining minions.

  “Keep at them,” said, splitting magical arrows from his bow to hit all of the oozes.

  “Totems,” Ali anded, and her remaining Storm Shamans dropped their Lightning Novas on the oozes and unleashed their Lightning Bolts in staccato strobing pulses of deafening magily then did the Lava Lurkers begin to fall, colpsing o a time in rapidly darkening puddles of va. A long path of molten rock marked the passage around the edge of the cavern where Mato had dragged the monsters along to avoid standing in the va they left in their wakes.

  The seared and sorry remnants of Ali’s minion army stood about after the st Lava Lurker colpsed in a searing hot puddle. Most were dead, burnt to a crisp, or lost in the pools or rivers. She had even lost the mage that was her source of extra intelligence. Losing intelligence reduced almost everything for her – her barriers were weakened, and she could summon fewer of them. Her minion boosts from Martial Insight and Empowered Summoner scaled based on her intelligeribute, and with the lost bonus, everything had weakened dramatically.

  It’s a good thing I didn’t lose my wisdom bonus, she thought soberly, gng at her one remaining Acolyte. Losing a rge number of her reserved minions again would have been a real pain. Not for the first time she wished she had a much longer range on her skill – having t her source of wisdom along with her into the dungeon made her attributes vulnerable to acts.

  “Why do you look so glum?” Malika asked, plopping herself dowo her. “Look, the Magmite dropped a full essene – not a lesser one – and this va ooo. I wonder if Weldin will give me full value for this?”

  “I don’t know,” Ali answered. The craziness of the fight, her decimated minions, everything seemed hard. She had been trying so hard to cope with the damage but, in the end, Malika had o heal Mato to keep everyone alive.

  “You tell me.”

  “I guess I’m just weak. After we defeated the boss in the Landing, I thought I was getting stronger, but the first pull after we finally get the door open and I’m down to five minions and struggling.”

  “It was a hard fight, and we’ve never seen that Magmite before,” Malika said. At least she wasn’t dismissing her s. “You know, most of your minions are in the low twehey’re definitely going tle going up against level sixty monsters. Especially with that ridieteor shower and corpse explosion.”

  Malika spoke sense, but Ali was still frustrated. “It just feels like I’m pulling the team down.”

  “That’s exactly how I felt when I couldn’t tank a Living Fme,” Malika said, sympathizing. “Sometimes your abilities are just a poor match for the fight, and sometimes you learn something or earn an adva, and the problem goes away. You’re not weak, Ali, some of your best monsters are just a bad fit for this dungeon, and you’ll improve as we find more.”

  “You sacrificed some of your minions to ehe Shard of Fme died. That was a very strategic call,” pointed out, joining them. “And the Magmite definitely shoots less if it’s tanked, so we know that for ime.”

  “Thank you,” she said. And somehow, she did feel a bit better. “Maybe we o more actively pn and hunt for minion skills and levels? Ohat won’t get swatted so easily?”

  “We defialk about that,” agreed.

  “At least that fight was more iing than tanking the Living Fme for twenty minutes by myself,” Mato said.

  “You have a rather unique definition of iing,” she told him.

  ----------

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