Chương 61: Ice Skating

"Okay, this is going to make fighting a little tricky," Evan said, carefully shuffling forward.

"Maybe there won't be fighting," Luca suggested.

"Maybe the ice floor is the defense?"

"That would be a very lame defense. Way too easy," Oliver said, just moments before falling straight on his ass. Luca laughed.

"Easy, huh?" Catriona lent Oliver a hand and helped him back to his feet. Thanks to her high dexterity, she had an easy time slide-walking over the ice.

"Oliver is right, there's definitely going to be fighting." It didn't take long until a skittering noise proved her words right. Five lizard-like creatures appeared around the next corner. They were the size of a large dog and seemed to be made completely of ice. Oliver widened his stance, nearly losing his footing again on the slippery floor, and stretched out his hand. He tried to summon his [Earthen Bulwark], but with nothing but stone pavement and ice below them, it wouldn't work.

Evan made a quick mental note of that and filed it away. Unlike Luca's [Current Pull], which summoned water, Oliver's [Earthen Bulwark] required the presence of actual earth to form the protective barrier. Oliver shrugged and raised his sword.

"Too bad. I guess we'll have to do this the hard way then."

"I have an idea," Evan said.

"Luca, try to hit one with Current Pull. Maybe the water will freeze and lock them in." Luca shuffled forward a few steps, one hand on the wall to steady himself, and summoned [Current Pull]. A stream of water stretched out from his hand like a tendril and wrapped itself around one of the approaching lizards. Just as Evan had suspected, it did freeze, but that didn't seem to bother the ice lizard at all.

"Great, now it just has an extra layer of armor," Luca said, frustration clear in his voice.

"I'd hoped maybe this would be my time to shine." The first of the lizards had reached Oliver at the frontline, and the time for tactical experiments was over. The monsters weren't fast, but their ice carapace could take a lot of damage, and unlike them, the lizards had no trouble moving on the ice. That alone gave them a big advantage. Like most boys in Minnesota, Evan had played ice hockey during his childhood.

He was never very good and didn't make the team after middle school, but the ice-skating skills of his youth gave him the balance he needed to stay upright while swinging his sword. Luca had retreated back, unable to contribute much to the fight beyond healing, considering his only fighting ability was making the monsters stronger instead of hurting them.

Catriona took a few shots with her bow, but her arrows just bounced off the monsters' ice-armored bodies, causing little more than dents and shaving off only a few health points at a time. She unleashed her magical butterflies at the lizards, and their wings did more damage than Catriona's arrows. However, they further drained her mana pool.

To Evan's surprise, her fox, who had no trouble navigating the slippery surface, managed to penetrate the lizards' carapace with her bite, but the monsters were nearly three times as large as the little fox, so the familiar was mostly busy dodging. Oliver and his high strength attribute dealt the most damage. His sword blows cracked and splintered the ice easily whenever he got a hit in, which wasn't very often, because Oliver kept slipping and falling.

At one point, he used his unfortunate position as an advantage and angled his sword strike upward, piercing his blade right through the belly of an attacking lizard. One monster was dead, but the other four seemed enraged by the loss and unleashed a special power they hadn't shown before. The lizards weren't only made from ice; apparently they could produce it too, with some kind of ice breath attack. They opened their jaws, revealing long, dark blue tongues.

Oliver was hit by a stream of ice that froze him straight to the ground, in a half-sitting, half-lying position. Both Evan and Catriona dodged the ice breath, but with their strongest damage dealer down, the fight had just become a lot harder. Evan tried his [Comet Shot] on the monsters, and that did deal some damage, but their ice carapace seemed to absorb most of it.

"Damn, those things are tough," he said through gritted teeth. Oliver still struggled on the ground, but the ice covering the lower half of his body wouldn't budge.

"Too bad we don't have a team member with the Fire affinity." Evan blinked, then looked down at the sword in his hand and the intricate runes carved into the blade. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Catriona followed his gaze and raised one eyebrow questioningly.

"Do you think you can do it again?"

"I have no idea," Evan admitted. The only time he'd been able to channel mana into the sword had been a life-and-death situation. Could he reproduce it? He retreated a few steps, trying to give himself some breathing space to get this right. Catriona took over, using her butterflies to distract the lizards, protecting both Oliver and Evan while he tried to activate his sword's enchantments again. He took a deep breath and focused, his mind turning inward, into his body, where his mana flowed. Or was it his soul?

Evan didn't understand the magical theory behind it all, but he could feel the mana flowing through him. Taking hold of it was more difficult without rage and fear fueling his resolve, but after a few failed attempts he managed to steer the flow of mana into his hands and then outward, into the sword hilt. One of the runes started glowing red, and then the entire blade turned from shiny silver-gray into a glowing red.

Encouraged, Evan lunged forward and lashed out at the ice lizard that was currently trying to sink its icicle-like teeth into Catriona's legs. The moment the red-hot blade made contact with the monster's body, the ice started to melt away. Evan could slice the sword through the carapace easily and sink it deep into the creature's body, where it continued to burn hot, making steam pour out of the wound. The ice lizard quickly succumbed.

Cheered on by his teammates, Evan slid through the ice-covered corridor and defeated all three remaining ice lizards in short succession. His sword was doing most of the work. With the enchantment activated, killing the monsters was ridiculously easy. After all five lizards were dead, Evan used the hot blade to thaw Oliver out of his icy predicament and pulled his friend back to his feet. Oliver clapped his shoulder with a proud grin.

"That was awesome, man. You're damn lucky old Agatha gifted you that sword."

"That wasn't luck," Catriona said, picking up her fox and inspecting her for injuries.

"Channeling mana into a weapon needs a pretty advanced level of mana control. That's very unusual for the 4th rank. Very impressive, Evan." Oliver looked at his own weapon and the magical runes his sister had etched into the blade.

"You have to show me how it's done. Can you teach me?"

"I would if I could, but I'm not sure how," Evan said.

"I can't really put it into words. It feels very… instinctual."

"Too bad. It would come in handy right now," Oliver said, looking at the next door already waiting for them.

"I wonder what awaits us next."

"I'll quickly check my ledger notifications and then we'll go find out." He sheathed his sword and accessed his menu. [You have killed 5 Ice Lizards] [You have earned 115 experience points] [You have looted 320 mana stones] [You have looted 2 Ice Affinity Crystal Shards] Happy with the loot, he did what he always did after a fight. He checked his rank progress. 94%. Too bad there had only been five ice lizards. He could've killed a small army with his magical sword. That would've been easy experience farming.

Who knew what weaknesses the next monsters awaiting them had. He'd gotten lucky in this hallway, but maybe behind the next door a monster awaited whose skill set was entirely unsuitable for him. Maybe he would have to sit the next fight out entirely, like Luca had been forced to do with the Ice Lizard.

"Happy with what you got?" Oliver asked, re-tightening the leather straps of his gauntlets and shin guards.

"One thing is for certain," Evan said with a half-smile, "our money problems are going to be gone when we get back to Stormhaven." Luca snorted in amusement.

"I wouldn't be so sure. The more money you have, the more opportunities you'll find to spend it." Evan remembered the prices the high rankers had paid for rare items at the guild auction house and realized Luca was probably right. As they climbed the ranks, their need for high-quality equipment would grow. Instead of spending all those mana stones they had collected during their quest on luxuries and frivolities, they would have to reinvest them to keep up with the more challenging quests, monsters, and fights.

It dampened his enthusiasm about his overflowing inventory a bit, although he could imagine worse fates than spending his earnings on cool swords, fancy armor, and powerful magical abilities. They moved on to the next door. This time, Luca opened it.

"I promise I won't say anything stupid this time." Instead of the next corridor, they found another storage room. No weapon racks or wooden armor mannequins this time, just seemingly endless rows of metal lockers and about a dozen metal footlockers. All of them stood open. Evan took a closer look and quickly discovered they'd been opened by force. All but one, at least. At the very back stood an ornate metal cabinet, larger than the other lockers. Three silver padlocks protected the cabinet.

Evan didn't even have to ask Catriona for her opinion. He could feel the magic radiating off the locks. Luca's eyes went wide.

"I wonder what's in there. It must be really valuable."

"It must also be really well protected," Catriona said with a scolding look.

"If the experts of the guilds couldn't break the locks, the four of us stand absolutely no chance, so don't even think about it."

"Aren't you curious?" Luca asked.

"Of course I am, but we're on a rescue mission and you keep getting distracted by shiny stuff." She grabbed Luca by the arm and unceremoniously dragged him away from the cabinet and toward the door. Evan pulled it open and found that the pattern of corridor-room-corridor continued. Emboldened by their earlier success, he stepped through the doorway without hesitation. The rest of the team followed, although Luca threw a last longing glance at the cabinet before he entered the hallway.

As soon as the door fell shut behind them, something strange happened to the stone floor again. Mud seemed to stream out from the thin grooves between the stone slabs. At first, Evan was hopeful. Maybe Oliver could use that mud for his [Earthen Bulwark], but they soon realized the brown slush was far too liquid to be of any use to them. The hallway was turning into a smelly swamp landscape, with only a few small islands protruding out.

They all huddled together on one of those small islands, close to the entry door. The ground they were standing on felt mushy and slippery, but it was better than the swampy water that filled the rest of the hallway. Evan scrunched his nose and readied his sword, waiting for the monsters to emerge. He didn't have to wait long. The first sign was a ripple on the otherwise still brown water. A splash, and then a long, greenish-gray tentacle wiggled out of the water.

It stretched out; at the thickest point it was thicker than a grown man's upper thigh, and revealed its full length of at least twenty feet. Evan held his breath, awaiting what monstrosity it was attached to. The tentacle seemed to reach around, as if it was exploring its surroundings, and then a bulbous head appeared. Not fully, just enough to reveal eight orange eyes, before it submerged again and more tentacles shot out of the water. Oliver flinched back.

"This seems like the kind of monster we should attack with ranged attacks."