Chương 44

Rel Turns Down a Scroll Thankfully, the warhammer wasn't too difficult to find. The red of the blood and guts coating the weapon were a stark contrast to the blanket of white. After giving it a vigorous scrub in the snow, I returned it to my inventory. As I strode towards the mountain of ice, I wondered who I'd need to speak to about having a recall rune added to Avatar's Judgment. Perhaps I'd have to pay my old friend the quartermaster a visit – I'm sure he was missing me dearly by now.

My earlier conversation with Rel suddenly returned to the forefront of my thoughts. Would he know how to add the rune? He'd shown a surprisingly in-depth understanding of the runes on my weapon and how they worked. After studying them for only a few moments, he'd been able to recreate their effects. Not only that – he'd even adjusted them on a whim. I knew very little about the intricacies of spell craft, but even I knew that was not normal. That he possessed an affinity for magic was obvious.

It had been ever since I'd seen Kaelis's reaction to how quickly Rel had learned to cast fireball back on Floor One. The guy looked like he'd just witnessed someone shit gold. Maybe he'd spent a lot of time studying with Professor Indagore during my two-week grind-a-thon? I supposed it was possible, but it didn't seem likely what with him being busy establishing the guild and recruiting members. I sighed and filed the thoughts away for later.

It was pointless speculating – I'd just have to ask him when an opportunity presented itself. * It took far longer to locate the body of the frost queen. I jumped to the top of the mountain and started heaving aside great chunks of ice, some the size of a small house. On a few occasions, the precarious structure trembled ominously, and I was concerned the whole thing would come tumbling down like a very cold house of cards. When I eventually found the corpse, it was a rather grim sight.

I gazed at it with morbid fascination, a little surprised to see that despite the strange texture of her skin, the frost queen's insides were very much human. I knew this because of the length of intestine that snaked out of the hole in her stomach and trailed across the ground beside her. Delightful. I knelt down and opened the loot window. There were two items, and the first caused me very mixed emotions. A scroll. Cast Spell: Summon Yeti(s) Allows the caster to summon yetis.

The number and potency of the yetis is determined by the caster's intelligence level. I sighed and transferred it to my inventory pouch. I had very uncomfortable visions of Rel standing at the head of a small army. The skeletal knight division. The yeti division. What would be next? I turned my attention to the next item.

Blade of Eternal Frost A weapon from the armoury of the Avatar of Frost Equipping the sword grants the following bonuses: + 4 agility + 3 intelligence + Resistance to cold-based magic + Grants the ability: Winter's Touch Winter's Touch Each successful strike drains heat from the target, applying a stack of Winter's Touch. Each stack reduces the target's movement speed and physical strength. Stacks up to five times. Elemental Blades (1/2) The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site.

Support the author by reading it there. One of two legendary weapons wielded by the Avatars of Flame and Frost. Set Bonus Wielding both Elemental Blades unlocks the ability Frostfire Blade Frostfire Blade The opposing elemental energies fuse together, wreathing both weapons in frostfire. Strikes deal bonus fire and frost damage and partially ignore resistances. Duration of effect scales with wielder's agility Elemental blades? Set Bonus? Frostfire Blade? It was some of the coolest shit I'd ever heard.

I withdrew the weapon from my inventory, suddenly wishing I possessed even the faintest clue how to fight with a sword. The handle was wrapped in black leather, the hilt and pommel a shimmering silver and etched with intricate patterns of frost. The blade itself was a long shard of pale blue crystal. It wasn't straight or perfectly formed – instead it had jagged edges running along its length. I swung it experimentally a few times, the sword leaving a trail of icy mist in its wake.

I was glad no one was watching me – I have no doubt my shit-eating grin and excited giggles made me look like an absolute moron. But damn was it cool. I pulled up the item description again. One of two legendary weapons wielded by the Avatars of Flame and Frost. The frost lady had never actually introduced herself, what with her being far too busy ranting and raving about how evil we were for pancaking her yetis and how Pyroth was a piece of shit.

But based on the item description, I could only assume that she was the Avatar of Frost, which meant Pyroth must have a chance of dropping the other blade. In that case, we'd be visiting Floor Eight again very soon. * I returned to find Rel in the same spot, still dozing contentedly with a small smile playing across his lips. No doubt he was dreaming about his glorious return to Oakreach and proclaiming himself the new Avatar of Flame and God of Thunder. I looked at Rel. I looked down at the snow by my feet.

It'd be so easy to give it a good kick and send a shower of it raining down over him. I tried to fight the temptation, but the temptation won. Now, I can't explain how he knew what was about to happen. Perhaps squirrels on the Trial planet possessed some sort of precognitive ability to detect danger – or in this case, mild discomfort – but not a single snowflake touched him.

The moment my boot sent it racing towards him, ribbons of flame flared into life, whirling around his body so quickly that they formed a fiery cocoon. Snow met flame and the hissing of rapidly evaporating water filled the air, a cloud of steam billowing upwards. When the last of the snow had melted, the ribbons of flame winked out of existence to reveal Rel, now wide awake, staring at me darkly.

"Now that wasn't very nice, was it?" he asked. It never failed to impress me how such a small creature was capable of projecting such an air of menace. Before the situation could escalate any further, I deployed my most reliable Rel-distraction method: I withdrew the scroll from my inventory. His eyes widened and he flew over to examine it. His reaction was both surprising and a little bit touching. After unrolling it and reading the name of the spell, he scoffed and tossed it back to me.

"Arboreal Observers are known to possess many noble qualities," he said.

"The top amongst them is loyalty. I would never betray Commander Osian and his knights after they have shown me such unwavering loyalty, especially not to summon minions as uncouth and mindless as yetis."

"That is very noble of you," I said.

"A scroll from Floor Eight? I reckon the auction master will be pretty excited about this one." Apparently judging that we were finished with our looting and ready to move on, the quest completion interfaced popped up to say hello. Quest Complete: The Gauntlet Wow. You actually did it. My money was on you having the flesh melted from your bones in the first chamber. Good job, I guess. Reward: Essence of Knowledge – Aura Manipulation I stared blankly at the text for a few moments. I was so confused.

Who the fuck wrote the quest updates? Was it some sort of advanced AI? Or was there some miserable asshole sat in a dingy office somewhere, sipping on his seventh can of soda of the day, watching us through some hidden camera like a pervert? I could imagine him hunched over the keyboard, furiously typing the quest completion message, raging that we'd survived after he'd bet money on us suffering a gruesome death. I looked around with narrowed eyes, trying to spot his camera.

I couldn't see it, but just to be safe, I raised my middle fingers and spun on the spot. For good measure, I also directed them at the ground. You never know.

"UP YOURS, PERVERT QUEST GUY!"

"Who the fuck are you talking to?" asked Rel. I explained my theory and his eyes soon narrowed until they were in a similar state to my own.

"In that case…" I'd like to imagine that my pervert quest guy theory was correct, and somewhere out there in the galaxy, he was staring at his screen, mouth agape as he watched a man and a squirrel spinning on the spot, flipping him off most enthusiastically. Once we were satisfied our message had been clearly conveyed, we discussed what to do next.

"I'm not going to use the Essence until we're back in the Guild Hall," I said.

"I don't know what it'll involve or how long it'll take, so I'd rather have a comfy chair to sit in while I figure it out." Rel shrugged.

"That's fine with me. I'm actually rather curious to learn whether Kaelis has had any success finding guild members to join our new little group." He glanced in the direction of the tunnel to Floor Nine.

"However, before we leave, we should at least take a quick peek." * Floor Nine is currently unavailable. It will become accessible in 118 days. As we reached the fork in the tunnel – one path leading back to Floor One and the other to Floor Nine – we were greeted by a signpost with this message carved into the wood. Rel, apparently not a fan of being told 'no', attempted to float past the sign and head down the tunnel anyway. He found himself in an unexpected fight with a magical barrier.

As he reached the threshold of the tunnel, a barrier of arcane energy flared into life, a brilliant blue that thrummed with so much power that even I could feel it. It's fair to say that the barrier won the encounter, repelling Rel with a charge of electricity so powerful that it'd have made Zeus blush. If a weaker Trialist had been on the receiving end, I'm fairly certain they'd have been reduced to a smoking pile of ash.

Rel, being a little more resilient, was instead sent tumbling down the tunnel, his blackened fur curling with smoke.

"I don't think we're supposed to go that way," I said.