Frostbitten Wayfarer

“What do you mean?” Zoe asked as a gust of cold wind rushed past.

“I just wasn’t expecting something so raw, is all.” Eliza looked down the tunnel.

“Raw?” Zoe asked.

“Primal? Powerful? This isn’t just a cave that’s a little cold, it’s cold.” Eliza strained the last word as she spoke.

“What’s that mean?" Zoe asked.

“Could be anything, really. My guess is a dungeon’s forming here, but I could be wrong. Shall we?” Eliza gestured down the tunnel to the left.

“That just leads to the big cavern, no real way down. For me, anyway.” Zoe said.

“Yeah I know. I wanna see it though, lets go look.” Eliza started walking down the tunnel. Her hair blew in the wind but she seemed unaffected by it as she almost skipped down with a cheer that Zoe didn’t need her Empathy to see.

When they got to the cavern, Eliza peered over the edge and smiled. “Hmmm. Interesting.”

“What are they?" Zoe asked.

“I thought you wanted to go it alone, without my help?” Eliza grinned.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “Yeah yeah I do. Whatever. Lets go my way now, I wanna explore.”

The pair started walking back and Eliza started talking about the system again.

“I think that places like this were designed by whoever made the system, too. I think a lot of what we take for granted was designed by whoever made the system. Dungeons, magic, even our short lives. I think it’s all system granted. Monsters that roam the wilderness. That vampire that attacked you? A creature designed by the system overlords, I’d say.” Eliza said.

“So the entire world was just made as some sort of experiment then?” Zoe asked.

“I don’t think the entire world. An experiment is a nice idea though, yeah. Manipulated and changed to their experiment, but I think that we existed before the system. Whoever created it just goes around planet to planet, comes up with a variety of changes to make to it and then throws their system at it. That’s my opinion, anyway.” Eliza said.

“How many planets are there then? I read about something like that in a book I got recently.” Zoe asked.

Eliza scoffed. “No way I could know. Ten? Twenty? A few thousand? Even more? I’ve never left here personally, probably won’t ever. But somebody does, and they keep iterating on their system as they go.”

“Well I think that there are people who don’t know much more than us about the system who also travel across planets. The book I read had a guy who travelled around worlds and didn’t seem to know the origins of the system.” Zoe said.

“What is this book you’re talking about anyway?” Eliza asked.

Zoe paused. The book had a lot of information in it that Eliza might be interested in. Maybe she already knew a lot of it, but immortality was something Eliza wanted before. Zoe smiled.

“Just a book I found.” Zoe answered.

“Oh don’t give me that, I’m here helping you out of the goodness of my heart. Come on, what is it?” Eliza pried.

“Fine, fine. But you’re in my debt after this.” Zoe said.

“If it’s good.” Eliza said.

“Richard’s Legacy, not sure if you’ve heard of it.” Zoe said.

“Can’t say I have, you got it on you?" Eliza asked.

“I do,” Zoe summoned the book and handed it to Eliza.

Eliza read through it as they walked through the tunnels for a while. It twisted around, over and under itself for a while. The walls all looked the same and were uniform in size which gave Zoe a little anxiety. Were they even by chance, or were they dug by a large worm that was still around?

Eventually, the tunnel opened into a smaller cave. It was almost a perfect sphere, with the tunnel Zoe and Eliza walked through poking in a few feet above the bottom. Nowhere near as large as the massive cavern, but there were still a handful of other tunnels connected to it.

Zoe peered down into the cave and saw two misshapen forms of clear blue ice sliding around on the floor. Identify showed them both as dark green level forty-two Frozen Shards.

For a moment, Zoe thought about creating one of her Frost Projectiles and firing it off, but then she realized a problem with that. If these were Frozen Shards, there was a good chance they had a high resistance against Zoe’s skills. Her Frost projectiles might just be absorbed into them, but she didn’t really have another good method of attack either. She’d given up her physical weapons because they were just weak, but that might have been a mistake.

To her delight, the Frozen Shards didn’t seem to notice her. Either they were quite unperceptive, or they just didn’t care about her. Whatever the case, Zoe had a moment to think about her plan. She noticed Eliza stop reading and look out over the Frozen Shards but pushed the distraction aside.

In theory, she could use another Manipulation skill and enchant it with the same skills then fire it off to do another type of damage, it would just be weaker. But that was okay, Zoe was higher level than them now. That wasn’t the be all end all of power, as she knew. But it gave her some confidence in being able to escape at least.

Besides, they were just shards of ice, not big raging animals. She could handle it.

Zoe pulled off a chunk of ice from the wall to reveal the rock behind it and began flooding mana into the red hued ore. It didn’t take long to rip off a small chunk of it then form it into a sharp point, and she flashed on an enchantment of Archery, Spear-Fighting and Sword-Fighting. The projectile fired off at one of the Frozen Shards and smashed into pieces against the clear blue ice. Rock and ice shattered, and Zoe’s ears rang from the sharp screech that echoed through the cave like nails on a chalkboard as the Frozen Shard vibrated.

She barely noticed it fire off its own icy projectile towards her and dodged out of the way, but failed to notice the other Frozen Shard doing the same. The ice pierced into her leg and Zoe felt the cold begin to creep in as frost spread out from the wound.

Health: 793/1000

Zoe screamed as she ripped the ice out of her leg, then pushed herself back deeper into the tunnel to dodge another barrage of projectiles that shattered against the roof of the tunnel.

“Fuck!" Zoe flooded herself with Restoration and her health quickly filled back up.

Another of the horrible noises echoed through the cave and Zoe gripped her head to try and block out the sound. She heard the scraping grow louder as the Frozen Shards climbed up to her tunnel and felt her heart race from the fear.

Should she run? Should she stand her ground and overcome? She could handle the two, maybe. If she got herself together. But was something else coming from the massive cavern, drawn to the screeching noise? Was it an attack or a call for help?

Zoe shook her head. If she ran away every time she faced the slightest danger she’d never accomplish anything. She flooded the walls with mana and pulled out a larger chunk of rock almost the size of her torso, then enchanted it with Shield-Fighting, Archery and Cooking with a focus on crushing garlic. She waited for the Frozen Shards to just enter her tunnel and braced herself for the screeching noise that was sure to come.

The Frozen Shards vibrated and rattled Zoe’s head, but she was prepared for it and fired off the large chunk of rock. It twisted and turned as it flew through the air and smashed into both of the Frozen shards. The heavy rock shoved both of the Shards out of her tunnel and flying back into the cave. Zoe breathed a sigh of relief and then started pulling more rock out of the wall to enchant while she set up her Enchanted Mirror with the new crushing focused enchantment.

She enchanted one of the chunks of rock with Shield-Fighting, Mining and Cooking with a focus on crushing then walked up to the edge. Both of the Frozen Shards fired off their projectiles as soon as she poked her head out, and Zoe moved the chunk of rock to intercept them. She heard the projectiles shatter against the rock and felt the drain on her mana as she pushed back against them.

And then the sound came again as both the Shards vibrated. The screeching sound echoed and Zoe flashed her enchantment onto one of the chunks of rock she’d gathered. She stepped back and dropped control over the earthen shield she made then aimed the new earthen projectile at one of the Shards and fired it off.

It smashed straight through in an explosion of ice and bounced off the frozen ground before it settled near the other side of the room. The one remaining Shard launched another projectile and Zoe leapt back into the tunnel to dodge it.

Zoe stepped forward over the edge of the tunnel and aimed another of the large earthen projectiles. Just before she fired it, the Frozen Shard vibrated and sent its screeching sound echoing through the cave again. Zoe struggled to keep her aim while her ears were assaulted and the rock slammed into the ground next to the Frozen Shard and bounced away harmlessly.

*Ding* You have unlocked the Sound resistance.

She grabbed another of her prepared hematite chunks then launched it at the Frozen Shard and it exploded in another cloud of ice. Zoe fell back onto the tunnel floor and took a deep breath. The cold air was painful to breath and wasn’t the relaxing sigh she hoped for. She focused on her hearing, trying to tell if anything else was approaching because of the noise, but it was silent other than the normal gusts of wind and chattering of the ice and Eliza’s footsteps not far behind her.

“Nice fight,” Eliza said.

“I don’t think so, I got hit right at the start. That sucked.” Zoe said.

“Well you’re gonna get hit.” Eliza gestured to the scars covering her arms.

“I guess. I prefer when I don’t, though.” Zoe said.

Eliza shrugged. “Don’t we all. You lived, they didn’t. That’s all that matters. Shall we continue?” Eliza gestured towards the larger opening.

Zoe sighed. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

Zoe and Eliza climbed down the short ways to the bottom of the cave and looked around. It wasn’t all that large, but there were a few tunnels to choose from. Eliza bent down and picked up some of the shards of ice that covered the ground.

“What’s that?" Zoe asked.

“Hmm, not sure. They’re interesting though.” Eliza said.

Zoe looked at them closer and saw mana being pulled towards the shards and absorbed. It wasn’t significant and if Eliza hadn’t mentioned it, she wouldn’t have noticed it. But it was interesting. Zoe picked up a handful of them and stored them away in her bracelet. She created a stick of ice with a pointed end and tossed it in the air as violently as she could.

The stick bounced off the ceiling and clattered on the ground. The point was towards one of the tunnels if you were generous with your definition of towards, and Zoe decided that was good enough. She was going to make a mark on the tunnel she came from, but it was clear enough from all the damage caused through the fight.

Large chunks of the wall were ripped out and the clear icy wall was cloudy from the cracks caused by the impacts. Zoe turned towards the other tunnel and climbed up the icy wall towards it. The tunnel was much the same, and the two started wandering down it.

“Interesting book.” Eliza handed the book back to Zoe and she stored it away in her bracelet. “I’d like to talk to this Richard person. Wonder how much they’ve discovered since they wrote this.”

“I honestly hadn’t even thought of that. I kinda just thought of it as up to date information, but I guess there’s no reason to think of it like that, huh?” Zoe said.

“There's no reason to think that. It could have been written yesterday, but it just as well may not have. You didn't get this from Richard. Who knows how many hands its traded through before you ended up with it. It may have been written thousands, maybe millions of years ago.” Eliza said.

“I guess. Weird to think that there could be a Richard out there with millions of years of stats though.” Zoe said.

Eliza looked at Zoe for a moment. “There’s plenty of powerful beings out there in the universe. In another few million years, you’ll be one of them I’m sure.”

“I guess. I just don’t really think on that kind of scale, really. It’s so hard to understand.” Zoe said.

“Where are you from?” Eliza asked.

“I told you before I just got teleported here one day and been here ever since.” Zoe said.

“Mhm. This book as good as confirms that you’re not human though, you know? I’m curious. What are you?" Eliza pressed.

Zoe froze. She hadn’t even considered that. Eliza knew that Zoe had her immortality through a vampire error, the book told Eliza that only races not from this world would have that happen. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Zoe wasn’t from this world.

“I know you said you don’t wanna talk about it more but now I’m super interested. How old are you anyway?”

“Honestly I can’t remember how old I am now. I think I’m thirty-three, though.” Zoe said.

“Hmmm. Interesting. Well if you really don’t wanna share I won’t press anymore. The book was interesting, thanks. Tell me if you find any of those immortality elementals, I still need immortality.” Eliza said.

“You really want immortality, huh?” Zoe asked.

“Of course! Knowing I’m going to die someday makes everything so stressful. Can’t spend any time relaxing, gotta rush off to the next exciting thing. Every moment of time I have I spend researching and learning, rushing around to find the slightest hint of something new and exciting. If I could live forever I wouldn’t have to stress about it anymore.” Eliza said.

“Is that why you rushed to Lila’s when I sent that message? Because I’m immortal and might be able to help you?" Zoe asked.

“Of course! An immortal enigma wants to talk about the system? That’s about as good an opportunity as I’m gonna get. And it paid off too, I’ve got something to work on now.” Eliza said.

The two kept walking through the tunnel until it ended up in the main massive cavern with the specks of blue floundering around at the bottom. They started making their way back to the previous, smaller cavern to try another one of the connected tunnels.