Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe sat on her bed for a few more hours and tested out her new abilities. Scorched Echo was an interesting one, doing the same thing her Frozen Echo did but with a wispy cloud of ash and flame. The heat aura she had would have been quite nice while she was exploring the frozen cave, but she shrugged the thought off. The entire class would have been an incredible boon to her exploration, but she managed just fine without it.

Adaptive Cinders was something she was excited to try out on a zombie, but not so much on her prized bed and inside her wooden building. And Alacrity was the same as always.

Zoe summoned a chunk of rock with her Earth, then giggled a bit and replaced it with some Frost. Something about testing her heat enchantments on a ball of ice amused her more than she thought it should.

Scorched Echo was a very interesting enchantment. At first glance it did nothing, but when Zoe pushed mana into it the ball of ice formed a matching ball of smouldering, wispy ash. Rather than the echo following along with the ice when she moved it though, the echo seemed to just remain in place where she fed it mana, and dissipated after about a minute.

If she continued feeding it mana, then it was able to form a strange wispy shadow that followed behind the ice ball but forming the echo was quite mana intensive so she wasn’t able to sustain it for very long.

She had a lot of fun ideas with it though. The wispy cloud of ash was quite warm to the touch, but didn’t seem to be solid as she was able to wave her hand through it without affecting it at all. She thought it might be a nice improvement to her earthen doors one day when she’s able to get an extra enchantment in them. The stone squishing off to the side only to be replaced with a permeable cloud sounded like just the kind of vibe she’d enjoy.

Adaptive Cinders was a much simpler enchantment to understand. When she pushed the enchantment into her ball of ice, again nothing happened. But when she touched the ball of ice, her fingers felt somewhat warmed, despite the ice not melting at all.

Zoe repeated it with more mana dense hematite that she created, and found the warming effect was intensified so much that it was almost uncomfortable. Maybe with enough mana, it could even cause some real pain. But what interested her the most was that it didn’t seem to make the objects themselves hotter since her frost didn’t melt like it normally would when it was heated up. It just made whatever touched the enchanted object hot.

Alacrity was the same as she expected, and Zoe’s musings were interrupted by a knock on her door. She stood up and pulled her bed into her storage bracelet — the rest of the furniture she didn’t mind leaving but a mattress was hard for her to make.

At the door was the familiar young merchant in his gaudy sparkling gold robes. Zoe handed off the keys and took the payment then headed off for the gate up Moaning Point.

She started at the earlier stages of the mountain to test out some of her new skills. Scorched Echo was fun to use, but at this low on the mountain not all too useful. Whatever the echo was copying was more than capable of taking out a zombie, so the echo never managed to have an impact. But it was fun watching the cloud of ash follow along with her movements.

At the next stage up the mountain, Zoe found the stick wielding zombies to pose very little more threat. Even when she let them smash into the sheet of ice that covered her, the impacts were almost unnoticeable. The sword of ice she formed with her Frozen Arsenal smashed through them and their black bones were pulled back into the earth by whatever magic powered the dungeon.

Zoe wandered around the higher area of the second stage for a few hours in search of another armoured zombie, for her revenge. Dozens of zombies fell as she ran through the forests until she found another zombie clad in rusted metal armour. The distant shine she saw through the trees reminded her of her last failure and she felt her nerves eat away at her.

But she was higher level now. And even if she wasn’t, she got away just fine last time. There was no reason to be scared now. Zoe took a deep breath and readied a frozen ball of ice next to her. She flashed an enchantment of Archery, Shield Fighting and an explosive Frozen Arsenal onto it and launched it at the armoured zombie.

The projectile flew through the air and impacted the zombie in its chest, followed shortly by a burning cloud of ash. The explosion blew a hole through the rusted armour, and the zombie was dragged back into the mountain. Zoe stared at the scene in shock.

Somehow, the armoured zombie had stood as a testament to her failure, the limit of what she could achieve. And yet with all of her improvements, it ended up being no more of an obstacle than any other mindless bag of flesh that wandered around the lower stages of the mountain.

She had expected to win, to prove to herself that she was better now. That she could handle more than she could before. But to see it be such a laughable challenge was surprising.

Though, if she were being fair to herself, that wasn’t what she did before either. Her failure came from wanting to overcome it even if things went wrong. She didn’t take the easy route of smashing through it from a distance, she tried to defeat it in a hands on battle with her physical prowess.

The idea was almost laughable to Zoe now. Why would she choose to allow a zombie to rush her down like that? If that happened in a real fight, Zoe would be fleeing as quick as she could or at least trying to pepper it with obstacles on its way to her.

But true victory would be overcoming it in a worst case scenario, she knew. Zoe spent another few hours searching for another zombie and double checked she was prepared. Her armour was renewed and ready for a beating. Her sword and shield were resummoned and well tested, wisps of ciders followed behind her every moment. And most importantly, she was downhill from the zombie just like the last time. With her new experience, she’d never try and engage a rushing zombie from downhill, but she wanted to prove to herself that she could handle it now.

She summoned a blade of wind and launched it at the zombie off in the distance. She saw the zombie stumble as the force impacted it and then turn to look at her. Zoe hopped around a bit to grab its attention, and was rewarded with a familiar scream as the zombie rushed down the hill towards her. Its large, shoddy shield shook on its arm as it smashed through bushes and shrubbery.

Several more zombies in the forest around them turned and began running towards Zoe, including another zombie clad in rusted armour with a misshapen rapier.

Zoe held her shield out in front and braced herself for the impact. Stone rose up from behind her to support her, and she watched the zombie in its single minded sprint down the hill towards her.

The zombie slammed its shield into hers, but Zoe held strong. The stone support behind her felt like it was going to snap, but she held it together with her Earth skill and knocked the zombie to the side.

Off to her right was the next armoured zombie with its bent rapier. Zoe stepped to the side and slammed her shield into the zombie as it passed, and it tumbled down the hill. The shield zombie turned and roared again at her. Zoe rushed in and bashed its shield out of the way with hers then stabbed her sword into its shoulder.

Her icy sword rammed into the slit where the plates overlapped and ripped them apart. The smell of burning flesh buffeted Zoe’s nose as her echo burnt into the zombie’s shoulder and heat tore through its torso. The zombie’s free arm fell limp and she kicked its chest to send it tumbling down the mountain. To her left was another zombie with a large stone, shambling towards her. She stepped back and let the zombie slam its stone into the ground the dragged her sword across its neck. The flesh ripped apart, and its black bones were reclaimed by the dungeon.

Zoe raised her shield to block a hit from the rapier wielding armoured zombie, and sent its arm flailing off to the side. She jumped in to ram her sword into its shoulder, and the rapier fell to the ground as its arm went limp and burned from her Adaptive Cinders.

She reached out and grabbed its helmet then kicked it in the chest as she ripped it off. The zombie’s rotting maw howled as it tumbled down the mountain, and Zoe turned her attention to the shield bearing zombie.

To the right of it was another zombie with a long stick that it was waving out in front towards Zoe. She swung her shield at it and knocked the stick between her and the armoured zombie then rushed in past the stick and cut into the zombie with her sword.

The shield zombie slammed its shield towards her and she pushed the stick wielding zombie in its way then leapt back. The zombie was crushed under the weight of the hefty shield and reclaimed by the dungeon.

Zoe ran in and grabbed the zombie’s shield then jabbed her sword into its shoulder. The arm fell limp and Zoe tossed the shield down the hill at the other armoured zombie clambering up towards her. The zombie tumbled down the hill with the shield, and Zoe summoned a large icy mace then slammed it down into the armoured zombie next to her. Her echo followed immediately after and left dark, scorched marks across the zombie’s rusted armour.

The impact rattled the zombie’s armour and it stumbled back into a tree. Zoe slammed her mace into it again and the zombie fell to the ground. The armour shook for a moment and then went limp. Zoe ripped off the helmet and saw the inside of the armour was empty with a gaping hole in the back.

The last zombie was rushing up the hill towards her, its gaping rotten mouth screeching as its arms flailed around it. Zoe smashed into it with her icy shield and then slashed her sword across its neck. Her echo burnt into the zombie’s flesh and it fell limp. Its bones were dragged out of the armour through the neck and pulled back into the ground.

Zoe fell to the ground and laughed. It was the most intense physical fight she’d been in, but it felt so comfortable, so slow. The zombies’ mindless brawling was predictable and simple to piece apart with her sturdy icy shield. Their rusted armour was weak and brittle with weak points aplenty.

She heard another zombie wandering towards her, attracted by the noise of the battle and fired off a Frost projectile at it. The zombie exploded in a cloud of frost and the dungeon reclaimed its bones.

To think she had been so terrified of them before, so broken down by one simple zombie. She shook her head and stood up. In the forest around her were dozens of zombies shambling their way over with stumps for legs or crawling on the ground towards her. She walked up to one of the crawling zombies and rammed an icy spear into its back.

The zombie fell limp and its flesh dissolved away to reveal the black skeleton beneath it. Zoe reached in and grabbed one of its ribs before the dungeon could reclaim it. The wisps of light rushed in to overwhelm her, but she pulled back on it. Zoe summoned a pillar of frost below the skeleton to help push the bones away, and flooded the bones with her mana.

After a minute, the pressure released and Zoe fell backwards still holding the black rib she grabbed. The rest of the skeleton was pulled back into the ground, but Zoe smiled at the sight of the black bone still in her hand.

She fired off a few frost projectiles at the zombies that had gotten nearer to her and started flooding the bone with mana. It felt almost identical to the icy splinters, and she stored it away in her bracelet to test out at a later time.

The icy splinters were convenient to manipulate into shapes but were rather brittle. The bones were much harder to manipulate into shapes, but in return were themselves also much harder. They might not be as useful for embedding enchantments into her floors or walls but might end up being much more useful for making weapons or armour out of if she could figure out how to manage that.

Zoe continued up the mountain towards the next sign and then past it. Zombies with magic was something she was quite excited to see. The Frozen Shards that she’d fought used magic, and it added a great deal of trouble to the fights compared to raw physical might. She was excited to see what kinds of magic the dungeon would be throwing at her.

It didn’t take long before she found her first magical zombie. It looked much the same as the stick wielding zombies from the stage below, but with the addition of what looked like an enchanted stick and a much higher level. Dark red level fifty three to her identify.

Wisps of flame rose off the stick and evaporated into smoke. She walked up closer to the zombie, and it rushed towards her. The zombies free arm raised and pointed towards her before a small puff of flame rushed out of its hand towards her.

Zoe rose her icy shield, and the flame washed over her shield, melting part of it. She pouted and then reformed her shield with Frozen Arsenal.

The zombie swung its flaming stick down towards her, and Zoe stepped out of the way. It smashed into the ground in a small explosion of flame that rose up almost to Zoe’s thigh height. She rushed in and slashed her sword across the zombies chest, and it grabbed her arm as its chest burned from Zoe’s echo.

Flames rushed out of the zombies hand and covered Zoe’s arm. Her armour shattered and Zoe shuddered from the sudden rush of mana. She jumped back and regained her breath as the zombie rushed towards her again.

Zoe summoned two Frost projectiles and fired them both at the zombie. They exploded in a cloud of frost, and the zombie fell to the ground. Its rotten flesh dissolved away and the black skeleton was absorbed back into the mountain.

She took a few minutes to regain her breath and reform her armour then looked at the remains. The zombie’s stick was left on the ground, though the flames had vanished. Next to the stick was a small orange gem, and Zoe picked it up. The gem was warm to the touch, but not to an unpleasant extent. She flooded it with mana, half expecting it to burst out in flames but nothing happened. She shrugged and stored it away in her bracelet.