Bog made decent progress before Caleb decided it was time to go back out into the cave. He talked it over with Bogâwho had no feedbackâand decided to explore a little bit more of the caves in hopes of finding more pockets of rare ore. They only had the small bucket of the stuff, and if it reduced at a similar ratio to iron ore, heâd have enough for a small knife at bestâa very small knife.
If he was being honest, he also wanted to test out his new abilities.
The pair quickly traversed the cave and returned to where theyâd turned back on their first foray. The bats theyâd left behind were gone, taken to be eaten by other denizens of the caves. Caleb inspected the patterns in the blood as Bog licked the remnants off the ground and walls. At first he only saw his own footprints, and surmised more bats or cloakers had eaten the fallen, but then he saw that some of the footprints had distinct toes outlined in the blood.
He looked at his foot, to see if his boots had gaping holes heâd somehow not noticed before.
There were no holes.
Caleb sent alertness through the bond, and Bogâs head snapped up to attention as he sniffed the air. The dragon found nothing, and Caleb turned to his wind and metal senses to try to detect any nearby foes. As far as either sense could reach, he found nothing worth suspicion. He positioned his spear better on his shoulder, and loosened the string on his bag of nails, and they continued on down into the icelit caves.
As they went, Caleb found a few more of the cavern mana mushrooms. He collected them in a sack heâd found next to the woodstove that he suspected once contained potatoes. Deeper and deeper they went, the ledges skirting the edge of the great chasm, occasionally diverting away into the stone only to reemerge along the cavern once more. Through his Wind Affinity, Caleb could tell when the outlet would rejoin with the chasm, and they avoided any path that led them out into the darkness. The glowing ore-infused ice was the only illumination in the bowels of the mountains, and none extended into these tunnels.
After what felt like hours, Bog stopped, his nose sniffing excitedly at the air.
âOre?â Caleb asked, and received an excited yelp from the dragon and a strong affirmative through the bond.
Bog took off at a sprint.
âWait!â Caleb shouted after him, far louder than heâd meant to.
He ran for the dragon and quickly caught up to the heavy beastâs lumbering gait, but he could do nothing to slow him, so he resigned himself to following. Suddenly, a powerful weight appeared in Calebâs senses just as his eyes picked it up in the darkness. By the dim light of the ice flows, he saw an exposed vein of the white ore, right out in the open.
Bog leaped for the vein, landing on the ice that made up the floor beneath it. The ice shattered, and Caleb had just an instant to regret not trying harder to stop Bog when the ground below him fell as well.
Occasionally in their journey, ice flows had blocked off the path, but the pair easily walked over them. Other times, the flows traveled down channels that appeared tailor-made to funnel the ice while leaving the ledge passable. It was on one recessed ice flow such as this that the exposed vein sat. It hadnât been a flow, but a thin sheet covering a steep drop.
Bog fell first, breaking through with his great weight, and once shattered, the ice couldnât hold Caleb. They fell a few meters before hitting a steep icy incline lit with the traces of embedded magical ore. Bog clawed at it frantically, yelping in surprise and terror as they slipped. The cavern they were falling through had once been a tube whose ice was pushed up and out to the surface by whatever strange phenomena birthed the ice volcanoes. The sides were still covered in the glowing ice, and as the cavern flattened out, they slid over the rough, jagged surface.
Thankfully for Caleb, Bog was in front of him, his iron body ripping through any major obstacles that would be far greater impedances to Calebâs meager constitution of 8. His helmet nearly flew off his head multiple times, but he held it in place with a thread of mana and a considerable amount of his attention. Distantly he was aware of his spear falling with them. He tried to pull it toward him, but couldnât arrest the spinâall his attempts to move it proved unpredictable at the distance. As the spiraling stick of death came tumbling toward him, he drew on his Wind Affinity to push him out of its path while simultaneously pushing the spear away with a last-minute nudge. It flew past him into the depths.
Caleb fumbled for his knife, but in the end used his telekinesis to draw it to his hand. The blade slashed his grasping hand before he managed to grip the handle. He slammed his blade into the ice repeatedly, trying to gain purchase and slow his descent. Bogâs clawing and weight together gave him more success, and before Caleb could stop himself, he crashed into Bog, whoâd slowed ahead.
âOoph!â Caleb said, the air spilling from his lungs as he suddenly stopped against the dragon friend.
Bog let out a whimper of apology as he lay on his back panting.
âYou okay?â Caleb asked, even as he examined himself for wounds.
His cut hand seemed to be the worst of his, save for some bruising. His quick thinking with his helmet had likely saved his life.
Bog let out a grunt, and sent a mild amount of pain through the bond, but from that, Caleb knew he was okay.
They took stock of what they had. Calebâs spear had fallen further, and he hoped to recover it. A check of his status showed that the weapon still registered as equipped, despite its distance.
He tried to find the threads that connected him to the weapon. They led down into the ice, but it wasnât moving. As he focused on the connection, he could feel that it was subtly weakening, but he had some time until it failed.
âI think we have to go down,â Caleb said to Bog.
Bog, still lying on his back, let out a huff.
âDonât be mad at me. This is completely your fault.â
Bog whined, and sent the thought of all the ore at Caleb.
âIt was very clearly a trap!â Caleb shouted.
The dragon let out a low yelp.
âYeahâ¦â Caleb agreed. âIt was a lot of that magic ore.â
Caleb sent his senses out around him, looking for any of the nails heâd lost in his tumble and only finding two. His Wind Affinity neatly outlined the path ahead, as the three-meter-wide tunnel had a constant breeze upward. The tunnel continued on at a steady decline, and Bog led the way, punching his iron talons deep into the ice for traction and creating rough holds for Caleb to follow.
âThere might be people waiting at the bottom,â Caleb said, after theyâd found his spear sticking out of the ice.
At the word âpeople,â Bog sent confusion.
âPeople,â Caleb repeated, touching his chest. âCreatures like me⦠but not me. There are others who live near my village that live on the ice. The Frigidi. They use weapons crafted from ice, but as hard as steel.â
Caleb reinforced his words with ideas and mental images. While they couldnât send the images themselves to each other, picturing one along with speaking crystalized the intent. Caleb wasnât sure how, but Bog had learned English at an alarming rateâhe suspected the bond had something to do with it.
Or weird system nonsense, he thought. Maybe all creatures know English?
The pair moved more cautiously down the tunnel, wary of a trapâthough Caleb suspected the fall theyâd just taken was meant to be the deadly part, and it would have been, had Bog not been there to clear the way for him. Soon, the path leveled out, and Caleb took the lead. His senses told him the tube was coming to an end, but he sensed no metal beyond save for the ever-present traces of ore in the ice.
âBe ready,â Caleb warned Bog.
They neared the end of the tunnel, where it dropped off into a pile of broken ice two meters high. But Caleb paid it no mind, for the forest of glowing ice captured his full attention. Beyond, pillars of ice poured from above, creating columns that widened slightly at the base and gave the appearance of trees. The ground between them was flooded despite the cold, and the surface shone with the reflective light of the ore-infused ice.
Caleb felt a pang of longing through the bond. With it came the barest flash of an image of a scene very similar, but instead of frozen pillars of ice, the cavern Bog longed for had streams of molten lava.
âYou okay?â Caleb asked, looking down at Bog beside him.
Bog shook himself, and the melancholy was gone in an instant. The young dragon wasnât one to dwell on muchâunless it was Calebâs refusal to let Bog eat his gear. That heâd been proven to pout over for hours.
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He fell onto the pile with a loud snap and something broke beneath him. The pile shifted and he sank into it slightly, the contents of the mount jabbing into him from all sides. Up close, he realized the pile hadnât been rough cuts of ice gathered at the bottom of the chute as heâd first thought.
It was bones. Human bones.
Caleb sent alarm through the bond, not wanting to risk any more noise to alert Bog.
He regretted that immediately, as he really should have sent caution.
Bog let out a growl, and jumped out of the edge to land on the bone pile just ahead of Caleb. The massive weight of the dragon crashed into the pile, pulverizing the bones beneath him and causing a landslide of them in his wake as he tumbled down the mound, bringing Caleb with him.
For the second time that day, Caleb was very glad heâd chosen to craft a helmetâbut he wished heâd had time to forge anything else in addition, for his entire body hurt with cuts and bruises from the tumble.
Bog fell to the bottom of the mound, where he splashed into the waterâwater that was only up to Bogâs belly when he stood on all fours. Calebâs descent ended still on the side of the mound, saving him from the icy dunk.
âThat was not what I meant!â Caleb hissed at Bog, who whined, sufficiently chastised.
Despite his timid tone, the dragon was on alert, scanning the frozen forest for signs of attacks.
âWe need to get out of here,â Caleb said, pulling his spear to him from where it had fallen ahead in the water.
The ice rose as high as Caleb could see, and the tunnel theyâd exited was a part of a chasm wall that he expected rose all the way up to where their own cavern was. The water was cold, but not as cold as the glacial river flows from back home. The air as well, for that matter, was warmer than it had been up above.
âWhy is it warmer down here?â Caleb asked Bog.
âREEEE!â A loud shrill came from within the frost forest.
Caleb and Bog snapped their heads toward the sound to see a trio of bipedal creatures emerging. At first Caleb thought them to be made of ice, but then his brain began to decipher the strange sight. The three were covered in rough-cut chunks of ice that had an inner glow similar to, yet much dimmer than, that of the ice flows. To call it armor was an insult to Calebâs craft, but the chunks served the same purpose as they covered the body in a seemingly random way.
Each creature had a long spear that looked to just be a long, narrow icicle, with the tip knapped into a sharp head. Beneath the armor, Caleb could make out pale-white hairy flesh. The hair wasnât thick enough to be called fur. The faces were obscured completely in ice, and Caleb suspected there would be no talking his way out of this. They were not the Frigidi, despite the similar use of ice as weapons and armor.
The Frigidi who occasionally raided his village were a people of their own culture and laws, just as the Caeli Souled wereâa people whose bloodline Caleb mysteriously carried yet couldnât explain. They could be traded with, bargained with, and yes warred with, but they were people.
These creatures were feral and were coming for them.
Caleb threw a nail at them, propelling it forward with his mana. The projectile tumbled through the air and he used his Wind Affinity to nudge it in the right directionâhaving learned with his spear how hard it was to control a spinning object directly.
The nail hit the armor of the lead monster with the clink Caleb would have expected from an impact with steel or stone. As they waded through the water, it froze in their wake, creating a skin of ice that floated up to the surface.
Caleb gripped his spear, and Bog stepped between him and the enemies, making noises in his throat as he worked up a spray of molten metal. The trio spread out when they were a meter out of Calebâs reach. Bog chose that moment to launch a glob of molten steel and slag on the rightmost enemy. The glob struck the arm of the creature and split as it wrapped around it.
The frost man let out a howl of rage even as his frigid body temperature rapidly cooled the steel to a solid state, but the arm from the elbow on went limp. He dropped his ice spear into the water as he clutched at the metal that was suddenly a part of him.
Bog had sent a mental warning just before his spit, somehow making it clear to Caleb which he would attack.
Ding!
A notification popped up at the corner of Calebâs vision, but he ignored it as his adrenaline began to surge.
At Bogâs signal, he blasted air at the water between him and the attackers, and followed it with a charge. The water froze where it touched the ice men, but it didnât slow them. Caleb then surged the wind harder, pushing them back.
Bog charged the one heâd spat on, and jumped on it. The dragon was extremely heavy, at least three times Calebâs weight, and while his leap wasnât very fast, it contained a lot of power. He struck the distracted savage and shattered the ice armor he impacted, sending it down into the shallow water.
They showed some level of control over their own bodiesâ chill, as the water around the submerged creature didnât freeze. One arm flailed desperately at Bog, cutting itself along his coarse hide, while the dragon sat there, pinning the creature beneath the shallow water. As he sat, slowly killing his foe, he began working up another molten spit.
Calebâs wind had halted the enemy charge, and he capitalized on the opportunity to close the distance himself, thrusting with his spear at the nearest foe using all of his enhanced strength for the first time. His spear tip struck a piece of the icy armor and pinged off just as it would against steel, the blow too glancing for his power to make a difference. Despite the failed attack, Caleb smiled. Heâd felt the difference in the thrust compared to his sparring, and while his blow hadnât penetrated, he knew he now had the strength to do so.
As soon as heâd missed, Caleb pulled back. Both enemies recovered by then and came at the retreating young man together. Once more through their bond, Caleb sensed Bog about to attack, and he created another surge of wind to blow a spray up and blind the enemy.
While Caleb built the mana strand to create the gust, the warrior on the right reacted to the incoming attack, a wall of ice shooting up out of the water to block the blow.
Calebâs blast of wind hit the icy wall, toppling it, but the effort blunted all its force.
How did he know I was going to do that? Caleb wondered, even as the answer came to him.
Heâd grown used to ignoring his Magical Perception while not actively working with the mana around him, but with a thought, the ambient mana in the cavern came into focus.
Each warrior around him sat within its own pool of mana. Their pools werenât as large as Calebâs own, or as denseâthough he couldnât articulate how he could tell.
Caleb waved his spear defensively to ward off the attackers as he waited for Bogâs foe to finish drowning. Sensing Calebâs desire, the dragon stuck his head under the waterâextremely reluctantlyâand finished off the near-drowned man.
With the ability to perceive mana active, Caleb saw what his foes must have seen. The mana in their pools began to swirl in a way Caleb didnât understand based on his own limited experience. He wasnât sure what to expect, but didnât have time to shape his own mana in an attempt to counter. Instead, he fell back on his latest skill.
With a thought, he activated Vortexâhaving learned he need not shout the name out to use the skill as he brother often didâand he pushed it hard out to a full two meters and a howling speed. The air around him burst into motion, spraying water in all directions just as shards of ice appeared in the air before the enemies flying at him. The vortex altered the paths enough that Caleb could dodge them with ease.
He closed in on them as Bog returned to his side. Bog entered the vortex without concern, and whether it was from the dragonâs immense mass or his own Wind Affinity, Caleb wasnât sure. With the failure of their projectiles, the ice men closed in to meet them.
Lacking armor or a shield, Caleb was forced to move on the defensive as the ice spear came at him, knocking it aside with his own weapon. His enhanced strength surprised him as the enemy weapon flew away from his strike.
Bog didnât bother dodging the spear that came for him, and he took the point to his back. The tip caught in the rough bog-iron surface and arrested some of his momentum before breaking free and taking a chunk of steel hide with it. Ignoring the blow, the dragon bit down hard on the leg of his enemy. The ice armor around the leg exploded in a cloud of shards as Bogâs jaws closed around it, throwing the ice man back.
The four paired off, Bog cautiously circling his opponent while Caleb stayed on the defensive, the Dragon Rider only making blows when he could modulate Vortex to create an opening. Caleb had been trained to fight other spearmen, but had never done so in a life-or-death scenario. Heâd never participated in the defense of the village before, and he found fighting menâor manlike creaturesâentirely different from fighting beasts.
Calebâs carefully timed attacks made it past his enemyâs guard, but he couldnât stick the armor gaps. The roughly shaped ice had few seams, and even when he got close to one, his tip glanced off. Giving up on shooting for joints, Caleb instead decided to overwhelm the ice with power. The enemy grew confident in its armorâs ability to stymie Calebâs attacks, and moved fully on the offensive. Caleb had to increase the power of his vortex, draining his mana rapidly, but the wind around him interfered with his enemy enough for him to deflect and dodge its thrust.
On his next opening, Caleb thrust straight for the center of the chest and activated Power Attack. His spear point shot forward, his essence-enhanced strength further empowered by his skill and he stamina. His spear caught the rough ice and bit into it. Where normal steel armor was designed with sleek angles to deflect blows, this crude yet durable ice armor was jagged, allowing all the force of the blow to go into the armor.
The tip met ice with a loud ping of steel on steel, and the ice man was thrown back into the water outside the range of Calebâs vortex.
To his side Bog was locked in battle with his opponent. The dragon had succeeded in breaking a few more pieces of armor with his bites, but had suffered many cold blows from it, and he wasnât moving as quickly as he had before. Theyâd moved outside of the range of Vortex, so Caleb let it drop to preserve his mana.
The thrown enemy regained its footing before Caleb could get to it, standing unharmed with hardly a scratch visible on the armor. Caleb came to a decision.
This isnât the job of a spear, he realized.
He shouted a war cry as he ran to close the distance, spear held high in one hand.
As he ran he threw the spear with all his considerable strength, and pushed it forward with his Imperium Metallorum. His mental push failed to help, as heâd underestimated his newfound strength. His target leaped out of the way, and the spear struck a pillar of ice behind it, burying itself deep in the surface.
But that was okay with Caleb, because the spear had been a distraction.
As soon as it had left his hand, he drew his forging hammer. If the point couldnât penetrate the plate, then heâd break bones through it.
Once more the ice man recovered quickly, the water solidifying beneath it to prevent it from being submerged. It thrust at Caleb as he came at him, and Caleb swung his hammer down at the spear to knock it aside. His hammer met ice, and the ice shattered under his blow.
The creature seemed as shocked as Caleb at the weaponâs destruction, and it failed to defend as Caleb brought his hammer down on its shoulder. The smithing hammer-turned-weapon hit the crude icy pauldron, cracking the plate beneath it. While the plate only cracked, the shoulder beneath the armor shattered. The ice man let out a howl of pain and stabbed at Caleb with an ice dagger. The blade went across his ribs, lacerating and sending a bone-aching chill up his side.
Caleb grabbed his foeâs extended hand with his left, locking his grip around the wrist and used his Metal Affinity to help recover from the last attack. He pulled his hammer back from the ruined shoulder with his right hand and mind together, then brought the hammer down on the elbow in his grip. The bone and armor shattered with a bloodcurdling sound, and stepped back, sending the defenseless enemy the other way with a blast of wind. The crippled ice man fell into the water, and Caleb spun around to aid Bog, only to find the dragon sitting once more on a drowning foe.
âWe need to get out of here,â Caleb said to Bog once he felt the trickle of the enemy essence flow into him.
He checked his notifications quickly.
Dragon Bond has increased to level 7.
Frost Troglodyte (uncommon) has been killed.
Vortex has increased to level 2.
Frost Troglodyte (uncommon) has been killed.
Frost Troglodyte (uncommon) has been killed.