Knives & Levels - Chapter 98

It didn't take long for their group to return to the dungeon, but those hours were filled with tension.

As they moved through Nashville's frozen mists, Colt couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. His eyes constantly scanned the forest around them, catching nothing but shifting shadows and swirling fog that seemed to curl toward them with purpose, almost as if sensing they were approaching its source.

"You feel it too?" Nate asked quietly, hammer ready at his side.

Colt nodded. Despite having his entire crew with him—more protection than he'd had in weeks—the sensation prickled at the back of his neck, impossible to ignore. They'd faced enough dangers together to trust those instincts, even without concrete proof of monsters lurking nearby.

That was the way of this world now: dungeons, danger, monsters. What had once been a peaceful society had transformed into something else entirely. Without these people at his side, Colt wasn't sure he'd have survived this long.

The mist thickened as they approached Vanderbilt University, the complete absence of creatures more unsettling than any attack. Soon, the Gothic architecture loomed before them, its spires piercing the gray sky.

He wasn't sure if it was foreboding that they didn't encounter any creatures to fight or a sign that the universe was blessing this expedition, but soon, they found themselves at the college, not having encountered a single monster.

"Wow," Nate said, as they looked at the Gothic architecture of Vanderbilt University. It was an impressive thing, now. Even with the dense mists surrounding them and obscured some of the campus. Massive buildings that once contained thousands of students studying and trying to make something of themselves. Now, though, it was desolate. Not even phantoms outside.

Colt wondered why they hadn’t returned after clearing this place. Maybe it was that feeling of eyes on his back as they moved. It almost was like the deep, dark structure was welcoming them and opening the way for them to traverse its depths and see what it could provide.

It was as if the dungeon wanted them to enter.

"It is impressive," said Sarah, shaking her head. “I've never actually been this way before. Though I suppose we had kids from here occasionally come to our restaurant. To think, though, now that this place will no longer be used, it's kind of sad, right? Think any of us could have gone to college here?”

Colt’s eyes ran over the beautiful brickwork and the tower that loomed above. Yes, it was sad. Most of the city had the same feel to it now. Everything you gazed at was a reminder that things would no longer be the same as they once were. They were broken and abandoned, with too many people missing.

“Let’s just go in and get this over with,” Nick grumbled from the side. Now that they were with the full group, he'd returned to being quiet. Avoiding Sarah where possible.

Since she still rightfully had an axe to grind against him… It made sense.

Even that statement made her glare at him.

Colt spoke up before she said something that would stir up trouble, "We should go in before anything shows up." 

However, he was sure Nick just wanted to get this over with. The fact that they were sitting outside a dungeon populated by difficult phantoms to fight made it so that as soon as they got into this dungeon and could gather their bearings, the better.

He gave a quick survey of his group as they wandered closer and closer to the entrance flagged by the scout, which coincidentally appeared to be the main entrance for the university itself. 

However, the system worked; it seemed to prioritize places previously important in their world. Not all, but many of the dungeon encounters had a similar peculiarity.

Colt hadn't had the time to look through all of Nate’s direct reports, and he took his word for it. But most of the time, when there was a dungeon, it tended to congregate around places like these.

His group, by his reckoning, was as formidable as they could get. Without risking lives, he felt fine. Sure, the last dungeon had been nearly a whole letter grade below, but they had changed quite a bit since then. All of them had grown in power. Each of them had their Edicts. Each of them had Skills, resources, and tools that could make this possible from Colt’s perspective. Otherwise, he would have never agreed to do this in the first place.

It wasn’t Colt, though, who went first. Nick beat him to the punch, striding to the dungeon while they were all still admiring the building. For better or worse, he had simply accepted his fate and was looking to move through his obligation as soon as possible.

He opened the door to the great academy, and there was a flash of cold and ice, and the door closed behind.

Sarah whistled. “Well, at least he went first. This shit is terrifying.”

There was a quiet acknowledgment of his courage, and Colt took in the rest of his group. There was fear here, to be sure. It was most logical to feel afraid of a dungeon ranked higher than anything they had encountered before.

They truly had no way of knowing what was on the other side of this gate.

Colt followed next, pushing through the doorway.

In front of him was a swirling white void, blasting his face with a gale of cold, snow, and mist. It leeched away his life and settled into his very bones.

Colt pushed back against the wind, fighting to move even a step forward towards the blizzard that spewed out of the dungeon entrance. With effort, he sliced through the wind, and his hand touched the swirling portal of white before him.

Then, in a pop, he reappeared in a new world.

Around him, in rows of thousands spreading out across the landscape, were hundreds of thousands of spikes of ice. Light glinted off their spiny surfaces, covering what looked to be a massive downward slope. Colt’s eyes boggled, tears forming in the corner as wind and cold tore across him; far below, the slope ended in a dark blot of an Academy. As far as the eye could see, past that was pure ocean. They were on some kind of massive glacier.

"Danger," Colt thought, looking at the tips of those spikes, feeling a certain presence of Edict laden in the cold air all around. There was mist here too, but not omnipresent like outside of this place. It hovered on the ground everywhere, only about as deep as his ankles, hiding the snow and ice beneath.

His eyes focused on the academy at the bottom of the vast slope, a long, drawn-out path of spiny ice and snow that would make even the most hot-blooded skier run the opposite way… That had to be the core of the dungeon. A dark gothic architecture that towered nearly twice the size of any university Colt had seen in his life. The Frozen Academy…

A notification appeared.

———

Welcome To The Frozen Academy

Dungeon Rank: C

Clear Conditions:

Defeat The Celestial Seed

Defeat Frost-Forsaken Dean

Defeat the Abominable Snowman

Note: The Exit cannot be discovered until all bosses are defeated.

———

Three bosses. 

He was so smitten with the view that the description of what they would fight was momentarily lost. The fact that stepping through the portal brought him to a forsaken, deadly glacier with spikes thrice the size of him and an Academy the size of a castle on the glacier edge…

Stunning.

“So,” Nick said from Colt’s side. “We have to go all the way down there? Seems a bit much.”

The Academy, with its dark black brick and looming haunted walls, screamed, "Come to me." The oppressive atmosphere radiated outward from it, haunting them from its position down below. Getting there would be dangerous, too; with all of those spikes, a wrong fall would lead to being speared by an ice the size of yourself.

Past that was the dark water all around the glacier. Nobody could come and save them here. They were all on their own.

A cold shock of thrill ran through Colt, brought about by the idea of the challenge. This was a dreamscape—with the thick Edicts in the air and the manifestation of ice and mist… Danger, the entire place, was what he needed to hone his edge and become stronger.

Just as he contemplated it, the rest of his teammates popped into existence one by one.

Every time, there was a gasp at the sight of the majestic Academy far below and the war field of ice spikes. Each of them, in turn, absorbed the situation they were in.

It reeked of danger and power, and… Knowledge. With the Academy far below, it was impossible not to wonder what kind of books and knowledge they would find? So far, all the dungeons had been rather foreign and odd affairs. A coliseum ran by a goddess. An endless alley that felt Eldritch in nature. And a large park that felt like it was some sort of ancient god's playground.

This, though, was a place to study amidst a dangerous environment.

And the first place that practically screamed it had secrets buried in its depths

"Any monsters?" Nate said as he scoured the endless white and mist below.

"No," Sarah confirmed as she looked around. "I don't see anything. I don't see any of those phantoms leaking out from nearby, either."

Colt shook his head. "I'm gonna imagine most of our problems are gonna be in the Academy itself. There was a list of three bosses. The Celestial Seed, as Nate's quest had marked it, appeared to be one of them. The Frost-Forsaken Dean was another. And lastly, there was something called the Abominable Snowman.”

If that translated to what he knew, it meant there was some kind of Yeti around.

“…One of the bosses is probably on this slope.”

Though he looked at the Academy and knew that perhaps two of their bosses would be below, this vast tract of frozen land amid the dangerous spires was prime real estate for a Yeti. The rules for getting out of this dungeon were simple. They had to defeat all the bosses. Finding them would be another aspect. Surviving them… That was the most important.

Nate sighed, looking around, coming to the same conclusion. "The Abominable Snow has to be somewhere around here," he said. "If we consider the fact that most of the bosses we've faced so far have been in territory that corresponded to what we knew about them, this would be the place you'd find a Yeti."

The logic tracked.

It seemed like they were on a great overlooking slope that led down to the Academy. There were so many places and crevices to hide, obscured by the various mounds of ice… And god knew what else.

"Maybe there's a cave?" Colt asked.

"I suppose. We’ll take into account our situation and then act accordingly. First, we go slow, scout our surroundings, and make sure to carefully assess the first monster we come across to gauge the level of danger we're in. Going down to the Academy is our best place to start. Then, if we don't find this boss on the way, we can finish our time in the down below and try to locate them." Nate made the plan for them.

It was as good a plan as any, and with everyone accepting, they got to work. Colt was the first, feeling a wind kick up as the mist swayed around him, pressing against his skin, even up here. This was going to be quite a challenge. One that, despite the threat, cold, and danger, made him feel the most alive that he had since the fight with Denny.