The first day is wind.
Relentless, screeching wind that never lets up for even a second. It claws at us from every direction, tugging at clothes and balance alike, but otherwise... manageable.
Bella walks like it’s nothing, and I notice that each step she takes is accompanied by a shock of her ice magic, anchoring her feet to the ground.
I handle it pretty well, too.
Mostly, anyways.
The cold doesn’t bite the way it should, but the light dusting of snow is another problem entirely. It melts into my clothes, seeps through fabric, and clings in ways that make even me start to shiver.
By midday, I cave and pull on a couple extra layers, with a fluffy wool-and-leather coat doing most of the work.
Cari...
Cari suffers.
Openly. Loudly. Repetitively.
“I can’t feel my fingers,” she complains, voice muffled behind an ultra thick scarf and what looks like half her wardrobe.
“You said that ten minutes ago,” I chuckle.
“Yeah, well, I still can’t feel them,” she says petulantly. “That’s the problem.”
I just shake my head. The first time she mentioned it, Bella actually stopped us to check her hands for any signs of frostbite.
She was perfectly fine.
She’s just a big baby about the cold, is all. And despite being called out on it multiple times now, she’s yet to give up the pity party.
While I find it amusing, Bella has decided to go the way of the harsh task-master.
“Keep moving. You’ll warm up,” she says dispassionately.
And though Cari obeys, she mutters something under her breath that definitely isn’t polite. Thankfully, it's snatched away by the howling winds before we can hear it.
The entire day, we don’t encounter a single beast or monster. No opposition whatsoever, really, if we don’t count the terrain and weather.
Every chance I get, I mentally prod my Dungeoneer’s Insight Skill to see if I can glean any... well, insights.
But nothing stands out as strange, which is strange in and of itself.
Sure, there are Dungeons that were free of monsters. They were often used as resource farms, even.
But this is a Tier One dungeon. They aren’t exactly known for being... empty.
Bella and Cari also think it’s odd, but can’t seem to make anything of it either.
Camping in the evening is a simple affair, thankfully. When it grows too dark for me to see, we all share one tent in a small flat hollow on the mountainside.
Straightforward watches, with two resting and one not. Firestones inside the tent itself for warmth. Nothing too complicated.
The firestones make the nights Cari’s favorite time of the day instantly.
At least until her turn to keep watch comes around.
The second day is worse.
The mist rolls in thick and heavy waves, swallowing the mountain whole. Visibility drops to almost nothing, and the wind brings much, much denser snowfall with it.
Paths vanish. Edges blur. Every step I take slowly becomes more and more questionable, until I finally slow us down to a crawl.
I scan ahead, tracing what little I can see through the shifting gray.
Only one path looks viable, so I take it.
Five minutes later, it ends in a sheer drop, and we’re forced to backtrack yet again.
Cari groans.
“This place is stupid.”
That night, Cari threatened to disown me for waking her up for her watch. Then she begged me to do it for her. Then she tried to bribe me with cuddles. Then gold. Then I.O.U’s.
I almost accepted when the pot was fully loaded, too—but she woke Bella.
“You will take your watch as any member of a delving party should, and you will do it without complaint. This is an exam, not a vacation,” she says bitterly, her eyes dark with sleep.
Apparently, even with items that reduce fatigue, sleep will always be king.
Cari bitterly capitulates, though she spares me one last pleading look before stepping outside.
“You’ve got this,” I say with as much false cheer as I can muster.
Then I immediately abandon her to burrow deep into my bedroll, ignoring the teary eyes that threaten to pierce my heart from the tent flap.
The days after that are, somehow, worse still.
Not in some big, dramatic way. Just... consistently.
Annoyingly.
That’s when it starts to feel targeted.
On the third day, a small avalanche wipes out a path I’d picked not thirty seconds after we step onto it. Not a full collapse, though—just enough to force us back.
On the fourth, lightning slams into the stone so close it fractures the ledge beneath our feet, sending cracks racing outward and forcing us to retreat before it crumbles away.
On the fifth, it happens again—some natural fluke erasing yet another path, reversing yet another choice.
Then again.
And again.
Each time, it’s just enough to push us off course.
Just enough to feel intentional.
But never monsters or beasts.
The quest mentioned a guardian. Is this it’s doing?
“The dungeon is cheating,” I mutter darkly.
Bella doesn’t dignify that with a response.
I focus on the fact that she doesn’t disagree and count it as a victory.
Cari, on the other hand, is right there with me.
“Yes, I would like to file a complaint,” she says, teeth chattering. “Preferably somewhere warm.”
The sixth day, we run across one of our old campsites, the small fire pit we’d dug in the center of our tent still half-buried in the snow.
It suddenly becomes blatantly obvious that we’ve been run in circles.
Even Bella starts to show frustration after that little discovery.
Not much—just a furrowing of her brows before she schools her face once more. But it's enough to be noticeable.
I’d started looking out for strange fluctuations of mana days ago, hoping to be able to spot where the mountain would suddenly shift or cause issues, but nothing came of it.
Now, I just look over the ledge itself, curious to see if we might be able to literally climb our way down.
If this place would even let us...
I don’t fancy the idea of being struck by lightning while trying to scale a mountain.
Cari yelps suddenly, and when I look her way, I find the rope taut, and Bella missing.
It jerks violently in her hands, her footing slipping on loose stone.
She pitches forward, momentum dragging her toward the edge—
Then I’m there, one hand around the rope and the other clamped around her arm tight enough that my claws punch through the many layers of fabric protecting her from the cold.
Before she can follow Bella over, I yank her back. She stumbles into me, clinging instinctively as the rope slips from her hands in the sudden movement.
But I’ve got it, and there’s no way in hells I’m letting go.
“Don’t move,” I snap.
She freezes immediately.
Good.
Keeping one hand locked on her, I edge forward and glance over the drop.
I let out a sigh of relief as the crimson beauty comes into view.
Bella hangs there, suspended against the mountainside, one hand braced against the rock while the other grips the rope. Completely stable. Completely controlled.
Gods, why is she so... ugh.
For a moment, all I feel is relief. Then my lips shift into a grin, and words slip free before I can think better of it.
“Well,” I call down, “didn’t expect you to fall for me so soon, Princess.”
Her head snaps up. For a split second, I see the surprise, and maybe even a hint of fluster... then it’s gone as her eyes flick behind me.
Instead, her gaze sharpens, fixed on something that takes her full attention. I turn to see what it is.
“Emilia,” she says, voice steady. “To your right. About ten meters up. Do you see it?”
It takes a moment, but I spot it.
Cut stone, with intricate engravings etched onto its surface in the form of an arch whose lower half disappears behind the small rocky outcropping it’s carved into.
“...Well I’ll be damned,” I murmur.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Cari fumes.
Bella doesn’t respond. Instead, the air around her shifts as mana gathers at her fingertips, condensing into a pale shimmer that hardens into form.
Thick ice platforms quickly begin taking shape, and she presses the first into the mountainside, testing it once before shifting her weight onto it.
Another forms above, then another, each one placed with careful intent as she creates a stairway for herself.
Step by step, she ascends, and I remove the slack in the rope, shifting to have Cari at my side.
“Show-off,” I say, and she offers me a small smile.
When she’s finally level with us once more, she continues building her icy stairway all the way up to the arch.
“Come on,” she says, waving us over. “Let’s stick to the formation. Emilia, you lead the way. I have a feeling this is where we were meant to go this entire time.”
“You know, it would have been nice if the quest said that,” she snarls. Then her tone shifts into mockery, “‘Survive for seven days, reach the plains’ my ass.”
I can’t help but snort at the attitude she’s giving the System. Plus, I actually agree with her.
I wasn’t aware quests could even be misleading, but in hindsight I probably should have expected it to be a possibility.
I mean, hells, my first ever reward chest was trapped. I wouldn’t put it past the System to be a little sneaky where it can be.
I wonder why, though...
Unfortunately, the System doesn’t deign to respond to my curiosity this time.
Fickle thing.
But... this isn’t the time or place. Instead, I decide that the next time I have a chance, I’ll nag the System.
This time, as we climb the icy stairs, we all keep a tight grip on the rope.
Over the past few days, we’d gotten used to using it to get them up and down tricky paths that I could only traverse thanks to my claws.
I grin at the thought, a small flush of pride warming my chest as I recall one particular moment where I caught Bella’s gaze lingering a little longer than it should as I climbed.
She played it off, of course, but I know what I saw.
Eventually we reach the outcropping, and up close, it’s undeniable.
A structure, carved directly into the mountain. The entrance is partially buried beneath ice and time, but the lines are too clean, the angles too precise to be anything but intentional.
Cari stares at it.
“...Wait,” she says slowly. “I’ve seen this before.”
Bella glances at her. “Explain.”
Cari steps closer, brushing frost away from the stone.
“Isn’t this...” she hesitates, then nods. “This is an ancient dwarven rune. I saw tons of them in some of the guild texts that detailed old ruins discovered while delving.”
Bella stills for just a moment, then exhales, seeming almost weary now.
“Of course it is.”
Then her posture straightens as she slips fully back into command.
“Stay close,” she says. “If this is dwarven, assume traps. Defensive measures. Structural hazards.”
Her gaze flicks between us, sharp and focused.
“We proceed carefully. No rushing. No sudden movements. And absolutely no external magic.”
Cari nods immediately. I do too.
Dwarven ruins were not to be trifled with, under any circumstances.
Still, when I glance at the darkened entrance, a grin tugs at my lips.
“Well,” I mutter, stepping forward, “at least we can get out of the wind.”
Cari gasps, then presses into my back.
“Oh, gods, I didn’t think of that. Emi, if you don’t move your ass, I’m going to move it for you.”
“No. Rushing.”
Bella’s voice cracks out like a whip behind us, and Cari flinches.
I give Bella an appraising look, more than a little impressed with her ability to cow my oh-so-energetic sister with mere words.
Usually I have to wrestle her into submission.
I try to ignore the feeling bubbling up inside me at those thoughts, and only mostly succeed when I turn back to the entryway and climb inside.