A stream of blood erupted from Asim's mouth. It audibly slapped against the ice mage's hood. They ignored it. Their fingers started to move as if playing an instrument. Pillars of ice erupted along the hallways. Haze slid under one moving pillar and shoved off the wall to dodge another.
Cutlery and the boys tried to keep up. They had to jam between pillars as the floor continued to slowly rise. Thirty seconds remained before they would be crawling.
The condensed hall was filled with a soft whirring as Haze swung his blade. It met a polished sheet of ice and came to full a stop. Foot-long cracks formed in the shield of ice. The mage cackled silently from within their orb and pointed a palm at Haze.
The air around Haze warped and then filled with steam. His skin was bone white as heat left his body. This mage was a monster. Their spells hit through the ice!
Fish and Cutlery were nearing Haze. Gill and his bulky frame were far behind. He was running while stripping armor. Most of the gaps were already too small for him.
Haze brought up both hands, which shook violently from the deep cold. Darkness appeared below the mage. The mage's smile dropped as a grid appeared below them. A silent scream filled their orb as the grid started to crawl up and out of the small outlet at their feet. Like grasping hands, the cubes slid in odd jerking movements up the mage's feet.
Haze started bashing on the orb as Fish and Cutlery arrived. The two of them started wailing on the orb as well. The room's height has halved already. Cutlery saw Gill moving to begin crawling towards them. He should make it, Cutlery assured herself.
The orb shook and the grid portal closed as a wave of black as-night ice covered it. The mage inside looked out at them, their chest heaving. Their boot was gone and their flesh was partially missing as well. It had torn away to join the cubes. Looking closely his feet had perfect cubes missing from them. An odd wound.
The orb cracked down the center. Haze shoved his enormous blade inside. He heaved and the gap widened. The mage sneered and brought their palms apart. The orb rocketed to the sides. They all plunged their blades into his small body.
His body liquified in response to the assault. Then the mage appeared at the far end of the hallway that now stopped crushing. A three-foot gap connected the two groups now.
"Now, you die." The mage said. The room they stood in started to crush as well.
"FUCKING TRAP!" Haze bellow. He slammed a hand into Asim. A flash of light pulsed on her chest. She barfed blood in response. As their room ascended to crush them they began to panic. Haze closed his eyes and sheathed his blade. He spoke.
"Fesit." He whispered. The grid world opened beneath them.
-
Cutlery was ready to die screaming. They fell through the floor and she felt only harmony. Everything was perfect and in order. Each place was held and known by all. Then the grid shifted and morphed. They were spat out near the mage.
Asim coughed up another alarmingly amount of blood. She slumped to the floor. The chest slipped out from under her and she hit the red ground with a wet slap. Haze rushed at the alarmed mage. The golden general was soaked in sweat and looked strained from that last spell. Cutlery was sure another cast of it would push him to his limits.
This time when they all fell upon the mage, their weapons stuck. Haze's invisible greatsword sliced away both of the man's outstretched hands. The ice fell still as his spell ended.
Haze tilted the man's chin upward with the end of the blade.
"From whom, does your power originate." Haze annunciated oddly. The man grimaced. His arm stumps frosted over and the bleeding stopped. The man was even paler now.
"No one you fuckers would know! You who rewrite history to sap a drip of the Temples power!" The mage said. His voice was small and dim.
"Oh, I have a long memory," Haze said, cooly.
"I'm sure. So you can remember the families of all the people you stabbed in the back, stole from, and stomped from this world." The mage said. He cleared his throat and spat out a tooth. "My power is free of the Temple. Listen carefully, all you with hope still. Slivers are divine power mortals can handle. My slivers come from the old..." He cut off. His blunt arms felt at his throat, it was wide open. The vocal cords were split by Haze's blade.
"Old gods got it," Haze said. Cutlery wanted to know what that guy was going to say.
"We should leave before whomever he pledged his allegiance to decides to end us," Haze announced. Gill thunked out of the thin hallway. He had been slowly warming to them. He got onto a knee in the large pool of blood and placed a hand on Asim. Asim groaned and shifted. She looked up, her face red and stained with her own blood. Mostly hers.
Together they lifted her onto the chest and slid along with them. They exited the hallway, the teleport back outside the trap had been convenient. Only one unexplored doorway was left. There they found a long winding tunnel full of gaps and murder holes. The edge of the glacier came into view ten minutes later. A natural stone cavern was attached to the border of the glacier.
"Finally," Fish whispered. He rolled his shoulder from some earlier wound.
"Hazeee, that's eight now you've killed." A voice whispered from ahead of them. The first ice mage, the weak and unshaven one, crawled out from behind a stone ahead of them. His eyes were replaced by ice.
"Don't worry, an old friend of mine," Haze whispered to them. He turned and opened his arms towards the mangled speaking corpse. "Glayce! Good to see you!" Haze said with a smile.
"Don't speak to me that way Haze. We are no longer friends. Not since you forced this on me." The corpse said. It had a toneless voice that echoed through the mage's body.
"Come on, the Temple can't be that bad." Haze intoned. The crawling body did not respond. Haze spoke again saying, "The spirit of the Eternal Glacier! Sounds powerful, I'm sure people pray to you and give you strength often!" Haze said.
"Then you kill them!" The spirit said through the body. Haze sneered.
"You betrayed the Tower. You gave up on the rest of us. Since you joined the fucking Eternal cult of the elements! We thought they were dead when we made you spirit! Now you will rot here forever until you're forgotten. Then you can drift in the omittance." Haze said. He walked forward. Metal clanged as Haze signaled them to follow with him.
"You know the tower can't win! The Temple, it is god! It is all the gods! Zenith knows! He speaks of you like-" The spirit's voice was cut as Haze crushed the corpse's head with his boat. They kept walking.
"Not all of them..." Haze murmured. Cutlery glanced at his face. His expression was stern and flushed. His pace approached a jog as they left the short cavern.
Cutlery looked up and took in the glacier. It towered over them. It blocked the sky and mountains. It looked like it would crash and sweep Zurkonia into the sea as it raced down the foothills.
Near its base trinkets lay about. Trinketville would be a good name for the area. Talismans and prayers were hanging from every tree, rock, and bush. Reading a few, Cutlery saw they were all directly addressed to the glacier like it was a being. The speaking corpse, was that the thing they prayed to? Had they taken power from the same being these prayers were written to? What was a spirit? Like really? She would have to ask Haze. Perhaps a little longer after he had crushed a skull.
They picked up the pace as they entered the forest proper. As Lutae crested the horizon, they arrived back at their wagon. The whole mission had only taken an hour. They had killed people who exerted more magical power than any Cutlery had ever seen. Just like that. Not that she had seen much. Each time she lived another week her expectation grew. The stakes were much higher for the slivered of Potestatem.
They piled back into the wagon. Haze jumped up front again. He didn't bother with a cloak to hide his appearance this time. They had killed most of the people they had been hiding from. Perhaps not all of them.
