timewalk

  Shattered id blizzard's roar,Will mark the end of this fierce war,For in my hand, the winter’s key,Unlocks the path to victory.- Mok’freya. Troll Ice Mage, Ambassador of Telim Gor.

  Aliandra Ali flew down the sewer tunnels, following the twisting path without paying much scious attention, her mind filled with runes and the intricate structure of teleportation magic. She had a few exg ideas while she was ihs, and she couldn’t wait to try them out as soon as she returo the Grove.

  She very nearly zoomed around the er when a scream of pain and the sudden icy bite of frost in the air pulled her up short.

  What the…

  Several heavy thumps echoed through the dimly lit sewer tunnels up ahead, followed by the screams and shouts of people in real pain. That’s not normal. Frost began creeping up the crumbling brick walls right before her eyes. Ali crept closer to the entrance of the cross tunnel, cautious now, making out several voices and the sounds of heavy boots on damp brick.

  A sudden clear shouted voice rang out through the tunnel, “Tell him, otherwise he will kill you!”

  Was that Aiden?

  “Miss Aliandra is friend. Havok not betray. If Havok tell, then he kill Havok and Miss Aliandra.” The Goblin Adventurer’s voice rang out, clear and reizable, stunning Ali into stillness for a moment.

  What’s going on here?

  Ali carefully poked her head around the er, but the sight that greeted her made her blood run cold – and not because of the frost gripping the walls. All the novice adventurers writhed in pain, pio the ground or the walls by pristine white spikes of jured ice, leaving their blood pooling on the moss.

  Thugs wearing the Town Watch arched toward them from the far side. But Ali’s eyes were drawn to the broad-shouldered man dominating the ter of the tunnel. He stood with his back to her amid the blood and ice, a fine white robe grag his back, radiating an intense mana that fueled the frost on the walls.

  Mage – Human – level ?? (Ice)

  She reized him from the Goblin siege, but it was the pitiful figure of Havok pio the wall by several rge ices that gripped her heart and made it impossible to breathe. There was so much blood on the wall.

  “…but why are you messing with that green scum, this one on the ground is the mayor’s son.”

  The voice sounded harshly indifferent to the suffering all around.

  “Ok. Last ce, Goblin. How do I find Aliandra and her dungeon? Tell me or die.” The mage’s voice was loaded with spite and pt as plex formations of ice mana surged within his broad frame.

  Is he looking for me? Wait… dungeon? What is he…

  “No.” The Goblin’s body was already pierced with ice, pio the wall, and drenched in his own blood. He could barely even twitch, but his face remained defiant, and his voice clear.

  Havok! Ali was stuo hear the defiant Goblin’s final resistance. What are you doing? He’s going to kill you!

  “Fihe white mage snarled. Within him, the formations twisted, rapidly reag a cresdo.

  “Havok! No!” Ali screamed. Without thought, her mana flowed. In an instant, she summohe stro barrier she could muster, drawing heavily from the power of her domain to reinforce it. The dense golden wall of are magiapped ience right in front of Havok’s face as he hung helpless on the wall, staring down the wrath of the ice mage.

  There were several loud cracks as nces of ice shot out, striking her barrier. The struct shattered, an explosion of golden shards and splinters of ice filling the tunnel with deadly shards and shraphat ricocheted from the walls and the mage’s Ice Shield, drawing blood from a touched.

  Shouts of arm echoed wildly through the tunnel.

  “Fuck!”

  “Roderik, that’s her!”

  “Get her!”

  “Kill the dungeon!”

  Every eye turo see her standing there; a discordant mix of hope for salvation g against naked greed and rampant bloodlust.

  “You’re mine!” Roderik yelled, vanishing in a fsh of plex mana, and appearing right beside Ali, his grasping hand shooting out toward her neck.

  Ali screamed. Cold billowed from the menag ice mage, cws of frost bit through her cotton clothing. She snapped a wall of golden magic between them, blog off the entire sewer el. His hand cracked against the barrier, and he spat out a harsh curse, but Ali’s mind had already found a Toxic Slime at the far end of her range.

  Her mana pulsed, and her surroundings flickered as Minion Teleport whisked her away. She instantly summoned a disk and took off dowunnel as fast as she could. A tinkling crash and shattering ice echoed from dowunnel she had hastily vacated. Roderik’s curse id-cry – somehow, the silence was far more chilling than anything that preceded it. He’s ing… hunting… why?

  She threw up a tunnel-blog barrier, but ice magic teleportation formations surged and Roderik appeared right beside her, ign her blockade. Frantically, Ali scoured the area, finding another slime and switg locations in the nick of time, just as several Ice Lances shot out toward her.

  They’re… trying to kill me? Her heart hammered deafeningly in her ears. Breathlessly, she summoned a new barrier and raced down the dimly lit sewer tunnel while her mind struggled to grasp what had just happened. Her friends had just been assaulted by the Town Watch, and she was being hunted by a murderous ice mage. She had been living under a bounty for a while now and had even been shot at by an assassin with a crossbow, but nothing had prepared her for the murdere of this Ice Mage. It had all happened so fast; she didn’t even know if Havok had survived.

  Why do they think I’m a dungeon?

  She was still running on adrenaline-fueled panic, but her senses were already searg for aeleport target while she flew, hanging, white-knuckled, onto the edge of her barrier magic.

  I o tell them. It’s a mistake, I’m not a dungeon. But instinctively she knew he was not going to stop to listen to her expnation.

  She threw up another barrier between herself and the suddenly arriving rush of Roderik’s ice magic spell before she found her arget – a Gobliunnel over. She teleported sideways, switg tunnels, and then shot down into the hole leading to her forest. She had the presenind to remove her golden barrier staircase, leaving another barrier blog the passage downward.

  I need my minions! Being attacked out of nowhere was ohing, but she had left most of her Kobolds behind at the camp so that she could travel ued through the town – a horrible bluhat was only now being apparent – and now she was stranded and vulnerable. That was so stupid. You knew about the bounty! she berated herself. And why had she split up with Malika? They had been so diligent about staying together for prote. Roderik was too high-level for her to deal with on her own; even the four of them could scarcely hope to stop him, could they?

  She made a beelioward the Grove and the tall ndmark of her shrine, flying as fast as she could. If she could get to them, she would stand a good ce of fighting him off. She had left several Acolytes and Fire Mages, and they had served her admirably through all the terrifying bosses they had fought.

  Roderik appeared high above the trees in a fsh of mana and a burst of ice crystals, crowing in delight. “I found your dungeon!”

  “It’s not a dungeon!” she yelled, but he paid o her words. Instead, Ali dove left and swooped down among the trees in respoo a surge of mana seen in her mana sight. A series of rapid-fire ices shot by, slig through the trees, barely missing her as she swerved to avoid trunks and branches.

  The only minion in range was a Stinging Jelly floating in the ke, but she took it, desperate to gain some distance from the power-crazed lunatic chasing her. She held her breath and switched, f herself not to gasp at the sudden shock of cold water, and summoned a new barrier, flying herself up out of the ke in a shower of glowing, mana-purified water. The ices puhrough the surface of the ke right behind her, freezing rge ks of it into bobbing icebergs.

  “I’m going to kill you, little Fae,” he yelled in a sing-song voice as if he were ting a children’s rhyme, sending another chill rag down Ali’s spine. He’s mad. The mage’s mana fred high above her, and Ali summoned a sed barrier to protect herself from the high-speed nces of ice. She dodged, but her barrier shattered, spraying sharp fragments of i all dires. She gasped in pain as several sliced through her leg, leaving the chill of frost creeping through her flesh as if his marying to e her.

  “Why are you doing this?” she shouted in desperate fusion, gripping the edge of her barrier in white-knuckled pain. It had to be some mistake.

  “I’m going to collect the king’s reward for killing your dungeon,” he answered gleefully and teleported suddenly closer.

  Ali threw up a blog barrier and teleported again as soon as she found another minion. The level-one Sger screeched as it suddenly found itself filing in the air above the trees. She regretted not filling the cavern with more of her minions – without one in range she was vulnerable to being stranded and at the mercy of his nces.

  “But I’m not a dungeon!” she yelled. Clearly, he was delusional, she was an adve the guild, and as soon as she made him uand that, he would stop this crazy assault.

  “You ’t fool me. Anyone see this is a dungeon. And everyone knows this is yours.”

  What?

  “And nobody cares what happens to a dungeon,” he tinued. “I finally go all out. I’m going to squash you like a bug.” He punctuated his words with flourishes of his hand and the thwip, thwip, thwip of razor-sharp bolts of ice.

  Ali’s heart thumped wildly, but she was finally drawing close to the shrine. O teleport, sing pces with a Moss Creeper, and she felt how close her Kobolds were through Martial Insight. She sehem all lighting up as the magipowered Summoner reached them and her intelligeribute spiked from proximity to her targeted mage.

  “Shoot him,” she anded, her voice breathless and hoarse from the frantic chase. Profound relief filled her as she swept past her alert Kobolds, drawing to a halt behind the grinning Fire Mages and their already glowing magic. Her vulnerability vanished; now she could fight! Her slimes would probably not be particurly useful against a flying mage, but her Fire Mages were more than suffit.

  The soft gentle pulse of holy magic settled on her, healing the cuts in her legs, and pushing back the chill of ice. Her skin suddenly warmed as balls of jured fme bathed her in their f heat, and the familiar stench of brimstone.

  Roderik flew out of the forest at the perfeent. All four of her mages unleashed their Fireball spells simultaneously, while Ali lofted her Are Bolts out over her protective barrier in three glowing streams. Four intense balls of fire flew up into the air with sizzling iy, making Roderik scramble to a halt in midair, his eyes growing wide in surprise. The simultaneous detonation rocked the Grove with a satisfyingly powerful shockwave of fme a.

  “Again,” she called out, not wanting to leave anything to ce. Gobs of sizzling fme rained down onto the Grove, but she could repair that ter. Four Fireballs were a lot, but the mage had been terrifyingly strong. And her Are Bolts were still finding a target within the giant ball of fire and smoke.

  A surge of ice mana fred within the fgration and suddenly there was a massive bst of icy power, instantly snuffing out every st trace of fire and bing the Grove in a sudden fsh-frost. Ali’s barrier blocked most of the ice, but her Kobolds’ legs and arms were covered, pinning them to frozen moss.

  “Fug pathetic! You face me, Roderik Ice, with level twenty Kobolds?” The mage hovered in the air, his robes still pristine white, surrounded by a dense barrier of glittering ice. Gone was any trace of his prior amusement aement, repced by a red-faced rage.

  “You adventurers know nothing about fighting. You face stupid monsters and t your levels and think you’re strong. That all means nothing when you fight a person. I have beaten over a thousand people – you stand no ce against me. Allow me to show you just how outcssed you are.”

  Deep inside Roderik’s body, an intense kernel of white mana appeared. The temperature dropped instantly, and the Grove filled with flurries of ice crystals. Ali heard only a soft swish and a suddehump, and her eyes widened in horror at the sight of three nces of ice sprouting from the chests of each of her Acolytes. Her mages let loose their Fireballs, wreathing him in a sed powerful explosion of fire, but the ices kept ing, pierg Kobold after Kobold until Ali stood alone among her impaled army of dead minions.

  She fled. In the face of such immense power, she stood no ce. She teleported to a nearby ooze and then shot off through the forest, gripping the edge of her barrier for dear life as she desperately tried to put as many trees as possible between her and the furious mage bent on her destru.

  “That’s more like it,” he crowed, ughing as he gave chase. “Run, little Fae. Run for your life.”

  She swerved side to side as the forest filled with the deadly hail of ice bolts stripping leaves and branches from the trees and thudding into the ground. She flinched as one clipped her cheek, but miraculously she avoided serious injury. A familiar surge of mana fred tht, and he appeared amid a sudden bst of gcial air and mana that caused several trees to freeze and shatter. Frozen splinters of wood and ice tore into her before she could block all of them with her hastily created barrier.

  She teleported away, again, leaking amber blood onto her now slick barrier. Ali had given up to reason with him – it was beyond hope. All she could do was escape. Ahead of her was the small cave with the ventition shaft that led down into the ruins below. She had to lose him somehow, but her mind despaired of finding a way.

  I’m too weak. He’s too fast. She had been so certain she was safe with her minions, but he had wiped them out in the blink of an eye. Even flying as fast as she could, and using Minion Teleport whenever she was able, he was always there, stuck to her like glue. Another nce of ice brushed past her ear, zipping off through the trees ahead of her, close enough that she felt the chill across the side of her head. She threw up a barrier and weaved around aree.

  There was an enormous crack as more ice smmed into the trunk of the tree, freezing and shattering it from the force. Ali teleported, barely avoiding the falling oak as she arrived in the open spa sight of the cave that was her dubious glimmer of hope.

  There it is!

  Suddenly, Roderik appeared several meters ahead of her, telep over twice the usual distance, arriving in a powerful nova of ice that fsh-froze the entire clearing. Ali tumbled off her barrier, smming into the icy ground at an awkward angle. Her ankle snapped with the loud crack of bone shattering and her mind b the shock of excruciating pain. She tumbled, head over heels, crashing her shoulder into a block of id nding on her baear his feet. The power radiating from his body grew dramatically colder, and ice grew from the ground, eng her ankles and legs in a thick yer of rime, f her to remain kneeling before him as he sloroached.

  “Got you,” he gloated. “Did you think you were going to escape in there?”

  I’m going to die. Her body trembled from adrenaline, pain, the freezing cold, and the terrifying dread of the approag mage.

  “You know,” he said, versationally, rage suddenly gone. “When two mages fight, the oh the better teleport wins. Yours has a ten-sed recharge, and you need a moo switch with. There’s nothing nearby, what are you going to do now that you’re stranded?” His casual attitude was even more terrifying than his earlier rage.

  He kill me whenever he wants. It was only now, after he had demonstrated the full extent of his teleportation skill, that Ali finally uood he had been toying with her the entire chase. She shivered in fear, waiting for him to summon his magic.

  Why are you so afraid of him?

  The voice echoed in her mind. It was her own voice, but strange and unfamiliar. There was an ingruous certainty and force of will to it that cshed with her trembli. But right then, her mind tched onto the image of herself fag the Death Knight, and then the Blind Lich himself. She had faced real fear, why was she terrified of aistical man with his ices? She remembered fag the Sewer Rat, and, as if a door within her mind was suddenly flung opeing it out, her mind filled with the same defiant rage, banishing her fear instantly. Perhaps she would die, but she would not go c.

  She looked up, staring at Roderik, meeting his gaze for the first time.

  Instantly, his face twisted into an angry scowl. “You dare bare your fangs at me? Let me teach you your pce!” His mana fred, no longer tent to take his time taunting her.

  Using every sliver of her focus and tration, she flung open her spell list and chose.

  No free skill slots avaible, choose a skill to repce.

  With frantic speed born of desperation, she scrambled through her css skills, pig the only choice she could.

  Are Bolt will be repced with Are Recall, all skill levels will be lost.

  Yes! she screamed at the golde unfolding on the part in her mind. She ainfully aware she was an instant away from death, but she would not go quietly without a fight. Not to a bully like him. She didn’t even know if her crazy idea would work, but it wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t make the switch before he pleted his Ice Lance.

  You have lost the css skill Are Bolt.

  Something deep inside her ripped away, leaving a gaping hole where her skill had once been. All the levels earned and advaorn away to the sound of a chime.

  You have gaihe css skill Are RecallAre Recall – level 1You are profit with Are magic. You gain +5% [skill x 5] to spell power, spell haste, mana trol, aal rea speed with Are magia: Ighe recharge for any Magibsp;skill, spell, ered ability. Yic is cast instantly. Recharge: 24 hours.Are, Metamagic, Mastery, Intelligence

  Ice Lance hung within Roderik’s frame, a glittering formation of power and elegance. Mana surged toward it as his skill finalized the spell. With frenzied urgency, Ali smmed mana into her new untried, ued skill.

  The entire world halted.

  Ali blinked – or at least she tried to, finding herself uo move, or evehe. Over Roderik’s left shoulder, a nature wisp hung suspended, frozen mid-zig, no lreen but gray. Roderik also seemed frozen, his face a twisted sneer, and his mana halted just shy of filling his formation.

  This is… To her intense surprise, she reized this pce. Everything – the trees, the ice, the moss, and the mage in front of her – had frozen in p a familiar world of gray.

  I wish this moment could st forever. Her mother’s st words echoed in her memory.

  Mom? The force rief smmed into her anew as her mind was instantly transported back to her mother’s final sacrifice, and the magic she had wielded to save Ali’s life.

  A unique magic that Ali had just wielded herself.

  The gray surroundings flickered then, and Roderik appeared several meters back, as he had been moments before he had knocked Ali from her barrier. The world flickered back to now, and she could clearly see the mana of his ice had pleted, with the beginnings of the nce appearing before his hand.

  With a supreme effort of will, she forced her mind back to the present, putting her grief away for ter. If there would be a ter.

  Time stopped? She didn’t know how to use this strange magid she had only a single which to get it right.

  The gray, color-leached world flickered again showing her a se she had withe first time around. The starry sky was clear above, and the forest renewed, and moments ter the mountain exploded sending untable tons of rock down on top of her.

  That was then…

  She would have flinched if the spell allowed her to move or look away, but mercifully the world flickered back to the present moment before the ava.

  Is it waiting for something? Anticipation prickled along her skin while time was held in abeyance. Ali read the description of the skill once again, rag her brain for some clues for how to use this magic.

  She suddenly noticed the slow, persistent trickle of mana being drained by her Sage of Learning. Is Sage still w? It was then that it clicked. Are Insight was w too – her passive magid her mind were ued by the frozen time in this realm, unlike her body.

  It’s waiting for me to cast something, she realized. With infinite care, she mentally summoned her Grimoire. The sudden appearance of her magical tome was shogly bright and colorful against the trast of a static world cast in gray. It works. She willed the pages to turn to the imprint she had hoped to use with this magic. Her expectations of how the spell would work were so far from the actual experiehat she had momentarily fotten her pn. But her Grimoire obediently paged to the Elemental imprint, stopping on the variant she required.

  Her mana flowed into her imprint causing a riot of brilliant color and magic as she summohe rgest, heaviest, and highest-level monster she had: the Forest Guardian. Still held in stasis, she heless kept a worried eye on Roderik and the powerful magic that would be unleashed the instant she was freed from this bizarre world.

  But it held, patiently holding the entire world back as her magic flowed; intricate runes swirling to form the giant monster of wood and bark. Minutes passed and as her magieared pletion, she prepared herself, brag herself for what must e .

  It all happened in an instant. Her Forest Guardian appeared between her and Roderik, and the bizarre color-leached world of her mother’s magiished in an instant.

  “Charge!” she screamed at her Guardian, while simultaneously wielding her barrier magic. Weaving her skill and her domain, she wrought several wickedly sharp golden spikes, fixed in pce. Ice mana fshed brilliantly as Roderik’s Ice Lance pierced through the chest of her massive Guardian. But that was not enough to stop it. It roared in pain and anger and blurred with sudden speed as its Rush skill u forward.

  The Rush sted only two steps, but Ali’s bones shook from the raw force of several tons of high-speed wood and ferocity.

  A musical, gssy tinkle sounded as his shield of ice shattered, followed by a disgusting, wet d a gurgling sound. Ali’s notification chime sounded as her Guardian backed up, leaving the grotesque sight of Roderik hanging impaled on her barrier shards with a look of utter surprise frozen on his dead face.

  You have defeated Ice Mage – Human – level 62 (Ice)

  Ali bent over and threw up.

  I killed him.

  A person.

  It didn’t matter that he had been i on murdering her. She felt sick to the core of her being.

  She khere dry heaving for a while, but the persistent regeion aura from her Forest Guardian slowly began to make her feel better. She snapped out of it when the aura finally finished repairing her ankle and her bowisted bato pce, painfully shattering the ice that encased her legs.

  As her awareness expanded, distant shouts and muffled explosions of magic made themselves heard.

  I o go.

  She had defeated Roderik, but it had been by the skin of her teeth, and now she no longer had her Are Recall, nor her Are Bolt skill to help her out. Aside from the Forest Guardian, she had no minioo protect her – the stinging snaps of her mana reservations releasing had died down to nothing. Already, there were plumes of smoke and fire and she could feel her domain burning.

  Ali hauled herself to her feet, earning new scrapes and cuts from the sharp ice which her Guardian healed, and forced herself to approach the mangled corpse. She choked down the bile rising ihroat. It was ohing to destruct a strung-up Sewer Rat, but this had been a person. Before she threw up again, she destructed him, dismissing the barrier shards holding him suspended in the air. Theored his gear in her ring so that hopefully nobody would realize what she had done.

  “Don’t let anyone pass,” she instructed her Guardian, stepping onto her barrier, flying into the small cave, aering the ventition shaft.

  She fed the mana she had just earned from Roderik’s corpse into Domain Mastery, makiher-Fused Obsidian flow from her Grimoire as she filled twenty meters of the shaft behind her with solid rock. Then she fled, flying in a dazed desperate shock through the tless ruined buildings of Dal’mohra to the library itself.

  Her mind raced, while her emotions ed in turmoil. She had survived, but only by killing a person. There was a horde of angry people destroying her domain up above. She desperately hoped that Aiden and Havok, and the rest of the novices, were alive, but she had no way to tell.

  But it was Roderik’s fident insistehat she was a duhat sent true threads of icy dread stabbing deep into her heart. For some reason, she couldn’t shake the horrid premonition of disaster that lurked deep in the back of her mind. As she finally colpsed onto the stone floor of the library, she retrieved the terrifying book she had been avoiding for too long.

  Dungeons and Domains: A plete Referenevyn Eld.

  The mere sight of the Lich’s seminal work filled her with horror and fear, but she had to know the truth. She had to clear the sense of impending doom that filled her heart.

  Paging quickly through the chapters, she came at st to the piece she needed he end of the book.

  “What then is a dungeon? As we have seen, domain csses e in many shapes and forms. ecifically sets a dungeon apart from the rest? A dungeon simply sists of three things:

  1) A domain that is attached to a pce.

  2) A domain that be grown by the creator, through the creation of domain-specifisters or items that expand and maintain its structure or mana-ttice.

  3) A skill that allows dismantling creatures or items and allows the domaior to use their domain magic to duplicate them.

  Returning to the examples we have seen so far…”

  A ghastly chill settled in her heart, dwarfing anything Roderik had caused. The book fell from her nerveless fingers, cttering to the ground as the realization smmed into her like a spike of ice through her heart.

  She had a domain. A magic that was tied to the nd, just as the book cimed. She had even studied the bone ah domain of the Ruins of Dal’mohra, fasated by the remarkable simirities to her own.

  Her pnts expanded her domain, just as the bone piles ahcap mushrooms expahe ruins dungeon, or Naia’s slimes expanded her smaller uer domain.

  And her pride – the Grimoire of Summoning – allowed her to destrud learn new pnts and monsters, just like Nevyn Eld’s book expined.

  She owerless to resist the clear and suddenly obvious truth that smmed into her heart with the force of a mountain colpsing on top of her. She could barely breathe.

  The signs had been there all along. Even Naia had accused her of being a dungeon, and, in her y, she had refused to believe it – certain ihat the mimic slime simply had a prasp of the nguage. The dungee she had triggered when her domain had entered the death and bone domain. Even her discovery that her Moss Creepers, Floral Menaces, and Spore Spreaders could grow the pnts for her domain matched the Spitter Drones of the Ruins of Dal’mohra, spreading bohroughout the dungeon’s space.

  Malika is going to hate me. Her friend’s parents – and indeed her entire life – had beeroyed by a dungeon. There was no way she would accept Ali after she found out. She could clearly see the expression of hate and anger on her face as she imagined meeting her friends and telling them the truth.

  Within her heart, a deep empty loneliness bloomed as her entire life colpsed in tatters around her.

  I’m the monster.

  She reached her hand out, grasping the tiny jasmine flowers wreathing the railing of the nding beside her. She had been blissfully unaware of the truth, going about her merry way, creating with her magic, believing she deserved friends, and that she could be an adventurer. But she was no summoner – she had unwittingly beeing the most terrifying of magics – a dungeon.

  I thought I was creating somethiiful. Doing something good. Maybe, one day, even dreaming of being strong enough to stand up to monsters like Nevyn Eld.

  She ripped the flowers from the pnt, throwing them into the emptiness of the atrium in her despair as her mind fled to a dark pce. Silent, ie, she y there – waiting for them to e for her.

  timewalk