“This feels so easy,” Fowl muttered as he moved quickly through the snow. “It’s almost as if it’s just windy now.”

Max and the others nodded in agreement.

Tom had the rings ready for them, only slightly surprised that they had actually found the portal to the second level. He had given them three pouches of rope and wished them luck taking out the yeti boss.

“Are we going to go fast or take it slow?” Max asked as they moved through the swirling snow. The ring he wore helped slightly with his sonar skill. The range was still shorter, but the noise in his head was gone.

“Let’s burn everything down,” Batrire said with an evil cackle. “I’m ready to get level fifty!”

Fowl pumped his fist into the air, excited at Batrire’s words.

“It looks like it’s your turn to carry us,” Max informed Tanila. “Try to make it look difficult, at least.”

They had used almost an entire rope pouch before they found the portal to the second level again.

Tanila was the new hero of the party. Her fire spell, combined with her familiar, allowed her to one-shot the yetis with ease.

“It seems chilly now but not as cold as last time,” Fowl grumbled. “At least my balls won’t be blue this run through.”

Max groaned and ignored the chuckle from his dwarven tank. “Be ready! We'll do things the same as before, but if the yetis are at a higher level or a bit tougher, I'll be ready to defend Tanila if needed.”

Driving a spike and attaching rope from a new bag, they set off into the slightly thicker snow, creating trails quickly covered by the downpour of white powder.

“FOUR!”

Fowl did his best to manage the beasts, ensuring he attracted all their attention. He could easily keep these locked down if they got to him before anyone else aggroed them. Their dwarven warrior’s new auras were almost impossible to believe, and Max often wondered what might have been had he drunk the elixir.

“Casting!”

Tanila’s fireball flew over the snow-covered ground and impacted into the second yeti from the right. The one she hit and the one next to it died in a flaming pile, like every yeti before, while one in the middle was caught in the blast. It roared as its flesh and hair burned, trying to get past Fowl and at the caster who had just rendered it bald.

Max didn’t waste any time, swinging his weapon and cleaving the yeti in two. A few seconds later, the last yeti was down, its blood staining the snow until it was covered up by the never-ending storm.

“Doesn’t look like I can kill three at once unless they are really close!” Tanila shouted. “What do you want to do?”

“Keep doing what we just did. That wasn’t bad, and until we can’t one-shot these, we will stick to the plan.”

“Says the guy with a strength of over a hundred,” Fowl muttered. While he spoke quietly, Max’s sonar skill had picked it up, even over the storm.

“Someday, you’ll be as strong as me,” Max teased.

“I doubt that!” Fowl shot back before heading off into the snow.

After two hours of searching, the boss portal came into view on their last bag of rope. The four of them didn’t hesitate as they ran into the portal.

The sound of silence filled their ears, surprising them all.

Surrounding the boss's room was a sheet of ice enclosing a massive two-hundred-yard area. A low ceiling with massive ice stalactites hovered only forty feet above their heads. In the middle of the room was a yeti, fifteen feet tall, with fur that was almost blue.

“Did you find out its skills?” Fowl shouted.

“Shhh… you don’t have to yell!” Batrire replied, yelling herself without realizing it.

They all started to laugh, realizing their hearing was off after the constant wind that had assaulted their ears.

“What’s the plan?” Tanila asked, doing her best to not shout.

“You’re going to smoke it in one or two shots,” Max said. “It has an ice blast, which I doubt I could consume, and it’s way weaker than any other boss we have faced. Even if I kill it, I’m not sure there is anything I would get from it.”

Fowl raised an eyebrow as he listened to Max talk. “Wait, you’re telling us you don’t want the kill?”

“If I get it, great. I’d rather see what Tanila can do against that thing with her new fireball spell.”

“Well, I’ll go aggro it, and she can kill it. After that, we'll hit the fire salamander dungeon.”Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Max nodded at Fowl, and after Batrire gave him a thumbs-up, they all chuckled, watching as Fowl slid across the ice in his plate boots.

“What the hell is this? Dwarves on ice?”

“That’s a show I’d pay to see,” Max said with a laugh after Fowl fell on his backside.

“How am I supposed to move?” Fowl asked. “Did Tom intentionally not tell us about this?”

“Probably,” Batrire replied. “Tanila, can you help Fowl get across?”

Max chuckled as he moved up behind Fowl, helping his struggling, plate-wearing, dwarven friend to his feet. “I got an idea, but you might not like it.”

Fowl tried to turn to look back at Max but was struggling to just stay upright. “Why does that sound bad?”

“Because it is,” Max said. “Now put your shield on the ice and hold on. I want you to lie down on it and hold it from the side.”

“WHAT?!” roared Fowl. “You want me to lay my shield on the ice and climb onto it?”

“Lie on it, half on and half off. I’ll push you toward the boss. From there, Tanila can move up behind. Her boots seem to be doing much better than yours.”

“Goblin shite,” Fowl cursed, finally turning his head around and seeing that Max was completely serious. “I swear, if I die, I’m going to haunt you.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” Max said, waiting for Fowl to get on the shield.

It took a moment for their dwarf to figure out how to hold his curved shield so that it allowed him to stabilize himself on the slick surface.

“Ready?”

“Gods, no, I’m not ready,” Fowl shouted.

Laughing, Max took his weapon and used the tip to chip the floor, creating a divot behind Fowl. He grabbed his dwarven friend's hips while setting his foot in the small hole he had created.

“Here goes! Dwarven ice bowling!” Max shouted as he thrust his friend in the direction of the boss.

It seemed to be working until Fowl started to turn, his body rotating as he careened toward the boss.

“Crap, we got to go help him,” Batrire groaned.

Tanila and Batrire scooted across the ice as quickly as they could, each moving with an almost surreal grace.

“It’s like sliding,” Tanila said as she shifted her weight back and forth, pushing herself across the slick surface.

Max saw what she was doing and tried to copy her. His chain boots did not work nearly as well as Tanila’s leather boots.

They heard a roar, and the three saw Fowl was over seventy yards ahead of them, sliding across the ice with the boss charging at him.

“OGRE SHIIIIIITEE!” Fowl shouted as he held onto his shield, rolling onto his back as the boss attacked.

The yeti had no problem moving across the surface. Its claws on its toes and the skin on the bottom of its feet kept it upright and moving with amazing speed.

It reached Fowl and slammed a fist into him, hitting his shield and sending the dwarf sliding back and slightly away from the group.

“This is my fault!” Max shouted.

“YES IT IS!” Fowl yelled back, his words echoing around the ice cavern.

“I’m still out of range!” Tanila said. “I also need it to stay in one place when I cast!”

As Fowl spun around, getting closer to the edge of the floor, the yeti was racing toward him, and Max decided to try something new.

[ Spider Walk ]

He almost tripped as his boots grabbed the surface of the ice without any slip. As he moved, his chain boots released their grip as he needed them to and immediately secured themselves the second they touched the ground.

“I’m coming!” Max shouted as he took off at a full sprint, no longer struggling with the ice floor.

The boss reached Fowl, who was just starting to rise as he used the wall for support. As he got to his feet, the boss kicked him, sending the dwarf sliding along the ice again while spinning like a top.

Max was almost to the boss when it took off after the Fowl, who seemed to be hurting it every time it struck him.

“I’m going to puke,” Fowl called out after he slammed into the wall again.

Max saw where Tanila was trying to go and changed his angle slightly.

“I’ll aggro the boss! You prepare to hit it!”

Fire began to grow around their mage as Max raced after the boss, changing his pursuit angle to intercept the yeti before it could attack Fowl again.

They almost collided when Max came up on the left side of the boss, swinging his halberd and burying it deep within its leg. The boss howled in pain and immediately turned to face Max, ignoring the dwarven top it had been playing with.

Max parried a slash from the boss’s claws without getting knocked back as Fowl had.

It struck again, bringing both claws at the man who had made it difficult for the creature to walk or move.

“CASTING!”

Max parried both attacks, keeping the boss where Tanila was aiming, and felt the fireball enter his Sonar sphere from behind.

The boss staggered backward as its body was consumed by fire, the smell of burnt hair and flesh filling Max’s nostrils. It tried to roar, but the fire immediately burned its lungs and throat. It was dying, and in pain, so Max did what he could to help send it on its way.

Swinging his weapon, he hit the same as before on the left leg, cutting through and causing the boss to fall to the ice floor, still on fire as the magical energy burned the flesh that was exposed when the previous layer burned away.

It rolled on the ground in agony, and Max moved to its head. A single strike to its skull sent the halberd tip into its brain, killing the boss.

[ 5 Wisdom Consumed ]

Max felt the rush of cold, signaling his mind trying to adjust to the sudden growth. It vanished after a few seconds, and he turned to see Fowl had made a mess on the floor.

“Gods, someone help me!” Fowl groaned, wiping the vomit from his helm and mouth.

“I’m not kissing that,” Batrire shouted as she slid to a stop.

“Don’t move, I’ll rescue you!” Max called out as he moved toward his sickly dwarven friend.

“One day, I’ll pay you back for that crazy idea,” Fowl moaned. “Who the hell thinks it's okay to slide a dwarf across ice?”

Chuckling, Max lifted his friend to his feet and carefully slid him toward the chest that had appeared at the center of the boss floor.

“Stop your complaining, and I’ll let you open the chest,” Max teased.

“Maybe I’ll vomit on you if I don’t,” their dwarf said with a slight gag. “It’s hard to describe how bad that really was.”

Max just smiled, and a devilish grin appeared. “How would you like to try that again?”

“Don’t you daaarre!”

Tanila and Batrire joined Max as Fowl on ice returned for a second show.