"Just as well," said Lidda. "More glory for me. Observe."
She drew her sword and sliced it through the air in front of her. The blade barely completed its arc before an arrow shot from the wall to cross the hallway and bounced off the opposite wall. Lidda picked up the missile and inspected it carefully.
"Barbed tip," she announced then sniffed it. "Not poisoned, though. Anyone fancy adding this to their quiver? Don't worry; if this is the best these dead wizards had to offer, getting through here will be child's play. But take this as a warning-don't step in front of me."
Lidda walked boldly into the hallway. The others followed more cautiously. Regdar noticed that Sonja walked more slowly than anyone and kept her eyes on her feet as she took deliberate steps. It pained Regdar to watch this woman with such natural grace lose her bearings so completely when she stepped out of nature. He decided to distract her with a few questions.
"You said you encountered mephits on the Endless Glacier? What were they like?"
"What?" the druid stammered. "Oh. My parents and I came across a small group of them living near a frost giant community called Jotaralund. We were spying on the giants to see if they intended pushing their frontier to the west, into the Snowswept Flats, which would have endangered the few mammoths still living in that region. Instead of giants bent on conquest, we found a colony of ice mephits, living unseen right under the giants' noses. We invited them to help us in our struggle against the giants, but they refused. They weren't interested in politics, even those that impacted on their lives, nor did they care particularly about protecting nature. They're insular creatures, but not innately hostile to outsiders. They shared with us their observations of the frost giants and let us proceed unmolested."
"So you never had to fight them?"
"No, said Sonja. "Hennet is the only one of us who's done that. They're magical creatures, and they have certain inborn powers. Ice mephits aren't the only kind, you know-there are mephits for all the elements and probably the para-elements too. From what my parents said, all mephits have the ability to summon other mepthits to their side, but there's no guarantee they'll be of the same kind. Ice mephits rarely call for such aid, for obvious reasons, if a fire mephit or a steam mephit arrived, it would scarcely be able to survive in the ice mephit's cold environment, and the ice mephit could be seriously injured or even killed by the blast of heat that would accompany the new arrival.
"They also use their breath as a weapon, like a winter wolf or a white dragon, but it's less potent. And they wield magic."
"What sort of magic?" asked Hennet.
Sonja shook her head. "I'm not entirely sure. My understanding is that they don't cast spells like you or I, but they can draw on innate abilities that have similar effects. Something like your magic missiles but probably not as fierce. You're lucky they didn't use this on you up above. I'm not sure why they didn't, but I suspect it's something they can do only a few times a day.
She paused, then continued. "There's something else, too. Regdar, you may be concerned about this. It shouldn't worry the rest of us too much."
"Why just me?" asked Regdar.
"Because you wear metal armor. They can chill any kind of metal until it's extremely cold-your sword, your breastplate, anything metal. If it's on you, it will become unbearable to touch, and you won't be able to fight well, if at all. The effect fades before too long, but if a fight should break out with the mephits, he ready to shed your armor at the first sign of danger. Otherwise, you could end up frozen and unable to fight.
"Don't underestimate these creatures," she concluded. "They may be small, but that doesn't mean they're insignificant or easy to kill."
"Amen to that," added Lidda, who was smaller still. Then she froze in her tracks, keenly eyeing the floor and walls ahead of her. "There's another trap here."
All three of them behind Lidda likewise stopped, barely daring to breathe heavily.
"Good work spotting it," Regdar offered. "Can you make it safe?"
"I don't need to," Lidda replied. "That's what concerns me. It's already been disabled."
"What do you mean?" asked Hennet, striding up next to her.
Lidda pointed out a thin, horizontal line etched into the wall. None of the others would have noticed it without Lidda's pointing finger to guide their eyes.
"There's a scything blade in there," she explained. "Walk through the hallway without first tapping on this part of the wall and the blade flies, out to slice you in two at the waist-or takes your head off, if you're me."
"Delightful," said Regdar, who'd witnessed the effectiveness of such diabolical devices more than he cared to dwell on. "But you say somebody disabled it? Good of them."
"What's more, I don't think it was done long ago," Lidda said, running her finger along the inside of the thin groove.
"Why not?" asked Sonja.
Lidda pulled back her finger. It was covered with a dark brown, powdery substance. No one needed to be told what it was, but Lidda said it anyway. "Dried blood."
"Could it be Glaze's?" asked Hennet. "The mephits said he was down here."
"It could be," Sonja allowed, "but maybe not. Savanak talked about other humans who were heading here just before the cold began spreading."
"Maybe," said Lidda, "but if others came here before us, why didn't the mephits mention them?"
"Perhaps they don't know about them," offered Regdar. "Maybe the mephits hadn't been blown through the portal yet at that time."
"Or maybe," Hennet sneered, "our chilly, little friends didn't want to tell us that we're the second group of fools to tackle this job, because the first group never came back."
"With no other evidence, it's pointless to conjecture," Sonja replied.
"Then consider this," Hennet continued. "One of them-whatever 'them' was-met his fate right here. The question foremost in my mind is, what happened to the body?"
No one answered because Lidda was already proceeding farther along the hallway. Sonja did her best to hold her head high and look straight ahead. The jet black walls that reflected nothing felt closer around her with each step.
Regdar put a hand on her shoulder. Hennet, oblivious to the familiar contact, walked farther ahead, just behind Lidda. He had no intention of getting either ahead of her or too far behind her.
"Does something about this place bother you?" Hennet whispered to the halfling.
"A great many things," she replied. "Do you have something specific in mind?"
"This tunnel is clearly not natural. No tools carved out this hallway-they would have left marks of some kind, even small ones. Magic dug this passage. The dimensions are perfect and the material is perfectly smooth. And yet-"
Lidda finished his sentence for him. "Yet the two traps we've encountered were simple, mechanical machines. You'd think that wizards who could build a place like this would install magical traps, or at least better mundane ones."
"Traps that a thief…pardon me, a rogue such as yourself would have a harder time spotting."
"Isn't it curious?" asked Lidda. "It's almost as if those traps were deliberately made simple. Why? Maybe to lure us into a false sense of security before… thwap!"
Sonja bit her lip and grew even more pale, much to Regdar's concern.
"Please, you two," demanded Regdar. "Some consideration for Sonja."
The sorcerer and the halfling turned back to see the fighter, his hand still on the ice druid's shoulder. She shook and trembled, and tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. Hennet raced back to her.
"Sonja, I'm sorry, so sorry. Look," he said, "maybe you should go back to the surface and keep an eye on the mephits. We'll bring back the Frozen Pendant."
"No," Sonja answered. "I will not go up there and wait for you, like some war widow. I'm just a little… out of my element down here, but I can deal with it. Bear with me."