The Ice Lands

by William Dickey

  “So, what do we do next?” asked Zelus.

  “We work our way down, one floor at a time. We still need to figure out what they’re really doing here,” I said, recalling what Mai had said earlier, only a small amount of the heat the AC units produced heated this place, the rest must be being directed to the portions of the base I hadn’t been allowed access to.

  “Yeah, we need to kill every last one of these bastards and teach them to never mess with our people,” said Bullseye.

  “If we don’t clear this place out, they could simply replace the machines I destroyed,” I agreed.

  Ch. 29: Mecha-maniacal

  We left Lilith in the cell. In order to deal with her more permanently, I’d have to lower the barrier, which was too risky. We still had a mission to complete and many people were counting on us.

  We started on our current floor, stayed together as we searched it for any remaining straggling daemons before moving down to the next floor. I intentionally had us avoid the corner of the floor with the murlimp barracks and practice field. There were too many of them and unlike other daemons they would retain a significant portion of their strength. But so long as no one came to get them they weren’t a problem. They’d just stay where they were.

  As we searched, I scanned every object I could and carefully read the interface’s description. Most of the items were weird things with very specific uses, but there were a few exceptions that I freely tossed into my inventory. After leveling Shapeshift so many times, Otheristry also went up by a level, Otheristry grew by developing magic or crafting skills and apparently Shapeshift was considered a magic skill. This doubled the size of my inventory again, so coupled with the space made by use of consumables and loss of equipment, I had plenty of room and desired to make use of it. Besides it wasn’t every day you were inside a daemon base. There were things here I couldn’t get anywhere else.

  †20-Gallon Vat of Fluoroantimonic Acid†

  Durability: 197/300

  Effects: Acidic

  Description: Fluoroantimonic acid is one of the world’s strongest acids. The greatest caution must be applied when using it. Note: not even the vat holding it is completely immune to the acid’s effects. The vat’s durability will slowly degrade over time until it breaks, spilling the acid.

  There were vats of many different chemicals in the various labs, too many even for my inventory to store them all. I could read the description provided by the interface, but oftentimes it was too vague or complicated for me to understand.

  The name on these vats caught my attention though, fluoroantimonic acid. I’d found some lemons filled with the stuff back when I was crossing the Hyperion Mountains and ended up using a few of them to burn a hole through a wall in a Traveler structure. Point was, I knew this stuff was strong and useful so I took all six of the acid vats I found. Best part, I didn’t actually need to worry about the containers degrading since time didn’t pass for things in my inventory.

  There were also many hunks of purified substances, like elements, for they are an essential building block from which to work from. Most of them I ignored because I didn’t have much use for pure lithium or boron. As for the common metals like iron, aluminium, and copper, I took some of them since I could use them for forging, but I wouldn’t be able to make use of their exceptional purity, so it felt like a waste. I similarly took some pure silver, gold, and platinum ingots, though this wasn’t for forging but because I could sell them for a lot of money once I got back to civilization. Othans didn’t make use of jewelry so I’d have to wait until I made it back to Xebrya, but I’d do it eventually.

  †Block of Uranium†

  Durability: 300/300

  Description: One of the elements, more specifically atomic number 92. It is weakly radioactive and unstable. This particular batch has been additionally purified to contain only atoms with an atomic weight of 235. A thick lead coating insulates the block.

  I also took the blocks of nuclear materials. Frankly, the things scared me. Just being near, I constantly worried they’d suddenly explode even though I knew they were divided into small enough hunks that such an occurrence was impossible. But, I didn’t see when I was likely to ever be presented with an opportunity to acquire such things again and given how my time in this world was going, I figured I could use every potential weapon I could get my hands on.

  †Gesture Goblin Corpse†

  Durability: 250/250

  Weight: 192 kg

  Description: Corpse of a gesture goblin. Frozen and perfectly preserved at the moment of death. Consists of 52% Iron, 18% Sulfur, 9% Tungsten, 3% Gold, 2% Uranium, 16% Other.

  †Murlimp Corpse†

  Durability: 250/250

  Weight: 223 kg

  Description: Corpse of an unmodified murlimp. Frozen and perfectly preserved at the moment of death. Consists of 60% Aluminium, 18% Sulfur, 9% Oxygen, 3% Carbon, 1% Uranium, 9% Other.

  †Fire Elemental Corpse†

  Durability: 250/250

  Weight: 27 kg

  Description: Corpse of a fire elemental. Frozen but most of its body dispersed the moment it died. The remainder consists of 47% Gold, 37% Platinum, 5% Polonium, 4% Osmium, 2% Americium, 5% Other.

  I also took nearly every daemon corpse we came across, figuring that with the reluctance many Doragans had with the expedition it would be nice to have ample proof of the many challenges we had had to overcome. Besides, their bodies contained many rare minerals and could probably be melted down for more forging materials.

  I would have also liked to take some of the daemon lab equipment, but unfortunately, most of the lab equipment was badly damaged so I didn’t bother. The equipment, like most things made by daemons, was built for a high temperature environment. Since I had destroyed all the AC units, the temperature had dropped precipitously. Under varying circumstances, different substances expand and contract at different rates. For complex precision machines like the lab equipment, this caused irreparable damage. They might have looked fine on the outside but according to the interface, all the lab machines were hunks of scrap.

  As we extended our thorough sweep to lower floors, we started coming upon pockets of living daemons. The pockets were all small in number and all greatly weakened by the chilled environment. Working together, none of the daemons proved much of a challenge. We killed them all off and kept moving. On some of the bodies I spotted keycards, I took those because I knew I’d need at least one to pass through the door to the six and seventh floors and maybe more to enter different sections. I didn’t know how compartmentalized their security was.

  Eventually, we finished clearing out the fifth floor. I used one of the security badges to move onto the sixth. The sixth floor looked much like the other five floors except there were more security doors separating different sections. It was annoying to have to keep trying different cards to gain entry into the different sections, but eventually we searched the whole floor, killing any living daemons we came across.

  When we got to the seventh floor, we could have gone around and checked the other parts of the floor first, but I found another security door that looked more tempting.

  All of Niflheim was connected by a single staircase running through the center of the complex. This staircase was unusual in that it wasn’t some tightly bound spiral but wound through a circle 100 feet across. In the Traveler facility under Crystalpeak, the inner side of the staircase had a rail and an open section from which a person could see parts of all seven floors, but the daemons had gone to great lengths to create a giant cylindrical wall to cordon off the section in Niflheim.

  That alone would have been enough to pique my interest, but the ducts leading out of the AC units also led to the cordoned section and I still hadn’t figured out what all the heat was for.

  “Let’s try this way first,” I suggested, indicating we should try the door that looked to open into the large cordoned off section. Having no preference, the rest of the team followed. It was a bi
t tough to find a keycard that worked, few seemed to have access to this sector, but I’d collected dozens of the things and sure enough, eventually one of them worked.

  A loud buzzer rang three times in warning before the large door slid out of the way. We entered and saw a number of large mechanical pieces of equipment, not too different from the dozens of labs we’d searched, and a large number of tables covered in messes of paper, also not different from the rest of Niflheim.

  What was different about this section was its high ceiling extending seven stories up and what can only be described as a black hole hovering in the center of the chamber, around fifty feet in the air. It was a perfectly flat, motionless disk. The center was completely solid and impenetrably dark while the outer edges gradually faded out to complete transparency, like smoke except it was too even and perfect of a fade.

  “What the hell is that?” asked Rose.

  “Some sort of black hole. Maybe they use it as a garbage dump,” I suggested. “In any case, we’d better get rid of it.”

  “That is not a black hole and even if it was I assure you I could find a better use for it than trash disposal,” said a deep voice I didn’t recognize.

  The world shuddered into an aggressively enduring silence not created by an actual pause but by a sudden spike in adrenaline that simply made time seem to slow down. My companions and I all simultaneously looked away from the black hole in the air above us and back towards the unfamiliar voice that had just come from the only door in or out of the large chamber.

  A daemon was standing in the doorway. He was smaller than all the daemons I’d come across, standing only about four feet tall. Like many other daemons, he had a dark grey complexion with a metallic sheen. However, unlike my own murlimp skin which possessed cracks from which leaked the light of an internal fire, the daemon’s skin was smooth and solid and his inner glow only leaked from his eyes, nostrils, mouth, and a pair of horns so short they almost looked like bumps on the daemon’s forehead. As for clothing, the only thing the daemon wore was a pitch black jumpsuit that I very much wished hadn’t been skintight. All in all, the daemon looked like Satan’s Mini-me if the devil were a speed skater.

  “Oh, this little one is cute. I do not know if we should fight it or take it home for a pet. I am sure my children will love it,” Bearballs chuckled.

  The daemon chuckled back in response, but if anything, it sounded more like a high-pitched shriek.

  ‘Careful, that’s a Maxwell daemon. They may not be very powerful, but they are exceptionally clever. One wouldn’t just come out here and show himself unless he had something up his sleeve,’ Mai warned.

  “I am Distlemander. I run this outpost,” said the daemon as he gave a little bow. “And that… is a bridge to another universe, more specifically to a place called Earth. It took a lot of work to repair that ancient device so I’m afraid that I must intervene if you don’t desist from your current endeavor.”

  I looked back up at the black hole. ‘Home is on the other side?’ A confused swirl of emotion passed through me.

  When I first came to this world, I was happy. I didn’t have much going on back on Earth and it was my chance to get a fresh start.

  However, I soon found myself continually bombarded by dangerous situations. I’m not sure all the powers I gained, majestic sights seen, and friendships earned could make up for that. A piece of me was just damned tired and wanted to go back to my dull, comfy planet. ‘There’s no place like home.’

  “Do you think we would run from the likes of you, tiny man,” said Bearballs.

  “From the look of your expressions, there are over half who already want to go. So just do it, go. I will not pursue, you have my word,” said Distlemander.

  “I’m afraid we can’t do that,” I grumbled in my deep murlimp voice.

  Distlemander turned to me. “You must be the reason that all of this was able to happen. I assume that you’ve been here since all the humans were captured. Which means that much of the blame for this lies with Private Demogorgon. Is she still alive? It would be best if she were. Nevertheless, I have to say you are quite interesting. It must be barbarian shapeshifting, but I wouldn’t have thought it possible for a barbarian to shift into a daemon. For a barbarian to shift into an animal, all the basic constituents are the same, and even the basic structures tend to be related, all the parts just need to be rearranged a bit. But for a barbarian to shift into a daemon… we are made out of completely different substances. We don’t even share similar biological coding structures. Maybe it’s because of Malphestos’ modifications… I’ve never had much of an interest in studying biology, but you provide quite a tempting opportunity,” said Distlemander, as he licked his lips with delight.

  “I said-.”

  “New deal. The murlimp stays, the rest of you can leave peacefully,” said Distlemander. I moved to answer but it wasn’t necessary. “I suppose you won’t be interested in such a proposition, so it looks like we have no choice….”

  Distlemander left his position in the doorway and entered the seven-story chamber properly. He raised a hand and snapped his fingers. Seven white spiderlike robots followed Distlemander into the chamber before wrapping themselves around their creator. Different parts shifted around and interlocked, forming a twelve-foot humanoid suit of armor that completely enveloped the daemon.

  ‘See, I warned you that Maxwell daemons are tricky. He’s like an evil Tony Stark, like an Iron Maniac,’ said Mai.

  In the armor, Distlemander was three times taller and wider than before. He now had four arms and four legs instead of two of each. Two of the arms had hands and were for normal grappling while the other two had steel gun barrels at the ends. As for the four legs, so many were needed to support the robot’s massive weight.

  “Form up and surround the target,” Izusa ordered. Altogether, there were six of us: Izusa, Bearballs, Titania, Rose, Zelus, and myself. We leveled our weapons or readied our magic and spread out. I was weaponless since I’d lost both halberds, but I didn’t need a weapon. Even weakened in this cold environment, my murlimp body was already a better weapon than anything my comrades were packing.

  “Let us gang up on that loner’s metal ass,” said Bearballs, roaring for another fight. He was a bit depressed that Lilith was the only ‘serious’ fight we’d had and his role in it had been minor.

  “As you wish,” said Distlemander, his voice gaining a metallic clang as it came out of a speaker.

  I heard a sharp rustle from above and looked up just in time to see a tin can with legs drop down from the ceiling six stories up.

  Bang. The robot landed precisely where Titania had been standing, it’s bottom pressed firmly to the ground. I expected to see red Titania mush spread out across the floor, but I saw no such thing.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  It was Titania hitting the inside of the robot’s chest cavity. The bottom of the tin can body of the robot had been missing and the body itself was mostly hollow. Titania was trapped inside. There was a mechanical whir as the bottom door of the torso sealed itself up. Then the tin can robot jumped back up and returned to its position on the ceiling. I followed the robot’s path and saw that it wasn’t alone, a several other robots were positioned on the ceiling.

  “Watch out. There are more of them up there,” I warned. Several of my companions looked up and spotted the problem either because of my warning or before that. Unfortunately, the enemy noticed our distraction and took full advantage of it. Distlemander charged, his massive robot suit was surprisingly swift as it scuttled across the dozen yards that separated us. He hit Bearballs first. Both of Distlemander’s right arms raked Bearballs’ body sending him flying back against a wall.

  While this was happening, no one else was standing idle. I went in and wrapped my arms around one of Distlemander’s legs, slowing the robot down while Izusa started hacking away at one of the robot’s arms, she only had melee weapons which would be ineffective against Distlemander’s thick metal
carapace so she opted to strike at the thinnest most spindly parts, the arms.

  As for the mages, both prepared spells, both learned from our prior experiences with daemons and didn’t use fire. Zelus shot a flurry of lightning, while Rose dropped another one of her giant ice spikes.

  Rose’s ice spike pounded against Distlemander, shattering into a thousand pieces before the weight caused the robot’s legs to buckle and sent the whole torso down to the ground. Unfortunately, the robot was built to take a beating. Rose’s strike hadn’t done any lasting damage. It wasn’t long before Distlemander was back on his feet.

  Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly given the penetrating power electricity had on metal, Zelus’ lightning attack turned out to be far more effective. Distlemander’s robot arms flailed wildly and his four feet were practically tap dancing. The effect was brief and after a few seconds, Distlemander recovered but for the time the lightning was there, the effect was profound.

  Distlemander responded by grabbing Zelus, disrupting the mage’s focus and preventing him from summoning more lightning.

  “Get this bastard off of me,” Zelus yelled as he was lifted off the ground.

  “Don’t worry I’m coming,” said Bearballs.

  Bearballs had recovered by that point and he charged forward and swung his massive ax at a weak joint in the arm holding Zelus. A second before the ax came down, Distlemander flicked a wrist and tossed Zelus up into the air. Bearballs’ ax came down and actually managed to cut the arm off, but it was already too late to save Zelus.

  One of the robots on the ceiling popped down and snagged Zelus mid-air before returning to its initial position. A second set of banging joined Titania’s. Zelus’ role in this fight was over.