Curselock

Chapter 80: Worm

“So where do we go, Gelo?” Jude asked the next morning.

Technically, the sun had never set in the dungeon. It hung high in the sky, never moving yet always shining. Which, while annoying while trying to sleep, was ideal for progressing forward into unknown territory. Sure, although there were situations in which the cover of night would be preferable, generally the lack of light would nearly always be a detriment. Only Glenny could see in the dark, and he was still out of it.

The small bear cub looked around, before her a vast ocean of flat snow. There was literally only one thing, other than the dungeon exit, that made any sense to walk toward. Gelo’s bemusement shone through her snout and sapphire eyes.

“Are you being serious?” she asked.

Jude blinked a few times. “I uh, yes?”

Gelo blinked back. Her instincts told her that the human wasn’t trying to mess with her, nor did they explain how someone could be so stupid. Still, the human’s smell didn’t change, nor the warm feeling she got when she was near him. Jude was simply too precious to insult, despite being a little slow, she thought.

“Toward the Ice Castle,” Gelo said promptly.

“Ice Castle?” Leland asked. “That’s a castle?”

“That’s what Mother always called it. It used to be our home, before Mother carved out our den.”

Both the boys squinted at the Ice Castle not seeing the castle part of it. Sure, the spires of ice looked out of place enough to be considered a location of interest, but that was mainly because there wasn’t anything else around. Calling it a castle was… for lack of a better word, a stretch. Or at least Leland thought so. Jude didn’t muse the topic long. Instead he helped Glenny to his feet and wrapped an arm around him.

“Ready to go then?”

Gelo looked at Glenny, her snout betraying her sorrow. “Are you sure he’s okay to move? There are monsters out in the snow field.”

Leland sucked in a breath. “What kind?”

“Worms.”

“Worms?” Jude echoed.

“Ice Worms, I think they are actually called. They live in the ice.”

Frowning, Leland crouched and dusted away the top layer of snow. Still standing near the dungeon exit, only gray-white snow was present. He took a few steps toward the Ice Castle, finding a deeper patch of snow. He pushed it aside, finding a plane of solid ice under nearly double the amount of snow. No stone, he also noted.

“It seems the dungeon is leveled on stone. But a bit further out, it becomes ice,” Leland said. “So this is a safe zone.”

Jude wanted to say that there were no issues. He wanted to smirk and say, “bring it on!” to the worms. But as his eyes drifted to Glenny, he knew battle was not the correct choice.

“Are there other safe areas in the snow?” he asked Gelo.

The cub answered quickly, a simple head shake.

Leland was the only one to notice the magical beast’s mannerisms. Nodding and shaking one’s head was human, not beast. But he guessed so was speaking, especially in a language humans knew. He didn’t dwell on the thought for long, instead focusing on the worms.

“How big are they?” Leland asked. “Do you think Jude and I can deal with them?”

Looking a bit peeved, Gelo answered, “They are two or three times the length of me. Maybe half as thick. Yes, you and Jude can fight them off. But I am here as well. I did exit the dungeon, remember? Had to cross the snow fields to do that.”

Leland reddened. “Of course. Sorry, I’m just protective, especially when one of my friends is hurt.”

Glenny stirred at that. He kept his eyes closed and his head as still, the nausea being too much otherwise. Still, he could hear, even if anything other than a whisper felt like a cheese grater against his skull.

His voice came out as scratchy, like the cold had frozen his vocal cords and they were only just now thawing. “I can handle myself if needed.”

Surprisingly, Gelo was the one who answered. “There’s no need. The worms are weaklings. Simple monsters that hunt with sound, and not well.”

“So just be quiet, got it,” Jude replied, taking a step with Glenny still attached at the hip. Soon Leland and Gelo followed.

Walking on the snow with the ice under it was… different. It wasn’t slippery, but it also wasn’t secure. Like a loose rocky path, every other step gave a sort of hesitation of sliding. Only Gelo seemed to be impervious to the footing, her light weight hardly crunching the snow under her paws.

They moved a snail’s pace, partially to minimize noise and partially because Glenny couldn’t move that fast. Every step he took drew a shuddered breath, one that pulled at his stomach and bashed his head. Still, he didn’t complain, but it did take everything out of him not to.

It was his parasitic cloak, he knew and understood. Through his private time with the Huntress, Glenny had learned about his unique cloak to a certain degree. While currently he only understood it to give him infinite energy, he knew there was more to it than that. But unlocking its secrets was for a later date. For now, he focused on the starry fabric resting on his shoulders. He could feel the energy passing to him. He settled himself in that flow, allowing it to take away his thoughts.

Internally, however, Glenny knew that eventually this feeling would run out. The cloak recharged off starlight, the sun not included. And since the dungeon seemed to be permanently stuck on day, his cloak would drain itself sooner rather than later. For the time being, he tried to minimize the pain of his concussion. It was worth it in his eyes.

The walk to the Ice Castle stretched for hours. The structure of ice was nearly at the horizon, but at the same time, it wasn’t. Each step they took acted as the distance of four or five. That, or the Ice Castle was moving toward them as they moved toward it. Leland leaned toward the former himself, remembering their experience in Liontrunk’s dungeon.

They had crossed an entire grassy highlands in mere hours, something that was mimicked with the snow fields. Different from the highlands, however, was the lack of life. Granted the difference in ecosystem probably—

The ground shook as a distant gnawing sound rippled through the ice and snow. The group froze. Gelo growled a moment later. They each drew weapons, even Glenny who struggled with the motions. But nothing ever came. In fact, the gnawing went away the same instant the ground stopped shaking.

They progressed forward, yet Jude kept his axe in his free hand. Leland did the same, but his grimoire floated silently next to him at perfect reading distance.

It wasn’t much further until Leland could start to make out details of the Ice Castle. He’d have to wait a little longer to be sure, as his eyes were second to Glenny’s, but he thought he could see walls. Proper walls, ones with windows and gradients, door frames and structure points.

Over the course of the next half-an-hour, Leland started picking up more. It was a castle, that much was now certain. Entirely made of ice, steep towing walls created a small fortress. Baileys encased a proper courtyard, one that was hidden away under the multitude of reaching pillars of unnatural ice. Battlements were evenly chiseled, creating a repeating pattern of rectangular cutouts along the upper walkways.

The blue of the sky and white of the floor clashed within the castle’s reflection, turning the ice, as well as the spires, pasty pale blue. It created the illusion that the castle walls were opaque, like a shade tinted window. What was on the other side, they didn’t know. But each of the boys was curious, even Glenny.

Soon they were close enough to inspect the jutting pillars of ice. They were perfectly smooth, almost like a—

The ground shook again, along with it came the gnawing.

Reacting first, Gelo shouted, “Scatter!”

The ground shook harder, shifting the smooth snow like vibrating grains of rice, and the boys ran. Jude hooked Glenny, pulling him along at breakneck speeds while Leland and Gelo took off in different directions.

The shaking amplified, morphing the gnawing into something more repetitive. It became a whirling crunch, like a horse chomping through a bundle of apples. The humans of the group all fell to their knees, skidding across the unstable ground before coming to a stop. They turned as the ice erupted.

The worm blasted out through the air, snow and ice cascading down with it. It flew high into the blue sky, easily higher than a house, before arcing and taking to gravity. A silvery membrane of magic and mana protruded from its thick maw, shearing through the ice like it was made of whipped cream.

Leland gaped at the worm as its long body fully disappeared back into the ice. Heavy thick gray scales lined the top and sides of its massive body. Fur, or maybe they were feathers, sat in between each scale like sensory whiskers. From the angle he viewed the creature, he got a great showing of the worm’s twin mandibles. One leaked magical power, allowing it to swim through the ice without worry. The other twitched with unbridled strength, a warning to all those who were keen enough to wish to fight it.

Leland didn’t even process that Gelo’s description of the worm was wrong. She had said they were half the size, albeit much longer, than her. Yet the monster that just breached the snow fields was anything but.

The worm, being the thickness of a full grown bear and the length of a redwood tree, Leland sprinted toward his friends. Below him he could feel the monster rushing through the ice, getting further and further away.

Like it was swimming down.

“We need to move!” he yelled, pointing toward the Ice Castle.

The slowly stilling ice briefly stopped shaking completely. Then, like clockwork, the tremor doubled, then eventually tripled. It was coming, much faster than before.

The boys ran, the worm breaching the ice where they stood moments earlier.

It flew high into the air, screeching as it reached its apex. For a moment Leland worried that more worms would gather at the commotion, but Gelo’s words cut through the cold.

“It’s the boss!” she yelled. “The worms combined!”

At least they only had to deal with one monster, Leland mused.

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