The floorboards creaked as Riley pressed inside, the darkness seeming to wrap around him and close in behind him. It was only when they were out of the wailing wind that Mesquard emerged from his pocket, shuddering and huffing.

  The weather is truly against us, Ser! The rat exclaimed.

  “It’s not ideal,” Riley replied, pulling his robe close. For as much as the garb of a plague wizard made him look like an edgelord villain, he would give credit where it was due to Aqar’Ghul’s tailors. The outer layer actively repelled moisture, preventing him from getting damp or waterlogged. And the inner layer was better at insulation than one would think at a glance.

  That wasn’t to say Riley didn’t feel the cold, but he knew full well that things could have been much worse for him.

  “Just stick close to me lil fella.”

  Lil fella?! I should hope that translates to ‘mighty warrior’ where you hail from.

  They went through the vacant structure, finding hints at the violence that had transpired only recently by Kim’s estimation. The floorboards were marked by scars hewn into the wood, either from claws or blades, and many dried bloodstains were splashed about on a variety of flat surfaces. Crystals of frost glittered among them, like a sea of rubies.

  Of the people they found, many of them had been torn to shreds or smashed into a pulp. Stray growths of black mass dotted their frozen flesh, just as dead as the bodies they were grafted to. These were either people who had been given the Rot and had been slain by their former allies, or those who had been infected but had been too close to death for the corruption to take effect.

  Whatever the case, it was a gruesome sight that made Riley’s stomach tighten. He wasn’t totally desensitized, at least.

  Many of the crates and containers inside the various buildings had either been smashed, or were devoid of much of use to start with. Though Riley was given pause when he fished out a jar of preserved white leaves.

  Snowflesh Flowers

  A rare breed of flowers that tend to sprout in cold, mountainous regions. This, coupled with their pale complexion, causes them to regularly blend in with any surrounding snow. Alchemists place great stock in their ability to cure poisons.

  Riley stared at the description for several quiet moments. “Cure poison?” he murmured. A strange sense of dread briefly washed over him. The thought of there being poison out there to be used against him, just another threat that could trip him up.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  A potent herb, Ser, I can nearly smell it through the glass.

  Arubis hummed and stroked her chin. “They seem to be expertly preserved. A single one of these flowers could purge harmful toxins from your body.”

  “Good to know.” He slotted the jar in his inventory for later, just in case. “But it looks like that’s about the only useful thing here.”

  They continued on, moving from room to room and then building to building. The scenes of carnage were distinct in each structure, but all told the same story. Eventually, entering the last building in the sequence, Riley found a pickaxe halfway lodged in the shattered floorboards. He plucked it up, grunting and huffing from the effort, and weighed it in his hands. The damn thing felt thrice as heavy as it looked.

  Miner’s Pick.

  A tool used by miners the world over, ideal for shattering stone and plucking chunks of ore from the unyielding earth.

  While it was not built with combat in mind, it can hew through flesh far easier than stone.

  Riley grimaced. The might stat needed to use this were more than twice his current level. What in the world did they feed the miner’s around here?

  He dropped it to the ground with a dull clatter. It was way too unwieldy to be of any use to him. And he wasn’t about to change his stats for a pickaxe of all things.

  The snow and wind had eased off by the time Riley reemerged, and an eerie calmness had settled over the mining camp. The silence was deafening, the only sounds being the crunch of snow under Riley’s boots and the thudding of his own heart.

  Mesquard briefly poked his snout out. The smell of evil grows richer here, Ser. The scent of blood was strong in those shacks, but toward those tunnels... The rat briefly wrinkled his whiskered snout. It’s tenfold stronger.

  “Great...” Riley huffed, setting his jaw tight. He kept a comfy grip on his weapons and pressed downward. The paths just beyond the tunnels had been covered with a thick layer of salt, keeping much of the snow from gaining any foothold.

  They reached the mouth of one cave. Riley leaned in for a closer listen, only barely able to see a torch flickering distantly in the carved tunnel. The noise of clashing blades and tearing flesh echoed down toward him. “Guess Kim is down that way,” he said.

  The knight likely needs no aid, Mesquard said.

  Riley nodded stiffly. “Plus I can’t get Essence from anything she kills. Gotta keep focusing on gaining levels.” The miners, corrupted by the Rot as they were, had a freakish amount of strength at their disposal. But Riley knew he could handle them well enough, owing to how slow they seemed to be.

  He turned from the cave mouth and continued further down the path. The auspex hitched to his hip pulsed with renewed intensity, seeming to grow more excited as he pressed deeper into the carved path. “Besides, with a Lodestone nearby, it’s not like either of us are at too much risk.”

  Arubis stirred slightly behind him. He turned to glance at her, but found that his Oracle was now staring intently at the bottom of the carved spiral path.

  The rocks below had been shattered and crushed, showing footprints left behind by some massive beast. At the widest point, they were much bigger than the span of Riley’s shoulders. A chill suddenly raced through Riley’s body. “Oh. Damn.”

  Perhaps, he thought, it was too early to get confident.

  The auspex pulsed insistently, as if trying to actively get Riley's attention. He was finally snapped to attention as he spied a shambling silhouette in the tunnel ahead of him, a misshapen parody of a human being who looked all the more monstrous from the distortion of his shadow.

  Riley let out a shaky breath, reinforcing his grip on his weapons. "Right," he told himself. Whatever lay ahead of them, they still had to deal with the nearby miners and other rot-infested folks first. After that, he could choose to worry about the big bastard who had left those footprints behind.

  Steeling his nerve, Riley gripped his weapons and pressed into the mouth of the tunnel.