Reklaw volunteers for first watch as his companions settle into makeshift beds—some sprawled across the truck’s hood, others curled in its bed, a few seeking shelter beneath the armored chassis. The monk positions himself at the cave’s mouth, where frost-rimed stone meets the impenetrable darkness beyond.
The silence of Stygia presses in upon him oppressively.
Then he hears it: a low muttering, a chorus of growls emanating from multiple throats. The shuffle of massive feet scraping across ice. Reklaw’s hand moves to his weapon as a shadow materializes in the pale blue glow of the cave walls—no, shadows. Plural.
The first cryohydra emerges from the darkness, its eight serpentine heads wreathed in frost and freezing vapor. Each breath it takes sends plumes of crystalline mist cascading from its jaws.
Moving silently, Reklaw weaves an Elementalism spell. Droplets of conjured water splash across each sleeping face—Arman, Kiki, Vali, Thunk, Clunk, Lula. Eyes snap open instantly, recognizing the monk’s warning for what it is.
All except Borark.
The barbarian surges to his feet with a battle roar that echoes off the ice walls.
The lead cryohydra barrels through the narrow entrance, all eight heads trumpeting their fury as clouds of frost steam from their open jaws. The heads rear back as one, and the cave fills with the horrific whoosh of eight freezing blasts erupting simultaneously. Most go wide, shattering against stone and ice, but Arman and Borark cry out as burning cold sears their flesh.
Kiki scrambles to her feet, frustration evident on her face. “I’ve got almost nothing left!” she calls out, but her hands are already moving through the gestures for Fire Bolt—her only remaining spell until she can properly rest. The bolt streaks across the cavern and strikes true. The cryohydra bellows, its scales blackening where flame met ice-touched flesh.
“Fire!” Kiki shouts over the creature’s screams. “It hates fire!”
But before she can cast again, one of the hydra’s heads whips toward her, jaws unhinging to release a concentrated blast of frost. The mapac takes it full in the chest. She drops to the slick stone floor, her body encased in a glaze of ice, utterly still.
Not breathing.
“NO!” Borark roars, drawing all eight heads toward him. Seven serpentine necks lash out at once, fangs snapping. The barbarian weaves between them with desperate grace, then throws himself toward the truck. He scrambles up into the gunner’s seat, hands closing around the arcane cannon’s controls.
The weapon jams, magical energy backfiring in a shower of sparks that throws Borark backwards.
Thunk ducks behind the truck’s bulk, hands already tracing complex patterns in the air. “Get clear!” he shouts, and a ring of whirling magical blades erupts around both cryohydras that have now pushed into the cave. The thunk-thunk-thunk of blade meeting flesh fills the air as the creatures bellow in agony.
The second cryohydra retaliates with another barrage of freezing breath. Vali’s fingers dance through the casting of Otto’s Irresistible Dance, but the spell slides off the creature’s frost-hardened scales like water off ice. “Curse it!” The bard pivots and leaps into the truck, searching for a weapon that will actually work.
Inside the cabin, Lula’s hands find the arcane cannon controls. They flips them down, takes aim, and squeezes the trigger. A ball of fiery energy screams across the cavern and engulfs one of the hydra’s heads in flames.
Reklaw’s hands glow with elemental power as he calls upon his attunement. The fire consuming the hydra’s head suddenly explodes outward, flames multiplying and spreading across the creature’s body. It stumbles backward into the cryohydra behind it.
Reklaw presses his advantage, flowing forward with a series of devastating martial strikes. The first cryohydra collapses, its massive body blocking the cave entrance.
Borark gets the rail gun working. Arman mans a second arcane cannon. Both fire simultaneously—Arman’s shot clipping the second hydra, Borark’s rail gun shot perfectly aligned to pierce through all three creatures in a devastating line. The sound is deafening. The two nearest cryohydras scream as the magical projectile tears through them. The third, at the back, begins to retreat.
Thunk drops to his knees beside Kiki’s frozen form. Golden light pours from his hands, and the ice begins to crack and melt. Kiki’s eyes flutter open. She gasps, rolls to her feet, and nods her thanks.
Lula blesses their longbow with Searing Burst, drawing and releasing in one fluid motion. The arrow strikes true, and the second cryohydra collapses beside the first.
Vali sends a Cloud of Daggers after the retreating third creature, which vanishes into the icy darkness with a final, fading wail.
Silence reclaims the cavern.
The party settles back down, though sleep comes less easily now. During the last watch, Arman suddenly stiffens. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Someone—something—is watching him.
One by one, the others jerk awake, shuddering as if from a nightmare. The ice walls shimmer, becoming translucent, then transparent. Beyond them, impossibly vast and impossibly near, is the frozen form of Levistus himself—the archdevil entombed in his glacial prison since before any of them were born.
His eyes open.
They fix directly on the party.
Pressure. Crushing, terrible, absolute. Psychic weight pressing down on their minds like the full depth of an ocean. Reklaw screams, hands clutching his head. Borark echoes him, dropping to his knees.
Though Levistus cannot speak, cannot move, his presence fills every corner of their consciousness. They feel his attention like a physical thing, cold and calculating and aware.
Then his eyes close. The pressure releases. The ice becomes ice again.
But the damage is done. Someone—or something—now knows exactly where they are.
Before anyone can speak, a new sound reaches them: hoofbeats. Not the shuffle of cryohydras, but the rhythmic clop-clop-clop of hooves against stone.
Five nightmares emerge from the darkness, their hooves and eyes blazing with infernal fire. Upon their backs, hunched and reeking of decay, ride five undead figures—wights, unmistakably, their withered faces grinning beneath rusted helms.
The lead wight raises one skeletal hand in what might be greeting. Or challenge.
Reklaw rises to his feet, weapon ready. “So much for rest.“
