The Ice Queen stared at the group assembled before her with a look of cold disinterest, before finally rising slowly to her feet; the mere act of standing caused sheets of ice to flake off of her pristine white gown and cascade dramatically to the floor. As soon as the ice fell from her however, the dress immediately began to reform itself, creating lace out of delicate flakes of snow and frost that formed upon her body.
She stared at each of them, her eyes were two impossibly blue pools of liquid ice the exact color of the absence of all warmth. When her gaze rested upon each of them, they each found their breath stuck in their throats and their hearts frozen in their chests. How had they hoped to stand up to her: Selise, the Ice Queen, Scourge of the Living, Lady of Frost and Sorrow? All hope fled from them as rapidly as the warmth was drawn from their bodies by her mere presence, and a sense of cold futility closed in claustrophobically around them…
And then, impossibly, she turned to leave.
The room instantly grew warmer, and a soft light seemed to fill the space with her absence. Emboldened by their good fortune, the group fanned out and drew their weapons and turned to face Redis, whose face was twisted in a mask of haughty rage. “Kill them,” the man hissed, and the frozen undead behind him snapped to attention and began to shamble forward; unholy creatures drawn to the warmth of the living like moths to flame.
Barick swung his mighty maul at Redis, the great stone head of the hammer connecting solidly with the bard’s delicate shoulder with the sickening sound of shattering bone and sundered flesh. Senshi attacked from his other flank, her blade a blur of razored death. A look of surprise blossomed on Redis’ face, but when two arrows from Ifan’s bow sprouted from his chest and Notta’s rapier found its way to his throat, and that surprised look quickly transformed into the blank stare of death as the bard slunk to the cold ground, lifeless and still.
Davin called upon his God for divine aid and in response, gouts of flame erupted from his fingertips and launched themselves at the ambling frozen undead. When the fire engulfed one with a satisfying hiss, the creature let out a low wail and slumped unmoving to the ground, steam rising from its partially melted form. Nomli darted from out of nowhere behind another undead monstrosity and, with skilled and deliberate slices of his blades, he brought the creature to its knees. The beast cried out in protest and tried to rise but the severed tendons in its legs refused to bear weight, and the ranger’s arrow that birthed itself in one hollow eye ended its struggle for good.
Ulrick, armed with the dagger that Nomli had secreted to him plunged the blade into the back of a third zombie at the same time Notta’s delicate rapier stabbed into the creature’s open mouth, its razor point erupting out of the back of the wretch’s head in a shower of frozen blood. Senshi dispatched the fourth and final creature by severing its head from its body, sending the skull tumbling towards the Queen’s throne, its mouth ambulating in protest of its predicament.
The guard captain wrenched his dagger free of the corpse at his feet and looked around at the destruction the group had caused, taking it all in with his one good eye. “Th…thank you,” Ulrick stammered through clenched teeth, “We’ve got to get to my men. They’re in th….”
“Hold there,” Ifan interrupted, his hand outstretched towards the dais, “Who’s a good kitty kitty?” The group turned to where the ranger was staring and watched in horror as the giant alabaster-hued lion began to slink towards them out from behind the Queen’s throne; its mouth curled into a snarl and its terrible fangs bared; an impossibly low and guttural growl rumbling in its throat. Ifan fished around in the sack on his hip and quickly produced a ring of dried sausage. “Here you go, kitty,” he said softly, tossing the treat towards the giant feline. The meal bounced off of the great cat’s face and fell to the ground in front of it and the beast never took its yellow eyes off of the ranger.
“Fuck!” Ifan exclaimed, as the cat shifted its weight to its back legs, and the ranger nocked and loosed an arrow in one smooth motion and already had another arrow fitted in place before the first had even struck home, the barbed shaft burying itself in the lion’s chest scant inches above the creature’s heart. Half a breath later the second arrow sprouted from the beast’s chest, just above its twin.
Skilled a shot as he was, Ifan was no match for this magnificent creature and the great cat pounced and was upon him in a blur of fur and muscle and razor-sharp fangs. The lion deftly grabbed the doomed ranger by his throat and hoisted him in the air. Ifan let out a brief gurgle of pain and surprise but, with one mighty shake of its giant head followed by a horrible cracking sound, he went silent and still, his story over.
The rest of the party looked on aghast as the great cat opened its blood-soaked maw and they watched in horror as the lifeless form of Ifan slid from its mouth to the ground, the ranger’s pale eyes staring blankly at the ceiling and his head cocked at an impossible angle. The lion then let out an awful roar, the terrible sound rousing the group out of their stupor as they scrambled to an offensive formation around the deadly beast.
Notta and Senshi moved in at the creature from either side, while Barick tried to hold the lion’s attention, smashing the head of his giant maul on the ground in front of him to create as much noise as he could and keep the lion’s focus solely on him. Holy fire sputtered to life in Davin’s hands and Nomli readied his bow, looking for a clean shot between the shoulders of his three companions as they advanced upon the beast.
As Notta, Barick, and Senshi closed in on the giant lion, it lashed out at them defensively with mighty swipes of its claws and uttered a low and terrible growl as it shifted its gaze between the three warriors while also eyeing the dancing flames in Davin’s hands warily.
When the creature’s attention was diverted, Barick charged in with his great hammer held high. “By Savras’ light, I …grgglhl...” Senshi and Notta turned their attention from the great lion to their companion and noted in horror that the large man had been transfixed in place by four giant spikes of ice that had burst out of the ground and speared him straight though his chest and gut, the cruel bloody points sticking out of him in four blood-soaked icicles that seemed to grow out of his back. Barick’s giant hammer clattered to the ground beside him as he tried to speak, but the only sound he produced was a pitiable, frothy death rattle. The look of pain and confusion on his face slowly morphed into a blank, serene expression, and then he was gone. His arms fell limply to his sides and head slumped down to his chest, but the great frozen spikes held his still form upright.
“You fools, did you possibly think that you could defy my will?” Her voice echoed through the hall, the tone in her voice somehow colder than the frozen air around them. Selise glided into the room with unearthly grace, her blue eyes burning with an almost giddy malevolence; a cat toying with its prey before the kill.
An arrow from Nomli’s bow sprouted from her shoulder and clear liquid ice poured forth from the wound instead of blood. If the Queen noticed, she gave no indication and she continued drifting forward, “I am the wrath of Nuatuhl and you are not even worms to be ground to dust beneath my feet.”
A gout of fire from Davin’s hands interrupted her monologue, the flames striking her full in the chest and melting a large patch of her icy vestments. But no sooner than the flames subsided than the dress begin to mend itself, frost reforming and growing into beautiful and intricate crystalline shapes, quickly rebuilding the garment until there was no sign that it had ever been disheveled. Davin grunted in annoyance and murmured a prayer to the Lord of Dawn before stepping forward with his thumbs touching and fingers splayed out before him, and, as if in answer to his prayer, a giant gout of holy fire burst forth from his hands and showered the Queen in a bath of searing flames.
The Frost Queen’s expression changed to a look of pain and disbelief for the briefest of moments, then quickly switched back to a look of wry amusement. She flashed Davin a thin, cruel smile. “Lathander? You call out to Him in your final moments?” she asked him in a mocking tone. Then, with a slight wave of her hand there was a loud crack coming from the ceiling and followed by a much louder crack coming from the floor and just like that, Davin was gone. In his place was a giant boulder of blood-stained ice that had once been one of the giant stalactites that had a formed on the ceiling. Now, all that remained of the powerful servant of a forbidden god was one crumpled and tattooed arm jutting free from under the wreckage - thin whisps of smoke still rising from the fingers - and a rapidly growing pool of red liquid leaking out around it.
“The Morninglord?” Selise sneered derisively and followed her query with a cruel laugh that echoed throughout the room. And, with an idle wave of her hand the remainder of the giant spikes of ice that had formed upon the ceiling broke free and dropped to the ground with deadly purpose, causing the remaining heroes to scramble wildly out of their way lest they also share Davin’s fate. “We defeated ALL of these so-called gods at the height of their power,” she continued, ignoring two more of Nomli’s arrows that had lodged themselves in her chest. “Do you think we care about the mewling of these…infants?” she hissed.
Her impossibly blue eyes bore into Nomli as the young dwarf popped out from behind one of the crushed ice boulders to fire off another shot. The arrow went wide as he locked eyes with the Queen, unable to tear his gaze free of those terrible pools of liquid ice on her face. Nomli’s mind was suddenly filled with cataclysmic visions: the Beast with Five heads devouring the world, the subjugation of the gods including what he assumed were the dwarven deities, all bowing in defeat before the terrible Dragon Queen. In those briefest of moments, he witnessed firsthand the eons of pain and suffering and death and despair that had followed in the wake of the conquest of the old gods as he was forced to bear witness to the absolute domination of the Dragon Queen over the entirety of the world. He lived and died the fate of his people; once proud builders and warriors living in the rich underground cities and sporting magnificent beards woven through with gold and jewels, now reduced to slaves and beggars and menial laborers barely scraping out a living in Her cruel world. Blood trickled from Nomli’s eyes and ears and nose as the full and terrible enormity of Tiamat’s domination bore him down under its raw might as the dwarf was crushed under its weight, sinking to the ground and lying in a crumpled and unmoving pile.
Senshi took advantage of Selise’s focus on the young dwarf and hissed at Ulrick, “Get to your guards, we will hold her off.” The haggard-looking guard captain nodded at her and ran off down a hallway while Senshi raised her wicked sword held high over her head screamed at Selise with all of the anger and frustration she had within her slight body. “Die you sodding witch!” she cried, as she charged the Ice Queen and began raining furious blows down upon her enemy. The first strike slashed a cruel slice out of Selise’s face, and liquid ice poured freely from the terrible wound. This blow was followed by a second and a third, these cutting into the Queen’s forearm and shoulder. Selise seemed genuinely taken aback by the ferocity of the attacks, holding her arms out in front of her in an effort to fend off the enraged guardswoman.
But the Queen’s hesitancy did not last long. “Foolish girl!” she hissed as she regained her composure, knocking aside an incoming swing of Senshi’s sword with the back of her hand. “You have no id…” The words stopped in her throat as the frozen tip of Notta’s rapier slowly and deliberately emerged from the center of her chest.
“No offense princess,” Notta whispered in her ear from behind her, pulling his blade free from her back. “You’re just a bit too frigid for me.” He stepped back and drove his rapier back into Selise, the razored point striking home just under her ribs and drove towards the place where her heart should be.
Senshi grinned at the shocked look on the Ice Queen’s face and raised her sword above her head to finish the foul witch off. She swung down with all her might and…
…Selise impossibly, caught the blade in her hand, stopping it in mid-swing as she grinned cruelly at the young woman who had dared to attack her so. Senshi tried to wrench her blade free of the Queen’s iron grip but she somehow managed to hold the sword firmly in place. Notta, seeing Senshi’s predicament, tried to wrench his rapier free of the Queen’s body but saw to his horror that it was frozen in place; tiny fingers of pure ice that seemed to crawl from the Queen’s body and hold tight to the blade sticking out of her.
Senshi watched in horror as the blade of her sword slowly transmuted from sharpened bone into crystal clear ice in the Queen’s hand, and she redoubled her efforts to wrench the blade free of her frozen grip. Strong as she was however, Senshi but could not get the blade to budge and watched helplessly as the sword finally shattered in an explosion of tiny frozen shards.
Undeterred, Senshi fumbled at her belt for her dagger and did not notice the trickle of water dripping down the Queen’s other arm which began forming into a blade of pure ice in her cold hand. When she finally ripped the dagger free of its scabbard, Senshi moved in for the kill, driving the razor point directly towards one of the Queen’s icy blue eyes…
But the Queen was just a little bit faster.
Notta watched in dismay as the Ice Queen pulled her frozen blade out from Senshi’s chin in a shower of crimson rain and watched as the young guardswoman slumped lifelessly to the cold floor. At the same time, a low rumble to his side announced the presence of the mighty lion, who dropped the bloody, still form of Ulrick at the ground by the Selises’s feet; much like a tomcat leaving a dead mouse as an offering to its master. The great cat then locked eyes with Notta and bared its bloodstained mouth in a wide, malevolent grin.
Hope slid from Notta like a discarded robe leaving him exposed and cold and alone as he turned his attention back to the Frost Queen and stared into her luminous ice-blue eyes. His mind fumbled about for the perfect turn of phrase, a fitting capstone to his illustrious life, choice words to inscribe upon the tombstone of his existence.
He settled at last upon, “Fuck you, Princess. Your stupid cat, too.”
The Queen’s eyes narrowed, and she plunged one delicate hand forward and effortlessly punctured the soft flesh under his ribcage, driving the hand forward until she gripped his still-beating heart. Notta gasped in pain and surprise; a cloud of frosty condensation and droplets of blood exploding from his mouth as he did so. The pain quickly became impossible to bear as Selise willed his warm heart to change into a stone of pure ice right there in his chest. All color washed from his skin until it was white as the purest snow and his dark eyes changed to an impossibly bright shade of blue. A comforting, numbing cold settled itself around him as his mind stilled and the frozen heart in his chest ceased its stubborn drumming, and he stared up at his Queen and awaited her command.
The slight form moved skillfully from shadow to shadow, the only sign of his passing was a few delicate footprints in the hard-packed snow and a trail of crimson droplets of precious blood that dripped from his many wounds. When he made his way unseen across the street and into a dark and narrow alleyway across from the temple, Nomli collapsed to his knees and fought to regain his breath. His head still reeled from the Queen’s psionic assault, and he felt as if he had aged a hundred years in the span of a few minutes. Well, in a way he had. He had lived and died a thousand horrible times and had borne witness to all of the suffering that dwarvenkind and the lesser races had endured under the Dark Queen’s subjugation and reign.
What point was there continuing on? He wondered idly, and he deliberated laying down here in the cold snow and letting blissful, frozen sleep overtake him. And then he saw it, a small bee crawling on the back of his hand; her tiny yellow and black form standing out against the white backdrop of the snowy street and the pale skin of his hand. Wait, this wasn’t a bee. It was…a wasp? His mind reeled. Bee’s and honey and mead had been his life’s work and seeing one here would have been…well…prodigious and somehow fitting. But a wasp?
The tiny creature lifted itself from the back of his hand and flew to his eye level and seemed to lock her pixilated eyes with his and stare directly at him. And then he heard it, a small but powerful voice echoing in the deep recess of his mind. "Arise sir dwarf, your story does not end here.”
Nomli blinked in confusion but did as the voice commanded, standing and dusting the snow from his clothes but not breaking eye contact with the diminutive insect.
“You have witnessed the Wrath of the Dark Queen and seen the devastation She has wrought,” the voice in his head continued.
Nomli nodded, feeling only slightly foolish in doing so. “But hope is not lost,” the voice continued. “Now is the dawn of the new Gods; old powers reborn to continue a fight that began eons ago."
Through cracked and bloody lips, Nomli asked weakly, “Wh…who are you? Wh…wha…what do you ask of me?”
“Why, you silly dwarf. I am Bralm, of course. The Flying Queen. The Hive Goddess. That was my church that this Ice Queen is desecrating, and I intend to get it back. And you, my industrious and hard-working friend, are going to be the first soldier in my hive in quite some time. Quite some time indeed.”
Nomli stared blankly at the insect flying in front of him and tried to make sense of it all. “Come,” the voice in his head continued. “There is much work to be done before the New Gods are powerful enough to bring about necessary change. We are needed down south, and we must get you safely away from here. For now.”
Nomli looked at the tiny insect in disbelief and wonder. Had he lost his mind or was this tiny insect truly a Goddess? And, did it even matter? He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, but instead he simply nodded at the tiny bug as it turned and began flying down the alley with him trodding quietly, but obediently, behind it.