Frostbound Champions: The Team That Crosses Continents

Ambush at the Chasm

The air in the chamber had grown thin and metallic, smelling of ionized ozone and ancient, dormant dust. Lucas clutched the iridescent key—a cold, heavy thing that seemed to pulse in time with his own heartbeat—as if it were the only anchor left in a world gone mad.

"Let’s go," Lucas said, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings. "If that robot had a friend, I really don't want to meet them."

Elira didn't argue. She shoved her ironwood stick into its sheath and grabbed the climbing rope, her green eyes scanning the darkness above for any sign of movement. "Lead the way, dork. My feet are currently vibrating in a way that suggests we should have been miles from here five minutes ago."

The climb back to the surface was a frantic, breathless ordeal. The mountain continued to groan, great tectonic plates grinding against one another with the sound of God chewing on gravel. By the time they hauled themselves out of the fissure and onto the windswept ice of Oakhaven, the world had shifted. The main settlement street was now a jagged landscape of overturned sleds and shattered ice-glass.

But they weren't alone.

Surrounding the entrance to the rift were a dozen figures clad in matte-black steel armor, their visors glowing with a sickening, familiar violet light. These weren't the local guards. These were Vaelen’s personal hounds—mercenaries who were paid in coin and cruelty.

"Well, well," a voice crackled from a small, levitating scrying mirror held by the captain of the guard. The glass shimmered to reveal the smug, powdered face of Lord Vaelen. "The two little grave robbers have finally decided to rejoin civilization. I hope you found something worth dying for."

Lucas stood up, his legs shaking, and tucked the relic key deep into his tunic. Elira stepped in front of him, her posture wide and defensive.

"Beat it, Vaelen," Elira spat, her voice dripping with venom. "We’ve got a settlement deed that says this is our land, and I’ve got a stick that says you’re about to have a very bad night."

Vaelen laughed, a dry, wheezing sound that made Lucas want to reach through the mirror and shove a snowball down the man’s throat. "Land deeds are for people who intend to be alive to hold them. Hand over the relic, and I might let you choose which snowdrift you’d like to expire in."

"I think I’ll pass on the offer," Lucas said, stepping up beside Elira. He felt her shoulder press against his, a firm, grounding presence that sent a jolt of warmth through his weary nerves.

"Too bad," the captain growled, drawing a serrated blade. "Take them."

"Run!" Elira yelled.

They didn't head for the tavern; they bolted toward the goblin workshop. If Trixie and Fixie were still there, there might be a chance. They sprinted across the shifting ice, the mercenaries’ heavy boots thundering behind them.

"Hey, grease-monkeys!" Lucas screamed as they slammed through the double doors of the workshop. "Tell me those rocket-skates are functional!"

Trixie and Fixie popped up from behind a pile of sparking gear, their goggles reflecting the panic in the room. "Functional? They’re practically sentient! But they might explode if you hit a bump over forty miles an hour!" Fixie chirped.

"Perfect! We’ll take them!" Elira grabbed a pair of heavily modified skates with miniature canisters strapped to the heels. She jammed her boots into the bindings, the metal clips clicking into place with a sound like a gun loading.

Lucas followed suit, his hands trembling as he secured the leather straps. The mercenaries crashed through the doors just as the twins pulled the ignition levers.

"Hold on to your butts!" Trixie cackled.

A spray of blue, alchemical fire erupted from the heels of their skates. With a jolt that nearly dislocated Lucas’s spine, they were launched forward, skating not across the ice, but effectively flying over it at terrifying speeds.

"Oh, this is absurd!" Lucas yelled, his voice whipped away by the wind. He saw three crossbow bolts whistling toward his head. He didn't think; he just reached out, visualizing the vector of the metal tips. Deflect.

He flicked his wrist, and the bolts veered sharply to the left, embedding themselves into the chest of an approaching mercenary.

"Keep going!" Elira shouted, her hair a wild, glowing copper comet behind her. She was carving through the settlement, navigating the debris with a terrifying, intuitive grace. She looked back at him, her eyes wide with a manic joy that defied the encroaching death. "I love the twins! I am going to buy them a mountain of copper wire if we survive this!"

"If we survive, I’m buying them a therapist!" Lucas hollered back.

They hit the edge of the plateau, where the ice floes were breaking apart, churning in the freezing water below. It was a chaotic obstacle course of shifting white slabs. They hopped from one to the other, the rocket-skates hissing and sputtering.

The mercenaries were gaining, their own sleds powered by some dark, runic energy that kept them steady on the unstable ground.

"They’re closing in!" Lucas checked behind him, his heart hammering against his ribs. The captain was drawing a heavy, enchanted rifle.

"I can’t steer this thing!" Elira laughed, though her knuckles were white on her stick. "Just keep pointing the way, vector boy! Don't let me hit a wall!"

"I’m trying!" Lucas’s vision was a blur of geometric lines. Every time they jumped, he was constantly recalculating the weight, the speed, and the drift of the shifting ice. It was the hardest thing he had ever done. His brain felt like it was being squeezed in a vice, but every time he glanced at Elira—the way her determined jaw was set, the way she managed to keep her balance despite the impossible terrain—the pain felt almost worth it.

They rounded a massive, jagged ridge of blue ice, the rocket-skates burning hot enough to leave a trail of steam. Ahead of them, the path ended abruptly—the ice floe had split, leaving a fifty-foot gap before the next solid bank of frozen earth.

"Jump!" Elira commanded, not missing a beat.

They launched into the air, a pair of soaring, desperate refugees. For a second, suspended against the backdrop of the swirling, dark sky, everything went quiet. Lucas looked over at Elira, and she looked back, her eyes catching his. In that moment of near-death, the fear didn't exist. There was only the rush of the air and the fact that he was hurtling toward the edge of the world with the only person who made it worth staying.

"You're an idiot, you know that?" she yelled, her grin bright and defiant.

"I learned from the best!" he shouted back.

They landed on the far bank, but the ice was thin—far thinner than the map had suggested. As Lucas’s skates bit into the surface, the entire ledge groaned. A deep, crystalline snap vibrated up through his boots.

"Look out!"

The edge of the cliff crumbled beneath them. Lucas felt his boots slide out from under him, his momentum carrying him forward into the abyss. He thrashed, his hands clawing at the freezing air, and his skate blade clipped a sharp, protruding ridge of black ice.

The world tilted. The rockets on his heels flared one last time, sending him spinning wildly through the air. He saw the sky, then the dark, churning water, and then—below him—a drifting, abandoned supply boat caught in the current of the rift.

He reached out, his fingers brushing the icy railing of the boat as he plummeted past.

"Lucas!" Elira’s scream echoed from above, high and sharp.

He didn't have time to look up. He hit the deck of the boat with a bone-jarring, sickening thud, his breath leaving his body in a single, icy wheeze. The world went dark for a second, then faded back into a hazy, swirling grey of snow and freezing spray.

He lay there on the wooden planks, the relic key still burning cold against his chest, listening to the muffled, distant roar of the mercenaries above. He was alone on the boat, drifting away into the dark, churning heart of the mountain.

He sat up, his shoulder screaming in protest, and looked toward the cliff. High above, Elira was standing at the edge, a tiny silhouette against the northern lights. She was looking down, her hands cupped around her mouth, but the sound of the grinding tectonic plates drowned out whatever she was shouting.

He pulled the relic key out. It glowed a faint, steady blue, pointing not toward the settlement, but directly into the depths of the frozen river.

"Well," Lucas whispered to the empty, freezing air, clutching the key as the boat picked up speed. "I suppose that’s one way to start a quest."