Josh took the lead, holding the torch high as they climbed the stairs. Cobwebs trailed from the carved stone walls and spiders scampered beneath his black boots as they thudded up the solid steps. The air grew danker, dripping with the odors of rot and ruin. By Breaker's estimation they had climbed perhaps a third of the way up the mountain when finally a ceiling came into sight. He let the torch's light wash across the intricately designed roof and the partially rotted trapdoor. A few exploratory pushes on the iron handle confirmed that the hinges had rusted shut. Red ferrous flakes crumbled beneath Josh's fingers as he removed his hand and placed his palm flat on the middle of the ancient oak.

"Mind yourself," Josh said over his shoulder to Throld, "pieces may splinter off and fall." The dwarf nodded sagely and moved down a few steps, finding a safe angle.

Ice expanded from the point on the trapdoor where Breaker's palm touched the coarse wood. A thick sheet of cool blue covered the rotted door, and then Josh pushed upwards, driving with his hips and climbing the final steps. The screech of iron torn from stone rent the air, and Josh stepped onto the next tier of the mountain. He carried the icy door overhead on one palm while the torch guttered in his other hand. His eyes swept a large, empty space. He could not see the walls. The corona cast by his torch lit only a small sphere of the large room.

Skittering skeletal footsteps sounded all around. They ran in waves, their grinning faces gleaming in the light as they drew near.

Josh moved like a whirlwind. He threw the icy door at one group of skeletons and the torch at another as his feet carried him through a crescent. He spun and kicked out and lashed repeatedly with both hands, splitting skulls and spines. Subtle shifts in his balance and core position kept him safe from their steely blades, which stabbed and slashed within a needle's breath of his body. He caught one skeleton by the ankle and wielded it like a maul, smashing it into its allies until it was more dust than bone.

"Is it safe up there?" Throld's ever whimsical voice came through the square hole in the floor. "Or are you making more friends?"

"Just," Josh gasped, summoning a hundred frozen flachette darts to the air around him, "one," he raised his arms overhead and then splayed his fingers and thrust his palms outward, "MOMENT!" The spikes flew as if fired from crossbows, finding their marks in eye sockets, rib cages, necks and knee joints. Bones clattered to the ground all around, and then came the sound of one last set of skittering footsteps.

Throld pounced up the last few stairs, weapon already gripped in the firing position. His dragon-belcher roared and spewed a gout of flame, and the last skeleton exploded in a shower of bones and dust.

"Should show them to attack the likes of us," the dwarf snorted as he cleared Vera's breech.