Cirno's Story

"Something seems strange to you, professor?" asked Taronai, "The ruins used to belong to the civilization that we haven't heard of a long time ago."

"But what race used to live here? What was their culture about? So many mysteries to uncover..." Teresa is jotting down some notes while taking pictures with her camera, "Keep searching for valuable treasures, Taronai. There's bound to be more of them."

The sudden flashes from Teresa's camera have an unintended side effect on the serpentine statues when their picture is taken; their crystal-clear eyes suddenly blinking alight as the sculptures start to violently shudder and spin around in place.

As if to add to this unsettling event, the spot of ground that Taronai, Teresa, and the statues are standing on top of starts to loudly heave and crack apart before it eventually gives way under both parties.

------

The aftershocks of the earlier quake faintly reverberate through the wastes, meanwhile; the curious rumbling coincidentally passing through the area Cirno is still likely stuck in.

"Professor, what did you do?!" Taronai yelled, "The floor is collapsing!"

"Change of plans! Get away from the spot! Just run!" Teresa drags Taronai away from the collapsing floor. But can they make it?

They do indeed make it onto safer, much more solid ground just as the icy expanse shatters, revealing what appears to be ancient catacombs underneath. What's more, the serpentine ice sculptures are down there and look relatively unharmed despite the nasty fall, but.. well, as it turns out, they're live creatures; as can be seen with the two icy snakes looking up and hissing loudly at Teresa and Taronai, before turning around and slithering through nearby a tunnel leading deeper into the frozen catacombs...

"It seems that my accidental movement caused this open a passageway. My hunch is that danger is lurking within' the depths of the temple, but the reward will be greater than this."

Teresa wants Taronai to lead, implying that she will need his protection.

"Taronai, you know what to do." she said, "Just make sure none of us gets hurt."

"Alright, just get behind me and I'll handle the rest."

Taronai escorted the professor to the frozen catacombs, and must be on a look out for anything that triggers a couple of hazards that will either slow them down or worse.

Thankfully for them, there doesn't seem to be any traps within the mist-filled catacombs - seeing as they more than likely have already been triggered a few thousand years ago, judging from the several frozen corpses littering the catacomb floors; the bodies in question bearing the armor and garb of unfamiliar knights, while also being either horribly mangled or pressed a few inches deep into the icy floor by large boulders.

Meanwhile, a soft orange light flickers from a room somewhere further ahead of Taronai. Not too long after it can be seen, the sound of something heavy continuously bashing against solid ice echoes from the same direction, the noise being followed by the crackling-like hissing of the ice serpents from before, whom are apparently up to something deeper inside the catacombs.

Cirno finally got up from her dizzy stupor, miffed that Taronai got away from her.

"Aw, darnit..."

-----

Elsewhere in the snowstorm, a large figure was treading through, followed by a little rotund figure.

"I got a bad feeling about this." Taronai muttered to himself.

"Taronai, we must brace ourselves for anything dangerous." The professor responded, "Even though the traps have been set year ago, that doesn't mean that there aren't any danger left for us."

Teresa must be pretty good at calling these things, because the mystery of what the ice serpents are up to is quickly solved when she and ToniyoTaronai eventually exit the catacombs and reach a large, albeit half collapsed throne room containing a few dozen more frozen corpses. Also strewn about the otherwise extravagant-looking room are several lit candlesticks - seemingly untouched by the freezing atmosphere and still burning even to this day - and, more importantly, piles and piles of various treasures, which glimmer in the soft orange light.

Within the center of the old throne room, however, is a large plume of solid ice that stretches all the way up to the ceiling - and stuck frozen inside it are two strange individuals, whom look as if they were in the middle of a brawl some few thousand years ago. One of them, yet another ancient knight dressed in regal armor, is using one of his hands in gripping the second individual - a larger, menacing skeletal figure with icy thorns protruding out of their skull and most of their limbs - by the collar of their robes; using his other hand in pointing a sword at the skeleton's face. Said skeletal figure, meanwhile, has one of their own hands pointed up, reaching skyward for some reason.

Observations aside, the serpents are also in here, hissing rather loudly as they bash their crystalline heads against the great prison, slowly causing cracks to appear on it. They don't appear to have noticed that Teresa and Taronai are in the room yet, fortunately, but exactly how long that lasts depends on the archaeology duo's next course of action.

"I think we struck a treasure hoard. I believe that the king of this lost civilization is a collector of priceless artifacts. And it would seem that he kept thousands and thousands of dollars worth of gold and jewelery." Teresa picked up one gold coin from the treasure pile, "Treasures like this gold coin could be displayed at Harmonia Museum."

"Shh..." Taronai shushed Teresa, "We are not alone."

"What are you...??"

"We've been followed."

Monologues tend to not be the stealthiest of things when declared in massive rooms capable of projecting voices, and as such the noise Teresa makes ends up attracting the attention of the ice serpents before Taronai can successfully shush her. Needless to say, the creatures aren't too happy about having been followed into the tomb. Shrieking rather loudly, the snakes stop bashing against the pillar and instead charge at Teresa and Taronai, baring their large icicle fangs at the duo.

The great ice pillar ensnaring the knight and the skeleton slowly begins to crack on its own, meanwhile.

---

Back on the surface, part of the ground ahead of the large and rotund figures suddenly shudders and cracks a bit; mostly noted by the small shards of ice that get scattered into the air and swept away by the snowstorm.

"...!" The larger figure in the blizzard paused. The little rotund one also stopped after he noticed that the other has.

"Something occurs below..."

"Look out!"

Taronai grabs the professor by the hand and quickly evades the barrage of icicles. Taronai keeps Teresa safe before he can fight back. His fists emit in flames, granting him the power to throw fireballs at the snakes.

The snakes, not expecting this, are hit by the fireballs and sent reeling. They quickly recover, however, with one of the snakes burrowing into the tomb's floor and vanishing from sight. The other snake hisses loudly before slamming its tail against the ground, sending a spiky trail of ice after Taronai.

Meanwhile, the great pillar within the room suddenly begins to violently shudder as the cracks around it shoot up into the ceiling. As this happens, pale blue lights start to appear in the frozen skeleton's previously empty eye sockets.

---

Up on the surface with the two figures, more of the ground ahead of the duo starts to break apart, almost as if the surrounding area was sitting on top of a massive geyser getting ready to burst.

"...heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEE..!" echoed a shrill sound from some of the deepest cracks.

The little figure hopped onto the larger figure's back as the latter dove down into the broken ground...

...and into the tomb below! The larger figure is revealed to be a dark-scaled dragon covered in thick white fur, and the little one is a blue penguin with a curled feather and a red-lace bowtie.

Taronai jumps over the spiky rail of ice and hurls more blazing fireballs at the snakes. Perhaps the snakes did not expect a pyrokinetic being to strike back.

As they quickly dive into the tomb, the dragon and her penguin companion can likely see what the cause of the disturbance is; namely, two human explorers fighting what appears to be a large snake made entirely of ice. At the opposite side of this room and equally as visible sits the great ice pillar and its contents, which is on the verge of shattering.

The orange-haired explorer, meanwhile, seems to be in the process of blasting the snake with fireballs, causing it to melt into a puddle of water - but then a second serpent suddenly bursts out of the wall behind the orange-haired explorer and wraps around him, as if intent on crushing him!

---

Parts of the tomb's ceiling had begun to collapse as time progressed, but Taronai's attacks successfully make contact with the ice snake that had not burrowed underground, greatly injuring it. Shrieking in agony under the furious flames, the snake melts into a steaming puddle of water.

For a few seconds, it seemed as if all was well again - right up until the second ice snake reappeared, suddenly bursting out of the stone wall behind Taronai and quickly wrapping around him!

"Non se interponunt Aquilo's excitatio!" the snake hissed in broken Latin, as it constricted Taronai tightly. "Intermitto nostrum terram sanctam statimque, aut mori sub et eius aspiciat!"

The woolly dragon takes in the situation (with the penguin shuddering while hanging onto her back), then casts a cyan flash from her eyes. On the ice pillar, ice spikes began freezing into the structure, filling in the cracks.

"Now, about this serpent..."

Ice began forming around the dragon's foreleg...

The ice spikes fit snugly in the numerous cracks adorning the great pillar, once more sealing the old entities inside as the lights in the skeleton wizard's eyes slowly die out. The sight of this does not make the second ice serpent a happy camper at all, however, and the creature howls in rage before hurling Taronai at the woolly dragon, followed by charging at her itself with its fangs bared.

The dragon catches Taronai with the side of her tail, then lunges at the serpent with her iced-over foreleg. The ice suddenly formed into a gigantic fist, crashing down atop the serpent with immense force (Yeti Crash).