The rattling thump of a fist pounding on the door yanked me out of sleep.

  I was a little surprised to find we’d all crashed in the same cramped room—Croc curled up at the foot of my bed, Temp and Harper sharing the other, while Jakob slept in a chair, propped against the door like a makeshift bouncer. Apparently, I hadn’t been the only one running on fumes.

  I still felt like a bag of week-old, sun-dried dog turds, but compared to last night, that was practically a full recovery. Blinking no longer hurt, and though my skull still generally felt like someone had taken a jackhammer to it, I’d experience worse.

  The thudding knock came again. Louder this time. More insistent.

  It was Wulfgar, letting us know that the Jarl was waiting for us outside.

  I told him we’d be down in a minute. Inside, everyone looked half-hungover and thoroughly unenthused about starting the day—except for Croc, who kept proudly showing off the new collar to anyone who would look. The dog was like a toddler with a favorite new toy. It was sweet, honestly, and the others humored it with tired smiles.

  Everyone except Temp. She threatened to throw the mimic out the window.

  Instead, Croc summoned Remy and proceeded to show off the collar to the disgusting red flesh maw slug, who seemed largely indifferent. Probably because Remy was an unthinking abomination from the farthest reaches of hell without the ability for higher reasoning. But Remy was a surprisingly good listener and Croc seemed pleased as punch to have a captive audience.

  I didn’t know how far the kiosk was, and I sure as hell didn’t trust Nikoli to get us back in one piece, especially if things went sideways. So, hedging my bets, I slapped one of the doorway plates onto the door as we stepped out, then tweaked the settings to block anyone from Kringelgard from entering—or anyone from the shop from wandering out onto this floor. The last thing I needed was a pack of curious Howlers showing up in the middle of the Inn. It was a gamble, sure, but I needed a way back to the village.

  Once we were all up and as ready as we were ever going to be, we headed downstairs to find Nikoli waiting for us outside the inn.

  Unlike yesterday, he was fully geared up—red leather trousers, the bloodstained Festive Flayer Coat trimmed in white Yeti fur, massive black shit-kicker boots, and a floppy red Santa cap perched on his head.

  Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but something about him looked... off. He seemed bigger—like he’d packed on thirty or forty pounds overnight. A gleaming black belt, made from snakeskin, cinched around his bulging gut, and the sword he’d been working on the day before now hung from his hip in a black sheath.

  Honestly, if I didn’t know any better, I’d have said Nikoli was Santa Claus—real and in the flesh.

  Except instead of delivering presents, he looked ready to smite naughty children with the full wrath of an unhinged fae god.

  The sun had barely peaked its head over the horizon and the steel-gray of predawn still lingered in the air. Knowing that, we’d probably only gotten three or four hours of sleep at most. Certainly, not enough to undue the exhaustion from the day before. Nikoli probably hadn’t slept any longer, though, and he looked surprisingly bright eyed and bushy tailed. The man had the energy of a toddler on espresso and seemed to function just fine without sleep.

  I wondered what in the hell his secret was.

  Knowing the Backrooms, it was probably some horrible Faustian bargain involving dead puppies or burning down orphanages. Maybe even both. Orphanages filled with disadvantaged blind children who all had adorable seeing-eye dogs.

  The man offered us a broad grin that never quite reaches his eyes and waved us over toward an enormous longboat sleigh—though this one was far more formidable than the one Wulfgar had brought us in on.

  It had the same basic shape and design as Wulfgar’s, but this sleigh was a whole different beast.

  Instead of wood, it was forged entirely from steel plates, riveted at the seams with gleaming brass. A wooden mast rose from the center—carved with glowing sigils and reinforced with silver bands—like a giant, enchanted toothpick. Oddly, there was no sail. A pair of bronze cannons jutted from both the port and starboard sides of the sleigh, which looked powerful enough to give even Polaris Vora a run for its Eldritch money.

  Most impressive of all—or terrifying, depending on your perspective—was the trio of creatures hitched to the front of the sleigh.

  “Are those… Grippledips?” Croc asked, clearly in awe.

  “Da,” Nikoli replied proudly. “Though I am surprised you know what they are, given how short a time you have been on this floor. Not many Delvers met Grippledips and live to tell tale.”

  “You’re not lying,” I said, while studying the monsters.

  Up close, and not actively trying to gore us, they were genuinely impressive. Each one was closer in size to a bull moose than an actual reindeer, and they were decked out in custom battle armor. Heavy metal collars, studded with spikes, wrapped around their thick necks. What made my stomach twist, though, was that the spikes lined both the outside and the inside—digging into the flesh beneath.

  Something about those collars sent a cold shiver crawling down my spine.

  I wasn’t sure what they did, but my instincts screamed that they were bad news.

  Wrong. Maybe even evil.

  “All aboard,” Nikoli said, waving us up a short gangplank and onto the sleigh.

  “Exactly how far away is this soul forge of yours?” I asked, while cautiously boarding the strange ship. “You made it sound like it was just up the road a little ways.”

  “Ha,” he said, “is a little farther than up road. Soul Forge contains a great many secrets, so I must keep it hidden.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice, as though confiding some great secret. “Even here in Kringlegard, there are those who are jealous of my creations. But is only a short distance by flight.”

  “Wait a minute,” Temperance growled. “By flight? You can’t seriously mean we’re going up there.” She jabbed a finger toward the steely gray sky. “The last time we tried that, we were nearly devoured by a sky jellyfish, Dan took a tree trunk through the gut, and he’s still short one hand!”

  Nikoli appraised us with fresh eyes. “So you have met Polaris Vora.” He grinned. “Is magnificent creature. She is spirit of the 49th floor—cruel, hungry, mighty. But there is no need to worry. Is daytime. Her strength wanes during the day. And, if she gets too close?” He reached over and patted one of the cannon barrels. “Anti-Celestial Railgun. My own design. Cannot truly hurt her, but stings like bee. Polaris Vora is not used to pain, for who can hurt her? One sting, and she will run. Is no problem.”

  “God, I hate flying,” Temperance grumbled, as she boarded the ship behind Jakob. Harper came next, followed by Croc who brought up the rear.

  “Off we go,” Nikoli said, taking a seat on huge chair near the front. He picked up the heavy leather reigns and gave them a casual flick. The Grippledips immediately broke into lumbering trot, their hooves sparking against the cobblestones, their spiked collars glowing with angry red light.

  Inside ten steps the sleigh rocked back, and we rose smoothly into the air.

  I glanced down over the side and saw that a small horde of Kringlegard’s residents had assembled to watch us depart, including Wulfgar and Hannah. Most showed no emotion on their faces at all. No joy or excitement. No fear or anger, either. Just flat and dead. Except for Wulfgar. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he almost looked hopeful.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  In less than a few minutes, the city of Kringlegard disappeared behind us, vanishing in a flurry of snow and clouds.

  We gained altitude quickly and raced high above the pine forest canopy, carving our way north and slightly west.

  Despite Nikoli’s claims, it didn’t take long before Polaris Vora began slithering toward us, pulling its way through the sky with fat blue tentacles and withering tendrils of emerald green. It moved more languidly than the night before, but that didn’t mean it was slow.

  Nikoli didn’t seem overly concerned, however. Not even when Temp quite forcefully pointed out how close the creature was drawing.

  “Told you. Is no problem. Let us see if we cannot outrun it. Sleigh is very fast.” There was a metal control panel embedded into the right arm of Nikoli’s commander chair, and he nonchalantly pressed a few buttons then toggled a switch.

  The runes covering the central mast burst to life, and a moment later an ethereal, semi-translucent sail of arctic blue light unfurled. The sail snapped taut, and the sleigh jerked beneath us, rocketing forward. Nikoli whooped and laughed as the wind slapped against our faces and tugged at our gear.

  Much as I hated to admit it, the display was actually pretty impressive. Even Temperance, who clearly hated everything about this, seemed to be momentarily mollified.

  But the Polaris Vora was a persistent beast, not quick to abandon such a potentially tasty meal, and before much longer it had managed to close the distance despite our speed. Nikoli tsked in evident annoyance, then killed the conjured sail. The sleigh lurched and slowed as he tugged on the reigns, connected to the Grippledips.

  “You do not learn, Solnyshko ty moyo yasnoye,” he muttered, not for our ears but for the Polaris Vora, “so I will teach you once again.” He grimaced, flipped two more toggles, then mashed a button and jerked hard on the reigns. “Brace for a broadside salvo!” he thundered. The Grippledips reared back, and shot right, turning the sleigh sharply so the port side cannons now face the encroaching sky horror. Searing runes burned across the barrels, and he flipped two more switches as he yelled “Fire!”

  The two portside cannons vomited a volley of electric blue cannon balls, which arced gracefully through the sky before disappearing into the swimming sea of colorful lights.

  I fully expected to see an explosion of violent power. But disappointingly, there was nothing. They were simply gone. Swallowed up by the creature. But then, just when I was about to give up hope, the Polaris Vora’s entire amorphous form pulsed with a single flare of electric blue light. The beast wailed—the sound of ten-thousand voices all crying out in pain—then it went silent and began to retreat.

  Interestingly, even after the barrage of cannon fire, its health bar had never appeared, meaning that Nikoli hadn’t actually hurt the creature in any meaningful way. But whatever he’d done had been enough to convince the creature to go chase easier game.

  “See,” Nikoli said proudly, “is no problem.”

  He flipped the reigns lightly again, turned the sleigh mid-air, and quickly brought us back up to cruising speed. We raced north and west for another ten minutes or so—just enjoying the surreal, bizarre beauty of the floor—before I finally saw a pair of tiny structures materialize on the horizon.

  “We are close now,” Nikoli said, pulling a set of oversize binoculars from storage then handing them to me. “See for self.”

  I pressed the optics up against my face and let out a low whistle.

  Thanks to the binoculars, it was impossible to miss the red and white candy-striped archway, with a sign that read Drillhaven North Pole Christmas Kiosk Experience.

  Beyond the archway was a cluster of log cabins and tiny colorful houses in eye-searing shades of red and green, blue and orange, surrounded by a cute white picket fence and a miniature steam train, lazily taking laps around the 90s shopping mall Christmas village on a set on tiny tracks.

  At the far side of the display was a pavilion featuring a red velvet throne, where kids would sit and scream while a dead-eyed mall Santa asked if they’d been good this year. Except no one in their right mind would be eager to stand in line to meet the creature now occupying the chair.

  Dweller 0.490658 – Krampus, the Yuletide Devourer (Kiosk Manager) [Level 58]

  The stories got it half right. Horns? Check. Hooves? Check. Flaming whip? Checkmate. But what they forgot to mention is that Krampus doesn’t just punish naughty children—he hunts them. Tracks them. Sniffs them out like a sadistic bloodhound with a fetish for guilt. He doesn’t come with jingles and candy canes. He comes with iron chains, burlap sacks, and the kind of smile you only see on predators moments before they eat.

  Krampus is Saint Nik’s depraved fae counterpart, forged from frostbite, coal dust, and the crushed hopes of disobedient spawn. He’s a lesser god that slipped through the cracks in the Winter Realm—tall as a lamppost, wrapped in matted black fur, crowned with curling horns and eyes like frozen tar pits.

  The ethereal chains wrapped around him like garland won’t just bind flesh, they bind memory. He weaponizes regret. The Chains of Christmas past force victims to relive their worst moments—the lie they told, the promise they broke, the sibling they pushed down the stairs before blaming it on the dog. Each sin leaves a mark on their soul, glowing red-hot like a brand, and once you’ve got enough of them, he eats you.

  Soul first. Body second. Dignity last.

  Krampus looked like a roided out super Yeti, his skin was cracked leather covered in spots with shaggy black fur, all stretched over an enormous frame of muscle and fat. Massive, curling horns jutted from his skull like a demonic crown, and his eyes burned with a feral red light that promised pain. Thick chains hung from his shoulders and dangled across his chest, and resting beside his throne was a crude sack, large enough to fit a grown man.

  Krampus didn’t just look like death. He looked like punishment. Old, cold, and cruel.

  Scampering across the shopping mall setup were a legion of twisted creatures, which more closely resembled feral goblins than anything remotely magical or dignified.

  The Jultomten. The Yule Elves.

  They were short and hunched with too-long limbs and their skin came in sickly shades of gray, blue, and corpse-white, like they’d been dredged up from the bottom of a frozen lake. Their eyes were oversized and pupil-less, glowing faintly in the early morning light. Cracked lips partially concealed their needle-like teeth and their ears were jagged and torn, faintly reminding me of batwings. They wore patchwork clothing made of animal hides, stolen rags, and bits of metal scavenged from god-only-knew-where.

  They were the stuff of legend and children’s nightmares, and there was a shitload of ’em.

  Thirty or forty, at least.

  It was no wonder Nikoli needed backup.

  A short distance to the east, and not far from the tiny Noth Pole display, was a secondary structure, which could only be Nikoli’s Soul Forge.

  The building was roughly domed shaped and looked like a super-sized version of the workshop back in Kringlegard. It was crafted from stone and reinforced steel plates, with a series of smokestacks poking up from the roof. Even now, those chimneys spewed plumes of choking gray soot into the air. There was a single steel door, sealed to the world, and a paved cobblestone landing strip along one edge.

  It wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but the insane defensive fortifications Nikoli had installed were impressive in their own right. A concentric series of deep trenches and large reinforced berms encircled the sprawling workshop. Even from a distance, I could see the trenches were filled with terrain hazards—spikes, traps, acid—while the berms were topped with glinting coils of razor wire and spits of jagged metal like some twisted holiday wreath.

  The only way to access the facility on foot was by a narrow wooden bridge, which ran above the trenches and carved a path through the berms.

  One way in, one way out.

  The entire area blazed neon red, thanks to Spelunker’s Sixth Sense. A warning that everything below was deadly.

  Assuming this was where Nikoli was keeping the hostages of Kringlegard—which seemed like a pretty good bet at this point—it was no wonder the others hadn’t managed to get their loved ones back. How would they? The place was buried in the frozen ass-end of nowhere, easily a full day’s hike from the Safe Harbor. And even if they somehow managed to make the trip, they’d need an army just to reach the front door.

  An army that was okay with taking casualties. Lots of them.

  Without superior air-support, long-range artillery, or precision mortar fire, trying to breach this place would be suicide. Hell, even artillery or mortar fire wouldn’t help much—not unless you were willing to risk nuking the hostages.

  “You see problem?” Nikoli asked me as I slowly lowered the binoculars.

  “Yeah,” I said, “they’re entrenched like a mother fucker. I’m guessing those little shit-goblins will overwhelm us before we ever get close to Krampus.”

  “Precisely,” Nikoli agreed, “and this is problem. That sack? Beside Krampus?” He jabbed a finger toward the towering creature. “Is tied to Krampus. Will continuously respawn more ‘shit-goblins’ until Krampus is dead.”

  “So what do you purpose?” Temperance asked, shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind.

  “Glad you asked,” Nikoli said with the feral grin of a wolf. One hand darted into his coat and he pulled out several green-plastic paratroopers. The kind kids liked to chuck off the roof. I’d seen them once before. They were single-use Artifacts, which allowed the user to float gently to the ground. “An air drop,” he said matter of factly, handing each of us a paratrooper—though I didn’t actually need it, not with Psychic Sovereignty.

  “I’m sorry,” Harper said, as though she’d misheard, “but did you just say you want us to airdrop into that seething ring of death?”

  “Da,” Nikoli said. “Is best way. You help hold off Jultomten, Dan and I”—he slapped me on the shoulder—“will kill Krampus. Is simple.”

  “But what if they overwhelm us and we need to retreat?” Harper protested.

  “Retreat?” Nikoli asked. Then he laughed, a great booming thing that shook the sleigh. “No retreat. We win or we die. Is simple.”

  “Dan?” Harper said, shooting me a concerned look. “This is a terrible plan.”

  “I quite like it,” Temperance said.

  “That makes me feel worse, not better,” Harper said. “Please, there has to be a better way.”

  I smiled. Nikoli might’ve seen a few of my Relics, but I highly doubted he had any idea what I was really capable of. Maybe it was time to show him.

  “I do have a better idea,” I replied. “Nikoli, how many of these paratrooper Artifacts do you have?”

  “How many you need?” he asked in all seriousness before reaching back into his coat and pulling out a fistful more. “I always come prepared.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Bring us over top. It’s time to send in the meat shields…”