The frigid, cold-toned landscape of Irithyll of the Boreal Valley unfolded before them in full.
A pale moon hung high overhead, and mist drifted through the air. Unlike Liurnia of the Lakes, where thick fog obscured everything meaningfully, this mist wasn't dense enough to hide Irithyll's beauty. Instead, it seemed to fold into the scenery, becoming part of it rather than a veil over it.
The first impression was grandeur, breathtaking in scale. But close behind it came something quieter — mystery.
What lay beyond the bridge?
What sat inside the great cathedral at the far end of the town?
Was the water-like expanse beneath the bridge actually explorable?
And what rewards might a place like this be hiding?
"I want to live here," Tami said with a wistful sigh.
"Wake up. You'll be a popsicle by morning," Luluwo said — the first to snap out of the spell the scenery had cast on them. "Although… cold or not, exploring somewhere like this really is a pleasure."
Even simply looking at it felt like it might add years to a person's life.
The reminder brought Tami's attention back to the cold, and it wasn't an ordinary cold. Looking closer, a thin layer of frost had begun forming across everyone's exposed skin.
Mira — the smallest and most physically fragile of the group — was already completely coated. Her complexion had gone worryingly pale, and her body's weakness meant she couldn't even call out for help. The frost was making everything worse in silence, and the rest of the group, still absorbed in the view, hadn't noticed.
"Fire — someone light a fire, now! Mira's going to die!"
A quick combination of plant-growth magic and fire spell produced a simple campfire. Once the flames caught, the frost on Mira's skin began melting away, and healing magic finished the job — color slowly returning to her face.
The group settled around the fire to warm themselves properly. Luluwo studied the frost still clinging to her own clothes and tried a handful of methods to clear it — none of them worked.
So it really could only be removed by actual fire.
"This isn't ordinary frost. It's closer to something magical." She shook out her clothing, watching the snowflakes drift down over Irithyll. "What kind of superhuman could actually live somewhere like this?"
They'd found the environmental trap embedded in the region: cold damage. Without a heat source, the chill accumulated continuously — and once a person was fully frosted over, they lost vitality steadily while also suffering slowed movement and reduced resistances across the board.
The fix was simple enough on paper. Carry a source of heat. A torch would do the job — even a small child could manage a torch.
But once actual exploration began, was carrying a torch through every fight, every trap, every tight corridor genuinely sustainable?
"Should we go down and take a look?"
They had, technically, agreed to come up, glance around, and leave immediately.
But there's an old saying about being somewhere already.
Since they were already here — how could they not take a real look? Maybe just skim the outskirts, nothing deeper.
That plan had approximately zero chance of surviving contact with their curiosity, and everyone present knew it.
A few steps down the slope, they found another bonfire. A coiled sword stood embedded in it, fully coated in frost. Lighting it revealed it could teleport them straight back to the Firelink Shrine bonfire — bonfire travel remained the single greatest invention in existence, bar none.
Something else worth noting: standing near the lit bonfire cleared frost far faster than any improvised heat source they could generate themselves.
The farther downhill they went, the denser the cold became. At the entrance it had been tolerable. At ground level, it had crossed into genuinely unbearable. Torches held the frost at bay, but the raw temperature was still working on their bodies regardless.
Luluwo's group, in particular, was a study in poor planning. Luluwo herself wore her usual skintight gear. Tami had a single layer of leather armor over thin clothing. The mage sisters, Ais and Aim, had it worse still — fashion had won out over practicality, leaving them in crop tops that were now actively working against them. Both looked close to ascending directly to the afterlife.
Elsa was, unsurprisingly, in the best shape of the group. Setting aside her naturally sturdy constitution, the unnamed Knight Set she wore was easily the warmest piece of equipment among them.
"I-I-I—" Tami's teeth were chattering too hard to finish a sentence.
Watching everyone deteriorate in real time, Luluwo had Ais cast [Floating Fireball] — a cluster of small fireballs that orbited the group at a comfortable distance, radiating just enough heat to make things bearable.
With the moving fireballs supplementing them, everyone felt marginally more human again. They exchanged looks and moved toward the bridge — the only road leading into Irithyll proper.
They still held, with straight faces, to the idea that this was only a surface look. No going inside.
What a joke. Who in their right mind wanted to explore a dungeon in weather like this?
Winter existed for staying home under blankets. If it weren't for the need to earn a living, who would voluntarily take on a miserable job in this cold?
"It's really quiet on this bridge. No people anywhere," Tami said, glancing left and right. The bridge was immaculate — not a single monster in sight, clean enough that it barely felt like part of Sein Dungeon at all.
Belto's hand shot out and clamped over his mouth.
Tami struggled against it immediately.
"Quiet!" Belto hissed, scanning their surroundings with real anxiety. "Do you understand what you just did? People in this line of work never say things like that out loud. It's the exact same rule as a priest never saying 'business is slow today.' The moment you say it, the universe sends a flood."
Tami wasn't the only one rattled — Elsa drew her weapon on instinct and swept the surroundings with genuine wariness.
Luluwo laughed and clapped Belto on the shoulder.
"Alright, alright. I'm not sensing any monster presence. Let's not spiral into superstition just yet — what if this map was specifically designed by Sein Dungeon as somewhere for us to actually relax?"
She strode forward.
"Winter's my favorite season, honestly. Later, let's see if there's a house we can crash in and sleep the whole day away. Bonus points if it has a fireplace."
"Captain…" Belto was too tired to formulate a proper objection. Where did she get that level of unbothered confidence from? After a moment's thought, though, he let it go.
If Sein genuinely wanted to mess with them, it had a dozen different ways to do it. There was no defending against everything simultaneously — trying would just turn them all into paranoid wrecks. This once, maybe it was worth trusting that a spotless bridge really was spotless.
Besides — there wasn't obviously anywhere for a monster to hide out here. It wasn't as though something was going to fall out of the sky.
Belto had started this crossing extremely wary. As they went farther without hitting a single trap or monster, that wariness relaxed by degrees.
Good work, Sein. You didn't betray my trust—
Before the thought finished, Luluwo stopped abruptly with a confused "Huh?"
"What is it?"
Belto's alertness snapped back to maximum instantly. He crossed to her position and let out his own "Huh?"
Not a monster. Not a trap. A barrier of white fog blocked the road ahead of them entirely.
Looking up, they could see the fog wrapped around the entire city of Irithyll like a dome.
"I can't get through it." Luluwo reached out and touched the surface, discovering it behaved nothing like a standard fog gate.
They tried various methods of forcing it. Nothing worked.
"Ah — I get it."
After a moment's thought, Luluwo pieced it together.
Anyone who had made it as far as the Irithyll map was, by definition, thoroughly familiar with Sein Dungeon's habits by now. So —
"We haven't met some condition yet."
Just as entering the Endless Cycle required Humanity, and entering the Catacombs of Carthus required first defeating the Abyss Watchers, Irithyll of the Boreal Valley probably had its own unstated requirement. Her instinct told her the dungeon had likely already handed them a clue somewhere along the way — a hint they had walked right past.
What was it, though?
"We're not getting in today." Luluwo shook her head. She checked the area below the bridge with real thoroughness, wondering if there might be an alternate route in — a sewer-adjacent path, anything. There was nothing. The whole city sat sealed behind the barrier.
News of the closed door left the group somewhere between relief and disappointment. Either way, they turned around obediently and started back.
"Once we're back, we should put together a strategy guide. Even if we weren't first to clear it, we can still be first to publish."
Belto walked ahead, already sketching out how he'd organize the document. The empty bridge made for excellent thinking space — clean, quiet, nothing demanding his attention.
Sein had genuinely done something decent for once, keeping this bridge monster-free. The scenery was gorgeous too. If he ever needed to clear his head in the future, this would be a good place to come walk.
Just as that thought was forming —
"Belto, above you!"
Above?
He looked up.
A massive shadow swallowed him whole.
The body. The split abdomen. The furred torso. The crocodile-like jaw.
If that wasn't a monster, nothing qualified as one.
"Screw you, Sein!"
So something really had fallen out of the sky. They weren't even bothering to hide it anymore.
If it had at least emerged gradually from invisibility, he could have credited the design with some cleverness. This was just gravity.
Belto's eyes went wide as he scrambled backward. The creature had already locked onto him — it spun mid-air and adjusted its trajectory to match his retreat with unsettling precision.
A thunderous crash followed.
Belto's fate was, for the moment, unclear.
The monster threw its head back and howled at the sky.
"Belto!"
Luluwo stared at the creature — something that split the difference between crocodile and rabid dog — and muttered, mostly to herself:
"What in the world is that thing?"
As everyone scrambled toward the fight, an ill-timed comment floated in from somewhere behind them.
"So cute."
Cute? Who said that?
Heads turned. Elsa stood there, cheeks faintly pink.
This girl's taste in "cute" apparently diverged from the general population's by a significant margin.
"You really do have a gift for timing, Sein Dungeon — bringing out a monster right when everyone's completely drained."
Luluwo exhaled.
"I can read this one's attack pattern just from its build. Keep your distance, don't engage in melee. Watch its claws, its mouth, and its abdomen—"
Before she finished, the creature's jaw opened and released a crackling bolt of lightning, streaking directly toward them.
A creature that looked like it had no meaningful intelligence whatsoever had just used a lightning attack.
The reversal landed too fast for dignity. Luluwo felt her face heating with something that had nothing to do with the cold.