Chapter Summary: Out of the frying pan into the freezer.

I'm finally ready with my next update and boy is it long. I hope that helps make up for the wait. Thanks to everyone for being so patient and for those celebrating Thanksgiving I hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Lestallum was like a dream – a hot, sweaty dream where you couldn't do a thing with your hair because the humidity was clearly on steroids – but a dream all the same. Driving through the stretch of tunnel up to the city limits had felt like crossing over into another dimension, leaving behind the dangers and isolation of the wilderness for the first time since the kickoff of their extended roadtrip. Apparently after weeks on end of roughing it in the great outdoors and breezing through dinky outposts, visiting actual, honest to Shiva cities started to feel pretty surreal. Who knew?

In spite of the heat, Prompto couldn't wait to go sightseeing. Even from the view offered up by the overlook lot off the highway he could already tell there was going to be something new and exciting to be found around every corner. They even had a cable car! He snapped as many photos as he could get away with without being left behind, falling in line with the others in Gladio's wake as they tried to make sense of the weaving footpaths without standing out too much in a sea of pedestrians racing through the mealtime rush.

Lestallum, as it turned out, was a busy place. More people than Prompto had seen packed together like sardines since the day they'd left the Crown City behind were all around them – vendors shouting from stalls, women decked out in coveralls migrating to and from their daily shifts, children chasing each other underfoot – the locals thriving on uneven streets baked beneath the midday sun and influence of the nearby meteor that gave the city its livelihood.

It was easy to tell there was an entirely different life in this place from Insomnia. Shaped more by the surrounding landscape, buildings slanted and crowded together to an organic rhythm that never would have fit the more orderly mold of the Crown City, but the resemblance to home was still there. Under the veneer of exotic flavor and aroma of spicy street fair was that familiar sense of steady security. Here people were living their lives regardless of the chaotic turmoil churning just beyond their borders and tomorrow they'd all be getting out of bed and doing just the same. Prompto hadn't even realized how much he'd missed that.

They found the Leville in the fountain square tucked near the back of the sweltering city, but just as they approached the front entrance something strange happened. Prompto almost missed the first step up to the lobby because the ground under their feet started to shake. "Whoa, do you guys feel that?"

Gladio huffed. "What, you mean the earthquake?"

Behind them Noct stumbled a little, hissing as he clutched at his head.

The noise had Gladio turning around and frowning as Noct all but folded in on himself in obvious pain. "Noct, you alright?"

Prompto wrung his hands nervously when all Noct did in way of an answer was offer a strained grunt – a pretty succinct way of getting the point across, even by Noct's standards. He also couldn't help but notice Ignis being oddly inattentive, stiffly starring back the direction they'd just come, almost in a daze. Weird. Normally Noct couldn't get a stumped toe past the dragon. Prompto glanced back and forth between the two of them. "Hey, everything okay?"

As the ground seemed to settle down, Noct straightened back up but he was still rubbing at the side of his head and his skin was looking pretty clammy. "Sorry, my head just started throbbing."

Gladio crossed his arms skeptically. "So when the ground shakes your brain aches?"

Noct frowned. "Yeah, heard this voice. And there were these images, a hole in the ground… something burning… the Meteor?"

"The Disk of Cauthess. A summons from the Archaean no less," Ignis suddenly spoke up.

Noct lowered his hand and shot a bewildered look at his advisor. "Wait, you got all that too?"

Ignis nodded. "We are all linked through the Crystal after all."

Gladio cocked an eyebrow. "So the Astrals are just sending out open invitations now?"

And, yeah, Prompto had to agree that didn't exactly sound normal. "Huh, thought the oracle was the only one who had to deal with this sorta thing."

"Among humans, normally," Ignis agreed. "Though perhaps we should not discount her involvement prematurely."

"Wait, do you think that means Luna…," Noct started hopefully.

Ignis nodded. "I can't imagine anyone else could have managed to wake the Archaean."

Gladio glanced between the two of them. "Huh. Guess that means we'll be scheduling a trip down to the Disk."

"Great, one more thing," Noct sighed.

Only they didn't go to the Disk. At least, not right away. Iris had been waiting on them in the lobby and from there they were swept up in a whirlwind of reunions, talk of Insomnia and later exploring all Lestallum had to offer. She kicked them all out of the Leville early the next morning – well, all of them except Noct – saying something about wanting to catch up. And while there may have been a scheming glint in her eyes as she'd hurried them along, if Gladio's big brother senses weren't tingling then Prompto wasn't gonna question it too much. So he and the rest of the guys toured the town with Talcott as their adorable, miniaturized guide. The little guy was full of enthusiasm as he gave a nonstop commentary on everything he'd learned about Lestallum from the Meteor overlook to the power plant all the way on the other end of the city, but it wasn't till they'd returned from visiting the Partellum Market that Talcott gave them a lead they couldn't ignore.

A legendary sword hidden behind a waterfall sounded like the start to the type of fun adventures that you would expect from the hottest new RPG. It definitely wasn't. Because sneaking past the literal, giant snake hanging about the entrance and fighting their way through the small horde of angry crab pincers up to the frozen caverns to get to the legendary sword hidden behind the waterfall was extremely not fun and considerably less surreal than entering Lestallum had been. And how messed up was it that descending into a daemon infested, freezing ice cave of doom felt more like a typical Tuesday afternoon than experiencing proper civilization?

Prompto shivered from the sudden temperature 180. "Brrr. This place gives me goose bumps."

"Out of the frying pan into the freezer," Ignis acknowledged wryly.

"So, double back for some coats?" Prompto proposed hopefully, because he actually hadn't bothered to pack anything with sleeves. Not like they'd originally planned for any stops between sunny Galdin and the reportedly temperate Altissia.

Gladio gave him a playful shove between the shoulder blades as he ambled past, moving deeper into the cave. "What's the point? A little chill won't kill ya."

And of course Gladio wasn't concerned about a little chill. It was a well-documented fact that the big guy was basically a human furnace, almost as immune to the changes in the weather as their resident dragon. Speaking of which, maybe Ignis wouldn't mind if he stood a little closer than was strictly socially acceptable to soak up some of that dragon core warmth. Unlikely, but worth a shot.

Unfortunately, when Ignis signaled them all to a stop a handful of steps later, frowning into the darkness just outside the reach of their torches, it wasn't to question why his personal space was being maliciously encroached upon. "Daemons ahead."

"Great. Our warm welcome." Prompto eyed the flan that started pooling out of the ground with distaste.

"Ugh, daemon jello," Noct groaned.

"Come on, this won't take long." And with all the finesse of one wielding a ridiculously huge sword nearly as long as they were tall, Gladio bashed the first flan in before it could finish forming. The others followed soon after with a few quick warpstrikes and a small fireball courtesy of Iggy, the excess heat of which even helped keep the chill at bay, not that it lasted, but at least the daemons were good for something.

It's not far past their first encounter with the flan – there were definitely a lot more of them – that they hit a bit of a snag. Said snag being that the cavern floor abruptly gave way to a steep drop coated in slick ice. And, of course, it's the only way forward.

"Whelp, so much for the mystical, mystery sword of legend. Maybe we'll have better luck next time." Promtpo turned on his heel back toward the entrance.

Gladio snatched the back of his vest. "Don't be a wuss."

Noctis squinted as he tried to see the end of the icy incline with the torch clipped onto his shirt. "Wonder how far it goes."

"Hmm, in this light, hard do say." Ignis frowned. "Only one way to see where it leads."

Prompto stared nervously down at the dark abyss the others were all preparing to bodily throw themselves down. "You guys can't be serious. There's no telling what's down there. What if we go down and can't get back up? What if it never actually ends and we're just falling forever? What if it's even colder at the bottom?"

Noctis scoffed as if these weren't all very real concerns. "Would you relax? Iggy can always fly us back up if we get stuck."

Ignis huffed. "Assuming there is enough room to do so."

"It'll be fine. Everybody ready?" As per usual, Noct didn't wait for any kind of confirmation before jumping feet first down the ominous ice slide. Also per usual, everybody else scrambled after him in case everything wasn't fine – and for a few terrifying moments Prompto can't decide what's worse, the slightly damp chill acquainting itself with his backside or the wild, frictionless decent into the dark unknown. The slope of the slide dropped out from under them approximately six feet above the actual bottom of the fall, right on top of some particularly cranky imps. Prompto was pretty sure his tailbone would never forgive him.

The imps didn't go down as easily as they probably should have. The ground was slippery in places, making it hard to get any kind of traction, and Prompto's not sure if it's getting colder the deeper they go or if it had more to do with how long they've been down in the cave, but the freezing air was starting to get to them in earnest. Even Gladio started shivering enough to pull out an actual shirt from the armiger and Prompto was working really hard not to let his teeth knock together too hard. It'd probably only attract more daemons.

Unfairly, the only thing for it was to keep moving – that and maybe fantasizing about a nice warm bowl of soup of unprecedented proportions. Mm, soup. Maybe Ignis could be talked into whipping some up when this nightmare was all over.

It was tragic his foodie fantasies had to be put on hold by another frozen slip-n-slide. Noct sighed as he looked down at the unwelcome sight. "Again, really?"

"Ugh, do we have too?" Prompto didn't even care that his plea was leaning more toward an all out whine because of course they have to. And he couldn't even take a moment to be slightly placated about not being the only one less than thrilled at the prospect because there was a hungry arachne waiting on them at the bottom – which Prompto totally did not scream at the sight of no matter what anyone said – followed by a harrowing trip across a much too narrow ledge. So, yeah, he was maybe a little more than relieved when Noct finally called them all over for a break around a couple of elemental deposits.

He very greedily held his hands over the blessed warmth generated by a natural well of fire elemancy as if paying homage to some unknown cave deity while watching Noct run between it and a nearby lightning deposit with a new flask. Prompto's not sure how those worked exactly but Noct looked like he was somehow fusing fire and lightning together into a single bottle.

Gladio eyed the finished flask with a little more comprehension. "That looks unstable."

Noct shrugged. "It'll be fine. Just makes a bigger bang."

"Just mind that the bang doesn't backfire," Ignis warned, returning from a quick recon while the rest of them had been warming up. "This path could well lead us to what we're looking for. It would be a shame to make a mess of your ancestor's resting place."

"Yeah, whatever. Let's just get moving." Noct made the flask disappear in the blue sparks of the armiger.

Turned out they really didn't have to explore much further. They found the door to the tomb past another precarious ledge at the next open section of cave. A big portion of the back wall was taken up by a hollowed out vault of ice opening up over their heads and reflecting light down into the space. The unique feature almost distracted them entirely from something gross and tentacley spawning from the shadows along with more flan and imps.

"Well, that's mildly horrifying." Prompto was seriously starting to wonder if the ancient mystery sword was really worth half this much trouble.

"Mindflayer," Ignis supplied. "Best to exercise caution. They're reported to breathe enervating gas that weakens prey before sucking the life out of them. Resistant to ice, but susceptible to spear attacks and lighting elemancy."

"Great, I'll just not be getting close to that, then!" Prompto removed the safety from his gun and moved to circle around for easier access to the daemons' blind spots and hopefully far out of reach of those tentacle arms.

"Doesn't look too scary." Noct summoned his engine blade and wasted no time throwing it into the Mindflayer's middle, warping right behind it. The daemon screeched in agony and suddenly there were more globs of daemon miasma surging up from the dark corners of the chamber.

"He never listens," Ignis sighed before neatly sending his daggers into the imps attempting to strike at Noct's unguarded flank as he pulled his sword loose from the larger daemon without getting caught in its flailing tentacles.

"Tell me about it," Gladio grumbled before taking his own sword into the fray, cutting down the flan slowly making their way across the frozen ground.

It was a bit hairy, running around on the slick ice, but they were starting to get the hang of it. Prompto dropped to the ground and slid under an imp that had just lunged for his face, filling its underside with lead in the process.

"Nice one, Prom," Noct complemented, dancing back as the mindflayer made another slimy grab toward his person.

"Kid's picked up a few things." Gladio spun past him to rip into the next flan.

And Prompto couldn't help but beam at the praise. Sure, they still may have been stuck in a daemon infested, freezing ice cave of doom, but it was nothing they couldn't handle – or it wasn't until a lot more mindflayers started springing up. "Um, guys?"

"Seems more reinforcements have arrived," Ignis growled, spearing the original mindflayer with his fire-tipped lance and making the daemon crumple in a heap of burning shadows.

"Then let's even the odds.?" Noct pulled the flask from earlier out of the armiger. "You did say they were weak to lightning."

Before anyone could think better of it, Noct lobbed the flask into the center of the mob of fresh mindflayers and the resulting whirlwind blast of fire and lighting was more devastating than any of them were prepared for. Prompto felt his feet leave the ground a moment before he was thrown flat on his back up against the far wall of the chamber. He blinked back dizzily at where the daemons had all but disintegrated into a dark stain of evaporating daemon miasma. Huh. Well, looked like Ignis was right about the lightning.

But any feelings of victory were quickly drowned out by the loud crack that echoed like a death toll off the cavern walls. It's not the last. Dread quickly rose with the swell of shifting ice as they watched the fine fractures spiderwebbing across the ceiling of the cave. Prompto felt small chunks of ice like pebbles breaking off from above and bouncing off his scalp in a rain of diamond dust. Then the bigger stuff started to come down too. Tearing his eyes away from the cracks, he scrambled to get back up onto his feet. "I think we should start running now!"

Noct was thankfully on the same wavelength. "Crap! Everyone, get back!"

"We're not gonna make it!" Gladio already had his shield out, trying to bulldoze his way through the falling ice as he ran. "Noct, you need to warp to safety."

Prompto thought he might have heard Noct protest but then he lost track of everyone because a big section of the ceiling broke loose and started coming down directly over his head and he was kinda busy watching his short life flash before his eyes – so it was a bit jarring when the tons of frozen rock never actually squished him to death. He peaked between his fingers that had at some point come up to cover his eyes to see Ignis, transformed and reared back on his hind legs, pushing up against the collapsing segment of ice.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught Gladio motioning him toward the exit. "Prompto, get your butt outta there!"

And Prompto didn't need to be told twice. Not that it mattered when more of the ceiling started to break away – super speed or cool teleportation powers would have been totally helpful in this moment – and even Ignis couldn't hold it all.

The first impact between the falling ceiling and the cave floor crashed down hard with a deafening force that knocked Prompto to his knees. The next came just as forcefully and made the floor shatter, a dark void swallowing up the pieces and Prompto with them. The fall was quick. He didn't quite remember landing so much as having his momentum come to a screeching halt, wrenching his ankle and bruising the hell out of his knees and one of his elbows. But he was still breathing and definitely not crushed to death, so he was willing to count himself at least semi-lucky.

Looking up, or the direction he felt hazily confident was up, he could sorta make out the glow of the other's torches swinging about in the chamber above along with some panicked murmuring. It looked like the cave had settled somewhat as there didn't seem to be anymore debris falling down around him. Weird, he'd been sure the whole thing was coming down. And now that he was thinking about it he should probably announce that he wasn't dead. Yeah. He should do that. "Um, in case anyone's wondering, I'm alive!"

One of the torch lights spun down close to where he was sprawled and he recognized Gladio's crisis voice when he shouted down. "Prompto, don't move. We're coming to you."

And Prompto was kinda relieved because he's not so sure how much he wanted to move around at the moment anyway. "You got it!" But it's also pretty dark down in this place so he flicked back on his own torch, thinking it'd make him easier to find, and came nose to nose with something huge and snarling and in ownership of seemingly hundreds of sharp teeth sparkling in the harsh lamp light. He yelped, skidding back until he was butted up against the fallen rubble at his back.

"Guys, there's something down here, and it's something big!" Though it was also being strangely still – like the not breathing kind of still.

It wasn't until Noct warped down to join him, bringing with him the light of his own torch that Prompto realized what he'd been looking at. "Dude, is that what I think it is?"

Noct stared for a moment, the battle tension slowly easing out of his stance. "Yeah. Yeah it is."

"What do you guys see down there?" Gladio's concerned shout echoed from above.

"Found a relative of Specs'!" Noct called back.

The dragon was massive, easily several times bigger than Ignis, though with a body that was more serpentine length than anything and that wasn't were the differences ended. Covered in jewel-like feathers that could've been cut from emeralds and some pretty elaborate armor this dragon rose up like something ancient that hardly seemed mortal. Two of its gold tipped wings were stretched wide from one end of the hidden tomb to the other and blocked most of the light leaking down from above. Prompto almost missed the second, smaller pair of wings spread out over its hips and there was definitely some type of red gemstone embedded in the helmet over its head. He tried to stand and get a better look but if Noct hadn't been there he would've landed right back on his half-frozen rear. "Hey, how 'bout you try a potion first this time?"

"Thanks." Prompto crushed the offered curative in his fist, feeling the pain he'd been trying to ignore slowly bleed away. "Guess the sprain was a little worse than I thought."

Together they slid off the fragments of cave ceiling Prompto had landed on down to the feet of the dragon statue – or what he would've assumed was a statue if it didn't look so very alive. There was a fancy plaque in front of it and Prompto angled his torch down over the words. Rydia, it read, may peace welcome you at journey's end, my dearest friend.

Prompto blinked between the oddly personal inscription and the typical royal setup of the enclosed tomb. "I don't get it. Why is she frozen like that?"

"It's petrification magic." Noctis answered. "My, uh, ancestors used to do it sometimes."

"It was not an uncommon practice to bury loyal dragons alongside their bonded kings." Iggy called down – never quite able to resist elaborating on Noct's often minimalistic explanations – but there was a strain in his voice that suggested he was still holding up what was left of the ceiling. Otherwise he'd probably be going into much greater depth.

"Oh. Cool, I guess." Prompto looked back up at the frozen dragon. It was kinda sweet that the king had thought of Rydia as his friend. Even with how close Noct and Iggy were, Prompto got the feeling that wasn't always the norm. He guessed even in ancient times friends probably made all the bad stuff better. Prompto was certainly glad he wasn't alone in the frozen ice cave of doom. "You know, once you get past the teeth and the, uh, murderous expression, she's kinda beautiful."

And she was. More than just the vibrant coloring or the regal ornaments, there was sorta this latent grace about her and the contortions of her body to fit the confines of her underground resting place – almost fluid. A bit like a cat really.

"Yeah… Come on, I see a stairway in the back. Think it leads up to the king's tomb?" Noct pointed to an open doorway nestled behind the dragon's coiled tail, which was probably pretty handy on account of the cave in probably having cut off the only other way inside.

"One way to find out."

"You guys better step on it; Iggy can't hold up the ceiling forever!" And they couldn't really see Gladio's face from down here without shining a torch into it but the big guy sure sounded worried.

"Right, on our way." And the two of them didn't waste any more time racing up the steps and into the Wanderer King's Tomb. Just like all the creepy ghost weapons before it, the sword did its little light show before making a quick nosedive into Noct's chest and joining the armiger in a cascade of crystalline sparks. After that was settled, they climbed back out as fast as their weary feet could take them, but by the time they're out of the tombs the ominous cracking had started back up again and that really wasn't a good sign.

"Guys, over here!" Gladio called them over from behind where Ignis stood, the chilling fog of his magic saturating the air in a fine mist that did nothing to disguise the subtle tremors running up his body from the continued effort of pushing back the literal tons of ice on his shoulders. He must have used ice elemancy to help reinforce the unstable ceiling somehow.

Still, Ignis looked about spent so they didn't question it, rushing past Iggy and out the entrance of the chamber. "Okay, we're clear!" Noctis called back as soon as they reached Gladio.

Ignis didn't budge for another moment, probably just to ensure that they really were clear, before all at once dropping the ceiling and using his lightning magic to zip back, simultaneously changing form to slip under the falling threshold. He rolled to his feet in front of them just as the chamber collapsed in on itself, forever sealing away the Wanderer King with his friend.

"Is everyone… alright?" Ignis wobbled slightly, breathing hard as he bent over on his knees but still craning his head back as if to check them over for injuries.

"We're good, Specs." Noct grinned.

"Never better!" Prompto wasn't even that sore – though, okay, that was probably mostly due to the potion and serious adrenaline running through his veins at the moment. New normal or not, he'd definitely be feeling today's spelunking adventure tomorrow, no question. But for now, he was actually feeling mostly fine – cold beyond all reason – but fine. "And, hey, at least we've got a good story for Talcott now."

"Yeah, little guy will be thrilled." Gladio bent over to pull Iggy's arm over his shoulder and started walking. When it looked like Ignis was going to take issue with the manhandling just as soon as he caught his breath Gladio shook his head. "No complaining after you just did all the heavy lifting."

Prompto moved to take Ignis' other arm. After all, the guys had all had his back today, which had made things sorta bearable. Maybe even a little fun. Went without saying he'd have theirs' in return. "Yeah, Iggy, why not take load off?"

Ignis eyed them both, bemused. "Ah, and just how, pray tell, do you intend to carry me up the two ice slides on our way out?"

"Aw man, don't remind me. Wouldn't it be great if we could just teleport back to the cave entrance now that we're done?" Prompto asked wistfully.

Noctis scoffed. "Yeah, sure, might work… if this was all some kind of video game."

"Why you gotta crush my dreams?" Okay, maybe fun was taking things a little too far.