The bird monster nesting cliff was eerily silent, even a month and a week later.

James paused, leaning around the corner to scope out the area. He slowly leaned back, and looked around.

Where had all the monsters gone?

He hadn't noticed any lack of crab monsters, and he looked out towards the lake in the distance. There were still specks flying around above it, like normal, probably bird monsters…

But were there less of them than there had been?

Unease and relief warred in the Smith's chest. Unease that there was an unexplained change in monster behavior; relief that he wouldn't have to spend the day fighting bird monsters to get back to the snowy passage.

He tread cautiously all the rest of the way to the back to the snowy passage.

Soon enough he found himself standing in front of the snowy passage, just in front of the snow spilling out from the windy entrance. With a thought, he activated all the heating strips, in addition to his shield's [Reflect] and his Green Iron War Hammer.

Immediately he felt the difference. His stuffy armor quickly grew warm, and was becoming uncomfortably warm as he stepped forward, foot crunching on the snowy ground.

With each step, he paused to adjust the heating strips. At first all the heating strips were running at the lowest possible amount James could manage, but soon he found himself increasing the intensity of the strips around his feet, then his hands, arms, and legs, and by the time he crossed the threshold of the passageway, all the heating strips were activated to some degree and his armor no longer felt stiflingly warm.

The snowy wind felt sharp as it struck his face, and he lowered his visor.

He continued inside, pushing through the snow, first shin-high, then knee-high, then up to his waist.

This time, he was retaining feeling in his feet, which thrilled him, although he knew this because he could feel the snow melting and the water invading the gaps in his boots to collect around his feet.

He continued on straight for some time, then turned to look behind him. There was nothing much to see around him, given the white-out conditions, and noticed that his trail was quickly filling in with fresh snow and the exit was no longer visible.

And the drain on his mana to keep running all the heating strips was becoming noticeable.

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So the Smith retreated again, satisfied that his new armor was working.

This time, warm and with his wits about him, the Smith quickly found the exit again. But he hadn't made any more progress exploring the snowy passage. In fact, he didn't think he'd gone as far this time as he had the first time.

As he plodded back to his camp, with an eye out for bird monsters, his feet squished and sloshed with melted water, but his mind was focused on how to make it through the passage. Getting lost, running out of mana, and possibly the heating strips breaking were his biggest concerns.

Before he knew it, he was back in camp. He emptied the water from his boots onto the ground and put them and his moccasins next to the forge to dry out while he thought.

There wasn't much he could do about running out of mana. As for making spare heating strips, he was already low on fire magic crystals, and didn't know where to get more. Although he could make a few extras, he thought it best to make replacements if and when any heating strips broke, to conserve resources.

As for a way out, he had an idea. If he had some rope, he could tie it to something, and the other end to himself, and then even if he couldn't see, he could just follow the rope back out.

But the rope experiment back on the upper floor hadn't worked. The vines from the tree monsters, when dried out, just crumbled and fell apart.

There was another option he was considering, but it would be time consuming and tedious, and he wasn't sure he could do it.

He could forge a chain.

But that would take so long.

He didn't want to do it if he could avoid it at all. He had already spent so much time practicing with his mana and the enchantments and getting his skills up and now he was going to spend even more time forging a chain just to not get lost?

In the end, after a day of trying to think of any other alternative, he decided to do it.

First he made the thinnest rod of iron he could, and found that it was doable, but tricky with his tools.

So he spent a day making new tools: new, thicker, stronger tongs that tested his grip strength and pliers to grip and bend the metal into links.

Then, by reheating the metal and hammering the bitter ends of the link together, the ends welded together, forming one link.

After making several links in this way, the Smith realized that rather than manually forging each rod of iron, bending it into shape, and hammering the link closed, he could just create a mold for an open link and another piece that he could hammer on and close the gap with.

Several hours of making molds later, the Smith hit his stride and found that the work was going faster than he expected. It didn't take that long to fill each mold and hammer closed each link in the chain, and after a few days he had a length of chain over three hundred yards long.

The Smith thanked his lucky stars he had the magic bag, because three hundred yards of sturdy iron chain was so heavy he couldn't lift it all.

That done, he put his armor back on and hiked back to the snowy passage. He scanned the nearby pebbly beach and couldn't find any boulders to tie the chain around, so he quickly mined out a hunk of rock to act as an anchor and secured the end of the chain to that. The rest was laid out in loops on the ground, so that it wouldn't tangle as he pulled it, and then he tied the other end around his waist.

Now, he'd be able to find his way back no matter how far in he adventured. Up to about three hundred yards, at least. Hopefully the passage wasn't that long.

So, he adventured in once again. Water quickly invaded his boots once more, but failed to chill his feet thanks to the heating strips. He could feel a minor strain on his mana, but it was no concern even as he headed deeper and deeper into the passage, with snow up to his waist. The chain remained secure around his waist, and he could see the links trailing off into the snowy white void behind him.

He made a short trek back, just to make sure everything was fine, and it was. The chain was still good, no broken links, and he walked back through his trail in the snow for about one hundred steps and continued on.

Everything was fine, and then the wind started howling. The Smith stopped, confirmed all his heating strips were still working, and gripped his hammer. He could barely see anything around him in the blowing white snow but the snow blew strangely around him, like a vortex, and a snowy white creature flew towards him slowly.

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