The Floor 8 portal dissolved, and The Party stepped into a cathedral of light.
The chamber was breathtaking, capped by a vaulted dome of clear ice that caught the aurora lights, refracting it into slow, hypnotic waves of violet and green. Beneath their boots, the polished floor was a dark mirror, reflecting the party as though they stood above a frozen underworld. The air didn't just feel cold; it felt heavy, stealing the heat from their lungs so rapidly that every breath crystallized into a fine mist. Their cloaks, battered from seven floors of escalating extremes, flickered with the desperate, dimming shimmer of failing enchantments.
At the center of the chamber, waiting on a dais of rimed frost, was the Ice Queen Butterfly.
