Winter's Crown: Act 4, Chapter 19

"Hehis, heau hee!"

"Hah?"

Themis looked up at the incomprehensible, yet desperate-sounding Mag. Eyes filled with tears, the Rogue pushed her face forward, tongue nearly touching Themis' nose. Themis went cross-eyed trying to see what was wrong.

"「Light Cure Wounds」."

The petite woman sighed in relief, tongue returning into her mouth. Her mouth worked silently for a moment.

"That hurt sooo much!" She cried, "I love you, Themis!"

Mag threw her arms wide, coming forward to embrace her. Themis braced herself. Just before the Rogue reached her, however, she faltered and stopped.

"What?" Themis asked.

"After what just happened," Mag answered, "I figure that might not be such a good idea…"

"What do you mean?" Themis frowned, "What even happened to you?"

"Well, uh…the fingers of my gauntlets were sticking together for some reason after warming them up by the fire just now."

"I don't get it."

"I didn't either! I thought maybe it was some kinda weird magical effect. Anyways, I started testing things out and my tongue somehow got stuck to my dagger somewhere along the way."

"Wha?"

"I know, right? I panicked and yanked it off, but I didn't realize how stuck I was. It felt like half of my tongue came off!"

Mag's mouth worked again after her account as if testing to make sure that everything was actually there. By the looks of it, it wasn't that bad, but Themis knew better than to try and trivialize the suffering of others.

"Mag," she told her, "we can't afford this…"

"We can't?"

"We can't!" Themis told her, "This place is a huge drain on mana. It gets so cold that Horton and I have to take turns casting cold protection spells to spread out mana usage."

"I-I didn't think it would turn out that badly!" Mag said, "Maybe like ice cream, at worst?"

Themis sighed despite herself, and Mag slinked away.

After completing their two-odd weeks of familiarization with the expedition system, they had returned to the city and were told to prepare for 'acclamation training', which was touted to be as close to authentic to the conditions of the Azerlisia Mountains as could currently be made. It was described as a 'winter-like environment', so they had prepared for what they thought would be suitable for a winter expedition. Unfortunately, winter around E-Rantel was short and cool, a period of rainy weather and soggy mats of dead leaves. The number of times that the citizens had seen snow falling on the city could be counted on one hand.

Themis' first attempt – this was the second – had ended in utter disaster. The biting cold was more than just an issue of comfort. Temperatures were so severe that energy protection spells were eaten away in a matter of minutes. Their Ranger, who had set off in advance to scout their way forward, never returned. After about an hour, they were forced to withdraw without making it ten metres past the entrance. Pestonya appeared shortly after, bringing with her the frozen corpse of their Ranger. They had to wait a good while before she thawed out so they could resurrect her.

The next day, she was added to a new team. Going by their rather absurd-looking attempts at bundling up, they had all experienced the new training course; not a single comment was made on each others' appearance. This time, her party consisted of a Fighter, a Rogue, a Monk, a Bard, a Wizard and herself. The lack of a Ranger as their scout was already turning the experience into a nightmare.

To her credit, Mag was doing what she could. She was generally excellent in ruins or catacombs, but Rogues could simply not match Rangers when it came to exploring untamed environments. Progress was slow – so slow that Themis suspected if the weather wasn't obscuring their vision, they'd be able to see the entrance of the course from where they had decided to camp for the night.

She thought it a miracle that they even survived thus far. They were lucky enough to locate a shallow cave, where they all huddled together in the scant warmth of a small campfire. The wood they managed to forage was cold and wet, filling the air with thick smoke that added to their misery. Themis was used to replenishing her mana during periods of rest, but the need to refresh protective spells to stave off the cold left her in a state where every spell was precious, and mana levels much harder to sustain.

As they finished packing away their camp, Mag returned from her reconnaissance.

"I think it's warming up?" She said, "The worst of last night is over, at any rate."

"What did you see?" Lawrence, the Bard who was acting as the party leader, asked.

"I followed the slope a little ways," Mag answered, "and it looks like it's curving a bit as it leads down. I didn't notice any animals – just more of this frozen hellscape."

"That's a good thing," Horton said. "If we get into any rough fights, our mana is going to be in big trouble."

"Let's stay conservative with that," Lawrence said, "even if we do get into a fight. Our mana is the only thing keeping us alive against the elements here."

"You don't have a spellsong for something like this?" Horton asked.

"I sure as hell wish I did," Lawrence replied. "I'd be the most popular guy in the Adventurer Guild right about now."

"I doubt we'll be able to find any cold resistance items in the city either," Neil, the Fighter, said, "this whole thing is really making me rethink what's valuable and what isn't. I saved up two months' worth of points for this suit of enchanted Dwarven plate mail, but it doesn't help me at all against cold weather."

"Did they even have energy resistance items in the guild store?" Maurus, the monk, asked.

"No idea," Lawrence said. "I'm pretty sure most people have been focusing on equipment that would help with all of the combat training we have. In hindsight, we should have been preparing for expeditions – that's what we're ultimately supposed to be doing, yeah?"

It did feel obvious, in hindsight. As the fair-haired Bard had mentioned, everyone had been entirely focused on what would help them in training, which was primarily combat until recent weeks. The first inkling Themis had that she should be considering more than just what she needed to make it out of fights in one piece was out on the practice expedition. Even then, it amounted to matters of inconvenience rather than need.

"I guess," Mag said from the front. "I'm in the same predicament – I spent most of my points on combat and scouting gear. Actually, now that we're talking about points, there's a rumour about this new course."

"A rumour?"

"Yeah, I heard there's some secret bonus in here somewhere – maybe we'll get something nice if we figure it out, eh?"

"I think I heard something like that as well," Lawrence said, "ya seen anyone with anything new and shiny since yesterday?"

"Nope, maybe we'll be the first," Mag's eyes twinkled. "Alright, I'm getting in the mood now. Exploring the unknown, finding new things – that's our Adventurer Guild, right?"

"As romantic as it sounds," Lawrence said, "I'd rather not push our luck. Remember how expeditions are supposed to operate – our priority is to collect information on the assigned area. Looking into specific details comes after that."

"I agree," Themis nodded. "We don't even have any idea of how much further we need to go. If we get sidetracked and waste our resources, we might not have enough to make it to the end."

"The end," Lawrence frowned, "as in a boss fight?"

"Have you been on one of these training runs that didn't have a boss fight?"

"The training expedition didn't," he replied, "but I guess you might have a point."

The members of the party exchanged glances, uncertainty clouding their expressions. The current training session was unlike any they had taken part in previously. They were warned that it could take days, had to bring their supplies with them, and faced hazards that the Training Area did not have in its other sections. In addition, even if they had to fight something at the end, it didn't mean that the session would be considered a success – they still had to make it back out. It was more akin to their training expedition in the forest outside of the city: there was a lot of moving, camping and surveying. The only violent encounters that they had during the training expedition were when they disturbed the lairs of forest animals and monsters; the outcome of most being that the two sides disengaged after a brief confrontation.

With this in mind, they carefully made their way forward, breaths misting in the frigid air. There were no traps, as far as they had seen, but the terrain was difficult enough. They trudged through waist-high snow and were assailed by howling winds that sent veils of icy crystals whipping over them. Anything beyond a few hundred metres turned into a grey murk hidden behind the thick mist. Perhaps if it were a portrait or some magical illusion, Themis might have appreciated the scenery for its otherworldly beauty. As one trying to survive it, however, she could only shiver in the life-stealing cold.

"I think I found the bottom," Mag said upon returning from one of her forays.

"The bottom?"

"Yeah, the bottom. This is supposed to be like some sort of valley, right? I found a river or a lake or something down at the end of the slope."

"Any shelter?" Lawrence asked.

"I didn't see anything," Mag shook her head. "It was flat and clear as far as I could see. There's a big cliff that curves around and out of sight. Maybe we'll find something if we follow it."

They followed the Rogue through the 'forest' of stone pillars, vaguely shaped to resemble trees. The ground was rocky and uneven; once in a while, a member of the party would stumble into a depression and injure themselves, taking some of Themis' mana away. It was far more difficult for her to manage than a training run full of monsters – inexorably sapping away her mana despite their progress being little more than a crawl. Eventually, Horton ended up being the one to lead the way after Mag, slowly probing the way forward with his staff.

"How many points is it for a stick?" Neil mused.

"Why are you wasting points on a stick?" Lawrence asked, "We'll be able to just grab one out in the wilderness, yeah?"

"I guess? It's probably not as good as a proper quarterstaff or spear, though. If something attacks us, I have to react right away. A random branch isn't going to do much good."

"Just buy one from the city," Lawrence said. "Couldn't be more than a few silver for a good quarterstaff."

"I wonder if the parties with Rangers have this much trouble…"

"Hey!" Mag said defensively, turning to glower at Neil, "I'm doing my best here!"

"Just curious," the Fighter held up his hands in a placating gesture.

"Grr…"

"We didn't even get a chance to find out with ours," Themis said. "He went out saying that it would be 'no problem'. The next time we saw him, he was frozen solid."

"Same here," Lawrence said. "I don't think our Rangers are trained for this sort of terrain anyways. All of 'em are local – they're used to forests and plains."

"Ludmila might be," Themis pointed out. "She lives in the mountains south of where we had that training expedition, doesn't she? You can see snow there in the winter from the city."

"She might be," Lawrence shrugged, "but it doesn't help us. She's still silver-rank, and busy with noble business besides."

"What does Ludmila have to do with Rangers?" Neil frowned.

"Uh…she is a Ranger?"

"Really? The only time I've been in a party with her, she was leading and we had another scout."

"Well, she's a frontier noble," Lawrence told him, "they lead their patrols out in the wilderness and…wait, shouldn't you know this? I thought you said you're from a frontier village."

"I'm from a little place in the north, yeah. The noble there didn't do any of that, though. Hell, I don't even know what they look like – it's not as if they'll come to get their fancy asses muddy out on the border."

"What? How did you people not get eaten by something from the Great Forest of Tob with no one defending you?"

"Nothing really serious has ever come out of there," Neil shrugged, "for as long as the village has been there. Worst was a few Goblins and maybe an Ogre or two. Nothing the local Adventurers couldn't sweep up back when the guild used to pay bounties."

"That's different from what I heard about the south. They're constantly on guard against raiders there and, once every few years, there's a big fight. Dying on the border isn't unexpected."

"That sounds rough, but I can't really speak for 'em. Our villagers could even go into the forest to collect food and herbs without trouble. Would explain why that woman's teams always mercilessly brutalize everything in their path, though."

After pushing through the forest for another hour, they reached the edge of a clear area that stretched off into the distance. The mists concealed the far reaches, but the endless blanket of snow could have as easily been a field as a lake.

"This is a lake?" Lawrence peered out into the distance.

"Yessir."

Mag squatted down and brushed the snow aside. Rather than stone or soil, there was a solid sheet of ice.

"What the hell?" Neil bent over to look more closely at the surface, "I've never seen anything like this before. How does a whole lake become ice like this?"

"Probably something to do with it being so cold that our asses freeze off? Mmh…"

Mag frowned down at the ice for a moment, then stomped her boot several times. Neil gave the ice a few experimental taps with his warhammer. When nothing happened, he gave it a good swing. A chip came out of the ice, but the rest remained solid.

"Do we have enough time to cross?" Themis asked, "I don't think it's a good idea to camp in an exposed place like this."

"It isn't even noon yet, I think," Mag said. "This looks a lot easier to walk over, so it might not be as slow as before. The sooner we get through, the sooner we can get out of here."

"Let's follow the cliff, then," Lawrence nodded. "It should be faster, and I don't want to find out that this lake isn't as frozen as it looks."

After an hour following the cliff face, Mag returned from her forward position.

"Hold up – there's monsters ahead."

The party stopped in their tracks, looking to the Rogue expectantly.

"What kind?" Lawrence asked after she stood in front of them silently for several seconds.

"Oh, dunno, never seen 'em before. They look like they're made out of ice or something."

"I might have some idea," Horton stepped forward, "is it safe to go up and look?"

"Should be," Mag said, "I came into plain view of 'em, but I stayed a good ways back. There's not much to hide behind out there."

The Wizard followed Mag out, and they returned ten minutes later.

"There's a cave up ahead," Horton reported, "with two Ice Elementals standing out front."

"Are they hostile?" Lawrence asked.

"I-I don't know?" Horton replied in a helpless tone, "It's not as if I could go up and ask."

"How strong do you think they are, Mag?"

"They're the strongest lumps of ice I've ever seen – the second being some ice cubes I had in a drink once."

"Then…does anyone know how Ice Elementals fight?"

"I've only ever read about them, but they're physical attackers, mainly," Horton told them. "Bludgeoning damage using their bodies. They have a charge attack like Earth Elementals, and their regular attacks have a cold attribute – the opposite of what Fire Elementals have. The cold protection enchantments that we have on us already will defend against it. They looked maybe a bit larger than a Human, so they should be the equivalent of a third or fourth-tier summon."

That sounded manageable. As a general rule, the summons of an individual were usually weaker than the tier of the spell that summoned them. A tier three summon would be about as strong as a Silver-ranked Adventurer, while a tier four summon was about as strong as a Gold rank. If Horton's estimate was accurate, it was at worst two monsters – each equivalent in strength to a Gold-rank Adventurer – against a full Gold-ranked team.

"Let's form up," Lawrence said. "We'll approach them, but don't attack first. I don't want a fight if it can be avoided."

They all nodded and assumed their positions. With their team composition, Neil and Themis were the defensive line. Mag and Maurus were immediately behind, ready to come around and flank their opponents once they were tied up by the front. Edging forward, they came within a hundred metres of the Elementals in question. Behind them was a cavern perhaps three metres in height, and five metres in width. They stopped and peered over at the swirling entities, whose bodies were composed of blocks of bright blue ice.

After a few moments, they let out a collective sigh.

"Well," Neil told them, "looks like we're good."

The Ice Elementals came to life and swirled towards the party. Everyone shot the Fighter a glare.

Within a dozen seconds, the Elementals crashed into the defensive line, and Themis found herself assailed by chunks of enchanted ice. She raised her kite shield just before a block of ice the size of her head thudded heavily into it, jarring her arm. Smaller chunks swirled around and pelted her plate mail.

"Themis!"

"I'm fine – these hits aren't getting through."

As disorienting as the attacks were, they couldn't get through her armour. As long as the big chunks could be blocked or deflected away, she would be able to hold her position without much trouble. Maurus reached out and grabbed one of the flying bits of ice that bounced off of her right pauldron. He was yanked forward slightly, and he let go before he collided with her.

"Detached, but attached," he mused. "Hey, how do we even fight these? Where do we hurt them?"

"They should be weak to fire," Horton called over the clunking of their constant attacks. "Otherwise, we'll just have to break them up."

"Works for me," Neil said.

The fighter's warhammer whipped out and shattered a block of flying ice. Its fragments fell lifeless to the ground.

Themis and the Monk joined in, hammering away with mace and unarmed blows. Mag had a tougher time, spending more time dodging the whirling fragments than striking with her mace.

"Why do these things have to attack in all directions?" She complained.

"Should I cast something?" Horton asked.

"Save it – I think we got this handled," Lawrence replied. "Let's get this settled before they wear down our cold protection."

After the initial confusion of facing the strange and unfamiliar foes, the party settled into a stable routine, dispatching their opponents with no more than a few scrapes and bruises. Themis saw to the injured while they caught their breath.

"At least we're all nice and warmed up now," Maurus said.

"How's your mana, Themis?" Lawrence asked.

"I'm more behind than I'd like," she replied. "We should start looking for a place to camp."

Themis' gaze went to the dark cavern, rimmed in ice. Her eyes followed the cliff face, which continued to slowly curve out of sight.

"Mag?" Lawrence said.

"On it."

The Rogue set off along the cliff, disappearing out of sight after a few minutes. The party huddled together just inside the lip of the cave finding a place to hide from the wind.

"Unless the opposite shore is nearby," Horton said, "I think we're going to have to use this cave."

"Yeah," Lawrence agreed. "Even if we find the opposite shore, we still have to make sure the camp area is secure."

"Is it even safe here?" Themis asked, "There might be more Elementals inside."

"I don't hear anything inside, at least," Lawrence peered into the darkness. "We'll send Mag in after she gets back."

Thirty minutes passed, and Mag returned to the party.

"End of the lake is around the bend," she reported. "Should be enough time to check around while we make camp there…what?"

"Since it's pretty close to the shore," Lawrence said, "could you check out this cave before we move on?"

Mag frowned over into the cave entrance. Icicles hung from the ceiling, giving the impression of a maw filled with teeth.

"Uh…why?"

"We should see what's inside, yeah? Exploration and all that."

"Initial exploration is supposed to be mapping out the surface, isn't it?" Mag returned, "Caves and other things come after that."

"That's true…"

"What about the bonus?"

Neil reminded them of the discussion from earlier in the day, and everyone but Themis hmm'd.

"…so we nab the bonus from the cave and move on?" Lawrence said.

"If the bonus even exists," Horton said. "It's worth a look, I guess?"

"Okay," Mag frowned. "Whatever happens, it's not my fault, okay?"

"Got a Darkvision item?"

"Yeah."

Mag pulled her auburn hair over an ear, revealing a glittering obsidian stud before vanishing into the darkness of the cave. Ten minutes later, an ear-splitting roar blasted out from the interior. Those waiting at the entrance cleared out onto the lake outside, and Mag skittered out shortly after.

"This bonus sucks!" She cried.

"What?"

Lawrence's question seemed a needless one. Whatever it was that was after Mag, none of them wanted any part of.

"Run!" She said, "Runrunrunrunwoah!"

The Rogue lost her footing, falling onto her back and skidding by. The object she had been cradling flew out of her hands, rolling up against Themis' plated boot. She frowned down at the icy sphere. There was something encased inside…

Her eyes grew wide as a sinuous white form passed under the stretch of ice cleared by Mag's long slide. A wave of primal fear washed over her, mind and body freezing in pure terror. All around her, the party was in the same state of paralysis.

Oh gods...

The surface cracked and exploded upwards beneath their feet, dumping everyone into the water. The last thing Themis saw was a pair of broad wings behind a long, scaled neck, rising out of the broken ice. Glowing, reptilian eyes glared down furiously upon them, and a jaw filled with dagger-sized teeth opened in their direction. Themis' head sank below the surface, and darkness accompanied her into the icy depths.