Chapter 23

[||||=LEVEL 23= ||||]

Journal log 1

Beck said that since I think so much I should write it down. I actually took the idea down to heart for once and got this little beauty. I had to bribe one of the brains but I got it.

Oleander is being a nosy ass as always but I'm trying to deal with it all by just waiting it out before he gets transferred. Sarge likes him so he stays through the complaints.

This is all the nice and normal stuff but we still have strange stuff going on. The wraiths aren't horrible if you're careful and stick with a buddy but we don't understand them. It's bad for morale… And one guy who had a phobia of serpents.

Anyways, I'll keep from writing it down for now. The brains are trying to keep everything quiet…

Logging out - Kastan Mango

Journal log 19

Strange stuff has gotten worse. People freeze quicker with the temperature dropping past freezing. The brains are getting nervous about something. I can't say I want to know what.

The blizzards are getting more frequent, almost daily, and the wraith are growing in number.

Logging out - Kastan Mango

Journal log 29

Blizzards keep getting worse. Food keeps feeling to shrink. The base gets colder, as though below freezing isn't enough. This is sort of a daily thing now. I don't feel like writing any more.

Even Oleander has been quieter. We talked a little bit with an almost civil conversation. We threw insults but they were half-hearted. I didn't know that he scored top marks in marksmanship. I thought he was compensating with that long rifle of his.

Logging out - Kastan Mango

Journal log 37

Something BIG happened yesterday. You cour faintly hear the roar of a storm but kinda higher pitched than the usual rumble.

The brains were running around in a semi-organized scatter and somebody must have done something right. They all get a switch on that little buzzing thing they have. A pager they call it I think. Techs really not my Forte.

Anyways, the pagers have four lights. Green, yellow, red, and white. The pagers were at red for a moment and the brains all started panicking and rushing to the snow globe… Sorry, to beta camp. A few of them ran to the nearest radios and frantically called to beta camp, had a guy yell at them, and they in turn yelled at us to get our guns.

We already had them, not being stupid, and locked down at a checkpoint. Just like we were drilled.

Maybe ten - fifteen minutes passed and the brain's pager buzzed to a green and he gave out a weird gasping laugh. I can't tell what he was feeling but we were dismissed to our normal schedule for the day.

Logging out - Kastan Mango

Journal log 38

Everything is abuzz with rumors about what happened yesterday but nobody actually knows. The brains are being real quiet about it. Probably hoping it will die off as a drill or something.

Oleander got in a fistfight with a guy. Caboose. The nicest guy in the station, that. He gave me his pudding once. He wouldn't say what it was about but Caboose is being comforted by his little gang he hangs out in - who are all kind of stupid but not hopeless - and Oleander left off to brood.

I tossed him my pudding before he left. Who doesn't like pudding? It'll keep the mood nicer. Caboose saw and gave me a thumbs up. I tossed him a grin and he got to doing his thing again.

Logging out - Kastan Mango

Journal log 59

Wouldn't you believe it… the temperature kept dropping. It was below freezing at first but now it's just utterly shitty. The wraith have been quiet lately. Nothing troublesome has come.

The brains are perpetually nervous again, ticking us all off. Food literally didn't even come yesterday. The truck crashed and we had to send a few squads out to pick up what's left. Some of the food is ruined, though, so ration dinners tonight.

Logging out - Kastan Mango

Journal log 67

The brains carted something through the base yesterday some sort of scaly four limbed creature with sort of catfish-like and a cold aura around it. Seriously. It was moved past me and everything around me got colder. I could see my breath steam in the air.

You could kind of see it's chest rising and falling. As it's chest expanding the scales parted just a little bit. It had super pale skin to the point that you could almost see through it. But I swear that it's skin almost looked to glow a sharp pale blue.

I don't know what that thing was but the brains wouldn't talk and honestly I don't want to know. Some sort of… Cold weather salamander?

Logging out - Kastan Mango

Journal lug 68

Not many people got much sleep last night. Those roars we all assumed were from the storm? They're back and they're loud. Kind of ringing throughout the whole forest. Blizzards last throughout the day now. If you stay stiff for too long, even, a sheet of hoarfrost might start to cover you and then real ice starts to form on the hoarfrost.

Obviously it's not natural but… Daily blizzards? The wraiths? We all knew we were stepping into some deep shit here, joining the Managuards, and hell if we all just blew past that name.

Fuck… Magic is real, isn't it? We sure as hell don't understand the world we live in, that's for sure. I've got questions. So many questions… But I doubt I'll get any answers.

Logging out - Kastan Mango

Journal log - 69

Well that whole magic crisis is over and done with. Yesterday to take our minds off of the roaring, because what else could it be, Oleander just said "So we're not talking about the magical stuff then?"

Pretty much everyone just stared at him for blowing the tension wide open in classic Oleander lack of tact.

We all got to discussing it all at least. Jameson saw a sort of Yeti looking creature. Oleander saw a huge white serpent. I told them about my catfish dragon. Sarge saw two things. A bat with pure white skin and pure red eyes not like the Grimm but like rubies and a lanky, lurching humanoid form through the blizzard that nobody captured. It's still out there in the woods.

All of this said we were… Well at least a little safe in our bunker, hopefully.

Logging out - Kastan Mango

Journal log - 71

We were not safe in the bunker. The constant roaring died down for about five minutes during lunch and suddenly a really REALLY high pitched shred rang out. A scientist's pager buzzed and we all looked at it to see that white dot.

The scientist screamed "Evacuate!" and we all sprung into action. We ran to the closest armory, yelling evacuation to every soldier in our path. They then ran back to their assigned room.

Evacuation policy is to grab a pack from the armory and run to the desert to trek to the nearest road. Meet with the local army center for Vale or the embassy and report in.

We all got to the armory and suited up in heavy gear. SCARAB armor. Super fancy and expensive with the tanks of dust in the back fuelling it.

The only problem with them is that they can't use aura for anything other than using dust to fuel it. The armor is too thick to allow your aura to shield you. On the other hand, you can get out fresh and fight on… Or run. So long as you aren't trapped in the armor you'll be a Goliath among Davids.

We aren't really allowed to use it but during an evacuation It's open season on everything. I got a heavy assault rifle. Prototype chain gun with some stuff happening with fire dust.

Anyways, we started using the suits to run out towards the dome. Didn't want to cross the bump after all. Ah, the hill.

I'll keep from gory descriptions and say that it was hellish. Scientists blind-firing into the blizzard hoping to hit a wraith or a creature, soldiers yelling for some sense of order or to call out hostiles.

Every minute or so a roar would echo out. The blizzard would pick up, you would feel a pulse of extreme cold, and the creatures would be whipped into a frenzy. Sarge yelled for a retreat for us. Man was always smart.

Sarge got an icicle to the foot that didn't bounce off his aura. His floor was pinned and he couldn't do anything but shoot and tank hits. His aura gave out and I suppose something got him.

Beck's chest plate was ripped off by some sort of clawed wraith - and it was definitely a wraith.

Jameson tripped when he, me, and Oleander finally got out of the chaos. Oli and I left him behind.

Finally Oli and I escaped to the relative peace of the forest and blizzard, hoping that we can cross the hill with our suits and dust and find the outpost. If we could find the rails we'd be free but that would take a miracle, and despite magic existing I'm not counting on it to help me out.

I'm writing this as me and Oleander take a break under an ice tree. But… Oli took a nasty hit to the ribs. They're broken. So I'm gonna hand my journal to him and let him write some last words.

I'll write mine after, ditch the SCARAB suit and the heavy assault rifle since it's dust and too heavy to carry without the ammo to be worth it.

Logging off - Kastan Mango

Oleander Fenric Alabaster - last words.

I don't know how Mango can scribble in his journal so often. Ever since Captain Beck recommended he write his thoughts he's been taking this journal with him wherever he goes. Well it helps out now so whatever.

I'm thirty one, ran away from home at twenty in disgrace to join the army, became the best shot in the whole platoon and made some friends. I'm no interesting person. Just an asshole with something to prove.

I don't care for this whole last words thing really. I've got no quotes or anything. Oh, I wish I had died in a pretty woman's arms. There we go. That'll piss my sister off.

If anyone gets this don't bother finding my corpse. I'll die with my platoon here. Managuard is pretty much my life and with them dying here I die.

My sister, who's nineteen, is still in Vale. Thyme Alabaster. She lived at 2095 Yeckle street at the northern end. Give this page to her please, and that's the only time I'll say please so you damn well better respect it.

"Thank you sis. You tried to keep me around when I was clearly good for nothing and everyone knew it. Well I'm not much good for anything now either. Maybe Mango will live and get to live out his life waking off with some war veterans. I'll die for that. Anyways… Thanks. And you better not have had sex before marriage.

P.S. Remember that time capsule in East Park under the 'super tree'? I made another one in that tree I insisted was the real super tree. It's buried in your fancy metal shoe box.

Possible final words - Kastan Mango

Look, I'm an orphan. Nobody's going to blink twice if I die and get forgotten. I didn't have many options so I enlisted and got recruited to the Managuard. "An opportunity to be something" the recruiter called it.

Well I sure will be something here. The guy that talks about the shady magical bullshit that they're doing here.

In the emergency packs are wraiths. A little one and a bigger one. I don't know what the brains were doing in that bunker. But I do know that a good many men died because they were poking into things beyond themselves.

They're playing with stuff nobody gets in a foreign land surrounded by whoever even knows what the wraiths are.

When I was fighting in that final fight I saw a scientist fling a vial of some sort of pale blue glowing liquid. It hit a tree and the wraiths and beasties all swarmed onto it. I dismissed it as magic bullshit but that's something different.

I won't pretend to know what it was. But I have a guess that it's part of whatever they were working on.

I'm bringing back these wraiths but I'm expecting answers if I get back. I'm damned if I don't take them with the walk and I'm damned if I do walk with them since I have such a walk.

Luckily, I've got a little trump card. My semblance. I call it slide. I just slide on stuff. I can ice skate without skates is the only real use for it. But it'll help to move on the sand and go down dunes. The way out of the forest is also sloping slightly downwards.

Now I'm going to give Oli the honor of a bullet to the head to save him from the wraiths and start on my way. And he agreed with me that a bullet is better than being torn apart by the wraiths.

I'll see everyone on the other side, be it wherever we go when we die or in Vale sipping some hot cocoa with whiskey shot in it. Because there's no alcohol or hot cocoa here. Just damndable coffee.

Logging off (maybe permanently) - Kastan Mango

[|||| == ||||]

"Well… that was informative." I say as we finish the journal.

"I feel bad for Oli." Ruby says sadly.

"Stories like that are common." I remark. "Plenty of people are like Oleander. No outstanding talents, no close family, and not enough charm to make it big. Well, he was a good marksman. He seemed to have some pride in that."

"Yeah I guess… I still feel bad for him though. Let's give this letter to his sister when we get back."

"Agreed." I said. "Are you still up for watch?"

"Uh huh." Ruby said.

"Alright. I'm going to bed. Wake up Raven in a few hours. If she complains tell her that I'm making breakfast."

"Got it!"

I quietly walked into the bunkroom and didn't take off my clothes. It was cold enough that I would need them.

I closed my eyes and disappeared into my soul space to practice my heat spells as much as I could. I was going to need them. Badly.

[|||| == ||||]

"Auntie. It's your shift."

"Give me the early morning one."

"Abyss is making breakfast then. Also we have answers to a lot of our questions."

"… Fine."

"Abyss is a really heavy sleeper unless we're pranking him or he's in danger. Don't worry about waking him."

"Alright. So answers?"

"Right. So Mango, the frozen guy, was part of a military organization called the Managuards. We're not sure if the Managuards are a military subsection of the whole organization or the organization doing all of this as a whole."

"I would guess a military branch judging that 'guarding' implies defending with force."

"Mhm. We thought that too. But we can't really say. It's not really important though. Anyways, the scientists were studying something secret. The grunts like Mango weren't allowed to know. One day the scientists freaked out over an alert through some old timey pagers and everyone went onto full lock down of the corridors."

"Nobody suspected magic when they saw the wraiths?"

"If a smart guy says that thing is… I dunno, something normal like a Grimm, what kind of soldier is going to say it's magic?"

"Ah, so they weren't educated about magic?"

"Nope. They were straight recruited, we think. From exceptional scores maybe? Or guys who won't ask questions."

"Probably people who can keep their mouths shut and don't have anyone who would look for them if they were to disappear."

"Oh! Mango was an orphan and his buddy, Oleander, ran from his family years ago. So that probably played a part."

"Now, what happened next?"

"The blizzards and cold kept getting worse and worse. Then some roaring and stuff happened. Like all the time apparently. Mango never found out what was making the roaring noise."

"An… ice elemental?"

"Nope! Also, they called them wraiths and I'm thinking we should call them that too. It kinda fits and it's shorter. Anyways, Oleander finally broke the ice and put the magic idea out there. Mango say some sort of dragon with catfish whiskers but not like sea dragon Grimm. It had four limbs. His sergeant saw a huge white bat and a sort of creepy humanoid thing in the blizzard. Jameson saw some kind of Yeti. Oleander saw a huge white serpent."

"Magical creatures… They exist…"

"Uh huh. Now, the roaring kept happening and people were hard pressed to get sleep. The blizzard became a constant. Finally the pager things flashed a white light and scientists panicked and called an evacuation. Mango and his squad got to the armory and found something called SCARAB armor."

"SCARAB armor… interesting. Did he go into detail?"

"Sort of. It sounds like some sort of exo suit. It's dust fuelled but it's flaw is that it can't use aura for anything other than dust. I really want to see the blueprints for it. It could teach me a lot about how to make Abyss' tool."

"There's probably a few pairs in the armory if the plans aren't there. Perhaps both."

"Uh huh. There's also a prototype gun with a rotary barrel like a mini gun on an assault rifle but it was really heavy. There's one by Oleander corpse somewhere in the forest but there could be more of that type in the armory."

"The bunker sounds like our next stop."

"Definitely. Now, they got into the armor, grabbed some emergency packs, and tried to leave through that path. But it was a huge chaotic brawl and everyone but Oleander and Mango died. Oleander had a cracked rib so he wrote his last words in Mango's journal and was shot. Less painful."

"I'll read them and give him my respects. Someone who can look death in the face and be willingly taken is at least worth reading an epitaph for."

"Mango took the packs because he figured he would probably die anyways and if a miracle was going to happen he should capitalize on it. But one didn't happen. More like the opposite happened."

"I see… You should go to bed now, Ruby."

"MmmI will… oh! And there was some blue goopy stuff that attracted the wraiths and creatures but Mango has no idea what it was."

"I see. I'm more interested in the tower for what spellbooks we might have but it's also likely more dangerous so we'll head to the bunker in the morning. I doubt Abyss will disagree."

"Um, what tower?"

"The… the large one made of ice. That we saw from the clearing?"

"Oh! The empty clearing. It seems kind of nice but why would we go there?"

"... Ruby do you remember anything about a large tower made of ice?"

"A tower made of ice? Um, no."

"Ruby stay there for a second and just wait. Remember these words. Ice. Tower."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"What were the two words I said?"

"You only said ice."

"Oh no… this is a job for Abyss… Go to bed Ruby."

"Uhm… okay."

[|||| == ||||]

I went back to my body around five hours after I went to sleep. It was enough for me, being a homunculi in body.

I still had my clothes on so I just got out of the bed and walked out of the room. Raven was sitting on the couch reading a book. Her tea canister sat beside her empty. "Oh good you're up. We have a problem."

I groaned. "Already? Why can't we have problems when we run into the bunker?" Raven rolled her eyes.

"There's some sort of mental effect on the ice tower. Ruby can't see it or remember it and when I tell her about it she changes the subject and forgets about it."

I stood straight and was instantly alert. "What did you try?"

"I gave her a full physical check. She's perfectly fine there. I don't know about mind tricks so I let her sleep, hoping that no permanent damage will occur if she's not conscious to fight the effects. The soldiers were fine for a while. I read the journal and Sergeant Mango was stationed for almost a half year, perhaps more. With there being no mention of an ice tower in his journal whatsoever despite how prominent the tower is I assume nobody else could see the tower. I can't think of any explanation as for why we can see the tower other than magic."

I looked down. "You probably should have woken me but… Hold on." I turned around towards Ruby and hit her with observe. Nothing was wrong. Other than that… this is magical in nature. I wonder…

I sensed mana as hard as I could on Ruby and found nothing. She was fine.

"Nothing is wrong with her. No mana is on her and she's fine physically. How much sleep has she gotten?"

"Five and a half hours." I thought for a moment.

"We'll leave her for now. You're probably right that she's okay… for now. We'll test this thing in the morning." Raven nodded and went to her bed. I could tell she was asleep in minutes.

I myself focused more on my heat affinity in a deep meditation and kept my mind off of Ruby. My parallels practiced my four heat attacks, one of then new. And the new one… well, I read a few chemistry books. Water being one part oxygen and two parts hydrogen I can flash heat it and make an explosion so long as there's water in the air.

The icy forest is pretty dry but I can add a little water vapor to the air no problem if I need to. Sadly this wasn't actually a skill but more of a creative usage of my affinities. I could shape the air to make the blast shaped at least. It's almost easier to just throw a heatwave but heatwave doesn't have any force to it.

The other attack, actually a spell this time, is also explosive. I make a hollow casing of ice - normally a spike - and make a crapton of superheated steam in it.

I toss the ice and when it shatters it goes boom from the pressure and burns everything around it with the heat from the steam. I have to make the ice somewhat thin so that it shatters on contact but doesn't let a hole into existence from the steam.

*Ding!* New spell acquired! - Pressure spike

"Steam is surprisingly destructive. Then again, it's ice with a chaos part. Chaos tends to be sneakier than most care to admit with incredible potential. Kind of like those water mages and their BS."

-Cynlenia the broiling

Getting sciencey with magic was… well it produced some good results. It also made me want to kick myself over something. I had absolutely neglected my water affinity. Water was just brimming with potential. It had a lot of energy in it's bonds with how stable it is. It brought my attention to my motion affinity. Could I oxidize atoms? Knock off hydrogen atoms of something to create energy then convert that energy to heat?

There was also my light affinity. Could I enchant something to inherit the properties of the speed of light? And lasers… Just lasers. I could probably make a laser if I got creative with it but I haven't the textbooks to properly research light. I knew of hard light and called projecting mana with a light affinity making hard light but in reality was it just projected mana with a light affinity to glow?

I had gotten lax. Overlooked potential in my spells and affinities. Ruby had taken things to the next level with her weapon. I had to take things to a new height with my spells as well. If there was one good part of this expedition at least it was that my desperation for more efficient ways of using heat brought me to powerful spells.

My heat affinity had actually reached one hundred thirty seven, making it my fourth highest base affinity. I would prefer heat over purity as a dominant for the moment. Actually… I wonder what I can do with air? It was mostly made of nitrogen… a nitrogen bomb… because science makes explosions.

I need to make a railgun. There is no reason whatsoever not to. Ruby's sniper works as a railgun in principle with the acceleration runes but I need a spell for it to be activated easier. A motion based spell to fire a projectile… a super-heated projectile… Better…

And the electrical augmentation… I could super-heat a liquid blade and run electricity through it. A motion rune could make it stick together… I could have a liquid metal sword that's electric…

And let's not forget about cold too. A shield of absolute zero would no-sell most elemental attacks. Electricity, fire, ice… I

I can't think of anything that could break such a shield.

There's also my air manipulation. When I fought Qrow I made a sonic boom by expanding a space and rapidly compressing it to create a boom. But that was just with the air already in that space. I could do better. I could shape it to fire sonic booms that throw an enemy back. I could also do it in the area around me with my space affinity. Using both could destroy buildings with just my affinities.

Make a large amount of space from expanding the space already there, force as much air into the space as I could, and let the space snap back to the norm, making all that air push against itself and make air fly out at a high velocity. I wonder if I can give the air more mass. I could just throw dust into it but… superheated steam. Duh. Alright. So that's one move I want to test out today.

I could make a portal in space too. Possibly. Or very high in the air and trick somebody into it. On the topic of spatial traps I could bend space into a doughnut so that somebody running towards me would turn whether or not they wanted to simply because going straight for them was actually curving in a circular pattern from out relative position.

I could use space affinity to draw a large object closer together as well to make it more dense through compressing the space it inhabits. Or… the SCARAB armor but enhanced by Ruby with runes to let it compact in on itself into a pocket dimension?

Dear lord that would be hard to properly plan out with us thinking in more than three dimensions on a two dimensional surface (paper). But it's possible. Ruby did some incredible things with her scythe and my halberd is already incredible with the planning that we have already done. But it could be better.

Actually making a pocket dimension would need a time affinity. Unless space naturally makes time by existing. Time not having a presence in a pocket space would be useful actually. I could store prisoners in one of those. I could also time-lock armor. Make it so that the way it is at the moment it's locked in time is how it always will be. I'll need to read up a bit on quantum physics for this sort of thing though.

With all I've been neglecting with magic… what can I do with aura? Is this why it's been leveling at a snail's pace?

I haven't been practicing what I've been preaching. Well I've been tearing into magic but that's not quite the same thing. It's very very similar but releasing the hidden potential in things is what makes me think I'm using science to my advantage. So no. I haven't been acting to my furthest potential. I need to try harder to use things efficiently rather than looking for new resources.

After meditating and writing ideas in one of my journals - more for ideas for later than actual science and theories on things - until I had to make breakfast. I checked if the stove worked and surprise, surprise… it didn't. I didn't really want to waste the wood I had in my inventory though. It was good wood. So I made an axe from ice and hacked the empty cabinet down to splinters.

I piled the wood in the center of the room and tried getting sciencey. I would need to start this sort of exercise soon enough anyways… I got a firm grasp on the air around us and separated the oxygen out from all the other junk. It wasn't extraordinarily hard. Just some mental discipline. Air was composed of a few parts in a mixture, all of which were apparently under the label of air. So I could control gaseous nitrogen, oxygen, and argon… I think. I don't know about the trace elements of air.

I can feel out the air well enough to get a taste for the nitrogen and oxygen easily. Argon took some concentration to find. Sensing elements was kind of like mana. I could feel the difference in them in a way that wasn't really equivalent to any of the five senses. I didn't get a skill for it, which was fine. I was feeling through my affinity for air. Not some magic or anything.

I took the separate oxygen and cloaked it in a thin layer around the wood. A snap of my fingers for dramatic effect and I made a small but intense burst of heat mana to the wood and oxygen. In a poof a fire sprang up. To deal with the fumes I just made a breeze to blow all the smoke out before it collected.

I took a pan out from my inventory and some eggs and got started cooking. Eggs, bacon, and sausage with the sausage skewered with my non-heat conductive ice over the open fire to give it a little more smokey taste.

Ruby got up but saw I wasn't done yet and rested a little more. Raven was more tired so she didn't stir. She might be awake though. I'm not really sure.

As I started dishing up three plates the two got up. It turns out Raven really was awake. We ate in silence with Raven and Ruby on the couch and me sitting back in my icy chair I made to sit near the fire.

As we finished up I broke my plate cleanly in two over my leg to nullify the rune and tossed it into the fire. I really don't think anyone needs more ice in this forest. Raven sleepily finished her food and broke her plate before tossing it to the fire. Ruby held up her bacon in her hand to nibble on and threw her plate to the fire, where it broke on the wood.

"So Ruby." I said calmly. I focused hard on sensing mana. "You remember that icy tower we saw yesterday?"

Ruby looked about to respond for just a moment but I sensed a purple attuned mana rushing towards her inthe organized and controlled manner that spells were. I stretched out a tendril of my own projected mana and encased Ruby in a bubble in a split second. Ruby darted up to her feet and crescent eclipse appeared in her hand.

"Calm down." I said seriously. Ruby looked towards me with an alert gaze. "Do you remember the tower of ice? The one you saw yesterday at the peak?" Ruby blinked and looked like she was about to respond but winced and hissed as she clutched her head. Outside the bubble a stream of purple mana continued to throw itself against my projected mana fruitlessly. My mana reserves decreased a little with it disturbing my mana in the barrier and knocking it from my control. I had a high skill in projecting and controlling mana and more than enough to spare. Bring it on.

"I… sort of? The spire… or was it a clearing?" Ruby grimaced.

"She thought it was a clearing when we talked. That there was nothing there worthwhile." Raven said. She pulled out her scroll and got to the pictures. She walked up to Ruby and showed the pictures to her.

Ruby let out an "Eeep!" and her hand went back to her head. "Okay… what's going on? Why is my memory so… blurry?"

"Mind mana, compulsion mana… mana that messes with your head." I explained. "There's some sort of magical system in place to deny the knowledge of any tower of ice like what we saw." Ruby's eyes widened.

"Someone's been messing with my head?!" I shook my head.

"More like something. But I don't think we can do anything about it. I can't maintain this shield from the compulsion mana in combat since you can't shoot through it and moving unpredictably too quickly like you do in combat you'd run into and possibly break the shield. There's three options here. The first is that we let the mana get to you. The soldiers were fine and all the mana seems to be doing to you is making you forget about the tower. Perhaps it also compels you to not go to the tower either. It's not going to kill you or anything."

"I really don't like that plan. Just saying…" Ruby said with a frown. I nodded understandingly. I wouldn't want anything messing with my head either.

"The second option is to put you in my soul space. Raven and I are protected from the mana due to our magic. In my soul you'll be safe too." Ruby nodded but didn't seem very happy with the idea. It was basically taking a bench for the adventure.

"The last option is I go into your soul space and we merge our souls. My mana infused soul will protect yours that way. Your aura just lets the mana right through as is but if a mana as dense as mine were within you then the compulsion mana would be harmless as a fly. I could still cast spells too and make a remote clone. However, I wouldn't be able to fight in close combat since as you know, clones are fragile." Ruby nodded.

"I'd really like option three." She said. "I'd rather not help than be compelled by a mysterious force to forget something really important." I nodded.

"Then we'll go with that then. I thought it was the best option too." I walked towards Ruby, passing through the mana barrier, and put my body into Ruby's soul space as I replaced my 'The Storm' title with my passenger title. I lowered the shield of mana cautiously and watched a little attuned mana crash harmlessly against out soul space.

I had greatly reduced air and electrical affinities and only 186,480 mana instead of my new usual above 200k. Also, Krebs downgraded to a petty elemental to his chagrin. Not fun for anyone but it was better than Ruby being mind controlled.

"Alright." I spoke through wind whisper. "Let's go. Everyone got everything?"

"Yup."

"Of course."

"Well then to the bunker. Chop chop. I'm going to make a smoothie in this nice warm soul space." Ruby sighed and Raven scoffed at me. Well I gave them other options.

I really was making a smoothie though. We had some pineapple, raspberries, and blackberries along with the normal vanilla protein powder and lemonade. Tasty stuff. But I didn't share with Raven or Ruby since they were cold enough already.

When we got to the hilltop my heat beam skill was at level twenty four and pressure spike at fourteen. I had mostly focused on pressure spike but I noticed that it leveled up slower. A lot slower.

It made sense I guess. Pressure spike was a very strong move and way more complex than heat beam. It leveled up slower as a result. I had seen it before but never quite so pronounced.

I had also discovered a little fun fact about heat beam. There were two ways of actually casting the spell, both of which run off the same skill levels. It made me wonder if a little looser a definition of a skill might do me good. Taking skills as a more free-form thing than the pre-determined move that I had been taking them for until now.

Heat beam could be a bolt or sustained. The bolt was a build up of heat beam collected in my hand and then fired. It was quite like the fireball I had originally imagined it to be and it was how I had casted it in combat.

The other way was sustained. Keeping a constant and steady flow of mana makes a literal beam of heat rather than the creative interpretation of the wording the more bolt-like form did. It was a heat laser basically with it's intensity based on my affinity, mana spent, and skill level.

I didn't get much of a chance to experiment before we got to the top. I made a list of skills that might have a different interpretation in my journal.

Air blade was the first one I noticed. It was really just sharpening the air through pressure and flinging the sharpened air at an enemy. I could probably make it a sword to wield. Would my electrical augmentation still work though, being non-conducting air? Would I make a lightning blade? I put these thoughts out of mind for later. Science and creativity... I needed to go over my skills with a keen eye when I get back.

"There." Raven said to Ruby. Ruby hit the top of the hill and stared at the tower.

"Whoah. Yeah, that's awesome." Raven shrugged and looked down the edge of the big hill. She seemed to be considering something.

"What is it you're thinking?" Ruby asked. Raven glanced at her and the edge.

"I'm thinking about sending you down in a sled. It would save time and there aren't many trees in the way." Ruby walked over and looked down the edge.

She was right. There weren't many ice trees at all. I could help her with some space magic. Try warping the space around the tree so Ruby curved around them instead of going into them… "Sure. Let's do it." I said.

Raven nodded as I made a sled for Ruby. Nothing great but it would slide. "I'm going to fly down quickly." with that she changed to a raven and got to flying downhill quick to not lose too much heat.

"Wheeee!" Ruby cheered as she jumped onto the sled. The sled tipped over the edge with the momentum Ruby brought.

Ruby laughed a little as she began rocketing down the hill. I managed her speed with weakening spatial interference and resisting it as needed and some encouragement through magically induced motion to avoid trees. Whenever I came too close I warped the trees to bend out of the way.

Ruby laughed as she hit the bottom and I slowed us down. Raven was already down and dealing with a minor and a few petty elementals.

"That was fun! Now to the bunker right?" Ruby hopped off the sled and Raven nodded as the two set off again.

I was feeling a little left out so I made a remote clone and walked with them. I didn't have any muscle fatigue or reason to use a clone but I kept an eye out for wraiths with them.

With the first group of elementals we saw I decided on a live action exercise of my pressure spike spell.

"Hold on. I want to test a new spell I have." I used my water affinity first to collect water vapor in the air in the shape of a cone. Then I made a thin sheet of ice around the steam from the vapor. Finally was to make the steam inside the spike extremely hot. Burn your face off hot. Keeping the ice solid and cold while the condensed steam was very how was difficult but I had gotten it with practice. Finally I grasped the ice with my motion and ice affinities and threw it as hard as I could towards the group of wraiths.

It only took a out a second and a half to make the spike. The quicker I got it done the less mana I had to spend keeping the temperature of the ice down. It was made from my super ice so it was somewhat cheaper to make the ice as I needed less to hold a shell.

The spike flew towards the wraiths and hit the face of a common one. It felt like I was watching in slow motion as the spike shattered and the steam exploded out.

The elemental didn't stand a chance. It was hurt a little by the ice spike but that massive amount of steam shot out at the point of impact in a violent, forceful, and very hot explosion.

The explosion was pretty big. Enough to hit some people standing close to each other but not big enough that I had to be careful aiming.

I had only killed one elemental and harmed one from the explosion. There were still three more to go. How about I try that sonic boom?

I stretched the space as quickly as I could and shoved as much air in the center as I could. I drew water vapor to the middle of the blast and dumped mana to my heat affinity to warm it to scalding steam once more.

For a second I continued pulling air into the vortex and heating and collecting water to steam in the center. I made a panel of ice in front of Ruby and Raven just in case and finally let the expansion of space go. The space near instantly compressed everything but I pushed it further to compress the vortex.

I probably could have done more. I had set up the vortex only in the middle of the sphere first of all. I wanted the space to really slam the air and steam together to make them blast apart.

I could also make the vortex way bigger with time or mana. But I'm edging on ten thousand mana costs now.

If I want to repeat this I'll make the expanded space smaller so I have to fit less air into it. The higher the fullness of the space the better it will be. Size matters here but what matters more is the density of the technique.

With this technique I just made a vortex at the center. It worked but it would be better to push air in than pull it in. I want a bubble of evenly displaced air so it all collides at the center. Otherwise I lose a lot of force from the lack of motion. It's less efficient this way.

That's why the shockwave when I fought Qrow was so big despite not really having that much space. The space was filled with air completely. This time, though, the bubble of space was far larger but the air wouldn't slam into each other with the condensing of the space fuelling it. It was already condensed and no energy would be gained from it.

Oh well. I'll do better next time. The space expansion was nearly useless this time but I still had a shockwave and a bunch of steam that will shoot out.

This result was far more impressive than the pressure spike. It was longer to prepare and four times as expensive, taking about ten thousand mana to create, but well worth it even with my poor setup.

The compressed air and steam blew out with the force of one of my strongest tornadoes. Scorching steam and winds strong enough to throw a man into the air at high speeds slammed against everything in the clearing.

The ice trees cracked and groaned against the blast and the intense steam rushed past them but not without leaving a melted patch of icy bark.

The elementals hissed but in the massive boom the noise was lost. They died before the steam but even before fully disappearing they were hurled into the trees so hard they left an indent. And that was with their mass half gone from the disappearing.

The ground, too, was left marred. A ringed crater pushed deep into the ground and the snow was blown into the air, where it fell back down.

*Ding!* New spell acquired! - Shockwave (enhanced)

"Making air into a shockwave to really stun some idiots who thought that wind couldn't hurt them is fun but more fun is to make it bigger. Even more fun it to put shrapnel in it. "

-Marvoleo the unseen explosion

"Abyss… What was that?" Ruby asked

"A shockwave of compressed air and very hot steam inside expanded space. Let the space close to a normal size and it becomes even more compressed, which makes the air and steam blow with even more force. You think I can trap all that air into a shell of ice like the steam in the pressure spike?"

"It's… Destructive." Raven said cautiously.

"I prefer smaller things but I realized that a lot of what I do isn't really shock and awe. I made a laundry list of spells to make. I've got an idea for a rail gun and a shield or range of absolute temperatures to negate elemental attacks."

"My gun is a rail gun though… Sort of. It uses kinetic energy instead of magnetism but it's got the same principle." Ruby stated.

"Yes but I can make a gun that's better at that one thing. Made just to shoot things really fast. I also want to see if I can travel at the speed of light if I turn my body to light. I know from when I was a mass of aura that I couldn't but with my light affinity as pure energy with a soul I could develop a pseudo teleportation. Like what I did with wind yesterday but more instant action."

"Do you think I could do something like that?" Raven asked curiously.

"You have a space affinity but compared to your other maiden granted affinities it's nearly unnoticeable for you. You might be able to make a weaker version. Also, that one I tried was a trial so it wasn't at full power. With a few more seconds or more mana I could make a far stronger shockwave."

"That was underpowered?" Raven asked disbelievingly.

"It was the first time I've done that move. Compared to my usual moves, though, that took a lot out of me. Not nearly as much as that little flight yesterday but a lot. About one tenth of that flight actually. Heating a strip of cold space to be warm for a mile as well as pushing myself with wind, space manipulation, and motion as fast as I can isn't cheap."

"Why haven't you done these sorts of things before?"

"I have a few times but I never needed heat magic much. It seemed a somewhat useless affinity. But then I made the heat beam fighting the strong elemental in desperation and realized that I had the most dangerous aspect of fire at my disposal. Heat."

"I didn't immediately come up with pressure spike. I found I could create steam from ambient water vapor first. I tried making it as hot as I could and found that it was… Well very hot. Then I remembered pressure. So I shoved a ton of steam into a ball of ice but it didn't really work right. It worked but it was a little hard to break. I brainstormed and thought of a spike."

"That… alright. That makes some sense." Raven admitted. "But the shockwave?"

"I made one by accident when I made a warp and closed it quickly while fighting Qrow. I didn't really think to weaponize it since… Well why would I? I can make tornadoes. What would a tiny shockwave do? Well as you can see, it does a lot. And this one was really inefficiently made. I need to practice it and go over my spells with a critical eye since I probably missed more hidden potential somewhere."

"We both did." Raven agreed. "I never thought of shockwaves. I saw you create tornadoes - small tornadoes admittedly - like they were nothing and I suppose I got into the bigger is better mindset as well."

"Hmmm. We can fix it. But first… to the bunker." Raven sighed and walked along towards the direction where we had seen the bunker before. With all the rust on the rails it was obvious that they didn't work.

I snickered inside Ruby's soul space. Not walking or feeling cold all the time was really nice. I just got to stay in here practicing my spells while my parallels meditate. Actually, I'll change them to meditate on my air affinity. It grows three times as fast. I should take advantage of that.

[|||| == ||||]

"So… what do you wanna do? I've done all the paperwork for nature's bounty, bribed, blackmailed, and threatened everyone in need of it, or you have, we've got all the protection money and such… we have nothing to do."

"… "

"You could at least help."

"?"

"No you've had two of those bigger containers of ice cream already. No matter how skinny you stay there's a certain limit to how much ice cream one can eat. You'll get yourself sick again."

"?!..."

"Don't refuse to look at me! Unless you want stomach pains again."

"!"

"Yeah. Nobody likes those… but back to my original question… what do we do now?"

"… *Schtick* "

"No Raven's gone too. On that trip with them… whatever they're doing."

" *Schtich* "

"How about we… we went to Junior's last night… and it's only - three o'clock?! I thought it had to be at least nine!"

"!"

"I know!"

"!?"

"Yeah. I have no damn idea what the hell to do besides work now either. Paperwork is mindless enough but it's all sorted. It's just gratuitous now."

" *Sigh* "

"I wish Mystic was here. He's really good at cards when I can get him to play. He's not an alcoholic, weirdly enough… you know how to play?"

" *Shake* "

"Awww. Sorry but I'm not really interested enough in a card game to teach a beginner. I'm bored. Not desperate."

" *Shrug* "

"… Wanna go beat some poor thugs up?"

" :D"

[|||| == ||||]

I shot a few more heat beams at wraiths, one-hitting them easily. Raven and Ruby didn't even pay attention to them anymore. Unless there was a big one they just eyed them and kept walking. I never missed with prediction.

We had all kept an eye out for anything weird. There were two things. The first was a giant thing like before but then it seemed to sink into the snow. Like it burrowed down… Not exactly reassuring.

Raven threw a fireball at it and we saw nothing but dirt under the snow. So either we're hallucinating, there's a creature following us that can sink into and disperse into the snow, or something is making ice rise up and fall sporadically. I don't like any of those.

The second was a glimpse of a mythical creature. A large white furred ape-like creature with six black eyes and a small trunk was swinging from the trees near silently. Too quiet for Ruby or Raven to hear anyways.

I caught a whiff of a high affinity for ice above the norm and immediately shot a super-powered heat beam at it, thinking it a particularly sneaky ice wraith.

I hit and the creature let out a high pitched pained trumpeting sound, which was weird to hear, and ran away. We probably could have caught it but we were caught off guard.

We talked a little about it but nobody knew what it was or… Anything about it other than that it was there. It didn't seem dangerous but we only caught a glimpse.

From then onwards it was smooth sailing. I kept a closer eye on my mana sense, thinking that I might be able to sense the collective mana from a blizzard. They were almost certainly caused by an abundance of ice mana. Possibly the roaring creature, judging by the journal's mention of how the storm would whip up and the creatures would get into a frenzy whenever it roared.

When we finally hit a road… It was not pretty. Bodies stuck out of the ground a little, dead from bad wounds and frozen to death, giving blued skin and grisly eyes. Eyes and extreme cold is not a pretty sight. Especially the ones that shatter due to the cold.

Raven sighed softly and walked forward. A little pull on Ruby's shoulder got her moving, though Ruby looked disturbed at the sight at the battlefield. She let out a quiet gasp at the sight of a scientist with a face of terror and his head half decapitated messily.

I crouched down and grabbed onto Ruby's waist. Without a sound I lifted her upwards onto my shoulders. Puncture wounds could dispel the avatar but something as small as some weight on my auric shoulders is fine. Ruby is light anyways.

I walked through the battlefield trailing behind Raven. She slowed, however, when she saw a long blue pincer poking out of the ground. I magically moved the snow aside and revealed a sort of huge quadrapedal creature with an upper torso and scythes for arms. Observe called it an elder tundra scimarliac. I've never heard of any sort of creature like that before…

I put it in my inventory for studying and dissection and walked onwards. Along the way we saw a few other magical creatures preserved in the snow. A wolf-like creature with mandibles and two tails called a snow arawarg, a small squid like creature that was furred called a makkakan, and most impressively of all was a huge manta-ray sort of creature called a northern alpha sky skiff. How it attacked anything is a mystery. I stored them all in my inventory. I'm lucky the cold preserved these creatures so well.

The path finally made it to the bunker, where the corpses thinned out to some soldiers slaughtered in various ways. One poor fellow was skewered by an icicle that sunk into the concrete itself, such was the force with which it had been propelled.

Ruby was very quiet throughout all of this. I didn't see any elementals or creatures at all during our walk, despite it being over twenty minutes of walking… But I think i know why.

The ice trees passively emit ice mana. Observe has said that since the beginning. But the bunker has a little bit of a clearing around it. The ice mana was way thinner here…

If I loosed a huge amount of heat attuned mana and Raven released fire attuned mana we could leave this place without a problem since the mana will have canceled out the ice mana to the typical neutral state that mana was typically at.

Not that we needed it. Raven could make a portal to Vernal at any time.

Now that we're here though we get to rummage through the place… this is going to suck, isn't it?

AN: No ending segment since this chapter is edging 10k and you got Mango's journal at the start.

[|||| =NEXT LEVEL= ||||]

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