Strike of the Frozen Disaster

Later that night, Aayla curled up in her quilts. She dearly missed her sleeping bag and snow gear. They were so, so warm! Even with an extra layer of clothes on, sleeping on a bed of snow was chilly. Aayla barely managed to drift off to sleep between the slight chill and worry about magical beasts.

The freezing rain steadily got worse. The rain trickled down the steep slopes towards the fourth-year camp. Snow and rain mixed to form a slushy mix, which pressed against the barrier. Inch by inch the barrier was slowly covered by the rain and snow.

Sometime in the early morning, the temperature plunged from freezing to below zero. The winds howled as freezing rain turned to hail. A loud crack broke through the patter of rain followed by an earth-shattering roar.

Once again woken up from her slumber, Aayla tried to ignore the noise until it went away. That is until the ground started shaking. She quickly grabbed her boots and jacket then crawled out of her snow cave. Hail had destroyed the tent, and it was too dark to see anything.

As the hail pinged against her shield, Aayla dug herself out of the tent and grabbed a broken lamp. The lamp barely illuminated the darkness. She followed her trail to the edge of the hilltop. Aayla could barely see the campfire of the Nafriton main camp. The rumbling and shaking got worse and worse.

Where was that noise coming from? It sounded like it was coming from behind the two hills. She turned left then right, but the darkness kept everything concealed. Suddenly, yells and shouts emerged from the camp below her. The campfire flickered in the darkness. Should she run down there?

Aayla hesitated. She would rather not leave the high ground. Still, it would be best to stick with a group in an unknown situation. So, she returned to her own camp. Just as she started fumbling through the darkness in search of a rope, the roar reached its peak.

Something white and very, very large blew through the valley between the two hills, surging down towards the Nafriton main camp. Within seconds, it was buried. Ice element mana surged and threw Aayla far away. Coughing and spluttering, Aayla struggled to get out of the waist high snow drift.

When she finally got up, the roaring and rumbling had stopped. Still being pelted with hail, Aayla fumbled around in the darkness to find her camp. Hopelessly lost, she struggled to listen for any magical beasts. The snow drift slowly sunk from waist height, to hip height, to knee height then finally ankle height.

Aayla pulled her jacket around closer. Ever since whatever it was blew passed her, the temperature had dropped by at least another ten degrees. The temperature was still cooling. She could feel the ice element mana freezing her face and hands.

Every so often Aayla would brush the accumulated ice off of her clothes. With her little mana capacity and skill, Aayla could barely protect her own body let alone her clothes. She shuffled her feet through the snow, like what you would do in the ocean to avoid stepping on stingrays.

Since the snow drift was this short, then the edge of the hill top should be close by. Taking a tumble now could be deadly. Still, she shuffled as fast as she could. After what felt like ages of battling against the hail and winds, her feet finally struck something.

When Aayla brushed away the snow, she found her very broken and very icy lamp. Aayla gritted her teeth and poured mana into it. She needed to conserve her mana for warmth, but there was no way to find her campsite without light.

As the lamp flickered to life, Aayla heaved a sigh of relief. Thank goodness it still worked. The darkness around her was illuminated once again. To her horror, the edge of the hilltop was right in front of her. One wrong step and she would have rolled down the steep side headfirst.

Aayla carefully stepped back then checked around her. She could see some of the scattered remains of her tent. They were scattered to randomly and far apart for her to follow back to her tent. She decided to follow the edge until she saw the main camp's light. The trail to her own campsite should be nearby.

Strangely enough, she never saw any other light. When Aayla finally reached the very end of the hilltop, she realized that something was wrong. The storm had lightened up, and hail had turned into snow. With her lamp, Aayla could see the top of the other hill.

Something was strange though. When did the valley below get so close? And it seemed to be moving?! Aayla added more mana to her lamp. The light cut through the darkness onto the valley below. She dug through the snow for a rock then threw it down into the ravine.

A few seconds later, she heard a plop and saw the rock slowly sink into the snow. Traces of ice element mana were released from the cracks in the snow caused by the rock. Aayla frowned. According to her memory, the hill should be higher than that. The time from drop to plop was way too short.

A bad feeling worked its way into her heart. Aayla trudged back through the path that she forged earlier. This time, she focused on the snow drifts for her path. Fortunately, she found traces of it this time. When she looked back over the edge, the glow of the main camp was nowhere to be seen.

There were no flames from the bonfire or the subtle glow of the defensive formations. The faint glow of lamps or magic couldn't be seen either. Aayla checked the height of the hill again. As expected, it was too short. The rock that she found only fell for a few seconds longer than when she checked at the end.

Aayla found a dead sapling destroyed by the brutal hail. She scrapped the sides of the hill as far down as she could. When she pulled the sapling back up, Aayla grabbed some of the snow off of the end. Rather than snow, it was an ice element infused mix of snow and water.

Earlier in the day, freezing rain fell for several hours. Rain and snow mixed to form a slushy mixture. It was not quite snow, not quite water. Later, the temperature fell so much that the freezing rain turned into hail. Aayla remembered the sudden roar that woke her and the rumbling sound.

She brushed the ice off of her coat again and rolled her hands up into her sleeves. Random glaciers dotted the northern reaches of Chinebar due to its climate and the accumulation of ice element mana. Lots of snow had built up on the nearby glaciers during the recent storm. The freezing rain could have weakened some already precariously overweight snow drifts.

In short, the conditions were right for an avalanche. With the sudden temperature change, something could have easily broken or shifted. Then gravity could free the heavy slushy mix, sending it and the ice element mana hurtling down from where ever it came from.

Seeking the path of least resistance, an avalanche had most likely found its way towards the Nafriton main camp. Aayla bit her lip. Something seemed wrong when she checked the camp area. Originally, she thought the main hazards were flooding from the river or runoff flowing through the camp.

Avalanches were outside of her expectations. She couldn't see any tall glaciers nearby. The ice element mana must have made the one that destroyed the Nafriton main camp act differently than what she was used to.

Aayla looked out into the darkness again in hopes of seeing a mote of light. She started kicking herself mentally. Why didn't she speak up during that time? Ramona told her to keep her distance from the Nafriton team unless it was for work and an emergency. Still, pointing out some potentially deadly observations should have been alright.

Maybe the team would have been more prepared. Aayla didn't have any rescue tools. With the darkness, any rescue attempts by her would have to wait until morning. Do the professors already know about this?

Suddenly, she sneezed. Aayla tried to pull her coat more tightly around her. First, she should get back to camp and start a fire. Her hands were shaking so bad that she might drop the lamp. Stumbling through the darkness, Aayla found her way back to her campsite.

The tent was long gone along with most of her fire wood. Fortunately, the snow cave and her luggage inside seemed to be safe. Aayla quickly built up a semi-cave to block out some of the wind and snow. The snow cave was not built for handling fires. She grabbed all of the firewood that she could find and settled in.

Inside the semi-cave, Aayla piled up the firewood then focused on the New Moon Bracelet. She drew out the fire element mana to ignite the logs. That mana was particularly good at driving away the cold. Aayla chuckled to herself. She actually got something useful after that fight with Lysander Foryl.

Aayla brought her hands close to the fire. She had a lot of time to kill before the sun rose and the storm calmed down enough to search for the other students. Hopefully her mana would hold out until then.