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Chapter 69: Ice
🕑 Added 2024-11-20 08:54:16 +0000 UTCChapter 69: Ice
The front horse whinnied pitifully, the forced calm of its blinders and whatever coated its feed (because no horse could be so calm in battle without supplements) failing as Sprites broke off to torment it, an act that served no purpose in the order of battle except perhaps to showcase their cruelty. They didn’t get to horse around for too long though, because Harvey already called the retreat, and I wasn’t the only one listening. Two mages stepped forward past Harvey and I, pressing their hands against the back of the abandoned carriage. They were immediately swarmed by Sprites but paid no attention to the ice coalescing across their bodies, their focus entirely on a final pair of spells.
A beam of fire cut through wood and tarpaulin with ease, and although I couldn’t see the target, simple probability dictated that they struck one of the many crates stacked therein. The second mage buffeted the carriage with a continuous gust of wind, something that puzzled me even as I kept fighting for my life, because such a weak wind spell had no effect at all. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harvey turn right around, exposing his back to the enemy without a second thought. His fingers covered both eyes, with thumbs stuck in his ears and his mouth opened wide in a silent scream. I didn’t know, at that moment, what was about to happen, but I have always believed strongly in the example of experts, so when Harvey did this, I immediately followed his example, strange as it was.
A massive force threw me to the frozen ground, leaving bruises along my face and knees, but I knew without a doubt in my heart that I’d gotten off lightly. By the time I pulled myself up and turned back to the front, the condemned carriage was no more, replaced with a pile of smouldering black ash, while the bulk of the Ice Sprites had vanished entirely. Of the vanguard that assaulted us from the North, only a few scattered forms could be seen on the very periphery, and even they had not escaped unscathed, with limbs blown off and even those cores that remained intact wobbling in place, as though the victim of a sudden, profound shock. A shock-wave, I realised belatedly, old YouTube videos of armed struggle returning to my mind with the benefit of hindsight. Apparently, Valkyrie Dust was rather volatile when exposed to an open flame, something to keep in mind for future transactions.
“Good, your insides are still inside,” Harvey chuckled weakly, picking himself up next to me, looking rather worse for wear.
That was indeed something to celebrate, because even if we’d both taken a few stings while our backs were turned, that was greatly preferable to internal ruptures across all of my organs, a probable outcome without the precautions we’d taken. Pumpkin also returned to my side during that time, having been thrown nearly half the convoy away, due to being far lighter than a grown man. Still, he seemed no worse for wear, unlike Harvey’s remaining summons, which were barely hanging onto the corporeal world, and vanished in soft puffs of smoke before my eyes.
“No mana left to sustain them,” Harvey explained softly, before turning his attention to the true survivors of the convoy. “I don’t have much to begin with, since I’m still primarily a Thief, not a caster.”
That wasn’t a problem, as their jobs were done, and Harvey could always bring them back later on if needed. Far more important were the four drivers that made it. It might have been a clean sweep, if not for the fifth’s close proximity to the shockwave and his evident lack of preparation; he now lay on the ground in a pool of his own blood, emitted from every orifice. Despite the grisly scene, there was evidently no time to mourn or even deal with the body, as the remaining four drivers resumed their chanting at once, and our descent continued. If anything, it was even faster now, with the area to cover reduced yet again.
“Why are we still hiding?” I felt compelled to ask as we sank up to our chests, where even my double checking found no more than a handful of Sprites remaining, none of them looking to be in any shape to fight. “The enemy is gone.”
“The mindless scavengers are gone,” Harvey corrected me. “They were never the reason for us to go underground. If you want to know the truth, keep looking up. It will hurt, but it’s a good pain, one the System endorses.”
I wasn’t much a fan of pain in principle, so I might have been tempted to duck and hide, were it not for the burning curiosity that now compelled me to act against my explicit short-term interest. So, I kept my head up high as the remnants of our convoy sank below the earth, persisting even as the white sky burned my eyes, now that Pumpkin was no longer on my head to act as an impromptu pair of shades. The storm continued to intensify, yet at the same time began to turn curiously translucent, as if it both was and was not there. In the end, I received three seconds of clear vision, before our descent concluded and the earth closed up above our head. Just three, simple, seconds.
[The Living Storm - Level ???]
Pain, such as I’d never felt before, across a combined eight decades of life, more sporting injuries and bouts of illness than could be counted. My blood was ice, bloodied shades raking across my flesh, my mind and my very soul. My knees gave way before I even realised what was happening, and I collapsed into Harvey’s waiting grasp; without him, I’d surely have landed head first on frozen ground, and for all that suffering, what did I get? A bare glimpse at a cloudy face that spanned the entire horizon.
[100 XP gained for surviving your first sight of a being of law.
Level up!]
“Wonderful,” I managed to gasp, before sweet unconsciousness claimed me.
