Magic Breaker Ch 85-87

Chapter 85: Ice

The storm doesn’t leave us alone. 

Every day, the camp tries to move, but it gets colder. The beasts pulling the carts slow down, needing more healing. Jean and I try to work together to help them, even as his grandma stares daggers into my back. I pointedly ignore her, trying to make sure the animal can walk again, that the skin below its fur is warm enough to stay healthy.

I can see its breath misting in the air, and the way it looks into my eyes. It knows it’s dying. It knows. And I can’t abide by that.

“Jean, I will be using more mana than before on this. Can you demonstrate your skill for me one more time? I will have to [Observe] it, though,” I tell him.

Isabelle, his grandma, hisses slightly. “Don’t show off your skill recklessly, Jean.”

“Can you save it?” he asks, gritting his teeth.

I nod, confidently. “Yes,” I answer.

Without hesitation, the barrier around him lowers, and he weaves his skill. I watch, I [Observe], even as my breath mists in the freezing air and thick globs of sleet pelt down from above, covering the ground in snowy slush. 

The mana weaves in beautiful, pale blue patterns, interlocking circles and sparkling pathways winding around one another. It’s a gentle, kind skill, borne out of a desire to help, to amend all ailments.

It’s so very different from my approach, and yet so useful.

My healing skill is jagged and precise, a scalpel where he uses a bandaid. They are both useful for different things, and adding to my toolbox is important. So, as he holds the magic in place, letting me study it, I learn. And then, at the end, I [Deconstruct] it one more time.

Yes, that’ll work.

[Biological Restoration 8 > 9]

My skill changes as I alter it in front of my inner eye. I add flourishes where I can, little feelers to help the magic “stick” better, adding circles and lines to the edges of the pattern to soften it a bit, sort of. The mana takes shape, and a moment later, the skill activates, gold-white energy streaming towards the beast.

It’s not enough.

I open my vessel up properly, no longer conserving my mana in case of an attack. I’d never gone below three quarters full, and now I do. Instead of spending the amount I regenerate, I simply pour a torrent of power into the skill, its improved shape easily taking the increase in energy and pouring more gold towards the animal.

And then, the spell hits.

A torrent of gold pours into the creature, and I can see it infuse below the skin, making its fur more lustrous, making its heart thump again, warming its blood. The fatigue in its muscles fades as they knit themselves back together, and the magic lingers. Those sticky feelers make sure that no energy goes to waste, and the overly large amount of mana I put in feeds the animal, keeping the cold at bay.

Then I direct it at the most egregious wounds, and faint bits of frostbite clear away as easily as dirt in the rain. The skin simply regenerates, pale flakes dropping to the floor and joining the snow as if they had always been there.

I see the way the creature looks at me. It knows I saved it. Very gently, I reach out. It’s a little like a mammoth crossed with a bison, sporting a curled, wrinkly nose, tiny tusks, and a handful of small horns from its thick skull. I slowly push a hand through its fur, feeling it hum with power. 

Beneath my touch, the animal huffs and presses against my hand. Its skin is warm. I feel faint bits of magic in the fur - almost as if it’s showing me something. A tiny, ephemeral trickle of essence passes into me in that moment. 

Did… it use a request to show thanks? I look at the creature for a few long, agonising seconds, and it huffs again, shoving my hand aside. Then, it rises up to its legs and continues trotting along, rubbing up against another bison-mammoth pulling the same cart. 

“You’re smiling again,” Jean says. I look at him and see the bright grin he flashes me, even as his grandmother grumbles about secrecy and haggles the beast tamer for more payment.

Instead of any great reply, I just give a small, amused huff, and an exaggerated shrug. What does he want me to do, be annoyed? Jean laughs at me for a moment, and I consider ruffling his hair. I only consider it, though.

- - - 

More days pass, and the cold gets ever colder.

Frost starts gathering at the sides of the wagons by now. The wheels, made of wood and metal, start creaking and degrading from ice in their joints. More and more, Bay needs to head out, wrapped in cloak and blankets, sometimes even carrying some of Jess’ and my warming-cube things, to fix stuff.

The nights are cold and icy. Most of the time, the defenders just huddle indoors, staring out the flaps of the enchanted wagons, hoping to catch a glimpse of any fogfae before they attack. But there’s nothing but dreadful silence and icy cold.

But I know the mist is thicker now. I sit inside, watching as tendrils of that ethereal energy try to pass into our space, and are taken apart by the caged flames we have positioned all around the entrance. Dozens of runes cover the walls, the blankets, even our clothing, and yet, the icy cold invades.

It bites its way through there, and I can feel even Kuro shiver inside my shadow. Sometimes, I can see that rim of darkness cast by me reach out towards the fires. It’s a bizarre sight, but I don’t let it distract me.

There’s something coming. I refuse to be caught off guard, so I keep enchanting, weaving, and preparing. We will be ready. We will.

- - -

Norman, Inu and Tatch are out the most - Norman as a messenger, and Inu and Thatch because they can take the cold. Amelie huddles by the fires a lot, especially making sure her legs stay warm. She sometimes looks at my missing arm and bites her lips in conflict.

I work on my healing and my enchanting, mainly. By now, I know which abilities in the camp I can siphon mana from without too much trouble, and which ones are necessary. Some heat other houses, some are used on the crops, and others again are simply too noticeable if I were to mess with them.

No more items go missing, either. No one starts trouble with us. It is simply too cold. When we have excess mana, Jess makes Sylves hand out our little “beacons” as she’s taken to calling the cubes filled with fire.

Of course, there are strings attached. Otherwise, Inu would give them away, not Sylves. But that’s okay. It’s just insurance - we don’t activate any of the negative impacts of her ability. To everyone in the camp, it really is just freely given assistance, and they thank us with hastily stammered words from freezing lips.

Norman comes back often and warms up. I sometimes step out, with a thick coat of [Suppression] keeping the cold away. I breathe out, and despite the blankets, despite the skills, despite the fires burning in a half dozen mana cubes around me, I can feel the cold air trying to freeze the saliva in my mouth. I stare into the mist, waiting for an attack, trying to look through the thick sleet, but there’s nothing but white.

It’s endlessly cold. So cold that I know what the news will be.

The sixteenth day on the second floor comes as the sun rises. Its rays don’t make it through the icy fog. And captain Malcolm announces that the crops have frozen. 

There won’t be any new meals until the storm is over.

Chapter 86: Hunger

It’s cold and dark and people are starving.

Huddled in enchanted wooden huts, drawn by creatures who can brave the cold better than us, but still freeze. I walk out and heal them, keeping the frostbite at bay, and making people donate mana to me through the core if they want my help, now. I need it, because I burn through my vessel a few times over each day, just trying to keep people on their feet.

Day seventeen passes in silence. We eat rations, we huddle inside as much as possible, the cart’s floor jumping slightly under our feet as we endlessly run from the storm. But it follows us; it hunts us.

I’m sure of that, now. The fact that we’re hunted by the snow. That the storm, somehow, has its eyes on me. I look at the sky, and somehow, I can still make out the silhouettes of the Eyes behind the storm. They’re up there, watching me. Staring down and gorging themselves on the sight of me, huddled near the fires, hoping to stay warm a little longer.

No satisfaction for them. I hold the shivers at bay as I weave my magic, advancing my few projects along, preparing them. One is so close to completion, another is coming along nicely. I weave thread after thread in the cloak, coating them with mana, creating resonance paths for it to flow along, making sure it works. 

Day eighteen passes with more noise.

The first fight for resources. The sun sets, and someone screams. When we get there, all that’s left is a puddle of frozen blood and a scithian corpse, robbed of most clothing and all food. Captain Malcolm swears loudly, groaning in frustration. “No fucken’ killing in my convoy! All scouts, watch out for each other. Anyone who gets caught murdering gets tossed into the snow, damn you!”

Only solemn nods follow.

Day nineteen, quiet.

Day twenty. A bloodbath. It’s gotten so cold that even inside, even near the fire, we can’t melt the sleet anymore. I notice it now that I’m looking at it more closely, but the snow is magical. As it melts, the creeping cold spreads out insidiously, crawling everywhere it can reach. People can no longer make their own water - without artifacts that produce it…

Well, people kill to survive. Thatch, with his [Piercing Gaze] catches one of the murderers. It’s an older woman, the blood flaking off her in frozen, red crystals as we head out to catch her. Captain Malcolm takes her head off with a swing of his axe - and the weapon siphons the heat from her blood, turning her cold in seconds.

I [Observe] those runes for a moment, memorizing them as best as I can.

He thanks us for our work, then heads to the front of the convoy again. We march ever onward, against the storm.

Day twenty-one. The first beasts freeze, fully. Unlike before, there’s no frostbite. No amount of mana can help me heal it. One moment, they were walking, the next, they collapsed into the snow, their bodies cold and drained of heat. Jean stares at them, and I see him wanting to cry. Inu wraps him in a hug. 

His tears freeze on his face.

I stare at the dead animals. Stare into the eye of the one I saved just a few days ago, now a cold corpse. And I feel something bubbling up against my apathy. 

Day twenty-two. Hunger. 

We’re out of rations. The captain butchered the frozen animals, distributing chunks of icy meat to the different people. I don’t eat it. I would rather carve myself up than eat it, but the others toss the chunks right into the fire, fishing them out with frozen fingers before scarfing them down.

The hunger is bad. Other groups have it worse, getting less meat since they are less integral to the convoy. The druids, who usually grow food, are almost useless now, other than as mana batteries for me and Jess to create more fires. I feed dozens of the flames, now.

They don’t really help.

Day twenty-three. There’s a knock at the door. Jean… and Isabelle. “Can we come in?” the boy asks.

Inu nods. More bodies means more warmth, after all. They huddle close together, frost gathering in their hair. We light even more fires, feeding them with as much mana as we can. Thatch even channels his [Rage] into them, making them burn brighter against their cages.

And it’s still freezing.

Day twenty-four. Captain Malcolm tells us to stop. The beasts are dying. The storm is not abating. There’s no more point in running. Bay, Dar, Richard, and Opal chop up some of the now-empty huts of people who died and make a stable for the remaining beasts. Any enchanted board we have is used to reinforce the buildings, to keep in even a tiny bit more warmth.

Ice pelts against our ceilings every day. I feel the hunger gnawing at my stomach. There’s a new corpse every couple hours, and another hut becomes empty, its boards pulled apart and slapped onto others.

It’s cold. The ice invades my veins, and I can feel it trying to freeze my mana. I refuse to let it, forcing the slow, crawling death to be swallowed up by my Abiding Apathy. And it abides, it doesn’t stop.

I live, I breathe, even as my breath turns to frost, even as more people join our shelter, even as we let beasts into the cramped huts. Maximillian and Rose sit in a corner, Pyro’s flames joining Jess’. I put on my headphones, and [Suppress] the murmurs, weaving and enchanting along. It’s almost done now.

Day twenty-five. 

The ascendancy wells light up in my vision, and I can finally see the golden pillars that promise an escape.

“They’re… so far away,” Thatch whispers.

And they are. None are close. Each one is multiple days of walking. We’d freeze to death long before we get there. So, we don’t walk. We don’t move. We huddle together, we conserve heat, we allow more people in. We make more fires, and we fight the cold.

It’s unrelenting, but at least we make it work for every inch it takes.

Day twenty-six. The hunger has really set in. The cold is brutal. Malcolm sits in the corner of the hut, and I see his face in a twisted frown.

There are murderers in here with us, for sure.

He looks at me, at the missing arm, and at Sylves. Slowly, his lips move under his beard, as if he’s thinking. I see him running the gangly arms that are characteristic of the zoof move under his thick fur. He scratches himself.

“I could kill the beasts,” he says. “We can take their heat, keep us a bit warmer, and we can eat their meat and use their fur as blankets.”

Everyone goes silent, considering. Jean looks at him with horror. I look at him with cold cruelty. “No,” I say.

The captain’s frown reappears, and he stares at me. “Would you rather lose a leg, whelp?” 

“Yes,” I reply. “Want me to cut it off?” 

That shuts him up. He grunts, then stares back at the ground. But the idea is seeded in everyone’s mind. It’s just like on the first floor, where it was people or ants. I’m pissed. One of those beasts used a request on me. They’re not mindless.

And yet, the next day, we find a few of them dead, the cold already crawling in to freeze their corpses, only for people to carve strips of meat from the ice. Fucking vultures. Disgusting.

Something has to change. 

Chapter 87: Vanished

Day twenty-seven. 

Norman is gone. No one asks where he’s gone. No one seems even curious.

It’s strange, then, knowing that he’s disappeared, when I cannot quite figure where he went. It seems strange to… almost forget about him like that. Like there was nothing amiss.

Are there fewer people than before? No, no. They died to the cold. Norman wouldn’t die to the cold.

I shove the thoughts from my head, and wait. And wait. And wait.

Day thirty.

We’re starving. I’m so, so hungry. More of the beasts have died… and I’ve killed people for trying to murder them. People use their requests on their deathbeds, asking for just a little more warmth. Artifacts that can keep the cold at bay. We steal those from their corpses, too, using it to keep the rooms even a bit warmer. Just a hint.

My stomach aches with hunger, and the storm rages above.

Day thirty-two. 

Finally, at night, something happens that I can control.

I was asleep, ice covering my eyelids, when a hand touches me, ripping me from my slumber. But that hand isn’t attached to anything. I jump, [Solidfying] a dagger of mana and stabbing forward, hitting only air.

There’s nothing. Ice and ice and more ice, a thick fog of frozen air, leeching the warmth from my bones. I growl in anger. The cold touches me, and for the first time, I reach out and [Deconstruct] it.

Except, then, I remember that it’s not the first time. Not at all.

I’ve done it a dozen times, over, each night when it tried to claim me, and the mist breaks against me. Icy fingers retreat into an ethereal, consuming form, and I know that the storm is not a storm at all, it is a maelstrom of faeries.

A thousand combined monsters killing us with icy fingers. Starving us insidiously, and making people vanish. And for just a moment, I remember that Norman hasn’t disappeared because of the storm - but because of me.

And then, the cold touches me again, and the memories fade. I swallow them into my Abiding Apathy, because I also remembered it was not yet time. Not yet. Just another few days.

Day thirty-five. 

It’s ice cold. I sit with the beasts, in the stable, healing myself, keeping over a dozen fires going, keeping us warm as best I can. The eternal drumming of the sleet against the roof is a lullaby trying to get me to close my weary eyes, to rest but a moment, but the hunger in my stomach grounds me. 

Richard joins me in the stables. I hardly notice as she slides down the wall next to me. She whispers, slowly. “Hungry.” 

And she is. Hiy’ht are probably more susceptible to cold than humans, I’d wager, and with her class… she must be starving. “What can you eat?” I ask.

“Feed me magic,” she requests.

I nod, slowly, and solidify an orb of mana, letting her chew on it. Like a jawbreaker, the construct breaks in her mouth, and I can see the magic transforming as she consumes it. Into something… different. Something I don’t yet get. Something I want to understand in the future.

We wrap up in blankets in between wet furs, and I feed her more mana as the hours tick by. Orb after solid orb, each one denser, more powerful. It’s miserable, but we survive.

Day thirty-eight. Richard is ice cold, but I heal her. More people have vanished from the main camp. Opal meditates, ice-cold blade gently sitting in their lap. Thatch [Channels] his anger through himself, just to keep his heart pumping. Dar is in pseudo-hibernation, his heart only beating every minute or so. 

We handle it. Bit by bit, we handle it. I carve through the cold each night, and forget each morning. Something has to change, I just wait for what. I wait and wait and wait…

Ice falls on the roofs, and it becomes harder to open the doors to the outside. The storm is horrible and icy and I want nothing more than to break it, but it’s bigger than me. I carve into it each night, but forget. My mind feels foggy. I struggle to see, but whenever I do, I simply touch that open part of my skull.

There is a burning there. A pain that marks me as a victim of fire. When I touch my exposed skull, the cold feels less scary, and my vision clears a bit, even as agony spreads through me. In my fugue, I can almost feel the mark the Flametouched left on me, and the way it makes the storm recoil when I remember it exists.

And so, night by night, agonizing fire crawls through my skull. My eyes bleed, and the blood freezes into red icicles before it’s even halfway down my face. My white hair is caked in frost, giving it a blue-silver sheen. 

Day thirty-nine.

Someone tries to kill one of the beasts. I stab him in the chest, wrestling him to the freezing ground, and then kill him. Once he’s dead, I let all the leftover magic fall into my Abiding Apathy, consuming it. I steal his artefacts. Richard descends on the body, hungry for the first real food in days.

It’s ugly, but she eats him. And when it’s done, the body is gone. 

I can almost hear the ice laugh in my ears.

Day… fourty.

I wait. 

Fourty-one.

I wait.

Fourty-two.

My mind is slowing. The cold is winning. I break it every night, but it’s winning, slowly but surely. The animals huddle around me, and I feel the essence within me fighting to stay conscious. I don’t want to freeze.

Fourty-three…

Something happens.

Screams. That’s what I wake up to. Before we know it, the bloodbath is done. One of the four remaining huts is gone. Dead. Every single person in there turned into a frozen corpse, torn apart by tooth and claw and one-another.

The storm wants us to kill each other. I’m sure of that now. It wants us to kill each other, to be suspicious. When we huddled together, we survived longer. We’re defying it, in our own tiny ways, but in that hut, it won. And it feels like only a matter of time until it wins here, too. It’s so cold…

At night, a hand touches me. Like every night, the memories come flooding back. The knowledge that I must break the fae, that the storm is hungry, that there’s something I’m waiting for, that-

I pull my stab, seconds before it hits human flesh. 

Norman stands in front of me, a grey cloak full of mana draped over him. “Hey there, Snow,” he greets. “I’ve worked it out.”

He takes off the mantle I gave to him, and wraps it around my shoulders. The enchantments activate, powered by my mana, and I can feel heat rushing back into my bones, untouched by the hungry ice. Slowly, a smile spreads on my face. “Good work,” I reply. “Let’s give them hell.”