I have no idea if I have told this before but the environment surrounding this fortress is one of the most lifeless places I have ever seen in my life. There is little movement in the area other than movement of snow and ice. Even when the ice beasts were here, I could only notice them mainly due to their mana. Otherwise, even they blend in with the world. This world never really seems to change. It remains the same, Dull, lifeless and seemingly eternal.

  Looking at my surroundings sometimes, the place seems to be a painting drawn in only shades of grey. The sameness of the place is to such a point where it has almost been impossible to say the time in this place. (Day here means everything is light grey and night means everything is dark grey.) For me, night and day in this place look the same as each other. I mostly tell the time based on the meals provided to me.

  Anyway, the weather in this area has been relatively stable during the attack of the ice beasts. Even before that, we had a few snowstorms but most of them were at a level where iron skin was not even needed. With the onset of winter that particular fact has changed.

  The intensity of storms is to such a degree that the force of the storm would have destroyed the fort like a castle made of playing cards. Thankfully I have strengthened the place. I finally understand why the main worry of the snowwinders has been the storms. I can finally see just how bad it can get. I don't know how the commander expected me to survive the storms. If it gets any worse, that is still a fate that is possible for me.

  Even now I can feel the entire fort tremble and I don't even need to be connected to the formation to tell that. Every few seconds I can feel the vibration of whatever block of ice or snow colliding with the walls of the fort. The iron skin is dealing with a majority of these impacts, but even it is not enough for a few of those strikes. Thankfully, it still does its job of taking in a majority of the impact so the physical wall is safe at the very least. The wall will break if the same spot is hit again though. The chances of that happening enough times for significant damage are quite low, thankfully. We will need to repair the wall though once the storm ends.

  The vibrations are annoying me to no end. Right now I am supposed to be working on the formation, but in these vibrations, I am pretty sure that I will end up screwing up something.

  The closest analogy I can think of is that I am sitting in a group of drummers with each playing their drums just out of tune. You know that there is supposed to be a tune but no matter how much you try you can't just place what it is.

  Well, it would be a lie to call it an analogy as I had the misfortune of being in such a room myself once. Granted I was also one of the drummers in that room and the class ended up with our teacher vowing never to teach another class of music to us deaf and idiotic humans (he had quite a few words more, but thankfully I don't know any demihuman languages.).

  Our teacher was a bat demi-human with senses many times sharper than ours. Our playing of the drums caused the man to wish he could rip off his ears. The man used the same drums that he was teaching us to communicate with his people from leagues and leagues away. After this incident, my master never dared to teach me music again.

  Anyway, we cannot even leave the fort even if we want to. The winds of the storm are enough to carry a man like a piece of paper and snow that feels closer to daggers rather than frozen water. I won't even talk about the cold, other than the fact that I wish for the time before the storm. Shamon has been quite cruel in making me aware that this is not even the coldest that it can go and that I should be ready for something even worse.

  That is not my worry at the moment as according to Shamon is sure that we are being visited by the snowlords. It is some kind of a superstition that these people have regarding the arrival storms and their intensity. He is so sure of it that I am beginning to panic a bit myself.

  I recorded this a while ago when the storm had just begun to pick up. Anyway here is the recording as I attempt something here. Good that it happened then too. If it were to happen now, I wouldn't be sure if I would even be able to hear what Shamon spoke. The man seemed to have expected something like this to happen from the beginning.

  (Six hours ago)

  "Well, what the hell is going on, Shamon? It feels as if somebody is throwing boulders at the fort.", I ask him annoyed out of my mind. (For context, I had just woken up then. I have been trying to regulate my sleep for the last couple of weeks. I had almost died the last time I did not sleep properly. It's not an easy task with a formation to build and no way to tell the time)

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  "Well, captain it is not rock, it is chunks of ice and it is going to get worse, way worse.", shamon spoke. He sounds quite bored with the situation we are in. The man is either very good at hiding his emotions or he has faced this many times. For now, my opinion is that it is the latter. The sound is quite similar to the sound of catapults carrying fire rocks hitting the fort. (Well, at least what I imagine them to be based on my master's description of it. For somebody that has built so many catapults I have never seen them used much.)

  "Well, that is not pleasant to hear. What exactly is going on.", I ask him, feeling the vibrations in the fort as if somebody was throwing rocks at it. I guess I should feel more panicked but I need to know what is happening for that.

  "It is the arrival storms, captain.", he said. "Though I want to be honest and say that I have never seen it get so bad so quickly. Something is causing it to get worse."

  "The arrival storms?", I ask, my voice quite curious. I had not read about this in any of the reports about the place.

  "Well, it has to do with us being so close to the northern wastelands. At the onset of winter, there is a large amount of ice mana that moves from the wastelands to here.", Shamon continues. "Most of the storms you see are caused by the flow of the ice mana from the territory of the snow tribe. That is what the weather mages say at the very least."

  "What is the arrival storms though.", I ask him, seeing him get off topic.

  "That is what we call the storm that occurs when winter starts.", he says. "To be honest we would have already abandoned the fort if it were not for the fact that even if we were to leave, we would be located pretty easily in this storm. I have never seen a storm like this. It certainly brings up a lot of doubt on our prospects here. That reminds me, how is your formation."

  "Well, it is going well shamon. Yesterday I completed the tenth spell on the formation core. With this, I have achieved minor completion of the formation. Only one remains and within three to four days I can start on it.", I say to him.

  "Isn't it supposed to be the class eight formation? I would have assumed that it would be harder to inscribe.", shamon speaks, his voice taking an inquisitive tone.

  "Well, the inscription process is the same regardless of which level formation you inscribe. All of them are a set of runes. Designing them and understanding them though, that is a whole set of headaches though." I begin, stopping myself before I go deeper. A formation mage discussing his work is the best way to put people to sleep, I have discovered. "I know the formation I am inscribing so it will take me about as long as any other formation. Then your formation is complete and theoretically, it should be enough to handle any snowlords."

  Shamon looks like he is about to speak something more. Before he can do that one of the soldiers comes running to him with some issue at hand. The man disappears quite quickly after that, most likely to the southern gate. That place is going to be quite a danger in this storm.

  (Back to the present.)

  Fuck, that was a very weird sensation. I want to be honest, this is the first time that I have attempted to slot in a past recording in my log like that. It is supposed to be a basic skill for everybody but me and honestly this is the first time I have dared to use it.

  My fellows like to use it for recording any diplomatic talks they have. Long after the talks are over, they add explanations and contexts to it after the discussion is over. They can break their records into individual dialogues and slot them in with the explanation as needed. I am sure that you must have found something like this with one of the other logs though do not expect too much of that here. It is rare for a formation master to engage in that kind of diplomacy and my skill with this process is nonexistent.

  I also do not hold an interest in converting my log into boring lectures analyzing stuff like that. I have ended up sleeping after reading logs like that. Similarly, there is no way that I will be awake while creating them. I have heard stories about people who have ended up sleeping in the process of recording a log. Well, I am certain that some part of it is exaggerated at the very least but it would still be a horror story for me, at least the part about wet dreams.

  It was such a weird feeling too, having two sets of thoughts in my mind. It is almost like two sets of thoughts were slotting one after another causing me to almost stumble in my thought process. It is kind of like using both of your hands to write poetry, without writing gibberish in either.

  I don't even know how I managed this. Regardless, with that particular experiment complete it is time for me to return to the task at hand. It is something that I have been dreading to do with so many distractions which is the inscription of the class eight spell into the formation.

  While it is true that it should not be too hard, heck I know of a few class nine formations that are harder but the consequences of failure are much higher here. If it fails there is a chance that I might have to redo the entire thing. After all this particular formation will link with all the other formations and be responsible for managing them. I am going to be making this formation over the runes of all my class nine formations.

  Well, as my master says, "thinking of failure before you have begun your work is no way to succeed now, little brat.". Fuck, I am annoyed now. Let's begin the work now. At least with this success, I will have another class eight formation under my belt. If only it was a class seven formation. I would wave it on my master's face till he got annoyed.