After standing still for a moment, He turned to the left and hopped off of the arena. Ismund followed and I followed behind Ismund.
Abs bent over the ground when I hopped down to join the guys. His shoulders bounced up and down as his arms searched for something. Ismund walked around the side with his arms crossed to get a better look at what Abs was doing, but it didn’t seem to help any, so he just shrugged to himself and stepped away.
A while later, the large man stood upright with one hand raised triumphantly. In it was a… microphone.
How’s that going to help?
I wanted to ask why, but I wouldn’t know what he said unless it was a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. I didn’t see any ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions I could use to figure this out at the moment.
Well I probably could…
Before that thought could develop further, Abs started walking towards the latter, then we were at the tall-ish latter.
The latter was cold, and its sharp edges and rough outside bit into my hands. I pulled myself up, one step at a time (and I’m sure much slower than Ismund wanted), and felt my thoughts spiralling down with every new rung I went up.
As we climbed, my hands didn’t quite want to open when I urged them to go higher, clammy too; my teeth ached from clenching my jaw, probably not as much as Ismund’s hurt right now; the muscles in my face hurt from concentrating my lips into a thin line. I wasn’t as confident as I had thought I would be.
Admittedly, that was a bit… disheartening.
Not that anyone would be surprised…
I let out a weak snort.
Abs still didn’t explain anything when we reached the top, not even to Ismund—but then I guess that’s not surprising. Abs hates Ismund, Ismund wouldn’t be able to talk back, and I can’t hear Abs.
I’m just being impatient.
Abs licked a finger, held it up in the air and started walking forward.
What on Earth is he doing?
Maybe it’s a way to skip the boss or something? No, that’s… a little too hopeful. But he could still make it easier somehow, maybe?
I looked around for anything, anything at all. It was only snow. Only my thoughts really.
I looked at Ismund.
There was him and Abs as well.
As usual, he was oozing confidence, even with the updated--ehm--lack of hair. His steps were confident and measured, his posture wasn’t tense, just ready, his eyes looked around, but they weren’t frantic or overly reactive, instead they were simply critical and judging. Somehow, they seemed to judge even the shadows littered around the snow.
How is he always so calm when he heads into a fight? Boss fights too. The only thing that seems to move him are other people, or his frustration with them.
Ismund stopped dead in his tracks behind Absinth how had turned towards the big snowy wall. The big man then suddenly stepped to the left, almost hitting Ismund, and punched the microphone into the wall.
We stood still for a few moments. Abs scratched the back of his head and started tapping his foot. Ismund got himself a new toothpick. I tried to look over Abs’ shoulder to see something.
Nothing happened.
“Uhm, Abs?” I called out.
His head whipped around and he blinked at me a few times.
“Is that,” I waved my hand around vaguely in the direction of the wall he was staring at, “supposed to do something?”
He nodded and turned back towards the microphone, grabbed it, and pulled. A large outline of a door appeared and then separated from the wall.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Oh.”
Behind the door there was another blizzard like the one we were in right now, but it was much, much, more intense and dense. Snow was being whisked this way and that from the artificial wind— wait no—there was something moving those snowflakes with energy. Every last snowflake had an energy signature. It wasn’t the strongest signature out there, but there was more of them than I could ever hope to have.
The energy in the snowflakes was confusing me though—
Abs picked me up and threw me into the mess. Ismund was beside me a few seconds later.
[This boss is not standard so I will give User Drifa some additional information on how to kill the boss. Please, please, User Drifa, thank me later, assuming there is one.]
That didn’t sound reassuring at all.
Why’s the message ominous at the end? And what’s it mean if it isn’t standard? That’s bad, right?
[T—]
“You guys are getting the message too, right?” My voice wavered and was a little too high at the end.
I couldn’t see Abs, but Ismund nodded.
Alright.
[Ahem— as I was informing User Drifa before I was interrupted, the boss can be defeated in two ways—]
But where’s the boss?
[I’m getting to that—]
Sorry.
[Response to System is Illogical. Ignoring response.]
[You can either defeat the boss by either melting all of the snow in the area faster than they can be replaced, or by creating a snowman. The boss is the blizzard.]
Wait. What.
I looked around myself.
No.
How does that even work? Wouldn’t it attack me or something?
I looked down at my bare hands.
I’m inside of the boss.
My stomach dropped.
I’m reliant on its mercy then, It could kill me as soon as it wanted, why hasn’t it yet? Does it find me funny or—
Ismund pulled me up from the ground by my collar and I stood up to avoid getting choked.
Why would he do that? It’s not like we can do anything…
Oh, right, I can do something. That doesn’t make the situation much better though.
I looked up at all the snow swishing around me and ripping at my hair.
Focus.
Other than snow, there was three different things in the area: A pile of sentient-looking stones (they were moving at least), on the other side of the room there was a massive carrot with a strange wrinkly mouth filled with blocky teeth, biting down on a smaller carrot, and a brown tree.
Ismund had run off to attack the stones, and Abs had gone over to deal with the motionless tree.
What about the tree?
The other question that was in my head was, ‘What about the blizzard?’
I wasn’t quite sure how Abs had done this by himself.
He could’ve lied…
Whatever the case, my situation was only getting worse. The snow was starting to hurt now, it wasn’t just pattering on my face like it was earlier.
I sat down again and crossed my legs. It probably wasn’t smart per se, but I needed to focus, and this is how I’d been practising.
Okay, if I want to hold onto these snowflakes I’ll have to do a thorough job of connecting my signature to the snowflakes. I don’t think I’ve actually had to fight anything for control over something with magic, so I’m… not sure how it’ll work, or go.
Something hard slammed into my face my head snapped back and my nose was filled with wet blood.
I let out a gasp and clutched my face while looking around for what hit me. I found toad made of coal.
What?
It jumped at me again and I hit it back with my butter knife.
I shouldn’t trust the guy with an eye injury to watch out.
I pulled my now completely red hand away from my face and grabbed some snow with it.
Will blood let me make a quicker connection because— nope. It’s harder because it’s mixed with the blood, not too much, but not great.
Ismund glanced back in my general direction and the toad attacking me gave a brief nod and continued to attack all the other ones surrounding him.
Why did you nod, like it’s fine!
I tried to turned my butter knife into a Bowie knife.
[Denied. User’s skill in this item does not meet requirements.]
I backed further away but the toad was gaining on me. Next, I made my butter knife into a meat tenderizer.
[Accepted until user is proven inept.]
I let out a breath and tried to hit the toad with it.
I missed.
I tried again: miss.
The toad jumped up and slammed into my knee.
“Aah!”
Some tears sprang in my eyes.
The little toad stood still for a few moments.
Now’s my chance.
I held the mallet with my bloody, slippery hand this time in addition to my right hand, and swung down.
I hit it.
Yes!
[Revoking use of meat—]
Wait, no! It’s just a special technique where you tenderize the meat before it dies for extra, uh, saltiness and… uniqueness.
[… Undoing action.]
I swung the thing again while it was dazed, and then again,
Why is this taking so long?
and again, until it’s scull caved in an the System told me it was dead.
I really hope Ismund can handle all of those toads… otherwise we might uh, not have a great shot of getting out of this situation.
I wasn’t able to quite get my breathing back down to normal, but it was slower.
Okay. I’ll just go, less thinking.
I grabbed a handful of snow and kept my hands shut, if I didn’t I knew that whatever I connected my energy to would fly away if I even go that far, I needed to hold it down.
I’ll make a pile of snowballs to work on.
I squished the ones in my hand down but as soon as it was condensed it started pulling away from me and flew into the air and out of my hands.
Oh shoot.
The snow was condensed into ice and flung at my head. I raised my hands in time so it didn’t my face directly. Instead, it slammed into my hands, then my hands slammed into my face and more blood came out my nose. Down my chin, neck and my shirt collar.
So don’t do that.