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.

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  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.

  is 40 chapters ahead!! <3