The gallows disappeared overnight.

That was the first thing that Adam noticed after leaving the Tower in the morning.

Today he was supposed to return to the camp, as The Refrigerators were about to have its next mission. And he was about to do that, even thou the weather didn't make it easy.

Snow fell from the sky for some hours already, and it didn't look like it was about to stop. The world was white, and there was nothing you could do about it if you weren't a god or something.

The whiteness reminded every pedestrian about the plague of the northern winters. Blindness. The snow was the reason for large hoods being over every head and prohibition or riding mounts inside towns in the winter season. Sunlight reflected off the white surface and blinded the people on the streets, sometimes if they stared at their feet long enough, they became blind permanently.

Adam walked through the white city, his hood obscuring his vision. he walked mostly on memory, as even his hearing was dominated by falling snow.

Luckily for him, nearly no one was on the street beside him. Well, who goes outside during a heavy snowfall?

Another thing that helped him in surviving the experience, was one of his spells. The appears that [Shield] was a great tool to keep snow from falling on himself, as the powder turned out to have so little force that the spell could withstand it, thou now he had a white sheet above his head. And it looked slightly silly.

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When Adam arrived in the camp, his arrival forced the guards to stop building a snowman and identify him. After coming close enough to see ornaments on his robe, they returned to their activities.

Also, he nearly brought all the snow that was carried on his spell inside. Only just before the entrance, did he think about all the mess it could make and deactivated his improvised anti-snow defences, ao course after moving it from above his head.

Inside, the rest of the team already waited for him at the table. When they noticed him, they swiftly greeted him and went together to the Army's stables. To get a wagon of their own.

Today, Refrigerators were supposed to escort a group of people to a work camp. Don't misunderstand me thou, it's a good type of work camp, where poor residents of the capital are given the opportunity to get themselves some money in return for low-requirement labour.

Adam already heard of this before, while talking with the patriarch of the Harop family, Galeb for the first time.

Supposedly, The king started a variety of projects across the kingdom, from roads and buildings in the far west and east to forts guarding forests and mountains in the south.

This work camp was located in a relatively safe zone, where workers cut the forests, and made places for fields. Adam's team was chosen because of two mages located in it, Without Adam and Max being in the same team they would never have been made to do an escort mission instead of a more experienced team.

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After getting a wagon and packing all the supplies they needed, the team headed to the commoner's district outer gate, where people they were supposed to escort waited alongside their guide.

"Hello, we are The Refrigerators, we are going to escort you all to the camp." Welcomed them, Max, as the team neared a quite sizable caravan that was waiting in the snow, outside of the gate.

"Nice to meet you, I suppose you are young master Max? My name is Slerr and I will be your guide for the next few days." The man introduced himself.

"Yes, I am, Nice to meet you Slerr. I would like to set off as fast as we can, please notify me when you and the rest of the people are ready to depart." Max ended the conversation, firmly establishing his position as a leader of this caravan.

Nearby the gates, five wagons were parked, a horse attached to each of them. The workers packed their clothes and supplies on their rides in a hurry, also believing that swift departure would be the best option.

The caravan left the capital in about half an hour, heading to the east. They travelled for a whole day, sitting on the wagons and guarding the passengers. Adam and Max split up with half of the team each, Max guarded the front and Adam the rear.

Nothing of notice happened that day, probably because of horrible weather, as the blizzard ended only in the evening.

They made a camp for the night, and set rotating night guards with one of the Refrigerators as a core and a few workers as his helpers and eyes.

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The next day was just about as exciting. The weather was bad, thou not as bad as the day before, and monsters kept a good distance out of the caravan.

This doesn't mean they didn't see them, Adam noticed at least five different individual beasts that were in the forest next to the road. And it was just ones he found. Kyll for example saw a wolf pack moving along the treeline, thou it has to be taken with a grain of salt as no one else saw them.

At the end of the second day, they arrived at the work camp.

The camp was located on a small hill and surrounded by hundreds of metres of fields, filled with stumps left from a lively forest. The forest in question still existed, but much farther from the camp than it was not long ago.

Nearby the camp, the soil was plowable, the stumps and roots were dug out and placed on one of a few, big piles of firewood, where it was dried under big blankets that shielded the wood from the snow. Looking at the long, clear fields surrounding the hill was an astonishing view, showing the power of human ingenuity.

The camp in itself wasn't so magnificent. There were only a few tents, which were used as canteens. The rest of the buildings consisted of barracks for the local garrison, a few warehouses, the officer's building and a long wooden building serving as living quarters for all the workers.

The Refrigerators stayed in the camp for the following day, resting. The workers, in the meantime, loaded another five additional wagons with wood, already processed to planks and long logs. The wagons that arrived alongside Adam's team were also loaded up but with people and their things. As new workers arrived, the previous turn was about to return home and get their money there.

The next morning, the camp returned to its normal number of inhabitants, as The Refrigerators and other members of the caravan made their way back to the capital.

The journey this time was a menace, beasts came too close and some even attacked, forcing Adam's team to kill them.

But the worst was still to come.

The night fell, and with it, the travellers fell on their bedding in a makeshift camp created for the night.

It was peaceful,... until it wasn't.

Shouts reverberated throughout the temporary camp in the middle of the night. Watt's voice was hearable above all.

"Wake up and prepare to fight! We are under attack!" He shouted.

Adam jumped out of his tent, a dagger in hand and looked around.

Fire in the centre was still burning, and a few sausages burned to the crisp lay in the embers. The wagons that were stationed in circles around the camp were lighted up with torches of people erratically running around. The workers, defenceless slowly gathered in the centre of the camp, torches in their hands outstretched in all directions.

Adam finally noticed Watt, who stood on the wagon on the opposite side of the camp.

An arrow was embedded in his shoulder, as he was staring into the darkness outside from the side of his shield.

There, in the shadows, a group of bandits run towards the camp, the fastest of them having only a few metres to travel, before arriving before the Refrigerator's main defender.