The days and nights blurred together as we shambled our way around the various crevices of the northern wastes. We had slowed a good deal after our days-long sprint, and we tried to get some more rest during the evening. But conditions were growing harsher, making resting more difficult, and the need for speed kept us on our feet. I couldn’t tell you how long we spent in that haze of exhaustion, scrambling forward with everything we had. We just ate up weary mile after weary mile, pleading to find some sort of respite. Hope had reached her limit some time ago and had spent much of her time sleeping draped over my pack. Lynn needed to be half carried by Al and Ann.

Then, suddenly, there was a slight change in atmosphere. It’s hard to describe, exactly. Like things just got a little lighter, a little brighter. I only noticed it subconsciously at first, my fugue state prohibiting a more serious examination. But as it got brighter and brighter, I began to consciously realize what was happening. The Mist was getting thinner.

We proceeded further and further, and our vision improved more and more, until finally with a reluctant whisper the last of the Mist melted away with a breeze, leaving us utterly stunned.

We stood atop a small icy plain, spread out in a glimmering blanket of ivory in every direction. This snowscape was only interrupted by a small lake in front of us, its’ dark waters locked in an absolute frozen stasis. Mountains dominated the scenery in front of us, towering over the landscape. These imperious masters dripped with icicle laden grandeur, daring lesser beings to challenge their hegemony. The mountain range stretched for miles east and west, as far as the eye could see. I could even hear the cries of a few Wingen that soared overhead. Their regular chirping cut the clean mountain air with a delicate energy; the sound no longer muffled by the Mist. The afternoon sun shone down from the stark azure sky, indiscriminate with its’ mighty glare.

We could do little more than gape at the splendor of the world around us. Like people who had lived in darkness for far too long, nature’s beauty blinded us with its’ harsh light.

Slowly, steadily, we came back to our senses and began to traverse the vast expanse. Victor even unthinkingly continued to hold up the Glasrock for some time before Lynn gently reminded him that we didn’t need it anymore. He sheepishly tucked it away. But after mindlessly walking across the snowy planes for a bit, Al suddenly stopped and called out:

“Hey wait!”

We all blearily turned to look at him before he continued:

“What are we doing right now?”

That got both Victor’s and my attention.

He was right. What were we doing, exactly? Why were we walking towards the mountains? We thought about it a bit before Victor answered:

“You’re right Al. Those mountains present a serious obstacle. In theory, at least. But we should seriously consider crossing them, especially since even the Narbacor shouldn’t be able to cross them easily. And there could very well be a more pleasant place on the other side of them.”

“And what if there isn’t?” Al shot back, prompting Victor to shrug:

“There is no guarantee that there is a pleasant place east or west of here either. Not one that we could reach easily, anyways. These mountains stretch on as far as I can see in either direction. If we try to simply pick a direction, we are gambling with that as well.” He took a short pause to think a little more, and continued:

“Let’s go over and scout for any passages through the mountains. If we find anything that looks promising, we can attempt a crossing.”

“And what about the Neidyr?” Julia chimed in. I was the one to answer, this time:

“We can’t keep this death march of a pace up for much longer. We’ll be too tired to deal with anything else. Once we get to the foot of the mountains, we’ll try to find a place to rest.”

I was loathe to make us vulnerable like that, but we had little choice. What distance we had put between ourselves and our pursuers would have to suffice for now. I set Hope down for now, and we began to make our way over to the looming heights. We walked to the lake and began to make our way around it, choosing not to trust the frozen body of water with our weight.

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Victor was at the head of the group, eyes surveying the land for any possible changes or threats. Suddenly, his head stopped rotating and snapped onto something further to the right. My gaze followed his, and I saw a few faint blue lights in the distance. They didn’t look like Paeric eyes, as they were too far apart, but Victor had uncovered some Glasrock anyways. I didn’t think it would ward off a pack when it wasn’t glowing, but it didn’t hurt to try. But the blue lights didn’t approach us. They held their position, before streaking right toward us.

I had already drawn my swords, but I was still taken by surprise. I only managed to obstruct two of the projectiles with the flat of my blades before another two hit me right in the chest. I fell over backward, disoriented, the wind knocked out of me from the sheer force of the cold that enveloped my chest. When I finally got my breath back, I noticed that ice had built up on my chest and on my blades, dulling them slightly and making me shiver a bit. I was once again silently grateful for my newfound cold resistance. I looked to my left and saw that Victor had also fallen over and onto the ice, likely also hit. Julia and Ann had drawn their weapons and charged the source of the lights.

There were six of them and they glowed before firing again at the incoming girls but they we ready and waiting for that. Ann was out in front, and she flowed like a river between all the attacks. She neglected to realize, however, that Julia was right behind her. Julia couldn’t see the beams of light until the last minute, due to Ann obstructing her vision by accident. She managed to dodge three of them admirably, before being forced to block one with the shaft of her spear and taking another shot to the gut. This caused her to stumble as the sixth shot went over her head, but Ann was already in the thick of the unknown creatures. Ann seemed to have no trouble with them in close quarters, cutting them down with ease when she managed to close the distance. She was forced to run after them as I watched the source of the lights skitter backwards, attempting to make better use of their long-range abilities.

I was up on my feet now and running to assist, but the two of them were chasing after the fleeing attackers, so the battle was getting further and further away. I came to the spot where Ann had made first contact and noticed two corpses sprawled in the snow.

They were four legged creatures with sheer white and fluffy looking fur coats. In life, they clearly scuttled around close to the ground, using five toes that were pointed with silver tips to dig securely into the ice. Their faces were largely innocent and mostly flat, bisected by a narrow horizontal mouth that opened to reveal a pink tongue and a single row of tiny, pointed teeth. Its’ face was dotted with tiny buttonlike nostrils and small black eyes that glimmered like little pearls. The creature’s most distinctive feature was a singular antenna that stuck out from its’ forehead and drooped over its’ face, tipped with a single white bulb.

I grew closer to where the fight was happening and noticed that that white bulb was the blue light we saw and that it glowed blue just before firing off a streak of frosty light. Ann killed off one more, and Julia skewered one before the last two managed to retreat. Ann could have kept pursuing, of course, but I called her back. These things just seemed to want to run, and we shouldn’t stray too far from the main group. Since their bodies were small, we picked them up and brought them back to where the others were looking onward, inquisitively.

“What exactly are these, book kisser?” Ann said, holding the corpse up for emphasis. Victor, who was on his feet by now though still brushing off some ice, answered:

“I don’t know.”

We all looked at him in slight astonishment, for which we received another shrug from him and an elaboration:

“What can I tell you? I don’t know. Come on, guys, I don’t know everything. Do I look like I have an entire bestiary stuffed in my head?”

When the answer to that rhetorical question was a chorus of “Yes” and “Kind of” he sighed and shook his head:

“I’m not going to know everything. As we get further from home more things will start to be new to me as well.”

“So does that mean we get to name this thing ourselves?” Hope piped up excitedly, to which he shrugged again:

“Someone out there probably already has a name for it, but I don’t see why we can’t call it what we want.”

“Ice Devil!” Ann interjected, crossing her arms to emphasize the name’s ferocity.

“Snowflake Crawler!” Julia offered happily.

“Fluffy Gremlin!” Hope chirped, patting one of the beasts that I held.

“We are not calling it ‘Fluffy Gremlin’!”

“White Gremlin?”

“Why ‘gremlin’?”

They continued to squabble as I sat there in thought, before finally offering my own contribution:

“Ice Crawler?”

They stopped arguing, denying me with three-way harmony “No!”, before going back to fighting. Soon, Lynn made her own contribution, speaking up to be heard over the debate:

“What about ‘Ice Light?’”

That stopped the argument.

“Ice Light…” Ann mumbled, turning it over.

“It’s cute.” Julia said, nodding happily and the other two nodded with her. “Ice Light it is.”

We went back to traveling after a quick break, myself and Victor still shivering slightly after taking two whole Ice Light bolts to the chest. I was still grumbling slightly under my breath about the names:

“Nothing wrong with ‘Ice Crawler.’ It’s simple and accurate. It crawls on the ice, and it crawls while shooting ice. What more could you want?”

Victor patted my back and shook his head again, commenting:

“I think it’s a decent name too, my friend, but the game was rigged from the start. Look forward to all our future encounters being named some variation of ‘Light’ or ‘Fluffy’.”

That comment earned both of us a short barrage of snowballs to the back, prompting us to contort ourselves to dodge. Even Al caught a snowball to the back of the head, prompting an indignant shout of, “But I was innocent!” which was only answered with more snowballs and cries of “Bad influence!”