The atmosphere around them got colder, and colder, to the point where it was physically impossible to survive it for long! Arvena had practically sealed the exit of the nest that they were in, she sealed it with a scorching coating of fire, but that was not enough to make the team comfortable, for a couple of reasons.
First things first, a sealed exit cut down on their oxygen supply pretty quickly, it left them almost breathless after ten minutes of her futile efforts. She had to stop it, because the fireball wasn't even helping the team warm up enough anyway, and that was the second reason why they were not comfortable. The surrounding cold temperature was too much of a competition for her to handle, virtually nothing could battle it!
At best, she made the underground nest achieve a temperature of -5°C, and that was not enough to heat everybody up, especially since she couldn't keep this up for long. The air around them had only gotten colder from that point, and when she got rid of the fireball, it sunk to about -50°C in mere seconds! It was physically impossible to survive these temperatures for more than a few minutes, especially when they were in shock from the sudden cold!
“Maybe the gods are punishing us, because we killed sir Leshtuk, I'm starting to think that it wasn't right to kill him…” Ortana admitted through a shiver, though it was quite likely that she wasn't thinking straight right now.
“Either way, I think we should just get out of here.” Tim interrupted her, he brought the topic right back to the main issue. “Skendus, you and I can escape with our lives, you know we can float out of here!”
“We can't leave these ladies behind, don't be a prick, be brave!” He countered, as the deafening sounds of the blizzard muffled some of his words.
“If you can get out of here, then you must go…” Arvena encouraged them, her voice was very puny, and almost lifeless. “I've read about some really weird things back home, but I've never heard, or read about a blizzard this violent!”
Before they could argue about this any further, they noticed that the deafening sounds of the blizzard above them, suddenly stopped. It went away as quickly as it had come, to the point where it was challenging to picture its sudden department!
Arvena was the first to notice that the blizzard went away, and she wanted to use this opportunity to help everyone survive, so she started guiding them accordingly. She had everyone take a few deep breaths, and then sealed off the exit of the nest again, using one of her very hot fireballs!
The fireball was more effective this time, because the cold wasn't as overwhelming now that the blizzard was gone. Within five minutes, she got the air temperature up to a whole 5°C, which was her best result yet, and it saved the group too, because their bodies didn't look like lifeless corpses anymore, but they were recovering instead. Their skins even developed a rozy haze, which was a good sign, because they had been seconds away from death just a moment ago!
“What the hell is happening?” Tim asked, he was really uncomfortable right now, but he was happy to be alive nonetheless.
“The forest probably acted weird, like it's supposed to. The Innkeeper did warn us about the weird weather, so regardless of your conclusions, Ortana, the gods were not punishing us.” Arvena added, as she kept the fireball going.
“I never said that,” The other followed along, though it was obvious that she was a bit delirious.
Anyway, after about two minutes, Arvena had to get rid of the fireball, because they were running out of oxygen again. She figured that she had to repeat this process a few times until everyone warmed up properly, as it was their best way to bounce up without risking much, especially since the nest was doing half of the work already. They were not exposed to the outside elements, so they stood a chance.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
While she waited for everyone to catch their breath, she then noticed something weird. She spotted something through the exit of their nest, and it was simply too unusual to ignore it.
“Where did that dragon come from?” She mumbled, and then rushed to get out of the nest, the same nest which was their main advantage.
Considering what they just experienced, it was very stupid to go above ground right now, especially to see a dragon, but she did so anyway! Her body was still numb, however, so she bounced around the short tunnel on her way out, and she got a few bumps as a result, though these bumps did help her become a bit more cautious.
“That's not supposed to be here,” She anxiously sighed, as she looked at the remains of a dragon that was trapped in ice.
The dragon was obviously dead, so she wasn't in danger, but this situation was weird nonetheless. It got even weirder, when she noticed that she was surrounded by walls of ice for as far as she could see!
The walls were tall, and very isolating, so she figured that it would be really dangerous for her to blast her way through this mess. Instead of discovering a way out of here, she discovered more frozen carcasses in mere moments!
They were all trapped in ice as well, and most of them were dragon carcasses, rather than whole skeletons, so this was quite concerning. The ice was so clear that she could identify about six species of dragon almost immediately!
“A Black-tailed Wyvern…” She stroked her chin, “Quite rare, though pretty useless to me, because it’s as dead as a bastard can get.”
The rest of the group followed her moments later, they left the nest because they were concerned, and after they got out, they were equally confused as to what was happening! All things considered, they were not supposed to be surrounded by the brutal remains of an ice age right now, so they all started panicking one way or the other.
“We couldn't have slid somewhere underground, right? I didn't feel us move at all.” Tim was the first to make theories.
“No… we never moved.” Skendus shook his head, “Maybe the gods are messing with us after all, because judging from the conditions of the brains, these… big winged fellas have been in the ice for a while, hundreds of years, perhaps up to a thousand? That little blizzard couldn't have gotten to them, can't be that.”
“It's a good thing that they're dead either way. Look at that long bastard, it looks like it came out of the depths of hell… I mean, why does it even have horns?!” Tim added.
No one engaged with him for a moment, because everyone was busy with their own concerns. The atmosphere out here was close to sub-zero temperatures, so the cold was getting to them again, they were in literal pain now.
Furthermore, it didn’t look like they were getting out of here anytime soon, so their overall morale was pretty low. They were not willing to bicker over anything, or exert more energy than they had to.
Arvena eventually cut him some slack, however, and explained. “You were pointing at the Devil-horned Wyrm, and they haven't got any legs. They were notoriously destructive back in the day, erg, thousands of years ago, but they're all dead now. They went extinct, and thank god they did, because they could grow up to sixty feet in length - Big, snakey bastards, I hate them too!”
Timothy fully believed what the other said. The wyrm had black scales too, so one would truly believe that it came from the depths of hell, and he did not want to meet any of those in his lifetime.
Anyway, they got a couple of fireballs going afterwards, to nudge the group closer and closer towards survival. Although they were stuck between a labyrinth of ice walls, there were no cold winds around here, and the group could breathe all they liked without having to risk hypothermia. So despite the irony of being surrounded by ice, this may be their best chance yet to warm up properly, and avoid death by hypothermia all together, so they took it!
While they warmed up, there was a single question that dominated everyone's train of thoughts; They were all wondering where these walls of ice came from!