Puinen, as it turned out, was absolutely frigid. Coming from Mossford, I thought I was used to the cold. Even the snowy port city we’d landed in had been chilly, but manageable.

As we left the station and walked into Puinen, however, I could feel the freezing cold energy biting through my defensive aura pin and suit, and stinging at my hands and feet. Kene raised his hand and caused an orb of fire to bloom in it, but even the warmth of the spell was quickly stolen by the snowstorms that swept over the region. Siobhan, who had been out with us, simply whined and as swept back into Dusk’s realm.

Despite the cold, Puinen was beautiful. The jagged mountains that seemed to dominate most of Dragontooth grew even sharper and narrower here, resembling massive teeth rising from the earth, and the black-purple stone was glowing softly with some sort of magic I was too far away to feel. In between them, immense glaciers sat, some of them as large as the mountains themselves, and shedding a white-blue light that served as a contrast to the mountains, like a tapestry woven out of the world itself.

The mountains and glaciers weren’t barren, however. Trees, mainly pines of both mundane and magical varieties, coated the landscape as well, adding splashes of green to the landscape, peeking out from under their snow crusted foliage.

Many of both the glaciers and mountains alike pierced through the veil of clouds that made up the sky, continuing up to heights unknown.

Within the clouds, I could see faint shapes flitting from place to place, but even with the combination of Surveyor’s Eye and Vampiric Senses, I couldn’t make out many details, the snowstorm was too thick.

And the snowstorm…

There was no end to it, as far as the eye could see, and the snow just kept drifting down. It had to be siphoned away somewhere, or it would have built up and crushed the town, but I couldn’t make it out.

The town itself was quaint and cute. Log cabins seemed to be the dominant style of choice, and nearly all of them had actual fires burning in them, not just the basic heating and cooling enchantments of Mossford, at least judging by the smoke that drifted out of their chimneys.

There was an abundance of lights all over the streets here too, helping keep the entire place lit and walkable.

Walkable in theory, at least. The thick snow hadn’t built up, but it had formed thick sheets of ice. A few of the locals seemed to be traipsing through it without problem, and I wasn’t sure if it was a mundane or magical means that allowed them to do such.

Strangely enough, there also seemed to be a massive number of white-shelled tortoises roving the streets. There were more tortoises than there were locals, in fact, and I started to wonder if the tortoises were the locals, perhaps. I extended my mana senses to peer at the nearest one who wandered by.

It felt… Oddly reminiscent of the temporal basin spell. A different structure – I could feel large amounts of telluric magic flowing into the shell to improve the crystalline structure, layers of lunar mana that seemed to be strange moonlit ideas and esoteric concepts of the slowness of movement brought on by the snow, solar magic movement and speed. The last two were there in smaller amounts, the tortoise’s magic mainly the mix of telluric and temporal, but it was distinctly there.

I was drawn out of my musing by Kene, who was now flooding enough mana into the ball of flame to make it the size of a pumpkin.

“Can we find some sort of hotel or something?” Kene said, chattering, and Dusk whistled her agreement, though she didn’t seem to be nearly so bothered by the cold.

Making our way into the central square – though it was really more of a circle – we were only able to identify a single, two story hotel, but it seemed to be bustling with people, the most active part of the town by far. That… did make some sense, truthfully. While I was sure the town got some tourists during the summer, to travel along its hiking trails, we were nearing the lunar peak, the darkest day of winter. The only reason that you’d have to travel so far north during this time of year was either because you, friends, or family lived here, or if you were here for the Beastgate Trial Trail.

We headed inside to find a large common room with over two dozen people milling about, and a tired looking older woman sitting behind a counter, who stood as we came in.

“You two here for the Beastgate?” she asked, and Kene jerked his thumb at me.

“He is, I’m just along for the ride.”

“Ah, very kind of you,” she said, nodding. “A room for…?”

“One,” I said. While we could stay in Dusk – and probably would, it was so much warmer – it would draw too much attention if we just said we didn’t need a room. Besides, Kene would need one while I was gone.

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“For the full month, that’ll be two thousand silver,” she said, and I jerked my head back, then reconsidered. It was actually a reasonable price, it was just also a lot of money.

“You can pay seventy silver a day, if that’d be easier?” she asked, and Kene pursed their lips.

“Do you have an alchemist or doctor in town?”

“An alchemist, old Agnes. But are you actually skilled enough to do the part time work? She has high standards.”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Kene said, then glanced at me. “I’ll try and work for her, if I can. If I can’t, then I’ll probably head back to Mossford, and I’ll meet up with you down at the village. I’ve enough to stay here until you leave, and by then, I should have a good idea one way or the other.”

“Alright,” I said. “But let me get at least a few days of the room.”

“Fine, fine,” Kene said, smiling at me.

I paid for the first night, and we were handed a room key, after which the hotel worker smiled at us.

“Breakfast is included, as is a soup for dinner, but if you want lunch or a fancier dinner, you’ll have to get it in town. You’re welcome to lounge in the common room or your room, and you can probably get the basics of the Beastgate rules from your fellow contestants over there, but you’ll have to meet with Edgar yourself at the mouth of the trail, to hand over your wardstone, and you’ll get the rules from him anyways.”

“Thank you,” I said, and she nodded.

Dusk peeped, curious if an arcanist level tortoise was really named Edgar?

“I thought he was an occultist,” the older woman said. “But yes, that’s his name.”

Meadow had definitely referred to him as an arcanist, but then again, she was hardly omnipotent.

Hi, editing Tobi here. I’m actually going to be swapping this conversation so that it takes place on the boat, when they’re deciding if they’re going to dragontooth or not. But it’s going here to keep things simple, so you all don’t lose out on it.

I glanced at Kene.

“Will you be okay waiting that long? With your condition…”

Kene made a so-so gesture.

“I think I’ll be fine. Meadow said we couldn’t delve until mid-third gate anyways, and if you can break through on the trail, we’ll both advance. If not…”

Kene let out a dry chuckle.

“Well, I should still be fine. My tattoos are strong, and the only reason anything happened last time was that things went so poorly.”

They didn’t seem totally convinced, and I shook my head.

“If you don’t think you’ll be fine, I’ll break through right now. We’ll head home, and start looking for the cure as soon as we can. A month is a long time. I’m hoping to complete the trail faster than a month, but…”

“I appreciate it,” Kene said, taking my hands. “But I really think I’ll be okay.”

“Only if you’re sure,” I said.

Editing Tobi out!

I glanced at the woman behind the counter.

“Do you know where I can get cold weather gear?” I asked. “I want to get some before I go to visit Edgar. I thought I’d packed some, but I clearly underestimated just how cold it gets here.”

After she gave us directions, we left to visit the largest store in town, which served as a combination grocer’s and clothing store. It was strange to see, like an actual general store from the tales from the Suntorch expansion.

We were greeted by a bald man in his early thirties, who gave us one glance, then let out a laugh.

“You’ll be wanting back that way,” he said, pointing towards the eastern end of the store.

We headed back to see racks full of cold weather gear – warm flannel shirts, blue denim pants so thick they were slightly hard to move, coats, scarves, gloves, socks, and sunglasses.

“What are these for?” I asked, picking one up.

“You don’t think the snowstorm is permanent, do you?” asked the bald man. “No, when it lets up, the sun reflects off the ice, and it can be blindingly bright, despite the cold.”

“Really?” I asked. “Interesting.”

I turned over one of the coats, a slim black one that had a strong thermal insulation, and my eyes nearly bulged out of my head at the price.

No coat should cost three hundred and fifty silver.

“Do you accept mana sources as payment?” I asked. “Or potions?”

“No,” the clerk said. “Though Agnes might. Come to think of it, I’m almost certain that she will.”

Kene and I exchanged a look, and then left the store to head to Agnes’, which was trickier than I thought it would be, since more than a quarter of the houses had a greenhouse of some sort.

We did eventually spot it by the mortar and pestle sign that hung over the entrance, and entered to find a cross between a modern pharmacy and a witch’s hut. In a way, it actually reminded me of Kene’s old pharmacy shop.

There were bundles of herbs hung high up to dry, shelves of ordinary medicines, a low counter behind which sat a bubbling cauldron, and magical supplements behind that.

Sitting in a rocking chair not far from the cauldron was an older woman, appearing to be in her seventies, who squinted at us as we entered.

“What’d’ya want?” she spat at us, in a rather unfriendly manner.

“We were hoping to sell some mana sources and natural treasures,” I said.

“And I was hoping I could work for you during the month he’s on the trail,” Kene said. “And get some things identified, if possible.”

“Humph. We’ll see, then.”

She gestured to the potion.

“Finish that, and we’ll see about getting you a position. If you mess it up, you’ll be repaying me. As for the treasures, I’ll buy some of them off you if you clean my shop. I don’t want to see a speck of dust, hear me?”

Kene and I traded glances, and they walked over to the potion.

“What were you working on?” Kene asked.

“Figure it out,” Agnes said.

“Where are the cleaning supplies?”

“Figure it out,” Agnes repeated, this time with the addition of a hacking cough.

Kene muttered something under their breath about her being just like his grandmother, and I started to look for a supply cabinet. Dusk then tilted her head, and a moment later, a magic that I recognized as belonging to Brownies swept out of her hands, pulsing in soft waves that started to clean things.

“Thank you all,” I told her, then started looking for a supply cabinet. Even with Dusk’s help, there was still quite a bit that needed to be cleaned. Eventually, I found that she kept them behind the counter, right next to the register.

Dusk seemed to be having fun with the whole thing, sketching out and casting her flight spell to hover from shelf to shelf, blasting at them with brownie magic. It was less fun for me, but I toiled away while Kene muttered, mixing, adding, and studying with spells.