Giving him an awkward smile, I reach out with my hand, offering to help pull him up. Stretching his arm forward he stabs his sword onto the top of the waterfall, pulls himself up, and puts his sword away.

Looking my way he gives me a shooing gesture.

I scoot over to make some room.

There isn’t a whole lot of room on here. And I’m not going to the ledge. It’s all icy.

The space on the top of the waterfall in front of the doors was enough for me to lie down. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hopefully, I didn’t hit him too hard. I’d rather not give him bruises.

Looking back towards Ismund I find him looking quite cross. His bloody features were all scrunched up and he absentmindedly broke toothpicks while staring away from the door.

Alrighty then…

“So…”, I start, “How’re we going to kill the squirrels now?”

In answer, he stopped what he was doing, looked toward me and then up to a squirrel coming to bomb us again. Standing up his sword appeared and flashed towards the squirrel.

Whap!

The squirrel fell onto our platform its throat bulging in rage. Running towards Ismund it cocked its arm back and threw the nut at him. It hit his chin drawing a little bit of blood and creating a few scratch marks. Before it could latch onto him he pinned it with his foot and cut one of its ears off.

After hitting the squirrel with the pommel of his blade, he took its unconscious body and tied it up.

His eyes unfocused for a second until he let out a frustrated grunt.

“Tell me once it’s been two minutes…” Looking back to the knife I was holding he shook his head, “Actually,”

Taking the tied-up squirrel he slides it across the ice over to me.

Okay then… System, can you give me a timer that’s a minute and fifty long? And do all the resetting things?

> [Affirmative.]

Leaning against the closed doors behind me I think about-

Ismund reached out and roughly pushed me off of the doors.

“Don’t do that!”

“Why?”

He looked at me as if it were obvious, “The doors could open. And then boom we’re stuck in a hoard of monsters!”

Shaking his head he went back to, whatever he was doing.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Okay then…

Resituating myself I lean my elbows on my pants.

You know, Ismund isn’t very good at cooking. At least from what I’ve seen so far. Maybe it was just the lack of ingredients he had available when he made the soup but… he seemed so happy with himself. I’ll have to find out more to know for sure but, maybe I can help by cooking decent food?

I nodded to myself enjoying the Idea.

“What’s your favourite food?”

I sit awkwardly for a while.

> [Timer has elapsed.]

Cutting into the rabbit I hear something quiet, “…Meat.”

> [Timer has been reset.]

I was thinking he wasn’t going to say anything…

“Can you say that again? I didn’t quite hear you.”

looking up from the carcass I see that he’s frowning.

“Hey,-”

Thinning his lips in agitation he turns even further away from me and occupies himself with his swords.

What’s got him so upset? Maybe he’s just not in a conversational mood? Wait, he never is. Nevermind.

Switching my hearing over to the different energies again.

Listening to the different frequencies I find the snowflake I had already attached to earlier in my pocket.

Found you!

I was, thankfully, able to control it since I had put my own energy into it earlier. Or at least, that’s what I’m calling it. Maybe my energy signature? … Yeah, I like that.

After a minute or so I was getting close to creating a spark again, only for another alarm to go off.

Ugh, I was so close.

Making a small incision on the squirrel I put my knife away. at this point, it was awake but couldn’t really do much, tied up as it was.

I don’t think I’ll get any real practice or progress in if I do it this way.

“Hey, Ismund. I can’t hear you right now, but I can’t make any progress while also keeping the timer in check. So, uh, here you go!”

I slide the squirrel back over to him much to his dismay. Looking back towards me he frowns.

Oh yeah, he doesn’t have the timer to count down… well, I’m sure he’ll do fine. He’s so uptight anyways.

Focusing again I’m able to make another spark, and after some careful manoeuvring… it explodes again.

Aw, man!

I go through this for… well long enough Ismund’s on his second squirrel for cutting. It’s hard to tell how much time has passed when everywhere has the same lighting. Anyways, I’m eventually able to put my signature on another snowflake.

Ahah! Now to control them both at once. Grinning like a mad scientist I move my new snowflake upwards and try to move the other one up, but as soon as I try the other one refuses to listen. I did this for a few minutes unsure as to what I should be doing differently.

I need a break…

Scootching towards Ismund, who was in the process of cutting another squirrel, I wave to try to get his attention.

Turning towards me with a blank expression he raises his eyebrows.

I guess he’s not as frustrated as before. But man, I can’t wait till we can get a bath…

“Could I have some jerky?”

Nodding he hands me a piece.

Oh right… there’s no snow to write on here. Wait, I've got an idea.

Pulling out my bowie knife I scratch the alphabet into the ice.

“Ismund,” I point at the ice.

Turning to me, he then looks at at the ice, and then back at me with the look of ‘really?’ on his face and proceeds to go back to sharpening his sword.

I really thought he would care more… ah, well. You win some you lose some.

After finishing my Jerky I just sit for a bit and try to relax before going back to working with the snowflakes.

Nah, I’ll do the meat instead.

“Hey Ismund, could you lend me some more of that meat again?”

He shook his head.

“Why not? It was fine before and it’s better if we have some more food right?”

He raised his eyebrows and plugged his nose while disbelievingly gesturing to the room we had.

Right. Never mind. I wonder what would happen if it got on our clothes. Would it wash out?

After clasping his scratched chin between his fingers he turns back towards me and gives me a thumbs. Pulling the bandana over his nose he throws some meat towards me.

Okay, let’s give it a shot!

Like last time, I pulled each piece of the CM-

Actually, shouldn’t it just be Corrupt Energy, not Magic? Magic would probably mean it’s doing something… It’s just making it gross.

[Updating…]

-CE out of the meat piece by piece by wrapping it up in some PE from the force field.

You know since the energy is doing something… would that mean I’m doing magic?

[Affirmative]

I smiled happily at the thought.

I’m doing magic!

With some renewed energy I got to cleaning out the meat again letting the gunk slide down the waterfall. It looked like blood, but if it was inky. As it slid down it also froze, and also unfortunately froze to the ground in front of me. The smell mostly went away once it was frozen, but any new stuff that was coming out of the pores would still smell rotten. My bandana was still set to my hearing but I had pulled it over my nose nonetheless.

You need some protection after all. And you know, this was a bit faster than last time but I think I need to do something different…

“Ismund!”

Looking over to me he wearily accepted the meat and put it in his inventory.

Phew, that… took a while. I’d best take a nap before we go to the next room. Will it be a boss room or a fight room? Ack, well best be prepared either way.

Gripping my knife with one hand and plugging my nose with the other I hack the frozen grossness off of the ice. Pulling my blanket over myself I almost get ready to fall asleep until I’m interrupted by tapping on the ice.

“What?”

Gesturing at the ice he starts pointing at letters.

So it was worth it after all! I mean it did fill time anyways, but still!

“Y, O, U, R,” He looked up at me then back to the ground, “S, H, I, F, T”

“Wait!”

Ignoring me he let his legs dangle off of the ledge so he could lay down properly to fall asleep with his cloak twisted around as a blanket.