Riary had a horrible feeling about this. Tyler had been acting all stupid ever since… she blushed lightly. W-Well, whatever! Either way, he had been acting all stupid ever since! Smiling and acting all carefree. This was no time for that! She was still freezing even with the heat going through her body. They were wearing horrible ‘clothing’. And even then, it was only as good as it was, the rubbing of burnt flesh against her bare body instead of something more gory, because of her magic.

And her magic…

That made her feel exasperated. She felt like she had been neutered, again. Or maybe it was just an extended and horrible neutering that threatened to rip her goddess damn magic balls off. She despaired slightly.

It had started with that fucking vampire bitch. She had to burn her mana channels out, pour them all into one attack. Even with healing, that was a devastating thing to happen to any mage. Mana channels were mostly pure ‘science’ in a way. They were the metaphysical veins for your magic, existing in a physical medium. Regrowing mana channels wasn’t hard, per se, but it was complicated. Getting them to be as developed as they were took time, effort, understanding, and that nebulous ‘More’ that seemed to block everyone in their rise to power. Usually, regrowing mana channels happened because someone lost a limb that also managed to sever even the metaphysical. With her body still in place, it had just cost insane amounts of time, effort, and concentration every night.

And now?

That spacial distortion that had teleported them across the world had literally torn them to their component parts and put them back together. That wasn’t how teleportation worked. At all. It didn’t shred you down to your lowest pieces and move that. It simply rearranged space around you. And yet they had stayed ‘whole’ for it. There was only one answer to that. While their bodies had been undone and remade, their souls had been free to travel.

Which was the second blow to her magic. It had remade her exactly as she had been… but every single ‘piece’ from the very smallest up, had been weakened somehow. She lacked the understanding to comprehend it, but via her magic, she could certainly feel it. It was like she had gone back in time over a decade, when she was first learning and using her magic. With the same level of power then, she wasn’t able to light a candle. The only reason she could do so much now was because of almost two decades worth of practice and immense talent in it.

Which did nothing to keep the scowl off her face.

She was a fire mage in the snow and could barely start a fire! It was as insulting as it was pissing her off.

And Tyler’s fucking whistling wasn’t helping!

“Knock it off already!”

He stopped, but still had that dumb smile on his face. G-Gah!

The stupid weird death dome she was going to burn down, surrounding the stupid ice spire she was going to burn down, wasn’t close. Oh it had the audacity to seem close the motherfucker. But it had been over an hour now and they still weren’t anywhere near it. At this rate, they’d starve to death before reaching it.

Tyler suddenly stopped, smile wiped away. Riary raised her hands, instantly on guard.

“What?”

“Something… isn’t right.”

Riary used her magic senses as best she could but wasn’t detecting anything. Although…

Her eyes widened and in a split second decision, dashed behind Tyler.

“Shield!”

He slammed the Ice shield they had managed to make into the ground as a wave of utter cold smacked them. It had been cold before, below freezing, but this was different. This was so cold that she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, her very life force freezing in her chest. Sub zero temperatures and dropping rapidly. It was radiating outwards from the spire and that horrifying dome.

She felt frozen solid, a cold deeper than she had ever known covering her. The blood in her own body began to freeze, her fires guttering to an end, freezing solid. Her body stopped responding, ice creeping up her body. Her thoughts slowed and slowed and slowed.

Movement became impossible.

‘Cold…………so…………………….cold……………………………….’

Where two people once stood, only statues of ice were left.

The dome expanded.

*

*

*

*

*

Riary lay frozen, encased in ice. Her thoughts, her emotions, her body, frozen. No synapses to fire, no mana to channel, no fire. Her flames had been put out. Even her very soul was frozen, trapped within her, forever unable to leave.

Time passed. More and more, as she and Tyler remained there, statues to the testament of adventures folly.

A day. Then a month. A year. A decade.

A Century.

A Millenium.

An Eternity.

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The ice was reaching further now, encroaching not just on her mortal self but her near immortal self. Her soul was already frozen but even ice can freeze. Soon, like how fossils are merely the imprint of bone, her soul would merely be made of ice. Only an imprint of her left in the world. Even an A-Rank Fire Mage would have fallen.

But Riary had an advantage. She had many throughout her life. She was born poor and suffered worse than most, yes. The edges of war scarred her to this day and always would. But she also had been born with Talent outstripping most people alive, a drive and mind that took near perfect use of that talent, turning her into a S-Rank seed, and even was sponsored and taught by Royal Mages. The funds, schooling, and knowledge poured into her would have normal mages dying of a heart attack.

And yet, none of that would be enough. No amount of Talent, Drive, Genius, or Money would save her. But none of those, were her greatest advantage.

She had a friend. No, someone more. Someone who loved her. A fool… but a loveable one. Someone that valued friends and family more than himself. Someone who would always fight for what’s right. Someone who’s first choice of weapon hadn’t been a Sword or an Axe or a Bow.

It had been a Shield.

And he would sooner die than fail at protecting her.

An Aura washed over her and her soul stirred. And like a chain reaction, it set her off. Her soul was Her. Her in a way that people didn’t understand. Yourself, yourself stripped to the barest sets, beyond the mind and body. Beyond the microbes in your gut influencing your decisions, beyond your animalistic evolved brain obsessed with reproducing and survival, beyond all that is. The soul is You.

The soul can not be harmed in a traditional sense. It can not be destroyed. It can not be created either.

But it can be altered. It can be ‘harmed’ in a non-traditional sense. And most importantly of all… it can really, really hate wanting to change.

Riary’s soul reached and set itself on fire.

Boom.

“AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

Riary’s screamed pierced the air as the ice around them exploded, shattered, and melted. Her mind screamed at her, of refusal. Refusal refusal refusal, refusal!

“I REFUSE TO BE MADE OF ICE!”

It wasn’t just a cry from her mouth or shout from her mind. It was so much deeper, so much stronger than that. It went beyond her understanding. It was like it was a Rule. A literal underpinning of reality itself.

Her soul had refused to change.

She looked down at her body, eyes still wide in fear and panc, adrenaline and heat, surprised to see that while everything around her was blacked with flames, she was okay. She quickly looked around, to see Tyler unconscious on his back.

“Tyler!” Riary shouted and ran to him. She kneeled next to him, sensing… something with her magical senses. But not magic. No, this was… something new.

“Tyler! Tyler! Wake up! You can’t die, come on, please wake up!” Riary grabbed him and shook him.

Her panic was extreme. He was breathing, his heart was beating, but Riary had felt that cold. Felt an Eternity of nothing. Tyler’s body may be alive, but what about his mind? She continued to shake him, praying to the divine for a miracle as she did so, trying to figure out how to help him.

When he stirred and opened his eyes, Riary briefly froze, before crashing into him with a hug.

“Whoa!” Tyler said. “Is everything okay?”

Riary was too busy squeezing the idiot to respond. They had nearly died there. No, they should have died. Maybe they even had. It didn’t make sense right now, it didn’t have to. The only thing that mattered is that he was here in her arms.

As the moment continued to stretch, slowly, Tyler put his arms around her. They stayed there, in that moment. Frozen, perhaps, but at least now they had each other together in each other’s arms.

But as the minutes continued, as time horrifyingly continued to march on, they began to separate.

“That was… rough.” Tyler said.

“No fucking shit.” Riary said, looking at Tyler with a smile on her face. She was just… so happy they were alive.

“What even happened?” Tyler asked.

Riary blinked and then frowned.

“How should I know?! One second we’re standing here, the next we’re turning into ice for…” Riary shivered, remembering Eternity as a frozen popsicle. It wasn’t so much memory, as a sense of weight in her heart and chest. “...for however long we were frozen.”

They both took a moment there before Riary shook it off.

“Then! You did something with your weird fucking Aura and my Soul seemed to explode because of it. Now, you’re alive and not frozen, and I’m not in a million burning pieces spread across the ground. Why on Ero would you think I would know any of the answers to that?!” Riary huffed, getting worked up after her ordeal.

Tyler just blinked dumbly at her.

“...my Aura isn’t weird…”

“Why on earth can you use ‘Aura’ before you even have one?! That makes no sense and it has progressively made less sense! A slash is one thing, even if difficult, but not like how you do it! Freaking stupid True Hero bullshit. Some people have to work for strength but then you show up and slam your face into the dirt and pop up stronger than ever before! You’re completely unfair you…” Riary continued to berate Tyler, mostly just for the stress relief.

Tyler just looked dumbly at her, before he began smiling, which only made her go off more. His comments afterwards drove her into a Fury as it was all ‘Isn’t it a good thing I get stronger so fast?’ and ‘Don’t you also get strong really fast?’ and other nonsense like that.

Riary’s face might have been a scowl and rage might be spewing out of her, but inwards, she was happy. So very happy. This was how it should be. Piling her passion down unto Tyler’s stupid head while he stupidly sidestepped it all with a smile, only pissing her off more. It was right, it was fun, it made her happy.

And it had all almost come to an end. Again.

Not because of an overwhelming monster that could be “reasoned” with or worked around or fought. But because of nature itself. It was a… chilling reminder of their mortality.

Finally though, her ranting came to an end and they both seemed to sigh at the same time. This was fun. But they still had work to do.

They picked themselves up and finally looked around their surroundings. At first, everything seemed normal enough. Except that everything had seemed to stop. Looking up, Riary could make out the dome that was around them. She glanced around, seeing that weird darkness and when she saw something else in the air her mouth dropped open a little.

“What the…” She frowned.

“What?” Tyler asked.

Riary walked over and grabbed a handful of snow, before releasing it.

It stayed in the air.

Riary said the words. Said the words even though her brain was screaming at her that this didn’t make any sense either.

“The weird darkness around the dome… the snow….”

She looked up at that spire, seeming so much closer than before, with a blue light on top. A blue light she knew would be coming from one of the eight gems she had seen.

“I think this gem… is freezing time and light around it.”

Tyler stared up at the Gem with shock in his eyes.