I have no idea if I have told this before but the environment surrounding this fortress is one of the most lifeless places I have ever seen in my life. There is little movement in the area other than movement of snow and ice. Even when the ice beasts were here, I could only notice them due to their mana. Otherwise our surroundings remained the same as it did before they came. Dull, lifeless and seemingly eternal.
Looking at my surroundings sometimes, the place seems to be a painting drawn in grey and white with an almost timeless quality to it. It is to a point where it has almost been impossible to say the time in this place. For me night and day in this place looks exactly the same as each other. I mostly tell the time on the basis of our meals.
Anyway, weather in this area has been relatively stable during the attack of the ice beasts. Even before that we had a few snowstorms but most of them were at a level where iron skin was not even needed. It has something to do with the snowlords, who seem to have partial control over the weather of the regions or at the very least seem to be the cause of this weather.
They can manipulate the intensity of the snowstorms in the region. They have been reducing the intensity of snow storms for their horde up till now, based on what I have understood from shamons thoughts on the matter. Well, whatever they have been doing they seem to have finally retracted it as I finally understand why the main worry of the snowwinders have been the storms. I can finally see just how bad it can get.
Even now I can feel the entire fort tremble and I don't even need to be connected to the formation to tell that. Every few seconds I can feel the vibration of whatever block of ice or snow accelerate to some deadly speeds collide with the walls of the fort. The iron skin is dealing with a majority of these impacts, but even it is not enough for a few of those strikes. Thankfully, it still does it's job of taking in a majority of the impact so the physical wall is safe at the very least. The wall will break if the same spot is hit again though. The chances of that happening enough times for significant damage are quite low, thankfully. We will need to repair the wall though.
The vibrations are annoying me to no end. The closest analogy I can think of this is that I am sitting in a group of drummers with each playing their drums just out of tune. You know that there is supposed to be a tune but no matter how much you try you can't just place what it is. Well it would be a lie to call it a analogy as I had the misfortune of being in such a room myself once. Granted I was also one of the drummers in that room and the class ended up with our teacher vowing never to teach another class of music to us deaf and idiotic humans (he had quite a few words more, but thankfully i don't know any demihuman languages.). Our teacher was a bat demi human with senses many times sharper then ours and used the exact same drums that he was teaching us to communicate with his people from leagues and leagues away. After this incident, my master never dared to teach me music again.
Anyway, we cannot even leave the fort even if we want to. The winds of the storm is enough to carry a man like a piece of paper and snow that feels closer to daggers rather than frozen water. I won't even talk about the cold, other than the fact that I wish for the time before the storm. Shamon has been quite cruel in making me aware that this not even the coldest that it can go and that I should be ready for something even worse.
That is not my worry at the moment as according to shamon we are presently about to be visited by more than one snowlord and that they are charging to reach our territory. The proof for that is the weather that we are facing, it seems.
I will certainly not try to explain the reason for that though. Better you listen to shamon. I recorded this a while ago when the storm had just begun to pick up. Good that it happen then too. If it were to happen now, I wouldn't be sure if I would even be able to hear his reply. He seems to have expected something like this to happen from the beginning the way that he has been moving about the fort. Anyway here is the recording as I attempt something here.
(Six hours ago)
"Well, what the hell is going on, shamon. It feels as if somebody is throwing boulders at the fort.", I ask him annoyed out of my mind. (I had just woken up then. I have been trying to regulate my sleep for the last couple of weeks. I had almost died the last time I did not sleep properly. It's not an easy task with a formation to build and no way to tell the time)
"Well, captain it is not rock, it is chunks of ice and it is going to get worse, way worse.", shamon spoke, who was sounding quite bored for the situation we are in. The man is either very good at hiding his emotions or he has faced this many times. For now my opinion is that it is the latter. The sound is quite similar to the sound of catapults carrying fire rock hitting the fort. (Well, at least what I imagine them to be based on my masters description of it.)
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
"Well, that is not pleasant to hear. What exactly is going on.", I ask him, feeling the vibrations in the fort as if somebody was throwing rocks at it. I guess I should feel more panicked but shamon's mood has rubbed of on me.
"It is the arrival storms, captain.", he said. "Though I want to be honest and say that I have never seen it get so bad so quickly."
"The arrival storms?", I ask, my voice quite curious. I had not read about this in any of the reports.
"Well, it has to do with us being so close to the northern wastelands. At the onset of winter, there is a large amount of ice mana that moves from the wastelands to here.", shamon continues. "Most of the storms you see are caused by the flow of that mana. That would still not be much of a problem if it were not for the snowlords. The snowlords are massive emitters of ice mana. They emit enough mana that the already quite chaotic mana becomes even more chaotic and the more chaotic the mana the stronger the storm it generates. That is what the weather mages say at the very least."
"What is the arrival storms though.", I ask him, seeing him get off topic.
"That is what we call the storm that occurs whenever a snowlord is coming near to you without regulating his mana. they only do that when they are moving at full speed. It is often a step worse than the other storms that we have to face that season. We use the arrival storms to steer clear of them. Any idiots that dares to brave the plains in a storm will most likely end up dead by their hands.", he says. "To be honest we would have already abandoned the fort if it were not for the fact that even if we were to leave, the snowlord that would be coming here will have most likely located us and killed us. Anyways, I have a feeling that it is not a single snowlord with just how quickly this storm is becoming worse. I have never seen storms like this. That reminds me, how goes your formations."
"Well, it is going well shamon. Yesterday I have completed the tenth spell on the formation core. Only one remains and within three to four days it also should be complete.", I say to him.
"Isn't it supposed to be the class eight formation. I would have assumed that it would be harder.", shamon speaks, his voice taking a inquisitive tone.
"Well, the inscription process is same regardless of which level formation you inscribe. All of them are a set of runes. Designing them though, that is a whole set of headaches though." I begin, stopping myself before I go deeper. A formation mage discussing his work is the best way to put people to sleep, I have discovered. "I know the formation I am inscribing so it will take me three to four days and then your formation is complete and theoretically it should be enough to handle any snowlords."
Shamon looks like he is about to speak something more, but before he can do that one of the soldiers comes running to him with some issue at hand and the man disappears quite quickly after that, most likely to the southern gate. That place is quite a danger in this storm.
(Back to present.)
Fuck, that was a very weird sensation. I want to be honest, this is the first time that I have attempted to slot in a past recording in my log like that. It is supposed to be a basic skill for everybody but me and honestly this is the first time I have dared to use it.
My fellows like to use it for recording any diplomatic talks they had, long after the talks and with a lot of discussion of their successes, failures and other such things preceding their recording. I am sure that you must have found something like this with one of the other logs though do not expect too much of that here. It is rare for a formation master to actually engage in that kind of diplomacy and my skill with this process is non existent.
I also do not hold the interest to convert my log into boring lectures analysing stuff like that. I have ended up sleeping reading logs like that. There is no way that I will be awake while creating them and I have heard stories about people that have ended up sleeping in the process of recording a log. Well, I am certain that some part of it is exaggerated at the very least but it would still be a horror story for me, at least the part about wet dreams.
It was such a weird feeling too, having two sets of thoughts in my mind. It is almost like two sets of thoughts were slotting one after another causing me to almost stumble in my thought process. It is kind of like using both of your hands to write poetry, without writing gibberish in either.
I don't even know how I managed this. Regardless, with that particular experiment complete it is time for me to return to the task at hand, something that I have been dreading to do with so many distractions which is the inscription of the class eight formation.
While it is true that it should not be too hard, heck I know of a few class nine formations which are harder but the consequences of failure is much higher here. If it fails there is a chance that I might have to redo the entire thing. After all this particular formation will link with all the other formations and be responsible for managing them. I am literally going to be making this formation over the runes of all my class nine formations.
Well, as my master says, "thinking of failure before you have begun your work is no way to succeed now, little brat.". Fuck, I am annoyed now. Let's begin the work now. At least with this success I will have another class eight formation under my belt. If only it was a class seven formation.