The prince waited for the mass of people in front of him to quiet down. Of course, everyone was rather excited; they were going to go down as legends now, to be able to cross the sea and survive on an inhospitable continent. Although very few of them were personally responsible for their success their names would be remembered forever as “the guys who tagged along.”

The prince stared at the wall of people, his people. Each one was handpicked for a job and role that they would carry out while they were on this continent. They were the cream of the crop, and he was about to put them to work.

The prince’s blue eyes shone clearly beneath his many layers, sadly his golden locks were hidden from view by his quaint little hat though. His voice cut clearly through the crowd, “alright everybody. Y’all know what your job is. Go do them.”

The prince kept this one short and sweet, he knew it was going to be cold here, but damn he was chilly. He was wondering if he should wear another layer, just in case. But four layers of clothes did seem excessive.

As the prince waddled off, deep in thought about how to properly deal with this cold. The crowd just stood there a little shell-shocked at how quickly this speech had gone by. But eventually, one woman, Marissa the chef, whacked her hand with her ladle and started walking to her kitchen. And this seemed to break the spell on everyone else, so they started leaving for their various duties in and about the newly built castle.

Theo had been happy when Joy arrived on the ship, even though he would never admit this to anyone. The little guy had grown on him, the more time someone spent with Joy the more they couldn’t help but enjoy his wild nature and unique spin on life.

The problem was, Theo’s group for this mission had been specially crafted to be as stealthy as possible, and for some reason Ian had just throw Joy into their midst, saying this was as good a place as any.

Theo, Wes, and Vanessa had been surgically picked for the synergy between their three gifts. Theo was the freezer, Vanessa was the melter, and Wes was the silencer. That is to say, Vanessa would melt anything that stood in their way, Wes would make sure that the death cries of whatever she was melting wouldn’t be heard, and Theo would fill the holes made in nature to make it look as if they had never been there.

Everyone had a job and a place, but what was Joy going to do for their group? This was not saying that Theo was mad that he was there. Theo was very unhappy when he and Lillian weren’t paired together, but why Joy?

This question was answered by Joy later that day, he said “I was either being put with you or Lillian. And no one wanted to see what sort of shenanigan Lillian and I could get up to without your supervision. We are like your unruly kids that no one wants to deal with.”

Both Theo and Joy were absolutely covered in fur and extra layers of clothing, treading through the snow and basically being as miserable as possible. The problem was that Theo could hear the smile on Joy’s face as he said that, and he hated that Joy was not as miserable as he was.

The group’s goal for this very first outing was to explore the surrounding area. Sam was a very powerful seer, but not powerful enough to just divine where powerful artifacts are with extreme precision, in an area they know nothing about.

All the combat groups were doing this for the next few weeks, so that the team knew everything they could about their surroundings, and who the other players on this continent were. Hopefully someone would run into the warlord who was causing trouble on the mainland and be able to take him out during this preliminary time, but Theo didn’t have his hopes up.

Trekking in the snow was hard and cold. It seemed so obvious in retrospect to Theo, but there are some things that need to be experienced before someone can make any sort of judgement about them. But now Theo could say with full confidence that the Frozen Continent was cold, and miserable.

The team had put Vanessa in the front to melt as much of the snow as possible. Since her power let her melt things with a touch, there was no need for someone to spend all day trudging along, making a path for the rest of them. This made their suffering go from terrible, to merely miserable.

But, leaving swaths of snow missing was not conducive to being sneaky, so Theo was tasked by the rest of the group to fill in the gaps in the snow. It was much harder than anticipated. At first, he just left chunks of ice in their wake, but everyone felt that it was a bit too obvious. Still not sneaky enough.

So, he spent their first trip trying to make snow with his gift. His gift froze things, it created ice. Ice was strong and had many useful properties that its corollary, snow, did not have. Where ice was brittle and sharp, snow was soft and moldable. He had never needed to make snow before, but it couldn’t be that much harder than making ice, right?

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This exercise felt much more like one of his personal projects than a mission. Theo felt like he was trying to make a sculpture, it was not a problem that he could just attack, he needed to be smart.

So, he experimented for hours and hours, since he had nothing better to do than get better at it during their wandering.

It took almost three days of trying before he figured it out.

His gift was focused by his eyes. Where he looked, ice formed. It was a basic power when taken down to the bare bones. But what happened when he didn’t look in at a specific thing, and simply let his sight be absorbed by his surroundings?

The difficulty was that he didn’t know how to not be laser focused. Theo had spent years training himself to have laser precision on everything he looked at. Where would he even start with this unfocusing?

So, he turned to the only other three people nearby him, he asked them what they thought.

Surprisingly, Joy had the most interesting thing to say, he asked “how do you look at the sky on a beautiful day?”

With the raging wind and rampant snow, it took a few repetitions before anybody could hear his question, but once Theo finally heard he pondered it. It seemed profound, something a hidden master would say when teaching their pupil, but this was Joy, there must be some trick hidden here, some game.

Joy was full of surprises this day when he continued down the philosophical path of question and said, “you do not focus on each part of the sky specifically, you let it wash over you.”

Theo knew Joy couldn’t see his face because it was hidden under layers of cloth to protect him from the cold, but Theo tried his very hardest to convey his flabbergasted expression. This was not the Joy Theo had come to know, someone must have taken his body and replaced him with some serious guy.

Somehow Joy understood the meaning behind Theo’s incredulous gaze and he said, “what? Can’t a guy just enjoy a beautiful sky. Life is beautiful my man, enjoy it.”

These words somehow struck a chord with Theo, and he started trying to open his view when using his gift.

He looked up at the sky above him, and instead of focusing all on one spot, he let his view spread, until it encompassed the gray sky around him. Then he flexed his gift.

Gifts were stored in the soul space of a person, but an ability wasn’t exactly able to be stored in the same way a magic sword could be. Instead of pulling out a hypothetical magical sword, Theo felt his soul space was like a jar of something. And he could open the jar to the world as he needed, so when he flexed the metaphorical muscle, he cracked open the jar.

And above him a wide but thin sheet of ice formed, then promptly fell onto his head, shattering into a million pieces.

Everyone had a good chuckle at his misfortune, but after another hour of experimenting he figured it out. He had to make space between the chunks, or else it would come down as one solid piece.

But it was thrilling, it had been years since he had discovered something new about his gift, and even if snow wasn’t the best thing to use in combat, the novelty of it was amazing for Theo. So, he made snow form behind them in the air, and let it fall to cover the path that Vanessa cut in the snow.

The group of four became ghosts in the snow, indistinguishable from the environment. They were an odd texture in the snow and nothing more. Not that there was anybody to hide from.

Theo did wonder if this whole operation was simply a test for them all, to make sure that they were willing and able to endure elements so unlike their home for the prince. Since, even though they slept in little magical tents that must’ve cost a fortune to make, they were miserable hiding all day long in the gloomy snow.

These apprehensions were dispelled after the group had spent a full week traversing the snowy outskirts. Vanessa melted, Wes silenced the world around them, Theo covered their tracks, and Joy made snowballs that he threw at the other three, resulting in varying degrees of annoyance.

Somehow, Joy was the first to notice the other group in the snow, maybe it was his acute senses and peak observational skills. Or maybe it was the fact he had been looking around the area for something better to hit the other group members with, since snow had been starting to bore him.

Across the sea of snow was a small group of three. They all were decked out in many layers, to stave off the cold. To their utter misfortune, the group seemed to only be able to brave the snow head on. They did not have a nifty gift like Vanessa’s and their members seemed to be taking turns walking a path in the snow ahead of their companions. It looked mighty painful from Joy’s observations.

The first thing Joy did was yell at his teammates hoping to draw their attention to the mysterious group, however he found that Wes’ ability was quite annoying when he wanted to speak to someone. So, he resorted to poking Wes until he got the message to turn off the silencing field.

“What do you want, Joy?” Wes was annoyed with Joy since he had been nothing but a bother since the start of this trip.

“There are some guys in the snow over there.” Joy pointed in the general direction, where the members of the group were clearly visible against the snowy terrain.

At that moment everyone got deadly serious, these could be some of the ruffians who had been causing trouble in the Vena Cava. So, the four of them slowly and quietly approached the group with the utmost care. Wes’ silence had never been more silent as the group approached and prepared for combat.

Vanessa melted the last stretch of snow between the two groups, and they finally met face to face. The two groups stared at each other, trying to ascertain the other’s intentions and whether to attack.

Finally, Joy broke the silence that Wes had thankfully lifted from the area, “so, who are y’all?”