Joy was very excited for today. After weeks of tunneling and scouting, someone had finally reached the snow-covered city. They didn’t find any particularly important places yet; all they had found were little houses that seemed to litter the outer area of this hidden city. But this was real progress, especially with the added manpower of the Freer Men, they were truly making it into the thick of the city.

The discovery led to more danger, in one random home there had been a few of the inky black monsters meandering about. The squad of diggers quickly took care of them, but still, the danger was finally present. This was what everyone had truly been waiting for, this was what a real expedition to the Frozen Continent was supposed to look like.

Joy wasn’t the biggest fan of danger, but there would be no fun in the world if there was no risk.

Joy started his day by putting on some of his comfiest and warmest clothes, then found Theo and Lillian. After the incident with her nightmares, Joy had joined a group of a couple friends who woke Lillian up at varying times throughout the night to keep her from dreaming. Not that his actions brought him any good will, she was still pissed at him from when he said that her new haircut suited her. He was just being honest; the fuzz was rather endearing.

The two of them were in the dining tent, just having a little chuckle. Joy didn’t want to bother them immediately, so he grabbed a few pieces of dried fruit and walked over to the two of them.

The food was starting to dwindle down. The prince had a massive hoard of food made by the chef before they started this journey. But she and a couple of other important people had been left behind at the castle to take care of business and feeding what was essentially a private army took a lot of food.

Joy missed the simple pleasures of having a meal whipped up right in front of him. Now it was just porridge and the occasional rations. He even missed having the Courier around. The silly man had made Joy’s life so much more entertaining. No one had as much gold as him and was so awful at playing cards; he was a walking bank for Joy. Alas, the Courier wasn’t being paid nearly enough to go into a direct zone of conflict, which was just generally disappointing for Joy.

Joy sat down next to Theo and Lillian and started munching on his food. Just relaxing in the company of two people he trusted and respected.

“So, y’all want to head down into the tunnels today? Explore and loot an old, abandoned city?” Joy asked with a little smirk on his face.

“You could have a little more tact, Joy. A ‘how are you doing?’ would go a long way.” Theo chided.

“But yes, we’re down.” Lillian butted in before Theo could get any deeper into his chastisement of Joy.

The smirk grew into a grin, and the grin grew into a beaming smile. Joy loved this part.

For this first exploration, the group decided not to bring anyone else along with them. They were going to travel through the tunnel systems alone, which would slow them down a bit, since they would be reliant upon Theo’s power to clear snow while Joy and Lillian would be limited to just shoveling the snow around. But the whole experience was just too exciting to want to invite anyone else along with them.

Joy packed them a nice lunch of rations and snuck away just a bit extra from the kitchen, just in case they were stuck under the snow for longer than they anticipated. Then he picked up two shovels for him and Lillian from the shovel supplier.

A few days ago, the man who could create shovels had sought Joy out because he wanted to ‘see the dickhead who had collapsed his masterpiece.’ He seemed like a wonderful little man; his name was Herbert and his gift just let him create shovels out of nothing. The prince had hired him from his shop because he needed shovels but was limited in the amount of stuff, he could take with him to the frozen continent.

Herbert turned out to be a wonderful guy, and Joy had a long chat with him about using his gift in unique ways. Joy had always felt that gifts were hyper niche and useful in only one situation, yet Herbert had spent quite a bit of time debating with him and showing him some of the innovations he had come up with relating to his own gift.

Honestly, Joy thought Herbert was just lonely. He had been paid a princely sum, but he had left his family behind to spend months in an unforgiving environment because the prince needed some shovels, it felt rather isolating and demeaning. So, Joy tried to make the man feel more comfortable with his shoveling expertise.

He went to Herbert and commissioned two of his most reliable shovels. There was a bit of idle chitchat, but Joy was too worked up about exploring to really spend any time with Herbert, so he ran off to enter the snowy tunnels.

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The three of them stared at the entrance, then they all entered together. They had prepared as much as possible and didn’t expect this to be anything particularly exciting, so they started wandering off.

They passed many other groups doing something like them. Now that the edge of the ruins had been discovered, the prince had stopped forcing everyone to dig all day every day. Instead, he gave them free reign to choose where and how they went, but with the understanding that this was a highly dangerous situation that he couldn’t bail them out of if they got into any serious trouble.

Most groups were small, ranging from four to five people. Joy was almost certain that they were just going stir crazy and wanted some new experience other than toiling away with a shovel for what felt like ages.

There were a few unnerving groups though. The groups comprised of Free Men were all dour and serious. They had grudgingly accepted that they would not have been able to get into the ruins without the prince’s help and gifts. But it was clear that they were unhappy to be in a place so steeped in the gifts they so abhorred.

The groups wore all black, and for some reason kept all their features hidden as much as possible. Joy knew it was cold, but not cold enough to keep someone’s head entirely covered other than the eye holes.

But none of that truly detracted from the fun that Joy was having as he was galivanting through the tunnels. He had a skip in his step and a boundless exuberance that was not matched by his ungrateful teammates.

They eventually reached the first of the unearthed ruins. It was a long walk and represented how much time and manpower had been used to excavate this entire system. The whole thing was genuinely impressive to Joy. He had lived in a small village in the middle of nowhere for most of his life and had only heard tales of undertakings this big while in Vena Cava.

The three of them all took a single moment to breathe in the sheer magnitude of what had been accomplished. Then they started digging.

Joy and Lillian displaced as much snow as possible, while Theo built supports out of snow to keep the ceiling from dropping down on their heads.

It was slow, boring work and felt no different in the motions from what they had been doing before. But now there was a promise of adventure on the other side of the tunnel if they just dug enough in the right direction.

They dug and dug and dug until they finally reached something. Joy’s shovel crashed into stone, and they all cheered. After clearing the area a little bit, they found that Joy had hit a wall. So, the team excavated.

Time felt ethereal in the snowy caverns, so Joy had no idea how long it had truly been since they started. But after he had stopped for his second meal and realized they were out of food, he called for a break. No one wanted to give up this opportunity for adventure, but they had come ill prepared for as much work as this was taking.

The wall seemed to stretch for ages. The group had shoveled a good chunk of the surrounding snow away. But it was colossal, and they had no way to keep working on this without more food.

So, they decided to do the mature thing and walk back to the camp and report their findings to the prince. Maybe he would be just as excited about their wall as they were.

Theo had to talk their way past Ian and the other guy, who Joy could not remember the name of. But once he did, the prince was just as excited about their wall as they were. He wanted exact replicas made from ice, and for them to describe every possible detail, then he ran to his little book collection and scrambled through pages and pages looking for something.

Apparently, they had found the castle wall. The prince didn’t bother explaining what castle or why it was important, instead he told them that he would need guides and that everyone would be working on their wall.

That bummed them out a little bit. Joy had been so excited for adventure and exploring. Now he found himself going back to the same old same old, where he was just doing grunt work for the prince.

But that was his job he supposed, so he did it.

There was a small uproar in the prince’s ranks when everyone found out they were back on digging duty just like before. Ian shut the truly loud voices down very quickly, but everyone had been far too excited about the freedom they had been given to just let it slide.

A lot of grumbling workers and unhappy faces went down into the snowy tunnels and worked on finding the gate that was supposedly in the wall.

Joy had been asked several times by some of the prince’s personal retinue how they had found the castle wall so quickly. Their route was being further enlarged and many obstacles were just barely out of their way. If they had altered the course much in any direction, they would have nothing near as important as the castle wall. One woman told him it was like he had threaded a needle while blind. Joy shrugged, he just thought he was pretty lucky.

The days passed and the gate was eventually found. After that it was a mad rush to get into the castle deep inside.

The prince generously explained that this city used to be the heart of the Frozen continent, or whatever it had been called before it had frozen over. And this castle was the center of it all. Deep inside, behind vaults and challenges lay the Kingmaker. The artifact that would catapult the prince above his sister and allow him to truly flourish.

In the tunnels the entirety of the prince’s group and the Freer Men stood waiting. Joy was rather enthused at the whole process, it was just so exciting, he felt like a treasure hunter in some of those old nursery rhymes. Joy saw the prince had a smile that could light up a room as he surveyed his little army. The prince brushed his blonde hair back and faced them.

With a roar, he shouted, “this is what we’re here for, let’s go!”

He then took up a shovel and slammed it into the final wall holding them back from the inner castle.

Joy knew the prince was strong, but not strong enough to crack open the snow and stone that stood in his way. It was a beautiful act of showmanship though, using someone else’s convenient gift to open the way while making the prince look like a hero.

Yet, Joy’s blood pumped in his ears, and he felt elated. With a small cheer he joined the army and clambered into the castle.