Will Woke to the sound of voices speaking in a language he had never heard before. He sat up stiffly. Frost crackled and ice snapped as he pulled himself away from the carcass of the wolf. He looked in disbelief at the cocoon of frozen blood that he had been sleeping in. This didn’t make sense, not least due to the fact that it was warm out, but the blood ice wasn’t melting. Will nudged the pup in his coat, who let out a giant yawn and started to sniff about. Were its eyes always that blue?

Will let the pup down to the floor to do its business, which it did without complaint. It then returned to him to be stuffed back in his jacket. Will was glad the pup was so amiable, it had been quite the handful the previous day. Will heard the voices again as he fed the pup some more jerky from his pack. It would be nice to meet some people. Even if they didn’t speak his language, they should still be able to get him in touch with some kind of law enforcement.

With the pup safely tucked away into his jacket and chewing on another piece of jerky, Will made his way out of the hollow. The people were nearby, probably over the next ridge. Will started in their direction only to find three figures heavily clothed in furs and carrying some sort of old style hunting bows. Will raised his hand to greet them, but one immediately drew his arrow and fired.

Will dodged as best he could, the arrow flying past to hit the tree behind him. With a loud boom, the tree promptly exploded. Will was pelted with wooden shrapnel as the tree groaned and started to sway. The thing was as large as a redwood, and Will didn’t want to be anywhere near when it hit the ground.

And so Will ran. The pup yowled in fear at the sound of the explosion, and the even louder sound of the tree that was crashing down. The tree hit one of its neighbors, causing the second tree to groan ominously but remain mostly intact as the original tree was pushed to the side. Only a second later, the entire ground reverberated as the tree hit the ground with an earth shaking boom. Will just stared at the fallen tree in disbelief. He hadn’t run more than 50 feet in the time it took the tree to fall, which put him several hundred feet from the top of the tree where it had fallen. If he hadn’t run sideways and gotten lucky with the direction the tree had fallen, he would be dead.

His thoughts turned to the homicidal hunters that had made the tree explode. He didn’t know who they were or what their deal was, but he didn’t want to meet them again. He didn’t fancy getting hit by a normal arrow. He certainly wasn’t going to risk getting hit by whatever charges those people were carrying. Were those even legal? He couldn’t think so.

Then again, it was obvious he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Maybe people hunted moose with exploding arrows in Russia. That sounded like an appropriately Russian thing to do. They would probably do it riding a bear too. That said, they didn't sound Russian. Their language had a quality to it he had never heard before.

Will walked away from the hunters, doing his best to keep in the shadows, and to the dips in the land. He didn’t need those guys coming after him after walking a couple hours with no change to the scenery, he noticed something odd. The tree trunks that he could see in every direction were brown with normal bark. But when he drew close they became rimed with frost, turning them a sparkling white. Not that much light got through the boughs to sparkle.

Will approached a gap in the trees that opened to a field surrounded on all sides by the giant trees. The field was covered in snow, but on a hunch, Will pushed aside some of the snow to reveal ice underneath. This was no field, but a pond.

It was then that he realized that he had not drunk anything since waking up, nor had he needed to use the bathroom, or had the desire to eat. Will pulled out the flexible straw the backpack came equipped with, and felt it crackle and pop as he moved it. He sucked on it, but no water came out. And so he removed his backpack and looked at the bladder to find the whole thing frozen solid. He stared at it dumbly for a few seconds. It had to be at least 60 degrees out. It was a bit chilly, but nothing that could freeze his water. Nothing that could cause frost to form on the trees. Nothing that would cause three men to wander the forest too bundled up to do their job properly. Will sat down and pulled off his helmet. He took his gloves off for the first time in several days as well.

His hands were blue.

They had the bluish gray color of someone with hypothermia. The bluish gray color of a corpse. Will frantically felt at his own neck with two fingers and sighed in relief when he felt his heartbeat. It was far too quiet in his chest. His pulse was slow, but it was there. But it was obvious there was something very wrong. He knelt before the spot of ice he had cleared and polished it furiously for a few seconds. He looked in the impromptu mirror to see a stranger looking back.

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His hair was completely white, the same color in fact as the pup’s fur. His eyes were also an icy blue, again, the same as the pup’s. The only difference was that his face was the same corpse blue as his hands. Will could feel panic rising inside him, but some force made it distant. It made him calm, his thoughts clear. His initial thought was that he had become some sort of zombie, but he had his mind, and his heart still beat. Will stood again and set the pup on the ground, and immediately began to strip, examining every inch of his body.

The first thing he noticed was that even though he removed his clothing he did not get any colder. Even laying down in the snow couldn’t make him feel colder. His entire body was the same gray blue as his face and hands, but there were no wounds he could find. He did have less sensation across his entire body than he was used to, and he just remembered that his arm had been broken the previous day. It seemed fine however.

Will put his clothes back on, suddenly feeling very vulnerable out in the open like this. He sat down, and the pup came and laid down next to him. Having found nothing wrong on the outside, he closed his eyes and examined every feeling he could sense. From his head to his toes he re-examined his whole body and found something odd. He could feel what felt like two stars within his chest which each seemed to emanate some sort of energy throughout his body. One of them felt fresh and new, like a spring breeze. The other felt cold, like the wind off a glacier.

Will felt at each of them. The springtime one didn’t seem to react to his prodding, but feeling at the other caused an image to spring into his mind. In the image he stood on an infinite plane of ice, forever scoured by the wind. The image was one of loneliness, of despair, of desolation. It was an image of walking forever just to fall to the cold and ice. Will shuddered and retreated from the image. He could tell that this was what was causing the transformation in his body.

Will considered the point of cold energy within him. He wanted it to stop, and he felt like there was a way to do it. And so Will pressed his will against it. His attempts were fumbling at first, barely making any difference. But as he practiced, his will seemed to catch on the star, and he smothered it.

The cold crashed in on him like a tsunami. He immediately started to shiver violently, and he dragged himself back to the polished bit of ice. His hair had returned to its normal brown, and his eyes to their dirty green. His skin was pink and growing chapped where it was exposed to the harsh air. But it was at that point that his control slipped, and the soothing energy of the cold star enveloped him once again. His hair turned white, and his eyes turned blue, making him look like a budget jack frost.

Will sat back on his heels considering what he had just discovered. This energy made him immune to the cold, and seemed to have some other physical effects. But there were other things. Every time a new surface came into a certain range of him, frost started to grow. The winter air was very dry, but it seemed especially dry around him. This indicated that the effects of this energy were not simply confined to him alone. He seemed to have an aura of cold that he emitted around him. He had no way to know how much colder it was around him than everywhere else, but he suspected it was a significant difference.

Either way, testing would have to wait. He had no way to survive without this energy, whatever it was. He remembered then what he had seen before falling asleep under the tree the archers had exploded. He sent his will toward the system. It hadn’t bothered him in a while, but the outline of the notifications box was still in his vision. With a small effort of will he brought back the notification from the previous night.

Concept formation detected.

Congratulations, you have gained a concept!

Concept: Desolate Heart of the Frozen North

Type: Cold

Subtype: Desolation

This is a mental concept.

That was a fitting name for the image that popped into his head. Desolate was the only word to describe that endless plain of ice and wind. Remembering that image made him shiver. Knowing that he would never find his way out before he froze to death, that he would freeze alone just to ice over and become a permanent part of the desolation. Still, it was keeping him alive oddly enough. But he did not want to rely on it too long, Which meant he needed to find civilization. Or shelter at the very least.

Will turned to the pup, who was snuffling about in the snow not far away.

“You need a name.” Will said, and the pup perked up, tilting its head in confusion. Will thought for several minutes. “How about Koma? It isn’t the most original, since it just means snow, but it sounds good.” The pup just turned its head the other way, and then went back to snuffling at the ground.

“Koma it is then.” Will said. It was then that he realized that the Koma seemed to be protected by his concept as well. The pup was too small to survive the cold, but seemed to be just fine now. Since Koma’s fur was gray yesterday, Will had to assume the color change was due to the energy. Or rather his concept.

Will needed to find civilization. Even with his concept he couldn’t survive out here long term. And so he set off with Koma in tow.