Aster Fall, Ch 18: Arctic Wind (Patreon)

Sam limped as fast as he could, circling around the dead wyvern as he raced toward his father. He pulled out all the healing scrolls he had from his pouch, which ended up as half a dozen sheets in his hand.

When he got there, his left leg gave out and he collapsed on the ground next to his father. He dropped his staff to the side as he activated the first scroll and pressed it to his father’s chest.

Jeric was covered in blood, with gashes across his shoulder, left arm, chest, abdomen, and both legs. Shards of ice were still embedded in some of the wounds, preventing them from bleeding as much as they would have, which was a small mercy.

His eyes were half-open and he was barely conscious as Sam shoved another scroll into his good hand.

He’d have to wait for the first one to do its work, but it would be better if he could activate it himself.  It would be more effective that way.

As the white light of the first spell surrounded his father, Sam’s left hand radiated soft crystal flame as he began to pull out the ice shards, slowly, one after the other. The edges of them melted, but he gripped them with both essence and flame as he pulled them out.

His right arm was still broken, probably in more than one place, and hanging at his side. His breath was also coming in sharp, short gasps as he felt his cracked ribs on that side.

He didn’t pay any attention to his own wounds. He was just staring down at his father as he used his good hand to remove more of the ice shards.

As he touched them, the mana in them conflicted with the crystal flame, and they melted away. Steam rose from them as the white light of the healing spell ran across the wounds where they had been.

Jeric gave out a short, sharp cough as he turned his head and spat clotted blood to the side, clearing his lungs as they started to reinflate.

When that light faded, Jeric activated the scroll in his hand and the process continued.

On the other side of Jeric, Lesat was also helping, adjusting Jeric’s position and pulling out ice shards as well.

All around them, the snowy grove echoed with new silence, the flurries of snow whistling against the rocks above. Red and white-green blood stains covered everything nearby, but now the snow started to fall, gently.

Single, solitary flakes drifting down through the air came to rest on top of the blood. Then they melted away and were replaced by another, a moment later.

Slowly, inexorably, the snow continued to fall...flake after flake settling around them as they continued to heal Jeric.

It took half an hour and five healing scrolls to remove all of the ice shards and to seal over most of his wounds, and by then he still wasn’t fully healed.

As Sam tried to activate the last scroll, Jeric shook his head.

“That’s enough,” he growled, stubbornly. “You need that more than I do now.”

Sam tried to refuse, but Jeric had enough strength back that he pushed the scroll toward his chest, plastering it to his son as the white light poured out of it.

Sam felt the healing spell running through his bones as his ribs, left leg, and the bones in his arm started to fuse back together. The gashes down his shoulder and side from the wyvern’s bite also closed more, but one scroll wasn’t enough to finish the job.

Sam searched through his bags, but all he had left were a few healing pills. He pulled them out, passing two to his father as he ate the last one himself.

The pills weren’t as effective as the scrolls, but at least they should help regenerate their blood and seal over the wounds.

He’d been confident that half a dozen healing scrolls would be enough for most things, but he’d been wrong. It was barely enough to stabilize their injuries. He shook his head as he gave his father a long look, making sure that his wounds were sealed.

At Level 40, his father’s base Constitution was 84, plus two more for the Belt of Gentle Climes and an additional four if he held his hammers. Sam let out a slow breath.

It would be enough. His dad could heal the rest on his own.

As for him, his Constitution was up to 47 with his belt. The broken bones would finish healing back together in a day or two, even if he didn’t use any more healing spells.

Something loosened in his chest as he realized that it would be alright.

A wave of exhaustion roll over him, bringing a leaden weight to his arms and legs that felt as heavy as the wyvern’s corpse.

He looked around the clearing at the slowly falling snow. The blood was gone, buried under soft, silent drifts that continued to settle on it, returning the area to a nearly pristine white.

Even the broken branches on the trees were invisible now, covered over by the snow. The remains of their battle just a few minutes before had nearly completely disappeared.

The only interruptions to the peace of the grove were the oddly shaped hills of the bandit corpses and the huge corpse of the wyvern.

It looked smaller now, lying flat against the ground. Its wings were outstretched, covered in snow and visible only at the tips of its claws that still protruded above the drifts.

Its body was still visible, but there was a swiftly accumulating layer on top of it. At this rate, it would be buried within an hour.

Sam slowly stood, putting his weight on his left leg as he tested how well it had healed. It held, but it threatened to buckle when he put too much pressure on it.

He dug down into the snow, pulling out his staff from where it was buried, and Crystal Focus swept out around him, searching beneath the drifts as he identified the location of everything in the clearing.

“Can you walk?” he asked, as he reached down to pull his father to his feet.

They needed to collect what they could and leave here as soon as possible. He still had auras to combust if he needed more essence, but they weren’t in a good shape to fight another battle right now.

They had to get back to the inn and rest.

“I’ll manage,” Jeric growled softly as he took Sam’s hand and pulled himself to his feet. Lesat also helped, stabilizing his shoulders as he stood.

“We’re on the way.” At that moment, Krana’s voice whispered in Sam’s ears, a distant calling and a reminder of the others.

“We’re bringing our healing scrolls and the horses. We'll be there soon.”

She must have seen them in Far Sight.

“We’re all coming,” Aemilia’s voice whispered in after that, resonating through the Amulet of Swirling Winds. “We’ll be there soon.”

She didn't say anything else, but the worry in her voice was clear. The only thing keeping it from exploding was probably that she could sense they were alive through the amulet.

A flash of guilt ran through him as he took in their state and what his mother would say, and then he let out another breath as he pushed it away.

There hadn’t been a good way to avoid this, not without just being better than he was now.

If they’d ignored the bandits, they would have returned at some point, perhaps with the wyvern, and then it would have been an even more dangerous fight when they were surprised.

The problem now was that his mother and sister were coming this way, and he wasn't sure the area was safe. He could feel the pulse of their presence growing incrementally closer as he sank his senses into the amulet.

He knew why they were coming, since it was better to travel all as a group than to leave just Aemilia and Altey behind, but he still wished there was a better solution.

He didn't want them out here in the wilderness, where more bandits or wyverns could be hiding.

“Nothing for it,” Jeric said aloud. He sent his reassurances back along the amulet to his wife, and then he reached out to pat Sam’s shoulder. “We’re alive, and that’s what counts. We'll head back together as soon as the horses arrive."

There were a dozen questions swirling in Sam’s mind, all of them focused on the wyvern and the bandits, but he pushed them away as he nodded at his father.

“Let’s clean up here and meet them,” Sam said, a frown tugging at his features as he looked around, “and then we can talk it over back at the inn.”

“Aye, let’s collect the bandits’ equipment and go,” Jeric agreed. “The wyvern too...that might be some materials for you.”

“I can use the hide and scales to make some decent armor, if Sam enchants it,” Lesat offered slowly, as he looked around too. “It’s a very high-quality leather, with quite a bit of mana in it.”

Sam just nodded, his mind skipping ahead to the next steps in what they needed to do, as he headed toward the sorcerer’s body and the dimensional bag that was lying beneath the snow.

He didn’t know how they bandits were controlling the wyvern or where the sorcerer had gotten that pill earlier, but there was clearly more to what was going on here than he’d thought.

Hopefully, that bag held some answers.

As he went for that, his father and Lesat headed for the equipment and dimensional bags from the other two bandits.

When he reached the sorcerer’s corpse, or what was left of it, he stuck his hand into the snowdrift, searching through it for the bag that he could sense there.

After a moment, he found it and he held it up, examining the damage from Starfire. It was blackened from the flames, the enchantment on it cracked and starting to unravel, but for now still intact.

It wouldn't last long. Maybe another day or two at most, but that was enough for him to see what was inside.

He opened the bag, his hand pressing on the opening as he flooded it with mana and poured it into an empty dimensional bag of his own. The items inside slid from one dimensional storage to the other, barely causing a ripple in the air.

It was mana intensive, but the easiest way to empty a bag.

When he was done, he glanced inside at what was there. There was one more of those white pills, radiating the unsettling feeling of foreign essence.

There was also a number of typical things, including random pills and some vials that he wasn't familiar with, assorted weapons, food, and some coins, but nothing that stood out. It was generic, useful equipment.

Only the pill was strange.

If the sorcerer had anything else of interest, it had exploded under the effects of Starfire. There were lumps of unrecognizable metal in the snow from the things he'd been wearing.

As he looked over the area, Sam reached out and grabbed the ones that looked salvageable, including a scorched mithril bracer, a couple of rings, and an amulet. The rings were also made from mithril, which was why they had survived. The amulet was an alloy that he couldn’t identify in its current state.

He frowned as he turned away, shoving the ruined items into his bag. The metal might be useful if he could reforge it, but whatever else they had once been was lost, including if there had been some control spell for the wyvern or an identifying mark.

The enchantments on them had been weaker than the base materials, which was why the runic patterns had burned away and left the metal behind. They had probably been Basic or Advanced at most.

He headed for the wyvern’s corpse, joining the others as they gathered around it. Lesat had located a couple of healing scrolls in the brawler’s dimensional bag and he passed them over to Jeric silently, with no need to speak.

Jeric gave him a nod and took one of them, handing the other to Sam. When Sam tried to push it back, he glared at him until he accepted it.

Sam sighed, glancing at the scroll to make sure it was safe. Then he activated it, letting the swirl of white light settle into his bones and fuse them back together a bit more.

When it was done, he turned his attention to the wyvern, studying its corpse. The others were waiting for him and his father gave him a nod.

Sam reached out, searching for the silver thread of experience in the beast as he pulled it toward himself. It was a huge strand, far more than any of them could absorb at once, and as he pulled it free, he felt it separate into three parts.

The experience flowed toward him, his father, and Lesat, even as he felt the remaining portion of it dissipate into the world, claimed by the World Law to repair the Seal.

A moment later, he heard the silvery chime of experience as energy shimmered through his blood, burning and freezing at the same time. Effervescent bubbles of positivity flowed through him, surging into his mind as he felt his muscles relax.

It was like a good beer at the end of the day, or a specially-brewed wine, softening out the rough edges of the battle as it left him feeling more energetic.

You have used your Class abilities to slay your enemies.

You gain 210,000 Class experience.

Congratulations. You are now a Level 49 Battlefield Reclaimer.

Class Experience: 4,161,940 / 4,400,000

You are now General Level 49.

General Experience: 4,185,470 / 4,400,000

You gain +1 Aura, +1 Intelligence, and have three free status points to distribute.

The area here was apparently far enough from Highfold that the experience reduction of being near a city didn’t apply.

It meant that it was a good area to hunt.

The boosts to Aura and Intelligence brought both of them to 94. He glanced at the free points, hesitating for only a moment before he assigned all three to Constitution, bringing it up to 48.

The new points there would help to accelerate the healing of his current wounds and it kept him on his plan to keep his Constitution equal to his level.

The reason why was obvious.

If he’d taken the same injuries that his father had, it was unlikely that he would have survived.

He needed to work on a new weapon and a better defense, and to upgrade his aura abilities so he had more essence at hand, as soon as he could.

When that was done, he placed his hand on the corpse, searching for the thread of aura in it. After a moment, he found it, a surging green-white aura that exploded in his senses like an angry, piercing shriek.

It was snow and ice settling into ancient grooves in the stone of a mountain and forming into layers that grew heavier with time.

A high mountain wind screamed across the surface of the ice, tearing away at the layers of snow with a touch like steel talons, even as it chilled them more, packing them harder and denser.

It ripped the weakness from them, the moisture and the softness, leaving only the barren, icy cold behind.

You have encountered an unknown aura.

Do you wish to Identify it or to Reclaim it (35%)?

He chose to identify it and the aura ignited, combusting itself in his hand as the threads of energy burned away.

He felt the taste of snow that settled on the land like ash, covering everything in a quiet blanket of death, an eternal stillness of ice and cold.

Then the taste was gone, as knowledge suddenly erupted in his mind, his Advanced ability to instantly identify the aura activating.

You have Identified the aura.

Aura of Arctic Wind (Basic).

This time, unlike every other time he’d reclaimed an aura, he could feel something behind the basic aura that was evaporating into the world.

That energy in the air hovered there for a moment, with the sense of something greater than what he’d just claimed, pressing into his senses as he reached out toward it.

Then it was gone, disappearing as he tried to touch it, but it left an impression behind of an aura that was greater and far more complex than anything he’d just gained.

An Advanced aura.

It had layers and depth to it, and the promise of a greater concept behind it.

If the Basic aura was Arctic Wind, then this was something more, something primal, a higher concept of ice that explained what the wyverns were at a deeper level.

He let out a deep breath as he felt the remains of the Basic aura crumble away in his hand, leaving only the taste of frozen air behind.

He pulled his attention away from the aura, looking over to where his father and Lesat were starting to work.

They’d absorbed their share of the experience, and Lesat was already getting started on one side, his sword out as he struggled to cut through the wyvern’s hide, reducing it into large, rectangular strips.

After a moment, Jeric joined him, his steps slow as he limped over, pulling out the Spear of Umbral Flame again.

Sam reached down, picking up a wyvern scale, as he scraped the talon on his forefinger across his. A gouge lifted up from the scale, the stony hide curling back like wood, and he nodded.

His talons were even sharper than the wyvern scales. Too bad they were so small, or he could have used them on it.

He shrugged, bending down to grab more loose scales as he started to transfer the materials to his dimensional bags. Where his father and Lesat were using their weapons, crystal flame surrounded his talons instead, cutting through the wyvern’s hide with a sharp hisss.

When it had been alive, its mana had infused its body, making it even harder and interfering with spells targeting it. Now that it was dead, it was little trouble for him to cut it apart.

Material of this quality still held quite a bit of its natural mana and affinity, but it didn’t hold up to his talons or flame. Long strips of wyvern hide, scales, and then bones and meat went into his bags.

The meat of a high-level beast like this was also dense in mana, and it could be eaten or sold. Eating it could help with some forms of stamina and mana regeneration, and also speed healing, but its real value would be in selling it to a high-level cook, who could do even more with it.

Some wyverns were known for their venom, but this one had an ice affinity, which meant that it should be safe to consume.

As he worked, he studied the monster, considering where it had come from. Krana hadn’t seen it hiding here, but Far Sight wasn’t perfect. She would have needed to look in the right area, and even then it was only like seeing that area with your eyes.

Wyverns were notorious for stealth in the mountains. It had probably been hidden in a crevice of the stone or beneath a snow drift.

When it came to Foresight, that ability was too random to count on in regular battles. If it had activated, she would have warned them, but expecting that it would was too much.

It took about half an hour for them to reduce the wyvern to little more than a smear of blood and guts on the snow. All the hide, scales, and even its bones were stored away in their dimensional bags.

As for the wings, Sam took them. The leathery expanses would make excellent spell parchments, especially for anything related to ice or wind. He needed to make quite a few more healing scrolls, as soon as he could.

Sam bottled up as much of the blood as he could gather, collecting it into a rare dimensional bottle that he had that was fashioned from a type of enchanted crystal.

Perhaps it could be sold to an alchemist or maybe Krana would help him find some use for it in smithing. Of all the wyvern’s materials, the talons, fangs, and blood had the strongest Ice affinity in them.

The last thing from the wyvern was a Level 46 core, which glowed softly with swirling green and white mana. Sam tucked it away in his dimensional bag, as a material for some later enchantment.

When that was done, he checked his amulet to see where Krana and his mother were, but they were still a quarter of an hour away.

“Let’s check the bandits’ cave,” he suggested, as he turned toward it. “Krana said they had supplies in there.”

All around him, the snow continued to fall, drifting silently down through the air as it landed on top of the blood and the remains of the wyvern.

It was a slow and relentless advance, covering over the efforts of man and monster as it replaced it with the simple, eternal stillness of the snow.

A cold wind whistled through the mountain peaks above, sending the snow spiraling all around.