Aster Fall, Ch 31: The Hunt Begins (Patreon)

“Let’s head back to Highfold to warn the church, and from there up into the ruins,” Lenei suggested as they left the Ice Sylph village.

Except for Lenei, they were on foot now, since the horses wouldn’t do as well once they climbed up into the slopes.

Hopefully, the Initiate of Ice trait would help them to move a bit more swiftly than before.

Behind them, Aemilia and Altey were standing next to Siwaha as they watched them go. The elder had agreed to watch over them.

It wasn’t just a place for them to stay. She’d also offered to help them train their magic and to come to a greater understanding of Ice.

It was a very important offer for both of them, but perhaps especially for Altey, who was young enough that it might shape her entire life.

Now that the Path of Ice was open to her, Sam’s sister already looked like a young ice spirit. There were flickers of tiny blue and white sparks dancing in the air around her as she moved.

She didn’t have any control of her magic yet, but Siwaha’s tea had awoken a deep elemental affinity and Aster Fall was responding.

Her mana and affinity were reacting with the elements of the world, especially when her emotions flared.

Siwaha planned to help her with meditation and control, teaching her the same way she would a young Ice Sylph.

Sam turned back to Lenei as he looked away from his mother and sister, toward the battle in front of them, as he held their images at the back of his mind.

“We might need the church’s help, but it means splitting up again,” he replied, trying to focus on what was ahead. “We can start looking around the foothills and you can come to find us after.”

“That will work.” Lenei nodded in agreement. “I’m sure I can convince them this time. My Call is still pulling me to you, so I’ll have no trouble finding you afterward.”

“We’re not sure where the Outsiders are, or where they’ve holed up,” Jeric agreed, as he held up a glowing blue crystal that Siwaha had given them. “Once we’ve found them, we’ll let everyone know.”

He also looked back, also distracted by the sight of his wife and daughter, before he turned toward Highfold.

They would be safe here, even more than they had been at the inn.

With Siwaha’s permission, they could settle in the valley. It was the beginning of a promising future.

Before they could do that, they had to take care of the Outsider invasion. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a valley to live in.

He exchanged a long look with his son that held a fierce determination, the fire that was burning in both of them to make the future a better place.

“Let’s head out.”

---

The road from the Ice Sylph village to Highfold was a dozen miles in a straight line, but perhaps twice that as it wound through the foothills of Winter’s Peak. The land here had more rises and falls than it had coming from the other direction, since they were closer to the mountains.

As they reached the fork in the path toward Highfold, Lenei turned in that direction alone. The rest of them turned toward the slopes of Sun’s Rest that loomed in the distance.

“We should reach the outer edge of the ruins in an hour or two,” Krana announced as she shaded her eyes with her hand. She was scanning the road ahead with Far Sight, looking for signs of enemies and their destination.

“It depends on how well we handle the slopes. We’ll also need to keep an eye out for other travelers, since they’ve already started to gather for the festival. Even in a normal year, the ruins would have a few adventurers in them.”

“I’ll keep my hood up,” Sam agreed as he checked to make sure that his amulet was on.

The Ice Sylphs hadn't cared much about his appearance, but he'd also been killing their enemies at the time, so they'd given him the benefit of the doubt.

He looked up to the peak of Sun’s Rest, his eyes following the clouds of blue-white mana gathering there. Soon, it would pour down the slopes and into the valley below.

The new sense of ice he'd gained drifted around him as he looked toward it.

The flows of mana looked almost the same as they had before, but some of the currents of energy had gained more depth, or perhaps a more brilliant color.

There was a sparkling icy blue light spiraling through those clouds that seemed more welcoming than before. It called to him like an old friend, letting him know it was there.

To a lesser extent, that same energy was in the air all around him right now, but more diffuse. It floated in crystalline strands and flecks through the air, swirling through the valley as it touched the top of the grass and was repelled again.

That had to have something to do with the Ice Sylph's magic. He could sense a current of energy along the ground now that was subtly pushing the ice away.

Before, he’d sensed Ice as just one variety of mana, and it hadn’t called to him like it was now.

Now, it had come to life, flowing with layers of emotion and subtle, shifting hues that gave it a sense of personality.

He reached out to touch one of those strands with a flicker of essence, gathering some of the flecks together.

A thin layer of ice formed on his hand, crackling with his energy as it coated his skin.

It was a translucent, light blue and it shone with the reflected light of the sun like a faceted diamond, sending flickers across his vision.

After a moment, more wisps of ice mana gathered above it, forming into dancing spheres and curls like the ones that were following his sister around. They were a thousand shades of blue and white, each of them changing from instant to instant.

Then ice shattered into snow, breaking away from his skin as he released the essence holding it together.

As the snow fell toward the ground, it evaporated before it could touch the grass, returning to mana that flowed back into the air.

His Essence Control applied to Ice, giving him some ability to manage it directly, even if he wasn't very good at it yet. Otherwise, he might have gained an Ice Manipulation skill with enough practice.

He didn’t have any spells for Ice yet, but if he created the right one, he could use it. Unfortunately, that would take a little while, so the best he could do right now was straight up manipulation, which was going to be more limited and energy intensive.

It would take some practice to find the best way, and it wasn’t as responsive as his crystal flame, but it might be important here where the element was so common.

More than that, ice naturally had a crystalline structure. Without that, he wasn't sure his innate Fire Affinity and this Ice trait would have got along.

Of all the thoughts he’d had since acquiring the trait, that was the most important, as well as whether or not he could combine the two.

If he meditated on Ice, perhaps he could come to a deeper understanding of the crystal aspect of his flames and strengthen Essence Shield and Crystal Field, or invent new spells.

Heat and cold were two sides of the same coin. He would have to meditate on Ice in the mountains, once they took care of the Flaw. For now, however, there were too many enemies ahead of them.

He pulled his thoughts back to the present, examining the valley around him as they walked. The weather here felt more comfortable now, as if the ice had become warmer.

He poured out a wave of crystal flame in front of him. The flames twisted into a rough map of the ruins. With a shift of his intention, eighty points appeared on the map, detailing the areas they needed to reach.

“As long as we can get to each of those points, it should be possible to sense the Flaw,” he said, calling the others' attention to the map. “With the Outsiders, monsters, and travelers around it, along with any adventurers, it could get pretty chaotic.”

“We can start at the closest at work our way outward,” Jeric said with a frown as he pointed toward the nearest point, one that was just to the northwest of Highfold on the map.

Sam nodded as he looked up at the slopes of Sun’s Rest ahead of them. He wasn’t sure how many Outsiders had come through the Flaw, but he had the feeling that exploring the ruins wasn’t going to be easy.

There was a looming threat to the valley, and a glint of battlelight flickered in his eyes as his gaze traversed the peaks.

---

The first glimpse Sam had of the ruins was a pillar of fallen stone. It lay half-buried in a layer of snow, fallen sideways across the path in front of them.

Half-buried wasn't saying much for this pillar, since there was nearly a dozen feet exposed above the snow. When it was standing, it must have been enormous.

To his left and right, stretching out into the distance, there were a few similar pillars, marking out what must have been an enormous wall or a pillared gallery that had stretched for over a mile.

Above, an early evening was descending on the slopes of Sun’s Rest as the sun moved down behind the peak. The slope here was rippled, as if the ground had rolled with a sudden fury at some point and scattered the ruins across the surface.

Behind the first pillar, there were other chunks of stone, big ones as tall as a horse and others that were two or three times that size. They lay scattered across the ground, mostly hidden by the layer of snow, but their visible surfaces were engraved with swirling patterns that resembled flowing clouds.

Or perhaps they resembled the rivers of mana that descended from the peak of the mountain.

All of them were made of a dense grey stone with a nearly invisible grain, similar in some ways to basalt, but it shimmered with a silver-green gleam in the depths, marking it out as anything but normal.

It was either a strange ore, an alloy, or imbued with magical properties...or perhaps all three. It gave off a low-level hum that resonated in his senses, the pitch matching the fluctuation of the energy inside.

There were no discernable runes on the stones that he could make out, but the patterns gleamed with a subtle force in his mind. Even broken, they seemed more real than the rest of the world around them, holding the remains of the power that had once flowed there.

That power drew him toward it like a will-o-the-wisp in the night, echoing with a force like the natural runes of the world that made it difficult to pull his gaze away.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Krana asked as she joined him next to the pillar that he was studying. “Siwaha said they were broken more than 12,000 years ago, during a massive Outsider invasion. That was 6,000 years before the last Breaking. Except for the Ice Sylphs, I’ve never heard of anyone having a record of them. Even the church only has theories.”

Sam nodded as he pulled his eyes from the patterns and looked to the sky, searching for the moons. He knew Caelus was up, but it was hidden behind the mountain to the west. Silvas and Amaris had not yet risen.

Despite that, he could feel a strange force in the air, as if there were something waiting, and there was that shimmering, silver-green light that was building up around the runes. It was subtle and barely visible against the stone, but it was there, and it was part of what was calling him toward the pillar.

It felt...expectant.

“What sort of enchantment requires the power of three moons to align?” he muttered to himself, thinking out loud without realizing it. "And what are these patterns?"

“Something big,” Krana answered, unable to hold back her own feeling of awe. “Even if the legends are wrong and it doesn’t have anything to do with the Seal, it’s definitely something on the world level. This type of enchantment has to affect a huge area.”

Sam rubbed his chin thoughtfully and looked at the stone pillar, and then up to the sky again, where the moons were absent. His thoughts were pulled back to the present when his father spoke.

“It looks like some adventurers are making their way up the slope behind us,” Jeric announced, his tone displeased as he looked behind them. “Let’s try to keep ahead of them. We don’t need the distraction.”

With that, the four of them began to move again, walking easily across the snow. Either the snow was packed firmly here or their Initiate of Ice trait was making things easier, since the snow was firm beneath their steps, offering a secure footing.

Once they’d passed by, a wind brushed away their footprints. Sam glanced back at their trail and watched it for a moment. It was already disappearing.

All around him, his Crystal Focus was pouring through the snow, telling him how deep it was and what was underneath it, but even without it, he felt like the world here was comfortable, almost permeable, as if he could move freely in it.

The snow was friendly, offering up its aid.

Whatever Siwaha had given them, and no matter how much she had described it as a simple gift, he had the feeling it wasn’t a simple thing at all.

“The force of Creation,” he muttered, as his thoughts began to turn in an ever-increasing spiral, focusing on the ruins, the mountains, the moons, and the legend that he’d heard from Siwaha.

He wasn’t sure if the ruins had really been built by the gods to balance the energy in the Seal, or if they were the work of an ancient civilization whose secrets had been forgotten.

It was even possible they had something to do with the history of the Ice Sylphs and the Goddess of Life who had created their race, since this was their ancestral home, although Siwaha hadn't suggested that.

She had said there were other tribes of Ice Sylphs in the world, branches that had left to explore the world, but that they had all started here, from that same origin.

Perhaps the Sylphs had built these ruins once and forgotten them, similar to the hearthstone they had to manage the weather in the valley, which had been made by their ancestors. Whatever was true, he had the feeling that somehow everything was connected.

In the sky above, the faint light of three moons was beginning to rise, their multi-colored rays stretching out across the growing dusk.

On the slopes, the snow glimmered as the moonlight descended, giving rise to icy wisps that danced above the surface in slowly shifting patterns, their natural blue-white turning to hues of green, purple, and blue.

---

The four of them pushed on, heading up farther up Sun’s Rest as they moved toward the first point on their map. So far, the Guardian Star was silent.

It was faster to move across the snow than before, but the ruins didn’t make it easy. They had been built directly into the slope, in what must have been terraces or a series of stacked buildings.

Once upon a time, there had been staircases or perhaps magical transportation from level to level, but now it was a tumbled mountain of broken stone, shattered pillars, and fallen walls. All of it was built from the same grey stone with silver-green energy in the depths.

They located one staircase up to a higher level, but it was almost completely obscured by a rockfall, which meant they had to make a longer detour up and around the edge of the ruin, on the untouched portion of the slope.

As a result, progress to the next level was slow. For every mile they gained in a straight line, it was twenty or thirty times that winding through the ruins as they searched for a viable path.

Even detouring completely onto the snowy slopes outside the ruins wasn’t possible. It was like trying to get around the edge of a city. The ruins were too large for it to be practical.

If they constantly had to leave the city and come back in from a different angle, and then leave and try again when that road was blocked, it made for delays.

It took them half a day to reach the first point, which was nothing more than a tumbled pile of stone in the snow. When they got there, Sam activated the Guardian Star directly, letting it scan the local area, which absorbed eighteen essence.

Its response came almost immediately as a multi-colored rainbow star with nine points rose out of his hand and spun in the air, flickering as its scanned the area.

No Flaw detected within five miles.

Concealed Flaw detected within the vicinity.

Unable to pinpoint with greater precision.

The star’s voice was flat and then it fell silent again, as if the effort had exhausted it, even with Sam providing the energy. Now that they were closer to the Flaw, it wasn’t able to help as much. He had to find the origin point on his own.

“Nothing’s here,” he announced as he looked around the area, recalling the map of the ruins in his mind as he plotted out the best path to get to the next star.

This one was almost directly above Highfold, and it would be easiest to go sideways for now, staying on the same level of the ruins. Perhaps they could cut horizontally around the mountain and only climb up to a new level once for each terrace.

The others nodded, and another half a day passed as they headed toward the next point. From time to time, they noticed other travelers, but they did their best to avoid them. There was no need to get entangled with local issues.

“Hold on a moment,” Lesat called, pulling Sam’s attention away from the path. The guard was bringing up the rear defense and had stopped now to study the road behind them. “We have a problem heading this way. It looks like that same group of adventurers we saw yesterday.”

Sam turned around, following Lesat’s gaze to see what he was talking about. It didn’t take long to find it.

About a quarter of a mile below them, on a lower level of the ruins, there was a small band of what had to be adventurers running wildly through the ruins.

They were easy enough to spot from this height, especially since they were outlined against the snow as spells and shields of various colors flared around them.

Behind them, there was a pack of Outsiders chasing them. Sam’s eyesight picked out the details without trouble.

The Outsiders were a strange mix of things, with a long lower body that resembled an obscenely-muscled wolf and an upper body that looked vaguely human, almost like a wolfen centaur. Their four feet were broad and tufted with fur, allowing them to run quickly on top of the snow.

The forward part of their body was humanoid, but there were two long and curved blades of ice in place of their arms. Their jaws were a wide-gaping horror of fangs that glistened with shiny blue saliva.

Coldfang Beheader. Level 45.

The one at the head of the group was half again larger than the others.

Coldfang Beheader Pack Leader. Level 58.

“Looks like they’re in trouble down there,” Jeric grumbled as his hands flexed, reaching for the hammers at his belt. “They’re only in their 40s and there’s four of them. They’re outnumbered two to one, plus the pack leader to make nine.”

Sam turned his attention to the adventurers, scanning over them as he debated whether or not to get involved. Closing the Flaw was more important than dealing with random adventurers and he had a distaste for them in general.

Every time he encountered them, they lived up to their reputation for causing trouble. Maybe the world would be better if he just left them to their own devices.

Human. Barbarian-Tundra Walker. Level 47.

Lykaris. Ranger-Shaman. Level 44.

Human. Wizard-Ice Mage. Level 45.

Human-Water Spirit. Arcane Scribe-Priestess. Level 42.

He almost turned around again, but it was the Half-Spirit who got his attention. She was the weakest of the group and her Scribe class made him curious.

Spirits were an elemental race, often friendly with others, but it was the first time he'd ever encountered one of them, or at least a human half-blood. Before now, he'd only heard of them in stories.

She reminded him both of himself and of Ayala, which made him wonder how the young priestess was doing in Osera.

Also, they were being chased by Outsiders, so he’d have to deal with those at some point anyway. Even though he wanted to avoid trouble, it wasn't a difficult decision to help.

“We’ll have to intercept their opponents,” he said as he scanned the distance between the adventurers and the Coldfangs that were swiftly approaching.

“Down there,” Krana pointed toward a point that was lower in the ruins, where a tumbled wall fell down toward the lower level. “If we jump down from here, we’ll land safely enough. Then we can head between them.”

At that moment, a drifting scream carried up from the group below as the priestess stumbled, falling to one knee. The other three paused, sliding in the snow as they spun around to see what had happened.

Behind her, the Coldfang Beheaders sprinted closer, their bladed arms rising as clouds of snow flew up explosively from around their feet.