CHAPTER 11

Snow! Of all the scenarios I could have wanted, snow was not it. I hated the stuff. Cold, miserable and mysteriously fluffy, it coated everything as far as I could see. Fir trees and rugged rocky cliffs extended around mountainous peaks. It looked like Grant had dropped me into the Rocky’s. Perhaps this was Canada Sim. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Breathing out, the fog of my breath billowed like a cloud. Each breath was invigorating and sharp as if I was chewing a handful of spearmint gum. I felt the numbing cold then, driven by the wind. It seeped into me, sucking out all my warmth. I looked down at my loincloth-clad body, gooseflesh already pervading my skin and knew this Sim would suck.

My first thought was to find shelter. Then assess any threats and deal with them as needed, then plan for extraction. I was to reach a beacon within seven day’s time. Sure enough, I looked for it and the flashing beacon was active on my internal compass. It seemed like I had to go over the mountains or around them to get to it. I moved towards some fir trees that were growing below a rocky ledge about half a click to my north. The weather didn’t look good and I would need that shelter sooner rather than later.

The trees are a man’s best friend in most environments, and I was counting this one no differently. Once amongst the trees, I planned to look for an overhang and use the protective wall of the cliff face combined with the trees for shelter. Hopefully, it would act as a natural windbreak so I could warm up within the sheltered area and to top it off I could use the trees as a barrier against any snowfall. That is, if I could break off some branches and prop them against that stonewall. It really sucked not having any tools. With that, I thought of my trusty staff and sure enough; it appeared in my hand.

Slightly startled, but considerably happier to have at least a weapon, I decided I had to move now that I had a plan. I couldn’t just stand around gawking. It was not early in this world, and what little sun there was, was low on the horizon, blanketed by roiling oppressive clouds. Dressed or more aptly ‘undressed’ like this I would not last long in the cold. At night without fire and shelter, I had absolutely no chance at all.

I was used to snow, sleet, and cold; It had been part of living in the UK and definitely a part of winter in the US Midwest. Some fearsome blizzards had blown in and left me thankful for a fireplace and a thermally insulated house. Now as I stood, practically naked, I was seeing the snow in a whole new light.

It was soft and fluffy, sure, it even made that very particular crunching sound as your footsteps crushed it, but after my tenth step, I could no longer feel the snow scrunching up between my toes. It felt instead like I had two leaden weights at the end of my knees. The rest of me could still feel, and what it felt was absolutely bloody freezing.

Moving as I was, it was relatively good because it kept the blood-flow going, my elevated heart rate keeping my core body temperature stable, but with my extremities so in peril of becoming frozen stumps of man-cicle I had to think of some way to warm up.

Crouching down, I tried to warm myself up using magic. With nothing else available and no other solutions at hand, I tried something I would never have thought possible a few weeks before. I imagined a warm barrier surrounding me. Well, in my haste I actually imagined one of my favorite comic book heroes, from the Fantastic Four; Johnny Storm’s solution, which was to ‘Flame on!’.

As I thought this, pictured this, I felt the familiar sense of something draining from me and about a quarter of my mana bar in my HUD was depleted instantly. The results, however, were a lot more dramatic than I could ever have expected. A blinding light of fearsome warmth washed over and through me and around me and flared out, then black spots swam before my eyes.

When I could see clearly again, looking down, I saw I was standing on the bare wet ground and half a meter in every direction; the snow had melted. The cold, however, like a jealous girlfriend slammed right back into me as if to make up for a lost opportunity. I reasoned that this was not the way to do it. The “Flame on” routine not only drained me of Mana reserves, it just wasn’t practical for doing anything else besides burning intensely for a brief instant. I definitely needed to learn control of this new and honestly exciting discovery. With forced speed, I hurried onwards, slightly warmer but getting colder with each scrunching step. The 500 meters to the tree line became 300 meters and then 250 meters.

By this time I must have been blue, well I felt blue, frigidly blue. Gasping I stopped again, crouching down, trying to gather some warmth in me by rubbing my limbs, and I thought again about how to solve this. I doubted Grant had put me here to die for humilities’ sake. He wanted me to survive. How could I do this? From my crouched position I closed my eyes and thought of a way to stave off this frosty weather. Could I make a sparkler fireball and aim it at my legs? Okay, that was stupid. How could I do this without burning myself out and preserving my Mana pool? I realized that my Mana had increased a little, so my Mana regeneration was okay, but not great enough to do ‘Flame on’ every few minutes. Could I do a lesser ‘Fame on’? A kind of internal heat?

I began to focus deeper and imagined warm blood flowing through my veins. The pain that wracked through me would have bent me double if I wasn’t already sitting on my haunches. My health bar began to drop dramatically, and I quickly stopped what I was doing. Grant’s voice immediately resounded in my head. “Petros, that is extremely dangerous, you don’t have enough control nor understanding of your magical powers to use internal magics properly yet. You can cripple or kill yourself in reality by doing that. Refrain immediately or we will discontinue.”

“Grant!” I cried out, “Aargh, that was insane, what did I do?”

“You attempted to use internal magic to increase your core temperature. The method was crude and unrestrained. You almost boiled your blood within your veins. At this stage of your training, do not invoke any internal magic. Do you understand?”

Gasping, and sweating profusely, I grunted out an affirmative, upon which Grant’s presence faded and I was left alone with the cold, my beating heart, and a throbbing headache. Adding insult to injury, the sweat glistening all over my body was freezing. It must be minus 10 degrees Celsius out here.

If I couldn’t use internal magic, as Grant had called it, it seemed obvious that I could instead use external magic. That meant I could make a fire beyond my body, but what else was magic good for? It dumbfounded me. How could I solve this?

Desperate times for desperate measures, I decided that what I needed were some very warm clothes, a kind of barrier between me and the cold. Wait, that’s it! I had magic, how difficult would it be to create a barrier between myself and the cold? What type of magic was that? Could I even do it? All these thoughts rushed through my brain, but the solution came to me in a flash of insight, and with a force of will I focussed my thoughts beyond my discomfort.

I invoked a magical barrier. Sure enough, and much to my consternation, all my magical mana depleted, but the buffeting cold was gone, and upon opening my eyes, a magical transparent force field shimmered around me. It didn’t warm me up exactly, but, by keeping the cold from depleting my heat, I had a chance to survive. In my minds-eye, I had imagined a force field, something one of my gaming characters from a 'Star Wars' game had had. The barrier conformed to my body, almost skin-tight. It was then that I noticed my breath wasn’t going out, but around the barrier between skin and barrier, and when I tried to take a breath, it was difficult. My lips pressing against, and sucking up to the barrier. Had I just blocked myself from being able to breathe air? Heart racing again, I adjusted and envisioned a small opening near my mouth and felt the cold air rush in. I quickly sucked in some air but didn’t enjoy being cocooned in a whole body force field. It was not that bad though, considering the alternative and at least allowed me to breathe.

Taking in big gulps of air I expanded my chest and felt the constricting nature of the force field and wondered how long this could last. My Mana bar was at 2% and flickered to 4% and then back to 2%. I could see that in making this protective barrier, I had consumed almost 75% of my Mana pool and it required additional Mana to be maintained. As long as I used this, I would not be doing any other magical miracles soon.

Deciding this would do, for now, I continued to make my way towards the trees. It felt like I was walking inside a plastic bag while immersed in water. Wading through the half meter deep snow I found the whole experience strange and confining. I would definitely have to think of a way to make this less restrictive and more useful once I found a safe place to camp. I missed my snowshoes from Nico Sim. I noticed my health bar was getting back above 50% and rising along with my Mana bar. The damage I had done internally was being repaired as a freebie by Grant and the machines attached to me. I had learned the lesson though, and I would have to be extra careful about what magic I used.

Under the trees, it was eerily still. The snow wasn’t as thick on the ground, but a healthy dose had trickled down from the overburdened branches above, covering the ground in a blanket of white. Icicles hung like daggers from almost every branch, but the cold had prevented any runoff from gaining momentum. Freezing all moisture solid. If I weren’t so pressed for time, I would have taken a moment to enjoy the invigorating beauty of the scenery as the light played into the crystal structures and created a kaleidoscope of mesmerizing patterns. As it was, I could only see the cold starkness as an obstacle to my survival.

I immediately gathered broken branches, trying to dig up dry bracken, foliage, and whatever I could find. There wasn’t a lot, but I collected what I could in one hand, often fumbling with it because of the barrier surrounding me. My hands never actually made contact and seeing the kindling floating an inch above my grasp was quite distracting. The steaming vent for my breathing obscured my vision most of the time.

Caught up in my task, I didn’t hear it at first. Probably the first I noticed of the disturbance was a rumbling sensation through my feet. The ground transferring the vibration to my cocooned body. It got progressively more disturbing until I could hear it like an agitation gaining in pitch and volume. I had felt a similar sensation a few years ago when hiking and witnessing an avalanche in the next valley over. Although this was slightly different.

My first thought was to run, then reconsidering, I thought I should rather find out what the threat was. I stepped out from the tree-line, and looked back across the area I had waded through and even further along the valley floor to where the river used to flow. It was all iced up now. That’s where I spotted them.

At first, a few black dots appeared, coming out from around the natural curve in the valley, then a milling crowd of black dots that became larger as they gained ground and of course, as luck would have it they were heading in my direction. Was I safe here amongst the trees? I wasn’t sure. But what I was sure about was that a huge herd of elk was stampeding towards me and I had to do something fast if I wanted to avoid being a casualty.

So I climbed the nearest tree. I had to dispel my magical barrier to do it, and by the time I reached a branch that could support me, I was frozen as an ice-lolly. It didn’t help that my family jewels were pressed against the wood and bark, while I clambered up and were rubbed raw from the friction.

Once in the tree I gained a good vantage and watched as the magnificent beasts plowed their way through the valley. Thousands of them creating a plume of snowy mist like a billowing avalanche moving through the area. Their bellowing and clattering a sharp contrast to what had been a peaceful and quiet afternoon in the frigid wilds before their arrival. That was when I heard the call that made me shiver. It wasn’t from the cold. A wolf howl echoed across the forest, followed by similar calls on the other side of the elk herd, and I now saw why the creatures were stampeding.

Wolves are opportunistic feeders. Hunting in packs, they rush their prey, causing weak or young animals to be isolated from the herd and then wear them down as huge fangs tear out first the hindquarters to hamstring the prey and then the throat to get at the arterial blood. A delicacy for the hungry wolves in this cold and unforgiving climate.

As it happened, they managed to isolate an elder, weaker cow, which like me, thought her salvation was amongst the trees. She was running but had a labored appearance. Like the life had already left her. Her hunched agonized gait just couldn’t keep up with the others and breaking free from the herd she practically step-for-step followed my trail to where I was hiding in the trees. By all that is twisted, or else by simple bad luck, they managed to chase her down and rip her apart not five meters from the tree I had sought refuge in.

The spectacle sickened me as I watched the pack rush in, grab a bite, and then rush out while she milled around snorting in agony and shock, trying to back her haunches against a tree, while swaying her small stubby antlers menacingly. The wily wolves never gave her a chance. While one distracted her attention, another would sweep in diagonally until one of her hamstrings was damaged and finally without any fight left in her, she collapsed and they swarmed her.

The ripping, snarling, yipping of the excited wolves was not a pretty sight. I had activated my barrier against the cold again, and it seemed like, with all things, that practice makes perfect. I was able to imagine the barrier into the shape of a coat with a hoodie, leaving my face free. The leggings I imagined to cover my legs right to the tops of my feet, but left my bare soles free. This was so I could feel the traction they made with the branch I was perched on. My hands were similarly free. These extra details weren’t hard to implement, and with the refinement of the barrier, I was able to use much less Mana. I figured I was going to be stuck in this tree for some time, so I might as well be comfortable.

Glancing at the wolves enjoying their meal, I noticed a commotion. They had managed to tear open her belly and for some reason, her warm entrails burst out like an uncoiling high-pressure hose. The entrails bursting forth startled the skittish wolves, who yowling in surprise scattered back to wait for the entrails to settle.

Instead of settling, the writhing mass took on a shape. A struggling slumping shape. To my absolute horror, I realized the dead cow had been heavily pregnant and had probably been on the verge of giving birth, thus her inability to run as fast as the others. The struggling mass that had startled the hungry wolves appeared to be a new almost-born calf, caught up in this bizarre and deadly struggle for life and death.

I was fairly immune to savage death. Anyone from Africa would tell you that this was just nature. I didn’t have to like it though. How unfair was this? The poor innocent creature would hardly have time to take its first breath when life would be snatched away from it in the first instant.

No, I just couldn’t sit idly by and watch this happen. I just couldn’t. Without a conflicting thought in my head, I jumped down from the branch that supported me, rolled to break my fall, then screaming at the top of my lungs, arms waving, I managed to shoot some fizzy sparkler fireballs at the now panic-stricken wolves. Yelping, snarling and fleeing, they gave ground.

My unexpected charge sent them all rushing from the immediate area. It wouldn’t be long before they decided I was also on the menu, so I had no time to mess around. I bent down and using my hands, tore open the birthing bag amidst all the gore of its dead mother. Grabbing the struggling calf under one arm, enveloping it within my magical cocoon I quickly clambered back up the tree from where I had been perched not a few moments before.

Not thinking how I did it, but just doing it anyway. My new body knew no limits and suddenly perched upon the branch again, holding the slippery and thoroughly unhappy young calf I realized what I had just done.

“Wow! “ I shouted at the top of my lungs “That was awesome!” Of course, no one could hear me, but I really liked my new athleticism. I hadn’t moved with such precision and focus in many years. What a rush! I glanced down at the calf I held and tried to comfort it. Its struggles were getting quite frantic. I could see that it was breathing at least, its breath billowing out like plumes from a steam train. My own breathing was doing the same. The liquid goo of its birthing sack was stuck all over its fur and I would have to continue to keep it warm as well as myself.

The wolves had returned in force and were continuing with their meal. Their distrustful and hungry eyes flicking speculatively at my new little buddy and me perched a few meters off the ground from them.

Sitting down on the branch, I pulled the wriggling and now bleating creature onto my lap, and again experimenting with my powers, tried to adjust the hasty barrier I had made originally to more completely envelop it. Somehow I managed to do it, the force field encompassing it seemed to calm it down. I did remember to leave its head free so it could breathe. The cute little calf promptly found one of my fingers and began to suckle. The suckling became quite forceful as it tried to get to the nonexistent milk; I wondered how long my hand could act as a pacifier. Reflecting on my situation, I could only look on in awe and amazement. How had the Absinth created such a realistic world? It beggars the imagination.

I decided that since I had nothing else to do, I should look at my battle log. It had been blinking quite prodigiously. Opening it up I found the latest entries.

Mini-quest: Saving the Elk's Calf, Part 1 completed

Your Reward: Unknown

Proceed with caution and diligence and your rewards will be abundant.

I looked closely at the word “unknown” and another popup appeared.

Unknown rewards are granted at the end of a sequence of events, provided you survive.

If you are killed and respawn during this mission, your unknown rewards will be forfeit.

Typical, give with one hand and take with the other. Nothing is ever easy. I considered with disdain.