One week. One fucking week. I am now sure that Pampil died for a good reason. Fifty kilometers north my ass! It's been a whole week!

But it's now here in front of us. A giant palace of ice and snow sitting atop a strange rock formation. The frozen palace is made of a mix of ice and snow that you can't see through. I can feel mana in it, probably to avoid having the place melted by the first fire magic wielding destructive moron.

The journey to get here was extremely dull, after we met the herald of winter we kept heading north. Aside from snow, the only things we saw were a group of five roaming goblins and a polar bear. The goblins barely lasted ten seconds, even without me fighting. The bear proved to be more of a challenge but still died quickly after Albius landed a lucky shot in his left eye.

I managed to gain a single level of my horse job. I also ranked up metamorphosis.

Now that we are getting closer I can see how elaborate the place is. Every window, every door and even the walls ooze wealth and opulence. If it wasn't made of ice you could think this is the palace of an emperor. I am pretty sure there is enough room in this place to fit a hundred time the population of Terrnit. The highest spire is scraping against the clouds, as if it was trying to catch them.

There is a problem though. The door is about fifty meters above the ground. There is no stairs. Maybe I should have chosen a flying creature for my second transformation. Nah, there is no way I would have carried the others up there anyways.

Now what? Lein is looking at the palace with curiosity, Veria is checking the surroundings and Albius is sleeping in the back.

"We'll set camp next to the rocks over there, they are covered in way less ice than the others. I think it'll be wiser to take a good night of rest before we enter this place." Veria said after checking there were no sources of danger nearby.

"How do we get up there though?"Lein asked the question I couldn't.

"Worse is I'll have to use my blades to make holes in the ice and rock and you'll create ice spikes that we'll climb"

"That sounds dangerous." Albius woke up barely in time to absolutely not contribute to the conversation.

"If you have a better idea your help is welcome."

"I can shoot an arrow with a rope up there."

Veria stared at the idiot. He genuenly though it was a good idea.

"First there is no way you can shoot that high, second your arrows wont pierce the ice, third the rope in your backpack isn't long enough."

"Oh" He looked at his feet.

"Let's set up camp think about it tomorrow." Lein said trying to defuse the situation.

Veria and Albius approved, we set up a small camp with a fire and three tents. After a quick meal, everyone fell asleep. Even I can barely stay awake, exhaustion is numbing my senses.

I was expecting this to be a calm night of restorative sleep.

Your can see somewhere out of time and space, in a forgotten realm are kept records of all that will or could happen.

What? Where the hell am I? There is a beautiful woman lying in a pool of blood in front of me. The ground made of pure ice is slowly turning red. I can hear voices echo behind me. I can't see them but I think Lein and Veria are arguing.

The woman in front of me isn't dead yet, she's faintly smiling. Blood is flowing out of the large wound in her stomach. She is trying to speak but words won't come out. It seems she's been poisoned, she's coughing up blood.

I can read on her lips, she's trying to tell me something.

"Sorry"

I suddenly woke up. Sweat is driping from my forehead. What the hell was that? Is this premonition's effect. It's horrible.

It's steel dark. I don't really want to sleep anymore though. I'll go for a walk.

The cold night wind is burning my cheeks. A cat's fur is not enough to face Yrsrevir.

The sky above my head is covered in colors, it's an aurora borealis. I stood in the snow, head up looking at narure's performance.

Once I was done gazing at nature's beauty, I resumed my midnight walk. And then destroyed my knee.

As I was walking, I hit my leg on air. Or what I thought was air. I can see the lights from the aurora shine on what I thought was an empty space. There is nothing under what my knee hit aside from the snow covered ground.

It's like an invisible flying block. It's completely transparent, I can't even see the edges. I will at least try to touch it and feel it's edges.

When I put my hands on it the cold surface I felt it. This is enchanted ice, dry but cold, ice that was enchanted with magic to never melt. That doesn't explain why it's flying though.

As I was rubbing my paws all around it I felt a strange shape, on that same shape I felt another and another. Those always were on top and a little to the side in some kind of stair shape.

Stair shape.

Those are the stairs to the palace aren't they.

Quite an original way to hide the entrance of your stronghold. Quite efficient too, even I was fooled by this.

Wait there is still something that doesn't make sense, there is no snow on those stairs!

I need to see how this can avoid being revealed by the snow on top of it. I took a bit of snow on my snout and droped it on the enchanted ice. A sudden gust of wind pushed it off. I repeated the experiment but used magic sight this time. Sure enough there is something that use wind magic to push the snow off. It's coming from a gap between the ice-covered rocks.

Now the only thing left is to see if I can climb those stairs. I jumped on the hovering piece of ice and then slowly climed the stairs. It was dangerous, I nearly fell several time because of the random direction the stairs took. They would go left and right without a warning.

This is completely random. Or not. They always stay in the same area and now I know why. There is a large pillar in the middle that keeps everything together. But that pillar isn't on the ground, it's actually a part of the palace, it's right under the main door. The stairs must be turning aroud until they reach the top in front of the door.

I need to tell that to Lein and the others. Or show them since I can't really talk.

I ran toward our camp and meowed loudly. No answer. I jumped in Lein's tent and meowed even more. She didn't buldge. I tickled her nose with my tail. Nothing.

Well Lein is hard to wake up. I'll try Veria, she's always ready to get up and fight. No reaction either. Now that I think about it, I myself am feeling sleepy even though I wasn't before. And my meows sound strange, distant. As if they were echoing from the oposite side of a very long tunnel.

This is bad. I don't know what, but something is trying to make us all sleep. I need to wake Veria up! And since I have no better idea, I'm going to headbutt her. I took a step back then charged, my head coliding with her's.

Veria didn't buldge. Great! I'm in it deep. How the hell do I...

At that moment, I heard a strange sound. An eerie chant. A language that I know well. The tongue in wich all curses have been written.

I rushed out of Veria's tent and came face to face with an ice wraith. Judging from the low amount of chains and rags the thing has it must be young. I need to at least disrupt it enough so that the others can wake up.

For those that don't know, a wraith is basically an ethereal being born from a mix of mana, ice imbued one in this case, and some dead bodies. They actually aren't ghost since anyone can see them and they can touch things if they want. It's just a hoovering rearanged skeleton in rags and chains. These things are one of the reasons why we burn our deads.

And if there is something ice ghosts are scared of it's fire. I used matchstick to ignite the remaining pieces of wood from the campfire the others made to heat their food on.

The wraith realized I was awake and used some sort of curse on me. I resisted without any problems. I then used telekinesis to throw the embers and ashes at the wraith, scaring it and blocking it's sight in one move.

Your target has been burnt. It's super efficient! You inflicted 56 fire damage. Your target natural regeneration has been halted.

I guess it had a skill that allows regeneration in cold environments. Now that I managed to blind it I will get closer and use matchstick.

You have been grazed. Received 4 piercing damage and 6 ice damage.

Shit! It threw ice spikes at random and grazed me. I need to be careful, that offensive power is nothing to scoff at.

I dashed to a blind spot behind the wraith and set fire to it's rags. They are the only part of a frost lich that can burn since the rest is ice that turns into water and put the fire off.

Your Target is on fire! It's supper efficient! You inflicted 31 fire damage.

The fire is spreading to it's cloak.

Your Target is on fire! It's supper efficient! You inflicted 59 fire damage.

The skull-like part under it's hood has started to melt. It tried to hit me with ice shards but it's aim is getting worse.

Your Target is on fire! It's supper efficient! You inflicted 87 fire damage.

Do melting bones look like that? It's disgusting.

Your Target is on fire! It's supper efficient! You inflicted 93 fire damage. Target is dead.

Well that was easy. I mean I used it's weak spot but still. I guess it was a really young wraith or one that specialized in sleep magic and sucked at actual battle.

Now I need to wake the others up!