Frostbitten Wayfarer

The three returned to Zoe’s home and sat back down at the dining table after experimenting with some of Emma’s new abilities.

“So, how was Korna?” Emma asked.

“It was awesome, actually. There was this really beautiful park not far north I think? I think it was north. I can’t seem to remember anymore, actually. I think it was north, though. Called Ikleci? You ever heard of it?” Zoe asked.

Emma shook her head, but Joe said he’d heard some of his patrons talking about it in the past.

“Yeah it was super cool. The smells of the forest there were amazing, and the water that cut into the valley. I was beautiful. I brought back some trinkets for you two, too.” Zoe summoned the gifts she bought from the park and handed them to Joe and Emma.

“Aww, that’s cute.” Emma said, looking at one of the wooden carvings of a bear.

“I also bought some clothes. A lot of clothes, actually. When I said my storage items were full, it’s really almost all clothes. I got you two some, but I also just brought a lot back cause I thought people here might be interested.” Zoe said.

Joe and Emma both rolled their eyes. “Alright, lets see what you got us then.” Joe sighed.

Zoe grinned, and summoned an outfit for each of them from her ring, the most outlandish one she’d made for both of them. Emma’s was little more than colourful strings that would streak down her back and reach around her waist. While Joe’s was a pair of bright, almost iridescent purple briefs with blue spires of cloth that would reach up to his shoulders. Both were quite similar to outfits she’d seen a number of people wearing while walking around town.4

They both raised their eyebrows when Zoe placed the outfits on the table.

“This is the style there!” Zoe threw her arms up at her side and shook her head in a haughtier than thou gesture as she turned up her nose at the two across the table. “You wouldn’t get it, being from such a backwater uncivilized society.”

The two rolled their eyes, grabbed their outfits and got up to leave.

“Wait, wait wait.” Zoe said. “You were actually going to wear those?”

Emma and Joe both broke out in laughter, tossing their clothes back on the table. “Yeah.” They said.

“We talked about it a while ago, actually.” Joe said.

“Mhm. We figured you’d bring back the most ridiculous outfits you could, and thought it’d be funny to see how far you’d go with it. We were gonna make you put on yours, which you totally have a bunch of too.” Emma said as she sat back down at the table.

“You seriously would’ve put those on and come shown them off? You would’ve been basically naked!” Zoe shouted at them.

Joe shrugged. “It’s just skin.”

Zoe laughed and shook her head. “You two are crazy.”

“You’re the one who gave us the clothes, you know?" Emma said and raised her eyebrows.

“Okay, but I accept that I’m insane. It’s who I am.” Zoe said.

Emma shrugged and pulled her outfit into her storage item. “So, did you get real clothes, too? Stuff that’s actually warm?"

Zoe summoned a pile of colourful fabric on the table. “Yeah, like I said I filled my storage items with it. I’ve got nine bags maybe? Ten? Somewhere around there, full of clothes. Not sure what to do with it all, you two can have a peek through if you want too.”

“Later.” Joe said. “How was the rest? You’re a lower level now, did you get your new class you wanted?”

“Yeah. I wanna show you two the new aura I got too cause it’s really cool, but can’t use it around here.” Zoe flashed the cold aura a little and the room’s temperature dropped a couple degrees. “It’s pretty crazy when it’s on full blast, actually.”

“So you combined the classes? How did that work?" Emma asked.

“I just got all of the Seasoned classes, and they combined into a bigger fancier one for my first class.” Zoe said.

“Automatically? Didn’t require anything extra?” Joe asked.

“Nope. I did some research in Korna though and found another class that did require something extra. It was some elemental archmage or something, can’t remember now. I think it required the archmage feat as well as a bunch of elemental wizard classes, maybe?” Zoe said.

Joe laughed. “So what’d you do in Korna if you can’t remember anything? Just wait around and admire the clothes?”

“I just can’t remember some things, okay? There was this really nice inn called Oaniga that I stayed at for a while, which was super premium. Cost a fortune to stay at but the food was delicious and the beds were divine, it was amazing.” Zoe explained.

“There was also this dungeon called The Pit, which was a weird one. Lots of shadows in it that were easy enough to fight. And I went swimming a few times too, there was this lake, I think. Pretty sure it was a lake, to the east of Korna, I think? But it was really nice, and it was the first time I wore a bikini too which was fun.” She continued.

Zoe continued filling her friends in on her adventures in Korna for a while, talking about the classes she’d seen. Some of the things she’d researched in Korna’s libraries, the outlandish clothes she’d seen walking around town. What walking through Obai’s manor was like, and how he had his own personal dungeon that worked just for him.

“Oh, another thing I noticed was my mental resistance levelled up a lot. It’s at level forty five now. I guess some of the shadows in the pit used mental magic or something. ” Zoe said.

“What was it before?” Joe asked.

“I’m not sure. Lower, for sure. It’s odd, I didn’t think that anything was using mental magic but my resistance is much higher now, so something must have been.” Zoe said.

“Do you think it was somebody in Korna?” Emma asked.

“But why?” Zoe asked.

“War?” Joe suggested.

“With who?” Zoe asked.

Joe shrugged. “Anybody around us, I guess. Probably not though. Korna’s well defended, it’d be hard for anybody to really invade them like that.”

“Well, would it be, though?" Emma asked.

“What do you mean?" Zoe asked.

“They were taking refugees from Flester for almost a year. What if somebody sent in a bunch of mind mages who worked together over the entire year?” Emma suggested.

“Maybe, it’s possible.” Joe said.

“I really don’t think that’s it. Korna was fine, and there was definitely no invasion. It was probably just the shadows in The Pit.” Zoe said.

“Okay, well it’s not likely that Korna’s being invaded. But you’ve definitely forgotten a lot of things about your time there, which is odd. I’ll mention it next time we speak with the Injellar kingdom representative, just in case.” Joe said.

“Makes sense and I’d agree, but I really don’t think Korna’s being invaded. Nothing I saw seemed to suggest that, anyway. Everybody seemed happy and fine, to me.” Zoe said.

“You don’t even remember everything, Zoe.” Emma said.

“I… yeah, okay. You’re right. That is weird. But if Korna’s being invaded, then why would they just let me leave freely? Wouldn’t they just trap everybody inside and have them live a weird happy life?” Zoe asked.

Joe shrugged. “Maybe they just didn’t expect your mental resistance to level so quickly. Most people don’t level resistances nearly as fast as you, after all. It’d be weird if all traffic in and out just completely stopped, too so they could just hope they finish their business before word gets out. Either way, they’re probably not being invaded but I’ll just bring it up at the next meeting just to be safe. Something weird’s going on anyway.”

“Oh right!” Emma shouted. “Did you notice the name, Zoe?”

“Foizo? What about it?" Zoe asked.

Joe chuckled.

“What?" Zoe asked again.

“The ‘zo’ part of Foizo is from your name.” Emma laughed.

“No!” Zoe shouted. “Why would you do that!"

“It was better than festering crack or whatever you wanted to call it.” Joe shook his head.

“Why’s it named after me though?” Zoe sighed.

“Because you helped us when Flester fell, Zoe. If you weren’t here, we would all have been stuck in Korna rather than here in the forests we love, with the heavy snowfall we look forward to. You did that, and so we named the town after you. Kinda.” Joe explained.

“I mean come on, I didn’t do much.” Zoe said.

“No you did, though.” Emma said. “You did a lot. And most people will never know, cause that’s what you want. But the town name is a sort of mix between Flester and Zoe. I think it’s different enough that nobody would really tell, but it’ll always be there.” Emma said.

“Eugh. Fine, I’ll allow it I guess. Just don’t make a statue for me or something.” Zoe rolled her eyes.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal, don’t worry.” Joe laughed.

They continued chatting for a while, and when they finished they spent some time poking through all the clothes that Zoe had brought back. There was a great variety to the clothes Zoe had brought back — various sizes and colours, different designs and fabric types.

Joe and Emma both picked out about a dozen different oufits for themselves, while the rest Zoe stored away in her storage items for later. Maybe she’d set up a shop to sell them, maybe she’d just give them to whoever was in need. Joe said he might appreciate some of the clothes for the people who stay at his inn, but most of his business in Foizo was just normal inn business, he said.

When dinner rolled around, Joe made some food for them on Zoe’s makeshift stone oven embedded into her kitchen wall. A simple grilled boar with a fresh salad that had a nice fruity dressing drizzled over top.

After dinner, Joe went home leaving just Zoe and Emma in her cave. The two chatted a bit about their living arrangements, Emma wanted windows so the cats could sit and look out at the forest outside and maybe watch the odd person or animal that walked by. Zoe wanted to continue expanding her home deeper into the hill, and maybe even dig it farther into the ground to get even more space.

Windows were a bit of a hot issue at first, but Zoe decided the cats mattered enough to warrant losing a little of her privacy. Emma could go get a house built somewhere else, but she had ended up quite liking being a little away from the town proper. And Zoe wasn’t about to kick her friend out for some pointless desire for a glorified hermit lifestyle, it didn’t really matter all that much anyway.

Zoe fell into a comfortable routine in Foizo over the next two years. Some of Zoe’s time was spent digging out the ground behind her cave, expanding her home. She didn’t have a plan for what was going to go where just yet, but she knew she wanted more space. More library space for all the books still stuck at the bottom of Kaira library. A pool to swim in, a more secure location to store her valuables deep in the earth.

Windows were added to both the kitchen and what had previously been planned to be Zoe’s forge. With Zoe’s permission, the room had been changed to another bedroom so Emma and Zoe could have separate rooms. Until then, if Zoe wanted to sleep she usually had to either do it on the floor or in the day when Emma wasn’t sleeping since unlike Zoe, Emma still required sleep almost daily.

The clothes that Zoe had brought back were given away to people after she’d been hanging on to them for a few months. Maybe she could have sold them, but she didn’t really need money anyway. And maybe she could have found a better purpose for them, but Korna was only a week away if she ever needed more anyway. And there were plenty of talented tailors in Foizo who could make her clothes too.

The Injellar kingdom sent support for Foizo after the first few months — a royal guard who would live in Foizo as well as a group of six builders to help build an initial wall around the town.

According to them, Korna was being invaded by the Ijun empire and the warning Zoe had provided — along with many others who had also visited Korna, helped them stop the invasion before anything too terrible had happened. Though, the letter they gave Zoe said as much in far more words and with much more disdain for the neighbouring empire to the north.

It was neat, Zoe would say. Having a letter showing that she had some small part in helping defend the kingdom, but it also terrified her. She had no idea it was happening, and she was there while it was happening. Levelling her Mental resistance jumped up in priority if she ever found an opportunity to do so.

But the vast majority of Zoe’s time was spent on Moaning Point. Peter and Lauren were both quite interested in joining her to get better classes for themselves and after a few months both had classes they were comfortable with. Peter had a mix of carpentry classes and a fire warrior class he was quite secretive about. While Lauren had also took carpentry classes, but paired them with an earthen mage class that worked quite well for her.

Word spread after that, and Peter and Lauren were both hounded with questions about who it was that helped them and whether they could also get the same assistance. It seemed that a lot of the people who came to Foizo came because they wanted just such an opportunity. They welcomed a little bit of risk if it meant they could grasp more wealth for themselves, or a touch more power.

Escorting people up Moaning Point wasn’t something Zoe wanted to do long term, nor was escorting people through any other dungeon for that matter. But it was a fun distraction for a few years, and she enjoyed watching people have their first experience with looping. The feeling of their stats being ripped away, the excitement that radiated off them as they looked through their class list and saw options far better than what they had last time.

The pride she felt when people overcame a challenge they struggled with only weeks prior, or when despite the dungeon’s best efforts Zoe’s healing kept her people alive. It was an interesting experience, Zoe found. One that she might enjoy having again someday, far in the future. Maybe one day in another thousand years she’d settle down and open a power levelling service for people in whichever city she found herself in.