Frostbitten Wayfarer

James and Anderson, along with a few others who were waiting in the inn rushed out the door as soon as they heard the announcement.

Zoe understood the sentiment — she wanted to go check on Joe too, make sure he was okay. But was everything really over? Rolf announced that it was handled but how much could she trust the disembodied voice?

The short man who let Zoe in stepped up on one of the chairs and clapped his hands. “Rolf says we’re safe now and I’ve still got a business to run. I’m not gonna kick you all out but if you’re not too injured to move, I’d appreciate you getting back to your homes now, unless you’re paying for a room here.”

Well, that settled that then. Joe’s inn wasn’t too far away anyway, so Zoe got up and tried making her way over there. The roads were silent, most people still inside their homes. The few people who were outside rushed past Zoe and anxiety flooded her empathy.

Joe’s inn was unlocked and she let herself in. The inside looked similar to the inn she just came from, a bunch of people sat on the floor and some of the less well off individuals were laying on the tables. Joe was sitting at the bar with his head resting on his arms.

Zoe walked up to him. “Hey, I’m glad you made it back safely.”

Joe looked up to her, his eyes lighting up when he saw Zoe. “Oh thank the gods you’re okay. I was so worried when I couldn’t find you.”

“I stayed around a few minutes to try and find you and then the park was overrun with elementals. I stumbled on a group and we just barely managed to escape.” Zoe said.

Joe shook his head, “I’m glad you’re safe, Zoe.”

“Me too, Joe.” Zoe said.

The next weeks flew by as the town worked to recover from the damage. After the first day, Zoe tried to make it to the northeast section of town to see what had happened but she wasn’t able to get very close because of the cold. Even with all of her resistances, she wasn’t even able to get close to where the actual fight had taken place before she started taking damage.

It was good training for her cold resistance if nothing else though, so she spent almost a week just following along as the cold receded and played with her new skill. The cold didn’t move very quick, so she was able to just stand at the edge of where it ate through her regeneration and take a step every few hours.

The whole experience gave her an immense respect for the people who fought it off. Zoe wasn’t even able to approach where it died, let alone get close enough to fight it while it was alive.

After a week though, the cold had been beaten back through the efforts of dozens of mages and Zoe made it to the northeastern wall. She had expected to see destruction, a wall smashed through. Buildings crumpled or melted, but it just looked normal to her.

Had they protected the city so completely while fighting the elemental? Or had they already repaired all of the damage that was caused while putting up with the intense cold that radiated from the area? She didn’t know which seemed more impressive to her.

The rest of the time she spent sitting in Kaira park practising with her Frost skill. As it levelled up she found the connection with the element grow much stronger, and she even felt a faint connection with snow or ice that she didn’t create. Ice cubes seemed to be so much more real than they were before.

By the twenty-second day of summer, she was almost as capable as James was on that first day. She could summon a large, clear chunk of ice and move it around her body as freely as a second limb. It wasn’t practical yet, at least not as a weapon, but it was magic! Her very own magic! It felt incredible to will the ice to move around and then watch as it followed her every command.

She found that she was able to pull the ice back into her as well. If she reversed the process, she could absorb some of the mana she had spent to create it. When she tried to do the same thing with an ice cube though, nothing happened. There was a connection, she could feel it. But she couldn’t interact with it, not yet at least.

The people of Flester seemed to have forgotten about the attack, everybody returned to business as usual and life carried on. Even Zoe wasn’t all that bothered by it — nobody she knew had been hurt all that bad. Joe was fine, Ren was still buying endless quantities of mana.

Zoe even found Emma one day while she was walking around and they took the moment to catch up with each other. Emma had been finding some success with selling her hunts to local restaurants in her area and hoped that she’d be able to save up enough to move out sometime in the next year.

But on the final night before her big resistance party with Ash and Lila, Zoe was sat on the ground outside of Joe’s tavern. He had invited her in, but Zoe stayed outside. An hour inside would’ve been fine but after her mistake with the spring’s master she decided to not take any more risks with it.

Early in the morning as the sun just crested over the buildings around her, Zoe saw the two walking down the street from the north.

Lila waved and Ash put on a big smile.

“Morning Zoe!” Ash said when they approached. “Ready for your big dangerous journey to our farm?”

“Good morning you two. Thanks again for all the help.” Zoe said.

“Don’t worry about it. If anything, I’m sorry for Eliza. She can be a handful sometimes.” Lila said.

The two of them led Zoe to the eastern gate of town and waved to the guards as they passed. The walk to the farm took a little under an hour and the pair talked about the friends they’d be introducing Zoe to when they arrived.

The first one was Eliza, who they mentioned before. She was a researcher and loved learning new things about the world, about different perspectives on the world. Her classes were a great fit for resistance training as well since rather than granting her control over a single element, they gave her a mastery over an entire magical system called runes.

By learning the runic language she could imbue her words with magic to create almost any effect she wanted as long as she had both the mana for it and the knowledge to make it work. She had an insatiable curiosity according to Lila, and would want to ask many questions.

The second was a healer named Daniel. He wouldn’t be able to give Zoe a resistance, but he could keep her health topped up while Eliza worked her magic and gave Zoe resistances.

And the final friend they were introducing her to was Kian, a physical brawler who would almost assuredly be useless to Zoe’s resistance training, but who wanted to come along for the fun anyway.

When they got to the farm, Zoe was surprised to see it look almost identical to a farm from back on earth. There were several buildings set up, surrounded by wide swaths of grass that dozens of animals were grazing on. The biggest difference were the animals themselves, without a question.

They looked like comically large chickens with deep red feathers and pitch black curled goat horns.

“Those are Ryz?” Zoe asked.

“Sure are, you’ve never seen them before?" Ash said.

“No, I haven’t. They’re… strange.” Zoe said.

“Wanna pet them? They’re very friendly.” Lila asked.

“Can I? Is that okay?” Zoe asked.

“Sure it is,” Ash said. They put their fingers in their mouth and whistled.

Most of the ryz lifted their heads and started waddling over with their wings flapping. They towered over Zoe by a few feet, each feather as large as one of her forearms. Ash reached out to one of them and it nuzzled their hand with its beak.

“See? They’re just big friendly cats.” Ash said.

Zoe reached out as well and another nuzzled its beak into her hand. The strength shocked her, Ash’s interaction seemed so gentle but when it rubbed its beak on Zoe she struggled to keep her hand from being knocked aside.

“Well, shall we go introduce everybody then? You’re still working on your seasonal master feats right?" Ash asked.

“Yeah, I can’t really spend much time inside sorry.” Zoe answered.

“That’s alright, we have a nice patio that we can relax at.” Lila said.

Ash and Lila led them through the fields towards one of the large buildings in the distance. Some of the ryz wandered back into the fields and a few followed behind them. Their excited wing flapping flung Zoe’s hair around and she kept having to pull it out of her eyes or mouth. Ash and Lila both laughed at her misfortune.

Zoe saw three people sitting around a large wooden table talking about some man eating monster. There was a woman with short brown hair wearing a nice white dress and two men. One had long blue hair that was tied in a ponytail and wore simple brown pants with a white shirt and the other was bald with a big scruffy beard, dressed in a red shirt and purple pants.

The woman showed up as a dark red mage while the men were green marked. One mage, one warrior.

Ash walked up to the table and sat down. “Here’s the group that’s gonna torture you today,” they laughed.

The woman smacked Ash in the shoulder, “Don’t bully her too much. We’re not gonna do anything you’re not okay with. I’m Eliza, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Daniel,” the bald man said and nodded. “I’m gonna keep you alive today. Hear you’ve got a lot of fun stories to share, apparently.”

“I’m just here to watch. Sounded like fun. I’m Kian.” The man with the ponytail said.

“I’m Zoe, it’s nice to meet you all too.” Zoe sat down in one of the free chairs. “So how is this going to work anyway?”

Ash gestured to Eliza and she spoke. “Well I want to ask you lots of questions about your feats and what your life’s been like. My one condition is that you allow me to cast a spell that will make you twitch if you tell a lie. Is that going to be alright with you?”

“Um, it should be, I guess. If I don’t want to answer something can I just not answer it at least?" Zoe asked.

“Oh of course yes, I don’t want to force you into anything like that. If you’re not comfortable with a question just tell me and we’ll move on. I’m just very interested in your perspective and it’s not that I don’t trust you specifically, I just don’t trust anybody I don’t know very well.” Eliza explained.

“Okay, yeah that should be fine then.” Zoe said.

“Alright, can I cast it now then? Get you used to the feeling before we get anything underway?" Eliza said.

“Yeah, sure.” Zoe said.

Eliza began muttering in some language that Zoe couldn’t understand. It sounded similar to James’ muttering from the elemental attack though. She wondered if it required a class to utilize or if anybody could harness the magic through the incantations.

Moments later she felt the magic wash over her and settle into her being. She also felt the magic settle into everybody else’s being.

*Ding* You have been affected by the Eliza’s Truth Detector spell.

“Hey! You didn’t say you were casting it on us too!” Ash said.

Eliza laughed, “It’s not fair if only she’s not allowed to lie!”

Kian laughed and Zoe smiled.

“Alright, what’s your name, Zoe? Tell me a lie.” Eliza said.

“Uhh, crap. Uh, name. My name’s Peter, I guess.” Zoe said and her body shook for a moment.

It didn’t hurt and she was back to normal after just a moment, but it was a strange feeling having her body convulse without her control like that.

“And my name is Peter too!" Eliza said with a big smile, and Zoe watched her body shudder for just a moment as well.

Zoe laughed. “Alright, so I’m assuming Daniel is going to heal me and you’re going to cast a bunch of spells then?”

“You got it. And all the while, I’m gonna ask you a bunch of questions. First up is what resistances do you have currently and what levels are they?” Eliza asked.

Zoe answered, sharing all her resistance levels but keeping Vampyric Resistance to herself. That was technically a skill, even though it had resistance in its name. Which is something she hadn’t thought of before, what did that actually mean anyway?

“Hmm, I think Ash said your goal was ten resistances?” Eliza asked.

“Yeah. Just need three more and I’ll be good.” Zoe answered.

“I should be able to get you to fifteen if you can handle the pain. Or did you want to stop at just ten?” Eliza asked.

“Well, more is better, right? More if we can, yeah.” Zoe said.

“Good I’ll just cycle through the different damage types and you tell me when you get the resistances. Daniel, if you would?” Eliza said.

“Sure thing,” Daniel said and cast a spell. Red magic pulsed out from him and made a glowing sphere that surrounded the group.

Zoe felt a warm energy course through her body.

“Should be about two hundred health per second recovered. I think that should be your full health pool right?” Daniel asked.

“Yeah,” Zoe said.

“Good, I can maintain this indefinitely, so go crazy.” Daniel said.

“I think I’ll start with time then, if that’s alright?” Eliza asked.

Zoe nodded her head and Eliza muttered some more incantations. Zoe felt time warp, bits of what she saw seemed to be moving so much faster while others looked frozen in place. She had no idea if Eliza was even asking questions, or what the others were doing. Everything blurred together in a mash of colours and noise.

*Ding* You have unlocked the Time resistance.

Zoe waved her hand and tried to tell Eliza to stop. Her arm rushed across her vision in a split second while her hand lagged behind for what felt like minutes. She had no idea which was more accurate.

“What the hell was that?" Zoe spat out as time returned to normal for her again.