Melody of Mana

It took only a few seconds for the beast to show itself. From the ice poured forth a dozens of purple tentacles. Each one reached up and around to the maximum of their length, trying to grab at anything they could find. Thankfully that reach was only a few meters, well away from most of our company.

Even those that were close were okay, as they moved fast to get away from the grasping appendages. It still caused mass alarm as the underside of Cthulhu's chin sprang out from the previously tranquil ice.

The captain was on the carriage I was and at his urging we sped up noticeably.

"Captain, are we good?" I asked as everyone else made haste away from the beast.

"It's fine, fine, but we need to move. Graspers like that aren't quick, so long as we stay well ahead of it it'll not be a problem." He replied.

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely, There are a number of different kinds, seen them closer to the emperor's fortress a few times on some of the ice shelves. That's a biggun' though, we should have noticed before it attacked." He was looking back and strangely, down at the ice as we moved.

"And... how do you... see them coming?" I struggled as the cart began to go faster and faster, throwing me around quite bit until I grabbed part of the frame.

"Look at the ice, you can see the tentacles down there when you get near, they attack when you get loud. Think they hunt the big furry beasts like our aurochs, pop out when the steps get close. That one was rather stupid though, didn't get anywhere near us."

For the next several minutes we pushed the caravan as fast as it could go. I really began to regret my inability to use the portal for a quick escape. As we finally started to slow one again I felt like a bowl of scrambled eggs. There were no roads of any kind here, and the carriages were all built for safety, not speed or comfort.

I returned back inside the little carriage that we'd been assigned. Most of the time I sat on the outside, with nothing to do in it it was warm, but boring. This whole trip had been terribly boring interspersed with moments of hard work. As a vacation I couldn't in good conscience advise anyone to take it. At least nobody cared if I laid down and took a nap.

A few hours later I was awoken rudely by knocking from Captain Omar. "Come here, we got something you'll want to see," he said through the wooden door.

"I slept for days and we're somehow back at the hot spring?" I asked sarcastically as I went to join him outside, pulling up spells to ward off the ever present cold.

"Not quite." He led me away from the carts a bit, over to a patch of ice that was nearby.

I looked about nervously, "What are we here for?" I asked.

"Look." He pointed down at the ice, where I could see a number of purplish vein-like structures stretching out under, all going back go a central spot.

"Is that what I think it is!? Should we even be this close!?" I asked.

"It's fine, we're too light to bother it, so long as we don't bring something that'll shake the ice over it should ignore us, but that's what they look like."

I stood back a bit as I looked over the weird pattern in the ice. It was something I could easily miss if it hadn't been pointed out. I hoped that I'd never need to know, but it was better to if I was going to spend time anywhere like this again.

"Thanks, honestly I was a bit worried when you called me out here..."

He gave me a strange look. The man who'd been happy and talkative this entire time had his eyes harden just a bit. "Why would you be worried?" His voice was cool now, not the happy tones I was used to.

I moved my hands behind my back and let off a series of quick, almost silent snaps to rhythm, enough to begin casting should I need to. "I think I pissed a few people off, why they sent me out here to the middle of nowhere while everyone else got to sit around at a nice hot spring."

He frowned, "Interesting. Regardless, I'm not here to hurt you, but to protect you. Let's return to the caravan." Like someone had flipped a switch he was back to how he'd been before, just as smiling and jovial.

I kept my eyes on him as we went, unsure about what he'd been told, but sure that he was at the very least sent out here as a watcher. For the next several days I got little sleep, and always kept my personal shielding spells up. Perhaps I was being a little paranoid, but I even began checking myself for poison after every meal.

I had to have a long hard think over the next several days as well. Emperor Durin had never done any wrong by me. Heck, he'd even been fairly nice on all the times we'd met. That said he was still a ruler, and every ruler had to be at least slightly harsh. Was he angry enough to do something against me? Honestly I didn't know, but I did know that the whole thing had gotten my hackles up.

I figured I'd either have to behave in such a way that I wasn't questioned again, or begin taking more missions that had me far from home, and the emperor's influence. Maybe I could just fade into the background. Then I thought about all the stuff I'd made over the years and how much they knew about it. That wasn't going to happen, and as soon as I got time alone, I needed to start working on my teleportation quick, along with perhaps a few new combat measures.

We approached the valley where Dras and Selene had been, and though I was still a bit nervous, nothing happened. Captain Omar had not shown me anything odd after that one interaction, nor had any of the soldiers with us done anything that might make me have any other doubts. I began to question myself.

It was wild to come up and over the little ridge and have the temperature spike. It did though, the depression here was low enough for all the winds to go over, and while that would carry the heat away, there was so much being put in from the heat of the hot spring it didn't matter at all. I looked around, wondering if this was the caldera of a volcano or something, but I didn't know enough to be sure either way, it could just be a weird magical place.

There was greenery that grew and grew as we descended into it, a strong opposition to all the plain white fields of snow and ice for miles around. There were also a number of changes strewn all around the place since I'd last been here.

They'd built a base, a full on little village in this place. There were at six or seven buildings that I could see strewn around. One in particular seemed to be taking in the hot water that this place was so dependent on for its climate, and releasing a stream out of it.

As we got closer I could see that each of the buildings was spartan, looking to be carved out of stone and moved into place. Like someone had taken the most basic ideas in architecture and begun to build here.

I was not the only one surprised, as most of the soldiers in the retinue were blinking. Even Captain Omar gave me a bit of a questioning look. I couldn't do anything but shrug; as I certainly couldn't do this.

We found Dras before too long. He, and another of the mages from his group were working on some kind of... aqueduct near the biggest central building.

"Dras... what the heck is all of this?" I inquired as our cart pulled up near him.

"Hey! You're finally back, good to see you. Well, see, we got bored, and we had plenty of magic users, and the carts weren't really comfortable," he hesitated as he spoke. "Really it started with Selene, see, she wanted a proper place to use the hot spring, and well, we didn't have anything better to do while we waited on you..."

"So... you built a town?" I considered the magic needed to do something like this, and it would be staggering. "How... how did you get all the stones into place, they're huge."

He launched into a long-winded explanation about how all they really had to do was cut the stones out, which was easy enough with magic, and shape them a little. Then they made rollers and since everything could be brought downhill into the valley moving it wasn't that big a deal. Selene had taken a couple classes during her time in school on magical architecture, and it wasn't anything more than was done in a lot of the military camps. The only major difference was that this was made to increase comfort rather than to fortify a position.

I wanted to punch him, I wanted to punch him so bad. I'd spent the last few weeks working out in the cold frozen plain while they'd been what. Playing a game making a miniature resort town? While I'd been spending my days and nights in a little cold wooden box on wheels this guy had been making comfy houses for him and his crew.

Dras must have seen my scowl and began to slow in his explanations. "And... well we didn't know when you'd show up, so we were diverting water into the dormitories that we built so that we'd have heated floors..."

"There are no connections here Dras, and we're days from anything. All of this is kind of a waste of time." I was sour, and it leaked into my tone.

"Who cares? We've got a gate here right now, and there's no reason we can't put another here in the future, if anyone wants to. The buildings are stone, and it's not like anything could hurt them, so if it takes a few years it's no problem, and it was a fun side project while you were gone."

Before I could explode on him another joined us. Someone must have alerted Selene to our arrival because she came bounding over.

"Hey there, like the town?" She began, having missed my expression, "It's great! Wow, you look terrible, let's get you to the bathhouse to relax, not like we're leaving today." Maybe she did see my angry face, because she immediately began pulling me away towards one of the buildings.

I went, but not before yelling back, "You've got some nerve playing around like this Adraias, some nerve indeed!" Using his proper name because I knew he hated it.