The snow was deep, nearly reaching Lucian's knees with every labored step. All around him, people stood frozen, bewildered by the sight. Snow like this simply did not happen here. The sun saw to that.
Lucian had never experienced snow before, the capital having never seen a single flake, so making his way back to the inn was no easy task. Yet he found he didn't mind it much. His life was no longer truly his own. He was little more than livestock being fattened for slaughter, and the only thing worth doing now was growing stronger so that slaughter would come later rather than sooner.
Lucian's foot caught, and he collapsed face-first into the snow. He pushed himself up, snow crystals clinging to his tunic, and pressed on. Through the streets, people gathered around the strange white powder. Some touched it cautiously, others recognized it from experience, all wondering why it had come.
Several wrong turns later, Lucian finally spotted Patrick's Favourite. He stumbled inside to find Kester washing the floor alongside his servants, holding himself to the same standards he demanded of his staff.
Kester waved him through. Lucian made his way up the stairs, dizzy and nauseous, a liquid rising in his throat. He knocked on the door with the number fifty-five.
Roderic opened it with a sigh. "Lucian, have you been drinking without me? Come on, man..." He looked genuinely disappointed.
Lucian covered his mouth, swallowing hard. "Sorry. I just needed time alone. Let me sleep, please..." He stumbled toward the bed, then stopped. Fraden was sprawled across it, fast asleep.
"Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention Fraden took your bed tonight. Whoops." Roderic tapped his forehead sheepishly.
Lucian stared at him blankly, then his legs gave out. He collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud.
Roderic blinked in confusion before hauling Lucian onto his own bed. He'd take the floor tonight. Not that it mattered. The ice armor coating his body made sleeping anywhere equally comfortable.
The chirps of birds and the church bells rang once more, ringing through his head and waking Lucian up. He looked around, seeing Roderic still asleep, not reacting to the bells.
Luckily, he didn't feel hungover as he hadn't drunk too much, but the beer was definitely stronger than he was used to.
He looked around, seeing Roderic on the ground and Fraden on his bed. He sighed, feeling quite conflicted about Roderic, unsure what to think of him.
"On one hand, he didn't help when I was in trouble, but on the other, he helped me with small inconveniences."
All Lucian could do was sigh. It didn't matter in the end. He would still have to follow Roderic to become a mage, as Silas had said.
He rose from the bed, boots still on.
He walked over to the shared communal bathroom, where he brushed his teeth with his willow tree twig, repeating the motion of rubbing and biting the twig. He finished by wiping the residue off his teeth with the linen cloth in his pocket, spitting the residue into a bucket of water.
As he walked back into their room, he saw Fraden staring at the ground. "Hey, Fraden, how are you doing?"
Fraden looked up at him, gulping slightly. "Nothing. Just thinking..."
Lucian looked confused, but thinking back, he realized that Fraden was just a kid and seeing such a visceral sight must have affected him.
"What are you thinking about?" Lucian questioned.
"Nothing. It's just..." Fraden swallowed hard. "The blood scattered everywhere, their screams... I can't stop seeing it." His face had gone pale, a sheen of sweat covering his forehead.
"Oh." Lucian approached him, sitting beside him. "Hey, kid. If you want, you don't really need to get involved with this anymore. Roderic and I can take it from here." Lucian forced a smile, finding it harder than ever before.
"Don't feel sympathy for me! I don't want it. I want to be strong, someone dependable, someone who can do things on his own!" Fraden grimaced with a painful expression, almost as if he was forcing it.
Lucian sighed. "If that's really what you want, but know that becoming someone strong takes courage, a strength from within, as well as the most important thing..." Lucian shifted his gaze toward the ground as he calmly said, "No fear of death and the responsibilities that come with that."
Fraden's eyes widened as he realized what he must learn. "If that is what it takes, I'll do it..."
Lucian rose. "It's up to you if you want to continue following. Have fun."
Lucian then walked over to Roderic, still sleeping soundly on the floor as if nothing had happened.
Lucian kicked him, and he instantly woke. "Hey, bastard! What are you doing!?" Roderic shouted before he could think.
"Yo, wake up, doofus," Lucian commented.
"Oh, okay." Roderic said, rising up from the floor.
"You slept so soundly. How is that possible?" Lucian questioned, giving him a disappointed look.
"Well, that is simple. It's my ice armor. I can sleep on any surface I want. They all feel the same in the end, hehe." Roderic said confidently, rubbing his nose.
"Oh, so you don't feel the ground through the ice then?" Lucian asked.
"Well, pretty much, yeah. It's nice, but sometimes I do want to sleep normally, though it's hard and requires my energy to keep it off. One of the weaknesses of passives, sadly." Roderic sighed.
"Sounds rough." Lucian paused, remembering. "Oh yeah, Bella mentioned Garfield's waiting for us at the administrative quarter. The one we came through. We just have to ask someone where he is."
"Nice. With their help, taking down the Bluebloods should be much easier." Roderic grinned.
The moment Fraden heard "Bluebloods," his entire body tensed, eyes locked on them.
"Well then, Roderic, get ready. I'm planning on training up my combat abilities, so I need a proper opponent." Lucian said to Roderic.
Roderic nodded, washing his teeth with ice before spitting it out of the window.
Both exited the building, Fraden following behind, still slightly on edge.
Lucian then looked towards Roderic and asked, "Do you have any suggestions for where we should practice?"
Roderic thought for a moment before getting an idea. "Why don't we practice outside the walls?"
Lucian looked at Roderic puzzledly and asked, "And how are we supposed to do that?"
Roderic grinned. "Under the river, hehe!" Roderic laughed, as Lucian questioned how that would be possible.
"And how are we doing that?" Lucian questioned.
Roderic replied, "Simple, an ice tunnel. I'll show you when we get there, but right now it's at the limit of my morphosis before using my echo."
"I'm so confused about how morphosis works," Lucian sighed as he followed Roderic toward the river where nobody could see them.
Suddenly the water opened up as a giant hole lay on the water's surface. Roderic looked towards Fraden and Lucian as he commanded, "Jump in, we're getting out quick!"
Lucian and Fraden looked hesitant as they jumped in towards the circle.
As Roderic followed, the circle closed on top as seats of ice were formed. Roderic smiled as he got them to sit. "Let's get going then, I'll show you how useful my morphosis can be."
Lucian looked towards Fraden, who seemed to have an irregular breathing cycle. Though as Fraden wanted Lucian to not pity him, Lucian ignored it, letting him learn how to deal with scary and unusual things for himself.
Suddenly a wall rose behind their backs as Roderic yelled, "Let's go!" The wall was not connected with the tunnel itself, instead sliding forward at an ever increasing speed as Roderic used his morphosis to continuously extend the tunnel as well as push the wall.
The rushing flow of water could be seen through the ice as they all watched fish swimming in the other direction, flowing downstream towards the sea at the bottom of Solarin.
Roderic looked tense. Though he was not slowly transforming like using his echo would cause, he still felt strained as this was the best output he could manage without a bigger channel.
They burst up over the water, now outside the city walls, as the ice tunnel flew at a speed which would kill Lucian and Fraden if abruptly stopped.
Roderic moved them upwards using small ice spikes to break the solid piece of ice they were clinging onto.
As they slowed down, Roderic angled the tunnel towards the ground, managing to bring it to a comfortable stop.
"We've landed safely. Thank you for riding aboard my carriage!" Roderic smiled as he got off his seat, bowing.
Fraden puked on the ground as Lucian didn't seem all too amused by Roderic, but the ice tunnel had caught Lucian's interest. Perhaps they could avoid the issue of travel time with it.
"Hey Roderic, why don't we use this to travel with instead of horseback?" Lucian questioned as Roderic immediately replied, "Yeah, nah. I ain't doing that. Do you know how straining it is for me to use this?"
Lucian sighed as he replied, "No. Anyway, let's get out and start the practice session."
Roderic opened a door in the tunnel as they all got out, the snow from yesterday almost reaching them.
"Hey Lucian, I'm wondering, did you notice any translucent blue locks on people yesterday?" Roderic asked, now getting quite serious.
"No, I didn't see anything of the sort," Lucian looked towards Roderic confused before his eyes shifted towards the snow, "though I'm wondering why snow would reach this place and why just in Waterbridge?" Lucian answered with a lie, deciding it would be for the best, as if Roderic knew of Adam he might be in trouble.
"Yeah..." Roderic responded, looking towards Lucian with a slightly suspicious look before turning away as he tried to find an open field for them to spar.
Later, the sky had ever so slightly progressed to a clearer blue as Roderic managed to find a nice hill which flattened at the top, letting them fight on stable ground.
His left hand fizzled as an ice sword formed in his hand.
"On guard, Lucian, let's get this party started!" Roderic grinned towards Lucian.
"Remember that I ain't no mage, so just do enough to not kill or overwhelm me too much." Lucian quipped back, setting ground rules to avoid injury.
"Pff." Roderic laughed as he wiped away a small tear which formed in his eye. "Don't worry my dear delicate boy, I know how squishy and easy it is to kill someone like you, so no, I won't be lashing out my full potential, though if I did you wouldn't be the only one affected here."
Lucian sighed, feeling quite weak, as now knowing that nothing in his life had ever truly come from himself, he felt it might be deserved. So instead of sulking he started his countdown. "1, 2, 3 and go!"
Lucian immediately dashed, keeping his blade in an ox guard.
Roderic stood blissfully still, not moving a step, letting Lucian approach.
Fraden sat beside a tree watching intently, knowing he had to absorb every detail if he ever wanted to become strong. What Roderic could do was something he had never seen before, something he would have sooner expected from a monster. Yet Roderic was human, or at least seemed it, and that made the whole thing feel stranger than anything else.
Fraden looked on as he saw Lucian enter with a quick poke, not really caring for Roderic's safety, knowing that he could easily block it with ice.
Roderic deflected it with his ice blade, entering into a quick flurry of slashes which Lucian struggled to deflect, slowly walking backwards to avoid them.
Though Lucian quickly noticed something in Roderic's bladework. It lacked technique, as he overcompensated with his overwhelming strength and speed.
So instead of going head on towards Roderic, he would let Roderic attack then block as he countered.
He let go of his ox guard as he entered a fool's guard, letting his blade fall down, leaving himself wide open.
Roderic, not knowing anything about bladework, immediately saw the opportunity and slashed with his dulled ice sword, going for Lucian's head.
Lucian grinned as he blocked, sliding to the inside of Roderic's sword and angling downwards towards his face.
Roderic panicked as he forced even more strength into his blade, though Lucian had anticipated it. Weakening his arms, he let the blade fly downwards before whipping it back around in a fluid motion, sliding it around Roderic's ice blade and striking him across the face. As expected however, Roderic's ice armor deflected the entire impact.
"First point goes to me." Lucian said, quite surprised that he won.
"Nice, I'll now be increasing the intensity even more, heh." Roderic grinned as Lucian felt stupid for forgetting that Roderic had been purposefully holding himself back.
He sighed before another round pursued, with Fraden following Lucian's movements more closely. As he noticed Roderic relied more on strength than technique, Fraden knew he wouldn't be getting all too strong on his small food supply, so technique would be the better option to focus on for himself.
Lucian entered a longpoint guard, preparing himself for Roderic's increased strength and deciding to favor dodging over clashing head on.
Roderic released a little more energy into his ice sword as it began pulsing, forming multiple continuously cycling layers with small spikes across the surface, designed to catch and trap Lucian's blade.
Lucian sliced towards Roderic's waist, aiming to slip beneath his guard. Roderic's ice blade caught it instantly, moving at a speed Lucian couldn't react to. In the same motion Roderic stepped to the left, wrenching Lucian's blade aside before smashing his ice sword into Lucian's side. Luckily for Lucian, Roderic had pulled back the sharp ice spikes just before impact, dulling the blade as much as he could.
It still hit with enough force to send Lucian flying to the right, tumbling down the hill.
Once his rolling stopped, blood spilled from Lucian's mouth as extreme pain shot through his lower abdomen. "You bastard! Calm down, I'm still human you doofus!" he managed before feeling his consciousness slipping.
Roderic's jaw dropped as he realized he had used far more strength than needed. He sprinted down the grassy hill to find Lucian's mouth filled with blood. In response Roderic slapped him across the face in an attempt to try awakening him.
Lucian abruptly woke, gargling on his own blood.
"Spit it out," Roderic said, guiding him.
Lucian listened, flipping himself over and letting the blood drain from his mouth. "Perhaps practice will have to be stopped for now, haha..." Roderic laughed dryly. Behind him he heard Fraden scrambling down the hill to check on Lucian, moving a little too quickly before losing his footing and tumbling, his head catching a rock on the way down. He clutched the spot, crying out in pain. "Ahh, that hurt!"
Roderic felt overwhelmed as he pulled out a cloth, freezing one side of it with his morphosis before handing it to Fraden. "Here, hold it over your wound. It should help with the pain, just make sure you hold the cloth side against it and keep away from the ice."
With both of them seen to, Roderic created his ice tunnel once more flying towards the river, this time moving even faster than before, as he then entered the river with a splash.
The tunnel following the current, the speed once more increasing.
He exited the water at the same spot they came from, walking back with Lucian in hand, Fraden following behind. Many people around were giving Roderic strange looks as Lucian continuously vomited blood onto the ground.
Entering the inn, Kest looked on in shock as Roderic held Lucian up by the back of his clothes, Roderic's fur coat appearing soaked through with blood, or at least that was what Kester believed.
"What happened?" Kest questioned.
"Well, I accidentally went a little overboard in our match." Roderic smiled awkwardly towards Kest.
"A little? That injury seems pretty extreme. Should I run over and get my physician friend? I could ask him to give you a discount for being my customers."
Suddenly Lucian turned his head and answered, "No need, I'll be fine. I've gotten worse injuries before, I'll walk it off in a week..." Suddenly Lucian vomited even more blood.
Roderic raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? That doesn't seem like something you can just walk off."
"No no, I'm fi-" Lucian once more fell unconscious.
Roderic respected Lucian's wish as he walked upstairs, where Kest asked once again, "Are you sure we shouldn't get someone, even if he doesn't want to?"
"No, I'll listen to Lucian. Perhaps there is a reason for it." He walked over to Lucian's bed, letting him rest, feeling confused about what to do next.
"Will Lucian be okay?" Fraden asked, looking up towards Roderic.
"Hmm, probably. I'll trust he won't die from such a pathetic attack, hehe." Roderic laughed dryly, struggling as always to take anything too seriously.
It was something Roderic knew he struggled with. His mother had complained about it countless times, and Fergus had said the same, yet he could never really do anything about it.
He sighed before asking, "Do you want to stay with Lucian or come outside with me for a breather?" Fraden looked unsure before replying, "I'll stay in case Lucian vomits more blood so I can stop him from drowning in it..." Roderic nodded as he walked out.