Chapter 2239 A Snowy Flower
--- Crocus ---
Crocus was still looking for her sister... and the chances that Pansy was doing the same was quite high. At least, Crocus liked to think so. The problem, was that her plan to move ’faster’ through the Winter zone seemed to have been misinterpreted at some point. She’d managed to find a group of people out in the winter cold, with the collective IQ of a bundle of grapes. Higher then you’d think, but still quite low when spread out amongst a group. There was six of them at the moment, but that number didn’t remain constant.
They were dressed in winter gear with giant backpacks on their backs and skis on their feet. When she’d approached them, curious if the skis were useful, and if they allowed them to cover the snowy mountains more easily, she wasn’t surprised when they said yes in response. What she was surprised by, was the ’how’ of it.
They reached in their giant backpacks and handed her a set of gear, then provided a similar, much smaller set for Timmy. That had been a major shock and meant that Timmy had to drop the lantern for a bit to suit up. Even then... she wasn’t sure how Timmy would be able to hold the lantern with hands full of ski poles. The answer appeared to be balancing it atop ’his’ head.
Still, once they were suited up the group had directed them all forward. That’s when things started to get weird. Skiing down the snowy mountain wasn’t too hard. She got the hang of it quickly, it was mostly just a matter of balance with a bit of speed control. She had NOT been prepared for the group to launch themselves off the side of a cliff. Nor had she really had time to switch directions. She was too close to them, and had simply been following behind to avoid getting lost.
Instead of crashing into the ground and potentially injuring herself, she’d instead ended up on a bridge of ice that had NOT been there before, in a cave of ice. That was one thing... but apparently magical ice bridges were not safe ways to travel. Monsters appeared and were cut down or avoided, the ice cracked and open holes in places while stalactites fell from the ceiling adding ice to the road.
When they were finally ’done’ the group was back at the top of a completely different mountain, and before Crocus could properly register anything, they’d already set up camp and started snacking. Crocus flopped onto her ass and just tried to recover from the... everything that had happened.
Then she started to wonder if this was a good idea. Her travel had been fast, amazingly so. Zipping across snow and ice on her skis was FAR faster than walking around, not even getting into whatever magical space nonsense was likely moving her even further along... except for the fact that this wasn’t all at what she meant when she wanted to go faster. Crocus has no idea where she is anymore, nor how close the walls are or eve if she was heading in the correct direction!
The snow meant seeing anything from a distance was hard, and the wall of fog she COULD see was also known as CLOUDS because of how high up she currently was. Crocus was ready to continue spiralling when someone passed her a warm mug of... something. Crocus automatically started to drink it, and the hearty taste made her start to relax.
*Alright so the question is what do I do now? I didn’t really consider that my request would be misinterpreted. I also didn’t expect to just be handed a set of skis... and I went along with things far too easily. I was expecting them to give me advice, and MAYBE offer to sell a set. Not simply be handed them.
Now I’m stuck at the top of a different mountain, with no idea where I’m meant to go... and while I can follow these guys that doesn’t mean I want to be where they’re going. Sigh... I guess I should ask them some more questions... but can I trust the answer? They... I worry about their intelligence sometimes. They seem like the sort of village idiots that go around poking monsters.*
Crocus sighed, watching as her breath mixed in with the steam from her mug of... something. It was a meaty broth of some kind but not much, if any, actual meat in it. "So... what do you all do exactly?"
Alphonse, at least, Crocus was pretty sure it was Alphonse answered. "Well we’re the best couriers in all of winter! We deliver just about anything to any city!" the person next to him jabbed him in the side. "Alright so it’s not QUITE any city, and we don’t do contraband. We have a system set up though, and we cover MOST of the towns and cities all over the area."
"How did it all get started?" asked Crocus. "I mean... where those ice bridges always there?"
Alphonse gestured over towards... Ciel? They were all wearing similar outfits and the snow made the details hard to pick out. Crocus was mostly going by height but the snow and rocks they were sitting on weren’t exactly even. "Well, the answer we believe is at least somewhat yes. They were also likely more complete once upon a time.
"Now plenty of them are collapsed and while we can get pretty close to most towns, that’s certainly not ALL towns. The paths themselves, as your saw, are also breaking further with holes all over the place. We do escort some ice mages around the routes occasionally to try and patch things up but there’s only so much we can do. Hiring them isn’t cheap and while in theory it’s in everyone’s best interest to have the paths working... we have to pay for it ourselves," explained Ciel.
"Oh... and you can’t just... hire an ice mage full time?" asked Crocus.
Ciel shrugged, "We spend most of our time on the move. It’s not a lifestyle most people enjoy and forcing someone onto the team would mean paying them more... and if we had more money to pay them, we’d fix the damned ice roads up more often. It’s not like we make much money doing this. We mostly cover food and equipment costs and... that’s about everything."
"And yet you just gave me a set of gear?" asked Crocus.
"Well obviously we have spares. How else can we drag the ice mages along?" Alphonse laughed.
*I suppose that makes sense but I’m still wondering why you just gave them away without really asking for anything else and with no conditions. Heck! You didn’t even know that I’d be able to manage getting across the bridge! There were plenty of holes in it!*
"Alright... I’m mostly looking for my sister," *And orbs* "so I’m not against sticking around for a bit... but where are you all going?" asked Crocus
Alphonse shrugged, "Wherever the ice roads take us. I said they were falling apart before... and I mean that in more ways then just the physical. We go on a rough loop, but the pathways aren’t always open. The ’ice bridge’ is more like ’ice bridges’. Our best guess is that there were a bunch of paths between places at one point...
"And now there are a bunch of pieces of that path that still exist and form one mostly coherent path around the area. The issue, is that these aren’t all pieces of the same road, and they aren’t always accessible. They blink in and out of existence. Mostly at set times, but when you’ve roamed the ice road as much as we have you get a feel for that sort of thing."
"Wait... you jumped off a mountain onto a hidden pathway that doesn’t always exist?!" shrieked Crocus.
Alphonse nodded, "I suppose so. That road in particular is one of the more stable ones, and we like to try and get higher up when we can so that if we can’t hop on a road we can still use natural gravity to speed us downwards. The most dangerous ice roads aren’t ones we take unless we really have to, and we can test it a bit first. Usually,"
Crocus shivered. "Has anyone ever... died?"
"Well of course," Alphonse responded like she was an idiot. Crocus, frankly didn’t like the tone. Nor the fact that he just admitted it. "Not every hole was there when we started you know? Some were from people stepping on cracks, and monsters attack all the time. You saw that. Sure we’re quite strong but well... sometimes you’re tired or you’re just getting old... and something happens."
"And people still sign up?" asked Crocus.
"People still sign up. I mean, you’re here aren’t you? And it doesn’t seem like you’re about to leave... at least, not immediately anyway," commented Alphonse.
Crocus hated the fact that he was right.