Fishy stood in the centre of his city, looking up through the dark sky to see the even darker clouds that rested above. He held his hand out to touch the falling white drops that quickly settled around the city and in the palm of his hand.
"Snow?" He said to himself out loud.
"It always snows." Clara appeared from the darkness, wrapped in a large brown coat, one similar to what they took with them when they journeyed into the coldest reaches of Tanba, the frozen city.
"I should have expected this. We may need to change our plans a bit. The city is asleep at the moment. We might need to have a meeting when Silmor wakes up."
"I'm sure he's probably already awake, I can go fetch him."
"Don't bother. We'll let them sleep. It may be colder than I thought, but people shouldn't complain. They'll wait a few nights first before complaining to see if things change or not."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I can't, but in most cases like this people won't complain straight away as it would make them seem rude and needy, but regardless, we already know their complaints. So if we fix them without them asking, then we gain even more popularity."
"You sound like a true leader," Clara said as she started to make her way back to her house to sleep for that eternal night.
"My world did have some pretty shit leaders during its life."
Once Fishy left the snowy streets, the city fell to silence. The entire city was sleeping with their blankets being tightly squeezed against their bodies. But, despite everything being stuck in darkness, time was still moving, and eventually, despite looking the same, the next day would arrive.
10 AM was when the village woke up. The street lights that Fishy installed flicked themselves on and small magic alarms ringed in people's ears. They all swung open their window curtains in anticipation to see what the day held, but could only see the streets flickering with darkness, illuminating the thin sheet of untouched snow.
This was enough to cover anyone's mood with the outside darkness, and they still had a few weeks left of this.
"Alright!"
Inside the newly built, indoors meeting hall, which was a rather European inspired room. A large space filled with several chairs and tables all around the side, almost climbing up the wall for people to sit in, whilst the centre table seemed to belong to those of importance, which was Fishy and the executives he currently spoke to.
"This is a problem."
The new meeting hall was being used for the first time. The old open-air one was converted into a large boiler room where all the children and adults gathered during their breaks from work.
"There are a few solutions I can come up with, but really we have too many buildings," Fishy said as he slumped into the master chair at the end of the long table.
"What do you mean?" Clara, who sat in the closest chair next to Fishy, asked.
"Well, I wish to give all houses a boiler like the one we have in the old meeting room, but a smaller version, a radiator, basically."
"A radiator?"
"Yeah, a radiator, cause it radiates heat."
Fishy tried his best to explain terms that didn't exist in this world, the majority of people who sat in on the meeting didn't understand, but Silmor, the one who would be building them, was over the moon, waiting to find out more.
"What do they do?" He asked, almost climbing over the table just to hear the answer.
"Well, like with the boiler, we use magic stones to heat up water and send that into the houses. It'd be a massive project that would require digging up the roads. We'd need water going into all the houses."
"I CAN DO IT!" Silmor was almost passed out with excitement. "My team and I can do it. We've already got someone coming up with plans."
"Alright!" Fishy jumped with joy, "You have 2 days. Any more than that and we'd freeze. But in the meantime," Fishy turned his attention to Clara who was trying to avoid eye contact, hoping she wasn't going to be called upon.
"Me?" She asked as she pointed to herself before Fishy even said anything.
"Yup! You'll be making tons of comfy clothes, bedding and more. Tin's triplets, Tim, Tom and Tam, will be sent out with a small exception team to hunt animals for fur and food. It may be hard to find them during the cold."
"That's good." Tin, the mother of the three triplets, said. "They've been wanting to do something recently."
"We've got one shot to make things better. Hopefully, things don't go wrong."
"Ah, Fishy…" Silmor suddenly spoke up, almost not wanting to say. "We are out of magic stones to heat the water. There won't be enough."
"Can we not make more?"
"There is a way." The one with the most knowledge of magic, the elder, who looked worse with each passing day, walked in on the meeting, wrapped in more clothes than anyone else.
"Grandad," Clara ran out of her chair and other to her grandfather, helping him move closer to the conversation. "We told you to rest, we can all handle it."
"I cannot sleep knowing the city is suffering." The elder laughed as he took Clara's seat, forcing Clara to stand behind him.
"Fishy," He said, "You may be able to create magic crystals. It's a delicate process. Too much mana and they break, too little and they dry out and cannot be used."
"I see… so it's not easy."
"Far from it. There's a reason as to why everyone uses naturally forming ones. We are talking precision levels with many decimal points of mana."
"I see…" Fishy leant back in his chair, "We have no other choice. Let's do it."
"Good answer…" The elder tried to stand up. "We shall start tomorrow, I need some rest."
"Grandad, stop moving about so much." Clara tried to chase after him but despite his age, he was rapidly moving.
"Well, that's the end of this meeting then." Fishy laughed a sigh to himself. "We'll meet again every day during The Long Night. If we don't we die. Always stay on high alert."
"Understood!" All the village executives stood and saluted their leader, something they have never done before.
"And Ziu," Fishy said, catching him before he left.
"Yes, my lord?"
"I got word from her, be on high alert.
Ziu looked at Fishy's serious expression. The once relaxed face turned stern as Fishy waited for Ziu to respond with the power he needed.
"Understood. We will up our patrol."
Day 2 of the Long Night was almost ending. The city was able to survive thanks to the remaining magic stones they had, and Fishy's use of fire magic able to set up many temporary campfires, however, they were quickly made useless as the snow continued to pick up and move quickly across the entire world.