Lucas knew what he had to do, and barely had enough time to experiment any further. He needed to take a gamble if he wanted to continue forward. The first thing he did was sit down, when he forced his eyes open he could see the walls of snow around him. Peering above showed a brutal storm raging about. The top of his head would be engulfed in the storm if he had a straight back, but he didn't have the energy nor patience to stay in form.
He focussed his mind on the magic inside his core. He knew everything there was to know about the rune, but he still felt nervous. If he screwed up and gave it too much, it could scorch his body from the inside out.
'Let's start small.'
'Minuscule.'
A tiny amount of magicules were released from the core to fuel a rune. His mouth was frozen shut, but his willpower and knowledge of magical flows proved enough to activate his internal system. The energy reached his abdomen, he tried to force it to his heart, but the energy quickly spiraled out of control. It spread around and didn't even try to stay coherent. The energy was stuck in the body for too long, it started to manifest as what he intended.
The change in temperature was so small, that he barely felt it.
'Damn it, not enough!'
'We couldn't know it would spread out like that.'
'Again!'
His body felt colder and colder to the touch, not that he had any left. The only proof he had that his hands were still there was because he could see them. Feeling and any kind of warmth was gone. Using Light magic wouldn't do much now, since it would improve his immune system and increase the amount of blood plates and cells, victims against the cold. He tried again, this time with a lot more, since he knew it would spread out.
'This time it should at least warm us up.'
'Wait! Look at the structure!'
'Shit'
The energy released from his core stuck together unlike last time, only in numbers did it have enough energy to be cohesive enough to bundle up. The energy clumped up, making Lucas focus all his efforts on just breaking it apart, not caring where the energy would go.
'Break'
'Break'
'BREAK'
His efforts barely made any change in the mass of energy, a few seconds later, and it would turn into pure warmth. The thing was that he didn't know if it would increase his temperature by a few degrees or by tens, either was pretty bad since a gradual increase would've been a lot healthier.
'Shit, forget about spreading it, get it out of us now!'
'You're right'
Switching his train of thought, if the ball of energy wanted to stay in its shape, then all he had to do was push it away. The ball had already moved around for some time, but Lucas was incredibly lucky that it was close enough to his skin, the border of his vessel so to speak. The energy was being pushed out, yet he was too late, part of the mass of energy was lodged stuck in him, creating a wave of warmth. His back and the snow that had accumulated on it started to heat up. The snow rapidly changed into water, while his back felt like it had just received a branding.
His desire to scream out in pain was prohibited by the lack of stamina and his frozen shut mouth, but that didn't lessen the pain in any way. In a certain way, it exacerbated it further due to him not having an outlet for his pain.
Even with the added pain, he did achieve part of his goal, he got warmer. His back received most of the energy, but it spread quite fast. Sadly, just as it was spreading at a quick pace, it was also being snuffed out by the surrounding cold.
'D-Dammit, we need to do it again!'
'You're willing to take another risk?'
'What else is there to do?'
Lucas was stuck between warming himself up a bit longer, but then he realized.
'It doesn't matter anymore...'
'We can still get through this, if we try once more, we can warm ourselves up. We know now how much energy we can't use. We have a reference point now! We can succeed!'
'And then what? You do realize our body is barely hanging on?'
'Let's just keep trying for a bit longer.'
Like what he assumed, after a few more attempts and a few burns later, he managed to warm his body up. His fingers were brought back to life, but as his other half predicted, that was all he achieved.
He was warmed up again, baring the brute force of nature once more. Before he got numb to the cold since he could barely feel, but now that was brought back. He spent a lot of his energy warming himself up, but his body was tired. There were spells to regain stamina, but that was a lot more complex than a single rune he needed to fuel. There was no way out, he was still stuck in this freezing mountain.
'This is ridiculous...we succeeded...didn't we?'
'We did...but...'
Looking up, he could see the screen of white hiding the scenery in front of him.
'Is this it?'
'...'
Lucas closed his eyes, his body consumed too much stamina and energy to fight against the cold. The clothes weren't good enough to go on this trip, he didn't prepare enough. Or that was what he would think, being a mortal without any kind of magical powers, he was destined to fail.
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The capital of Frigus was the biggest city in the entire country, bustling merchants and busy streets were no uncommon sight. The grand palace that showed of the royalty's wealth didn't go unnoticed either. Anything you would need, you could find here, or so the merchants proclaimed.
Inside one of the more secluded halls of the palace, a lot of low ranking nobles started to gather. Some assumed they were going to protest to avoid the upcoming war at any cost. Nothing official had been decided yet, the war was still far off, but the people knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. War didn't have to be officially started in the first place, if the Holy Kingdom started to attack, they could only respond in kind.
This didn't mean that everyone was eager to fight against a superpower on the continent. Only those confident enough in their power are willing to start a dispute. The lower ranked nobles and barons weren't that keen on throwing themselves to the wolves.
One such baron was visiting this secluded hall, it wasn't his first, but it had been quite some time since he had to. He traveled through the main transport system, namely carriages. The more expensive the carriage the higher the status, some were decorated in pure gold. Others preferred rare mineral, there were even flying carriages. But that required certain tame magical beasts, which were a lot more expensive and hard to control, mostly leaving that to the mages.
The baron in question didn't know how to feel, he was invited to this place by the advisor of the youngest princess of the kingdom. She was rumored to have been assassinated, especially after the king didn't let anyone see him for an entire day, signifying his grief. Though some disputed that since the king was openly letting his children fight for the throne, saying that anything goes. His grief would've been faked if he didn't care what happened during their fight.
When the baron met the advisor in his mansion, he could see that while the princess's faction was almost disbanded, the eyes of the advisor didn't have any resemblance of giving up. There was a certain glint of smugness, but the baron didn't know why.
"Sir, we have arrived. There is someone waiting for us.", the baron knew it was time. If the advisor of one of the royalty came to his house to invite him, it must mean that he had a certain something that others didn't. He felt proud that he was personally invited, since such invitations would only suit the biggest powers in the kingdom, not a small noble like him. That's why he was also a bit on edge and didn't let the invitation boost his ego through the roof.
He felt happy, but knew his place. Stepping outside, he could see a single soldier awaiting him. The soldier was a normal palace guard that appeared frequently throughout the capital. The man had fierce eyes and didn't let a single detail escape his vision.
"Are you sir Red von Trigo?"
"That's correct.", the baron felt a bit insulted that the person awaiting him was a mere soldier, but once he got close enough he saw the sigil of the princess. The youngest princess was mostly locked away in the tower, away from the public. Luckily, that didn't stop her from using every public appearance to her fullest.
Every time she managed to get outside, she would seek out those in pain and distress. Helping those in need made her a favorite among the commoners. Due to her popularity, she managed to gain a few squadrons of soldiers who devoted their lives to her.
Most of the soldiers were orphans or from poor family's, the princess's goals was to give others the freedom she couldn't always enjoy herself. Each one received a sigil that represented them as the princess's personal army.
'First the advisor, then that soldier...was he speaking the truth? All he said was that this wasn't the end. I can't think of much, but if the princess survived the assassination, how did she get here without being discovered? It doesn't make any sense.'
Entering the hall, he found things to be unnaturally quiet. He arrived at an open room with chairs forming a circle. The round table that sat in the middle was meant to portray equality among the seated. Yet this was merely a front, everyone present were small nobles with little notoriety. He was among his people, so to speak.
The atmosphere made him stay silent as every other noble simply nodded to him. Taking one of the empty chairs in front of him, he waited for something to happen. Time slowly passed as everyone stayed silent, most nobles had the habit of establishing a hierarchy right off the bat. Yet now, nobody took the opportunity to speak first. They were all on the same level, so no one had the actual right to take the lead, only the organizer had this privilege. And if they were right, the princess wasn't someone they could hold a candle against.
Other nobles started to come in, filling up the empty seats until there were none left. Since they were all low ranking nobles, they weren't used to getting invited by high ranking members of the royal family. The advisor wasn't present, but everyone knew that he had to be here.
Once every seat was filled did the host come out. The advisor in the flesh, his gray robes that barely touched the ground and his tiny beard, made him immediately stand out.
"Welcome everyone, I thank you for coming here on such a short notice."