"From the ocean to the harsh cold huh?" muttered Aiden, his breath clearly visible.
After coming back from their trip on the dangerous ocean, they had immediately set for their next potential information holder and apparently, that person lived in the cold mountains separating Laparadi from Gloire, none of the person present were geographical experts of this new world but everytime a map was opened, it felt something that wasn't here before had just appeared.
There was Gloire, situated on the very left of the continent with a direct access to the ocean on the southern border of the country as well as on a big part of the west, above them, their was heilig with a good portion of access to the ocean as well but much less compared to the mastodon that was Gloire.
The proportions were hard to tell but it seemed like everything was quite a bit larger in this world, they spent a lot of time just moving around.
If the units indicated were to be fully trusted to be the same as that the otherworlders knew, then Gloire alone was much bigger than the USSR at its peak, which was utter madness for them.
Heilig was much smaller but still enormous by their standards.
At the east of Heilig and bordering with the north of Gloire as well, Laparadi was here, quite a small country in the grand scheme of things, if it wasn't such a hassle to move troops through the mountains around it, it would have probably been devoured by other countries a long time ago.
Then, at Laparadi's east, there was Mawlique, which also bordered with the north of Gloire, then, bordering with the majority of Gloire's east was the Confederation Of Lacam, conflicts with water based people was difficult and since nobody wanted to poison the water and destroy the ressources, everyone had a fairly good relationship with them, except Mawlique but everyone hates Mawlique it seemed.
Then, sharing a slight border with the lake was UCT, a country shaped in a line, further away, not shairing a single border with any of the previous country was Aeraliun,in between them and the others was mostly territory of rulers with no actual powers, claimed lands that were really unclaimed and actually unclaimed lands, populated by monsters and tribes, the colonisation in this world didn't seem very agressive at all.
Lastly, although it was sometimes considered as part of the powerless countries, there was Velko, bordering with Gloire, it was beneath the Confederation Of Lacam and seemed to be picking up speed at the moment, right at the right moment since Gloire was coming out of a revolution and keeping its armies inside for the most part, the Confederation couldn't do much about it since Velko, on top of not being water-based, was also unreasonably cold, colder than the mountains the group was in and that was the standard temperature.
They were looking for a flat area with a frozen lake on it as well as a small house, the typical kind you would expect to find in this kind of places, so there shouldn't be any surprises like with last time's ship.
Everyone was dressed warmly and still felt like they would freeze at any moment, except Molarine who was dressed and acted just like usual, sticking out like a sore thumb in the utter whiteness of their surroundings.
"I expected monsters like yetis and the likes all the way but this place seems like a safe one" remarked the sore thumb in question after a little while of no danger.
"Since it's safe and all, I have been meaning to ask but where did you people find a wheelchair built to go through the snow?" questioned Jake while squinting his eyes at the device.
"Some doctor invented that after having to deal with a sudden layer of snow apparently, we got it from a suspicious guy dressed in all black that kinda looked like the guy from that revenge movie" explained Laura as the top of a small house came into sight in the distance, cutting her explanation short as everyone focused on it until it was fully visible.
The house was small and quite appeasing to look at, it was elevated by a few meters, a small set of stairs led to its entrance, the snow on the roof was quite thin, indicating that it had been removed fairly recently, separating them from the small cottage was a frozen lake, it was large and sported some faint gashes on its surface.
Molarine slammed her feet on the surface, seeing that it didn't even crack at all under the blow, she concluded it was safe to walk on.
She also checked for under the ice but it appeared that the lake wasn't all that deep and was frozen completely solid from top to bottom, so no risk of getting attacked by an ice shark or something along those lines.
"Be careful still..." advised Grayson as he looked around.
"...It seems like someone had been ice skating here" the slashes on the ice seemed to be alluding to that even if the thought of someone engaging in that activity by themselves in the middle of nowhere was a bit silly, so was the thought of someone dressing like personification of the pirate cliche.
After a few minutes of careful walking, the ice hadn't cracked or made any suspicious sounds but as they were about in the middle of the lake, a few of them felt vibrations running up their legs and in the distance, as ridiculous as it looked, someone was ice skating toward them, the movements were expert and the figure got close swiftly, circling around the group.
Even doing some classic stunts as if they couldn't help but flew their proficiency to them.
The person in question was wearing what was clearly a mask representing an old woman with orange hair and slightly exagerrated features, although it wasn't out of the question for someone to look like that.
They had a round shaped sickles strapped behind them, on their waists but didn't pull it out and after a while, seeing that the group wasn't going to strike first, the figure elegantly skated toward them.
"You are more peaceful than expected, come on in" spoke a woman from beneath the mask.
As the woman skated away with panache, Laura spoke up.
"I don't have to tell you to stay on your guard"