Months passed since this journey began. And we had yet to leave Letchkia. Low on supplies, and freezing we were stuck in the middle of this deceptively gorgeous frozen wasteland. Until the end of our sight, all we could see was snow and massive crystals of ice on the ground.
The land of the Untouchable was uninhabitable. Not a spec of green or life anywhere. Mountains but no trees.
The bright sunlight did nothing to aid with the bone-chilling temperature but instead made the whole experience even more disorientating.
We would still survive though. Lithia was lying on Javes' back and me on her. She constantly had a veil of heat around her. Not enough to warm us up. But enough to not let us get freeze bites.
The worst part about the experience was the fact that on top of this cold, there were instances of fast cold winds knocking the air out of us.
"With this cold, I wonder if even the clouds are frozen." Javes was shivering.
"Are you delirious? There are no clouds in the sky."
"Oh there really aren't." He looked up. "This isn't good. Can I get a second? It feels like we've been climbing for a while."
We climbed off him and fell to the ground. Behind us was a cliff and in front there was an endless expanse of white. It was disorientating with no shadow. Making it feel as though it was just one plane to the horizon.
"These Untouchables even have nature on their side, you can't even get to them. This is insane." Lithia was panting.
"How are we looking on food?"
"We have a decent amount. But using Prana of Space is taking it out of me. If I use it I might not be able to keep the heating spell up."
"Should we set up a tent then? Start a kindling and take out the food." Javes put a ball of snow in his mouth to ease his thirst.
"No, this isn't working. We're going to run out of kindling soon. We must be halfway through already."
"This was a dumb idea! The Untouchables definitely used mounts to get through this place. Let's go back and get that damn dragon to take us."
The smartest thing we did since the start of this journey was going from one recognisable monument like a stone to another. Lithia was incredible and memorizing patterns.
"I doubt he recovered his wing from the last fight."
Upon hearing this Javes started throwing a tantrum in the snow. "NO ONE LIVES HERE ANYWAY! This part of Earth hasn't even been mapped We don't know how far we'll have to go to see another civilisation or the lack of snoww!"
Beneath the sound of his wailing, we heard the sound of snow crunching.
Without wasting a second we all jumped to see what was behind that ice hill. And wouldn't you know it? A huge muscular lady walking around this wasteland like it was another Tuesday afternoon. Her skin was red, hair white and had large black horns jutting out of her face.
"Hello?" She looked over at us. An untouchable. The first one I had seen in a non-war setting. "What are you lot doing here?"
"We're lost." I got up cautiously and grabbed the hilt of my sword.
"Please put that down young lady." She backed off a little.
"Why what are you going to do?"
"Not much I can do. I'm an old frail lady. Do you want to use Iudex on such a foe?"
Frail. She was built like a brick house.
I put the sword down with my hand on the sword's back. Just in case.
"Are ya lost?" She climbed up a little more and handed us an apple. "Of course you are. You are a fifth of the way in and clearly under-prepared for this journey."
"That… we are." I admitted solemnly. "Are they poisoned?"
"Leaving ya here would be plenty to kill ya. Don't need no poisoned apple, Snow White." She chuckled. Not a speck of lie.
I took a bite and the other two followed suit.
"Alright, I've decided. I'll take you home."
"Huh?" Her readiness seemed alarming. "Where's home?"
"Don't worry about it. I don't have any scary officials in there. It's just me and a bunch of humans who got lost like you lot." She lifted her walking stick and pointed it in a direction. "You see that there?" It was a black dot.
"What is that a bit a soot on some sand? A rock?" Javes tried to cover the sun from his eyes. I couldn't see well either. My vision was deteriorating at an alarming rate.
"Oh, I see what's going on here. Y'are just a bunch of idiots." She bent down, picked a ball of snow up and threw it. It fell and it fell and it fell. We had underestimated the size of those crystals over the small hill. In fact, we were not sitting on a small hill but something far bigger. "Follow me."
We slowly slid down the slope for a couple of hours making small movements so as not to disturb the snow above. Avalanches would be the worst thing right now.
"How do you even live here?" I stepped my foot on solid ground after a couple of hours or so. "More like why do you even live here?"
"It's not bad, this place used to be all green. Just like your half at Mount Topaz. But then one day the Lord decided that it had to be repurposed. Not a bad decision mind you. He even offered everyone living here a chance to move inland. I along with many others decided to do so too. It was a difficult life at first, but then over the years, he made a country that just worked. And while doing all of that, he came out to these green lands and built crystals into this land forever subjecting it to snow. Thereby stopping all intruders."
As we got closer it became increasingly apparent. The crystals were not ice, they were gems as tall as mountains. The amount of Prana required to produce something of this scale was astounding. After walking for half an hour we finally reached the first crystal, my hand cautiously running across its sides.
Pure prana.
What were we up against?
"Why did you come back here then?"
"My son was a soldier who went missing in this area. Knowing this area as well as I did, and knowing he is somewhere out there I come out to look for him every once in a while." She stopped. "I'm not deluded. He is here. Us daemons have a sense for kinship."