Chapter 1: Departure

On a freezing morning, when dewdrops die, where all vapors freeze along with a sigh. A man with flaming red hair stands along the city gate, seemingly impatient, evident from the constant scouring of his eyes towards nearby alleys and empty streets.

The man leaned against a nearby wall, crossed his arms, and let his mind wander in the meantime. He didn't feel cold due to his dense wool-padded, bear-skin-lined clothing, made specifically to lock in warmth.

"They are late." The man spoke, his breath condensing to the winter wind.

'Are they late?' He wondered, as he wasn't quite sure himself, maybe he was just too early. The group he was waiting for was a party of nine, including him, heading towards the northern Hima mountain range. The region remained largely unexplored due to extreme weather fluctuations and dangerously low temperatures. It was a perilous journey, so to speak.

The party was quite loaded with the cream of the crop mages, consisting of five mages from house Frostweaver and three renowned mages from house Ironclad that were praised for their flexibility and combat brilliance.

'It's a long walk huh.' he muttered to himself, somewhat downplaying the implications of their journey.

"Lorenz!" A voice called out to him, snapping him out of his five-word monologue

'Haah, I'd love to get this over with.' He sighed in undisguised indolence.

"It's Headmaster." He deadpanned towards the too-cheerful Kaye Frostweaver, a girl who stood at 5'7 (1.70m) with short silvery hair with a blue sheen. She was one of the vanguards of the party, sporting a masterfully made, ceremonial-looking gauntlet with intricate formations on the surface—hinting at a possible spell enchantment.

Kaye promptly bobbed a curtsy towards Lorenz, saying, "Kaye Frostweaver apologizes to Headmaster Lorenz Cinderkin, along with a playful smile.

He walked past Kaye and greeted his mates who in turn poked fun at him for being too early and uptight. He was informed that the travel plans might be changed abruptly—in a good way, that is. They now have the option to depart through a merchant caravan that was passing through a forest bordering the north. The deal was that they had to escort the caravan with its included guard as additional security while passing through accident-prone areas.

Being the leader of the party, he pondered for a short while and found the deal acceptable due to its effectiveness in cutting precious travel time and energy for his party. He promptly agreed to the terms of the abrupt change of plans. He proceeded to double check while waiting for the said caravan to arrive, which it did after a few long minutes.

The caravan was set to arrive in the walled city of Nieve, which directly bordered the northern territories, which made it a convenient stop to replenish their essential resources. It bore the coat of arms of the house Thorne, a noble household that held authority exclusively within the walled city of Nieve. The coat of arms featured a thorned white rose, which Lorenz found quite elegant and simple. He supposed that the caravan carried military supplies and other goods, Nieve being a walled city strategically positioned north in case of any foreign invasion.

"Ladies and gentlemen, is everyone ready?" Voiced the middle-aged man in charge of the caravan, prompting the expedition party to do a final accounts on their equipment and rations for the journey.

"We are pretty much ready to depart, Mr.Miles." Lorenz remarked, after a brief triple-checking of the equipment and rations. 

"That's good to hear; then please board the caravan and split your numbers between the rear and front," Miles requested, which started a brief discussion amongst the members as to which should go with whom. It obligated Lorenz to speak up as the leader overseeing all operations of the expedition; he had to group them strategically in the event of an organized bandit ambush.

They decided to split the party into 5 and 4, respectively, in the front and rear. The front consisted of Lorenz, Lara, Kaye, Martha, and Alaric, followed by Finn, Gwynne, Erik, and Arthur for the rear.

The front was mainly made up of close combat specialists, and the rearguard was made up of long-range capable members such as Gwynne, who wields a crossbow, along with Finn, who specialized in barriers and defensive magic measures.

They quickly boarded their respective caravans accordingly as they began the first half of their arduous journey. The party members entertained themselves with idle chatter and stories, but predominantly gossip regarding their respective families and life whereabouts.

They eventually stopped at a clearing covered by copses of trees and set up camp as the sun set. They disembarked and created a dome for the horses that closely resembles an igloo, shielding them from the freezing cold. The members continued to set up a campfire and prepared for dinner, Lorenz assigned 2 people every 4 hours as watchmen for the night. The night sank deeper into near midnight, most of them were still awake, seemingly feeling a potent dose of traveller's high.

"Why so restless, Grandmaster?" Kaye said, voicing a slight worry for their leader. "Worried that it might go wrong?" she added.

"The unknown is... scary. I know that you lot are powerful elite mages, but we are venturing into the unknown, especially the people there are—"

"Scary? Oh, the Iceborns?" Kaye probed.

"Yes, we don't know much about them, culture and all," Lorenz confirmed. He didn't know what to expect, as there had been very few past encounters with them and the reports were all too convoluted to be accurate. All the reliable information about the Iceborns points to them wielding powerful ice magic and having a seemingly unique bond with the local fauna.

"Aren't they similar to barbarians? They probably know next to nothing about military tactics." Kaye mused, curious of the inner workings of the Grandmaster's head.

"No, Kaye. They are smart, possibly predatory human variants; they lived in that damned place for god knows how long; I wouldn't call them stupid; they are hunters, Kaye, in a place where all creatures are hunters." Lorenz stressed, feeling intimidated by what the clues imply.

Kaye stayed silent and acknowledged the Grandmaster's points. It is certainly intimidating now that she thinks about it, exploring in a place where everything is basically unexplored.

"But it's no use worrying; I'm sure we'll manage." He spoke with resolve, steeling his nerves. "Besides, we did not come there to fight but rather establish a connection with our long-lost kin. You, with your brother Finn, and three of your other sisters, I'm sure they could find cordiality between individuals with high ice affinity." Lorenz spoke with renewed resolve, looking at the situation in a new light.

"No wonder you brought almost every new generation of the house Frostweaver." A man spoke suddenly. It was Arthur Ironclad from the rearguard; he was in charge of massive area-of-effect spells, an impressive mage praised for his raw firepower.

Arthur can be seen lying down atop a nearby tree branch, actively eavesdropping on any conversation he finds interesting. He jumped down from the branch, effectively joining the conversation. "Pretty smart of you, I'd say, but what if it fails, Grandmaster?" Arthur became serious and stared directly at Lorenz, who was deep in thought.

"It won't," Lorenz insisted.

"Hope so, I'll keep watch; you guys can rest." Arthur remarked while dismissing the topic and moving back to his post for the remainder of his four hours of guard duty.

The night passed without any disruption from the mana beasts populating the nearby region. The party swiftly started departing before daybreak, leaving a few offerings of raw meat and cleaning up after themselves so as not to offend the lord of the forest.

The caravan took a short detour due to the apparent mana storm that could be sensed from their position; they preferred to be safe and take it slow.

"That's the north for ya! How exciting!" Arthur exclaimed, shaking with excitement and anticipation while looking at the humongous mana storm brewing at the horizon, engulfing enormous amounts of mana and spitting out occasional bursts of blue lightning.

"Maniac."

"Battle-Maniac."

"Lunatic."

Seeing Arthur practically vibrating from excitement made them annoyed, as Arthur was quite the adrenaline junkie among them.

"Come on! Killjoy much? I just love fighting and blowing things up—" Just as Arthur complained, the ground quaked and mana began to swirl around them.

"AMBUSH!" Lorenz roared loudly from the front, alerting all the guards of the impending danger.

The members of the party swiftly slipped out of the caravan, and Finn Frostweaver started shielding the caravan, manipulating the permafrost belowground to form a protective barrier and strengthening it with ice of his own.

Martha Frostweaver sprinted to the middle of the area and struck the earth using the metal-reinforced end of her staff, punching a hole in the ground. She started siphoning the abundant mana found in the local ley lines until her staff was crackling with power. She clenched her staff closer, her long silvery hair whipping in the air along the mana currents, and the world went silent under her voice.

[Articompass: Locate] 

Martha uttered, then large amounts of mana erupted from her staff towards the sky, forming a large arial array. She kept fueling it with mana until it shone with a brilliant blue light, signaling the spell's completion, but she wasn't done; she crutched the staff tighter and weaved another spell.

[Brainfreeze]

The mana was released again from her staff, joining the existing wide array in the sky, and then it erupted into a blinding light crackling with power.

[Compound spell: Winter Fear]

The large amounts of mana Martha had accumulated rushed outward per her instructions, scouring 200 meters in all directions. The spell stunned all living beings aside from her party members due to the brainfreeze spell she imbued along with the large-scale detection spell.

It scoured for a few seconds, and Martha searched more and more, deeper and deeper into the woods, thinking that the enemy was under a high-order cloaking spell. Until she scanned something utterly terrifying at the center of the woods. It stared back at her, sensing her detection spell along with the mental attack imbued with it. It responded with such primal bloodlust that it sent Martha unconscious and sprawling with a thud, her staff still plunged to the forest's ley lines.

"MARTHA!" Alaric Ironclad panicked, quickly shielding her body with his own and casting an omnidirectional barrier spell.

[Fortress]

After casting the protective spell, he shook Martha to check if she was in any immediate danger. He searched her armor for any possible projectile wound, but none was found.

"Martha! Martha! Stay with me!" Alaric tapped Martha's cheeks to shake her awake, but to no avail; she still seemed to be in a daze. The silver lining was that she seemed to be in no immediate danger.

Erik Ironclad came up to them, checking up on Martha, and arrived at the same conclusion: Martha was in no immediate danger. He still cast a minor healing spell on Martha's head to ease her discomfort from the fall.

As the scene quieted down, they carried Martha and her staff back to the caravan, grouping with the others. They too checked on Martha's condition and decided to let her rest for the time being. Kaye was especially worried due to Martha losing consciousness while casting a spell—which had never happened before; she always had talent for the spellweaving discipline, which made it all the more baffling.

Before the situation had settled down, something rumbled deep underneath the earth—and then it exploded off the ground. A thick and heavily compressed beam of ice now loomed tall in the middle of the clearing, along with four more in each cardinal direction, all firmly packed with mana.

"What in the..." Lorenz panicked, fearing the worst.

"Lorenz! What the fuck are these?!" Kaye was in a panic, desperately steeling her nerves to calm down. First her sister was knocked unconscious, and now this?

"The—" Lorenz was interrupted with a choir of howling wolves; the sounds seemingly came from all directions; were they surrounded? And then it came—a howl that pierced the existing choir of howls, seemingly absorbing them into its own.

The howl was long and loud, the snow-coated branches shaking under its influence. The mana literally vibrated with the howl, howling with it.

The group was sent into a panic, their faces darkening, and they gulped down their dry throats in an attempt to calm down. They looked in the direction of the party leader, who seemed to be in a daze, looking blankly at the ground.

"Headmaster Lorenz! What was even that?" Mr. Miles took the word out of everyone, making everyone look at the Headmaster expectantly.

"...The Lord of the Forest calls for us." The Headmaster said after taking a deep breath.

"What?!" Practically everyone gaped at the revelation.

"Yes, The Great Wolf Amarok formally requests our presence." He repeated himself. Their reaction was understandable; a creature that powerful requesting your presence would certainly make you second guess whether you did something wrong.

"Here might be our guide to his dwelling, wherever he may be." Their heads turned to a massive wolf approaching from the woods, its eyes piercing blue, its dull gray fur padded with pristine white snow.

The wolf stopped a few meters in front of the group, blankly staring at them.

"Headmaster, what should we do?"

But he ignored their inquiry, Headmaster Lorenz hastily walked towards the massive body of the wolf and kneeled on one knee, cupping a handful of snow,  offering it to the wolf.

"The human forgets—"

"—The pack remembers."