Frostbound

Chapter 274 - Or I Wouldn’t

The flames of the fire dwindled over the night and people broke away as the stars came out. Austin and I stayed put and watched as people returned to their tents one by one.

With my Endurance, I could stay up the whole night and be just fine but it was better to be in tip-top shape. A few hours would do the trick, which gave me a lot of time to sit and contemplate.

Why Austin stayed was unclear. He too had a high Endurance, but I thought it was also because I was still up.

The alcohol he managed to get his hands on was long gone and it wasn't even close to enough for either of us to feel anything.

A fact he complained about constantly.

"This is bullshit!" He had to quietly complain to not wake people. "It even tasted like ass, too, the least it could do was get us drunk."

"It will get there eventually," I said, "The Brewers aren't as high level as us and they're still working out their craft. It also doesn't help the materials they're using aren't the highest grade."

High-grade grains weren't to be wasted on making ale. Not yet at least. We would grow our production in the coming years and that issue would be fixed. Farmers would level and get better as well as would the mana levels of the world, but for now, we were without.

Mana was still on the rise and no one knew when they were going to stop. The grade our Planet would end up at was still in the air.

"I know but still! Not even a buzz!" Austin threw another stick in the fire which caused the coals to spark up.

"It's probably for the best. If high-quality booze was available, I don't even want to think about what would happen. We already have fights breaking out occasionally, we don't need drunken brawls on top of it." I said.

"Those are half the fun." He lamented, "Watching people duke it out in wild haymakers and stumbling footwork is always entertaining."

"You and I have different ideas of entertaining."

Austin poked at the fire and I sensed him using some mana to get it to dance a little, "It would've been nice to take the edge off. All this sitting and waiting without anything to do."

A burst of frost extinguished the flame he was playing with and he gave me a snide look.

"We'll have enough action to deal with tomorrow. Some peace and quiet now is good." I said.

Austin smirked, "Have you thought about what you're going to say? Something cool as the timer ticks over to zero that inspires everyone to charge into battle?"

"I'm not one for grand speeches," I remarked, "My last one wasn't the most impressive."

"Oh, really?" Austin jumped, "What did you say?"

The speech wasn't that long ago and I could still clearly remember the words I had said, so I told him. After saying it, he was howling on the floor laughing his ass off.

"That's it?!" He said in between bursts of laughter, "'For better or worse we march to end the threat against us'?! That was the best you could come up with?"

Before I could defend myself, he kept going, "And 'don't fear such an end'? You basically told them to not be scared of dying!"

"Hey! It felt good in the moment and I was being truthful. Dying in the defense of one's home is an honorable way to go. Glorious even."

"Yeah, yeah. Honor and Glory." He mocked, "At least do a little better tomorrow. Thousands of people will hear you and not just those from our City. If you blunder it people will remember."

"Oh thanks, asshole." I said, "No pressure or anything."

"I'm just saying. You have a few hours to figure it out. At least it will be better than 'Charge at Demons and don't fear dying!'" He started snickering again.

"We won't be charging anything this time, so that's already a change. We're on the defensive." I pointed out.

"Dear brother, this guy." Austin shook his head and muttered to the air.

The fire was petering out again but he didn't throw another log on it. Instead, he stood from his chair. "Alright, time to hit the hay. A man needs his beauty sleep."

"Goodnight, Austin."

"Night, Chris."

I stayed up for a little longer looking at the stars.

Glory and Honor. I can work with that.

00:10:52:43

---

The atmosphere when I awoke was completely different from the one I fell asleep to. It was quiet, serene even, the previous night and now it was no better than a circus.

Cooking, last-second smith work, voices talking over one another. With so many people it was a lot to wake up to.

Thank god for Gabriel and his noise cancelation.

His enchantments were a godsend in this environment. It wasn't until I opened my tent and stepped out that the sound slammed into me. It wasn't just the sound that was different, people were twitchy. It was easy to spot as most were terrible at hiding it.

I checked the timer to see where we were.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

00:03:06:32

Just over three hours.

There was still enough time for last-minute additions but I had everything I needed. My armor wasn't in need of any repairs and my weapon was in fine condition. The defenses we had set up were to the best of our ability. There was nothing for me to do.

My resource pools were all filled to the brim and I could feel the air around me chill from the Arctic mana leaking out. Everyone was leaking something as no one wanted to go into battle with anything less than filled to the brim.

It was an odd sensation to feel. All the various affinities combining together from everyone in the area.

It was also an easy way to tell how much mana regeneration someone had that I'd never noticed before. I rarely kept my mana filled like I was now.

It wasn't perfect. People had ways to obscure it or they could circulate it in their bodies instead of letting it billow out freely, but it was enough for a rough estimate.

Mages were easy to spot over their warrior counterparts. There were veritable seas of mana gushing out of them compared to the trickles and streams of those more dedicated to the physical side.

People's affinities were also clear in the mana that leaked out of them. Not that an Affinity was hard to figure out. Watching someone fight would instantly reveal what their affinity was.

The mana density was also a stark difference. It went from being somewhat sparse, with everyone using up the ambient mana on skills or spells of some sort, to being thick in the air as people generated more than they used.

The insane number of people in one area only exacerbated the issue. Not that more mana was a bad thing, but I knew it wouldn't last. As soon as the first spells started flying and the battle began in earnest, the mana would be sucked from the air much faster than it could be replenished.

The only reason the density was so high now was because people had nothing to spend their mana on.

All the different affinities also played havoc on the weather. The sky looked like it could go four different ways simultaneously. A rainstorm looked just as likely to break out as the shining sun.

Breakfast was kept light for a few reasons. No one wanted to fight on a full stomach and we were running light on excess food. We picked more up when we resupplied at The Twins, but there was only so much food to go around. We still had to make it back and the River was flowing in the wrong direction to aide us in our return.

Waiting was the hardest part. Our meal was quick and there wasn't much else to do. The minutes dragged and being able to literally count them down only made it worse.

It was odd to see so many people leaving. The Merchants who only came to make a quick buck were the first to leave. Some stayed for last-minute sales but the majority were eager to put some distance between them and what was to come.

The noncombatants were next. The Builders, Engineers, and other construction workers retreated to the other side of the river and stayed in the City there. It was a bit of a bummer I wasn't able to visit the City but I hoped there would be time afterward.

There was a massive river between the City and the obelisk and most hoped that it would be enough. The over two hundred thousand people also allayed people's fears. I'd never been to St. Louis and it was disappointing to see that the Arch was destroyed.

The saddest part was the fighters that snuck out. Cowardice came for some and they made the choice to leave rather than stay and fight.

Everyone who came South with me were volunteers. They knew what we were getting into so we didn't have many, but we still had a handful. No group was immune to the basic human trait of fear and cowardice no matter how much I disdained it.

Some Factions were hit harder than others, but we didn't have the Scouts or intelligence to get a perfect count. Nor was it the best use of our time. All Scouts were called back from their espionage to stand ready.

00:00:59:59

As the timer ticked under an hour, people started strapping up. Plate armor was pulled on and strapped tight. Leather that had been lovingly oiled the night previously was seeing the sun.

Weapons were given the final once over.

Prayers were whispered.

The last one was funny to me, but I wouldn't disparage anyone of their tradition. Even some of my family still prayed even though I found it doubtful.

I didn't get to watch long as I had to gear up myself.

My plate armor was completely remade from the fight with the Demons. It was with the finest Steel I could make. [Mana Infusion] worked over multiple weeks to push the metal into an even higher grade and the base material was already pulled from the Ninth Floor of the Dungeon.

It took months of running both Dungeons to get enough of the same metal, and weeks longer to use [Mana Infusion], but it all added together for the finest work I could produce.

Even though Vincent was a better smith than me, even he couldn't do better than what I had forged. He couldn't work with Cold-aligned metals as well as I could.

Arctic Iron combined with Frozen Coal to make Polar Steel.

The metal was rigid and extremely hard. The only downside was its brittleness. When it broke, it shattered. Which wasn't the best to use for armor but I had ways around that.

It took learning a new Rune but it was worth it.

I usually put a Frost Rune, a Durability Rune, and a Protection Rune on my armor as those were the best three I could use but I changed it up this time.

The Durability and Protection Runes stayed, as those were both important for its defense, but the Frost Rune was swapped for a Ductile one.

The metal itself was already Cold-aligned and it had a smooth transfer with my mana as it was already accustomed to it because of [Mana Infusion]. So instead, I chose to remedy a weakness rather than to push for a better connection to cold.

The plates were thick. The joints had to be done in a different material, but that was fine. [Frost Armor] would add a bit of protection where the material fell short.

The chest plate settled onto my shoulders comfortably, as I had tweaked it endlessly to get the fit right. The straps fastened tight and no amount of movement was going to cause it to slide around.

The legs were harder, as there were a lot more straps involved but I'd suited up enough times for it to become effortless. My feet came first as I worked from the ground up.

Greaves to cover the top of my feet and lower legs. Separated plates that encased my thighs came next before they were covered up with a heavy skirt.

I made sure everything was connected not only to my body securely, but to each piece as well so there were no gaps.

My pauldrons came next, as moving in them was the hardest. Bending down to fasten my leg armor was difficult if I couldn't move my shoulder in the ways I needed to.

I could have had help, but I liked doing this alone. It had turned into a ritual of sorts. Doing it every morning before venturing into the Dungeons left me with a lot of time to get comfortable moving through the motions.

It didn't help that I didn't like leaving something this important to others.

Vambraces were last as they strapped on easiest. I usually didn't wear armor past my shoulder but this was a rare occasion. Losing an arm had made me reconsider their viability.

It got in the way of swinging my hammer, but [Heavy Armor Proficiency] helped mitigate that.

There was another piece of armor that was new for much the same reason. My helmet. It was nothing as bulky as a bucket helmet, but it did encase my head in metal, unlike how I fought before.

Nearly getting my head torn off and losing an eye to the Demon made me reconsider that piece of armor as well. That fight had done a lot to make me rethink how well-armored I went into battle.

This fight, this 'test', was mainly defensive. The choice to forgo arm and head armor was mainly so I could swing my hammer more comfortably and swiftly. I traded that for more defense this time.

I'd trained fighting with it so I wasn't going into a battle with new armor, but it still wasn't as comfortable as before. An upgrade to [Heavy Armor Proficiency] would fix that but I hadn't pushed it past Journeyman yet.

I gave myself a once over.

I looked ready for war.

I grabbed my hammer and fastened it to my back before tucking my helmet under one arm.

I did not pray. I did not wish for luck. I did not beg fortune to favor me.

Everything that happened today would be because I made it happen. Or, it would be because I couldn't make it happen.

I would be standing at the end of the day.

Or I wouldn't.