[PP-F4] Nice Ice Baby <<Earning A Living>>

[Shard 0]

*Crunch-Crunch-Crunch*

 

Shard shivers silently, his face tight as he keeps his barring's through the weird snow storm he finds himself in. Honestly it boggled him, how he keeps running into such terrible weather on a floor that some describe as being romantic, and beautiful. More like bleak and formless- just a massive [censored] floor of snow and sadness.

"Just a bit more... Just a bit more..."

Shard chants his quiet mantra under the thundering of the storm, reminding himself of why he was out there. Every step he takes, every mob he slays, every mat he gathers brings him ever closer to his forge. The heat of his blast furnace, which had lay dormant for so long, would once more awakened. The thrill of the Cardinal System, a testy mistress which would dingle the hope of a perfect item in front of you, only to take it away. The feeling he would get when he created something- something worthwhile, and could possibly help get him out of this hell.

His home. His Forge. He would have it back. He was ready to go back. No more hiding. No more.

__________________

"Sh*t it's cold."

Hiding behind the skeletal remains of a once proud tree, weathered and beaten by the snow, Shard checks his maps, noting his location on the floor in relation to his set waypoints. His info-broker sold him some info pertaining to a mob on this floor that dropped a well sought after mat known as <<Frost Iron>> which could be used to forge both weapons and heavy armor alike- exactly what he needed to get back into the smithing game. The deep black metal, known for it's cool feel to the touch, and the intriguing marble like waves would make for great looking gear to boot.

Rubbing his hands together for warmth, Shard looks up from his map and scans the horizon. It was next to impossible to see anything pass forty feet, and it was already almost entering Aincrad's night cycle. Exactly what he wanted. The mob was reported to be nocturnal- some sort of Ice Elemental unlike your normal lumbering icebergs.

Mustering up his will, face resolved, Shard pushes forward, trekking back out into the great expanse of snow.

He almost made it more than a few steps too, before he felt something give way beneath his foot.

"Huh..."

First there was a crunch, then a slushing noise, then an explosion of air which sucks him into some unknown darkness. Wordlessly Shard curls into a ball, his HP slowly dropping as he was thrown about, falling to some unknown fate. The air around him sounds off like a tornado, and he could have sworn he heard something in the background.

Finally, with a sound uncomfortably close to a splat, Shard slows to a stop, the feel of snow blanketing him. Slowly, as to lessen the pain which pulsed through his muscles, Shard un-balls and sprawls on the ground.

"Fu*k everything."

With a groan, he slowly sits up, bringing a gloved hand to his head to brush off snow. From what he could see, he was in some sort of cavern or tunnel. It was quite wide, and seemed to be illuminated by... glowing ice. Well, this is a fantasy world- there could have been torches in here and that wouldn't of surprised him.

Stretching out his muscular arms, Shard places his hands to the ground on his sides to get up, but before he does, he notices a strange sound again. Turning his head, Shard looks with squinted eyes back up the dark tunnel from which he came, the sounds of something coming only getting louder...

[Shard 0]

Delete me.

[Azrael 0]

Azazel was cold. She hated the cold. She had only come to this god forsaken floor hoping to get a peek at Teayre in her shop. Anna knew that her shop was only floor four but little else. The last time she’d seen her friend was weeks ago moments before she quit the guild that they helped form together, and they hadn’t spoken since. But Anna was now in the middle of nowhere, and the snow was coming down hard and fast in blizzard-like conditions. The freezing air blasted through her leather armor like it was muslin rags. Anna hugged her sides as she walked on regretting her decision to come to such an awful place. She hated the snow with a passion fiery enough to melt it away if she only her body could ever reach those temperatures without her expiring.

 

The woman was terribly lost. She opened up her map trying to figure out which way to go but the gusting snow impaired her field of vision that she couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was seeing. She closed her control panel and decided it was better to keep moving or else she’d freeze to death here on the fourth floor, and no one would ever know.  It was getting harder to move through the snow. She had already sunk knee deep into it, but she was sinking further still with every step she took.  Anna would stop to pull herself to the snow’s surface and then start the process over again.

 

The woman followed this routine for the better part of an hour working her way up or down a mountain. She was no longer sure if she was going up or down anymore. Everything was too confusing for her to process. Anna trudged through the snow not noticing the danger that lay ahead of her. The flurries were coming down hard and she kept wiping them from her field of vision as quickly as they landed, but that didn’t stop her from stepping straight into a hole in the ground. Anna desperately clawed at the embankment of snow around her trying to pull herself up, but the snow was just being pulled in along with her and eventually the section of snow collapse and she went tumbling down with it. She screamed as she fell into the dark unable to do anything else.