“You know what? I am never doing that again.” Lera rolled out from the Chariot at the bottom of the mountains and planted her face into the snow. Wu mumbled words of confusion as he followed suit, also planting his face into the snow.

Despite how easy Isabella made the downward travel seem, Wu and Lera still nearly died five times over with how close their chariots were coming with the various rocks and cliffs.

The snow interacts strangely with the local Wave fields, and the rich mine of Fuel Rocks everywhere certainly didn’t help with them. The other side of the Titan’s Spine faced East, and it is dry and chilly, while the west-facing side caught all of the low-pressure fronts from the ocean as everything was covered in snow.

That made controlling the chariots far harder than it had any right to be. To prevent getting flipped over by the rogue rock or two as they sped down the mountain, Lera and Wu rigged the Cast to make it float around 5 meters off the ground, though that made piloting it even harder than before with the occasional gusts coming from the sides.

Towards the end, they gave up and simply allowed the slope to take them downhill, diverting their attention to creating countless shield Casts to absorb the impacts.

“We shall trust the exchange of potential and kinetic energy!” Wu comforted Lera as they nearly bumped into each other as the chariot bounced off an ice wall and swirled in the other direction.

“I am not trusting anything from anybody else anymore!” Lera flipped herself over like a pancake as snow under her back was pressed into a thin layer of ice. Then, she spotted Wu’s hand as he pulled her up, already changed into full winter gear that made him look like a regular Talonian citizen.

“Come. Let’s get to work.” Wu said, pointing in the direction of the closest village that they spotted on their way down.

Lera moved with the Cast array recycling around her body, and she embedded a tiny piece of Fuel rock to power everything through in her book. It wasn’t long before the two of them came across the barriers along the border, which was really just some sort of standard monitoring Cast. With a combination of Void Domain Scalpel and sweeping darkness, the two slipped straight through with no issues.

The village was another half an hour on foot, and Lera added a simple sweeping structure Cast behind them to obscure their footsteps in the snow before they finally made their way to the village.

All of the individual houses were elevated off the ground with tree trunks on all corners supporting their weight. Pockets of snow were pushed to the side of the streets as kids played snowball fights far out in the distance.

“Let’s…go get some food, gather some information.” Wu said, gesturing to a building with steam steadily rising out from it and accented conversing voices coming from within.

This place functioned as both the village bar and gathering place, as groups of workers all came here during mid-day. With a single unit, each individual was able to get a plateful of meat stews and potatoes with tomato sauce on top.

Wu and Lera joined the line inconspicuously and took a seat in the corner of the room. Then, they watched and listened when a squadron of soldiers also barged into the bar.

“Gosh…the wild beasts sure are acting weird today…What a strange day it is.” The captain grunted, placing his hat down on the table as his short white hair indicating his royal blood flowed around his face, “Chef! We got some wild meats for the workers today!”

Then, he dropped down a pair of snow rabbits onto the table as a couple of young workers hurried to take them. The chef nodded with appreciation before loading up the standard meal for the captains.

“What’s been happening in the capital? Our shipments this week were delayed again.” The chef said slowly, though his eyes were focused on the outlines of the captain.

“Don’t know. Things were changing in the capital, and the rest of Talonia is still trying to catch up.” The captain said, taking out a small container filled with alcohol and taking a sip, “Don’t matter to me. Fang don’t care about us, and I don’t care about it.”

“I do. And it’s her kingdom of Talonia still.” The chef said, “The royal family and the capital had been supporting our mining efforts for years.”

“Yeah, I sure don’t feel supported.” The captain said before quickly appending, “I mean, by anyone else but the lovely people of this town, obviously.”

“So, what’s really going on in the capital?” The chef asked, and Wu and Lera listened in even closer, as that was the last known location of Alina regardless.

“Some sort of revolution went on, and it was foiled. There’s going to be a public execution in days.” The captain took another sip before scanning the room, eventually looking at Wu and Lera in the corner of the room, “What’s the matter here…you got extra workers?”

“Why?” The Chef asked, turning to scan the room, but Wu and Lera had already made their leave by the time the tired and drunk captain recounted the heads in the room.

“Huh…what a strange day it is.”

“Let’s get going.” Wu and Lera nodded, recreating the chariots. Now that they don’t have the slope of the earth pushing them to dangerous speeds, it should be fine to move around slowly.

The map Joseph provided about Talonia showed that it will take days of travel to get from the Easternmost point towards the capital, and Wu and Lera hurried along. Along the way, they encountered countless other chariots going back and forth between the various outskirt towns, and cities, and every time they encountered someone, Lera modified her chariot to look more native.

They also passed by the occasional squadron of soldiers patrolling around, and they simply waited in line before they were let go, nobody paying much heed to a traveling couple in the middle of the kingdom.

Through days and nights of continuous travel, they eventually arrived at the snow-bathed fortress that is the capital of Talonia, Fang. The black bricks that were covered in ice made the entire city visible from miles away, and the long queue of chariots and citizens entering the city in the middle of the day immediately made Wu and Lera weary.

Sneaking in through the woods as soldiers patrolled at regular intervals and royals taking the wide-open path, Wu and Lera then watched as the guards checked the identification of each of the incoming citizens before letting them in.

“Come…” Lera gestured, leading Wu deeper into the woods around the outlines of the city. There are many side gates into the city, each of them heavily guarded and far away from any cover from the woods, which made it extremely difficult to sneak in during the daytime. However, it should be a different story in the night.

With the help of the sweeping darkness Cast, a lucky stormy night, and the Scalpel to work around the shield Casts, Wu and Lera made their way into the city before contacting one of Varous’ agents in Talonia.

“Here’s your identifications for entering and leaving the city.” He said, dropping down a package in the safe house he arranged beforehand, “I do not know of your mission here, but the general asked me to provide you with the documents. Do you need anything else?”

“Some mentioned the revolt in the palace, what’s going on with that?” Wu asked.

“Just an excuse…” The agent said, “I do not know much, but…there had been a new religious body gaining traction in Talonia, and its influence is everywhere…they call themselves the Descendants of Winter…”

“What’s their deal?”

“That’s…something I have been trying to investigate, but most of my resources were dedicated to dealing with potential threats to Varous…” The agent continued, though he tried to hide the uncertainty in his tone, hoping that Wu and Lera wouldn’t take it the wrong way, “Please…be careful out there.”

Wu and Lera nodded firmly, and the agents exited their safe house through an path at the back before vanishing into the crowds.

“Let’s get out there.” Wu said, “Based on Joseph’s intelligence, she would have been residing in the palace when it all happened.”

“But we wouldn’t really be able to sneak into the Palace, would we?” Lera asked, and Wu shrugged before continuing, sliding the hat back overhead.

“We wouldn’t know until we get close.”

As it turned out, they probably wouldn’t have made it into the Palace at all. Just from the look of things, there were heavy guards and hidden plain uniform agents stationed all around the Palace which looked like a fortress within the fortress city. It’s completely painted even blacker than the dark colored bricks the outer walls used and it overlooked the entirety of the city from the central location all the way out to the main gate.

“Yeah…It’s too dangerous.” Wu sighed, slowly moving back with Lera when suddenly, the gates of the Palace swung open, and an entourage carrying a metallic cage with a prison Cast carved within started moving out. The soldiers at the front yelled and cleared away on the busy street as the crowds looked on with curiosity.

“MOVE! OR BE MOVED!” The soldier’s voice became projected through one of his Casts as the icy main road became warmed up and streams of water started flowing out to the side. The parents held the kids back and made them quiet as the busy vendors also halted their business.

“The dishonorable traitor to the kingdom, the supporter to the mass murderer, and the one who was destroying the lives of your daughters and sisters…ALINA VUK! She shall be executed today, and Talonian shall be liberated from her reign of terror!”

Behind the soldiers leading the charge, a man dressed in a pure white suit with dark purple linings declared. Then, the soldiers turned and created a chariot Cast that carried him and the prison with Alina Vuk in it up into the air.

“Shit.” Wu and Lera shared a nervous glance, then they both turned and started moving as other members of the crowds also started to flow through the streams of people. With no time to spare, their Talonia mission had been kicked off the moment they entered the country’s capital.