It took them a while, to search the remains. Enough time for Frank to get a hold of himself. In terms of physical loot, they got the club, the shield, the Skeleton’s Heavy fur Armour and Breastplate. The cap was a write off, useful only as scraps.

It wasn’t a bad haul.

“So not enchanted?” he asked Deli, to confirm.

“No. It’s a shardstone. Probably from the glacial root. The dead are always trying and failing to hurt them.” She answered, her tone tinged with reverence.

“They’re important?”

“Sacred to my people.” She confirmed. “It is said they bridge the earth and the sky, keeping the dead away beneath the earth. Only when the Winter Winds blow, do the dead come in any numbers. If not for the glaciers, they’d dig their way into our lands all year long.”

“Right. So, no touching?”

“We can go look.” She told him. “But the shardstone will lose its power away from a root.” Her face went thoughtful. “In stories, they are adornments of mage staffs, aligned with the mage. Perhaps one who wields the blizzard would value it.” Deli elaborated.

“And it’s alright to sell one?” He asked, just to be sure. When dealing with things that were sacred, it was best to tread lightly.

“The roots shed them. It’s fine. Now, if you try to set fire to the root, I will have to kill you.” She said with a smile.

Frank thought she was joking. At least, he hoped she was joking. Just in case, he would not be casting anything. Not that it would matter, likely. For all the fire he’d thrown around, the cold light in the room was not diminished. Nor had the room warmed up any.

They packed it all up, Deli taking her share of the weight. The Heavy Armour wasn’t light, obviously. Nor could they take the bones, themselves. Someone else would have to come down for them.

Beyond the wall, there was a short tunnel, dug into the ice that invaded the cavern at the back. Maybe seven, or eight marks deep. Probably where the Skeleton got the shardstone.

Deep, deep within the crystal clear ice, Frank could see a distant star. The ice was tinted with the same blue light, and the star should have been blinding. It wasn’t. Bright enough for it, but he could still see clearly, even looking right at it.

“Huh. That’s neat.”

He laid a hand on the ice while Deli said a short prayer, and something about it… it felt familiar. Like the cold in his insides, around the fire. It called out to him.

“Do you think it would respond to my blessed fire?” He asked. That was different then using regular magefire. He’d just call some up in his hand, not on the ice. The danger was minimal and he might discover- the blade of her axestaff was under his chin.

“Frank.” Deli told him, smiling politely. “Let’s not find out.”

“Well alright then. Not joking.”

***

Later, as they climbed the ice hill to go back up, Frank caught something out of the edge of his vision. High above them, this side of the ceiling was in darkness.

“Right. That’s why we didn’t see the Bones there. But they couldn’t have all just hung up there forever, right?”

“Deli, do Bones get tired?”

“Not like us.”

“But can they?”

“I suppose they must. I think there’s a few joke songs about a worn out Bones trying to run while the hunters pretend it can get away. It falters, after a while.”

“Right. So what about all the Bones from up there?”

“What are you talking about Frank?”

***

Climbing up? Not easy. And Frank wasn’t willing to risk it. Deli was, of course. She might not have a lot of Stamina, but while she was fresh, it wasn’t that hard. Or shouldn’t have been. For all the duel had been intense, it hadn't taken long.

Still, while she didn’t run up the wall, Deli made good time. And she came back with more loot.

“Found a cubby carved out of the rock, up there.” Her skin was red all over her face. “More demon traps.” She spat.

And her with nowhere to dodge and no armour. “You alright?”

“I’m at four. Not great.” Deli shook her head. “But look.”

She lowered her backpack to the ground and pulled out several items: a silver spoon, a long woollen scarf, pine green, and a bone too big for any human.

“Monster, you think?”

“Yes. A Demon must have gathered them.”

“You sure you want the scarf then?”

“I’ll wash it first. You can check it for magic. But I do. It’s a good scarf.” She told him, utterly serious.

Fair enough.

“Though why a Demon had one…”

***

They stopped by the priest on the way home. Deli got a boost, he didn’t. He’d already gotten one yesterday.

Frank was told, in no uncertain terms, that he could get one Blessing every Market day, and no more than that. That was still one Blessing every week. The next one would be the day after tomorrow. Then another one, six days later, before the final day of the year.

It should still almost double his Health recovery every week.

With two axe tokens spent, he still had five. He’d have time to spend them, but it did leave him low today. He wasn’t willing to pay for something bigger, and more expensive, just to jump the line. It would be a waste of Health, and he had a long way to go.

***

When they got home, Frank talked, and then walked Deli through the process of trying to access her Lifecord. She failed. That was normal. It had taken him a while to get it too.

“I don’t think I can do this Frank.”

“Yes, you can. I didn’t do it on my first attempt, either.”

“No, I mean, if everyone could do this, we’d know.”

“Every noble in the Empire can. They’re not better than you.”

“Really Frank? You going to tell me any one of them has Body one?”

“No. You know what I mean.”

“Abilities make us what we are Frank.”

“I don’t buy that. You’re far more than some numbers.”

“While that’s kind of you to say, it doesn’t change that it isn’t going to work.”

“It is working. You’re supposed to fail, for now.”

She gave him an impish grin. “So failing is good now, is it?”

“No. We’re not going there. Not yet. Just keep trying?”

Deli pouted, but complied. Which meant it was time for Frank to check his own progress.

Aspects (Limit)

Physical (18)

Mental (18)

Mystical

Agility: 4-2

Body: 3-1 (6+1/40)

Reaction: 4-1

Strength: 3-1

Instinct: 3 (4+1/40)

Logic: 5-1

Presence: 4-1

Will: 5

Destiny: 10 (10)

Fortune: 1 (10)

Magic: 0+1 (8)

Soul: (4-1) 2

Gift of Life

Health = 42

Recovery – 3/day

Gift of Heart

Mana = 8

Recovery – 15/day

Gift of Self

Guiding Light

Warm Smoke

Skills (+Applied,-Inactive, Unable,)

Traits, +Skills

Agility = 2

-Basketball 2

+Smooth 2

-Reflex 2

-Deflect 3

-Riding 1

+Carving 2 (8/30)

Instinct = 3

-Empathy 1 (0/20)

-Reflexes 2

+Bargaining 1 (9/20)

-Survival 1 (4/20)

+Channel 2

+Frostfire 1

Destiny = 10

Summoned Hero (Divine Blessing) (143/352 days) – Destiny 4

Scorched (Creational Curse) – Destiny 3 (87%)

Outsider (Invited Invader) – Destiny 2

Foolish beyond Reason (Achievement) (143/352 days) – Destiny 1

Body = 2

-Conditioning 1

+Soldier 1 (0/20)

+Pain Management 1 (11)/20)

Logic = 4

-Ecology 4

+Biology (5) 4

+Science 2 (0/30)

-Mathematics 4

-Tactics 4 (0/50)

-Strategy 2

+Runes (Red Sun) 3

+Runes (Eversnow) 1

Fortune = 1

Reaction = 3

+Awareness 3

+Search 3

+Ignore 2

-Riposte 2

*Mage Staff 1

Presence = 3

+Extrovert 2

+Public relations 2

+Command 3 (18d)

-Pilgrim 1 (4/20)

Magic = 1

Banked Еmbers I (Scorched)

Strength = 2

+Lift 2

Spearman (Red Sun) 2 (0/30)

+Medium Armour 2 (0/30)

Will = 5

+Temptation 4 (3/50)

+Resistance 4

+Principle 1

+Persistence 4

Soul = 2

The Wonder of Magic II

+Pale Gate Greeting I

He only got one point of Body progress, which wasn’t great. But he did stay out of the Miasma, for the most part. He’d forgotten that was part of the point of the fight. Still, with how low he got, it turned out for the best. Not getting progress in Channel was a disappointment. Getting one in Instinct was nice.

Frank had to remind himself that any extra progress was good. He hadn't done this for himself. This was for Deli, and she should see a lot progress from it. On top of all of it from the last two months.

The major gain was a pleasant surprise: Mage Staff fighting. Frank had just never considered that a weapon Skill could be under Reaction. “Mage Staff, as opposed to a regular staff skill. What’s the difference?”

Frank had fought with the staff as a weapon, and as a tool for his magic. Would it help with that? Channeling though the staff? It should, but he wasn’t sure how. With a weapon it was about strikes, guarding, what would be different here? Was he missing something obvious?

“Guess I’ll find out.”

He wanted to at least try it. But all his Reaction Skill slots were full. To do so, he needed to drop another Reaction Skill.

Of all of them, Ignore was the least useful. Not useless, because it helped a lot with his carving. But he’d rather give that up then either of the other two. So he slotted Mage Staff in. As a just realised Skill, it popped right in, which was a nice bonus.

Reaction = 3

+Awareness 3

+Search 3

-Ignore 2

-Riposte 2

+Mage Staff 1

No coin, but they had things to sell. Even if they’d need a wash, to clean out their previous owner. Deli had claimed the scarf. He might keep the shardstone. See what about it and these glacial roots so reminded him of the ice in his guts. Breastplate too. It needed repairs, adjustment to work with his current set of armour, but he could use it.

Frank scratched his stomach, feeling how his skin pulled and tensed as he moved his arm. In fact…

He was suddenly aware of how long it had been since he’d bathed. Itchy, not all over, but itchy. His burned skin was sensitive all over too, even under the bandages. Tender.

He sighed.

“I didn’t think that through. But I still can’t give up the other two. Awareness for ambushes and being on the road, and Search for my work. It helps a lot with checking if a runestone is carved properly or not. Or any rune.”

He’d just have to grit his teeth and bear it.

At least Deli was happy. She was convinced she’d gotten her axestaff Skill.

***

Watch that night was miserable. Deli had regained sixteen points of Health from the Blessing, so she was back up to twenty. But he was the one stuck outside, in the cold, with the Snow Shades and the Bones. Some firekeepers had fucked up during the pulling back of the lines, and left several entrances open. Entrances that had been used during the day and night the Angel kept watch to supply the push below.

Now, dozens of new Bones had made it out of them before Captain Deathless was informed. Which meant that his whole watch, he could see them crawling around out there, at the edge of the moonlight. And it had started snowing again.

All that, during long hours while dealing with Snow Shades constantly.

It was terrible.

***

It got worse. Frank had worried Deli would get sick from her duel. She didn’t.

He’s the one that woke with a freaking fever and a cough. “How is that fair?”

“Well Frank, you are from the Empire. I know they have the same trade plagues, but the dead set every child of the Ilvir Mountain other trials.”

He tried not to glare at her. He was aware each region had a chief patron god, and a primary blessing. It was what distinguished them as a people, more than language or culture.

In the Empire of the Red Sun, that was Strength and they look to Kaenash for guidance. All their kids gain Strength early, and start working long before they do elsewhere. Like they had in medieval and early industrial times on Earth, except more capable.

In the Ilvir Confederation? Ir-karlak’s gifts them resistance. Not against the cold, as that’s a bloodline raised under the Eternal Tree. No. The people of the Eversnow are blessed with a resistance to poisons and diseases.

“Some of the foods we make, just in case? The ones like Everbread, for long winters? Poisonous to other people.“ Deli explained.

“No wonder it tastes horrible.”

“Anything else?”

“We can eat a much wider selection of mushrooms too.” She told him with a smirk.

“But don’t worry. We’ve bred the mushroom crops so everyone can partake. Well, in most of them. By tradition, each Grower has one patch that is made of the more resilient kind. They are better against pests and desperate animals, and their scent repels monsters. Should the long snows come again, they do much better deep underground. No one is a picky eater in such times.”

In a lower voice, Deli added: “Those don’t survive.”

On that happy note, he started coughing again.

***

It didn’t take Deli long to figure out what was wrong with him. Just taking a walk outside made it easier to breathe. So she confined him inside. Apparently, there were some afflictions that didn’t do well in cold air, so it was common wisdom to stay outside if suffering them. This wasn’t one of them. This was the one that pretended the cold air hurt it, while growing from it.

It was called the Creeping Cough, and it wasn’t deadly, or debilitating. As long as Frank could stay warm inside. What it was, was annoying. One of the lesser diseases he could have caught from the scratches and the dust, it lowered his Stamina, both the total and the recovery. He’d cough for a while, usually seven to ten days, and recover one less Health every day. That was it.

“For some magical evil disease, it doesn’t sound like much.” He’d commented when she was done.

“It isn’t, in the Confederacy. But to children without our blessings, or poor fools who must march in the open with it, it is a blight that can kill.”

Which brought up an important question.

“Hey Deli?”

“Yes Frank?”

“If a child is born to mixed parents, which blessing do they get?”

“Land blesses Life, Frank. Regardless of the parents, a child born in the Empire is of it, and a child born in the Confederacy is one of my people.”

“So where’s the line?”

She looked at him in confusion.

“The border, who draws it.”

She shrugged. “I don’t quite know.” Deli looked up in thought. “The Gods?”

That sounded like a terrible answer. But when Frank considered it?

“Why not?”

They were the ones giving out the blessing in the first place.

*

Deli wouldn’t leave without him, and he wasn’t allowed out. She did let him take the tunnels to the barracks common room. After he did his morning carving session. Since the outside was banned, so were his experiments with Channelling.

“Which is the real cost of the whole thing.”

But hey, she agreed to leave him in the common room if he promised to stay. At least for long enough to go fetch his sticks from the woodsmen.

Tonight, Frank would be trying something a little different. He wouldn’t empower any of the multiple Rune setups yet. But he could start planning some, practicing. The actual attempts would likely need to wait until he wasn’t coughing. Those could ruin his lines, and he couldn’t just ignore them.

Unfortunately.

***

That evening he got another visit from the head hunter, with another batch of stones. The man frowned at his sticks. “Wrong.” He muttered.

Knowing better then to waste his time, Frank asked: “Point it out for me, please?”

The hunter looked at him. Thinking fast, Frank plucked an axe token out of his coin purse and threw it at him. He snapped it out of the air, faster than Deli could.

“Agility five.” Frank judged. He’d seen some nobility, and other Heroes, who’d managed it. They moved like a sped up recording.

The man glanced down at the token, scowling.

“Wouldn’t give a smith poor ore, to work the hammer. Don’t give you poor stones. Why take poor wood?” He asked simply, leaving immediately after.

Frank thought about it.

He thought about it for a while.

Then he slammed his head into the table. Deli laughed at him.

“No wonder my carving has improved. It’s not just the Channel failures going down, he’s been giving me proper blanks!”

Frank’s problem? He still had no idea what kind of criteria the Master Hunter was basing his picks on. The stones, well, they didn’t look the same to him. He could recognise their kind, now. But he had no idea why they were good ones for what he was doing.

Or if they were good for all of it, or only for certain Runes, or certain kinds of Runes, or if they favoured Eversnow Runes over Red Sun runes, or if there was some kind of link between the kind of Rune and the kind of stone he was using.

It was a lot.

He needed to get geology first, and then the magic variant of it, to be able to tell, how, what and why, a certain stone was “good” for carving some runes.

Frank paused.

“So how the hell does he know it? He’s not even a mage, or a mageling!”

…

At least the advice had saved him a lot of wasted time and effort. If he was going to try carving multiple runes on a stick, he needed the right kind of stick for it first.

Which meant it was back to carving the same runes all over again.

Frank was bored to tears with it. Maybe he could experiment a bit. Try to figure out if-

Something slapped him. No, Deli slapped him on top of his head.

“I know that look. It’s the same look you had when you saw the glacial root. Frank Ebner, what fool idea has taken hold of your head now?”

“It’s not foolish, it’s clever! If I just-”

***

The argument… took a while. And he did agree, grudgingly, not to try new Runes inside their home.

He could go do it in the center of the common hall, so everyone could laugh at his failures. Encourage him to succeed. And where the room was big enough, he wouldn’t be able to burn it down. All at once.

Really, he blamed the smith. She’s the one that lost him the argument.

“If she can feed her fires there, you can carve as well.”

***

Ok. Once he was here and looking at it up close? The very middle of the hall was set up as a crafting center. Where everyone could see what anyone was practicing, and learn. Without getting in the way or being too close if sparks flew.

Which was not how things were done in the Empire.

Frank felt this model was much better. In a world with actual Skill, people should try to grow the number of people with access to them, not restrict them. There were enough monsters, demons, dead, and apparently, dead demi-gods, out there to fight with.

But people always found ways to fight each other anyway.

“Of course they did. There are assholes everywhere. I’ve already seen that oncoming doom doesn’t change that in one world. So why should an ongoing one in another?”