Taur and Stalia were standing looking up toward a ridge above them, to their left and right the walls of the ditch they were in rose to about head height before being cut off smoothly. Stalia had a projection of what they would see if they continued up the slope, a flat area where the stone had been quarried extending five hundred meters. At the end of the five hundred meters were two enormous walls made from the stone, rising at least one hundred meters in a shear face with a one hundred meter gap in between them. The gap ended in a wall two hundred meters further in and an entrance could just be made out, snow men exiting it to form up in ranks in the gap.

"You're seeing this by predicting yourself looking over the ridge?" I asked.

"Yes, my lord," Stalia said. "It takes them thirty seconds to notice us, and then this."

The simulation moved forward with Taur lifting Stalia up to give her the best view forward and then the air filled with trajectory warnings. The walls had ice launchers every ten meters up the cliffs and then repeating every ten meters down the passage. Two hundred, at least. And they would all open fire, filling the flat space with thousands of shards.

There were higher speed more accurate shots mixed in, and the simulation paused as the first one hit Stalia.

"I can dodge for half a second longer against the marksman shots," Stalia said. "But once the storm hits there is no place to dodge to."

"But they don't fire until they see you?" Conor asked. "And you aren't moving very quickly, or stealthily."

"They don't," Stalia said. "I was trying to get as much information as possible. I can try just running to see what happens?"

I nodded to her and the simulation reset back to where she was standing. A few seconds later in the simulation she took off at a sprint and made it almost one hundred meters before being cut down.

"My lord, if I could try bypassing them with my stealth abilities?" Conor asked.

"You would have to go out there for real," I said. "If it didn't work your body would be lost."

"Is it important to be able to recover our bodies when we die?" Conor asked.

"Well, no," I said. "It is more convenient for me, but I can revive you from nothing if I have to."

"I can do this, my lord," Conor said.

I nodded and he stepped through the portal, taking the God Banishment ward from Stalia and the portal from Taur. Stalia told the wisp to stay there and stepped through the portal with Taur while I discretely put a thread portal out into the winter realm at the point before being in range of the ice launchers. Conor was confident, but I wanted to have a backup just in case.

Conor walked confidently up over the rise and was able to get a more detailed view of the army of snow men and the entrance into the mountain that they were using, a well lit square tunnel four meters wide by four meters tall.

Conor had no trouble making it to the one hundred meter mark that Stalia had fallen at without being detected, even carrying the fully extended portal for the army room. He was able to use his mana to make himself and everything he was carrying almost completely invisible.

"Wait," I said as he was about to step out past one hundred meters. "I can't push my power into the ground in front of you, the entire thing is enchanted."

I motioned for Stalia to go to the portal.

"Stand still, Stalia is going to go through and see if she can find out what it is," I said.

Stalia stepped through the portal and she set the simulation back to the fastest speed.

"Five seconds until they see me and begin shooting," Stalia said. "Two seconds if I step on the enchanted ground. And if I sprint forward... Watch."

The simulation stepped forward as she went down on all fours and sprinted forward. She made it ten meters before the ground exploded beneath her and the simulation paused.

"Some sort of exploding magical trap," Stalia said. "I can detect the traps within the first fifteen meters, after that I'm cut down by the ice shards."

The simulation returned to near normal speed and Stalia was about to step back through the portal when Conor stopped her.

"They can detect you if you step on the enchanted ground," Conor said. "But what if I-"

"Stop," Stalia said. "They detect you as well. And you were about to set off a trap, as well."

Stalia stepped back through into the army room, the simulation updating with the locations of the traps within fifteen meters of where Conor was standing.

"So that's it?" Conor asked. "Stealth won't work, and just running through with brute force will get whoever tries it exploded and then shredded by ice shards."

"Not quite," I said. "Let me check on something."

I sent a communication request to Maaata, who accepted and synced to my time perception.

"My lord, I'm just about done with the first set of armour you sent," Maaata said. "This simulation business is revolutionary, I can spend weeks designing the perfect symbols and have them work at a much greater efficiency. Even the side effects have some exciting possibilities, the explosion enchantment for the arrows, as an example, can explode with fire, water, air, mana, or pure force. And that's just the ones I've had time to experiment with so far, it all depends on the shift of intent, with smaller symbols the intent becomes more refined."

I had a feeling that she could go on for quite a while longer so I stopped her when she came to a pause.

"All very exciting, I'm sure," I said. "We're in the middle of a combat situation right now, though. You said you had a set of armour enchanted, is it my armour?"

"Right," Maaata said. "No, it wasn't your armour, you sent that to me third. It's the armour that was shaped to fit Taur. It's enchanted to resist magical attacks, it actually pushes back against any piercing attacks destroying whatever it is. The enchantment is powered by a full medium mana crystal."

I hadn't set the armour enchanting as a job, so I did that now and sent a prompt to Maaata so she could accept it.

"Ah, you need it now?" Maaata asked. "It will take me twenty seconds to run to a Fortress Presence with the armour."

"You have an inventory, why can't you just submit it that way?" I asked.

"The opening of the bag isn't big enough," Maaata said.

"You should be able to just push it to the opening of the bag and then send it to your inventory with a thought," I said. "It's one of the advantages of having an Inventory, after all."

"Yes, my lord," Maaata said. "I need to go back to normal speed, then it will just be a few seconds."

Maaata closed the communication channel and I returned my focus to the war room simulation where the others were discussing strategies. I played back through them in case there was something I'd missed, but all of the approaches so far had been discarded for one reason or another. There was no way that any other way to get in would be practical, over the walls, around the sides, or attacking from the back, each would be more heavily defended than the front way in. Otherwise making the killing field would be pointless.

"I've made an enchanter a Demi-AI and tasked them with enchanting our armour against magical attacks," I said. "Unfortunately I wasn't as precise with my instructions as I could have been and she didn't enchant my armour first."

"Who pulled the red feather?" Jeff asked.

"... Red feather?" I asked back.

"Whenever there is a task everyone wants, you get a bunch of feathers, all white and one red," Jeff said. "Whoever pulls the red feather wins."

I looked around at the others, Jacqueline was nodding as though it was obvious but everyone else was either frowning, shaking their heads, or just looking amused.

"I think that might just be a human thing," I said. "Moving on, Taur 'pulled the red feather'. His armour is the only one which should be able to resist the ice shards, though it isn't certain. And it might not be effective against the explosions."

I was talking myself out of letting Taur go. If I were the one going I wouldn't have any problem, but I didn't want to risk my people needlessly. We could wait for however long it would take Maaata to enchant my armour.

"I will go," Taur said. "This is what I am good at, taking the damage so others can take down the monster. I will get the portal through the entrance to the mountain."

The simulation moved back to normal speed and Conor set down the portal and stepped through it, passing the God Banishment ward to Taur who was on all fours in front of the portal. I brought his armour out of my inventory and passed it to him, fixing the ward to the back of the helmet. I sent him an image of how to carry the portal that wouldn't hinder his four legs and he charged out into the winter realm.

As soon as he was through the portal he swung it around to rest against his chest and I reshaped it, fixing the thread to his armour.

Taur made it twenty meters before the ice launchers opened up, and he began laughing as the armour completely stopped it all. His laughter turned to a grunt of pain when his back leg came down on the first exploding trap and it went off throwing him up and forward.

The armour held, but both of Taur's back legs were broken. The armour was working perfectly against piercing effects, but it didn't do much to stop the blunt force of the explosion.

"You've got a few seconds in the air," I said. "I'm going to do a parallel repair on you, it will fix you before you land, but it will be the worst thing you'll ever experience."

Taur grunted at me, tucking his legs in towards his body and beginning a forward roll in the air. I triggered the repair program and his legs clenched tight. He came to three seconds later just as he was landing, tucking his shoulder into a roll along the ground. I sank my power fully into his body and armour, reinforcing them as much as I could.

Just as Taur got to his feet another explosion went off behind him, throwing him forward almost horizontally to the ground. With my power reinforcing him it did much less damage, leaving him with internal injuries but no broken bones.

Taur hit five more explosive traps before making it to the entrance to the mountain. He didn't pay any attention to the several hundred snow men gathered in front of it, barrelling right through them. He stumbled to a stop ten meters into the tunnel, standing back up on his back legs and letting out a roar, blood flying from his mouth to spatter on the clear front of his helmet.

The mana crystal that was powering the enchantment on his armour had run out just as he got to the tunnel entrance, and a marksman had put a shard through his left lung.

The snow man progenitor was standing two meters in front of Taur with a huge war axe made of ice swinging towards Taur's neck.