Earuu Resort, Earuu Mountains

Alade

05:49 Local Time

September 14, 2019

Although my friends and I had skied or snowboarded many times before, never had we had such an amazing experience. It was always fun, but it sucked having to wait for a ski lift to take us back to the top. Even if the ski lift was enclosed to block out the worst of the wind and any potential snow, it still took several minutes before we could once again hit the slopes.

That wasn’t an issue whatsoever here. There was no waiting around in a line waiting for your turn, and as soon as you reached the bottom, you could immediately be back up at the top. Such was the power of portals. Functionally, they seemed to be identical to the ones back at the Scyftan base back on Earth, but the anchors were just made out of different materials. For the one back at the Scyftan base, that was steel or some other type of metal, and here it was just chunks of stone.

There were dozens of such portals placed all over the place, with some of them leading to the same run, just at different elevations. For instance, one of the longer runs had four separate portals leading to it, with one exit at around two kilometers in elevation, and the remainder at lower elevations. On the harder or more advanced runs, it meant that one could start at the lowest elevation and then move up as they gained more experience and confidence.

Just like Earth, different runs had different difficulties for beginners, intermediates and expert skiers or snowboarders, but there was another one. According to Tessa, it was the 'professional' difficulty, but most people just called it the 'insane' difficulty. That is because runs with such a classification spanned the most perilous parts of the mountain, with most having jumps, rails and the like. Some, but not all, actually had portals incorporated into the run to increase the difficulty of the run even further for competition purposes.

Though there wasn't really any danger of us getting hurt as our stats continued to rise, it still wasn't something that we wanted to tackle right off the hop. For one thing, all three of my sisters were completely new at skiing or snowboarding, but the rest of us were only intermediates, at best. Because of that we started on the beginner hills and worked our way up as the triplets progressed. It was something that they proved to be adept at, as they were ready for something a little more challenging after a mere forty minutes.

So for the next four hours or so, we continued to hit the slopes and take in our surroundings. While the view was amazing from within the valley, that was nothing compared to the view from the top of one of the tallest mountains in the Earuu Mountain range. Even after the sun had set on this part of Alade, it was still more than bright enough to see what was beyond.

There was what seemed to be an endless sea of the massive trees, only parting to reveal another small mountain or a frozen lake, but everything was covered in the brilliant white of undisturbed snow. Well, mostly undisturbed. A few sets of tracks could be seen here or there thanks to the superior vision when I shifted my eyes, but there was no sign of whatever had made them. All we knew for sure was that whatever had made them was quite large indeed.

There was some very heavy snowfall expected for the next day, so we headed to bed early just to make the most of it. Now, snowfall isn’t an uncommon occurrence on Alade, even going back several hundred years, scarcely a day could be found where there was at least some precipitation of some sort. Even if you were able to find one of those days, they were few and far between.

But while snowfall was a common affair that thanks to the high quantity of geysers and hotsprings to the south, blizzard-like storms were less so. In fact, the region only saw one or two of those storms every month, but when they arrived, they dumped meters upon meters of snow. The upcoming one was no different, however Abi let us know that it would be much more severe than the Alade weather service was predicting it to be.

That was thanks to her sophisticated sensors and the ability to run more simulations and run them faster than even the most advanced supercomputers. Her sensors, computing power and detailed readings from the past three months indicated that the winds would start blowing north and would remain blowing north for as much as twelve hours.

The hot springs located nearly six hundred kilometers south of the Earuu Mountain range were responsible for just under 80% of the entire continents snowfall, and that was credited to the sheer quantity. There were hundreds of them that varied in size from small pools to large lakes, but they all contributed in sending steam up into the atmosphere. That paled in comparison to the steam geysers, however, which propelled hundreds, if not thousands of liters of water into the air each time they erupted. Most of that water fell back down and helped fill the pools, but a good portion was carried high into the sky by the heat generated below.

All that water stayed up in the atmosphere until the wind blew it somewhere, but it was a rare event when the wind blew in a particular direction for more than a short time. Usually, the wind would blow in one direction for a few hours, and then it would change directions. That would be it for snow for a while at least, but not this time.

It was just poor timing on our part, because storms such as the one that was on it's way don't usually close down the resort for more than a day. It only takes a short time to remove the snow so people can more easily get around, and the only thing that needed to be taken care of were any potential avalanches. With a few dozen meters of snowfall, at least one avalanche was a guarantee, but avalanches were very easy to trigger overall.

Contrary to popular belief on Earth, an avalanche can't be triggered by someone's voice or by gunshots. You could yell for hours or fire off hundreds of rounds, and the snow wouldn't budge at all. That's why some of the most popular ways to trigger them on Earth is to quite literally set off an explosion on the mountain, or fire tank or artillery rounds at the mountain until the snow and ice starts moving. For example, the Canadian military routinely fires off artillery rounds to keep Rogers Pass in British Columbia free of snow, allowing vehicular traffic to continue relatively unimpeded.

The Pygmaeans had a much more sophisticated way of dealing with avalanches, which was basically the use of an extremely powerful ultrasonic weapon. Inaudible to humans and many other species, the machine generates and sustains a highly-focused sound wave at the target area. When the sound wave hits snow, it causes the snow to quickly vibrate and separate, triggering an avalanche almost instantaneously.

Although it wasn’t unheard of for the resort to be closed during the way so avalanches could be triggered, it mostly occurred at night when everyone was sleeping. Crews would work throughout the night to clean everything up, and the guests would wake up and exit their shielded dwellings, ready to ski again.

It’s amazing all the random things you learn when you converse with a being with literal encyclopedic knowledge.

We weren’t staying long enough to rent one of the cabins or mountainside dwellings, so we all headed back to Menseio Station for the night. With everyone returning to Alade the next morning, it didn’t make sense for everyone to go to the rooms on the station assigned to them. Besides, there were now so many amenities onboard that there was no real need to go anywhere. Not unless you wanted to take a little bit of time to go shopping, at least.

I had just shoveled a fork full of egg into my mouth when I received a bit of information from Abi. It didn’t require a reply, but I nodded, which didn’t go unnoticed by Ben, ever so observant.

“Did something happen?” Ben asked before sipping his coffee.

“You could say that,” I replied between bites. “Abi helped someone out last night, and it turns out that by helping them, she also helped us.”

“What do you mean?” Anja asked.

I relayed the part about Mizu Tuvanto searching for his missing sister, Kaera Tuvanto, explaining how Abi had narrowed down the search area considerably. Not only had Kaera Tuvanto been found relatively unharmed and quickly recovered, but so too were hundreds of young women, and even a few young men.

“It turns out that the blindspot in Abi’s sensor network was home to a syndicate with some serious ties to the criminal underworld in this region of the galaxy. Drugs, weapons, people… you name it, they were involved in it. Probably still are actually. Those four cargo ships I mentioned? Each one led Mr. Tuvanto’s forces to what was pretty much a distribution center for the surrounding system. At each location they found dozens of women that were clustered in small cells, garbed in nothing but inhibitor collars. It's obvious that they would have soon been sold into slavery, but that's not all that was found. You can bet that a certain jotunn is not very happy right now.”

“Jotunn?” Sonja asked. “You’re talking about N’ardil Vilos, right?”

I quickly nodded. “One of her teams was found when the Fa’iir strike force stormed the facility on Ginuthea, which is one of the most populated planets in the Qhaalian domain. Six of the ten members were actually killed in the ensuing battle, but the other four ended up surrendering and were handed over to the local police.”

“Killed? I thought they’re supposed to be these elite squads or something,” Mason said.

“Some are, some aren’t, but it wouldn’t have mattered if it was Illia’s team that was there. The Fa’iir dropped off a device that works like an inhibitor but on a larger area before they went in. From there, ignoring the numbers the Fa’iir went in with, both sides were on relatively even footing. Military training and teamwork is almost always going to win against a disjointed force, though.

“So, three teams down, how many more to go?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “A lot, but that’s not all…”

With breakfast over with, we headed down to the landing bay to catch our ride back down to Alade to play some hockey. There was still some preparation to be done, but it wouldn’t take too long to set up, and there would be no need to take everything back down when we were done. That was part of the agreement made with the owners of the resort because we were taking up so much room on the lake. When we were done, the boards and benches would remain behind, along with a detailed set of rules so other visitors could play if they wanted to.

Although it had snowed for a short time the night before, the section of the lake that we had reserved was completely free of snow, leaving behind a sheet of relatively flat ice. I say relatively, because while it was mostly flat, there were still a few rough patches here and there; signs of whoever had used it before us.

The first order of business was to install the dasher boards so we didn’t constantly lose pucks in the deep snow, made substantially easier thanks to Abi’s engineering. The boards themselves were made out of polyethylene, each outfitted with at least two fifteen centimeter steel spikes that would help anchor it down and prevent the boards from moving. In addition, each board had two grooves that allowed the individual sections to lock together, increasing the strength even further. Though it would probably remain non-contact, it ensured that the boards would be as durable as possible, while still remaining easy to take down as the need arises.

A small crowd had formed even before we finished installing the boards and the two long benches for players to sit on between shifts, and the twins went around seeing if any of them were interested in trying a new game. While they were doing that, a hole was drilled into the ice outside of the new rink and a pump was lowered down into it, allowing us to flood the ice to achieve a more uniform surface.

Normally for an outdoor rink this would be done over a series of nights, and at a temperature a little bit warmer than the -22 degrees Celsius that it was, but we had a few tricks up our sleeves. The water froze in very short order, creating a surface that would be unplayable, but when we were almost done with the flood, Selalea, Linvalma and another Gray dragon went to work.

It began with Selalea projecting a sustained jet of flame across most of the length of the rink. It was my first time ever seeing a dragon using their abilities in their human form, and rather than breathe fire, she actually formed it between her two outstretched hands. The heat from the fire was enough to melt some of the ice, but it wasn’t good enough, which was where Linvalma and a young female gray dragon came in, with each of them taking control of the weather in a local area. Linvalma got the wind moving quickly in a long oval, which fed the fire with more oxygen, while simultaneously spreading that fire and heat around until the entire ice surface within the dasher boards was turning back into water. To prevent the dasher boards from being melted or damaged by the heat, the young Gray dragon formed a thin vortex of her own around Linvalma’s, which created a barrier, keeping the heat in, and the cold out.

Within two minutes or so, the top 2 to 3 centimeters of ice had turned to water, and the two gray dragons eased up. Selalea continued projecting the jet of flame and elevated it to allow the water below to freeze back into ice, but just slow enough so that it wouldn’t become brittle by freezing too quickly. While that was going on, everyone else got ready.

It seemed that the twins hadn’t had much luck gathering more players, but I knew that would probably change once we started playing. Grabbing my Beacon once more, I walked along a section of ice and held my hand out. Each time I stopped, a crate appeared beside me and my friends wasted no time cracking them open to see what was within. No one would be wearing a complete set of hockey equipment, but many of the important things were there; helmets, gloves, elbow, shin and knee pads, to name a few, all made by Abi who had been hard at work making everything possible.

There were two crates that were filled with skates of many different sizes, and even different types. You had the usual hockey skates, but also a modern take on the early ice skate that you stepped onto and then tied to your foot. They were just something that Abi put together in case we were joined by people with very large feet, as the regular hockey skates would likely fit everyone else. A Pygmaean or Scyftan could easily fit into a kids-sized hockey skate, for example.

The only people who would actually be using a full set of equipment were the goaltenders. In this case that was Ben and his dad. They were the only two people present that had any sort of experience, with Ben’s dad having played at the major junior level when he was younger, and Ben playing as a goaltender until he was 14.

Aside from all of the protective equipment, there was a 3 meter long crate that was entirely full of hockey sticks, as well as a smaller crate that held something else entirely. They were small devices with elastic bands that looked similar to a wristwatch, but were actually inhibitors that could easily be put on or removed. When they were worn, it would ensure that everyone was on a relatively even playing field, and there wouldn’t be pucks moving fast enough to seriously injure someone.

While my friends and I were getting suited up, a lot of the parents were going around to help out the kids and anyone else who wanted to try the game. I was expecting the dragons to be particularly lost, but I was surprised as Bonakr went from child to child and helped them with their protective equipment. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised as he is a White dragon and thus at home in frigid locales, but I didn’t think dragons would be interested in something like hockey. Under his supervision, all of the kids were suited up and given sticks suitable for their size.

The ice inside the rink was perfect thanks to Selalea, but the kids practiced skating around outside of the rink, as there was still one more thing to do before play could actually start. Donning the helmet for my suit, I grabbed a drill out of storage and then headed out onto the rink. With Abi helping me out, I drilled a set of two holes for each net, inserted the pegs, and then placed the nets down on them. It insured that the nets would remain in place under most situations, but would easily come off if someone collided with it. With that done, Mason and I played rock paper scissors to determine who would pick first, before getting on with it.

Somewhere in Confederation Space

Storm Bringers’ Base - Unknown Location

06:41 Local Time

September 14, 2019

N’ardil Vilos already had an irritated look on her face, and she’d barely had enough time to eat breakfast. She had been in a foul mood ever since she was forced to torch her base on Kuirilia and set up elsewhere, but things weren’t getting any easier. Already she had lost two of her teams to ‘that upstart’, and two more had ignored the recall order entirely. She knew they were still alive because their transponders showed them to be moving together until they suddenly cut out at almost the exact same moment. They hadn’t been seen since then, but it was clear that they had cut all ties with The Storm Bringers and had taken two of her ships when they did.

Another headache was having to reorganize her organization, including pulling all of the computers and engines off of every ship and replacing them with new ones. ‘That upstart’s pet’, as she called Abi, had breached The Hellraisers’ ship’s computers with ease, downloading terabytes of information, and was what had prompted everything.

Most of her teams were essentially mercenaries for hire, with many of them working as bodyguards for anyone who had enough money to pay for their services. It was one of the more lucrative jobs, but she had already received five communiques from customers who had been utilizing The Storm Bringers’ services. Each of them stated that they were ending any and all relations with her organization, and warned her not to contact them. That threw her into her biggest and longest rage in years, and resulted in the death of three people. All of them were just in the wrong place and the wrong time, but everyone else was walking on eggshells just trying not to provoke her ire.

She looked up from her computer when there was a knock on her door, and quickly yelled out, “What?!”

The door opened and a young Kobaloi woman rushed in with a tablet in hand. N’ardil noticed the frightened look on the woman’s face and immediately knew that there was more bad news.

“What is it, Thasia?”

“My apologies, mistress, this just came over the news. There were four separate strike forces by Fa’iir forces, each targeting what appears to be a smuggling ring. What caught my eye was this,” she said, turning the tablet around and placing it on the desk in front of N’ardil.

There was a still of an Ork male and a Kobaloi female, both of whom clearly had their hands bound behind their back. When Thasia tapped on the screen, the video played and more bound people could be seen as they were led away.

“Where is this?” N’ardil asked.

“Ginuthea, mistress. I watched the video many times, but those are the only four members of Howling Tempest that I could see. The other six either weren’t there or they got away.”

“Or they’re dead,” N’ardil replied, her day having gotten just a little bit better. “We’ve got some contacts among the Qhaal. Figure out which teams are in the area, and send the closest two there immediately. Make sure they know that Winter Sky may be in the area as well. They are to find out what happened to the remaining members of Howling Tempest, and locate and recover their ship. If they can execute the four that were taken prisoner without getting caught then I want that done as well, but that is secondary. Recovery of the ship is the priority.”

“Right away, mistress,” Thasia bowed. She was about to grab the tablet and leave the room, but N’ardil told her to leave it.

She watched it on loop for a few minutes as a smile grew on her face.

“One down, one to go.”

Earuu Resort, Earuu Mountains

Alade

09:23 Local Time

September 14, 2019

That first game was rough… very rough. Not in terms of physicality since there was no hitting, but rough in the way that the majority of the people playing had never played before. It wasn’t a very serious game, as the kids had a hard enough time staying on their feet. They either fell as they were trying to skate up and down the rink, or they fell the moment they tried to shoot the puck. Nonetheless, it was fun and was a nice piece of home.

Even the teens and adults weren’t all that much better, but at least they stayed on their feet a little bit more and could actually make a half-decent pass. Still, after a little while the kids lost interest, electing to go play with the phenidae or slide down the mountains instead. That opened spots for other people to play, and after seeing glimpses of the game, more of the spectators expressed an interest in trying it out.

That second game was almost as rough as the first one with the kids, but that was because even though they were older, they were just as new to the sport. Some thought that it would be the same as using hover skates, but they quickly found that to not be the case. The skills did translate, somewhat, but stopping was an issue. More often than not, the dasher boards stopped them, instead of them stopping themselves.

By the third game, the new additions were finally starting to get their feet under them, and were getting the hang of things. It actually resembled a hockey game, if one that ignored all the rules and was played at a snail’s pace. While Ben and his dad had let the kids score goals, they definitely weren’t taking it easy against the adults. Goals were few and far between, but that just motivated everyone to try a little bit harder.

People rotated in and out between games, but we soon had enough people that could skate well enough to have proper line changes. People would stay out there for a minute or two long shift, or sometimes longer if they forgot, but eventually they would come off and someone else would take their spot for a minute or two. The pace of the game picked up a little bit and more spectators arrived until almost the entire rink was surrounded by people trying to figure out what we were doing.

By lunch time, several games had been played. A couple of the people that had played a few expressed an interest in playing as a goalie, which was something that both Ben and his dad were grateful for. They had been playing for over five hours, and while their workload wasn’t even remotely close to what a professional goaltender experiences, it was still hard work with the inhibitor bands active. After taking a brief pause to get the two replacements suited up and give them some tips, Ben, his dad, Mason and I headed to the lodge to refuel. While the twins liked hockey and played the first few games, they ended up joining Tessa and my sisters in hitting the slopes once again.

The moment we entered the lodge, we were intercepted by a man and a woman, both of them Pygmaean. Each was dressed in an expensive-looking suit or some variation thereof, seemed like important people. The man ended up speaking first, and while I could understand his greeting and a few more words, the rest of what he said was pure gibberish. Thankfully Zaszi was there to help out, but I quickly put my earpiece in my ear to make use of the automatic translator. With it in and working, I caught the tail end of Zaszi explaining that I couldn’t speak the language but I could now understand it, and that she would translate for me.

“You can understand me?” the male asked in the Pygmaean language. When I nodded, a broad smile appeared on his face. “Ah, excellent! My name is Beren Earuu and this is my sister Merel Earuu. We have seen the game you introduced and we are…”

“... intrigued,” his sister continued when her brother had paused. “We were hoping you would join us for a meal so that we may discuss it.”

“Sure! Do you might if my friends join us?” I asked, and waited for Zaszi to translate.

“That is not a problem. If you’ll follow us?” Merel asked, as she gestured for the curved stairs leading to the restaurants and the food court below.

Going by the looks, Meral and her brother led us to one of the more expensive restaurants, but not one that required formal wear to be worn inside. All four of us were quite sweaty so we took a few minutes to clean up as best we could, but we were soon seated at a table in a private room. We were quickly served drinks, and used the time before our meals to arrive to go over the game.

“A few of the guests here called it ‘hockey,’ is that right?” Beren asked.

I nodded. “It’s one of the most popular sports on the planet we’re from, particularly in colder climates like this one.”

“And it is a competitive sport on your planet?”

“Very competitive. The trophy awarded in the top league is widely considered to be the hardest one to win in professional sports.”

“Forgive me, but we watched you play for two hours today and we couldn’t make heads or tails of it,” he continued. “Is it safe to assume that it looks much different when professionals are playing it?”

“Oh, absolutely,” I nodded again before gesturing towards Mason, Ben and his father. “None of us are very good skaters, but a professional player would skate circles around us. In the top leagues, players can get up to over 30 kilometers per hour and things can change very quickly. It is also a full contact sport, but that’s something that people just starting to play the game aren’t ready for.”

“Full contact? Like roatag?” Merel asked.

“Sort of,” I said as our meals had arrived.

Rather than try to explain the game in words, I decided it would best to show them. Abi’s transmitters stretched all the way back to Earth, so I had her download a game from the 2017 NHL season onto a tablet and then put it inside of her dimensional storage. It only took about three or four minutes to do so, but when it was done, I retrieved the tablet using the Beacon and then started the game. We watched while we ate, fast forwarding through the commercials and intermissions, and all four of us answered questions when we could.

The game in question was a personal favorite; game two in the second round of the 2017 NHL playoffs, with the New York Rangers in against the Ottawa Senators. The Senators were up 1-0 in the series, but by the end of the second period of game two, it looked like the Rangers were going to tie it up. The Senators had been outplayed for the first forty minutes of the game and were losing 4-2 going into the third period, but it was like a switch had been flipped in the heads of the Senators players. At least initially.

Less than two minutes into the third period, a Senators player scored to make it 4-3 and a one goal game, but the Rangers pushed right back, scoring another goal a little over three minutes later and regaining a two-goal lead. For the next eleven minutes of the period, nothing much happened and it seemed like the Rangers were going to close it out.

That was until, with 3:19 left in the third period, a Senators player made a nice play to redirect the puck right into the back of the Rangers net, making it a 5-4 game. A little over two minutes later, that very same player redirected another shot past the goaltender for a hat trick, and it was all tied up. The period quickly ended with both teams tied at 5 goals a piece sending them to overtime, and while both teams pushed hard, neither could score the game-winning goal in the first overtime period.

In the second overtime period, a nice chip play off the dasher boards sent the Senators on a two-on-one breakaway, and just like that, the game was over. A well-placed shot by the hero of the afternoon was in the net before the opposing goaltender could even react, and it was 4 goals for #44. It probably remains as the most electric the atmosphere has ever been in the Ottawa Senators building, and Ottawa went on to win the series 4-2.

“So what do you think?” I asked when the game was over.

We had finished eating long before the game ended, and even with us fast forwarding through commercials and such, we were still in there for close to two hours.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Beren replied. “It’s so fast and chaotic, and I can see what you mean about the physicality. I suppose small races like Pygmaeans and Scyftans would be at a big disadvantage if they played a species that was even a little bit bigger than them.”

“It’s not like roatag, that’s for sure,” I nodded. “Even if hitting was taken out of the game, there are so many different aspects in which size plays a huge part. Take goaltending, for one. The net is 1.8 meters by 1.2 meters, and you saw how much room a human takes up in the net. They’re usually close to 2 meters tall, but imagine a Pygmaean or Scyftan in net instead. And then there is the other physical stuff like winning board battles and battling for position in front of the net.”

“We were curious when your representative asked if you could build something on the lake, but I think it is safe to say that we’ll be keeping it around even after you leave,” Merel said. “Will you be taking all the equipment back with you, or will you be leaving it behind?”

“We’ll be leaving everything behind except for the inhibitor bands we brought with us. I’m assuming you can get those on your own?”

Merel nodded this time. “It requires that a bit of paperwork be done, but we can get them. You mentioned that you brought some rulebooks with you. Do they also include information on how to maintain the ice surface? We don’t have one of those…”

“Ice resurfacers. Everyone just calls them Zambonis though. If you give me a minute, I can get a little how-to guide for you, translated into Pygmaean, of course.”

“We would appreciate that,” Beren said. “Can you translate the rulebook to Pygmaean as well?”

“Sure.

With the earpiece in, I didn’t even have to ask Abi to do it, even as we were talking, Abi was searching the net for proper ice surface maintenance, and also translated the entire NHL rulebook into another language. In less than a minute, there was a chime on my communicator.

“I’m sure you both have communicators?” I asked, retrieving my own. Both of them nodded and retrieved their own, and I flicked the information over to them. “I also included the entirety of the series, including the game we just watched, along with the patterns or specifications to remake anything that you might run out of. I’m sure you could probably have any of the things we brought along with us reverse engineered, but this will make things a little bit easier.”

“Thank you very much, that will help a lot,” Merel said.

Our little meeting lasted a short while longer, but we soon climbed up the steps and headed back into the cold. The snow had started while we were inside, but little more than a centimeter had fallen so far. Not enough had yet fallen to prevent us from playing hockey, but it wouldn’t be too long until the wind picked up and the snow really started coming down.

Hoping to get one more game in before we called it quits, the four of us headed down to the rink. We were intercepted briefly on the way there, but it only took a moment and it was my mom and dad saying that they were gathering up all the kids and that we would be leaving in an hour or so. Knowing that we only had an hour to go, we jogged down the small hill and began gearing up. Some of the people that were still playing recognized us, and they happily sat out and allowed us to take their spots. It would have taken too long for Ben and his dad to get suited up as goalies, so we just went in as skaters.

It was definitely a new experience. And a bit of a struggle, especially towards the end. While the snowfall wasn’t very heavy, it definitely felt that way when we had the puck moving up the ice. One second the snow was blowing from behind us, but the next it was blowing right in our faces. The visors we had on helped a little bit, but not as much as you might think they would. As time went on and more snow accumulated, it also began affecting the puck.

Passing, while not being very good up to that point, was even worse. Players would go to pass and the puck would stop a short distance away, or you would try to slam it down the ice so it would bounce around the dasher boards, but it would get hung up on snow along the way. The other team would gain possession and then try to move back up the ice, but they too would fall victim to the snow providing too much friction.

We tried using shovels to clean up a lot of it, but we didn’t think far enough ahead in our preparations. The possibility of it snowing should have factored into it on account of us being on an arctic planet, but for some reason it didn’t. Linvalma or one of the other gray dragons or dragonkin probably could’ve taken care of it for us, but it ended up getting late and none of the dragons were in the area. In the end, we ended up calling it and we made sure that all of the equipment we had brought was stored, and all of the inhibitor bands were gathered up. When that was done, we bid farewell to everyone that had played with us, and then headed up to the landing pad for our trip back up to orbit. All in all, it was a pretty fun twenty-four hours or so.

[Perfect timing,] Abi said as we climbed into the Grasshopper. [Your guests have arrived.]