How big was the town, Jessica wondered, and how dependent on the town was the Cold Steel Sect?

The poor people of the nearby village could have been the target of the attack or just innocent bystanders. Jessica desperately wanted a minute to think to herself about the problem rather than having to wait on all of these Disciples, but the problem stood. If the Elders had asked her to save the school, she would have to do her best to save the school.

The problem was that she hadn’t agreed to the whole deal in the first place and seeing how the cards were already stacked against her, she sat in the lotus position and cycled. For the time being, she concentrated on absorbing the natural energy of the area. It felt abundant in comparison with the underground tunnel.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” she said to no one in particular.

Junior Disciple Jung and Initiate An-Yong sat on either side of her and cycled along with her. Jessica opened her newly formed spiritual sense and saw that they both were pulling in energy as well. She wondered if she could sense their qi.

A moment later, the idea occurred to her. She pulsed out her senses, searching. Jung felt stronger than An-Yong, but the initiate didn’t have the capacity of Jung. What An-Yong had was denser, more like a cup of ice, whereas Jung felt like a pitcher of cool water. Sure one would pack a bigger punch but the second. Jessica idly wondered how long it took them to get to this point.

“The first thing is… safety. I need to know that we can be safe here because if not we need to relocate the school.”

Jung's core shuddered as she talked. Did he fear something about leaving?

“Leave the school Senior Sister? My life is the school and I wouldn’t know what to do without it,” He didn’t slip his stoic face but his core continued to waver. She was going to have to talk to him about having a poker face whenever she got to the point where she could have an idle chit chat.

“I fear that the attack came from there,” She pointed down the large straight line. Flames still danced through it as far as they could see in both directions.

“The one… this one would be lost,” An-Yong said.

“I think that whatever divine will bring me here, not that I believe in a divine will…” Jessica said slowly, trying not to offend her captive audience, “That has put this in front of us as a test. Will the school break and fold under this path of destruction? Or will we be able to make something out of this?”

“If this one may,” An-Yong said, waiting for the reluctant nod, “Perhaps we can assemble some of our best and send them to scout out the town of Frosthaven.”

Around them, the stone worked floors of the castle made the place feel out of a medieval movie set. Jessica loved fantasy, but often remembering that plumbing and toothbrushes existed were enough to knock her out of her hyper-focus on a good story.

“Now just to be clear,” Jessica said, fidgeting with her belt, “I don’t know if we have enough to feed ourselves and we can only offer what aid we can offer. Do we have healers?”

“We have two left Senior Sister,” Jung replied, his face impassive.

Jessica straightened her belt. She was going to have to relearn how to tie a gi belt now. She searched back trying to remember a time when she had done Jiu-Jitsu when she was trying to gain more confidence. Sure, she got some confidence, but she also got choked out a bunch.

Junior Disciple Jung was watching Jessica with a bemused grin. He looked quite martial in his robes, and the large probably bear fur over his shoulders went well with his thick neck and broad shoulders.

“Will two be sufficient?” Jessica asked.

“Sufficient Senior Sister?” An-Yong replied, “No, but it is better than nothing.”

“Gather the healers. Take whoever will volunteer down to…” She said.

“Frosthaven,” Both replied.

“Down to Frosthaven. The wait is that one word or two?”

“One-word Senior Sister,” An-Yong said.

“No more than twenty. Offer them our shelter. Wait why did only one of you respond to that question in particular?” She replied.

An-Yong nodded, his expression dour.

“Junior Disciple Jung…” he said.

“Don’t tell her!” Jung said, his core shaking. It felt like boiling water all of a sudden. Jessica realized that she might be committing a faux pas by continually monitoring the boy's core, as that might be something akin to reading someone's internet history.

“Don’t tell me what?” She asked.

Initiate An-Yong had not an ounce of muscle less than Jung, but he looked like he had been through a bit more with the attack. It probably meant something, and Jessica made a mental note to check on her boys again later.

“My world has gone upside down and all of the sudden magic is real and I have a magical core that draws energy from the aura around me and I sense both of your cores. If you have a stupid boy secret that you’re keeping from me for no reason, now is not the time,” she almost yelled.

“Junior Disciple Jung cannot read Senior Sister, and thus would not have known whether that was one word or two,” An-Yong said.

Jessica considered the disciple in front of her, mentally lowering the educational standards of whatever cold hell she had been summoned into.

“He can’t read, but you can?”

An-Yong nodded. Jung looked distraught.

“Wonderful. I have updated my model of this school. An-Yong you’re with me. Jung, you’re leading the expedition out. I trust that you will do what I ask?”

Jung bowed.

“It would be a great honor to follow the Senior Sister.”

Jessica ruffled a hand through her hair. There were going to be so many hypotheses, now that her whole worldview had turned upside down. This should have been more dramatic. Instead, her brain was saying, Weeee! I can do magic which makes me a wizard, Harry!

Perhaps she could do a definitive experiment to prove once and for all that it wasn’t the cheese from the dispensary commissary.

Jessica mused that there were probably people summoned in less anticlimactic ways. Also, she wondered if there were any good slopes around. If she wasn’t affected by the cold, it changed her whole snowboarding process.

Junior Disciple Jung and Initiate An-Yong stood waiting.

“Make it so, Junior Disciple Jung,” she said, waving her hand.

He ran off towards the tunnels.

“Now, I’m going to have to ask you about this,” She said, pulling out her path manual, and turning to the first page.

Initiate An-Yong gulped.

The first page of the path manual spoke about how one could use the path of cold steel to slow one's metabolism down, causing cultivators to move slower, but live longer among other benefits. The cold part of the path focused on the control of the weather around the wearer.

"An-Yong, if even an initiate should be able to master this, then why all the fur? What is up with that?"

The disciple looked taken aback.

"Senior Sister, it is tradition. We wear what we eat. It is a rite of passage here, I don't know what you do with animal skins where you come from, but here we honor their lives by wearing the fiercest ones for a long time."

Jessica imagined blowing his mind with talks about polyester and the minutiae of snow gear. The damn stuff was a profitable submarket and she should know after living in and out of the skiing and snowboarding store. People spent almost as much there as they did on their pets.

"You use these to tell your story. I see now."

Jessica didn't want to step on any cultural hot button issues. She had enough of a hard time accepting that the laws that enforced parking violations and stealing of baby formula existed.

The second page of the manual detailed a technique to harden one's body against attack.

She closed the manual. There would be time enough for that.

There in the cold ruins of a school, she let herself feel the emotional side of herself. A lot of people she knew thought that rationalists had to be cold hard calculators. Hollywood Vulcans whose every move is devoid of feeling.

But she felt things, it was a part of the reason that she wanted there to be less suffering in the world. To be thrust into this situation, well the best she could hope would be that the ones that died, had a good life and died a clean death. There would be time to mourn and honor the dead.

For today she needed to count the living. And for that, she needed to pretend to be a Vulcan for a little while longer.

Down in the tunnels, the group returned to see an orderly line of disciples spooning out bowls of soup. A large barrel of water sat on one side, with many wooden cups being passed around.

Accepting a cup, Jessica noted that the entire glass tasted crisp. There was an undercurrent of qi inside it as if that energy source ruled the natural world here and was taunting her.

"A natural spring runs under the school, and we use that well water for the school," An-Yong said as they approached.

"Do you grow your crops? I understand that the climate here may not be the best for that, but perhaps there is an indoor grow operation?" Jessica said.

An-Yong frowned.

"Elder Kang, he… well he was in charge of the feeding and procurement of foodstuffs. The main storeroom is above ground but…" he gasped.

"Please tell me that it wasn’t destroyed today."

As An-Yong nodded, the air went out of the room. Jessica walked over to the nearest crate.

For a minute she sat trying to cycle her qi, but she lost her focus. The problems were going to continue to pile up. In one corner at least she had the water, and they could barter for food. Could they hunt for it?

"Wait, you said in the main storeroom. What other storerooms does the school have? And how many?"

Initiate An-Yong almost looked pleased for a second.

"Senior sister, we had a lower treasure vault, a superior treasure vault as well at the main dried goods storeroom. All that was destroyed by the divine beast. Elder Kang created redundancies and we have two lower storerooms down here in the tunnels in case of emergency. Thankfully we rotate food frequently so it should all be good."

"It should be good because of the cold!"

Jessica noticed that for the first time since she had woken up, she was cool. Not in the sense that she had picked up bad boy sunglasses, but in the I am shivering sense. Immediately she clamped down her control, seeking to cycle her energy and drawing on the cold around herself.

This time, she focused her spiritual sense on her core, trying to look inwardly. A knot of qi around her navel was clear and present. Where she was clear at the capacity of those around her, she seemed to have a larger core, or perhaps one that could stretch more? She couldn't tell, but as she cycled the qi actively she tried to feel the changes.

So the Elder had created redundancies into his system. Jessica had never been so glad for medieval accounting practices.

The poor children here would have to go on reduced rations without that large storeroom. Unless…

"Initiate An-Yong. Did the elder have any of you bring anything down as the school above got evacuated?"

Two stories down from the surface, Jessica hoped that it hadn’t been just a mad scramble to save their own lives.

"Unfortunately no, this one did nothing of the sort, but now we can see how the village of Frosthaven has taken the attack, finally, look!"

Jessica met his gaze.

Junior Disciple Jung led a weary line of people into the large tunnel opening and through. The already packed area met with a line of haggard people. People who looked to carry everything they owned on their backs.

Jessica clapped her hands together. Time to get to work.