I pack my limited possessions and sling a rucksack over my shoulder. Yup, I don’t look suspicious at all what with my cloak and unnecessary amount of bread.

Laffer and I had made an agreement the prior night not to dally in the slightest and get the Hell out of there. Like sacred stars man, that girl… She’s scary. And well, most —ALL— necromancers are. Scrat man, I’m getting flashbacks to the looong shifts as a guardsman when a necromancer was allegedly spotted.

Hassling Dok who for some reason was oddly unhurried despite his previous attempts to get us to the capital, we get out in ten minutes flat.

And that was how we got on the road.

I’d like to know who New Guy was, but not even Lacer found anything out. Well, on that topic, I would’ve liked some more cake, but… Sheeny. I think that’s all that needs to be said. What a pity… And even more piteous is our travel in this wintry hail. It’s cold!

And well, also boring… we only have the droll wintry landscape to entertain us.

“Huh? I think snowmen are plenty fun,” Laffer says while occupying himself with said snowman.

Let it be known that we are traveling right now. And this dunce wants to frolic about in the snow. Snow is cold! And I didn’t bring a good coat…

Snowmen are the last thing I want to be dealing with.

“Well, if you helped me out, we’d be able to get going faster, no?”

In roundabout logic, I have to agree. He does have a point. If I did in fact help him with the snowmen we might somehow miraculously get to our destination quicker.

“I want a wage…” The fact doesn’t stop the sigh that escapes me whilst I sink my machete into an approaching snowman. Kicking off it, I wrench out it’s insides in a flurry of snow and sleet. Following through I make sure to thoroughly ground it down until it resembles naught but a wet, sloppy pile.

Hmm? You’re wondering what I’m doing? Well, I'm killing snowmen of course!

There’s a reason why people don’t travel during winter and that’s because of the seasonal endemic that is snowmen. They are the cold. They are the flu. They are the snowmen.

About the height of an adult, they legitimately resembled men but made of snow. All snow. Just snow. Snow.

Don’t ask me the specifics, but it’s already been debunked that they aren’t elementals so I can’t really say much about them. What I can say though, is that they are an absolute pain the arse.

Snow removers aren't really a respected job, so they're employed quite frequently during the cold months but it’s simply unfortunate that there were none to be found in the swathes of land that stretch between cities. Well, we might’ve found one if we stuck to the road, but… We aren’t using the roads. For obvious reasons.

And this is when it struck me.

“Why don’t we just use the roads anyways?” What’s the worst that could happen?

“That’s a terrible idea,” Laffer shakes his as he mashes two snowmen into a watery mess, “Let’s do it,”

“Dok?” I ask for his confirmation as well. But it was more perfunctory, because I was going to use the roads regardless.

“Why not, my good sirs? I usually always use roads,”

That’s settled then. Wouldn’t want to catch a cold from spending too much time with snowmen. Especially not when the bronze body ranked snowmen start snowing up.

“Ah? Didn’t they already show up?” Lily taps my arm.

“Wha—?”

My reply is curt. Not of my own volition but because I’m pelted with snow projectiles. Often called snowballs. This hailed the second wave of snowmen. Capable of hurling these projectiles over great distances, they were a menace to society as a whole.

However, it could be worse. If there were silver strength ranked snowmen as well, then that’d bring a whole level of hurt. Those ones are capable of rallying snowmen together to form encampments and would usually siege small villages and towns.

It isn’t unheard of for a village to just disappear over the winter.

And speaking of which… “I think we’re standing on a dilapidated village right now,”

Yup, we definitely are, I just kicked some loose foundations and a cornerstone.

Judging by how everything apart from the foundations are gone, I’d say this village was ruined many winters ago.

“Jeff, I don’t think your kicking foundations of a village…”

“Then what else would I be kicking?” Seriously Laffer, think a bit will ya?

“D’you think any kick of foundation would be made of snow and crumple as soon as you press a bit of weight on it?”

“What are yo— Oh… Oh no,”

“Jeff, I think you pissed off a snowfort,”

Ahhh shite.

Okay! “Lily! Use magick!”

“On snowmen? You want me to use my coolass magick on snowmen?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time!” Plus, I thought you loved doing this.

Reluctant, the birb still follows through, “Fine…”

“Laffer, Dok, do snowmen killing stuff!”

I gain an affirmative and a no reply. Granted, Laffer was already having the time of his life with those snowmen.

Granting a slight reprieve from the snowmen onslaught, I have everyone move on to more pressing concerns.

“Lazari, you fought snowmen before right?”

“…No,”

Honestly, I wasn’t anticipating that reply. But I should've expected as such when I first noticed how lost she looked when we first encountered them. Well, she always looks lost, but this time she didn’t default to stabbing things and even stayed behind me. And lemme tell you, this is the same girl that wanted to stab blood abominations in a cult and murdered five horsemen.

How strange… I’m beginning to suspect something. We’ll leave this for a later date. I bequeath upon you this honor, future me!

Yeah, future me’s gonna be pissed.

Anyway, I give the young demon a breakdown of snowmen and a brief overview of what’s happening right now.

Currently, we stumbled across a snowmen encampment. And remember those silver strength ranked snowmen I talked about? Well, if enough of them ally together with their regiments then they can basically make a snowfort and that’s when things get dicey. Because this fort will definitely have a Winter Nexus and that just spews out snowmen like no tommorow.

Which is the reason why we’re surrounded on all sides with snowmen as far as the eye can see. Yup, remember those foundations? We stumbled right in the middle of the in-progress snowfort. No wonder there were so many snowmen. And whilst fending off the constant onslaught, you had to be careful not to get bitten by one of these bastards. I, personally haven't gotten bit before, but I've seen Frost's bite, and it's no joke.

Rushing headfirst to try and break the encirclement will definitely get us bitten. Who knows what's in this thigh deep snow?

Bloody Hell. “We’ll probs have to take out the nexus won’t we?”

“Man, how I wish we could get a snow remover on scene here! Where’s deus ex machina when you need it?”

Ignoring the drama king, the snow removers really should be dealing with this problem. Like damn, if these were people, I’d have killed over fifty already, and that says something, considering that each snowman has the same capabilities as a grown adult aside from being snow.

Considering how we're already in the heart of their camp, we’re just gonna have to go bust their winter nexus. It’ll be a good life experience for Lazari. After all, this is a perennial occurrence.

Alright, time to find the nexus! The first step was easy, you just had to check the density of the snow around. Depending on how compact it was, you can easily judge if the snowmen are trying to hide something behind it. And there's only one thing that snowmen would consider worth hiding.

And well, yeah, this snow right here's mega compact.

“Lily!” I gesture to the bird, almost losing her in the snow, but she complies. Albeit reluctantly.

Blasting her essence blades at the cropping of snow beside me, large snow battlements collapse in a hail of firn and powder, revealing a sneaky, super secret stairway. She gives just enough oomph so she doesn’t just drain herself or collapse the secret entrance.

I’ve noted this before, but as a corvine of some nocturnal variety —She’s diurnal now—, her attunement of essence was of the moon, meaning she couldn’t recharge lest it be nighttime. And she hates using magick in the daytime.

“This take you back?”

“I hated this,”

“Why?”

“Cause I had to do it with you,”

Wow. I’m sad now. We used to be so slick back in the day! I recall vividly your joy as we breached snow forts and battled hordes of snowmen… What happened?

Now, as we storm into the escalier, there is none of that innocent felicity and thrill like in the good ol’ days. It’s like a job that needs to be done. Quick as possible and with ruthless efficiency.

Snowmen used to be fun. But not anymore. Let's hope we don't get the cold down there at the very least.