Meanwhile, Teutobochus simply stomped where it stood with all its weight. A second stomp sent cracks spidering out across the crater, but didn’t do much else.

“We’ll need something more than Teutobochus’ limbs to dig it out.”

“The Inverse Array.”

“The Inverse Array.”

“Low-output. Continuous operation.”

“Cut the glacierglass into smaller pieces and throw them out of the crater as we go?”

“Yes. Keep an eye on the Sixth Heart. Overheating could be an issue after prolonged continuous operation… In any environment other than this one.”

“Then let’s get to work.”

Zefaris found the bears joining her at the crater’s edge, grunting at one another and gesturing - be it with their noses or forelegs - in Teutobochus’ general direction. She had arranged the sleds and bears such that they would shield her from the wind, and the beasts, in their movement, had taken care to maintain that.

Right after Teutobochus’ stomp cracked the ice, one of them turned to her and spoke. Its mouth wasn’t at all suited for human speech, but it spoke nonetheless.

“Hyu-man. We have… An arrgh-yoo-ment. I say giant will get the fall-star. Broo-therrs say ice too thick, even for the giant. What do youu think?”

She stared in silence for a short while, despite being well aware of the existence of both talking animals and full on bear-men. These sled-pullers hadn’t given any indication of higher-order intelligence until now, though they did take commands exceedingly well.

Before she could compose an answer, Victor handed it to her on a silver platter. Teutobochus knelt down, its three-segmented maw opening to its fullest extent as magenta light built in the back of its throat; the glow shifted to a royal blue, the titan’s eyes filling with blazing spheres of the same colour in the moment just before a destructive flow of the same shade smashed down onto the ice… And it didn’t stop.

Steam geysers flowed skyward, and meter by meter, Teutobochus cut deeply into the ice sheet.

Zefaris hadn’t seen nor felt such terrible power since Ubul’s Tomb - not from anyone other than Zelsys, at least. Even so, the fallen star was buried terribly, terribly deep. A long ramp would need to be dug for its extraction to be possible. When she shared that concern over aetherwave, she only received agreement in reply.

“It may be best to set up camp while I work away at it,” Victor replied.

A short pause. Another message from him came, Teutobochus turning and walking to the crater’s edge.

“Actually, let me help you with that,” he added as he blasted a pit into the ice, one deep enough for the howling arctic winds to pass it over, with the forces involved raising elevated lips about its perimeter that further deflected the wind. With the titan’s fingers, he scored a wide ramp into the edge, then returned to the toil of liberating the fallen star from its iceborne tomb.

Meanwhile…

Left. Right. Left. Right.

A gradual ascent.

It had quickly become apparent that the climb wasn’t a sheer, vertical wall; that description was too charitable. This accursed cliff-face was uneven and tilted in places such that she was climbing against it in most circumstances. Just a few tens of meters into this long, long ordeal, the winds were already doing all in their power to throw her down.

Two picks to climb with, two to act as anchors. This method slowed her upward progress substantially, but it was preferable to falling; not out of a fear of falling at terminal velocity from this height, but rather one of having to do the climb all over again. The further she climbed, the risk rose nonetheless; exhaustion would feed the risk of injury, and the loss of progress would compound as well. The climbing claws on her boots would also see their heaviest use yet, at least for their stated purpose; they had heretofore been relegated to only occasional climbs, most of their usefulness having come from giving outstanding on-ground purchase to her feet.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Hours.

And hours.

And hours yet further still.

Biting cold, the howl of lashing winds, the glacier’s unearthly ring whenever she struck it; those were her only companions, and further on she climbed. Her world was just this wall of ice, the ground long gone from sight.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

The air was much too cold to use for Fog-breathing, threatening to freeze the insides of her lungs. So, she turned to magic, metalizing the inside of her own respiratory system and using Fulgur to heat it.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Unto dark and dawn again, she climbed, lighting her way with lightgems and lightning of her own creation. She hadn’t thought it could get any colder, yet it did, and the air got thinner, until it took three breaths to equal one.

An overhang, stretching left and right. The cliff-face’s cruel countenance denied further passage.

She bundled her braids together in two sets of three and summoned two Thundergods, the First and Second. Guiding them to take hold of two picks while she herself retained the other two, Zelsys also manifested the Third and Fourth around her right and left hand respectively. Her Thundergods wound themselves around the picks and bit down on their shafts just below the heads, surges of unstable Fulgur heating their points to cherry red and even orange in spite of the cold. There wasn’t much time; she had knowingly avoided doing this throughout the long, long climb because she knew that the malignant dysfunction of her Storm-soul Cultivation would eventually destroy even Ingvald’s picks. A hair-thin silver lining: The glacierglass making up most of the cliff face didn’t give way with any real speed even when subjected to her picks’ newfound heat. Certainly, she could feel the pick with which she held on ever so slowly sinking in deeper, but just as the ice sublimated, its vapor condensed and returned to solid when it was no longer in contact with red-hot metal.