Cold & Coffee [Pt. 1/?]

“NYAAAAA YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!” The loud scream came from the train station on another set of rails near the far end. It originated from a scene that was rapidly drawing more and more viewers. Apparently everyone wanted to see the lady, dressed for a warm summer day rather than this hell hole, that was hugging the chimney of the train with all her might. It was the only warm thing in this freezing place and Teresa had never done well with the cold. “YOU CAN’T SEPERATE US.” She continued to wail loudly as six sturdy workers were pulling on her, trying to pry her lose.

“Sooooo coldddd…” She said shivering as tears were streaming from her eyes. “Next mission I get to pick and it will be inside a volcano.” She continued to moan as she extended her arms and began to wave a few signs in the air. A moment later fire runes appeared in the air and she used her own magic to temporarily bind them to her skin. It was not perfect, but maybe it would prevent her from freezing to death.

A moment later the train departed with a loud whistle and with a loud hissing and puffing began to move away. Guess I might as well make the best of it. She thought, resigning herself to the situation.

With a snap of her fingers she changed outfit to something more appropiate. She wore legging of tight Angora woll, white fluffy snow boots and a trendy brown jacket with fake polar bear fur lining. To protect her neck she wore a silver, grey scarve decorated with Nordic runes and her hands were protected by red finger gloves.

Combined with the outfit, the runes were semi effective and although still completely unpleasant, Theresa could actually start to think again. Now all she needed was a cup of coffee and to her delight she smelled a little stand nearby. She could practically taste the fragrance of the dark liquid in the air and she quickly went towards the booth that sold it. Sadly the little booth did not sell any party flavors. So as she walked away, Teresa popped the lit of her big cup for a second and added a rather large dose of a liquid from her hip flask before putting the cap back on.

A moment later she noticed Lyre and began walking towards the pretty boy. Mid way she took a rather large sip of her coffee and by the time she reached him, a big grin was appearing on her face as the warmth was slowly spreading through her chest. “Hi Lyre. Thank you for the invitation, I was kind of strapped for jewels and I was looking forward to working with you.” She said friendly as she slapped him heartily on the shoulders. “So what are we doing here? I am guessing we are not hired as ski instructors or to build the prettiest snowman.” She said as she looked around.

She had been to many a place in her time, but as she recalled this was the first time visiting this place. Aside from the devastating, balls freezing, succulent cold… the place was actually kind of pretty and they did sell good coffee!

WC: 537
TWC: 327 + 537 = 864
@Lyretich

Teresa kindly ignored the remark of coming back here. She would rather be eaten by bears then come back to any cold place at her leisure. To be fair she had learned how to defend herself with magic and appropriate clothing and/or items against the worst of the cold. However no matter what she did she never seemed to be able to withstand it completely. She had some of the best doctors in their respective time take a look at her. The best anyone could guess though was that somehow the innate magic that kept her alive was also draining her body heat. The experiments had showed that even in 38 degrees Celsius her body would still lose body heat for some reason. Luckily alcohol and hot coffee helped alot.

“Yeah you should never trust an invitation like that.” Teresa said with an understanding smile and nudge. It rarely happened that being invited to a guild master resulted in anything good. “I mean the last time I was invited I faked having the Desolian super flue for a week. Worked like a charm.” The silver eyed witch continued, giving Lyre a quick wink.

The two of them continued to search the city, slowly and systematically. Only stopping once every while to refill up on coffee and take shelter from the cold. As the day furthered the sun was being blotted out by thick clouds filled with snow and it would not be very long before the first flakes would start falling. “Hey I think I might have a lead.” Teresa said as she walked slowly towards Lyre. Her head pulled as far into her warm jacket as she could muster to protect her skin from the cold gusts of wind. “Rumor has it a woman named T. Himms has lost some kind of item near a cave somewhere. She is the owned of the large warehouse near the city gate to the North.” She said, causing clouds of steam to be pushed through the zipper of her jacket as he mouth was deep within it.

At least it was a clue, although she was not sure whether it was true. All she was hoping though was that Lyre would agree that might be it and check out the warehouse. “Perhaps we should check out this warehouse?” She asked a bit suggestively, hoping the warehouse would be properly heated.

WC: 387
TWC: 1,292 + 387 = 1,679
@Lyretich

Teresa shrugged inconspicuous to the accusation of just wanting to be cold. It was something she wanted and she had a rule about lying. For her it was okay to deceive, hide truths, ignore questions, most of it was okay, but she would never directly lie. There was something about lying directly to someone that really upset her and she had promised herself a long time ago never to do that. Luckily she had found that most people did not have the attention span to pursue the irrelevant questions anyway. Not that she was any different. “I would not say no to that.” She replied with a grin so wide it could be seen through her sparkling eyes.

The warehouse was massive though. So much in fact that she could only agree with Lyre. “Double wow!” She added almost breathless as she could sense magic coming from several layers beneath the surface. Depth was a bit harder to measure than distance, but she would have guessed this massive warehouse counted at the very least nine different floors. “Keep your guard up.” She suddenly said as she bowed forward and whispered the words in Lyre’s ears. She was being dead serious. Even here senses were diluted and affected by the massive layers of sheer rock and magical systems in the building… but for a split second she had sensed something that made her neck hairs stand up.

It was surprisingly easy to find someone that could help them. There was nothing out of the ordinary until Lyre revealed his face and then something happened that left Teresa baffled. Not the fact that the person was very willing to help them… but if she did not know any better, she could have sworn she could sense magic. There was no active magic… but there was something… maybe?!? “Lyre…” She asked confused, but than quickly decided to swallow her words as not to accidentally undo the effect of whatever the boy had done.

“Ah yes indeed. My name is Teresa Sinclair from the Silver Wolf guild.” She said friendly as she bend forward a bit, removed her scarf and hair and showed off her official guild tattoo. She shivered a bit as the semi cold air hit her now exposed skin. A moment later the person nodded in response and pushed the drink in front of Teresa. Maybe as a sign that he had accepted the two of them.

“Ohhh thank you! That is delicious!” Teresa said after taking a sip of her drink. It was not coffee, a bit too sweet for it, but definitely not as sweet as hot chocolate. She could taste a bit of nutmeg, cinnamon, some low fat milk, a variation of beans and a sugary flavor she could not identify easily. If she were to venture a guess the milk was first steamed, before water was added to the substance and then the two were mixed. She could tell by the fat like plaque sticking to the cup the mixing had definitely be done in the cup itself and the water could probably stand to be twenty degrees hotter to improve the mixture rate.

“Ah good, so you are the mages we wanted to hire.” The voice suddenly said, ripping her out of her thought pattern. She quickly took a second sip, clacking her tongue as she swallowed it, before turning her gaze into his. “Now this might be a surprise, but this warehouse is actually a small mining site.” He began to explain.

Over the next few minutes the man, whose gaze was annoyingly frozen on Lyre, explained how a rare magical substance had been found here. Basically the warehouse was build to protect the equipment and being able to defrost the soil to make the actual mining possible. Apparently the ground tended to go harder and more frozen the deeper they dug. In addition the warehouse hid their true purpose and added a layer of security. Despite several attempts of Teresa, the man had refused to tell them what exactly they were mining. Apparently it was rather valuable though.

“Okay that is very impressive, but is there something you actually need from us?” Teresa said calmly, hoping to prevent the two hour investor sales pitch.

Luckily it seemed to have the and with a cough the man seemed to regain his courage. “Right. ACHEM… eh it is very simple. The lower levels have been overrun with monsters. Something is causing the aether to go wild and it seems to attract all kinds of creatures. So far we have kept them at bay at level C7. We either need you to travel to the local mountains. In one of the caves grows a natural crystal that can absorb aether and we hope can neutralize the thread.” The man said as he grabbed a card and pointed to a location on the far side.

Just by looking at the map Teresa got severe cramps in her entire body. That was at least thirty kilometers away through a freezing hell, to climb a mountain and look for some crystal in a cave? “Ehhhhh… can’t we just go down and kill the monsters?” She asked, clasping her hands together as if she was praying and giving the man her best puppy eyed look. “Pretty pretty prett please!” She as, diverting her attention to Lyre.

WC: 898
TWC: 2,286 + 898 = 3,184
@Lyretich

It was such an odd feeling that Teresa had to bite her tongue a bit to keep her focused. She was certain of it now. There was a magical interaction going on between Lyre and the others in this room. Yet somehow she could not sense the magic, she just knew it was there. And happening. Subtle though. Like going to one of those toilets past the side of the free way. You could tell that at some point someone had cleaned them, but it was impossible to tell how or when. Okay… that analogy sucked. Teresa thought to herself as she tried to observe it a bit better. Yet no matter how much she strained her senses, she could not feel the magic.

It was as if she was in a bright room, but she could not spot the source of the light at all. It was not a maddening sensation, she doubted other mages would even feel it, more along the lines of a single mosquito somewhere in a tent full of people. Just… not a hundred percent comfortable.

The silver eyed witch was naturally not upset when the meeting was going to be ended. “Yeah no worries there. After the first casualties we shut down the mine and evacuated all ‘valuable’ personal to the surface. Mr. Thimms said with a grin, waving his hands to dismiss Lyre’s question. The way he said the word valuable though was enough to cause Teresa’s left eyebrow to twitch a single time. “Just take the elevator in this office. It is the quickest way towards the eight floor.” He said with a smile, still keeping that gaze on Lyre that gave Teresa the shivers.

Of course there was all sorts of thing wrong with this. Being shunted past all the levels meant they would miss a whole lot. They were not there to solve the worlds problems though or save everyone.

It was one of the problems of taking these jobs as a guild mage. Basically they were mercenaries at this point and if they did not full fill the contract, it would reflect badly upon the guild. On the other hand helping a crazy person conquer a city, even if that was not their intention, would also reflect badly. However in this case Teresa could not see any reason to defy Mr. Thimmss and investigate further. At least not yet. Perhaps this was a legit operation after all.

“Thank you Lyre, I owe you one.” Teresa said friendly, placing her hand gently on the boys shoulder, ignoring the impulse to give him a hug. She hated the cold that much! “Okay I guess we better get going then.” She said, forcing herself to smile as she entered the elevator. Giving the two a little nod as she walked past them

“Okay Lyre, you want to take point or shall I?” She asked as she casually drew her claymore. The further the elevator went down, the stronger the sense of malicious aether got.

As they got deeper also a smell began to get stronger. One she recognized very well. Burned flesh, blood and rot were thick in the air. By the time she elevator reached the eight floor she could also smell smoke. With a little ding the metal doors opened and the annoying elevator music stopped. “Oh great, goblins.” She said with a sigh as she saw the shadow of several of these little creatures dash away into the shadow at the end of the corridor.

“Ok I think it would be foolish to exterminate all of them. We could be at it all day.” Teresa said slowly as she carefully stepped out of the elevator, her claymore tightly in her hand. “What should we do?” She asked as her metal boots rasped over the stony floor.

WC: 626
TWC: 3,651 + 626 = 4,266
@Lyretich

“Yush they are!” Teresa replied with a grin. She wondered if she was actually surprised the young mage was affected by the smell though. She had seen her fair share of battlefields, slaughterhouses and even places that effectively could simulate hell. The smell was nasty, but in a way familiar and it would take a lot more to wrinkle her nose. Still she could understand Lyre a bit and she figured she could at least try to comfort him a bit. Ease him into the real world a bit more gently. The sad part was that this was only the beginning. This only smelled like blood and death. A few levels below her she could actually sense demonic energy and that was a smell she found actually unpleasant. Sulfur and rotten eggs were not everyone’s cup of tea after all. “Lyre I am gonna do something about the smell for now, but I do think you might want to get used to it soon.” She said with a faint smile as she stretched out her hands and her eyes began to glow with a slight coppery glow as she delved into her power.

She could sense the magic in the air all around her and as she inhaled, she began to draw it in. The air here was rich, albeit a bit polluted by death -which always leaves a mark in the air- and she quickly gathered enough to mix it with her own. “Kekkai shield Magic. My second… well actually primary magic.” She said with a grin as she made the hand signals and a visible shield appeared in front and behind them. Teresa had not shown this magic in the bar, as it was more combat orientated and the bar scene was no place for that.

The shield were not perfect, but it kept the goblins out and reduced the smell quite a bit. As they moved forward, her boots clanging on the floor with each step, she pushed the shield further backwards. Several goblins were now in front of it, slowly being pushed back, trying to get past the shield. “Aight they are stupid and instinctive, but never underestimate them in a pack. Especially not in a cavern -or mine like this- which they consider home. They are territorial.” Teresa said with a friendly smile, as she looked back towards Lyre.

“Wen Yan, nice to see you again buddie.” Teresa said, happily ignoring the change of tone in Lyre’s voice. It warranted some caution, but she was keeping an eye on him already anyway. “Anyway I am happy to see you. Ever since we met, I have a friend who has been dying to meet you.” Teresa said with a smile as she snapped her fingers.

The magic she used to summon her companion was much closer to reequip magic than it was to lyre’s and much more ancient. Of course her summon was only a friendly companion and not a form of combat. Still she was always happy to have her companion at her side. “Lyre, Wen… may I introduce Nixalba.” She said with a warm smile as the outlines of the white tiger appeared from the smoke. A moment later the slightly crossed eyed tiger approached. “Ah Wen Yan and Lyre a pleasure to me-WHAT IS THAT SMELL?” She exclaimed shocked as the smells began to register and she quickly put a paw across her nose. “Where did you summon me?” She said as she gave Teresa a quick glance that did not forebode much good. “W-wut? I am sorry. You are a tiger, can’t you handle a little blood? Here let me he-… you are going to attack my toes again whn I sleep, aren’t you…” Teresa said with a face of dread and fear at the thought as she quickly formed a small squared forcefield around the nose of her beloved companion. “Nooooooeeeeee… I promise I will not ‘claw’ your toes.” Nixalba replied with a mischievous grin and the way she outline the word clawed made Teresa actually very much more nervous.

Nothing much they could do about it though. Unfortunately it did distract her a bit and she failed to notice the path suddenly ended in a T split. Too late she noticed she should have adapted the field and a bunch of goblins rushed in the moment they had the chance. “DAMNIT!” Teresa cursed loudly as she swung her sword, cleaving the first goblin clean in half.

Unfortunately she had only recently regained her ability to use shields and she was not yet capable of keeping them up instinctively. As she was focused on the goblins in front of her, the shield behind them flickered and vanished. “Lyre, cover us and try to keep up with me. Right here and then three hundred meter till the access to the next level.” She said loudly and hastily as she rapidly swung her sword several time to clear a path in front of them and began to move towards the end of the slit. “Nixalba, finish the stragglers and keep up. I things get dangerous, I want you to go!” She said as she dodged to the left, allowing a goblin to soar past her.

WC: 862
TWC: 4,915 + 862 = 5,777
@Lyretich

Steam was slowly beginning to rise around Teresa as she slashed wildly with her sword. Or at least wildly to the naked eye. The silver eyed witch was in fact a better swordsman than she was a witch. It was a shame that in such confined space she could not combine her sword magic with her claymore of choice. There was too much chance she would blow up parts of the tunnel they still had to traverse. Or worse cut of their way out. She had considered equipping a different weapon, but against small enemies like this she preferred the claymore. Even if she occasionally swung the tip of her sword through the solid bed rock, she liked that every hit that connected was effectively a kill. Using a smaller sword might have meant she would have to start aiming for critical area’s like the neck or the heart. “Heeeeeyyyyyy… you are not bad at all.” She screamed loudly to make sure her voice would reach Lyre despite the sounds of battle.

As they kept moving Teresa had constantly strained some attention on Lyre, watching his spiritual energy and the way he was fighting. She knew he had little experience, so she had constantly gathered energy in her free right hand, ready to cast a square shield around Wen Yan. It seemed it would not be needed though. Relieved she relaxed a bit and began to release the energy she had stored. “Oh SHI- Nixalba get those two.” She cursed loudly as her sword got stuck in a rather sturdy section of the wall.

With a loud roar the white tiger covered her mistress and dove towards the two goblins, bearing soaking red teeth and fangs.

A muscle in her right arm spasmed slightly as Teresa placed her left hand on the lower arm of her right and transfered the remaining energy she had saved into it. A flash of black light pulsed momentarily through the sword and a moment later the rock in which it was stuck exploded with a loud bang. “Yeah I think we are almost there.” Teresa said as she continued to move forward, raising her arm in front of her face to protect her from the cloud of dust.

In the distance she could see the stair case the workers had carved out of the solid stone. According to the map they had made a single stair case, meaning you could walk all the way down to the ninth floor.

Luckily slowly the goblins seemed to be thinning out a bit and sadly she could see why. It looked like the staircase was blocked by a group of different creatures. “Ah Erklings!” Teresa said, more to herself as anyone else, as she braked as hard as she could, sliding over the icy floor. “Ok so how would you take these out?” She asked as she stabbed her sword into the floor, decelerating her so fast she could feel her stomach do a flip.

As she finally came to a halt, she was only fifty feet or so away from the Erklings. With one hand she made a quick sigil, causing a shield to appear behind Lyre to cut off the rest of the goblins. With the other she barely managed to grab the tail of Nixalba. Too late the tiger had noticed the abrupt stop of it’s mistress and even with her four sets of claws extended to the max she was not stopping in time. The scream she let out when suddenly she was roughly grabbed by the tail and then pulled back with enough force to almost dislocated the tail bone, was in a a word primal. However once seeing the reason why, she decided not to maul Teresa. At least not right now. “Ah I see. Nasty creatures. Thank you.” Was all she said as she took her place next to the silver eyed witch and meekly wiggled her tail, trying to assess the damage.

“Hmmm I might have overdone it a bit.” Teresa said, suppressing a painful outing, as she had tried to raise her right hand and the muscle that has spasmed before, was now extremely sore. “Could you take care of these, while I tend to my wound?” Teresa asked seriously as she stabbed her sword into the ground and placed her left hand on the right arm, releasing a benign white light upon touch.

WC: 725
TWC: 6,516 + 725 = 7,241
@Lyretich

“You know I will bite of your toes for this one.” Nixalba grumbled to Teresa as she was licking her sore tail. Of course the white tigress was always complaining whenever Teresa handled her roughly, but usually it amounted to nothing. Well there was the one time she appeared in the middle of the night and tried to take out Teresa’s kidneys with her claws. That was only once though and they both agreed on it that Teresa had it coming. Well mostly anyway. So there was a good chance that Nixalba’s muttering about eating her pancreas were idle threat. At least she hoped.

“Well color me pleasantly surprised Lyre, you handled that perfectly.” Teresa said with a grin as he watched over the smoldering remains that were once the Erklings. “The Erklings are an extremely dangerous sort of Goblin, if such a thing exist of course. The legends say that they can kill with a single attack or even touch. Now of course this is not exactly through. They don’t possess stronger claws or a harder skin than their goblin counter parts. In fact in many ways they are weaker.” Teresa said with a smile as she patted Lyre on the back as an encouragement. “So where did the rumors come from and why did I just call them extremely dangerous?” She asked the young boy as she calmly plucked her sword from the ground and sheathed it again.

Her arm was not completely healed yet, so she would not be able to swing the claymore properly anyway. It was the drawback of a weapon that weighed a hundred and thirty pounds. Lethal if it connected, but very difficult to swing one handed if not in top condition. “Hmm? Oh sure that is a good idea. Let’s go to the room.” Teresa said, following Lyre in the direction of the staircase and the room that lay beyond.

“In any case, the Erkling is so dangerous because it excretes an extremely toxic substance from it’s fingertips. In fact it is so potent that it will probably kill the victim unless the specific antidote is applied. Now the victim does not die quickly though. Usually it takes three to five days, depending on the size of the cut and the victim. However the poison seems to target nerves directly and most people are instantly incapacitated because of the pain.” Teresa continued the lecture as they approached the room. “Hence your approach was the only correct one. Kill them from a distance. Close combat is just too dangerous. So well done.” She finished happily as she continued to praise Lyre and slapped him once more heartily on his shoulder.

Luckily Lyre’s display also seemed to have scared of the smaller goblins. The combination of fire and overwhelming magical power drove them all back into their hidey holes.

Still not having a door was a pain and for a moment Teresa considered the option of killing all the goblins. However as she reached out to try to determine all of them, she quickly gave up. The path they had taken from the elevator to this place had been short. The mining area was huge and within a radius of two hundred meters she already lost count of how many of the little pests were left. If they wanted to clear it, they should bring a proper hunting group and definitely more then two people.

“Nah I think we did scare them of for now.” She said as the entered the room and she walked to the furthest wall to casually lean against. “Nixalba, could you please guard the door? Your presence should scare of the stragglers and I think they will need a bit of time to regroup.” She said with a confidence she did not actually possess.

Lyre’s attack and her use of shields had severely depleted the magic in the air and all she could sense nearby was soot. Further down she could still sense rich supplies of magic, but at the moment she was definitely not in tp condition. Otherwise she would simply have closed the door with a shield.

“Ok so what do you think? I think we have three logical options.” She said as she raised her closed right fist in the air. “One: we could press further down and see what this is all about. I am personally curious what is going on.” She said as she extended the first finger. “Two we go up a level and try to find out why we passed the seventh floor. That actually irks me slightly.” She continued, raising the second finger.

Then there was a slight pause as she was considering whether the third was really an option. “Ugh… well I guess the third would be to leave, head into the cold and visit that place the guy mentioned.” She said, definitely a tone or two softer as the others and instead of raising the third finger, she lowered her fist.

“Or do you have an idea? Other than those, I am fresh out.” She said friedly, genuinely interested in hearing Lyre’s thoughts on the matter.

WC: 846
TWC: 7,929 + 846 = 8,775
@Lyretich

Teresa just leaned against the wall as several drops of swear were forming on her forehead. It was hard to believe that just swinging her sword here was so tiring. Of course there had not been a lot of magic in the air to start with and she had been straining to draw it in fast enough. Then again she had summoned her own pets and the shield magic she recently reactivated, was still rough around the edges. Not to mention she had summoned Nixalba and Lyre had summoned the dragon and used magic as well. To be honest, right now she was longing to do battle in a nice big forest all alone.

Yet that was not the only thing. There was something in the air that was slowly… it was hard to describe. Perhaps poison the well came the closest. Although she could neither identify the well or the poison if asked. Looking back that analogy was not perfect, but she could not describe it any better. There was just this tiny sensation… an itch in the back of her brain. Something that ‘probably’ should not be there. However it was difficult not to

Alas things were not like that this time and if need be she could struggle on. Yet the idea of resting a bit did not sound too bad. “Yeah, thanks. That would do wonders for these old bones of mine.” She said grateful as she reached into her spatial bag and began pulling a few logs out of thin air. She quickly arranged the logs into a pyramid shape, doused them with some liquid from her flask and lid it with her lighter. “Ahhh that does feel a lot better, now doesn’t it.” She said as warmth and light instantly began to fill the room.

“You probably don’t have something to eat or drink with you.” She said in an attempt to joke as she sat down and placed her hand on her injured forearm again. It was merely a torn muscle and with enough magic easy enough to fix, yet it was taking frustratingly long at this rate. Heh… guess I am really out of practice…

“Hey Lyre, may I ask how you became a mage and a model? You seem to be overqualified for both.” She said with a very neutral smile, hoping to leave the young boy guessing whether she was sincere or making fun of him. “Oh look, I found biscuits!” She said delighted as she pulled both hands back out of the hole in the air and pulled out a metal box full of semi-old biscuits.

WC: 426
TWC: 9,341 + 426 = 9,767
@Lyretich