As Ashton walked through the store, he came across some frozen corpses of lizardmen. Some of them had been killed by him, others simply froze to death. The entire store was turned into a freezer. The effects of the mana well collapsing really made the frost spell cascade outward. And the frost enchantments that were also linked up to the mana of the well went into overdrive, and that probably didn't help.

  Either way, Ashton should come back with the folk from Calibur and have them help him take out all the magic stones. A few hundred stones would really come in useful.

  If he had a normal contract with the Spawn of Akrazoth, maybe he could ask the demon to collect all the stones, but he had no idea what they would ask for. He really had to hurry and find something that he could use to redefine the contract.

  Once Ashton got outside, somewhat guided by Poppy as she pulled on his hairs, he felt something surprising. There was a crunch under his feet.

  Confused, Ashton squatted down and felt it.

  "Is this... snow?" Ashton asked. He turned his head up and quickly felt a snowflake land on his cheek. With a laugh, he stood back up and pulled up his cloak's hood to cover up Poppy. Flower pixies didn't do well with the cold. She had been shivering this entire time, but was acting tough. Ashton just wanted to make sure she wouldn't be snowed on, on top of this all.

  "If it's too tight in there, just tell me," he said, and slowly walked through the car park to get to the road. The magic stones of the lizardmen that had died to the frost out here were glistening at him like stars. But again, for now, he had to move on. By now, surely, the guys from Calibur would have gotten to the escapees.

  Ashton had sent a comment under one of Sam's posts and asked him to send some people. Well, Sam himself probably joined, since Ashton mentioned Clementine. It was unlikely that they were just leaving. If anything, they would be checking up on everyone, fighting off monsters, treating some of the injuries that Ashton passed on earlier, and letting everyone calm down a bit before moving on.

  Considering that more than half of the time for the second quest had passed already, they'd also be trying to figure out how to help them get classes. Either way, the point was, that they wouldn't have come to this place yet.

  As Ashton walked down the road, he noticed the convulsed corpses of some lizardmen laying on the asphalt.

  "This must be where Clementine threw the chest... looks like it worked pretty well," Ashton whispered with some relief, stepping over the corpses. But what he noticed even more was that, even here, a good distance away, he was still walking on snow.

  Though as he continued, the snow started being mixed in with rain. The snow on the ground was turning into sludge and melting. But now that this was the case and there was rain, Ashton called the undine back, channelling both the water and magic elementals at the same time.

  He saw the outline of the world as seen through the rain, overlapping that shifting, turbulent view of the mana flowing through the road ahead of him. It wasn't perfect, but at least they were filling in each other's gaps. The undine began happily swimming around Ashton's air, enjoying the rain.

  And then, Ashton saw something in front of him. Something was moving. They were running. There wasn't a magic stone in their chest, so it wasn't a monster. Just in case, though, Ashton prepared himself for a fight. They were carrying an umbrella, so Ashton couldn't see them well through the rain, and the perception of mana wasn't precise enough to see any details.

  However, as the person came closer and closer, they spoke.

  "Ash! Are you okay?"

  It was Clementine. She held the umbrella over his head and looked him up and down, but because of the cloak, couldn't see him properly.

  "I'm fine, don't worry. But why are you here?" He asked, a bit nervous about what was going on. He tried to look past her, though of course, his entire dome of vision was only contained within his channelling range, so he couldn't see everyone. Though, before long, someone else stepped into his range. Ashton recognised him immediately from his build. It was Sam.

  A few of the other combatants from Calibur were there, too.

  "Sam said he wanted to come and help you, so I was going to guide them to you," Clementine explained. "But I'm happy you got out of there. It's–"

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  She stopped speaking. It looked like she finally looked past Ashton, and saw the terrain that he had just left behind.

  Sam laughed awkwardly, in disbelief. "Holy fucking shit, Ash. What happened back there?"

  "Hm? Oh, nothing much. I was fighting a draconid, I'll explain what that is later, and it was too strong so I had to collapse the mana well inside the store. But since I had linked a frost spell up to the well beforehand, it all just kind of exploded outward, and yeah. I guess it started snowing a little bit."

  Sam patted Ashton's shoulder. "Well, shit, alright. Should we go take out the rest of the lizardmen now, or later?"

  "Oh, there's none left. I already killed all of the lizardmen inside the store before fighting the draconid, and the ones around it died from the frost," he explained, though he remembered something else. "Ah, it might be a good idea for some good fighters to stick around, though. Right when I came, a group of lizardmen was heading out, probably to collect a new batch of sacrifices. They should be returning any time now."

  "Got it. I'll ask a couple people to stay, then."

  "Coolio. Make sure they're skilled, though, and that we have enough people to help protect the ones we already rescued," Ashton said. "Oh, and have someone that knows about butchering meat join them. They have a ground dragon, not a real dragon don't worry, and they taste really damn good."

  "Alright. How much usable stuff is left in the store? Do you think we have enough people to salvage a fair amount?" Sam asked and pointed behind himself. Ashton could barely see two or three people standing within his range, so he just shrugged.

  "If not, we can just come back, or leave it to other survivors to scavenge," he suggested. Sam stayed silent for a moment. From the look of it, him and Clementine looked at each other, and Sam reached out to the piece of fabric covering his eyes.

  "What's with this mask, by the way?"

  Ashton pushed Sam's hand away and shrugged. He wasn't sure how many people were here, and he didn't want everyone to know that he was blind now. "Oh, nothing. I drank a potion, and as a side-effect, it made me super-sensitive to light. Since I don't want to burn out my retinas, I put on this mask."

  From the sound of it, that was a reasonable explanation for at least the others from Calibur, though both Sam and Clementine stayed silent. Ashton cleared his throat and smiled, whispering to his friends. "I'll explain what happened later. For now, just play along."

  Ashton could practically feel the expression the two had on their faces now, even if he couldn't see it. But for now, that wasn't important. "But yeah, I'm seeing through the wisp and undine right now, so I can only see around... I'd say twenty, twenty-two metres away from me right now."

  "Ah... Okay, alright. Uhm, yeah, so you can't see how many people we have? We're around fifteen total, ten are here right now, including Clem. Your new friends, you know, Jacky, Oliver and the rest, are trying to help secure a safe route right now so that we can bring people to Calibur," Sam explained hesitantly. He clearly didn't know what to do. He knew that there was more than what Ashton was revealing, but he couldn't even guess what it was. Or maybe he could, but refused to believe it.

  "Is there enough space at Calibur?" Ashton asked.

  "Should be. We've collected some things from surrounding buildings and set up proper places for people to sleep in the offices. It's going to be a bit of a trek to get back, though. We managed to get here without too much fighting, but I don't know if that's an option with so many people. That's why the others are trying to take down the biggest threats for now."

  Ashton was quiet for a moment, trying to think. "Worst case, we can bring everyone to the police station, it's a lot closer than Calibur."

  "Wait, the police station? Why there?" Clementine asked, confused.

  Sam quickly filled her in. "There's a couple of bigger camps in the city, and one of them's at the police station. So we could make sure everyone's just safe there for now."

  "Is it safer than Calibur?"

  Sam looked at Ashton, trying to figure out what he was thinking. But Ashton just shrugged. "No clue, haven't been there yet. If the others are trying to secure a path, then let's just give that a go. Head toward Calibur, and if things get rough along the way, we can still decide to pivot toward the police station."

  Sam

  "Sure, let's do that. Let's get you to where the others are and get ready to move."

  "Awesome. Oh, and can you find me a new staff?" Ashton asked, starting to move toward the store he told Clementine to head to earlier.

  "Don't you have one already?"

  Ashton turned around toward Clementine, shaking his head. "This one is a magic staff. The kind I need is one that I can use to bash some heads in. Anything works for now. A broomstick, any metal pole... the heavier, the better."

  "Hold on, you're going to try and fight like this?" Sam quickly jogged in front of him. "You just said you can't see properly."

  "So? What's your point?" Ashton side-stepped his friend, but Sam quickly grabbed his shoulder.

  "My point is that you can't fight when you can't see."

  Ashton let out a long sigh. He grabbed Sam's hand and twisted it around. The moment Sam shifted slightly to try and pull out of the strong grip, Ashton pulled his leg over and under Sam's foot, sweeping it away.

  Sam tripped and tried to catch himself, but the half-sludgy, wet ground was too slippery for that. Especially since Ashton was still holding onto Sam's hand and quickly pushed against it to destroy his balance even more.

  As soon as Sam was laying on his back, Ashton pushed the tip of his staff onto his chest.

  "Now imagine me with a real weapon," Ashton smiled, pulling the staff away again before helping Sam up.

  With a groan, he patted his back down, getting help from Clementine. "I feel like you could've made that point without doing that, but fair enough. How long is this 'potion' going to last anyway?"

  "Hm... let's just say I definitely won't be able to watch the sunset today." Ashton continued walking with a slight smirk on his face. "Oh, and I'll need you to help me read something later. I found something in the store earlier that I need to check out."