So heavy it hurt her poor back.
She groaned up the trail,
Like a ship with no sail,
Wishing she'd packed just a snack!
- Goldie Honorhide
What I didn’t expect was to be treated like a mule in my bear form. We had more gear than we had packs. These Dwarves cart a lot of stuff around, or more accurately, I am carting a lot of stuff for them.
Yoboc had the smallest pack, as he claimed he had to scout ahead and hunt for food. Goldie had a pack that towered over her head. I had everything else in saddle bags made from the tenting material. Felix carried nothing, and he was the one who was experienced in pulling loads. I am going to make him a harness and sled as soon as I can. I had a feeling he was laughing at us, or more specifically, at me.
We were walking south. Because the thaw had not yet started, we could walk across the ice between what would be Islands in the summer. The ice creaked a bit, especially with my weight. Because I am loaded down with gear, of course.
My Clearsight could see through clearer sections of ice, so I got an idea of how thick it was. I didn’t mind swimming, but Yoboc and Goldie did, and there was all this gear to consider.
It has been a week of fairly simple travelling. Instead of following the coastline like I had, we were heading south as fast as possible to make the best use of the frozen ice. We were trying to get to the mainland. This will probably not happen without having to swim, but Yoboc was hopeful. Dwarves can’t swim. They just sink. They have heavy bones or something.
Yoboc had his map and had been to the fishing village we were headed to so he could keep us going in the right direction. Some idiot named it the World’s End, and it seems to have stuck. It is in a bay, and ships often stop, and can shelter from storms. The town has a winter population of a couple of hundred or so dwarves, humans, and Merpeople. With the summer shipping, this often triples. Hunters come to sell their pelts and whatever else they have found to the trade ships that pass through. Fishing is the main food source.
Apparently, the World’s End is in the “northern wilds,” and technically, neither part of the kingdom nor the empire, although ships from both pass through.
The trouble was that World’s End was a long way southwest, and Yoboc had travelled by ship, so he had no idea about this area we were trudging through. He did know there was a 5-6km channel we had to cross, and it would not be iced over. Crossing several kilometres of icy open water bothered them both.
That was the future. I was not worried, and we would find some way to get them across. I could swim it, and Felix probably could as well. Felix would probably hang on to me if he needed to rest.
Some of the islands we have crossed are large, and we tried to camp on them rather than on the open ice. These dwarves are not that good at surviving here. I carried their excessive gear. I had to dig the snow caves. I did the majority of the fishing for food. My Clearsight was great at seeing through the ice and water and spotting the fish. My claws were better than their fishing lines.
At least Yoboc brought us some fresh non-fish meat occasionally. I think Goldie's main function was complaining through limericks. I will admit she was the best cook out of all of us. She also chops wood the fastest.
And that is another thing: they wanted a fire most nights to keep warm and cook food. That took time and effort. Just dig a cave and sleep, you idiots. Apparently, that was not the dwarven way. They needed to talk for some reason, and the fire made them feel better somehow.
I was tempted to leave them, but I would need them when we got to this Worlds End. Yoboc had thoughts about getting passage on an independent trading vessel back to the kingdom. I was happy to walk. I would need them when we got to a larger town, though. They knew how to get access to information, and that was the whole point of me going with them.
My size and weight are going to be a problem when I get to civilisation, and that is where we are heading. I also have all this fur. I can play around with my Transform skill and remove most of my fur, but it makes me feel very exposed and vulnerable. It is also very cold here without fur.
I don’t want to look human, but I don’t want to stand out either. I will stand out because of my height and weight, but white fur is more obvious. I tested this one evening and removed all my fur except my hair, trying to look human.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
My skin was actually very dark in colour, which made my white hair stand out. Yoboc said it was dark in order to absorb heat, but I didn’t know much about that. What I did know was that I could see all my muscles, and I needed more fat. It was so cold. No wonder humans and dwarves wore clothes.
I much preferred my bear form and, as a second option, my humanoid form, which has fur, claws, and teeth. Humans, like dwarves, don’t have claws or sharp teeth. No wonder they are so reliant on weapons and knives.
“Could I pretend to be an orc instead?” I asked. Orcs are closer to my height and at least have muscles and teeth.
“Orcs have green skin and tusks. You won’t pass as an orc, and the orc clans are very protective of themselves. Besides, you don’t speak orcish,” Yoboc said. “If you meet another orc, they will take offence, and orcs are common in the kingdom. It won’t work. Elves are too skinny, so abnormal human is your best choice.”
“And dwarves are too short,” I added the jab.
Yoboc huffed, “The main thing is not to look like a Polar bearkin,” he said.
I was not convinced but had to rely on their experience for now. I would need clothes to hide my hairless body. Humans only weigh about 100kg up to maybe 150kg at most, and I weigh over 500kg. And I was 2.6m tall to their 1.5m - 1.9m. Dark skin and white hair. I didn’t think it would work at all.
I could go bald like Yoboc said some humans do, but I liked my fur. Goldie suggested I dye my hair. However, that was a problem for later. For now, I was in my bear form and plodding south with Goldie and Felix. Yoboc was scouting ahead.
We were currently crossing a large section of ice and some of it was not that thick. Up ahead was a hill with scattered trees. I assume it was an island, but I don’t know.
I have been playing with my Cosmic Aura for the last week. It is now level 4 with a radius of 9.6m, as my Spiritual Strength is 26. That means I can make it go 18m in one direction. My constant use of Spiritual Sensing has pushed that up a level as well, and the best thing is that Yoboc and Goldie can’t detect it. I have not told them about it, but I have asked them to use all their senses while testing things with my affinity.
The ice cracked beneath my paws. I stopped. I was not a lightweight. I focused on my aura and sent it below the ice. I was following Yoboc’s original suggestion and focusing on the cold part of the Astral Affinity. I was close. Identify was telling me I was very close to unlocking a skill, and I didn’t need any more attributes for it.
I focused my Spiritual Strength and Agility inside the aura. I was focusing on the cold I felt when I got the astral affinity. I concentrated and pushed. I didn’t push it into the ice—I learned that lesson—but into my aura, which went through the ice and into the water below.
Cold. Cold slows everything down. The vastness of space is cold and hot, depending on where you are, but the heat comes from the sun, and everything else is cold. I know when the sun goes down for the long Night, the temperature drops, and the freeze starts. That's all I know at this point, but the Astral is more cold than hot. I can channel that cold, the cold of the void, and I can flood my Cosmic Aura with this cold. That is what I do, and the ice strengthens, and the water under the ice freezes, thickening the ice.
I have focused my aura, so Goldie is not included. Felix sniffs at the edge of my aura. He can feel what I am doing more and more as the bond between us strengthens. He can’t do what I am doing, at least not yet, but he can sense what I am doing. Felix strengthens our bond and pushes his astral energy through to me as he feels I need it. I didn’t know the bond could do that. I think Felix has a better innate understanding of our bond than I do. The bond clicks over to the apprentice level.
I feel a skill snap into place. Finally!
Frigid Void is an Astral Skill, and it drops the temperature based on my Spiritual Strength and Skill level. Obviously, it is easy to use here in the icy north. A warmer climate would affect the rate at which the temperature would drop. I will have to experiment with living things as their body heat will slow it down as well.
Once I had stabilised the ice, I started to play with the skill.
“What was that?” Goldie asked.
She felt that, huh? “I was playing with Yoboc’s idea of the cold of space and made a skill to stabilise the ice.”
“Just like that? You made a skill?”
“Well, I have been working on it for the last week.”
“A week?” She sounded disbelieving. I shouldn’t tell her about Cosmic Aura, then. “What does it do?”
“It freezes things,” I said. She rolled her eyes but didn’t ask any more questions.
I found the Frigid Void hard to control. It was much easier to let it fill the Cosmic Aura and use that to control it. The smaller and more focused I made it, the quicker it froze something. Using Frigid Void outside the aura was possible, but the spiritual cost spiked. I think the cost of the skill was so high, both in and outside the aura, because it was so powerful.
It would need more testing, but I saw a fish under the ice. I extended and shaped the aura around it. I had frozen it and encased it in ice before it could escape. The water was barely above freezing already, but that seemed powerful.
Using it in the aura was cheaper, but not so cheap that I could keep it on all the time, like Spiritual Sensing. With the skill level, It would become cheaper to use and easier to regulate the power. Now, I basically had it on full or off, and there was no middle ground. That would change at the apprentice level and be even more flexible at Journeyman.
Patreon is 15 chapters ahead if you want to support the story. You don't need to support the story, as it will be free here.