In typical fashion, Vin and his team soon found themselves standing immediately before the border separating fragments as they stared at what was to come. The tall grasses and occasional massive elderwood tree of Alka's fragment were immediately replaced with a white tundra stretching as far as the eye could see. Forpurt's fragment was filled with short, squat trees stretched thinly here and there, and snow.

A hell of a lot of snow.

"How is anyone supposed to even go anywhere through that?" Scule scoffed, staring down from Vin's shoulder at the impressive accumulation of snow. It seemed there was nearly two to three feet of snow piled up in the new fragment, which was more snow than Vin had ever seen in his entire life. As a vagabond back on Earth, he'd done his best to stay in the warmer part of the country whenever possible, as few things were more dangerous to a wanderer without a permanent shelter than low temperatures and sleeping out in the cold.

"I suppose this might explain why Forpurt was so strong," Vin ventured, trying to imagine how exhausting wandering around in multiple feet of snow would be anytime one wanted to do anything. "Maybe it's not as bad as it looks?"

"Only one way to find out," Lumel said, smiling excitedly as she stepped through the fragment barrier and attempted to walk through the heavy snowdrift. Immediately, she started to struggle, and her robes began billowing at the wind they hadn't realized existed from their current fragment.

"This… is harder than I thought it would be," she admitted after a few seconds, already breathing heavily after barely making it a dozen feet. "Guess I should have put more than a single point or two into strength!"

"There's no way we're going to be able to trek a few miles through this much snow," Vin said, taking a step into the new fragment just to feel the temperature and wind for himself. Sure enough, the drop in temperature was about as dramatic as he expected, and even with his remarkable endurance he shivered as the cold winds blew over him, gently whistling off in the distance.

Second ring fragment discovered! 1,000 exp gained.

"Smite me, that's cold!" Scule hissed, rubbing his arms before hopping down to join Reginald in Vin's pocket. Even with the coat Becca had made for him, it was clear the temperature of Forpurt's fragment was simply too much for anyone to handle tackling head on without some form of magical assistance. Hugging his small furnace of an animal companion, Scule let out a deep sigh. "Ahhh… Alright, that's a little better. Carry on."

"There's not going to be any carrying on just yet," Vin snorted, motioning for Lumel to stop trying to struggle forward and follow him back out of the fragment. "We need to use snowshoes. I don't see any way forward without them."

"'Snow shoes?'" Lumel repeated, sounding out the words and looking curious at the concept. "Are they shoes that let you kick through snow more easily?"

"Far from it. They'll let us walk on the dense snow layer," he said, taking off his pack and riffling through it. "They kinda disperse a person's weight, or something like that. I knew they existed, but I don't actually know how they work. Seems to be that way about a lot of things, huh?"

"Eh, nobody can know everything," Scule shrugged, peering out of his pocket alongside Reginald as Vin dug through his pack. "What'cha looking for?"

"These!" Vin grinned, yanking out two pairs of detachable snowshoes that were designed to secure to any footwear. "Seeing as we knew we were tackling Forpurt's fragment next, I kinda figured we'd run into this. Before we left, I swung by Alice and asked if she had recommendations for any crafters that might be able to make us some snowshoes. Turns out, she had one better for me. Project Ark had no idea what sort of terrain we'd be encountering here on Edregon, so they packed a large spread of equipment. Plenty of it was taken away by the Gods, like our SCUBA gear or anything too complex, but these remained."

"What's a 'scuba?'" Scule asked. "And hold up, I thought you told us your world didn't have magic?"

"We didn't have magic, it's all physics and technology. SCUBA is totally mundane gear used to breathe underwater," he said, smiling at Lumel as she perked up at the thought. "It's an acronym. It stands for… something, something, underwater breathing, something. Here, try attaching these to your shoes."

Lumel watched as he struggled to secure his own snowshoes to his enchanted boots. Thankfully, whoever designed them clearly knew their intended audience, as the design ended up being fairly foolproof. Once his were attached and secure, he helped Lumel get hers locked into place. The pulmon took a few hesitant steps, walking awkwardly with the large ovals attached to her feet.

"This is pretty weird," she admitted.

"Trust me, try it on the snow!"

With a shrug, Lumel vanished in a flash of purple, reappearing on the other side of the fragment border directly on top of the dense snow. Rather than fall straight through the snow, she blinked as her weight was spread out across the snowshoes, and she suddenly found herself standing nearly three feet above the rest of them.

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"This is great!" she laughed, taking a few tentative steps and grinning as she discovered she could walk atop the snow rather than trying to force her way through. "Well don't just stand there, come on!"

"Not all of us can teleport!" he shot back, struggling to climb up the dense wall of snow.

"Well whose fault is that?" she teased, thankfully walking over to help him up. "You already have the runic formation for Dimensional Shift locked away up there. You have to learn a tier 3 spell sooner or later!"

"I'll get to it," he grunted, finally making it atop the snow. "...some day."

"Yeah, Vin, get to it," Scule agreed, once again avoiding the frigid wind from within his front pocket. "I'd much prefer it if my steed was capable of teleporting!"

"You do realize we're talking about Dimensional Shift, right? Not Mass Dimensional Shift?" Vin asked, poking Scule through his pocket. "If I were to cast the spell, you and Reginald would suddenly find yourself falling through the air when I vanished out from under you."

"Huh… On second thought, it's a silly spell. Don't waste your time."

As Vin and Lumel trekked their way across the frigid landscape, and Scule and Reginald huddled together within his pocket, occasionally poking a head out to look around at the new fragment, Vin kept his eyes peeled for any sort of monster. Without Alka and Shia, they needed to be even more alert than usual. Lumel could always teleport them away from any unexpected dangers, but that was only if she reacted fast enough. If something came up at them from within the snow…

With that very thought in mind, Vin cast Tremorsense and kept the spell running as they made their way slowly but surely toward the center of the fragment. So long as he adjusted the spell to keep the range fairly close, it wasn't too costly to maintain when he wasn't getting much feedback back through it. He also had a truly obscene amount of mana within his core at this point with his high magic attribute and Mana Well passive on top of that, so he figured he might as well use it.

Surprisingly, for an arctic tundra that stretched miles in all directions, there was enough life present that they ran into a few critters in their hunt for Forpurt's village. They passed tiny dog-looking animals with elongated snouts that would rear up their heads before slamming them down into the snow, digging around for something with their long faces. Small, pudgy birds that didn't seem capable of flight but which used their wings to nimbly hop around the top of the snow layer, pecking here and there as they danced around. Even some sort of larger animal that reminded him of a hippo that erupted out of the distant snow at one point, crushing one of the birds within its jaws and spraying bright red blood all over the snow as it crunched down on its meal before sinking back into the snow.

Vin slightly expanded the range of his Tremorsense after witnessing that last one. It was a blatant reminder that just because something wasn't a monster, didn't mean it couldn't pose a threat. They gave that spot a wide berth as they walked, though Vin was still shocked at how quickly the wind and seemingly constant light snowfall covered up the red-stained snow. By the time they passed that area, there wasn't so much as a single indication a poor bird had been murdered.

"Serves those pudgy bastards right," Scule sniffed, glaring at a few other birds hopping around in the distance. "I'd shoot them myself if I didn't want to bring the horde down on our heads while we're out in the middle of nowhere."

"Scule, they're like a bunch of wild chickens," Vin said, raising an eyebrow as he watched the fat birds flap around. "I don't think a 'horde' of them could even peck through my own pants."

"Heed my words, Vin. Your lax attitude toward birds will be your eventual downfall," Scule warned, shaking his head before ducking back into the warmth of his pocket.

Warning heeded, Vin carried on, keeping up his spell and watching Lumel just as much as the new fragment they were trekking through. The sight of the excited pulmon taking in all the new creatures and terrain put a warm smile on his face, and he couldn't help but laugh anytime she paused to investigate something as simple as a large clump of snow that had accumulated. He'd never come across someone experiencing snow for the first time, and to suddenly drop them into a winter wonderland was fun to watch.

Realizing he had a golden opportunity here, Vin paused and scooped up some snow off the ground. The dense layer was perfect for packing, and within seconds, he had his weapon. Before Lumel could turn and see what he was doing, Vin launched his attack. He'd intended to hit her in the back of the head and startle her, but she must have caught his movement out of the corner of her eye, as she turned at the last second.

Vin winced as his snowball smacked her straight in the face, and he immediately began apologizing. "Sorry! You weren't supposed to turn around! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Lumel laughed, brushing the snow off her face and sputtering it from her lips. "Honestly, while it's definitely cold, it feels kinda good. Like water that I know will be on my skin for later. I'm assuming this is some sort of game?"

"Yeah, a snowball fight," he said sheepishly, still embarrassed about introducing his girlfriend to snow by hitting her in the face with some when she least expected it. "When it's good packing snow, you can build forts and lay siege to one another. I used to do stuff like that with the neighborhood kids when I was younger. Doesn't cost anything to play in the snow!"

"That sounds kinda fun!" Lumel said, crouching down to pack her own snowball. Standing back up, she held the icy projectile in one hand, giving him an uncertain look. "And I just… hit you with it?"

"Pretty much," he said, grinning at her hesitation. "Don't worry, it's just snow. Unless you packed a rock into it or something, it's not going to hurt."

"Alright," she said, steeling herself. "In that case…"

Lumel vanished with a flash of purple, and Vin blinked as Tremorsense informed him she was now standing behind him. Before he could move, he felt the familiar cold of a snowball smacking him in the back of the head, and he jumped as some of the snow fell into the back of his shirt.

Lumel laughed, walking up to him with a big smile on her face as he shivered and desperately tried to get the snow out of his shirt. "I think I see the appeal! We should bring the others to this fragment and try having a full on 'snowball fight' sometime."

"I think Alka might get a little too into it," he said, imagining the Slayer roaring as she used her warpick to break down any pitiful fort they tried to create. "Though it's worth-"

A bloodcurdling scream rang out in the distance, cutting him off mid-sentence. Vin had no idea who it came from or what was happening, but one thing was certain.

Someone was in trouble.

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