"This is not what I expected," Master Lanton yelled over the tormenting storm of wind and snow. He and Mask stood outside the city walls in what would have been the meadows. Beneath them was quite possibly a dozen metres of snow.
"What do you think the city needs most now?" Mask asked over the blizzard.
"Hope?"
"Ha, I didn't think you would answer with something so corny," Mask smirked.
"Oh shove it," the Guild Master replied. "I'm right though."
"Yes, and hope can stem from a good meal. What we need is a reason for them to end the blizzard."
"You're not thinking of hunting them down? If you're right and they are prodding Hormunjur, it would be at least a two week journey to the ice caps."
"Oh not at all. We just need to show them that even with a blizzard the city's heart will not break." And, Mask thought to himself, to stop the dungeon evolving.
"You intend to supply the city with food?" the Guild Master frowned. "We're sealed from the rest of the world here. If you plan to hunt in the forests you would need to kill hundreds of beasts to even feed the city for a week."
Mask held up the package he had been holding for a while now. A distinct pungent odour emanated from it, powerful enough to fill the air despite the whirling winds around them. A tremor began to feed into their feet. The snow was shaking.
"A hundred beasts or just one very large one?" he threw the package ahead of them, seconds later a monstrous figure exploded from the snow. Two metres in diameter, its mouth opened like a flower revealing spiralling sets of teeth. It rose to the height of two combined men, most of its body still beneath the snow.
The Guild Master let his mouth fall open, "You baited a fucking Ice Wurm!?" He turned to Mask only to see that his figure had already vanished.
The man's voice however resounded clearly, "I would prepare to fight if I were you."
Lanton swore and drew his sword. With the package eaten, the wurm turned its attention to the only living creature nearby. It reared its large body, pulling more of itself from the ground and towered a dozen metres. White flesh like scales ran down its entire outside and beneath powerful muscles designed to burrow through the icy caps of the artic tensed ready to pounce. A moment later it did. The mouth extended open like a flower in spring, the centre however a nightmare of bloody flesh and jagged bone.
The Guild Master jumped to the side avoiding the wurm. He swung his blade filled with aura and splashed red against the snow, a slim line struck against the white of the wurm. It shrieked and span its body. The hidden tail beneath the snow whipped out catching the Guild Master by surprise and sent him tumbling into the depths of the powder around him.
A voice echoed as if next to him, "You should get out of the snow. Ice Wurms are at their most dangerous when burrowing."
"I know!" Lanton growled and expelled his aura it from his feet launching him back to the open air. Not a moment later, the wurm burst from the ground where he had been. "Are you going to help or what?"
"Consider it training," Mask replied still nowhere to be seen. "Ice Wurms are lower tier Master level threats. I'd be hard pressed to kill one myself."
"And you expect me to?" the Guild Master complained as he yet again played bull with the wurm.
"Of course," Mask was serious. "I heard stories of how you could slice through wurms in a single motion."
YOU ARE READING
Raising Wonders
FantasyThis is the tale of a young girl and a masked man. A young girl unware of the world. A masked man who has seen too much of it. Their paths are brought together by chance, but from it an adventure, simple and pure, will be born. Together in the small...
