Coldsnap: Storm's Call

Chapter 5: Roughwater Rescue

We last read Chapter 4, in which Coldsnap and Keena have a picnic together aboard Coldsnap's airship construct as a way of celebrating their two-year anniversary as lovers. What initially turns out as a happy afternoon soon turns to an unspeakable tragedy after Typhoon—the right-hand woman of Storm Sect Leader Commander Windsor Galeforce—launches an unprecedented attack on the Grand Terminus with a massive storm, intent on claiming many lives and paving the way for the Storm Sect's conquest of the Realms. The storm extinguishes Firebird's fire spirits once again, and causes Coldsnap's airship to crash-land with her and Keena still on it. This time, we rejoin Coldsnap and Keena, see if they're okay, and watch as they quickly leap into action to save those around them.....

***********************************************************************************************

Coldsnap quickly came to, but turned her head to her right to see Keena lying still and face-down just a few steps from the splintered ship husk. Panicked, she desperately hurried over to her girlfriend and attempted to rouse her.

"Hey! Wake up! Wake up!" she called, shaking Keena lightly. "Come on.....we have to go!"

Keena jolted awake and took a few seconds to gather herself, then looked at Coldsnap and nodded. "Right! You start rescuing people; I'll take care of all the water and join you after!"

Coldsnap then rushed off, leaving Keena to sheathe her staff on her back and begin channeling a spell to redirect all of the water around her into harmless, stationary, vertical waterspouts scattered throughout the square, ceasing the floods in the surrounding area and revealing the bodies of the mages that had drowned beneath the storm's might.

Though Keena's heart broke for the victims, she knew that now wasn't the time to get stuck on that; she needed to help Coldsnap prevent others from meeting the same fate. She kept moving through the Grand Terminus, removing the flooded streams and continuing to create waterspouts out of them the whole way through, while also keeping her eyes peeled for any potential survivors.

***********************************************************************************************

Coldsnap used her immense power to project a large ice dome over the entirety of the capital; the dome then began softly emitting clouds of icy mist outwards, freezing all of the incoming raindrops and turning them into small ice crystals that simply accumulated on the other side of the dome, away from everyone inside the Terminus. The barrier also protected against any further lightning strikes, though it did nothing to block out the sound of the thunder.

Once she had made sure she had successfully warded off the storm, she also began looking for any Mage Aspects who could still be alive.

Rushing through a square containing an ornate stone fountain in the center, she eventually noticed a very young fire mage, water mage, and earth mage all cowering in an alcove in fear, obviously terrified by all of the death and destruction that had befallen everyone so suddenly. Their faces began to light up once they saw Coldsnap, but she instructed them to remain quiet as she approached them.

"Shhhh!" she whispered. "Don't worry; Keena and I will stop this. Just get indoors now. You can thank me later."

"Thank you, Coldsnap! You really are our hero!" the fire mage chirped as they ushered themselves and their two friends to the nearest hut.

".....Or you can thank me now. That works, too."

Coldsnap made sure they were safe, then turned back around to where she had first spotted them. Much to her heartbreak, there was still one more Mage Aspect there. Though they were an ice mage, like herself, they were solemnly sitting on the soaked city ground doing nothing but staring forlornly at a pile of blackened ashes that was only a few inches away from them.