Aestivus

5: Ciel de Neige

JEREMIEL

The rain stopped, and the first sliver of sunlight broke through the clouds. Now that their shift is over, they've got one more thing to do: bring Ed to the clan leader.

"what do you mean by its summer now? This place is freezing!" Ed gestured wildly at the half-frozen landscape around them. Rem shrugged, pausing to pick needles from an eastern white pine. "You get half a foot of snow on the average snowy day in winter." Sure, the base camp is situated halfway up a mountain, but the slopes halfway up the mountain are more habitable than the ones near the sea, so why not?

The squad for the morning shift stood on the steel bridge over a river of lava, which charred its surroundings and stood out from the half-frozen landscape. "New kid, huh? Good luck. I hope you survive your first week here." The other squad jeered as they walked past. Dunstan, the rune wielder from the other squad stared at Ed and seems concerned. "Remiel? A word," he said, pulling Rem aside. "You sure he's safe?" 

"My rune's been screaming at me to get him killed all night, but so far he's just a healer without a rune. Gonna wait and see." Rem glanced back at his squad on the other side of the bridge. "We still don't know why the runes are so flamed over this." Dunstan looked over as well. "Pray to the gods that it's a false alarm. And that he stays in control. You should report to Vladislav or something." "Gotcha. See you at noon?" "As usual."

*** EDWARD ***
After being soaking wet for more than 6 hours, the flowing lava dried Ed's clothes in minutes. It's no wonder how there are loads of clothes drying racks running along the bridge. "Who even thought it was a good idea to live on a volcano?" "No. No volcano. Hot rock." Ophelia blurted out, before poking Aneirin on the shoulder. "Help... tell him volcano rock?" Aneirin stopped in his tracks. "Ie? The river of fire?" Ophelia nodded so hard Ed feared her head was going to fall off. "Yes! Aneirin tell Ed hot rocks!" 

Aneirin massaged the bridge of his nose as if he was about to get a nosebleed, and yawned. "The lava doesn't go deep. It comes out of nowhere, and just vanishes when it reaches the end of the stream. Perhaps there are warps on both ends of it, but it's unsafe to dig near wraps and lava. Let's get going... I need sleep." Rem stepped off the bridge, grinning and shoving them forwards. "Why are you guys just waiting here? our beds ain't gonna come running for you!"

***
The base camp consists of houses built from coloured bricks, concrete-like stone coating reinforcing wooden walls and such, magical blobs of pure light floating above iron pillars with intricate designs on the top, regularly lining the neat stone tile paths between each house, fruit and flower bushes lining the sides of almost every house, windmills gently turning in the wind. 

Ed looked around the place, amazed. "how long did it take to make the city look like this?" Rem looked down and flicked his finger several times before answering. "Seven years for the plants and electricity supply. Over ten years for the aqueduct. We're still limited to using public bathrooms because the ducts are really hard to build. And... you definitely need new clothes for now. What's that suit made of? Leather?" 

"There was a war here 60 years ago and they built this city from the scraps of the old one. People fall in from all eras of history, bringing us technology from different eras." Rem told him, as they walked along several rows of coats, parkas, shirts and sweaters in different colours and simple patterns. "You gotta pack a small wardrobe of the clothes first."  Ed settled for a mix of grey and undyed clothes. "They'll be fine, I guess. How do you pay?" 

The lady at the wooden counter smiled. "Boy, you're new here? Welcome to Celdenege, the City in the Mountains! I'll give you a discount today. Have you heard of the stories of how ancient people used to have seashells as currency units? Here we do the same, except with iron cast from the same set of seashells and the coins they made, across the islands and used by everyone. It'll be eighty-nine. Show the boy what the shells look like!"

Remiel hesitated, and shells of various sizes materialized on the desk, including a piece shaped like a conch, as well as normal seashells, from palm-sized pieces to ones the size of a fingernail. "Sand dollars are the rarest. They cast those out of silver instead of iron." Rem muttered while packing the clothes into a bag.

"Why does everyone look like they're 20 or something? It's creepy." Ed pointed out. "It's magic." Rem answered, grinning. "nobody knows for sure how this world works, it just manages to function. Try guessing my age." Ed looked at him up and down. Without warning, a floating and glowing panel flashed into existence between them:

30285762- 0839 
[Jeremiel Desjardins]
Age: f̸̲͘o̴̳͆w̶̱͂ù̷̮-̵̧͗ỹ̸̹t̵̩͝r̴̠͋t̴̩̍o̴̰͊ 
Born: 23rd Dec, 2041 AD / Toronto, CANADA

Hypothermia: 25th Dec, 2041 AD
|⋮(Details)⋮| 

Offence Rune Embedded: Log 30284317- 1210 
Arm reconstruction: Log 30284317- 1211

Edward reached out for the panel, and it simply materialized and fell into his hands. "Rem... is this normal?" Remiel shook his head lightly. "Let's... talk about this later. Can you like, shove it in a pocket? There's some magic here that just lets you do that. We better talk to the leading council."  

Author's note
***: minor time skip
*** ***: change character perspective
*** *** ***: location changes, may have time and/or perspective changes