Path of Dragons - A LitRPG Apocalypse (BOOK TWO STUBBING AUGUST 15)

“This place is amazing,” Elijah said, leaning close to inspect the wall. Like the rest of the fortress, it was made of mostly featureless stone. However, it had the distinction of being run through with geometric patterns of white ice. “These look like snowflakes, right?”

“They look cold is what they look,” Kurik growled, rubbing his own arms with a thick blanket thrown over his shoulders.

“It’s not that bad,” Elijah responded, looking from one member of his party to the next. Dat had a blanket over his shoulders as well, and Sadie had donned a heavy and hooded cloak, the edges as well as the inside of which was lined with thick, white fur. Still, he could see that her lips had turned slightly blue. The same could be said for the other two, though aside from Kurik, they’d borne their obvious discomfort silently. “How cold do you think it is here?”

“I went to Siberia in the middle of Winter once,” said Sadie. “I was volunteering to help the natives – called Nenets – with addiction issues. Alcohol wasn’t introduced into their culture until fairly recently, so the theory is that they don’t have the generational defenses built up to combat addiction. Couple that with their way of life – which was built around a nomadic existence herding reindeer – having been snatched away from them, and they had serious issues. My partner at the time was a sociologist, so…anyway, this is a lot colder.”

“That’s a long way of sayin’ the obvious. It’s cold. Don’t need no fancy story to know that much,” Kurik said. “You humans get so obsessed with numbers and such. Cold’s cold. Hot’s hot. Don’t need no arbitrary numbers to tell you that.”

“Kurik,” Elijah groaned.

“Bro.”

“What?” the dwarf demanded. “It’s too damn cold to lollygag ‘round here. We got Mr. Distracted Druid over there inspectin’ the wall art, little Miss Shining Knight talkin’ about reindeer herders, and…and meanwhile, I’m sittin’ here freezin’ my damn beard off. I got a right to be a little annoyed.”

Elijah was about to respond, but then he thought better of it. Often, he forgot that, because of the Cloak of the Iron Bear, he didn’t have to worry too much about extreme temperatures. Certainly, its Temperate effect likely had a limit, but he’d yet to find it. But if the buff he got from it was any indication, the temperature in the lower reaches of the Ice Fortress were predictably severe. If it wasn’t at least twenty or thirty degrees below zero, he would have been incredibly surprised. The only reason the others hadn’t already succumbed to frost bite was because of a combination of three factors. First, even the least enduring among them – Dat – had the benefit of a superhuman Constitution, so they were all shielded, at least somewhat, from the biting cold. Second, there was Ward of the Seasons, which normally wouldn’t do much to protect someone from environmental factors.