Shovels In Spades

The main entrance to the palace of ice opened on its own as if inviting them in. "That's not suspicious at all," Daz muttered.

"Little, suspicious," Madison countered.

Daz chucked a bit. "I was being sarcastic."

"From, you? Unexpected," Madison replied. "From, Rose, guaranteed."

"Rose is sarcasm goals for an emotional void like myself," Daz added as he led the group through the massive gates of the palace's entrance.

A large hallway greeted them that was decorated with hundreds upon hundreds of paintings as well as incredibly realistic ice sculptures.

The paintings seemed to be portraits of some sort and depicted the same family judging by the eye and hair colour - a distinct and pure snow-white.

"Are these... people?" Ellie asked as she approached one of the statues.

Thankfully, Mr Barrier was changing the shape of his barrier to extend to her despite the fact that she'd wandered off.

Daz, Madison and the twins followed her to inspect the statue.

"There's no magic inside of it but those robes..." Daz frowned deeply.

"Truthian, priest," Madison said with fury in her eyes. "Unmistakable."

Ellie raised her hand, and the largest of her robots moved - the Makrov Tank Issue Mark V Automaton. It raised one of its arms as it floated midair since it had no legs and then ruthlessly smashed the robotic limb into the frozen man.

"Dust is all they deserve for what they did," Ellie spat out as she cursed the ice shards then began stomping on them with her feet.

The twins flinched at the brutality but they didn't look away. Neither did Daz nor Madison.

"Evil," Madison softly said in that monotone voice of hers.

"So someone here has the power to turn people into ice and it actually works on those power cancelling bastards. I doubt that was just a lifelike sculpture of one of the priests of the Church of Truth," Daz noted.

"They deserve a fucking medal," Ellie stated. "A Star of Eternity you think or just Embers?"

Daz shrugged in uncertainty. "No clue. Could be something else entirely. Only one real way to find out," he said as he gestured to the ornate door that was at the end of the hall and at the top of a flight of stairs.

All other doors in the hallways had been sealed by a thick sheet of ice so it was clear where the palace's owner wanted them to go.

Ellie furrowed her brow. "We're checking all of the statues here and I'm smashing every single fucking one in a set of those robes."

"I have no issues with that. I'll take the others with me. They deserve a proper burial if nothing else. Being displayed like this is perverse and unjust to them." He approached an ice statue of a woman before putting her in his Industrial Item Box.

He then tried the same with a child who was no older than six or seven. "Thankfully, they count as one item to the skill. I won't have an issue getting them all. I wish to send them all off as well even if their souls are missing."

Daz looked straight at Ellie and the crushed ice beneath her soles. "The Truthians too. We're all children of Earth at the end of the day."

She grunted in response. "Do whatever you want, Your Majesty."

A good hour, 23 destroyed statues, and over 400 stored frozen corpses later, the group was finally ready to go through the door at the end of the hallway and meet whoever was guiding them there.

Again, the door slowly swung open to welcome them all on its own just like the building's entrance. A low sound of slow classical music leaked out from within the room and unlike the somewhat dim and pure icy hallway from before, life and vibrancy covered the room just ahead of them.

It was still made entirely out of different blue and purple ices but there was a lot more wooden furniture in the room.

Cautiously entering, Daz saw hundreds of The Owned acting as... waiters. This was most definitely a throne room as proven by the large seat of ice at the back of the hall with a calm and collected man sat upon it.

There were no doubts about the majesty of the chamber but it seemed to have been turned into a feasting hall and many humans could be seen laughing, singing or dancing together.

All of that gradually came to stop though as every set of eyes turned to stare at Daz and his group.

Only the sound of the slow and relaxing music filled his ears. The sudden silence of easily 500 or more people was deafening. Daz took a moment in this surreal situation to study the man sat upon the distant throne.

The throne itself was made of ice and very angular, not much unlike his own throne's shape. The magic flowing from the seat and the man within it though nearly blinded Daz.

The throned man was in his early thirties judging by his complexion and his skin was paler than even Rose's and she was damn near allergic to the sun.

He had shoulder-length frost-white hair and matching eyebrows. The man was wearing a set of full-plate armour but it seemed to be formed out of magical ice of some sort.

It practically glowed in Daz's eyes thanks to his Mana Sensitivity, not helping with his vision issues at all.

'It's hard to see but he's very handsome. Like, unnaturally so. He almost doesn't look human... Well, it's likely he's evolved but was he even human in the first place? I have a feeling he wasn't... I have some ideas but nothing is set in stone,' Daz thought.

If he was the personification of logical coldness then the man before him was the personification of indifferent and frigid coldness.

"Welcome, guests," the man said in a clear and sharp voice that had no accent tied to it that Daz could rightly place. "Apologies for the cold reception but it's a bit of a tradition around here. Would you care to introduce yourselves?"