Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe took a last look over her new skills and stats to make sure everything looked good and then headed downstairs. She’d heard Joe make his way down to the kitchen a few minutes earlier and she poked her head in. The fellow who she’d seen Joe talking to the previous day was out in the dining area cleaning the tables and organizing the glasses.

“Good morning, Joe!" She called to Joe from the kitchen door.

“Good morning, Zoe. You’re heading out today, right?" Joe asked her.

Zoe nodded her head. “Yeah. I’m gonna try to make it to Gafoda by the end of the week. It’s weird though.” She sighed.

“What’s up?” Joe asked her.

“I just feel strange about it, I guess. I’ve been here for so long. And now I’m leaving. And I’ll be all alone again, in a place where I don’t know anybody, again. And I can come back whenever I want, I know. But I wanna stay there, y’know?” Zoe rambled.

“Feeling lonely?" Joe flipped an egg over in one of the pans he had on the stove.

“I guess so. Where I come from even if I went to the other side of the planet, I’d still be able to just call you up and say hi. But here, if I’m a week away then I’m a week away. I’ve never had to say goodbyes like this before. And I thought I’d be okay, I was excited. And I knew it would be scary and weird but I’m here saying goodbye and it really sucks.” Her mouth quivered as she took a deep breath.

“Hey it’ll be alright. You can always stick around here longer if you want too, y’know?” Joe said.

“I know. I know I can. But I want to go explore. I wanna see what the world has to offer. I wanna see what a dungeon is. What a mana anomaly really means. It’s so exciting. I just hate having to say goodbye, y’know?” Zoe sighed.

“I know. I have to say a lot of goodbyes as an innkeeper. People come and chat, share their life stories and then they just disappear. It’s hard, sometimes. But I’ll still be here when you come back. Emma will still be in her tower with Oliver. You can always send letters, too. I’m sure Gafoda has some kind of postal service, though it might be a bit expensive.” Joe laughed.

Zoe smiled. “I guess so. Maybe I’ll get wings and can fly back really quick too. That’d be nice. Just a day trip to Moaning Point.”

Joe laughed. “Well, good luck with that. You gonna be alright, Zoe?”

“I think so. I am excited. Really, I am. It’s just really setting in now that I’m not gonna see you for at least a few weeks. Maybe months. I don’t know how you do it so often.” Zoe answered.

“I’ll miss you too, Zoe. Having a little weirdo around pestering me with questions has been a big part of my life since you showed up.” Joe smiled.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “Yeah yeah. I’ll see you around Joe. I might send a letter sometime if it’s affordable.”

“See you, Zoe. Stay safe out there, don’t push yourself too hard. A nice, safe pace is best. You’ve got all the time you could ever want to get to the end.” Joe said.

Zoe nodded. “I will. Thanks Joe.”

And with that, for the last time in the foreseeable future, Zoe left Joe’s inn. The sun was still just cresting on the horizon and she wanted to say goodbye to Emma as well.

On her walk over, she swapped out Acceleration for Alacrity. She had thought about it a bit more, and if her main goal was to get to Gafoda as quick as possible then even more speed was definitely going to be helpful. She thought about even swapping out one of her first class skills for Haste so she could stack as much speed as possible but decided against it.

There just weren’t any good skills in her first class to sacrifice. The affinities were both far too useful to not continue stacking levels on, Restoration was a must have for obvious reasons. And she planned to use Frozen Arsenal on most of her run over to level it up as much as she could in preparation for the climb.

That only left Alacrity, but swapping that out for Haste didn’t make much sense to her since they did the same thing anyway.

Zoe arrived at Emma’s tower and didn’t have to knock on the door. Emma threw it open as she approached and hugged Zoe.

“I’ll miss you!” She whined in Zoe’s ear.

Zoe smiled. “I’ll miss you too.”

“Promise you’ll stay safe?” Emma begged.

“I promise I’ll stay safe. There’s a town there with a bunch of people. It’s not as great as Flester but it’s more than nothing. I’m not going to push myself harder than I can handle.” Zoe said.

“I’m not worried about the dungeon, I’m worried about you getting there. You sure you don’t wanna wait and join a caravan?" Emma asked.

Zoe shrugged. “From what I researched it seems like the bandit attacks are very rare to begin with, and even when they happen it’s never on solo travellers. And animals avoid the road because of how well travelled it is. I think going alone is really the safest option for me.”

“If you’re sure then okay. I just worry.” Emma said.

“I know. Thanks.” Zoe hugged her back.

“Come in and say bye to Oliver too. He’ll miss you too.” Emma walked back into her tower.

Zoe followed in and Oliver came down from the stairs where he was watching and flopped down in front of her feet. She bent down and gave him a belly rub.

“See ya little friend. Keep Emma safe, alright?" She asked Oliver.

He meowed.

“See!” Emma cried out. "He’ll miss you too.“

Zoe smiled. “I’ll miss you too guy.”

“So?” Emma sat down in one of her chairs.

“So what?” Zoe sat down in one of the others.

“I see your level. What’d you end up getting?” Emma asked.

Zoe shared her new class details with Emma.

“That seems like a lotta fun. You should totally keep Mana Manipulation though.” Emma suggested.

“You think so?” Zoe asked.

“Mhm. Way better than Acceleration or another Alacrity, in my opinion.” Emma said.

“What’s it do though?" Zoe asked.

“I dunno. It’s a manipulation though. You’ll have a lot more fun with it than with making enchantments break down faster.” Emma said.

Zoe laughed. "That’s a fair point, I guess. I thought I might be able to make enchantments do things faster which might be cool. But to be honest I don’t even know what enchantments would even do if I sped them up. Still probably gonna keep the second Alacrity just for the run there at least, though.“

She switched out Alacrity for Mana Manipulation like Emma suggested and then started pushing all of the mana she could towards Emma.

Emma tilted her head a bit. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just pushing all the mana towards you. Why? Can you feel it?” Zoe asked.

Emma nodded her head. “Yeah it feels like a blanket kinda? That’s so weird.”

“Do you still not have meditation?” Zoe asked.

“No,” Emma shook her head. “It’s so boring! I don’t wanna sit around forever like a water tank in the rain. I wanna go do things.”

Zoe laughed. “Yeah well you just described meditation basically. Maybe it’ll help you get it. Wanna try?”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Fine. We can try. It’ll probably be helpful to have anyway, it’s just so boring.”

“Alright, don’t focus too hard then. That really messed me up when I was trying. Just relax and let the energies be drawn into you.” Zoe explained.

“I’m so bad at that though.” Emma whined.

“Yeah yeah, just take some deep breaths and let it happen naturally. You’ll be fine.” Zoe said.

Emma took a deep breath and then closed her eyes. Zoe pushed the mana towards her and covered Emma in a thick blanket of colourful wisps of light.

Zoe watched as Emma’s face strained a few times when she clearly began to feel something changing. But then she’d open her eyes and shake her arms then repeat the process.

A few failures later and Emma jumped from her chair. “I got it! I did it! Woo! Thanks Zoe!”

Zoe smiled. “Did the blanket of mana end up helping?”

Emma tilted her head in thought for a moment. “Yeah, probably. I think so. I’ve felt mana before but that was the first time I’d really been enveloped by it like that. It was weird but I think it helped a lot. Every time I lost the feeling I was able to just start right back from the comfortable blanket that surrounded me.”

“Alright, I was already planning on taking Mana Manipulation after you convinced me, but now I definitely am going to. At least it did something useful.” Zoe said.

Emma laughed. “Yeah I dunno why you were going to take Acceleration after you got to Gafoda. What were you even planning on doing with it?”

Zoe pushed herself into the chair she was sitting in and shrugged. "I didn’t really think about it. I just have no idea what Mana Manipulation could even do and Acceleration was at least obvious in its effect.“

“Weirdo.” Emma sat back down in her chair and Oliver flopped down by her feet.

Zoe shrugged.

The two sat in silence for a few minutes before Emma spoke up. “So you’re really leaving, huh?”

Zoe nodded.

“When do you think you’ll be back?” Emma asked her.

“Well it’s a two week journey according to my research. If I’m generous to myself, maybe one week for me as I am now? So at least two weeks if I turn around right away. But I’ll probably be at least a month, maybe two. Feels wrong spending two weeks travelling just to stay for such a short time. I might send letters though. Do you mind taking one to Joe if I do find a postal service so I don’t have to send two letters separately?” Zoe asked.

“Of course, I’m super down to help out.” Emma said.

“Thanks.”

“So I’m not going to see you for a few months then probably, huh?” Emma looked down at Oliver.

“Mhm.”

The two sat in silence for a few more minutes, the only noise interrupting them was Oliver’s occasional meow.

Zoe stood up. “Well I’ve gotta get going, I wanna get there as soon as I can to be honest. I’m super excited to check it out and see what it’s all about, even if it’s a little sad saying goodbyes.”

Emma stood up and followed her to the door. “Alright.” She hugged Zoe. “Stay safe out there and make sure you send lots of letters if you can.”

“I will.” Zoe hugged her back. “I’ll see you around. Make sure you give Oliver lots of pets for me. Let him know he’s a good kitty.”

“Of course, he’s the best kitty! See you later, Zoe. Stay safe.” Emma said and picked up Oliver as he poked his head out the front door.

Zoe smiled and walked away. She was excited for Moaning Point, to check out Gafoda and see what a mana anomaly really was. She kept telling herself that as she walked towards the southern gate of town.

It was a long walk, and Zoe found herself quivering a few times as she held back tears. It felt so much harder than when she had been ripped away from her life and stranded here in Flester. She wasn’t breaking down in the forest bawling her eyes out, sure. But each step was so difficult to convince herself to make.

Every step she made was a decision to continue, another inch closer to Gafoda and Moaning Point. At any point, she could decide to stop. She could decide to just stay in Flester. But she had to force herself to keep going, because that’s what she wanted. What would staying even get her?

Emma was okay with being immortal if Zoe could find some way to manage that for her, but she hadn’t even talked about it with Joe. And she was pretty confident he wouldn’t want it even if she could offer it to him.

Did that mean that Zoe should spend the time she did have with her friends, wait in town until they died and then go accomplish her goals? When would that end, though? By then, she’d have other friends she cared about and would she have to just keep waiting forever? She’d never get anywhere, never do what she wanted to do, never explore the world that she was excited to see.

No, leaving and exploring now made the most sense. Zoe could get some levels, maybe even find some way to give Emma immortality, and keep expanding where she could explore as she grew more powerful and more importantly, quicker.

It was just hard to do. How much would the town change while she was gone? How much would Emma and Joe change by the time she returned? Would Joe still be running the inn? Would Emma still own her tower?

It scared her more than she thought, and Zoe stopped outside the southern wall to look back at town. This was her goodbye. Her farewell, for a long time. And it was more emotional than she thought it would be.

Zoe managed to keep herself from crying, reminding herself that things were okay and that she was excited and going to have fun. But it felt so lonely. And that’s okay, she told herself.

That’s just a part of living in this world. Saying goodbye and disappearing for a while was normal. People travelled to other towns and dungeons all the time — she still hadn’t seen Rizick or Isla since they left either. It was okay. She was making a good decision.

She took a deep breath and turned towards the road. Gafoda was just a few weeks away if she followed it. Probably less if she ran all day long with her speed buffs like she planned to.

Zoe summoned a sheet of ice over her body with Frozen Arsenal, pumped her Aura of Frost as high as it would go without eating into her mana, switched out Mana Manipulation for Alacrity again and took off down the road. Her plan was simple.

Look as threatening and as confident as she could, and get to Gafoda in as little time as she could manage.