Chapter 63: The Scout and the Brute

Arthur and Mizu sat up for a while, as did some others. Lily tried valiantly to stay awake, but once again proved not-quite-owl-enough-to-actually-be-nocturnal by nodding off almost immediately after the stories died down. The single people went to bed first, mostly, which left the couples to couple business. In Arthur’s and Mizu’s case, this was mostly sitting silently on a log.

He wondered how Earth-him would have felt about that. Everything about the relationship was beyond molasses-slow, to the point where he wondered sometimes if an outside observer would even be able to tell that they were dating at all. They both had busy lives. They both had jobs. Some weeks, they barely saw each other, although they tended to make up for that when they did end up seeing each other. Most of the time, the forward motion of the whole affair was so slow that it mimicked a glacier, moving just enough to measure but not enough to see in the moment.

Milo and Rhodia progressed. He could see their relationship changing. Onna and Chuck had progressed through several relationship steps that day alone. But besides a peck on the cheek, Arthur’s and Mizu’s relationship had been firmly in holding hands and talking territory. Or not talking, as was the case at the moment.

He really didn’t know how Earth-Arthur would have reacted to any of that news, at all. But Demon World Arthur? He knew exactly how he felt about it.

“This is nice,” Arthur said. “It’s what I want to be doing.”

“Me too.” Mizu leaned into Arthur just a little harder. They sat there for another hour or so as clouds passed over the stars, and then just a bit longer until the first snowflakes started to reach them.

“Want to stay out in the snow?”

“No. I want to see it all at once in the morning.”

“Got it. Well, goodnight then, Mizu.”

“Goodnight, Arthur.”

—

“Arthur! There’s snow! Get up!”

As he cracked his eyes, Arthur found Lily violently shaking his shoulder, or doing the best impression of a little-girl-shaking-a-stat-enhanced-teamaster-three-times-her-size.

“Lots of it?”

“Up to here.” Lily indicated a point just above the ankle of her boots. “Spiky says it wasn’t a blizzard because blizzards need a lot of wind.”

“That makes sense,” Arthur said. “Well, go get working on a fire. I’ll make food. And then we can play.”

“Oh, there’s food already,” Lily said, jumping back through the flap of the tent. “Put on your coat and come see.”

Arthur got out of his bedroll and into his cold-weather outerwear, then poked his head out of the tent. There were multiple fires going, each with pots and frying pans taking advantage of the heat. Arthur even saw some wrapped objects roasting in the coals.

“About time, Arthur. We thought you’d never get up.”

“I wouldn’t have, if it wasn’t for this one.” Arthur patted Lily’s hooded head affectionately. “Nice of you all to make breakfast.”

“Everyone decided it was the least we could do. This camping stuff is oddly good, Arthur. As bad as you made it sound, we were all surprised.”

“He made it sound fine,” Mizu said. “You get to sleep outside.”

“See? Mizu gets it.”

“Maybe, Arthur. Or maybe she just wants you to make tea.”

Arthur looked over at Mizu, who gave him a playful half-smile.

“Both, actually.” She reached down and unhooked his kettle from the spit, handing it to him. “Please?”

“Sure thing. Anyone else?”

Most of the camp wanted tea with their food, and he dumped everything he had into warming and pep buffs to get the day started right. At the same time, everyone got to work devouring every last bit of food they had left. They had correctly figured out the principle of the food being lighter in a stomach than a pack, and by the time everyone was full, they had successfully dropped their total group cargo weight significantly.

“So what now?” Lily said. “What’s the next thing?”

Suddenly, a snowball pelted the little girl in the head, not quite hard enough to make her fall over, but with enough force that Arthur was glad she was wearing a good, padded hood.

“That.” Onna grinned, hefting another snowball in her head. “That’s what’s next. And there’s a lot more where that came from.”

The next half hour was chaos. Lily was surprisingly good at snow warfare and took her shots from small-person stealth spots. But even her superior wintertime tactics couldn’t make up for the fact that everyone there was a good deal stronger than her, and the fact that they were all stat-juiced on perception and dexterity.

It’s a cartoon snowball fight, Arthur thought. And it really was. Even Spiky could make and throw snowballs better than any Earth person Arthur had ever known. With dexterity assisting with the ammo-creation and the throwing, the air was filled with a storm of cold, white projectiles that were impossible to entirely avoid.

Of course, there were still tiers. The combat classes threw the occasional snowball at the assembled crafters, but it was easy to tell they were holding back. When they went after each other, Ern used a rapid-fire hit-and-run tactic on Chuck that Arthur suspected would have actually injured his teamaker body. Chuck responded to by throwing dodge-ball sized boulders of snow that fragmented on contact to leave Ern entirely soaked.

And then, just as quickly as it started, it was all done. Everyone returned to warm up with what little heat and food remained with the fires, and then as a group went to break down their tents. It was time to walk home.

Arthur had just packed up the last of his things when Spiky approached, looking oddly worried.

“Is Lily here?”

“No, I think she’s off trying to find a pretty rock she saw yesterday to take home for her room. What’s up?”

“Well, I just talked to Ern. He had gone ahead to scout out routes home. You know how the path we took yesterday was narrow in parts? A bit precarious?”

“Yes?”

“Well, now it’s that, and also under a few feet of snow.”

“A few feet? It didn’t even snow that much.”

“Not here maybe. It appears the path got more than its fair share.”

“How?” Arthur was panicking a little. Spiky hadn’t even gotten to the bad part yet, but he could tell it was coming.

“Wind? Snow falling from above? It doesn’t matter. The point is that Ern is advising that none of us should try to take that path today. And when a scout tells you not to take a path, it’s a good idea to listen.”

“So we’re stuck?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“We don’t have food, Spiky. At least not much. I guess water isn’t an issue with all the snow, but… what are we going to do? Chuck can’t snow-plow the path, or something?”

“He proposed to do just that, but Ern vetoed it. Chuck isn’t agile enough to guarantee he won’t fall, and Ern isn’t strong enough to move that much snow quickly enough to matter. Beyond that, a couple options occur to me. First, we’re supposed to be back today. If we aren’t, I’m reasonably sure someone will come looking for us. Call it the Ella-Karbo option, if you like.”

“But that’s still a whole day trapped up here. At least.”

“Well, yes. But it’s safe, so long as the weather holds up.”

“And the second option?”

“The cave.”

“The one I found? You mean using it for shelter?”

“No, I mean sending Ern into it. He’s already offered, and Chuck will go with him for safety. If it has another exit anywhere at the bottom, Ern would move as fast as he could back to the city for help.”

“There are still some downsides.”

“Yes. It could end up that the cave is a dungeon, or that there are no exits.”

“Or they could get stuck.”

“That’s less likely than you’d think, but it could happen. But dungeon or getting stuck, they’re willing to take the risk, especially with how this is somewhat of an emergency. Both of them are willing to do it.”

“So what’s the hangup?”

“They’re waiting to hear what you have to say on the matter.”

Arthur frowned. “Why me?”

“Because it’s your plan, and your trip. The usual custom in this situation is to defer to the leader of the expedition, and that’s you.”

“Damn.” Arthur wanted, desperately, to give up that responsibility. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. If the two people taking the risk trusted him enough to wait for his say-so, he at least owed them his opinion on the matter. “Okay, let’s go talk to them.”

Chuck and Ern were waiting by the cave with several of the others when he got there. Lily had followed Arthur over, having overheard everything despite Spiky’s best efforts to spare her from worry.

“Hey, guys,” Arthur said. “Go ahead and run me through the plan.”

“So, there isn’t much of one. We go in, see what we can see, and try to find another exit,” Ern said. “The good news is that between the two of us, we can handle a lot of different types of obstacles, and should be pretty well set for most kinds of dungeons, as well.”

“What are the chances of finding an exit that actually helps?”

“Better than you’d think. Caves tend to go downwards, if that makes sense. They’re carved by water which generally flows down. There should be something.”

“Why can’t we all go?” Lily asked. “We might all get out.”

“You are why, Lily.” Mizu knelt down. “We have to keep you safe.”

“I’ll be safe.” Lily puffed out her chest. “I’m stronger than you think I am.”

“Oh, Lily. It’s not that.” Mizu put her hand on Lily’s shoulder. “It matters how strong you are but it matters even more what Ella would do to us if she found out we let you go into a cave.”

Lily deflated a little. “Oh, yeah. She’d kill you guys. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Yes she would,” Arthur said. “Okay, if you guys are up for it, go ahead and go. Do you need anything from us?”

“Nope.” Chuck took off his pack and left it laying on the ground. Ern did the same thing after pulling a rope out of his. “Just watch our stuff, and we’ll see you guys later. Onna, is this impressive? Good warrior stuff?”

“Yes, very heroic.”

“Good. Then it’s worth it.”

The two warrior-classes slid into the hole, and a few minutes later were far enough in they couldn’t hear them anymore. They were gone.

“So what now?” Lily asked.

“Now we wait, Lily. I guess we could make a snowman,” Arthur replied.

“A what?”

Arthur realized that once again he was importing vital Earth technology to a new world. Filled with a sense of responsibility to represent his old world properly, he knelt next to Mizu in the snow and looked Lily dead in the eye.

“Oh, Lily, get ready. I’m about to blow your mind.”

“Is this another weird Earth thing?”

“Yes. And if anything, it’s even better than the s’mores.”

That got several people’s attention, and the better part of an hour was spent building a truly terrifying mammoth snowman. But even that could only last so long. Soon enough, they were waiting, wondering if the scout and the brute had made it through with no way to know one way or the other.