Chapter 21: In which the cold proves to be quite strong and the dangers of not properly stoking your fires are made clear.

The caravamel jerked and shuddered as it was roughly pulled through and out of the shattered egg that was the remains of the tailless slug’s over council.

What greeted their eyes was a desolate waste of ice and a pall of weak smoke. The grand forges and smelting wells of the forgehome were ringed with ice, and it was from these that feeble smoke issued forth, the fires struggling to stay lit. A well stoked and maintained forgehome would never be brought this low by a mere minion of a sorceress.

There is nothing quite like sloth to make one unprepared for disaster. The tailless slugs of the Forgehome of Released Opal were getting a rather strong dose of this particular lesson.

A pale blue blur was battling with a purplish tide that seemed to have two rabbit-like black ears.

Destruction followed in their wake, the machine of the Chairseer crashed into this and that, tore apart that thing and this thing in its attacks against Fancy Chill’s last minion. As for that minion itself, everything it touched became a vaguely delicious looking popsicle. Any tailless slug foolish enough or unfortunate enough was instantly turned into frozen undead! FRISEN!

Into this gauntlet of crumbling chaos and freezing cold the Caralid family had to go if they wanted to escape!

[Well, the cold I have may not be killing me, but I feel that it really wishes it could]