Ooble rejoined the party without any difficulty. In fact, he was waiting for them just outside the cave entrance when they arrived. “Were you waiting long?” Maeryn asked.

  “No, Captain Maeryn. I finished learning what I could of the drow language only yesterday. Waiting here has been quite pleasant.”

  She blinked, looking around for a moment before returning her focus on the dragonkin. “You’ve been standing here, waiting for me, for over a day?”

  “Well, besides going back inside for meals and sleep,” Ooble confirmed, sounding a little puzzled at her concern. “It was no trouble, really. It rained last night, which was quite nice.”

  Maeryn’s mouth opened, then closed as she processed exactly who she was talking to. “Right. Water mage dragonkin. You probably quite enjoyed the rain.”

  “Indeed! Shall we depart?”

  “Yep. Time to go.”

  “Excellent. I cannot wait to see this… ‘Glacial Expanse’ of yours.” He bounded aboard Stonewing, Maeryn easily keeping up with his slightly smaller body. “I am actually unfamiliar with both of those words. Could you tell me what they mean?”

  Oh. Oh no. He didn’t know? But… he was a dragonkin. Coldblooded. And they were going to one of the coldest places on the planet. Maeryn hesitated, biting her lip, but there was nothing for it. She had to tell him. “Glacial describes things that are like a glacier. A glacier is an enormous chunk of ice, the size of a forest or larger, that very slowly moves across the land or ocean.”

  Ooble stilled ominously. “Oh.”

  “And an expanse,” she continued regretfully, “is a very, very large open area.”

  “So you mean to say… that we are going to the massive sheet of endless ice at the corner of the world?” Ooble asked faintly.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  The dragonkin looked back outside of the airship longingly. “Are you quite sure we need to go there?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  He sighed in dismay. “Oh, very well. I do hope you came prepared with ways to keep us all warm.”

  “Just you wait until we actually have to get out of the airship!” Terrance interjected from his room, door wide open.

  Ooble looked at him, then at his captain disbelievingly when she didn’t immediately correct him. “No. Captain Maeryn, you cannot be serious.”

  “We have clothes to keep everyone warm, and enchanted tents to keep the cold out?” Maeryn offered, her voice a higher pitch than usual. “And Frankie’s made vehicles so we don’t actually have to walk?”

  “This is insanity. I know that your kind is capable of generating extra heat from your food, but I will literally freeze to death.”

  “I thought about that, actually, and I have a solution!” Dan announced, carrying a bundle of the fuzzy-looking clothes. “Here, come try these on.” He ushered Ooble into the dragonkin’s room.

  Lacking anything else to do, Maeryn just stood there, waiting for them to come out. Terrance, curious, came out and joined her. Then, so did Frankie and Peter. Veronica joined a minute later, and then Ernesto poked his head out of his room. “What’s going on?”

  “Dan’s dressing up Ooble,” Frankie summarized.

  “This I have to see.” Ernesto joined the crowd. “How long have they been in there?”

  “About five minutes,” Maeryn told him quietly.

  “Do you think it has a tail flap, or did Dan literally sew a fuzzy tail on?” Terrance asked Peter.

  “He’d have to have gotten Ooble’s measurements,” the engineer pondered. “Though I have no idea when he would have done that.”

  “Can he even sew?” Frankie asked Maeryn quizzically.

  “Maybe?” she answered, completely uncertain. “I’ve never seen him do it, but it’s Dan. He knows lots of things.” Everyone nodded at the simple wisdom.

  The door finally opened, and Ooble stepped out. “This. Is. Glorious!” he crowed.

  “Heart and hearth…” Maeryn muttered, completely dumbfounded.

  “He’s adorable,” Veronica finished.

  Ooble was covered neck-to-toe in a giant, poofy coat and leggings. And Dan had accommodated for the dragonkin’s tail, which was likewise covered in the thick fur-lined cloth. The hood draped over his head, though Maeryn had no idea how it was staying in place. Or how he was still able to see. Oh, no, wait, there were eyeholes. Which meant the only part of Ooble sticking out was his mouth.

  He looked like a giant lizard who’d gotten himself helplessly trapped in fuzzy cotton.

  “I am so warm!” Ooble exclaimed. “And it’s so comfortable! How did you humans make this? How did you even conceive of this? I may not be able to fight like this, but at this moment I frankly do not care! This is wonderful!”

  Frankie walked up to him and poked the enormous coat in several places. “Dan, how many layers are in that coat?” she asked in wonder.

  “Eight,” the alchemist stated resolutely. “It was the only way to offset how little body heat he generates. Seven layers of Ice Resistance to keep the cold out, and a simple heating enchantment on the innermost layer. And I made him a custom mask to go over his mouth and face while we’re outside. I will be shocked if he gets so much as a sniffle after we go out there.”

  “Dan, my man, how long did you work on that?” Terrance asked disbelievingly.

  “About a day. The hardest part was keeping the stitches even, considering how thick the fabric is. My poor fingers were aching by the end of the day, but it was worth it.”

  “Wait, so you do know how to sew?” Frankie asked, stunned.

  “Well, yes. Obviously. It’s not my specialty, but I know enough to do basic repairs and modifications. How do you think I got so many pockets?”

  “I always did wonder where he got his clothes of many pockets,” Maeryn muttered, enlightenment dawning on her.

  “Wait,” Dan interrupted, looking at Frankie with an odd expression, “You don’t know how to sew? How do you fix your clothes, then?”

  “I just buy new ones when I need them!”

  He gaped. “That’s so wasteful!”

  “So warm…” Ooble breathed, visibly melting into his new clothes. “I might never leave.”

  “No one is ever going to believe that this puffball is a dragonkin,” Peter muttered under his breath.

  The scritch-scritch of a pencil caught Maeryn’s attention, and she looked up to see Veronica rapidly sketching the laconic dragonkin. “Veronica?”

  “Shh. This is the best opportunity to cut down fear and racism against the dragonkin,” the cartographer muttered. “No one can be afraid of this. Literally no one.”

  Maeryn glanced back at Ooble, and could only nod her head in agreement. “Fair enough. Carry on. Frankie?”

  The manic engineer stopped quarreling with Dan long enough to shoot Maeryn a questioning look.

  “Think it’s time we got going.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain!”

  Nodding, Maeryn turned towards the alchemist. “Dan, un-melt our dragonkin, please.”

  “No…” Veronica moaned, her pencil flying. “Not yet…! Give me two more minutes!”

  Maeryn sighed, giving in. “Dan, in two minutes, un-melt our dragonkin, please.”

  The alchemist’s lips twitched as he gave a mocking salute. Terrance actually wiped a fake tear from his eye at the raw sass as Maeryn rolled her eyes.

  Peter followed his girlfriend as she retreated to the cockpit, but paused next to Maeryn. “Should I put together a sidecar or something that we can just plop Ooble in while we drive? Wouldn’t take long.”

  She glanced at the puddle of bliss that used to be a dragonkin saboteur. “That might be best.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain.”

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  That done, Maeryn retreated to her room, shaking her head. “My entire crew is insane. I love them all, but they’re absolutely insane.”

  Stonewing traveled south-east for several days. Maeryn chose to spend most of that time strapped to one of the wings outside. After all, she was a holy mage now, and she needed the practice purifying the Mist and strengthening her holy affinity.

  At least, that was what she told everyone else. In truth, she hoped that indulging in the exhilaration of flying, of letting the wind pour endlessly across her as she took in the sights from the sky, would… Well, she hoped that it would help her feel better. Maybe banish some of the persistent funk she was in. Bonus, it gave her time alone to just… exist. Mindlessly casting Purify Mist spells at the ground beneath them, not needing to talk to anyone or do anything, and just letting the world pass her by? It sounded nice.

  And it was. For a while. She even gained some unexpected insights on earth magic, and what it meant to be solid and steady in a world that rushed around you. Eventually, though, her thoughts circled back to water magic. To identifying the core of who she was. Because the sooner she could attune to water, the sooner she could take advantage of its soothing nature. Dan and Ooble had both independently told her that the water affinity granted an uncanny resistance to emotional trauma due to its Balance concept. And given Maeryn’s experiences over the last year? She needed it.

  That, and she nursed a quiet hope that attuning to water, and healing a bit, would bring back her fire. Water was supposed to carry some of all the other elemental natures. The pressure of earth. The fluidity of wind. The erosion of necro. The calm of holy. The cruelty of ice. The destructiveness of fire. If Maeryn could somehow leverage that, use it to reconnect with fire magic… She knew the chances were slim, but she couldn’t help but hope.

  She cast her eyes down towards the ground flying by, far beneath her. Ethereal blue Mist coated it, as usual. Maeryn sighed and quietly cast another Purify Mist, watching as the necromantic fog ignited in holy flames, burning and spreading outwards. The fire didn’t touch anything but the Mist itself, but her heart ached watching it. This was the sole remnant she had of her fire affinity. This pale imitation. A mimicry, nothing more. Just a cosmetic side effect of a personalized holy spell.

  Maeryn breathed, letting the grief wash over and through her. One day it would stop hurting so much. But not today.

  Instead, she cast her thoughts towards her mental notes on self-identity. She was close. Probably. But she was still missing something, something important, she could feel it. But what? She’d brutally analyzed her traits. She’d considered the actions she was proud of, and the ones she wasn’t. She’d done her best to view herself through the eyes of her friends, and those of her enemies. What else was there? She just didn’t know.

  Maeryn mentally reviewed her collection of ideas. Stubborn. Disciplined. Confident. Perceptive. Adaptive. Friend. Loyal. Spiteful. Repentant. Pragmatic. Resilient. Her pride and respect were won by action and accomplishment, not by power and title. Likewise, her hatred was born from others’ abuse of their power. She valued choice and self-determination as sacrosanct, though bearing choice meant accepting the consequences.

  She frowned and let her mind wander, hoping she’d come up with something new.

  She drifted for a time, casting another Purify Mist every now and then, until eventually her thoughts meandered to her childhood. She’d grown up striving to be the best she could possibly be, because the mana depletion and Mist crises had loomed over her head. That was part of her history, and she wouldn’t deny it. And she still wanted to be the best she could. Self-improvement was important to her.

  The fire that had driven that desire was gone now, but… it’d be such a waste to stop here, wouldn’t it?

  But that couldn’t be all there was to her, right? Her purpose in life wasn’t just to end the Mist and become strong. That kind of life sounded… well, fulfilling at first, but what would be left for her after she accomplished her goal? If she accomplished it.

  Maeryn frowned and shook her head. When she accomplished it, she told herself firmly. But the question remained: what would come next?

  She remembered her insights into necromancy and holy. Necromancy had taught her that a person without purpose was eroded by the world until nothing remained. Holy had taught her that new purposes could be found, or chosen. Maybe… maybe that was what she was missing. She’d defined her whole life around this mission. Maybe that was unhealthy.

  She bristled against the thought. It’d been necessary! But… maybe it was a bit unhealthy, yes.

  The door back into Stonewing opened, and Maeryn blinked, looking out at the horizon. The sun was setting. She shook her head; she must’ve lost track of time. A quick glance downward had her breathing a sigh of relief. She’d kept casting Purify Mist, apparently, which was good. But it was time to get inside. The air, already cool, would become quite chilly if she remained on the wing overnight.

  Day four of the flight came with an unwelcome surprise: an attack from a flock of flying tiny ice beasts. Almost skeletally thin, with long, pointy noses and black beady eyes, the fliers were unnaturally agile. And they immediately tried to crash the airship using ice magic to jam the propellers. Thankfully, Frankie was fast on the uptake, managing to avoid a direct hit.

  Maeryn had never missed her fire more than in that moment. But, as long as they weren’t Undead, then necromancy had her back. Even as Ernesto quickly strapped himself beside her on the wing, Maeryn allowed for the ruthless nature of her hunter persona to take over, and necromantic Mist filled her insides. “Necrotic Ray,” she spat.

  Unfortunately, the beam was easily avoided by all of the creatures, and Maeryn frowned. If pinpoint precision wasn’t going to do the job, she needed an area of effect. Preferably something that wasn’t acid-based; she didn’t want to melt the ship on accident.

  “Like this,” Ernesto said darkly from next to her, extending one palm forward and aiming at a cluster of the flying monsters. “Decay Pulse!” A cone of Rot-aligned energy erupted from his hand, catching four of the beasts before they could get away. They immediately exploded into ice shards, but they were far enough away that Stonewing was completely unhit.

  “Huh. They explode. Good to know.”

  “Terrance went to the other wing!” Ernesto shouted over the wind. “He’s going to try to use wind magic to disrupt their movements and deflect the ice they use. But we need to take them out, fast! Did you see how to cast Decay Pulse, there?”

  “Yeah, I got it.” Maeryn had felt the mana resonance between them; her mana had felt the way Ernesto’s had moved, and she was sure she had the pattern. If she shifted it like this, and focused her intent… She flipped her palm upwards at another cluster. “Decay Pulse!”

  Sickly gray mana shot forward, catching three more of the fliers. They too exploded, but then the wind acted unnaturally, catching the shards and redirecting them at yet another of the beasts. Its wings were punctured, and with a shrill scream of outrage, it fell towards the surface.

  Maeryn’s eyebrows raised; Terrance was getting quite skillful at that. She smiled, baring her teeth. “Let’s see if he can do it again. Decay Pulse!”

  “Decay Pulse!” Ernesto echoed, and their spells caught a large group of eight. The resulting bombardment of ice shards would have been terrifying, if another gust of wind hadn’t sent them careening towards three others who were trying to use them as cover. Maeryn couldn’t hear the sounds of ice puncturing their bellies, or the little wheezes they gave off as they fell, but she could imagine them.

  After another two rounds, the remaining beasts fled. Maeryn breathed a sigh of relief, and went back inside to join the others as soon as the line was sent her way.

  “Those were ice mephits,” Dan told them the moment everyone gathered around. “Native to frozen regions in specific. They can’t survive for long in above-freezing environments. We must be getting close to the Glacial Expanse.”

  “We are,” Frankie reported grimly. “We’re less than a day out.”

  “I believe it,” Maeryn confirmed. “It’s getting really cold out there, even with the sun up. Frankie, find a place to land tonight. It does us no good to get through the Expanse, both ways, only for the airship to be completely unusable. Best if we find a way to hide it while there’s still some cover to be found, and not have to deal with de-icing it when we get back.”

  “If you can find a few hills, I can use some earth magic to help cover Stonewing,” Dan offered. “Maeryn, you attuned to earth too, right? You could help with that.”

  “Can do.”

  Ooble shuffled in place nervously. “My kind fear the unending lands of ice for good reason. All they offer is a bitter death. Are we absolutely certain about this?”

  “The ancient drow apparently lived on the other side,” Veronica answered. Maeryn closed her mouth, having been about to say the same thing. “Based on the information we’ve gathered, and the speed of our land vehicles—”

  “The SPATTs,” Frankie reminded with a mischievous grin.

  The cartographer shot her a gimlet stare, clearly refusing to dignify the name. “We should reach the other side in approximately three days,” she finished. “Assuming no unexpected interruptions.”

  “We’ll make sure you stay warm, Ooble,” Ernesto told him comfortingly, patting him on the arm. “Between Dan, Captain Maeryn and me, we’ve got more than enough sources of magic to keep you warm.”

  Ooble nodded, still looking uneasy but apparently willing to put his trust in them.

  “Hey Maeryn, why don’t you teach him that Warm Self spell?” Terrance asked curiously. “Didn’t you say that anyone can cast it, regardless of affinity? It just costs more for non-fire casters?”

  Ooble’s head jerked towards Maeryn, his reptilian eyes wider than she’d ever seen them. “I must know that spell. Name your price.”

  “It’s free,” Maeryn told him with a sigh. “In fact, you all probably ought to learn it.”

  “What about us?” Peter asked uncertainly. “Frankie, Veronica and I aren’t casters. I don’t even know what my affinity is.”

  “Neither do I,” Frankie admitted.

  “Mine’s earth, for what it’s worth,” Veronica added. “I’ve done a bit of magic before, though, so I’m not a complete neophyte.”

  Maeryn grimaced. “Normally, we’d get you started with a cantrip of your affinity, to get you used to working with magic,” she told them. “But there’s not really time for that now. Do your best. If you don’t get it, you’ll just have to rely on the rest of us to take care of you.”

  Frankie and Peter looked at each other, then shrugged in unison. “If that’s how it’s gotta be,” Frankie acknowledged easily.

  Terrance clapped his hands twice to get everyone’s attention. “Alright, people! Welcome to Maeryn’s Easy Guide to Keeping Yourself Warm In a Blizzard. Class begins as soon as everyone’s comfortable. Frankie, Peter, I’ll take over flying for a bit so you can both learn. Ta-ta!”

  Then he turned on his heel and made a dramatic exit, stalking towards the cockpit. Maeryn watched him disbelievingly as he plopped himself in Frankie’s seat and made a show of completely ignoring them all.

  “Why is he like this?” Maeryn muttered to herself. She rubbed her temples, took a breath, and turned—only to freeze, staring agog. Her entire crew had, in the span of those few seconds, set up chairs and pillows and were sitting in two neat little rows. They were even looking up at her like she was a teacher from back home. “Really? Even you, Dan? I know you’re attuned to fire. I’d be shocked if you didn’t already know this spell.”

  “I’m not about to turn down expert instruction from a fire mage,” Dan said with a grin.

  Maeryn was about to argue that she wasn’t a fire mage anymore, before she realized that it really didn’t matter. She’d been an expert before fire left her. And it wasn’t like her insights into flame had vanished with it. “Fine. Alright, then, listen up. There are five elemental concepts behind fire magic: Light, Heat, Destruction, Purification, and Burning. Today we’re going to talk about Heat. By the end of this session, the goal is for you to all be able to cast the simple cantrip Warm Self. But you need to understand how fire generates heat, and find memories or thought patterns that are metaphorically similar. Let’s begin.”