Elmira

What happened next was an assault on her senses that threatened to overwhelm her. The cold bit into her skin as if the very air had frozen solid. It was a hard, uncompromising chill that was so far removed from the forest that it took her by surprise. Inside a second it was gnawing at her bones, seeping through her clothes and her armor as if it was nothing. But it wasn’t just the cold that caught her off guard, it was the cacophony of voices, shouts, and insistent barking that struck her like a storm.

“You arrogant, inconsiderate moron!”

The voice was shrill and full of a guttural power. Elmira blinked the snow out of her eyes and saw that it belonged to a furious older woman draped in layers of furs struggling to hold on to a large dog that barked furiously, its wild eyes flashing in the cold light.

The dog leaped into the air, paws skimming the snow against the firm grip of its owner, its fur a patchwork of white and black as it danced in the icy wind, barking at Elmira with unrestrained fury while the woman hurled another string of curses at her.

“Look what you did to poor Ygrit!” she screamed, cheeks flushed and eyes blazing. “You got her in a right state.”

“Ygrit? What about me, your poor husband!”

It was fascinating how a voice so deep could sound so much like a whine, but that was much on par for the older man who appeared.

He stumbled out from behind the Portal, his face weathered like the rock formations that dotted the distant mountains. His grey locks peeked out from under a fur hat, and his skin was tanned, cracked by years spent in the bitter cold. He clutched at his chest, his body shaking slightly from the cold and the lingering shock of his fall. Snow had stuck to his clothes, coating him in a sparkling layer of frost, clinging like a second skin.

His wife, unperturbed, dismissed him with a sharp tsk. “Oh, you’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?” he challenged, his voice thick with irritation. “The damned thing could have burned me!”

“Did it?”

He hung his head. “No,” he confessed in quiet submission, much to his wife’s triumph.

“Snow as far as your eye can see,” the voice murmured, its tone distant but appreciative. “Beautiful, if you like this sort of thing.”

Elmira barely registered the voice, her eyes drawn instead to the sweeping expanse of Ashenvale. It had to be. She recalled that skyline. A frozen location that stretched endlessly beneath an overcast sky. This was the pole side of the Bordon Mountains, a place forgotten by civilization, a desolate outpost where few dared to linger.

Fractured by fault lines, the land was covered with deep fissures cutting through the ice like wounds on a scarred face, revealing glimmers of crystalline caves hidden deep within the earth. Towering glaciers rose in jagged, glittering peaks, and in the distance, barely visible against the swirling snow, a tower’s remains rose, its top barely visible above the ice.

Everything above the surface was coated in a thick layer of ice. Only the Portal remained untouched by frost, its swirling energies pulsed with an unnatural light, standing defiant against the surrounding desolation.

You could not say the same for the research station standing next to it half-buried in snow. Its featureless, practical walls bore the signs of harsh weather.

The stone statue of the Portal's builder stood frozen before it, an imposing figure carved from the same ice and stone, her hands raised as though summoning the very winds of this realm to bend to her will. It was a monument to ambition, a marker in the history of those who had once braved the inhospitable world for the sake of knowledge.

And its upkeep had seemed to slide for the better part of a decade or two.

The people of Ashenvale had long since retreated underground, carving entire cities into the belly of the glacier to shield themselves from the deadly cold and the monstrous beasts that prowled the frozen surface.

It was magnificent — if you could gain entry. Those few who had were envied.

The woman slapped snow from her husband’s back with a rough hand, which he did not seem to enjoy one bit.

“Now, who in heaven’s name are you!? Don’t you people have any manners?” Her demand tinged with the authority of one accustomed to commanding respect in this harsh environment.

“I am so, so sorry,” Elmira said, hoping the woman would see the sincerity.

Frost had already started to cling to her lashes.

The woman scoffed, her hands landing on her hips with a resounding thud. “You should be. Look at her! Poor Ygrit.”

The dog, still agitated, spun around in circles, kicking up a cloud of snow as it barked at the swirling Portal. The air around the rift seemed to shimmer with a faint, unnatural heat as though it were alive and listening.

“She cares about the dog more than she cares about me, the love of her life.” The man threw his wife a dirty look.

She waved him off. “Oh, hush, will ya? No one needs you whining.”

Elmira held up her hands when the pair lunged at each other’s throats again. It would have been hilarious if it weren’t so vicious. And because of her.

“I am just passing through,” Elmira said, trying to shout above their raised voices while surreptitiously re-adjusting the Portal to carry her away. Thank Ignis it was a crossroads. “If you do not mind…” She gestured towards the Portal, leaving the rest unspoken.

   “Sure, on you go,” the wife said with a sweetness that cut like a knife. “Not like you care.”

Meanwhile, the husband hobbled over to Ygrit and started cooing with her until the dog’s tail started wagging. His efforts fell to pieces the moment the Portal roared with a whoosh that whipped up the surrounding snow. If looks could kill, Elmira would be in the grave ten times over.

“I am so sorry,” Elmira said quickly, apologizing profusely. “I truly did not know you would stand so close to it.”

The man muttered. “I only did because I was told to.”

“You were not,” his wife shot back. 

“I was too!”

“Pah! You are not an engineer.”

“I almost was!” He folded his arms across his chest, which was impressive with the layers of fur in the way.

Elmira hesitated, feeling her pulse quicken for a whole different reason. “What…? What do you mean?”

They both stared at her like she was a madman rambling about adamantine turtles while standing knee-deep in snow.

“It is to be deactivated,” the man said as if stating the obvious.

Strange. Elmira eyed the Portal. It was still shimmering before her, idle in its wait to either turn off or change its flow. The surface rippled like liquid silver because of the reflection of the icy tundra. Gorgeous. But no flaws. No distortion, no crackling flicker of energy that might suggest a malfunction. It looked stable.

“Why? Is it due for maintenance?”

The woman shrugged, eager to get Elmira off and away. “Engineers are probably on their way as we speak.” She gestured toward the Portal. “On you go. Don’t let us keep you.”

“It is broken and we’re not rescheduling maintenance for anyone,” the man said and nodded sagely. “Not even the Elder herself, if she ever showed up.”

His wife snorted. “As if.”

“She could, you know.” His tone became defensive, his brows knitting.

Elmira tilted her head, a slow smile curling the edge of her lips. “How do you know I am not her?”  

The woman blinked, unimpressed. “Funny! You’re funny,” she said, looking anything but amused. She flicked her fingers in a dismissive shooing motion. “Now, go.”

Elmira really should go, but something rooted her to the spot. Something wasn’t right. Her gaze flickered back to the Portal. The visible part of the arcane mechanism running through it was steady, unbroken, its ambient hum unchanged.

A properly functioning Portal should feel like a thread of magic woven into the very fabric of the air. This one did. Yet, the pair insisted it was broken. Why?

“Is something the matter with it?” Elmira persisted.

“All I know is that the engineers got a message from some higher-up to deactivate with immediate effect, awaiting repairs,” came the woman’s biting reply.

“Repairs of what?”

The woman’s lips pressed into a thin line before she finally muttered. “Some crystal malfunction, or something.”

Elmira arched an eyebrow. ”It is magic, not clockwork.”

She caught the slightest flicker of unease in the woman’s eyes before it was buried beneath irritation. That was all the confirmation Elmira needed. Someone didn’t want this Portal open, and it had nothing to do with repairs.

“No later than noon,” the husband said, ignoring Elmira, as if the matter was already settled.

“Half-noon,” his wife corrected without missing a beat.

He frowned. “No, I’m pretty sure it was noon.”

It was difficult to resist rolling her eyes. What did it matter?

“What higher up was that?” Elmira’s interest piqued. If this was not a routine shutdown or a scheduled maintenance, then what was it? Why lie about the functionality? The engineers would get here and realize nothing was wrong. Who would risk that report?

The woman shrugged. “How should I know?”

“Not our business,” the man agreed.  

Before she could press further, a sudden scuffling interrupted them. The woman let out a frustrated sigh as her dog launched itself up, paws scrabbling at her back.

“Ygrit, stop it!” she exclaimed, trying to shake off the frantic creature. “See what you did?” shooting a glare at Elmira as if she were somehow responsible for this turn of events.

Despite wanting to try to press for answers, there wasn’t much about this couple that told her that they were more than simple bystanders and caretakers. They were not hiding anything because they didn’t know anything.

Whoever it was who gave the order would not have done so themselves. Must have used a proxy, then, probably someone from Couralis.

“That kingdom has enough bureaucrats to bury an order like this under layers of meaningless paper trails.”

Ayursha’s voice was even. “True.”

Questions and possibilities flooded her thoughts as she slowly backed away, casting the ritual to open the Veil for travel. It wasn’t as complex as having to activate the Portal, but it still took half a minute to get it right.

The hum of the Portal flared around her, the weave of magic tightening, reality itself folding inward as it carried her away. The last thing she heard before the world blurred was the woman sighing, exasperated: “Poor Ygrit.”

It felt good to get away from the bickering couple, but their words and what they had not said lingered. That uneasy prickle at the back of her neck did not fade, and it was like she was back on the Base, looking over her shoulder, searching for signs of unseen assailants.

If someone was tampering with her journey back, then she was traveling blindly into something much larger than an inconvenient Portal shutdown.

Should she have stayed? No. One more stop and she would reach the outskirts of Moraveil. From there, it was just a matter of waving her gilded imperial rune and securing transportation to Agartha Nova.

But… she could not shake the sense that anything could happen. She only hoped that she was not about to interrupt anyone or their dog.