Frostbound [LitRPG Apocalypse]

Rachel

New Norfolk

Her mana rushed out and swept through the generous lodgings they were given after the escort stepped away. The man was strong, but not nearly at a level to threaten her. That didn't mean he was weak, not in the slightest. He was firmly in the D-rank with quite a few levels under his belt, but he wasn't a Baron.

Left to their own devices, or so they assumed, Rachel scoured every nook and cranny with her mana sense but felt nothing, which meant one of two things.

Either there wasn't anything there to find to begin with, or she couldn't feel it if there was.

She liked to believe, with what they knew of the Admiral and his dealings, that there wasn't there to begin with, but they had come prepared if that didn't turn out to be the case. Listening devices or other monitoring enchantments were even worse than bugs in that they could be hidden much more covertly.

"Brayden, dear, grab the device for me, please," Rachel called out to her husband.

It was nice of him to agree to come on this trip. It had taken a long while to arrive, even with the advancements in both shipping and transportation making it shorter. His presence was a balm in more ways than one.

She didn't see this Assembly being without its own... 'charm', as Chris so helpfully put it when he first asked her to go.

"Are you sure it's necessary?" He asked, "It wasn't cheap after all."

The device in question had been created with the combined expertise of Chris, Gabe, and their resident Artificer, Miles. In no way did that mean it was an elegant work of art that functioned at levels that she couldn't imagine.

No, it was the opposite. It was the combined knowledge of three people who should never work together again.

The device hurt to look at, it was so twisted and cobbled together to her mana sense. The Runes, the magic enchantments, and the contraption were better never being recreated again.

The resources involved weren't cheap either, especially if you considered the previous failures before they managed to create something that worked... or at least semi worked.

"Yes. Chris, in no uncertain terms, said using it was mandatory." She repeated. As much as she didn't like the waste, it was worth it for security.

Information security.

All of her retinue were prepared and warned ahead of time not to say anything revealing, but things could always slip out when one got comfortable. Especially in what could be perceived as a safe space.

Brayden voiced no further argument and brought out the abomination of mishmash parts. The one purpose it was designed for was about to be established.

She and all of the rest of her contingent backed away as the devise was set down in the middle of their lodgings, and Rachel activated it with a burst of mana.

Right away, Runes failed and started to deteriorate at record speeds, spell threads began to fray and snap apart, while the magi-tech portions began to whir and vibrate uncontrollably. Rather than a device activating, it was more like a bomb unraveling.

What happened next made her want to puke. Mana exploded from the device as it catastrophically failed, washing over her and the surrounding area. The sphere of disorienting mana expanded until it reached a small way outside the building they were standing in before it finally ran out of steam.

They were lucky the house they were given to stay in wasn't any bigger. They had planned for a large showing by placing guests in opulent homes, but there was still a chance the device's radius of effect wasn't enough.

The device was designed to fail and, in doing so, achieved its purpose.

It was the equivalent of an EMP, but for anything mana-based. The way it worked still didn't make a whole lot of sense to her, but from what she was able to gather from the three creators, every failure, be it Runes, spells, or magi-tech, further cascaded into a total catastrophic failure that made the reaction bigger than the sum of its parts.

While also destroying the device, but that was deemed worth it.

Instead, the field it created interacted... poorly with any Formations, enchantments, or technology based on magic. The mana didn't create any physical force or imbue any kind of attack, so the walls and building were completely fine. All it did was scramble the local mana field, destroying anything planted to spy on them with impunity. It also caused [Scrying Pools] or spells similar to it to cut out.

After recovering from the brief moment of induced vertigo, Rachel swept the area again for any revealed devices and was saddened to have found none.

If she had found one, she would have more confidence in having discovered them all. Even if it would have been in poor taste of their host. Finding none meant the possibility was still out there. Still, if it withstood the implosion from it, she wouldn't find it anyway.

"I told you there wouldn't be any," Brayden claimed, but he knew the use of it was warranted.

The entire group relaxed a little after it was revealed that no one was listening. They were still under orders not to say anything compromising, but the confidence they had in the device was high.

They trusted anything that Chris had a hand in doing. At first, Rachel had thought it was foolish to trust so blindly, but she couldn't help but feel a little relieved herself.

With that taken care of, they were free to settle into what would be their home for the next week or so. Maybe more, depending on how long things took. Rachel was hoping this didn't last longer than a month.

If it did, they would return late into the Winter, which would hinder things. Lake Superior would freeze, making the already tenuous shipping routes unavailable, causing them to take weeks of time to go all the way around.

Stolen novel; please report.

Finding safe travel over the lake had shaved off over a month from the trip to get here.

If the Lake froze completely, which was rare and not something they had seen happen since the Change, they could still traverse it, but if it didn't, travel over water would be impossible. With less surface area for creatures to breach, that made what little was left all the more dangerous.

It wasn't exactly that the creatures in the Lake required oxygen from the air, but there were those that hunted near the surface or those who disliked living under the ice shelf. The sheer number of different aquatic beasts they had encountered made it hard to rule anything out when it came to the water.

"Are you still upset about the terms Vanessa put forth?" Her husband asked as they settled into the house, mistaking her contemplation of the future for reviewing the past.

"No, but now that you said it." Rachel huffed.

She had hoped Vanessa wouldn't dig in her heels so hard, but she had. Knowing the woman, not well but decently enough, Rachel knew she was unlikely to change her mind.

"It secures a decent number of slots to use her treasure. I don't see why you're so angered by her terms. We all knew what she would ask for in return. It was a given." Brayden started to rub her shoulders to ease the travel stress that had built up.

"I know, but I feel like I didn't do enough," she complained. Her connection to Vanessa's faction had been a boon for every person in Frostheim with an affinity for fire.

The techniques they had traded for alone made the deal one of the most profitable they had made as a Faction. Only their cooperation with Marcus for Water techniques was better.

It was funny, to her at least, that for a Faction so steeped in the North with its icy tendencies, Fire techniques were the third most numerous in their library. All because of Vanessa. Ice, Water, and then Fire. Wind and Earth took a close fourth and fifth, but they wouldn't overtake Fire until deals with Jayla and Travis of Yellowstone could be made.

Seeing how neither had decided to come to this Assembly, Rachel wouldn't be helping on that front. The ranking also matched the affinities for the strength rankings. Rachel would argue her place of third against Abigail's second, but both had never gone full out against one another.

Abigail's new Class and Title only made it worse, as she received buffs if she was defending the City she Administered. If they fought in Frostheim, the outcome would be much different than if they fought elsewhere.

Still, neither woman cared all that much to put it to the test. Rachel didn't see the point in beating up on her niece.

Austin, on the other hand, was more than willing to go to blows with anyone to see who was better. He always did it in good fun and was a good sport about it, but he held no qualms about beating up on family.

His recent win over Chris before he evolved only made his ego bigger. Instantly losing once Chris had evolved and managed to put a few levels under his belt deflated it, but certainly not enough.

"You've done plenty," Brayden soothed, both with his words and his message. "Emberhold is rebuilding nicely, and the citizens are growing and assimilating well. You've evolved into a power the Faction can rely on, and you've brought outside connections we didn't have before. You've done enough to be proud of, love."

After becoming a Baroness and taking over Lakeshore, they had decided a new name was in order. What better way to represent the small hearth of fire in a sea of snow than the name Emberhold.

Chris didn't care what she named it, and the name had stuck ever since she had thought of it.

He's right. She knew he was right, but she wanted to keep pushing for more. Watching Chris delay his advancement to keep reaching for more was inspiring in more ways than one.

It made her choice to rip out her current Profession solidify. Once this Assembly was over, and she was back in Emberhold, she'd go through with it. The only reason she had waited was because she needed to show up here with power befitting Frostheim. Ripping out her Profession would remove too many stat points and leave her weak.

"This will cause direct conflict. Something Chris was trying to avoid." She knew her point was a losing one, but she couldn't help but point it out.

"He knows that." Brayden said, "Hell, everyone knows that. In the end, it was deemed worth the potential conflict it could bring. It was why he authorized you to do it."

Rachel remembered the meeting well, even if it had been months ago. They had discussed a great many things to do with her trip South, and the deal with Vanessa was only one of them.

'If the negotiation comes down to an alliance or nothing, take it,' Chris had said, 'A defensive alliance is worth it in the long run, even if it means getting pulled into things I would rather avoid.'

Everyone had agreed that the value of being able to use the Eternal Flame, even limited as they were, along with the trade opportunities the link between their two Factions would create, outweighed the potential cons of the deal.

The memory also sparked her to think about the last thing Chris had said to her as a final send-off.

'I send you South in my name, and in doing so, place my full trust and authority in you. Words you say carry the weight of if I had spoken them myself. Know that you have my absolute faith, and I wish you good fortune on your journey.'

He said it so absolutely, it was hard not to feel the responsibility pressing down on her. The level of trust was something that warmed Rachel's heart. When she first married Brayden and joined the Zalenski family, what felt like lifetimes ago, they welcomed her with open arms and warm hugs.

They went to great lengths to show that she was a full member of the family, even though she had only married into it, rather than being born into it. Chris placing unflinching trust in her was just yet another sign of that.

He may have taken Thomas's teachings a bit too literally, with his need to honor his word, but saying she spoke in his name was something entirely different than just unflinching faith.

After she'd seen him flatten a City to keep his word, she was honestly scared to see what he would do if she mistakenly said something in anger or outrage. In a room full of Faction Leaders, there would be no way to take it back or backtrack if something went wrong.

For all Christopher's faults, his stubbornness was by far one of the worst ones, and it had only gotten worse after the Change.

Rachel sighed, knowing her decision was already made.

"Sophia," Rachel called for the woman, and it didn't take long for the blonde to arrive, "If you would find out where Vanessa is staying and send word I would like to meet, that would be grand."

Chris hadn't only sent her with his authority, but also with his Assistant. After receiving charge of Emberhold, Rachel had gotten her own Assistants, but Sophia was by far the highest leveled of those she had brought along.

Working with Chris, Abigail, and Abigail's Assistant Grace to help run a City, let alone in close relation with a Baron made into Viscount, Sophia had seen her rate of leveling soar, and her evolution options dwarf what she had been previously offered.

"I'll ready the contract we prepared." Brayden slid away to their luggage to find one of the premade contracts.

Chris absolutely detested them even before Abigail's investigation revealed what Lakeshore and, more importantly, Victor had done. His hatred of them only exploded after finding out.

If he had his way, verbal contracts would be the only ones he ever engaged in, much like he had already done in the past, but that wasn't possible for something like this.

Vanessa didn't know him well enough to take something as important as a mutual defense alliance on his word. She wanted assurances that only a contract could provide. After the alien merchants came in with their talk of System Contracts, it was the basis on which a lot of things now were built on.

Trade and agreements between factions being one of them.

Part of Rachel's efforts had been to see if a verbal contract was enough, which had been shot down early during the negotiations. They had come prepared, though. After finding out what was possible with Demon blood of all things, they made sure any contract they signed was prepared by them, and only them.

It was a sticking point Vanessa was going to have to live with.

Abigail had made the Contract Lawyers prepare a few different ones, so that they were prepared for any acceptable outcome.

Calling Vanessa over now, after they had arrived, even though they had traveled together, wasn't a mistake either. While Christopher's upfront nature that bordered on extreme bluntness, this was something best done in the open.

If people knew the two Factions were close, it would hopefully dissuade any potential conflict.

Rachel hoped it didn't come to that.