Snow exploded beneath their feet as Jamie tore after the fleeing figure, laughter spilling from her lips like she was chasing a particularly interesting bird rather than a barely dressed, foul-mouthed old man.
"WAIT—JAMIE—!" Elias shouted, already running despite himself.
S.K. was fast.
That was the first thing Elias registered once the shock wore off and the chase truly began. The old man moved with a gait that looked awkward at first—long strides, hunched shoulders, arms tucked tight to keep his cloak from flying open—but there was strength beneath it. Not the explosive speed of a trained fighter, but the stubborn, enduring pace of someone who had survived far worse than a pair of children sprinting after him through the snow.
"Bloody—shit—what in the fuck is wrong with you two?!" S.K. barked over his shoulder, boots skidding as he vaulted a fallen log. "Why the hell are you following me?!"
Jamie whooped. "You're fast for an old guy!"
"Oi! I'll have you know I was spry before you little gremlins ruined my bloody bath!"
Elias grimaced as he ducked under a low branch, lungs burning in the cold air. He hated this. Absolutely hated it. Chasing a naked—or formerly naked....well the cloak wasn't helping —old man through a winter forest ranked very high on his list of things that should not be happening.
And yet—
Jamie was grinning.
Snow burst outward as she skidded, then slammed her heel down. Frost surged from the impact point, ice racing across the ground in jagged lines, trying to catch S.K.'s ankles.
"Whoa—fuck!" S.K. yelped, leaping just in time as the ice snapped shut where his foot had been.
Elias stared despite himself.
Jamie was using her ability openly. Freely. Like this was a game.
"…You're enjoying this," Elias muttered.
She glanced back at him mid-run, eyes bright. "Obviously, I'm all for the hunt!"
He sighed.
If she was going to do this, then he couldn't afford to half-ass it.
Elias inhaled, mind shifting.
The forest sharpened.
Snow became resistance. Wind became vectors. The slope ahead became angles and friction coefficients layered over instinct and motion.
He adjusted.
Not the world—just enough of it.
The air thickened subtly around S.K.'s legs, drag increasing by fractions too small to notice consciously. At the same time, Elias lightened the snow beneath his own boots, reducing slip, improving traction.
S.K. stumbled.
"Ah—shit!" he snarled, arms flailing as he barely caught himself.
Jamie gasped. "Did you see that?!"
Elias' breath tightned as the pressure behind his eyes grew.
'Still not used to this.'
They pressed harder.
S.K. swore again and reached into his satchel mid-sprint. "Damn brats!"
He flung something behind him without looking.
The object struck the ground and shattered—
—and the world boomed.
A concussive wave blasted outward, snow and dirt erupting in a cloud of ice shards and smoke. Elias threw an arm up, instinctively compensating—pressure equalization, vector redirection—but the force still hurled him backward, slamming him into a tree hard enough to rattle his teeth.
Jamie slid to a stop, eyes wide.
"That was AWESOME!"
"What—what was that?!" Elias coughed, pushing himself up.
S.K. didn't stop running. "Thunder-Spark Capsule!" he shouted back. "Single-use artifact! Expensive as hell to make! You little brats better advise yourselves before i unleash more!"
Jamie's eyes sparkled. "He throws magic bombs!"
"Bloody amateurs—!" S.K. snapped.
Elias stared at the dissipating smoke, mind racing.
Artifacts.That capsule had been calibrated—yield controlled, dispersal shaped to disorient rather than kill.
"…He's an artificer," Elias murmured.
Jamie blinked. "A what?"
"Someone who makes things like that," Elias said, already moving again. "And he seems good at it."
That realization sent a chill through him deeper than the cold.
He hadn't expected this. Lyle had said his gramps wasn't in his right mind but this guy was sane enough to cuss and his mid worked well enough to make and utilize tools.
'Sure this is the right guy?'
A thought surfaced unbidden.
'If he can make artifacts like these… could he make something meant to kill?'
His pace faltered for half a second.
His mother's face flashed through his mind.
Elias clenched his jaw and shoved the thought aside.
'Focus.'
Ahead, S.K. skidded around a cluster of trees and hurled another object down at his feet. This one burst into a spreading sheet of slick, glassy ice that expanded outward unnaturally fast.
"Frost-Slick Disk!" S.K. crowed. "Try running now, you little shits!"
Jamie laughed and leapt—then slammed both palms forward.
Her ice and his cancelled each other out. Jamie still pressed with a second layer of frost over the cancellation.
Crystalline spikes burst up through the slick, fracturing it, breaking the surface into manageable shards she landed on easily.
"Mine's better!" she yelled.
S.K. shrieked. "That's not how that's supposed to work!"
Elias felt a strange, fleeting amusement tug at him despite everything.
They were… working together.
He shifted parameters again—this time not at S.K., but at the environment. Snow thickened behind the old man, clinging to his boots, while the wind nudged branches just enough to close off paths, funneling him forward.
Toward—
Elias's stomach dropped.
The Iron Forest.
The air changed before they even reached the boundary. The trees ahead darkened, bark taking on that familiar metallic sheen. Snow no longer fell naturally here—it clung in unnatural patterns, melting and freezing in defiance of reason.
S.K. burst through the threshold without slowing.
Jamie didn't hesitate.
Elias did.
"Jamie—stop!" he shouted.
She skidded, boots carving furrows in the snow just short of the boundary. Elias caught up, heart hammering.
"We can't go in there," he said sharply. "Roric told us to stay away."
Jamie opened her mouth—
—and froze.
Figures stepped out from between the ironwood trees.
Wilcris first, tall and broad, arms folded. Fenn beside him, eyes sharp and assessing. Lysle lingered slightly behind, unreadable, while Garett strolled casually, expression already amused.
"Oh," Wilcris said mildly, "this is unexpected."
Elias felt his soul leave his body.
Jamie beamed. "Hi!"
Wilcris's gaze flicked from their flushed faces, to the disturbed snow, to the faintly smoking remnants of an artifact behind them.
"…What were you doing?" he asked.
Elias opened his mouth, already assembling a careful, reasonable explanation that would not, under any circumstances, involve naked old men—
"We were chasing a naked old guy who bathes in freezing rivers and throws magic bombs!" Jamie said cheerfully.
Elias palmed his face.
"Idiot," he muttered into his hand.
Silence followed.
Fenn slowly blinked.
Garett snorted.
Wilcris pinched the bridge of his nose. "Jamie..."
Elias lowered his hand and glanced aside—and paused.
There, beneath a frost-rimmed tree near a partially frozen pool, pale threadlike growths clung stubbornly to the ice.
Winterlace.
Perfect. Untouched.
He sighed. Deeply.
'Of course.'
Jamie leaned closer to him and whispered, "Worth it."
Elias did not answer.
Somewhere deeper in the Iron Forest, an old man swore loudly, tripped over an unseen root, and vanished into the trees and headed toward his shed.