The surroundings of this fort was the most lifeless place I had ever seen. There was always no movement in the area other than the movement of snow and ice. (Even that happen only during a storm.) This area of the world never really seemed to change. It remained the same, dull, lifeless and seemingly eternal.
Looking at my surroundings sometimes, the place seemed to be a painting drawn in only shades of grey. The sameness of the place was to such a point where it was impossible to say the time in this place. (Day here means everything is light grey, and night means everything is a darker grey.) For me, night and day in this place looked the same. I mostly told the time based on the meals provided to me.
Anyway, the reason I am speaking about all this is to point out that this is not the case anymore. The snow and ice outside are anything but stationary. In fact, they are moving with such a violent energy that I am not sure if I will be blown away if I were to leave now. Thankfully, I have strengthened the place with the Ironskin. (Or we all would be flying like pieces of paper at this very moment.)
Even then, I can feel the entire fort tremble with the sheer amount of ice being thrown at it. (I don't even need to be connected to the Ironskin to tell that.) Every few seconds, I can feel the vibration of a block of ice colliding with the walls. Thankfully, the Ironskin does its job by taking in a majority of the impact, so the physical wall is safe. (To a degree at the very least.)
The wall will still break if the exact same spot is hit multiple times. The chances of that happening enough times for significant damage are quite low, thankfully. (At least, that is what Shamon assures me.) We will need to repair the wall once the storm ends, though. That is a problem for the future.
Every time I focus outside with my mana sense, a wave of nausea strong enough to overwhelm me hits me. It takes most of my will to ensure that I do not empty my guts out. On top of that, the vibrations of these collisions are annoying me to no end. I am supposed to be working on the formation. With these vibrations, though, I am pretty sure that I will end up screwing up something if I were to try. (Not that I can delay it in this manner forever.)
The closest analogy that I can think of is that I am sitting in a group of drummers with each playing their drums just out of tune. You know that there is supposed to be a tune, but no matter how much you try you can't just place what it is supposed to be.
It would be a lie to call this an analogy. I had the misfortune of being in such a room myself once. Granted, I was also one of the drummers in that room, and the class ended up with our teacher vowing never to teach another class of music to us deaf and idiotic humans (he had quite a few words more, but thankfully I don't know any demihuman languages.).
Our teacher was a bat demihuman with a sense of hearing many times sharper than ours. Our playing of the drums caused the man to wish he could rip off his ears. Our classes even led to quite a diplomatic incident it seems. At least, my master never tried to teach us music again after that.
I guess that I have rambled on enough till now. I started this log for a reason after all. To get to it, Shamon is sure that we are being visited by the Snowlords. The storms have confirmed it for him. As for the exact details of this, I have recorded the conversation between me and the man. I guess that I should add it here. The only problem is that I have never added a recording after it has already been recorded in this manner. Whatever, let me try once.
(Six hours ago)
"What in the hells is going on, Shamon?" I ask him, annoyed out of my mind.
I had just woken up, after a long and pretty fitful sleep. It was so bad that the only reason I had it was to force my body to rest. I have been trying to regulate my sleep for the last couple of weeks. It's not an easy task with a formation to build and no real way to tell the time.
"Captain, it is not rock, it is chunks of ice, and it is going to get worse, way worse," Shamon replies. He sounds quite bored with the situation we are in. The man is either very good at hiding his emotions, or he has faced this many times.
"That is not pleasant to hear. What exactly is going on?" I ask him.
"It is the arrival storms, Captain," he said.
"The arrival storms?" I ask, my voice quite curious. I had not read about this in any of the reports about the place. (Something the Scholars do not know about is always something worth knowing about.)
"The Snowlords do this whenever they are sieging a place. They first summon a storm to attack the location they are targetting. That is why we call it the arrival storms. It means that a Snowlord is arriving. I have never seen them pull one off this early in winter, though," Shamon continues.
"What you are proposing is a dangerous little thing, Shamon. Weather control is something that the tribes are not capable of. Nothing would prevent them from assaulting the Hexmountain otherwise," I reply, even as I ponder on just how much of a disaster this would actually be.
"Calling it weather control is a bit too much. It would be more accurate to say that it is just enhancing storms that already exist. I have heard even they are not immune to their own storms," he says, looking at me pointedly. "To be honest, we would have already abandoned the fort if it was any other time. I have never seen a storm this intense. That reminds me, how is your formation?"
"It is going well, Shamon. Yesterday, I completed the inscription of the tenth spell on the formation core. With this, I have achieved minor completion of the formation. Only one inscription remains and I can start on it at this very moment," I say to him.
"Isn't the Class Eight formation harder to inscribe?" Shamon asks, his voice taking an inquisitive tone.
"The inscription process is always the same. It doesn't matter what the level of the spell you inscribe is. All of them are a set of runes at the end of the day. Designing them and understanding them, though, that is the true challenge," I begin, stopping myself before I go on. A formation mage discussing his work is the best way to put people to sleep, I have discovered. "I know the formation I am inscribing, so it will take me about as long as any other spell. Then the formation is complete. Theoretically, this should be enough to handle any Snowlord."
Even as I say this, I can't help but extend my mana sense as waves of nausea hit me. To think this is something the Snowlords can do. Shamon looks like he is about to say something more.
Before he can do that, one of the soldiers comes running to him. I didn't make out much of their conversation. (it would have been rude to spy on them when we are all in the same room.) taking Shamon's advice the man disappears quite quickly. I assume that it is likely something to do with the southern gate. That place is at quite a risk in the storm.
(Back to the present.)
Fuck, that was weird. I want to be honest, this is the first time that I have attempted to slot in a past recording in my log like that.
Now I know that it is supposed to be a basic skill for any guard. My fellows like to use it for recording any diplomatic talks they have. Long after the talks are over, they break their records into individual dialogues. Then they slot in the necessary explanations.
I don't have to worry about all of that. I am a formation mage. Stuff like that is completely out of the scope of my work. You could say that my worries are more technical in nature. (And sharing that would be sharing secrets, which the Head Office wouldn't want anyway.) I also do not hold an interest in converting my log into boring lectures. I have slept after reading logs like that. Similarly, there is no way that I can remain awake while creating them.
I have heard stories about people who have ended up sleeping in the process of recording a log. Even if they are false, that is not a gamble that I am willing to take.
It is such a weird feeling anyway, having two sets of thoughts in your mind. It is almost like trying to speak in two tongues at the same time. You know every single word you need to say and yet you can feel the words sound as strange as a new language in your mouth. Honestly speaking, I don't know how I managed to do it this well here.
Regardless, with that particular experiment complete, it is time for me to return to the task. The first thing is to record the success of the Iron Bubble. Looks like I will have to thank my master this time around.
The Iron Bubble is still the same as the last time that I described it. To be honest, it is not going to get particularly strong even after a lot of time. That is why I was so suspicious of the spell in the first place. The only reason that I still put it in was that the spell came with glowing recommendations from my master. If the spell had failed, it would have been fun to rub it in my masters face. (I don't get a lot of chances to do that.)
Sadly, I won't be getting to do so. The spell is the reason that we managed the storm so effectively. Now, the main threats in this storms are the blocks of ice manifested by excessive ice mana. They might vary in size, but each moves with enough force to break the wall. The Ironskin is good enough to manage them, but it can't take too many of these blocks or it will break.
That is where the Iron Bubble comes in. These blocks of ice are more than capable of destroying the barrier with a single touch. When that happens, the shattering bubble is able to redirect the block. (This took significant designing from my side.) The block of ice will still move at the same speed, but away from the wall. I have managed to cut down the number of coliisions in half by implementing the bubble.
Other than the Iron Bubble, I need to inscribe the class eight spell. It is something that I have been dreading doing. With so many distractions, the inscription of the class eight spell is not going to be easy.
While it is true that it should not be too hard (I know of a few class nine formations that are harder) but the consequences of failure are much higher. If it fails, there is a chance that I might have to redo the entire formation. After all, this particular spell will link with all the other spells of the formations. Any mistake here will reflect on them.
Screw it, As my master says, "thinking of failure before you have begun your work is no way to succeed now, little brat". Fuck, I am annoyed now. Let's begin the work now. At least with this success, I will have another class eight formation under my belt. If only it were a class seven formation. I would wave it in my master's face till he got annoyed.