A desperate race against time!

We had to make a great detour, because the fissure was still expanding in unpredictable ways. In the southeast, similar steam explosions like the one that destroyed the ‘Ice Wallow', were shooting up, steadily widening and prolonging the rift in the ice. But that was the one faced away from us.

More problematic was the eruption eating through the ice sheet in the northwestern direction, because that's where we wanted to bypass it. The rift expanded here at a slower pace, but we knew that offset steam explosions could occur at any moment.

We only had two options:

First: waiting until the eruption stabilizes, or...

Second: circumventing the ongoing event with a huge safety margin.

We went for option two because of our dwindled supplies and the bad shape Yára and Reeza were in.

Both girls were unconscious and running a high fever. Lily wrapped them in some blankets to preserve their warmth, but that’s all she could do for now. Despite the heating of my Munchie at its maximum, the unforgiving cold from the outside slowly crept in. I could only cross my fingers for the two girls and hoped the batteries would hold out. It became clear, without the help of magic, survival in these lands would become a gamble for life and death!

The task to circumnavigate the eruption was dire, because we had to outrun the steadily expanding fissure in the direction of its expansion to the northwest. Therefore we drove here as fast as we could, maintaining a deemed safe distance and only slowed down when it was clear that we had bypassed it.

Still we didn’t stop and drove further south and a little to the west to escape the inevitable ash cloud that would chase us, now that the wind was blowing in our general direction. Nevertheless I turned back the electric assist to preserve as much of the remaining energy as possible.

After an hour or so we finally took a break to recuperate, to eat something and to tend to Yára and Reeza, who woke up and were burning up at the same time. I made some vegetarian stew, since all meat had been on the ‘Ice Wallow’, and fed some of it to Reeza, while Lily did the same to Yára. I was deeply shaken to see the two warriors so weak. Such a stark contrast to when I’ve seen them fly and slay dragons by the dozens (if not hundreds!)!

“What’s the matter with them?” I asked Lily, when we continued our journey, both girls in the back asleep again.

“They overexerted themselves.” the beastess grumbled. “It must’ve been a severe shock to their minds and bodies when they burned so much mana in an instant to protect at least their skin. Fools!”

She shook her head.

“But that happens, when you rely too much on magic. You get cocky, and then… Damn fools!” she cursed. “If they haven’t recovered enough to get us under the ice down to our supplies we are absolutely screwed!”

“What can we do to help them?” I asked, feeling hopelessness creeping up to me.

Lily shook her head.

“Nothing much.” she admitted. “They need rest, warmth and food with high manærite content.”

“In other words nothing we can provide right now.”

“At least not sufficiently. Damn! I hope we don’t encounter any dragons!”

I hadn’t thought of that! Our cloaking didn’t work anymore, now that the girls were out!

Well, all that we could do right now was pedal as if there was no tomorrow!

And pedal we did, hours after hours, relentlessly. Of course Lily did the main part, but I noticed how my strength and stamina had improved. Despite still being the weakest of us (the current state of Yára and Reeza not taken into account of course) Lily’s hellish training now really paid off. I could keep pace with her and reduce the electric assist to a bare minimum, aided of course by the favorable wind direction. Unfortunately the heating ate away this advantage, and despite unfolding the solar roof to its fullest during driving (a reckless move, I agree!) the battery charge steadily sank.

Not only was the sun quite weak and low from the beginning, as time progressed, it started to sink behind the gigantic eruption cloud in the north. There was just too little sunlight for the solar panels to draw enough energy and keep the battery charge evenly. A truly dire situation!

Yára and Reeza were slipping in and out of their catatonic state and weren’t able to provide any help. Lily and I were practically on our own and just had to push through the hostile environment: the cold, the snow, the ice and the immense distances.

Unfortunately it also seemed that the girls had been right about a new storm brewing. In the north the ash and steam clouds steadily grew, birthing new clouds that started chasing us, driven by the stiff north wind towards us.

Lily spotted this development alongside me in the rear mirror and let out a less than printable string of curses.

“This is exactly what we needed! Why did they have to be right on everything except the main thing: our all safety!”

“Sorry…” came the weak response from the back. Lily just huffed.

“Sorry doesn’t bring us anywhere right now!”

At that moment I recalled something that might actually help us and kicked myself for not remembering earlier.

“May we stop for a moment? I have an idea.” I asked the agitated beastess.

“I hope it’s a good one. Otherwise only a miracle can save us!”

I rummaged through the storage compartment and found the one thing I hid for absolute emergencies: Two stashes of twelve yfood bottles, each one about five hundred milliliters. This liquid food might have just enough calories and nutrients to replenish our resources and maybe also help the two incapacitated girls in the back.

I brought a full stash back to the front, handed everyone a bottle with a drinking straw and said: “Drink this. It’s as good as any food and will hopefully provide the energy boost we all need.”

Lily eyed her bottle suspiciously and even more so the drinking straw.

“What’s this?” she asked warily.

“It’s for drinking when you are driving or moving in a way that isn’t beneficial for normal drinking.” I answered.

“Aha, and how does it work?”

I sighed. Of course this world didn’t know anything about drinking straws!

“You suckle on it. Like on a teat.”

Lily made a face and from the back came restrained snickering.

“Quiet!” barked the beastess which made the sniggering even worse. But it died down quickly, replaced by greedy sipping and slurping noises. I also enjoyed my bottle of yfood and Lily got over herself too and suckled on her straw as we resumed our desperate escape attempt to the south.

The sky in the north now turned truly terrifying, getting darker and darker, the clouds chasing us and slowly catching up. Even lighting became visible and distant thunder started rolling over us.

“How much further?” I asked anxiously.

Lily sighed.

“At least a hundred more miles. Maybe one hundred fifty.”

My breath froze. That was impossible to do! The storm would catch up to us long before! And what would happen afterwards was everyone’s best guess…

“Fold up the roof.” came Reeza’s weak voice from the back. “It’s dangerous, but we need full maneuverability right now. And if I keep ingesting this stuff I might actually be able to help a little bit.”

She was right. The wind was picking up, letting the Munchie sway dangerously at times, so I did what she requested.

Fortunately we now started to pick up some speed. The terrain began gently - very gently - sloping downwards, and I noticed us gliding sometimes a little bit faster than usually over the snow. It seemed that Reeza and Yára were slowly getting better and aided us with what little resources they still had in them. Nevertheless it was reckless speeding with more than fifty miles per hour over such unsafe grounds, but what choice did we have?

Time flew by and the dark clouds with their threatening lighting were gaining ground. It started to snow, but fortunately the wind didn’t pick up as much as last time. Otherwise we’d be blind by now from snow drifts. Unfortunately the lighting was a new thread, us being in absolutely flat terrain with my Munchie currently the highest elevation by far!

But the girls in the back steadily grew stronger by the minute and aided us as best as they could. Their abilities were currently just a fraction from their usual, but it was enough to steadily push us forward and ease our pedaling. Just like the electric assist, but without using any electricity.

Unfortunately the battery charge got really low now, under twenty percent, and I had to turn the heating down. It didn’t matter anyway. The miles flew past, but the snowfall thickened. Driving got more difficult, the girls in the back, despite already sucking on their third bottle, tiring. And the lighting strikes got dangerously near. We were trapped in a desperate race against time and in imminent danger of losing it!

I blocked out everything. Nothing mattered anymore, just pushing the pedals. Everything else grew distant, the howling wind, the shrinking sight, the blinding flashes, the deafening thunder. My whole world shrank down to pumping my legs, pushing the pedals, pedaling, pedaling, pedaling.

Suddenly Reeza cried out: “Hold it! We’re here!”

It felt completely unreal to have really achieved the unachievable, but we still weren’t safe! The girls in the back had to gather all their remaining strength to repeat their usually easy feat of letting our vehicle sink under the ice towards the life-saving supplies. What usually felt smooth and effortless now felt like an arduous task. Agonizingly slow the Munchie inched deeper, still exposed to the raging elements.

It was at this moment a lighting chose to crash into us from directly above, the deafening thunder nearly swallowing Yára’s piercing shriek. I cast an alarmed look back and saw the ælf collapse into her seat, unconscious again. Our descent halted momentarily, but Reeza balled her fists, grit her teeth, and we started moving again, steadily now and a little bit quicker.

My next glance went to the screen to see if the lighting stroke did any damage. Thankfully not and I realized that Yára must’ve diverted it in a last effort to save us, but overexerted herself again. Now Reeza had to do the task of gaining us access to the hidden storage alone.

What shall I say? She only managed to bring us down to the right depth, but in the middle of clearing a tunnel towards the supply chamber, her strength deserted her and she unceremoniously collapsed. She didn’t even manage to seal the ceiling above us again, so we were still exposed to the snowfall and the blistering cold of the raging blizzard.

“Drive the Munchie into the tunnel and start sealing the entrance. I’ll break down the remaining ice.” instructed Lily unfazed and immediately got to work. I marveled at her sheer endless stamina and her raw strength. She simply dug her claws into the ice and ripped whole chunks out, tossing them aside as ragdolls. These chunks were of great use, as I used them to block the entrance, filling the gaps in between with snow.

Long we worked and I thought we’d never reach the life-saving supplies, when finally the last ice wall gave way and granted us access to the reserves we were in such dire need to get at!

My sight swam and I collapsed too, not having realized how tired and overexerted beyond all limits I was. I tumbled to the icy floor and, like my two comrades before, sank into merciful darkness.

Peace at last!