Heating the Town

Despite the people of Las Nieve hitting a rough patch in their lives with this freak snow storm, it seemed like things were really looking up. We’d gotten them food, lights, decorations…and we were setting up a primitive heating system using magic!

“How long do I have to stand here and do this?” Indena asked, holding her hands over a big orange crystal.

“Just keep sending it mana until the inside is opaque.” Yamin said, reading an instruction manual.

So there’s a thing called Mana crystals that arrived here by mail this morning. If you feed them with enough of your own magic energy, they’ll hold onto it so you can use them for different things. Right now Indena was filling tons of them with fire magic so they can heat everyone’s house.

The hard part was that it took all of five hours just to get half a town's worth made…but she was dedicated to getting it all done in one go. Nobody was going to spend another night in the cold on her watch.

“Mama, I want to be cool like El Fuego!” The girl from before pointed at Indena.

“Baah!” The mother dismissed her child.

Indena raised her brow, then turned to me for a translation.

“She called you ‘The Fire.’”

“Oh.” She was pleasantly surprised, not thinking she’d get a cool nickname like that.

She plays it tough, but she's always happy to help people. It's even better when they appreciate her work. In our line of business, it's way too often that people forget to say thank you.

~☆☆☆~

The townspeople were really active today, mainly paranoid about keeping us from the cathedral. It piqued our curiosity.

Once we finished making enough heating crystals for everyone’s house, which took us well into the evening, the priest happily walked us to the church doors to reveal the fruits of their secret activities.

“Consider this a thank you for all your hard work…”

He pushed open the cathedral doors, revealing…a beautiful banquet feast! They'd spent the whole day setting this up!

“Wow, look at all this!” I cheered, tugging on Uncle’s jacket. “Look at what they did! It's wonderful!”

Uncle chuckled, patting me on the head. “It is. You really didn't have to do this, especially when you all need the food.” Uncle Said in a flattered tone.

“With all the food you brought to us, we made bags full for each family to take home and use over the week. This was just some of the extra we had after it was all done. ”

They got that done fast. This was amazing!

“I sure am hungry from using up all my magic.” Indena laughed. “Let's chow down!”

Before we got the sit down, the mayor ran at us with a heavy breath and a desperate plea for help.

“Santa Arcángel Yalda! You have to help me find my son! I don’t know where he has gone, and I’m very worried.”

Oh man…his son went missing? That was the grouchy kid who acted like Indena. This could be bad. It was getting really chilly out. The town was all nice and warmed up by all the mana rocks, but beyond here the temperature was dropping fast. If we don't find him soon, he might be in trouble.

“Don’t worry, we'll find him.” I said.

“I’m coming too!” Indena announced. “If that kid freezes out there, I’ll never forgive myself.” she growled. “We’ll find him.”

“Any clue where he might have gone?” Uncle asked.

All the mayor knew was that his son wasn't in the town, so he had to have gone somewhere out in the wild. But why?