Truth in the Blizzard.

Indena and I were one of many teams searching for the mayor’s son. We had absolutely no idea where he would have gone, but the whole town went in pairs to hunt him down. Before dark.

Speaking of hunt, we saw two Pavan birds, one very small, and the other large. The larger one was laying around the small one, keeping it warm in the cold and doing some preening of the little guy’s feathers. The dropping temperature seemed to be bothering them now.

“We really need to do something about this weather.” Indena commented.

“Yeah.”

It really was a mystery on how this started. All we know is that something magical caused it.

“The sooner we get this done, the sooner we get to eat,” She continued.

“I know you better than that. You wanna help because you’re worried he’ll freeze out here.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I’m still hungry.”

She’s so predictable.

~☆☆☆~

We’d gone out pretty far at this point, and it was getting dark. The overcast started to clear, revealing a few stars. As the wind picked up, little speckles of snow flakes glittered along with the twinkling orbs of space.

One of the flakes of snow caught my eye, leading my sight to a strangely bright section of the horizon. There was a blue line of light just shooting straight up behind one of the mesa. It was oddly familiar, but why?

“Indena…” I tugged on her coat, “do you see that?”

“Yeah.” She squinted to get a better look. “Doesn’t it remind you of something?”

It did remind me of something. In fact, it looked like an energy beam from a mana tower. Could it be that…?

I opened up my LOCATION menu and zoomed out until I could see the whole area. Whatever that was, it was too far away to register. Something else gave away what exactly we were looking at.

When you look at a normal map of the world, you usually see a grid on it, right? Those are latitude and longitude lines.

In our world, wherever those lines would intersect are where magic towers are placed to keep the climate stable. They shoot mana energy into the air and it rains down for all life to use.

There’s two kinds of these towers. One that generates a lot of heat, which are the Longitude Points. But the other Latitude Points generate a lot of cold…

If my theory is correct, I think we've found out why this desert suddenly became a frigid waste land.

“Come on!” I spawned my wings and grabbed Indena by the arm. “We’re heading to that tower!”

“Hey! Wait!” she yelled out as I tugged her along. “I…I can’t fly like you! Put me down!”

~☆☆☆~

Just like I predicted, it was a mana beam tower! I downloaded the local schematics so we’d have a layout of the inside.

Unlike almost literally every other stupid Elysian building across this world, this tower allowed me complete administrative power over its computer systems. The only problem was that I couldn’t contact the tower AI. Nothing new there…

The front gates to the tower slid apart, leading us into the dimly lit interior. Everything was blue, and ice was all over the walls. It looked like an ice cave or something. Very surreal.

I detected at least one lifeform besides us in this building. Could that have been where the mayor's son was?

We made our way to where I was detecting the lifeform, which was the Control Room on the second floor. The entrance we came through was up high, and we tried to sneak in without being heard.

“Is that so?” an elderly male voice spoke, mid conversation with someone. “Then what did she do?”

“She asked me to go ice skating.” That was the mayor’s son for sure!

“Did you?”

“No…They all looked stupid, so I didn’t want to join in.”

I know what situation he was talking about. Was that really the reason he didn’t want to join? I had a feeling it was more than that.

“Ahh…but dear Gabriel, I believe the only foolish one was yourself.”

“Huh?!” Gabriel stomped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The other person had a very soft-spoken voice, I didn’t detect any malice at all. It felt…warm and loving.

“If there is one thing I have observed about your kind, it is that many live with regret of things they ought to have done. Time passes, and opportunities wait for no one. That is why when fate gives you a chance to enjoy those precious seconds with others, take it.”

“What if we get busy with other stuff? What if we forget to see our family every once and a while?” Gabriel asked, calming his tone.

“There is no problem too complicated that you should ignore family. If you want something, there will always be a way to get it.”

I heard Gabriel start to sniffle. He was definitely crying.

“My dad sucks! I hate him!” Gabriel shouted.

“Is that so? You hate your father?”

“He’s never around, and I wonder if he really loves me anymore…” Gabriel said.

I choked up. My eyes watered. I blinked a few times to fight the tears, but I couldn’t keep them back for long. How many times did I ask that same question about my own dad?

“Your father is the mayor of Las Nieve. He works hard so you can have food and toys to play with,” the Elder voice said.

“I’m not five! I can get my own job. And I don’t play with toys! I just want to hang out with him again. But he’s always finding an excuse to work…”

“Of course…but I don’t believe it is his love you should be doubting.”

“What do you know?” Gabriel took steps away from whoever he was talking to, sounding like he was about to leave.

As he turned around, he saw us standing not far away from him. At first he looked really baffled, but then he just looked aggressive.

“What do you guys want?” he turned away toward the computer controls.

“We’ve been looking for your frozen butt.” Indena said, marching up to him, arms folded with a serious look. “You think it's okay to just march into the cold and not tell anyone?”

“So what? Nobody would miss me…!”

SMACK!

Indena slapped him in the face!

“Take it from me, kid. The snow ain’t fun to get lost in,” Indena said.

Since nobody else was in this room, I assumed Gabriel was conversing with the tower AI. I sent a message to the tower, hoping it would respond.

I got a response. Apparently…this AI went by the name, ‘Jack Frost.’ 

“Young Mistress Yalda, welcome.” The AI Jack Frost spoke through the control console speakers.

The two humans in the room were a little surprised that the AI referred to me directly, but I had authority over it since dad made him.

“Jack Frost, I’d like to know what’s going on here,” I asked. “Why did you authorize this person to enter the facility?”

"I apologize. Protocol dictates that I not let any unauthorized personnel enter without administrative permission…but doing so would have violated our basic commandments."

“What violation are you referring to?”

“The First Commandment; Thou shall not harm a human, or allow a human to come to harm. This young man came here seeking aid for his parental dilemma. But his journey was riddled with mild self-destructive tendencies, I couldn’t allow that.”

One issue I had with that story was that this tower clearly hadn’t been active for quite some time, since the land was turned into a desert. It should have always been super cold like it is now.

“Why was the tower not functioning before he came along?” I asked.

“You see, my systems are very outdated. Until this boy came to me, this beam tower was inactive for exactly 10,000 standard orbital cycles”

Oh my gosh. That’s 10,000 years of inactivity. That means this environment was completely natural, not needing any sort of machine to sustain it…was that even possible without large amounts of mana?

And you know what? I think I'm going to work on a patch to fix all the outdated systems around the planet...this keeps happening way too often. But...that's a thing for another time.

“So, you reactivated the tower somehow?” I asked Gabriel.

“When I came in here, it all just turned on. I have no idea why.”

The AI then explained that the tower needed him to do some minor calibrations, and that was when the snow started falling. Gabriel made it so that there would be a perpetual blizzard over the area for a while.

“Why would you do that?” I asked.

“I did it because I needed my dad to stop working!” He admitted.

“So you figured that if it started snowing badly, he’d have to take the time off and be with you.” Indena concluded.

“So what?” Gabriel folded his arms, protesting her conclusion. “It’s not like that plan worked at all.”

That plan really backfired. Like, really bad. As a kid, snow days are really great, but adults sometimes still have to go to work.

It’s clear that he and his dad had drifted apart due to his job. I knew that feeling all too well.

“My dad left me when I was three years old,” I said. “In the back of my mind I always thought it was because he stopped loving me, but I know he wouldn’t have made me if he didn’t love me. I can feel it in my heart. That's why I don't hate him for always being busy helping the world.”

Gabriel couldn’t keep his eyes on me.

“Listen up…” Indena started. “You’re dad is out there right now looking for you all over. He’s out in the cold, probably fighting off monsters, just like the rest of us.”

Gabriel’s face turned to shock, then his fists gripped tightly.

“He…He’ll die out there!”

“Any father would give their life for their child.” I said, holding my head high. “But if we head home right now, we can still save everyone.”