I could hear the group as they hurried down the hill. The snow under their shoes crunched as the sound of their laughter filled the air, echoing off the hills oddly. My face felt like it was both on fire and freezing as I debated digging myself deeper or getting out of wherever I had fallen into.

  The decision was made for me as someone yanked on the collar of my shirt. I was pulled up and placed on my feet by someone who didn’t sound at all strained as they pulled off such an awkward lift. “Are you ok?” Michael laughed as he asked. He wasn’t the only one to laugh either.

  Of course, it was the laughter that made the situation worse. Something about it made me feel isolated, not welcome. It emphasized the fact that I just did not belong with this group. I shouldn’t be with this group. Hell, I wouldn’t have been with this group today if not for the fucking wolf.

  “I’m fine,” I spluttered as I tried to get the last of the snow out of my mouth. The stuff was cold and gritty and not something I wanted to try swallowing. Who knew what was in the stuff? I had to spit several times to expel as much of the melted liquid as possible.

  It was only a few seconds of my doing this that I found that they were still chuckling as they waited for me. Their bemused expressions made me realize what I was doing. While in the real world, I would have to worry about all the chemicals mixed into the snow, such things didn’t exist here. Or it did but it wasn’t nearly as toxic.

  That realization alone relaxed something inside of me. It even allowed me to snap at the tiny jabbering voice at the back of my head to shut up. The thing listened to me but only after giving one last verbal jab. This is still a game. You will have to return to reality at some point. It was right, but it didn’t have to remind me of that fact. No matter how much I wished it wasn’t true, I knew that this place was nothing more than a fictional place and that I would have to return to reality sooner or later.

  As I looked up, I found that Linda was the only one without a smile on her face. In fact, she looked to be glaring at Michael. A moment later, she broke away from the group and tried to help dust me off while checking for injuries. “Ignore them,” she said, her voice was both warm and soft. “They can be a bit insensitive sometimes.” Her genuine concern caught me off guard. In a group that seemed to find amusement at my expense, her kindness was a welcome surprise. It was like she was actually trying to welcome me, which was more than I could say about the rest of the group.

  Either the cold was getting to my cheeks, or the woman looking at me caringly was getting to me; my cheeks burned even hotter than before. My eyes dropped from Linda as I muttered, “Thanks.”

  She shrugged. “It happens to everyone. And hey, what’s an adventure without a few slips, right?”

  Her words acted like a balm for my embarrassment. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “Watch where you step,” Victor pointed at a fairly smooth portion of snow before lightly tossing something at it. A section of snow the size of my head caved in. “There are places in the snow where ice formed over a hole before more snow piled over it.”

  “How far do we have to walk?” I asked as we started up the next hill. My eyes constantly scanned my path for similar-looking sections. Either there were none, or I was still missing them because they were suddenly nowhere to be found.

  “Probably an hour to get to the barn. Another half hour to get to the edge of the forest.” Michael said with a chuckle. Without warning, something flew across the group and nailed Lance in the side of the head. The explosion of pure white had me scrambling, looking around to find where the attack had come from.

  To my shock, Jeremiah stood off to the side as he casually tossed something in one hand. Without warning, his arm blurred as the white object vanished. Its blurred trail was obscured by the scenery around us. From the sound of someone growling, it had struck Lance, again. “What the hell?” I asked, though, judging by how everyone around me was scrambling along the ground, there was little chance I would get an answer.

  Their hands dug into the softly packed powder. Looking almost as if they were all digging a hole to hide in. Still a bit wary of the freezing stuff, I didn’t join them. Instead, I watched as Michael, Linda, Victor, and Patric all skillfully packed balls together.

  As if planned out, each of their arms blurred. The packed snow vanished. Three puffs of snow were the only signs of where they had hit. While those three missed, one managed to nail the guy square in the chest. The impact was so hard that it caused the guy to slide a foot back before finally causing him to topple to the ground.

  The sounds of crunching and scrambling told me that the group wasn’t done. If anything, it sounded like they were just getting started. I chose to ignore the people around me. My eyes were instead locked onto Jeremiah. His body was as still as a statue.

  As I watched, the air, which had been fairly still throughout the walk, started to pick up. As it did, it picked up a bit of the powdered snow. This wasn’t something that was all that odd, or at least it happened all the time in movies. I had even seen something similar happen one time when the temperatures dropped well below freezing for a prolonged period of time. Slowly, the snow around Jeremiah started to spin as it started to resemble a dust devil, only made of snow.

  “You really want to add magic to this?” Victor laughed. I turned to look at him, confused as to why he would ask such a thing. That was when I saw just how many snowballs they had gathered. Their arms were loaded. If I had to guess, the only reason they stopped making them was because they were unable to carry any more. Each of them looked prepared to rain hell down on Jeremiah.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  A soft crunching sound behind me caused my head to flick in his direction. Jeremiah stood in the middle of his little snow devil. His long leather coat fluttered around him, looking like it wanted to join the snow in its energetic flight. As I watched, small spheres of snow, no larger than a nickel, formed around him. They grouped together as more of them formed out of thin air. As their numbers increased, the sight resembled that of a carrier and its escort. The balls even managed to get into a V formation.

  His smile had me scrambling back. It was wide and maniacal. Not a smile you wanted to see on someone who was about to attack you. Both groups watched me, making sure that I could get far enough away before lighting the fuse.

  The moment I stopped, the battle started. Missiles of snow flew back and forth. They came out of the swirling air around Jeremiah like machine-gun pellets as he sprayed his targets. In response, the other side fired their collection. While they were fewer in number, they were much more accurate. Some even managed to explode after intercepting a pellet. The powder hung in the air, taking out quite a few other shots before finally fading.

  I watched in utter awe while the shots that made it to the vortex froze in midair. Moments later, they practically disintegrated before being reformed into yet more snow pellets. As one, most of the new weapons were launched at Victor, who looked to be readying something. Michael yelled and stomped his foot hard. Whatever he did caused a wave of snow from the point of impact. It raced across the distance, growing as it did so.

  The wave engulfed the latter half of the missiles, but the rest were too fast. They flashed across the space to where Victor stood. Just before they hit him, he tossed a ball in a random direction. As it hit, he vanished from where he stood and appeared at the impact point.

  An impact point that just happened to be behind his target. With a fast spin to gather momentum in Jeremiah’s direction, he threw the last of his ammo. Instead of getting torn apart by the wind, it passed through, slamming against Jeremiah’s back, causing him to once again stagger.

  As the whirlwind stuttered, Patric took advantage. He melted into his shadow only to appear out of a shadow cast by one of his balls. A ball that was just outside the range of Jeremiah’s control.

  Suddenly standing just behind Jeremiah, hands full of snow, he dumped it down the guy's back. Jeremiah cried out as he jerked forward. “You asshole. That’s fucking cold.”

  “You asked for it.” Patric’s voice was quiet. The only reason I could hear it was the silence of the frozen world around us. Given how he sounded, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the guy was grinning, even as Jeremiah grimaced while he tried to get the snow out from between his shirt and skin.

  As the group gathered back together, the rest of them smacked Jeremiah’s back with fistfuls of snow. Each one caused a small explosion, sending snow up under his cowboy hat where it either got stuck in his hair or fell onto his neck. My stomach hurt from just how hard I was laughing as I watched their antics.

  Linda must have noticed that I was standing on my own off to the side, because she walked in my direction rather than join the rest of the party's antics. With a playful smile, she held out a small ball made of packed snow. “I thought you might want to throw one.”

  “Like I could hit any of you. Not with all those skills.” I snorted as I admitted some of my feelings. If only I had some skill or ability, then I wouldn’t have to be left out at times like this.

  “Skills or no skills, everyone can throw a snowball.” She smiled and gave me an encouraging wink as her eyes sparkled with mischief. “Also, trust me when I say that no one will see this coming.” Her encouragement had me taking the ball from her. It was heavier than I expected. I tossed it up one time before picking a target.

  I imitated what I had seen in movies about baseball and tossed it at the one person here who deserved it above all the rest. The ball of packed powder exploded as it smacked into the back of the wolf’s head. He spun in place and glared at me. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to march over to me and beat the piss out of me. A moment later, though, the look was replaced with fear.

  When I turned to look at where he was looking, I saw Linda. Her grin was wide and displayed quite a few teeth as she looked from the wolf to me. “Good shot. Too bad the snow is melting. It would have been nice to have you join us. Maybe next year we can get together and have a hell of a battle.”

  With that thought in mind, we resumed our trek through the snow. A few minutes into our walk, Linda leaned down from her perch on Michael’s shoulder. Her eyes were warm with concern as she brushed a bit of snow off my coat. “Hey,” she began, a hint of remorse in her voice, “I’m sorry we didn’t warn you about the holes under the ice earlier.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It is just that sometimes I forget just how little some travelers know.” She smiled encouragingly at me. “Just know that if you ever have a question, need help, or just want to talk, don’t hesitate to ask. I will be here to help you in any way that you might need.”

  Her willingness to reach out and help me provided a warmth that had nothing to do with the clothes I wore. Maybe, just maybe, this party wasn’t so bad. Well, as long as we ignored the fucking wolf’s hormones. At least one of them was willing to welcome me.

  With those thoughts in mind, and curious about the mechanics of some of what they used in the fight, I switched topics. “The fight looked fun, though I have no clue how you guys pulled off some of those moves.”

  Most of the group chuckled, but Jeremiah was the one that spoke first as he asked me a question. “So, you know how skills work in most games?” I nodded. Skills were fairly straightforward, though how they reacted with each other could create some interesting, or broken, effects. “Here, the system doesn’t just limit what you apply those effects to.” Jeremiah waved off anyone that was about to contradict him.“Yes, they will be more effective for the weapon they were built around.” He gestured to Victor. “For example, Victor has skills that he applies directly to the arrows he uses. Technically a snowball is just a very, very dull and short arrow.”

  I thought about that. He wasn’t wrong, but it just felt odd. Most games I played required that the player only use sword skills on swords and refused to let them work on anything else. If what he was saying was true then it would open up some interesting — and some stupid — combinations. Combinations that no one could predict. Ones that would allow for players to fight above their weight class. The very idea had me practically salivating for a class. Too bad I had to wait for level ten.

  For the next long while, I ignored the rest of the group as I fantasized about various combinations that I knew I would never get to use. I simply justified it as planning for future fights. But who was I kidding? I was having a blast coming up with ideas.