Cold Arrival

Within a frozen, frostbitten yet still somehow green clearing, a group of larger than average deer were gracefully lapping up water from a stream. Each occasionally lifting its head and flicking its ears to watch for predators.

Out of nowhere, all of the deer raise their heads with alert looks in their eyes, heads tilting as they rapidly look around, a foreboding feeling overcoming them all.

*SCKKEEWWWWWWW!*

Out of nowhere, a huge portal opens up above them, the swirling electrified clouds circling it looking ominously similar to the portals used when Coldharbour had last invaded... Not that many denizens from that time are alive to make such a comparison.

*SWOOOO!*

The deer attempt to run at the sudden stimuli, but find themselves lifted clear from the ground and sucked into the portal. Which, after a couple more seconds, has a peculiar sound coming from it.

*uuhhhhhhhhh*

...

*ahhooohooooooouuuu!*

...

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRGH!"

*Thud!*

The portal spits out a group of strangely-dressed people, their bodies uplifting a cloud of dirt and dust as they land, each looking ragged and worse for wear... Whether that be from their hard landing or the journey to get there.

"Ooooooh... Shit..." Michael mutters as he pulls himself from the ground and sits up, his head and ears ringing as if he'd had a speaker blaring next to him. "Everyone alright?" he asks aloud while glancing at his comrades.

"H-here." Charlotte's voice trails out first, the girl stumbling to her feet while resting her weight on her staff... That was looking slightly crooked... Did she land on it?

"Me too." Illococoo says, the girl wincing as she puts weight on her leg. Seems as if she'd landed on it wrong. Hopefully the damage wouldn't transfer to her dragon form, otherwise, they were out of any transport for however long they were out here.

A soft, almost manic whimpering lets itself known, Charlotte's mother burying her face into the frost-bitten grass as she clutches the doll in her arms. When she turns, Michael realises that the doll was missing an arm, leaving the woman in complete distress. He ignores it for now however, letting Charlotte try and calm her.

"Tiff? You good?" he asks, having not gotten an answer yet.

...

He scrunched his brows, forcing himself to his feet and walking over to the downed Half-Elf. Tiffania didn't look injured, but her skin was pale, as beads of sweat were running down her face. He was worried, but didn't try to shake her awake, as he'd seen this before. "Magical Exhaustion." he mutters in confusion. "But she wasn't like this when she summoned the World Gate... Did the spell sap more mana when stepping through it?" he wonders aloud, but is drawn from his thoughts when Charlotte steps over to him with her mother leaning on her shoulder, her height making it look almost comical...

"Where are we?" she asks, causing Michael's eyes to widen as he too examines the surroundings. Yeah, he probably should have made sure they hadn't landed in a zombie pit or something before anything else.

"I'm not sure... It's almost as cold as Albion was in the winter though." he says, wondering just where they had landed. Hopefully it wasn't somewhere like Frostpunk, otherwise they were well and truly fucked... At least, if they couldn't escape before shit hit the fan.

He shakes his head and picks Tiffania up in a Princess carry, "Let's look for any signs of civilisation, I'd rather not see how cold this place'll get in the night. Plus, we have no idea what threats might be out there." he states and Charlotte nods, the girl gesturing her head towards Illococoo who was limping with a pained expression. "Help Illococoo."

Michael nods, walking next to the dragon girl and allowing her to rest her weight on him as he carries Tiffania. "How bad is your leg?"

"I don't know..."

Michael leans over to get a closer look and frowns at the red swollen flesh around the girl's knee. Could she have dislocated it? Fractured bone?... He wasn't a doctor, so hopefully they'd landed somewhere with modern medicine, otherwise, Illococoo was in for a bad time. "Just stick by me and we'll get that fixed up, alright?"

The dragon girl beams at him through her obvious pain, "Okay, Big Bro!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With that, the group gets moving after Michael passes out thick cloaks to everyone to make sure they don't get hypothermia or something. The last thing they needed was someone to get frostbite.

They come across a couple animals as they walk, some curious deer that bolt as they approach, a beaver of some sort, and lastly, a huge brown bear, larger than any animal Michael had seen in Halkeginia.

It lumbers through the foliage with its nose constantly on the move, most likely following their scents. Its size was truly surprising, if it stood on its hind legs it would've been ten to eleven feet tall! Not that he was worried or anything, he was sure he'd be able to deal with it if it attacked. Fortunately, he wasn't forced to kill it as Illococoo dealt with it in her own way.

When the bear got close enough she locked eyes with it and growled, the low rumble surprising most of the group aside from Charlotte who'd probably seen this before. the bear almost fell backwards as it quickly backed away, fleeing in the opposite direction.

"You know, I was thinking we coulda killed it for its meat and pelt, but... Whatever." Michael shrugs. Hopefully that bear was unique, as he wasn't looking forward to dealing with gigantic predators... Though, those deer from earlier were larger than usual...

"It's always killing with you, isn't it Partner?" Derflinger remarks from his hip having long recovered from his coma at the hands of Loutiel.

"To be fair, if we do come across people we'll need something to trade with. We don't have a lot of gold, and I doubt any advanced civilisation will be interested in our medieval gold coins, what few we have. A big ass bear pelt though, that's worth a good amount, if only for its rarity." he says while shifting Tiffania's weight in his arms.

Charlotte nods at this as currency was imperative, especially since they were foreigners to this world. Not to mention her goal to find a cure for her mother, she doubted it would be cheap if such a thing existed...