6.
Behind Elsa's ice palace is a steep cliff that while possible to climb or abseil down, would be ridiculous to try to do so without the proper equipment. That is why Elsa never considered checking it, for even if Barthomeloi was able to get out that way there is no way she could survive the drop.
That is according the common sense of the world; however, Barthomeloi is a person who, even after being pierced several times by stakes of ice, still managed to crawl her away across a room. She doesn't have superhuman endurance neither is there a hidden trump card. She is merely not allowed to die. Her magic crest, the grimoire tattooed on her body that is both the blessing and the burden of the Barthomeloi family did the best it could to keep her alive. Furthermore her circuits are numerous enough to heal most wounds without the use of magecraft. In fact, if one wanted to kill Barthomeloi they would certainty need to crush her brain or at least pluck out her heart.
Yet the damage was already done and Barthomeloi can't completely nullify the fall, instead she can only soften the impact. Luckily enough though it seems someone used the same cliff earlier that day leaving a pile of snow her to fall into.
With her back on the ground Barthomeloi raises a hand to cover the now sinking sun. She stays like that for a while, paralyzed, not due to recovery, but because she is unsure whether to be glad to be alive or ashamed. In fact, she starts grinding her teeth due to the frustration of being frustrated.
"My magic circuits," without her shields her mouth, dusted with white and wet, could only barely make out words, however, it isn't like anyone was listening to the pathetic girl in the first place. "Frozen? No, they're freezing."
Barthomeloi can only concede that this is the same phenomena as what affected her ball of air. There must have been some attribute mixed in with the spears that pierced her, but even if there was, it shouldn't have affected Barthomeloi in this way.
The magic circuit of a magus does not only allow one to generate magical energy from raw life force, it can also be used to reject or dispel foreign magical energy. That is why it took considerable skill to cast a suggestion on a magus. Even if the target is an amateur or several ranks below oneself their magical energy will wash away any impurities. The same should apply to whatever spell that Elsa used against Barthomeloi. Though as The Queen there shouldn't be anyone who can do this type of damage to her magic circuits with mere spells or magical energy.
Yes, Barthomeloi's magic circuits are freezing, but they hadn't been frozen. She still had time.
Ignoring the pain, ignoring the healing, she pushes herself out of the snow, slipping a few times but eventually regaining her balance. The elegant figure of Barthomeloi no longer exists. The dress is in tatters and she limps, barely able to stand properly. Ignoring even that she re-castes the most basic of shields to keep the outside cold at bay even if she can't keep the cold inside away and starts her feebly spluttering magic circuits once more to make her way to the only ones who can help her. The pride of Barthomeloi may have not allow her to seek aid from people; however, they are not people.
When the Age of Gods ended most of the Phantasmal Species, their age and their physics no more, moved to the Backside of the World. However, there are those who remained, unable to go to that utopia or didn't because of another reason entirely.
This was the case with the species that Barthomeloi is seeking help from. At their core they can't be classified as part of the Magical Beast series and are instead nature spirits, the only sense of touch this earth holds. Nature spirit, the name itself gives the definition; however there are many types; the woodland fairies of England, soul eating unicorns, and even the progenitors of the human leeches that Barthomeloi detests are all considered mediators for nature. The nature spirits inhabiting this land are closer to those one finds in jewels.
Barthomeloi stops, dropping herself out of the air and dispels her shields all the while scrapping her knee in the process. With her magic circuits freezing, the Arendelle leylines are an invaluable source of magical energy, a life preserver in a freezing fjord she could hang onto that also pulls her to dry land. She keeps her magic circuits idling though, assuming the longer they spin the longer they will take to freeze completely.
The area is exactly as she expected; amidst a world of white as if clashing is clear grey. The cragginess spoke of a time humans forgot, broken at times with wells of steam, puffing out wispy, hot air in the same way a freshly abandoned cigarette immolates itself. Barthomeloi looks up at sky awake with dizzying colours that wrap the stars like streamers, eerily glowing at the most inopportune times as if trying to highlight the fact that is the sky over four thousand years ago.
Geysers in an area without volcanic activity, the consistent grey even when confronted with an ever expanding bounded field, and the sky from a time when humans were the mere slaves of deified natural phenomenon, they are all typical features in a nature spirit's realm. Even if it seems as if Barthomeloi stepped into Wonderland the homes of nature spirits are not in a different realm. Instead they exist within the world itself. Horai, Avalon, Shangra-La, even the human leeches' Millennium Castle, these legendary lands are merely the product of the imagination of the elementals which ruled it and this little valley due east of Arendelle is no different.
Barthomeloi steps into the green littered among the stones, moss no doubt; however anyone in the Herbology department would be willingly to pay all four limbs for just a sample of this.
"I wish for an audience!" Barthomeloi's voice rings through to her only audience, the open air. While it surely sounds impressive, the tattered dress and the injuries do not lend to her cause. She hadn't even said, "Hello."
Yet the piles of rocks, giant grey pills, rock and gurgle as much as rocks could gurgle and eventually form tiny humanoid figures all staring at her, judging.
"This one looks much nicer than the one Kristoff brought home."
"Nicer? Try a sharper tongue."
"She… was…."
"Hotter?"
"No, she was definitely colder. Her hair was almost completely white"
"Sweeter, then."
So she judges them in return; their chicken-egg eyes with a dot of marker serving as the pupils are framed by ridiculous ears, two parabola's jutting out ridiculously not to mention the ears are the same size as the pebble nose above a slender mouth impacted with rounded teeth. Their fashion is even more ridiculous; all wore tunics of carpet grass cut high at the neck on which dangled glowing drops of colour. From what Barthomeloi could understand the males wear blocks of uncut baubles whereas the females wear rounder pieces of jewelry. It seems the older the troll, the more jewels they wear.
It is incredibly uncommon among nature spirits to have two genders though. The only other type she could think of are human leeches.
"I wish to speak to your king." Barthomeloi continues.
"Gah, she ignored us."
"No respect these days these young'uns."
"I-" Barthomeloi starts, however she is interrupted by a gravelly voice muttering about how he was just about to go back to sleep.
After a few mutterings of "Grand Pabbie," all the trolls grow silent.
"What is your name?" he asks while stepping through the circle of trolls.
Barthomeloi disregards curtesy and doesn't bend down, instead she stays where she is, towering over the king of trolls. He isn't much different from the others; however he does have a certain aura around him or is that his mane of wild grass? Either way the number of jewels around his neck is innumerable.
"I presume that you already know who I am."
As expected of a Barthomeloi. She doesn't even blink while saying that to the king of a Phantasmal Species.
"The only humans who have access to the Valley of Living Rock are people with the map or if they have lived with us long enough. We gave that map, that Mystic Code, to the royal family of Arendelle, and you are neither my funky-looking donkey of a grandson nor my reindeer grandson. A magus then."
Barthomeloi nods but is frowning inwardly however since an inward frown isn't something that can be seen, at the end of the day, from her jutting jaw, it just seems as if she has a toothache. She has heard stories of changelings or of fairies taking in children. Even if these realms are more or less secure sometimes humans slip into them, finding lost loves or what-not. However that is so exceeding rare that it can be called a miracle, the stuff that legends are made of. In fact the layers and layers of bounded fields that encompass these realms fool even nature herself so then only one with permission or someone infinitely familiar with the workings of the field would know how to reach this place. If she remembered correctly the former God's Word was someone who had encountered fairies in his youth. No one ever understood the reasoning of nature spirits though, however taking on a donkey and a reindeer as grandchildren was completely beyond understanding. So then if Barthomeloi is neither how was she able to find the Valley of the Living Rock?
"Yes, I am the one who wrote that letter to you."
To a magus it would an infraction of the highest order to consider renting spiritual land without consulting the resident Phantasmal Species as long as they were sentient. In some respects, to Barthomeloi at least, that is more important than asking the current landowners themselves. In her letter she had promised the trolls that the future second owner of Arendelle would not interfere in the troll's business, and he would also make sure that no development of any kind would touch the trolls or what they considered their territory. In essence, knowing the trolls, stalwart stones that merely observed and didn't want any change, she promised them the status quo.
The king nods remembering, "Yes, we found the terms agreeable. As long as the leyline remains as bountiful as it is now then we had no problem if the royal family didn't. Wasn't that our reply?"
Barthomeloi remembers being surprised when she received that reply. Nature spirits as nature's sense of touch wish for nothing than to keep the Earth the way she is. However there are some strange women who lie in ponds distributing swords to whoever will come along or those who execute their own kind. However these trolls proposed to let the royal family globalize the kingdom in exchange for use of the land. In fact, Barthomeloi was ready for a war of attrition that involved politely stifled letters and curtsies that went nowhere and meant nothing. At the time, she guessed that these trolls were changing just like the werewolves did, less nature spirit, more demi-human.
"You're wondering why we gave such a reply?" The king continues, "The people of Arendelle and especially their royal family have been nothing but gracious to us. We have never needed to use our more advanced techniques to protect ourselves. This single ward has served us through my lifetime and the fact it stays as a single ward is testament to our bond with the humans who live here. For that we will respect any decision that they will make."
Yes, that is how Barthomeloi found them so easily. Other than the fact the Valley resides in the greatest fallen leyline of the land, the bounded field itself merely keeps out the elements as well as anyone who had no place in the Valley of the Living Rock. While it is easy to detect a point of strange magical energy, it is even easier to detect an area without magical energy that should have been saturated with magical energy. In essence, a phenomenon was hidden with another phenomenon and was thereby even more obvious. They were not Barthomeloi's words but a contemporary's. Was it an Enforcer or a Sealing Designated? Either way who said it wasn't important.
"But you're not here to talk about that are you?" The King levels his eyes the best he can. After all, what sort of person comes to negotiate while visibly wounded and with a ball-gown in tatters? "First Kristoff, now a magus. That girl, I wonder…"
"You know her then."
"Yes, her family came to me about a decade ago. She froze her sister's head. I was the one who persuaded it."
"So then you understand it don't you? Her power."
"And you don't. Is that truly why you're here?" His voice challenges her.
Barthomeloi takes a breath to clamp her throat but instead releases the hot air in her lungs with one breath. "Originally I thought it was a mere Sorcery Trait, Frozen Fractal. But it's not is it? The creation of Phantasmal Species, the ability to actualize miracles like a demon, and that freezing attribute, each can be grounded in magecraft but all together…"
"You actually fought her?"
"Of cours-"
"Fool, an utter fool. I don't know much about magi but I dearly hope this isn't how they all act. Why did you do that? She's just a frightened girl and you decided to fight her of all things?"
Barthomeloi stands there without saying word, instead she lets her teeth grind as a reply. Her stony expression blends her right into the scenery. She has never been addressed in that fashion before. Barthomeloi… Barthomeloi attacked her because she couldn't stand her.
"The only way to understand the extent of someone's power is to provoke them into showing it."
However Barthomeloi please tell what is that line? At this moment what is that line?
"And look at you," he pointedly lets his eyes drift up and down Barthomeloi's figure. "All that and you are not one step closer to finding out."
"Then you tell me. What is she?"
Pabbie sighs before continuing, "The first time she came to me with her family, I noticed some strange magic."
"One of the five? Idiotic."
"No, magic as a general term."
"But there is no general term. It is either magecraft, magic, or something else entirely."
Pabbie nods, "Yes, it was that something else. You know about the counter forces, the one of humans and the one of the planet?"
Indeed, Barthomeloi is intimately familiar with the counter forces, the colourless power that arises from the Earth herself or the collective conscious of humanity. After all, she is just now speaking to a representative of the Earth's counter force. As for the human one; it works in different ways, empowering ordinary people to do extraordinary things when the occasion calls for it. These people are revered as heroes and removed from cycle of reincarnation. One of the most common examples is the Maid of Orleans whose visage still adorns a wall in Arendelle's castle.
Hearing no objection, Pabbie continues, "The techniques that we use and the ones that magi like you employ come from the same source; however, her, Elsa's, they are outside the rules. They employ a different set of rules that have no established magical foundation in the world. In fact some believe they come from humanity itself."
Silent, Barthomeloi curls her hand and examines her nails now in need of a manicure. It has been a long week, an atrociously long week. She had lost, been defeated. She had then been punished, sent to a backwater to negotiate a rental agreement where she again lost and now while her circuits are freezing themselves to an icicle she learns that there is no reason to be interested in that self-indulgent girl. What she is performing is not magecraft, a learned art, instead it was something outside study, outside genius, prodigy, or talent. It is simply "her." How hard did she try to chase her down? How much did she care? Barthomeloi, hand now in mussed hair, just laughs. Laughing at her misfortune, laughing at her own fall, she just laughs as if the perpetual world of darkness would one day turn to morn.
"Extra-sensory ability. So she's a psychic then?"
"Is that what humans call it?"
"But it's not just that, it can't just be that she's a psychic. All the traits, all the features, undoubtedly that Sorcery Trait, she carries it, so then…" Once again Barthomeloi is mistaken. A Sorcery Trait is not merely a trait that exemplifies itself in the realm of magecraft. Mystic Eyes such as Barthomeloi's own could be both Sorcery Traits as well as a physic ability so then what if rather than being expressed through magecraft her Sorcery Trait is expressed through her psychic ability?
"Her ability isn't cyrokinesis. It's something much vaguer." Barthomeloi remembers the staircase in front of the palace. With mere ice and snow one cannot not create something so delicate, fragile, yet sturdy enough so that people could actually cross it. However, if it had been a two-step process, the first an icy blast, and the second… The ball of air, Barthomeloi's circuits, and now the staircase, there can only be one explanation that would wrap all these impossibilities in one dainty ribbon. "She doesn't create ice and snow, that's just her Sorcery Trait. She freezes, she freezes things, be it water, ice, magical energy, or air, she can freeze it all. Similar to the Jewel Killer's halting, it is an ability that ignores element, no it surpasses element and goes into the realm of attribute perhaps even beyond that. So even a magus's magic circuits…"
Psychic abilities don't use magical energy so then there is nothing for Barthomeloi's magical energy to wash out in the first place.
"Like she did to you I presume." Pabbie motions at Barthomeloi to give him her arm.
He examines it for a moment, those eggshell eyes wandering as if he could see inside her and his fingers tapping, poking. It was not unpleasant, rather it seemed like a spa treatment one could get, the hardness of the rocks against one's skin gliding sometimes gently scrapping until Barthomeloi clenches her still grinding teeth. It feels as if a tongue of fire pierces into her skin melting all the ice in her body. Starting at her arm it is a stinging heat that seethes through her body, wrapping, melting, but at the same time taking. It burns through her entire circuit taking with it not only the ice but also the circulating magical energy and when she has none left for the ravenous salamander to feast upon the sensation blinks out instead of fading.
Pabbie removes the jewel from Barthomeloi's flesh, the previous soft red glow is now ice cold.
"You're lucky, the circuit wasn't frozen, rather-"
"-the surface was, yes…" Barthomeloi trails off.
The weakness of a person with psychic abilities or rather the reason why their rules are outside those of magecraft is that the ability is limited and empowered by that human's common sense. For instance, say on the off-chance that someone actually possessed that True Ancestor fairytale, "Mystic Eyes of Death Perception," the ability to see the death of everything. It would only work against things that the user believes "can die." In that respect the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception would not work against a broken cellphone or a broken flowerpot because in the user's eyes it is already dead. In the same sense, Elsa's psychic ability will not work against things that in her eyes "cannot be frozen." During the previous fight, Barthomeloi gave the example of fish surviving under a frozen fjord, no, considering the fountain and the frozen waterfall, perhaps Elsa cannot not comprehend the irregularity of an entirely frozen fjord and that was why she was unable to freeze the stream of magical energy.
"You figured it out." Pabbie remarks.
"She should be dead." Barthomeloi on the other hand is not amused in the slightest. "Even if it is not magecraft, compensation must be paid. She set off an eternal winter, one that still entraps an entire kingdom."
Barthomeloi is right for once. Physic abilities may not have a physical cost like magecraft does, however, like a television, changing channels requires energy to power the remote and the television. Creating twelve inches of reinforced ice might only be enough to cause some fatigue; however, no matter what physic ability, creating a bounded field that now surrounded an entire kingdom without any sigils is something that should have set her brain on fire.
"I have no idea but when I looked at her sister a few minutes ago I could not help but notice there was a snowflake growing in her eye."
The frozen fjord, the castle, and her spells, Barthomeloi's mind races from motif to motif and replied, "Something close to a magic circle then." She says without even a trace of a question in her words, "or even the sigil itself."
Imagine for a second someone who is able to bend objects with their mind alone. The first question to come to mind would be, left or right? Which way does the spoon bend? If there is an effect then there needs to be a mechanism even if it is invisible to the human eye. The snowflake in this case would then be same as the location of the fulcrum, a sign or a marker. There is no snowflake that covers the kingdom though, in fact the only snowflakes were those that froze the fjord when she ran across it. Then, could it be that the bounded field is not one that encompasses the entire kingdom, but merely changed the weather in a small localized area which then triggered a chain reaction?
"But that doesn't explain how she created Phantasmal Species. They were like automatons; however they had memories, personalities even."
Pabbie puts his hand to his head, until, "That's my fault. The last time her family came to me, I took out all her sister's memory that contained Elsa's abilities in them."
"Why? How on earth can a mere memory be dangerous?"
Pabbie shakes his head, "They are not. I wanted to be sure, however, in doing so, I was the one who made them dangerous. I believed that the memories would be dangerous because the ability itself could freeze the memory and then the person."
"However, at that point she didn't know that memories could be frozen. But by extracting a memory you showed her it was possible to manipulate memory, such as freezing them. Yes, you made a god awful mistake, but what does this have to do with Phantasmal Species?"
"It doesn't take much to create an automaton, however what Elsa lacks is what you magi call magical energy. Instead when she creates these creations, she freezes a portion of her memory, whether or not she notices is not important; however, she ends up implanting these memories, no, more than memories, you could say that they are fragments of her soul."
Since ancient times the soul has been hard to handle and even if they are necessary for magecraft only one magus has ever truly "understood the soul," and he was a human leech. Disgusting. The reason why Pabbie is able to mistakenly handle souls as well as help Barthomeloi is because he has and is the only troll living in the Valley of Living Rock with the Regression to the Age of Gods. Considerably different, they can still be likened to a magus's magical circuits in that they allow the reproduction of a miracle; however this miracle is one that occurred before the First declared there were only five feats left for humanity.
On the other hand it should be obvious how Elsa performs her miracle. Souls are merely "things to investigated," or "things to be moved into containers," and even if one could collect souls, they are merely a lump of unconvertible energy. Yet, souls also contain the blueprint for the body, the memories, as well as the magic circuits. So then if Elsa were to freeze some memories, snap them off like a chocolate bar ready to be melted into fondue and place them into her creations, imbuing them with her life force, well, everything would work out wouldn't it?
"Boring, so utterly boring. If I knew that this was the trick, if this was all she was… I would have never bothered in the first place."
"But magus, you did. More than that, you sought help. You don't seem to type of seek help from anyone, be it your fellow magi or anyone else. So then, magus, you have to ask yourself, why did you bother? Why did you bother in the first place?"
Barthomeloi shakes her head. "I do not know but it is probably merely a paltry proverb. Either way, how are you going to solve this eternal winter? Well, I guess since you are all safe here you don't have to, but considering that you were willing to help me, you have a plan don't you?"
Pabbie smiles, "I'll take that as a compliment, even from someone like you. But no, the earth's time is nearly over. Even we can feel it, isolated here. Five will be Six soon and I'm too old for an adventure like this, instead I'll leave it to my grandchildren."
"A donkey and a reindeer?"
"Even a donkey and reindeer can save a kingdom as long as they have love."
"I see. Taking advantage of modern stereotypes like that. Worthless. Is that what trolls have fallen to? Being love experts?"
"Do not insult what is beyond you, child. There is a reason why love has survived the ages. Whenever humans lose hope, they can always trust love."
Barthomeloi brushes the words off with her bare hand as she starts to leave.
"'The fiery throes of passion,' I presume. 'Love burns hotter than any flame?' Seriously. Is something as synthetic as that really something worth melting for?"