Within a landscape of extreme, mana dyed, tundra like cold, while a hurricane continually roared with thunder overhead, a hand burst from a snowbank near one of the borders with the Grand Mana Zone of Snow
The figure that pulls itself out of the snow is one extremely caked in the loose snow that this place is known for, the short being dives its hand down into the snow, and rips up a sled from the depths of the snowbank it was within.
It then hobbles over to the cliff, it pulls it's hands up, and mana expels out of them, in the form of strings, that begin to enscribe an alien looking runic array onto the face of the cliff.
Then, as the smaller rune begins to take in the mana of the grand mana zone around it, the first of twelve points of that array begins to glow.
As makes it's way to the sled it had taken from the snow, it stands on it's back, then seems to think better of it, and steps off, goes to the front of the sled, and takes snow covered fur that was covering the things contained in the sled, and turns it over, revealing another, rune, one dyed onto the skin in now dried blood.
It then reattaches the cover to the sled, but with the blood runes showing, and ties it all down once again, with the same tendons that we're keeping the cover on from before, but in different places.
With that all done, the thing takes it's place at the back of the sled, and reaches out, above the runic array ridden sled, and sends a single drop of mana into the blood rune below it's hand.
In a near instant, the runes hum to life, and the sled shoots at break neck speeds only slightly above the ever increasingly steep and unstable hills of snow.
The sled's frame quickly begins to whine in protest to the increase speed, turning to a roaring as the blood array continued to voraciously consume of the Grand Mana within it's environment, and in so doing, power the sled's own array far past it's maximum.
For the first few moments of this, the humanoid seemed to almost lose control of the speeding mana-motive but, with some unseeable force, reaffirms it's grip and continues to make micro adjustments, avoiding holes in the snow, or places where the snow has piled up too high.
However, as it keeps on climbing the hills, the reason for this Mana Zone's name, becomes apparent, as the winds start to howl, and a massive tide of loose snow barrels towards the snow covered figure.
In response, it jumped up and used it's own momentum to push it's sled onto an angle that had it skimming the snow hill below it, before the sled began to rocket upwards, keeping in line with the angle of the push downward, and maneuvering over the tide of snow.
However, the sled, and the snow covered humanoid by proxy, did not fall back to the ground.
And -no longer being near constantly micro-adjusted- the sled began to speed up, rapidly.
After a few seconds of this, the humanoid stretched out it's arm, and cast a string into the now blindingly bright, and constantly screaming runic array.
Whatever it did, was enough to have the sled start slowly falling downward, nearly hitting the other side of the Zone.
And, just as the sled hit down gently, and continued to speed into the distance towards the ice mountains, the complex array on the other side of the Zone, began to rapidly expel the rather large amount of mana it had been absorbing as the final of the twelve marks began to glow, and the other rune that it was connected to by thin lines, began to glow, as the mana began to flood into it.
As the mana began to howl out of the array, seemingly doing nothing but make a mess of the flow of the ambient grand mana, that all changed when, only a few moments after the array fully stopped -no longer working at all- did a massive streak of living lighting burst out of the ground near the array.
Though it stopped for a moment, the man streaked within raw power slowly fell to the snow below eyes focused on one of the redundant parts of the rune, made for seeming no reason.
With a gravelly voice, full of exasperated exhaustion, he spoke, "See you at home, Oldman." after he said this, he pinched the bridge of his nose, and groaned in what was most likely frustration, as this happened, the storm began to lift, and the sun began to meet with the bowl like valley to that this Grand Mana Zone resided in.
Then, the man with grey hair, looked to the mountians in the distance and growled out a "yer not gettin outta this that easy, Shep," and with that, he was off like a shot just the same as the sled before him, but instead, enveloped by a mass of lighting, he was a blur of speed.
The humanoid -Shep as the man called it- was very nearly out of the Zone, when in mere moments, the lighting covered man nearly caught up.
But within those moments, it jolted it's hand to the array, and started flooding it with it's own mana, though it was clear that with the thing's small amount of mana, the slight boost in speed would not be lasting long.
In response, the man ever so slightly increased his speed, enough to keep pace behind the sled.
He began to pick up his pace, however, as the sled began to rise higher into the air, and the two of them rapidly began to near the edge of the Zone.
Just like that, the two most interesting things that had happened in this Grand Mana Zone in decades, left as quickly as they came.
- - - -
It really probably didn't help things that I sped up when I noticed his clearly pissed Ki rapidly moving towards me, but, the memories of being chased nearly exactly like this so many times before, had be devolving to the base knee jerk reaction, of running away as fast as possible.
There was a certain relaxation, at the familiar routine, though, that didn't stop the panic of the situation from settling in my bones to a nearly nastolgic degree.
Maybe it should have concerned me more, that this has been a near constant in my life, since a few months ago.
There was also a not too small amount of frustration, that even with this, I was still too slow to evade him.
But it was all underlined by a stream of relief.
And, finally, there was also the equally familiar, stubborn, desperate desire, not. to get. caught.
He nearly had me in his grasp, without much time to think, I jerked the sled to the side, then upward.
The sled was sent into a upward spin, nearly uncontrollable, especially with how blatant I had been with my mana usage, but it was only nearly.
There was a strange faulter, in the rage in the oldman' Ki signature, but I disregarded it quickly in the rush of being chased.
I wasn't really aiming for anywhere in specific, just to try and get out of there.
I took note of one of the smaller holes in the mountain, and darted my sled to go into it.
But, Allen had noticed my intent just as I started aiming, and was there in a blink.
My body moved on it's own, to push my sled upward.
Inadvertently, the propulsion runes being directed at a human had the slightly unexpected side effect of shoving Allen into the hole, while I accelerated nearly directly upwards.
My mind rang nearly numb with the shock of what just happened.
'Did we just juke the Oldman?' Was the only thought that was able to be heard, over the roaring and screaming of the sled.
It would seem, that with the way the old man's ki stuttered out of it's anger, in what seemed to be shock, that he was thinking something similar.
Then, the flame of his rage started again, as he bolted out of the hole at top speed.
At same moment, I had started to laugh in that same shock, and I just barely crested the top of the cliff, as the pissed, greying man got out of the hole, and began chasing me in earnest.
For a moment, I felt a sudden bout of restraint, as I left the grand mana zones below.
Pushing the sled down to be equidistant with the ground, I rapidly darted it to the left, and towards my home.
The top of the cliff was covered in snow, so it wasn't much of a difference from what just happened.
Well, not really, there was a massive difference in the amount of mana in the atmosphere, that being, the far -far- smaller amount.
Due to the mana guzzling nature of the sled, and with the addition of the even more voracious bear skin runic array, meant to be used only if things got really bad, suddenly being in such a mana lacking environment, led to a dramatic decrease in speed.
The ki signature behind me, had finally caught back up, just as I re-entered into the stretch of forest that my home resides in.
Turning off my sled, I jumped off, and into the large trees at the tree's entrance.
It was nearly euphoric, being back in the trees.
Finally back in familiar territory, I untied my goggles and took off the shoddy bear skin cloak, and began the nastolgic run through the tree line, back to my hand made cabin.
The familiar smells of the forest brought wetness to my eyes, and the noises of the animals waking up, had the tears of relief bursting from my eyes.
I had to stop for a moment, to gather myself.
But, that moment was enough for Allen to catch up.
Although there was enough time to notice him, I was too slow to avoid his tackle.
Though, I was able to envelope myself in my mana skin as we fell into the snow filled underbrush.
But that was really the extent of care I had for the fall to the ground, since I was quickly brought into a headlock midair, and the old man began to lecture before we even hit the bloody ground.
Though, I did care enough to guide a bit of ki in my hands, keeping his grip from completely closing my wind pipe, though.
I definitely deserved it for being an idiot, but I was still reeling from being somewhere that isn't a nightmare expanse of hail, or a fucked up murder dungeon.
The chill in my bones hadn't left yet, but that would change, with a new set of clothes and something other than bear meat stew warming my stomach.
'I could really go for a veggie stew' as the image of a leek, carrot, and potato stew leaped into my mind, I was not able to stop the saliva from dripping out of my mouth at the idea.
Though, in my state of happiness at being back in familiar territory, I had forgotten the situation, along with the man who was still trying to strangle me while still lecturing.
But as I realized that he was still talking, it seemed he realized I wasn't paying attention.
His Mana was flickering away at a rather fast rate, and his Ki had become angry again, though, it was a far lesser display than it was last time.
It's a bit interesting, but Ki signatures show up like animals around the person.
Oldman Allen's is a chimera, Mr. Mason's is wild boar, while Mrs. Hearte's is a huge fire ant.
Ever since I gained access to my Ki sensing, I have found that my 'aura' is just me.
Meaning it doesn't express itself out of my body naturally.
Though I can 'unfold' it into a sphere of a rather good distance, which allows me a better understanding of the intents within that space, though it decreases my capacity to sense Ki outside of that sphere.
That might be how it is for other ki users, but I've never actually met one, and if I have anything to say about it, then I won't ever.
After all, the direct antithesis to my happy and full life, is the plot! and by proxy, anyone who can use Ki.-
But I was snapped out of my thoughts by a stinging pain from the top of my head.
"Ow." I said out loud as I caressed the probably cartoonishly large and kinda painful bump on my head, where I had been whacked by my asshole of a boss.
"What tha hell was that fer!?" I yelled out, glaring at him.
"If'n I'm havin' yer oh-so-important attention, aye was sayin tha' yer grounded, ya little shit," he said, with his own deadpan glare.
It was about now that I realized that I was back with other people, and that social rules applied.
I rushed to metaphorically dust off a box labeled 'person skills', and start to churn the cogs within it with the lever on it's side, like a jack-in-the-box.
Then, without much more than a few turns of that handle, I realized what I probably looked like.
A tiny child covered in slightly bloody, uncured, and shoddily made leather, from an unknown beast, lambasted in rapidly melting snow, and with even more blood matted dark grey hair, said child is also hiding her lower face, and was using a sled the size of herself to move across multiple grand mana zones, after escaping from a dungeon that hadn't been raided by the magic knights yet, while also having been trapped, alone in that dungeon for, about two weeks…
The adult part of my mind is only now realizing how concerning that sounds, should have realized it sooner, but I had bigger things to be worrying about at the time, okay?
I should probably say something.
"Fer, how long? And what exactly do ya mean by 'grounded' at all?" I said in confusion, I know what grounded means, I'm just confused as to what he means by it in this context.
He suddenly gave out a vindictive smile, before he spoke. "It means, ya problem maker, that yer goin' back ta basic trainin', since ya clearly forgot all I had to teach the moment ya decided ta hole up in tha' cab' o' yers, then go on that blasted little 'venture." as he said this, he let go of me, and stood.
Before he then looked down at me, and with a sneer, he said "oh, and ye'ell be trainin' with me one on one, until all tha lessons stick like a stubborn barnacle, and they turn ta bleedin' instinct!" His eyes took on a nearly sadistic gleam, as my dread mounted.
This was worse than the torture training I was thinking he might thrust me with. Way, way worse.
"Shite," was all I had to say, even as I tried to shuffle away from him, and he grabbed me by the back of the neck, and dragged me off.
My hopes of cleaning myself off, and preparing a veggie stew with fresh sourdough bread for dinner, (something that no child would ever fantasize about) are on the verge of being dashed!