>>5240842"Need a hand?" you ask her, holding out your right hand. "Dragons aren't exactly light, and I'm a decent hand at cooking prey with my energy."
"Appreciate it." she replies with a genuine smile and a nod. "It's all down in the freezer, down in the cellar. I would appreciate the help."
"I'll follow you down." you say, Megumin heading back down the stairs. You follow her down flight after flight, emerging back into the ground floor with the well in the center. She then turns to the other staircase, the one that leads down deeper into the tower, and leads you down. You descend down beneath the ground, this stairwell more than twice as long as the other ones, and as you do the air becomes colder and colder. As you reach the bottom your breath is forming clouds before you on each exhale, a shiver running up your spine as Megumin rubs her arms with her hands. “What is this?”
“It's our freezer.” she says, leading you to what could either be an ice or crystal door, with a simple horizontal sliding latch holding it shut. As she grabs a hold of it in both hands, and begins sliding it open, a wave of even colder air blasts you. “Brrr! That's the one good thing about those white dragons, their Ice Glands can really keep a room cold.”
“It's certainly cold.” you say as she opens the sliding crystal door, you both entering the circular freezer. Metal hooks are embedded in the crystal ceiling, and from those hooks hang huge slabs of red meat. But they aren't what draw you eye. On a crystal pedestal in the center of the room rests a small organ the size of your fist, and it absolutely radiates with cold. The closer you get to it the colder the room feels, frost forming on your armor as you get within arm's reach.
“Don't touch it.” she says seriously. “If you touch it, it'll freeze directly to your hand and we'll have to cut it off.”
“Oh, that's good to know.” you reply, carefully pulling your hand back. “So which ones are we taking up?”
Megumin directs you on which of the massive slabs to take up, while she grabs onto a couple of smaller containers hidden in the corner. Hefting the frozen meat slabs onto your shoulder, Megumin directs you to head back up first, the young woman shutting the door back behind you all as you start back up the stairs. Back onto the ground floor you stand aside, waiting to see where she wants you to put it, and she leads you over to the third circular tower area, the one without any stairs. Inside you're surprised to find the ground has metal bars embedded in it, and what looks like burned wood beneath it.
cont
