NoTM Christmas Event: SNOW EVERYWHERE

On the island of Detica, the city of Sinda was covered in snow.

A lot of snow. A veritable flood of snow, covering roads and making them virtually impassable, pouring down on rooftops, and making the generally cold waters surrounding the island even colder.

And the snow came quite suddenly, at that, all in the span of a couple of hours.

And it was entirely Marlena’s fault.

It was close to a lot of various winter holidays, after all, and despite the cold weather on the island, there had not been any snow that would seem suitable for the time, only sleet and slush and cold rain and the occasional brief hailstorm…

…so Marlena had thought it necessary to build a snow machine to produce some.

Of course, it had not gone as planned. Detica was a very magical island, after all, and the doctor’s attempt to bring it a bit more snow than usual went a bit off the rails thanks to the pervasive magical aura of the island. At least she had been able to get the snow machine to start.

The real problem was getting the snow machine to stop.

She had built an emergency shutoff switch for the machine, but it simply wouldn’t work. That was something that tended to happen with magic – its effects on technology were unpredictable and frequently quite illogical, which infuriated Marlena to no end. At least there were magical crew members aboard the Trickster’s Pride who were actually quite intelligent, such as Irish and Nadheera, and in Nadheera’s case, she seemed to have an approach to magic that was scientific in and of itself. Perhaps she could get one of them to try to fix it.

But in addition to the snow machine not stopping, it seemed to be pumping out snow in a quantity and at a rate that was impossible for it, and the device had been showering the island of Detica in piles and piles of snow. Presumably, Marlena thought, the field of magic on the island – I assume it’s some sort of field, like an electromagnetic field – somehow managed to detect my desire for snow, and simply… miscalculated it… by several orders of magnitude…

At least if that were the case, it would probably stop eventually, once the island was covered in as much snow as it assumed the doctor wanted, and at least there did not seem to have been any casualties reported so far. It crossed Marlena’s mind, however, that if she did come across a large number of enemies on land at some point in a relatively open space, freezing them to death would be a useful way to get rid of them, and would also keep their bodies in a relatively preserved condition so she could inspect them afterwards. If they had some kind of technological weapons or implants, like a lot of the people did back on Urdun, then she could take them herself. Marlena was never one for collateral damage.

The snow was still coming out of Marlena’s haywire snow machine, but at least it was slowing down. Marlena quickly analyzed the situation, and, as she usually did, determined what she believed to be the best course of action.

Put a wreath and a bow on it.

It was the holidays, after all.

“Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to our newborn--”

--oh Scheiße this is the one with a king in it--

“—President…”