Footsteps in the Tundra (Spec Training/Character Plot/Private)

The icey winter of this land never ended, it was almost perfect with that fact, the blizzards that stopped hunting and the like was a bit of a problem but with numerous stashes and hides throughout the icepack at its forests, mountains and the like, the wilder was able to survive in this land, living with and off the land, surviving alongside the beasts and creatures that live and hunt in it.

Though he always treaded carefully, he had recently begun starting to feel piercing eyes always watching him, it was always safe to be alert and aware and always a bit thinking of the unexpected.

Though now he was starting to have issues, he built up numerous amounts of supplies, he lost a large number during the avalanche but he was able to recover quite a lot of the cache’s due to them being buried or hidden and being able to then roughly locate and dig to them by looking for landmarks that still survived to allow himself to hone in on the locations.

He had gathered more and more scars recently, wounds across his hands, these were marks of shame and mistakes, something to remind you what you did wrong and that you were lucky to still be alive, they were marks of ones failure.

He had begun contemplating more and more where his existence would lead him, from what it seemed even though he counted his age in cycles that people depending on their lifestyle at most 30-40 years for the type of background that was not wealthy, he had lived at least 40 cycles roughly that he remembered even in tiny little pieces, though he suspected he was even older than that, he would most likely fade and die before he got a chance to pass on his knowledge of the lands, this lifestyle was not for the soft or kind hearted, you had to be steeled and prepared to die alone in the freezing cold, he didn’t have a family, well I guess it could be said he didn’t have a family up in till a few months ago, he had been ditched with some weird mix of an animal, a rabbit wolf a blend of rabbit and wolf known as a Shevika, though if it couldn’t keep up he would stop feeding it, it was very useful to have a creature that had greater senses than one’s self.

But it was onto Vodarara’s objective for now, he was aiming to search and discover a location, that he could set up as a primary base, it would act as a main storage point, it would need to allow him to travel in every direction and allow him to observe the wilderness, it meant climbing and searching, it would take a good while, he believed.

Vodarara had no wish for any wealth or power, though he saw it in many of the eyes of other humanoids, maybe he was mad well he most likely was, what type of being could put up with this.

Vodarara had packed his equipment, his bow unslung and was ready to begin his search through the wilds, this time of searching should allow him time to gather more experience and ability, there was no end to improvement if you believed you were a master you were a fool, if you became naïve, you would die because of the greed and gluttony that you had.

His ideas of payback for the theft of one of his grandest prey, had started to decrease and change, he would admit he held respect for the blue haired giant called Asisiak, a powerful creature that should not be trifled with and for her respect and love of her land, he couldn’t help but respect that, it would be a great shame if that changed.

Change was always to be sensed it ran in the lay lines of the wilds, you could feel the pulse of life that spread, the aura’s of beings, it was odd for them to change, the air the pressure around something, It had happened to a few beings he had passed, though he would not look into why doing such would mean stepping into the devils cauldron and he knew that he couldn’t beat Asisiak at least not in a grounded fight.

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WC: 720

720/2000 word minimum

He set off at first light, his supplies for traversing packed his weapons checked and holstered, he was wearing a set of larger base boots to aid with the long snow walks he was going to have to be doing, this should at least aid in him using slightly less energy, he kept himself wrapped up to aid in maintaining body temperature, he left his shelter and headed off into the wilderness.

Snow crunched underfoot being pushed into the ground, slightly behind him the sound of something landing regularly could be heard, this was of course the small rabbit wolf, if the creature couldn’t keep up with the Hunter he had no need for it, it needed to use its ears and nose, it proved useful in that way its abilities greater than that of a human one could say it could be even better than a normal wolf or a normal rabbit, well rabbits were only really good for eating and wolves could be tamed but you needed to catch them young.

The day had its common sights nothing out of the ordinary, no creatures acting off the norm, of course the occasional air born hunter hovered above for a while, seeing if the little pup that followed the hunter would drop off the pace and be out in the open, but the fact it kept up and made use of the presence of the Hunter kept it from becoming dinner, it was able to keep itself alive without orders, of course it was most likely a natural reaction use the big thing to hide from the flying thing.

Vodarara would continue this for a number of hours, it had begun to get late in the day and he had yet to find anywhere he believed that would be a suitable location for him to set up a storage point, he was working his way more central to the tundra.

Vodarara was beginning to work himself to mountain ranges he had not explored fully, these places would most likely be the best for possible locations with crags and caves that burrowed deep into the mountain.

Of course there would be dangers to exploring an unexplored system, he wouldn’t know where it was going, if there was going to be a sheer drop off and it could lead to being completely fruitless.

At least the more central it was it should avoid anyone going this deep, Imuchakk were primarily fishermen after all, so it shouldn’t be necessary for them to come searching this far in.

It was closing towards the end of the day, it would be a few hours before darkness would be the world.

Before the night could fall, Vodarara had set his eyes to a rest point, a small cave which wasn’t really suitable for bears to go and reside in, he had captured some prey, a small rabbit, it would do a mixture of some plants with the rabbit would make a nice stew, it hung from his belt a piece of rope round its neck.

Before night fell, Vodarara had reached his objective, set up inside the cave, setting a few traps outside to alert him if anything was coming to search around.

He would end the day by stewing up the rabbit and dropping the wolf rabbit a small meal of its own, it had kept up today and hadn’t got itself eaten thus it was obviously getting more and more experienced, well Vodarara hoped it would at least be useful.

Tonight as usual he would cold camp, quashing his fire and wrapping himself up in a bedroll and furs, though his little follower did try to push in close to him, Vodarara ejected the creature and it would find its self at his feet on a corner of the bedroll.

It most likely would run off when it got big enough, it most likely was remaining for food and protection, at least it provided good ears and a better sense of detection while it was sleeping than any human could detect.

Though this night would pass uneventfully, the nights would vary through the year from being short and long, soon Vodarara would continue his search.

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WC: 702

1402/2000

He would spend the next number of days working his way across different routes searching different ranges hoping to find somewhere that he believed would be suitable, the cave system were large and it was best not to enter and search them, it would be best not to get yourself lost in them, it was also looking rather ominous on the horizon, animal patterns had shifted most had been heading towards somewhere of cover be it there nest or the forests or the crags and caves.

If a storm was going to pass through it should be in a day or so, though what would unveil would be rather worse than what was expected, the storm arrived quickly, it would seem it wasn’t following a normal pattern to say the least may had sprawled off the sea randomly and came in land, the snow had begun to fall and the winds picked up as Vodarara was making his way to the next area he was planning to search.

The wind howled and snow crossed across the hunter, it was serious enough that he had been slowed down to quite a crawl, the pup was pretty much suckling up as close as possible to use the body of the hunter to allow it some protection from the elements, he needed to reach the location he was aiming for as soon as possible, with only his internal compass and knowledge to keep himself on path to his destination.

It could have been hours, not even Vodarara could tell how the time was passing as he moved through the storm and it had consistently gotten heavier, the longer he was out the heavier his gear felt and more tired.

The worse fact, snow that settled could begin starting to melt, the growing weight was most likely because of it melting, water seeping onto his furs, this would be bad if it soaked through.

He felt a decline over time in his body temperature, it was clear he was venting more heat than normal, though eventually he found himself stumbling into a cavern which felt like it seemingly appeared, though it would most likely be due to the storm it felt odd.

Though Vodarara had little time to focus on that, he needed to get out of this gear before it soaked through any more, as he dragged off layer after layer in till he could find one that wasn’t wet.

Only a spare layer remained everything was soaked, his kit soaked as well, it seemed by some luck the mutt had kept itself alive and was curled up in one edge of the corner, though this cavern went deeper into darkness.

Vodarara carefully worked at the ice that had built up on his eyebrows and eyelashes, it was damn cold out there and he was lucky to not to have become and ice block out there, if he had gone down and not kept moving it would have been likely that ice would have rapidly formed, the constant movement at least broke up any ice.

He found himself rather frustrated, he should have gone for shelter far earlier after seeing the signs, as well as having no clue of where he was in till this storm passed.

He set about dragging out what he could find that was dry enough to burn without smoking himself out and set up providing source of heat, he needed to keep warm, his finger weren’t looking that good, though they were hardened from the years in this landscape, being caught out in something like that can lead to long term damage.
He found himself becoming frustrated by even small sounds, it seemed he was building up more and more stress, it had been a fruitless journey, it had been a fruitless day and last of all most of his kit was out of action and he was now stuck in here.

A sound of scratching, what was that mutt up too now, he locked his gaze on the mutt, but it was fast asleep.

It … was…. Sleeping….

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WC: 681

2083/2000

He quickly scanned his surroundings, behind him was clear, his sides and in front were clear even the ceiling was clear, he must have been going mad and hearing things now, this was most certainly the worst day of all time.

The mutt should have woken up and detected anything nearby, he was losing it.

He sat himself down near the small fire that flickered and crackled as it burned down the wood, absorbing as much of its heat as he could, though unlike the mutt he couldn’t sleep, his eyes stared into the darkness watching and observing, he constantly thought he could hear something but couldn’t make out what it was.

He was constantly checking how dry his gear was, it was some time later, he wolf rabbit had started pacing around, from the meal Vodarara had consumed he left some scrap to the rabbit wolf, if it wanted a bigger meal it would have to catch its own.

A few layers had dried the under under layers were not as wet as the thicker outer layer, it would lead to death by boredom if he continued to sit here and wait, he slowly stoked the fire adding some more material to burn, before he grabbed together his equipment, in his left hand he carried his unstrung bow and his knives were strapped across his body.

A torch of wrapped cloth and animal fat burned, he used this is the stupidly dark conditions to be able to proceed ahead, it would be pretty much impossible to see in these conditions anyway, even if your eyes had adjusted there was no light to make use of.

The little wolf rabbit padded behind as Vodarara proceeded deeper into the cave system, as he went when there was a turn off he made chip into the cave systems walls, so if he had to he would have a way of heading back along the route he came.

As he worked his way deeper he thought he could hear sounds, clicking and clattering echoing down the tunnels but couldn’t truly make it out.

Vodarara eventually came to a cavern, the tunnel system widened out into a slope that lead down into the cavern, it seemed the cave walls were beginning to slightly change and there was a moistness to the atmosphere.

The cold sound of dripping could be heard as well as the sound of running water, crouching down he began taking a look at some nearby fungi……

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WC: 415

Vodarara was looking at the fungi, with the light now gone from the environment it began to change in colour, a weak glow of greens and yellows as well as some red and blue illuminated from the fungi in the cave, these would make a good natural light source, there glow wasn’t super vibrant but would give some addition light to aid with vision without flooding ones eye sight.

Vodarara carefully prized out the fungi trying to avoid damaging them as much as possible leaving them intact as he could, it took him some time but he collected a number of the fungi from different spots to avoid taking too many from one location.

Eventally using a mixture of climber plants he tied them together and strapped a small number of them to himself to give himself some light to see what he was doing, with the rest he made use of the mutt and turned the rabbit wolf into a bit of a glow orb.

He slowly worked his way into the cavern, watching the glints and glows fading and increasing through the fungi, a small river flowed down through the cavern, it was around two feet wide and very shallow and it seemed that it seemed water was running down the rocks from above and then cascading down and running through this place and then down into the abyss.

Maybe it was a stream that ran under the glacier into the sea, or something along those lines, that would be why of course you couldn’t see it from above ground, he imagined if he was roughly where he thought he was, though he would need high ground to be sure.

He picked up the rabbit wolfling and from a short run up leapt over the river, though his footing went, it seemed there was a moss of some sort on the other side and he ended up falling onto his backside.

It wasn’t much further into the cavern that sounds started to get louder clatter and clicking.

Like a whistle in the wind something quickly shot over his feet, something mottled brown travelling stupidly fast as it bumped awkwardly over his feet something came off the creature on its body there was purple spots one of these had come off as the creature shot off down into the hole that the river flowed down, where had that thing come from was all Vodarara could wander.

He picked up the like purple speck and put it in his hand, as he looked at the glinting of it in the glow of the fungi, it popped out legs, the little thing had tiny mandibles and was carrying what looked like a tiny sack of eggs on its back, it reared up a 3 pronged tail and reared back trying to make itself look big, though Vodarara had no quarrel with the tiny critter, he returned it to the ground were it quickly skittered silently into the darkness.

He continued on with the mutt, the cavern lead off into more tunnels.

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WC: 510

He proceeded further into the cave system, this place was rather odd it was something he hadn’t really seen before, whatever had passed over him, he wasn’t sure of exactly what it could be, it had many stubby toes but was similar to wyrm’s and worms.

As he moved he lightly contemplated it but at this time it wasn’t something to focus on at least while he was trapped in the dark cave system, ambushes would be rather to welcoming.

As he moved through each section he continued making marks in the cave wall, it would be useful for him to discover quicker or alternative routes at a later date, but for now he had to continue onwards.

He found he came to an intersection, to his left sounds could be heard, lots of rapid clicking that was starting to increase in volume, but sounded as if it was not because of it getting close but becoming more intense, maybe the bugs were in there mating season, that could explain that extra noise.

He became curious, these creatures would be interesting to observe, he allowed his curiosity for knowledge to overtake him, he slowly snuck his way down the tunnel system, it took some time travelling at a slow speed, but after a number of turns in the cave, he eventually came to an alcove that looked down, into another cavern the alcove had a steep drop down into it, what was going on below was a scene to behold……..

It seemed a battle was occurring below, the cavern was lit with larger mushrooms far bigger than those in the first cavern he had been through, an orange moss seemed to line the right side of the cavern, well that was what of it that wasn’t covered in a blue or green glowing blood.

Below a battle was occurring, what could well be the mottled brown creatures from before maybe a male, if he took a guess that the quick one he had seen before was a female. They had small purple specks across their body and the ones scrapping below had larger heads what they were fighting against was rather different.

It seemed abnormal, though it was somewhat like the small purple creatures that were on the backs of the brown ones, though there features were more ghastly and mutated one could say.

The exoskeletons of both were filling the cavern, a number of the abnormal purples had crusted and shatter exoskeletons there green blood splattered, while a number of the browns were being overpowered and being sliced wide open spilling there blue blood over the purples and the floor as there mandibles crushed what could well have been a softer underside.

Something seemed far different about the section of purples that were making advances as they seemed to fade and shift in and out as the glow from the fungi bounced off its chitin hide.

The browns broke and scattered and began to withdraw, it seemed the purples had won even if there were heavy casualties on both sides, this was an interesting turn of events the air here was defiantly odd, he had somewhat not been thinking about serious effects of the risings on underground species, could it be something was linked to these.

The mutt suddenly barked and ran, Vodarara looked down as a number of glinting purple began to ascend up towards his location, it was time to scarper.

Vodarara turned and ran after the glowball that darted down the tunnels, it made sense to run in the direction the glowball for now, though the jetted past the intersection and continued down the other corridor, why didn’t the pup go into the first cavern, though Vodarara had no time to look back the buggers were pretty much at his ankles as it was.

The tunnel seemed to weave like a snake as the shimmering mirage of colours lead the way, it felt it was something of a slow motion chase as Vodarara kept his head down sprinting as fast as he could, his eyes somewhat shocked as he emerged into a bright wide area, as he turned on his feet as he got somewhat into the area.

He swung his hand to his hips and lower back as he rotated around……

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WC: 716

What Vodarara saw as he turned around with the light behind him, was the creature beginning to writhe and burn rapidly, its carapace blackening as it was covered in light that was reflecting around this cone area he had entered, the light bouncing off rocks, ice and metals in the walls.

A number of them had withdrew before they were engulfed but it seemed the first one had been quite heavily exposed as it flicked and flashed as it tried to return to the darkness, though Vodarara was running low on food, most had been left somewhere off in the cavern system at wherever he had entered.

Grabbing the mutated creature by the tail, he dragged it further into the room, so that none of its fellow creatures could take the risk of launching out into the light, where after he drove his blade into a gap in the carapace near the head of the creature.

He followed it up by twisting the blade as the creature continued to rive in agony, finishing it with a quick stamp to the knife, as it penetrated the creature deeper, it stopped its movement and subsided.

It seemed if this turned out to be edible, he had something to eat otherwise he would need to find a way out and hope that the blizzard had ended, if not he would have to run the gauntlet back to his kit, though if these things didn’t like light maybe a torch would at least keep them from closing for an attack.

Though the carapace of this creature was interesting, it seemed that the carapace refracted light somewhat, light could pass through the carapace but it seemed the skin was weak to the sunlight but was fine with bioluminescence which wasn’t all that strong.

There may be uses for there carapace, as Vodarara inspected the creature further there seemed to be signs that this creature wasn’t of a natural origin as such, its features were similar if you removed the fact it was giant and the growths on the creatures body to the small purple ones on the bigger crawlers.

Though he would have to come back to it later, Vodarara inspected the area he had arrived at following the light, hopefully towards where the breach was.

This place was a rather nice enclave, towering high and at its end there was a number of pools, it seemed some water was being forced up through the rocks and had been pooling here, it seemed it flooded down and out in two direction once it reached its height which would explain the water flowing through the caverns, as well as heading out.

Temperature was within the water it wasn’t superheated maybe due to the fact it was still cold in the air, but it maintained a warmer temperature in the mountain which could be quite mistaken for the fact the air is contained deeper inside.

As he scanned the roof, he eventally spotted some gaps in the rocks where light was able to penetrate, it was passing through snow thus wasn’t super strong but it seems its elevation stopped it becoming fully covered and blocked as well as the rising heat stopping huge layers from being created.

He worked his way ascending the rocks, gripping his fingers on the coarse edges as he worked his way up the wall of the enclave, by time he reached the top and crawled out, he was able to see into the light, it seemed the blizzard had cleared but where the hell was he.

Light filled the air, as he scanned around, down below a good distance it seemed there was some surface pools hidden within a cascade of rocks, light steam emanating off, none of that made sense in Vodarara’s eyes he had no knowledge of anything like this.

It seemed he was not far from the peak, as he scrambled through the cold air to the top, climbing up rock and ice in thinner clothes, the cold of the air could be felt far more than he would normally be able to feel.

After making it, he stared from the top, looking at the mountain ridges, this couldn’t be right this mountain was something he had seen before, its location but what was here wasn’t something he expected he had never seen steam coming off the mountain, which would be expected from the from warm water springs but where he was it was more visible.

Was it an illusion of the light, he was sure he wasn’t going blind, was it disguised and hidden because of the rock formation, that only those who climb would see it.

It was something that would be interesting, though Vodarara quickly descended and scrambled back inside the enclave, He had much to think about and discover, this place would be a good place to set up base in, it had mystery as well as being hard to find, though Vodarara needed to recover his kit, it would have hopefully dried and he could work out where his entrance was.

After he was able to relight his torch, he worked his way out after taking a drink of the spring water, He had to hope the creatures would stay back from the torch light.

………….

Sometime Later

After managing to get through the cavern, it seemed the majority of the creatures had withdrew from the tunnel and headed back towards the caverns, the rest retreated from the light before it got close, but it was likely it was just an automatic reaction, as a security method that would be done to sunlight.

By the time that he reached the entrance he had come from by following his marks back what he saw was rather surprising…..

The kit that he had left around the fire pit was missing all gone, nothing left behind.

An air of dejectedness passed over him, his stuff was gone there didn’t seemed to be any drag marks it seemed that it had disappeared into thin air, Something or Someone had pinched all of the kit he had to leave behind, now all he had was what he carried and wore.

This was going to be a fun walk, through the freezing cold to be able to get some from his cache's, he have to hope he got lucky enough not to get caught in another blizzard.

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WC: 1019

End of Plot Post Part 1