Aloe woke up with a wet face. Humidity was ever-present this close to the Tehen River, but as she wiped her visage, she noticed the source of her wetness wasn't humidity but tears.
"Haha…" She let out a wry and dry laugh as she wiped her tears.
No words left her mouth, only half-thoughts that blossomed and withered before they could be fully born. Aloe bit her lower lip and clutched the Blossomflame seed bag with all her might, trying to leave all those thoughts behind.
In and out.
She took slow breaths that filled her lungs with cold, stale air and did her best to wake up from her sleeping bag. No thoughts flew in her mindscape, only automatic actions that had been engraved on her body after days of the same repetition.
From her backpack, Aloe took out her pathetic excuse of a breakfast and some water. Normally she would appreciate having access to cold and refreshing water, but now as it flowed down her throat, it felt oppressive. Just a reminder that she was in a cage of cold, just sapping more of her limited heat.
Even her exhalations were cold now, but that didn't stop Aloe from trying to warm her hands with them. She gave up fast, the Blossomflame seeds proved better at heating her than her own body.
Aloe stretched her extremities, more than one bone and muscle popping back into place with the gestures. She couldn't say she felt exhausted, she just technically had around forty hours of sleep if not more. But she couldn't say she had the energy nor the motivation to seize her day.
Mindlessly, Aloe searched for the cave's entrance, only to notice she was fully blind without acuity. And even when she donned it, her eyes only caught vague silhouettes of her surroundings.
"Too dark," she whispered quietly, yet the echoing cave walls caught the sound without problem. "There's no light here."
At the river and the ravine, some hint of light reached the bottom even if it wasn't much. Truth be told, Aloe didn't know how she could even see anything at all, acuity or not.
Guiding herself mostly with her hands, Aloe slowly trekked the way back through crevice to the river. Fortunately, the way back was a tight enough rift that there was no way to get lost.
The river made its presence clear way before she was able to see it with its strenuous course, the sound of water louder than the thoughts of her exhausted mind. A few more minutes later, the proximity of the river was evident as her clothes and skin began collecting small droplets of water. Even if her vision was mostly impeded, she caught glances of her breath turning into a white mist from the cold.
The only real way to see the river with this near absolute lack of light was through the occasional refractions on the water's surface. Though it wasn't like she was going to fall in the river by mistake, the sounds were too loud for her enhanced ears for that to happen.
But purposefully falling in it was a wholly different matter.
"OH FUCK, THAT'S COLD!" Aloe powerfully shouted like never before as she took her head out of the river. She had thought to wet her visage a bit, but she had miscalculated and instead dunked her whole head into the Tehen River.
She started shaking her head vigorously, and all the lethargy in her body suddenly vanished. It wouldn't be wrong to say that she looked and acted like a scared cat, and she dried herself.
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"Oh heavens," she cursed again, albeit in a more civilized manner. "I kinda needed that…"
Aloe rubbed her eyes and sighed, not before a shiver went down her spine from the cold. She took out her blanket and dried her hair with it. It was less than optimal doing so because heavens knew when it would dry in this humid environment, so that meant no blanket for a while unless she wanted to catch a cold or develop hypothermia.
"Well, no baths for a while." That wasn't a statement, but the best attempt at comedy she could muster. "Now that I think it through… No stances increase my body heat, but maybe they increase my resistance to it?"
Sheepishly, Aloe dipped her hand into the river again after having switched to toughness.
"Ow, cold," she removed it fast. "But maybe not as much?"
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Aloe removed her stance. She switched to the default one, meaning that her body wielded no stance whatsoever.
"Oh," she gasped, "I feel naked. It's… it's been a while since I have had my physical properties not modified by arcane powers. It's weird…"
Aloe opened and closed her hand in quick succession, testing her speed. When she was donning any internal infusion that wasn't haste, she would be slower than usual, but not now… she was in her usual state, and that felt unusual.
As if she could no longer recognize herself.
"Uh, what was I doing? Water, right," the cultivator dipped her uninfused hand into the water, and the cold assaulted it. "Mmm," Aloe moaned in pain at the chill and switched back to toughness in a blink. Holding her hand underwater, she swayed her head from side to side in ponderation. "I do feel the cold less… I think. But I can't tell if that's because toughness is making me resistant to it, or the innate numbness that accompanies the stance."
Whatever the case, Aloe decided to put an end to her experiments as she was getting very cold. Her hands were frigid and awfully red.
Heating herself with her exhalations was useless, and her blanket was still damp alongside her hair, so the warmth pouch wouldn't be enough. Instead, Aloe tapped directly from the source.
"Come on, flourish!" She commanded Blossomflame, raising her hands to the heavens.
Nothing happened.
Her answer was nothing but the overwhelming silence of the chasm.
"I knew it wasn't likely to work, but I had to try," Aloe sighed and bit her finger after switching to potency.
The flow of blood coming through the wound did warm her, but bloodletting wasn't exactly the most optimal way to heat oneself. Embers, equivalent to the damage she had inflicted on herself, blossomed from the evolved flower and enveloped her finger.
"Can you hold it a bit longer?" She petitioned the Blossomflame.
Her experience told her that the Blossomflame would only obey her once she was hurt, or someone was threatening her. Now that I think about it, I was hurt all those times the Blossomflame defended me… She didn't let that thought flourish as either way it was unlikely for her to be felled fast enough for the Blossomflame to not spring into action in time.
"Oh," surprisingly, the embers did not vanish instantly, somehow obeyed her command.
They didn't stay for long, but the fire was more than welcomed. And useful. Light was a scarce resource here, but with the usage of acuity, even an ember could become a beacon in this oppressive darkness.
Aloe used the brief moment of light to the best of her extent, devouring the details of her current location.
First, even if she already knew this, there no longer was an opening to the outside. It would be inappropriate to call this place a chasm any longer, perhaps a ravine or simply cave was more appropriate, but semantics had never been her forte.
Second, there seemed to be an ecosystem here.
Nothing elaborate, but the riverbed was no longer composed of hard rock – or the needle-like substrate of the Ridged Highlands – but soil.
Soil!
And what did the combination of soil and water mean? That's right.
Plants!
Her vision and watching time had been severely limited so from what she had seen, there were only moulds and fungi growths around the Tehen River. Not much, but it was better than a region completely devoid of life.
And whilst the presence of plants meant something for her vital arts, her focus was redirected to the soil.
"If I have this much soil around and unrestricted access to water… Shouldn't I be able to grow plants without any limitations whatsoever with these traits in tandem with Forced Growth?"
It wasn't much, a pathetic excuse for her greenhouse and the oasis, but Aloe felt her ember of hope burn ever-so-slightly brighter. Hopefully, they wouldn't be as ephemeral as the ones from the Blossomflame.