Boreal was finished chewing the piece of odd grey meat, enjoying it as little as Zalia was. Luckily, they wouldn't have to eat the stuff more than once every two or three days. Once her Survivalist skill was much higher the number of days between would grow and grow until she didn't have to eat at all.
As they ate, Zalia’s mind turned to some of the bigger issues she would have to figure out. The main one being that she was stuck in a very inhospitable place. That in itself wasn't actually a terrible thing, she was used to living in the harsh, snowy north of her own homeworld but this place might just be a tad too uncomfortable for her. Living in a hard place was fine, living in a hard place that was also the afterlife of another world was not.
That meant she would need to find a way out of here, or more accurately find a way to power or fuel the ritual she had taken from Juniper. From what she had seen and the descriptions she had read, it not only required quite a bit of blood sacrifice to enact the ritual but was meant to be used from the other world, not here. She would probably have to alter the ritual a little to account for that but she had absolutely not idea how to. All of the ritual knowledge she had was from the innate information she got from her Herbal magic skill and that only gave her insight into rituals when using herbs and other flora.
She could theoretically find some kind of plant that gave an element of transportation or dimension, something like that. The issue was that something of the kind would most likely need to be very high ranked to transport her across worlds in the first place. Juniper might have been able to find a way to fix the problem but there was no way Zalia would have saved the woman. Her decision had been made and she didn't regret it.
The floating island she had seen had vague silhouettes that might have been buildings atop it but she didn't know if she wanted to meet whatever creatures lived down here even if there were any. Another of the issues was the ghostly figures floating around in the sky. So far they hadn’t seemed to have taken notice of Zalia but she didn't know what rank they were, if they were hostile, killable, spies or well, anything about them really. She knew she would have to travel eventually if she wanted to find something, anything that could help her get out of here.
“Want to try and see if we can find anything up there?” Zalia asked Boreal.
Boreal looked up from where she had started chewing another piece of grey and tilted her head quizzically. Zalia pointed to the entrance. Zalia received a feeling of nonchalance, like Boreal didn't mind either way. They were fed and safe after all, no need to risk it. On the other hand, they might find something interesting to hunt.
Zalia sighed, looking down. She remembered the many other beams that Zalia had seen shooting into the sky when she had reversed Juniper’s ritual. She hoped that her interference had caused some disruption to the kingdom wide ritual that had occurred. She stood up, pacing around the edges of the room, still subconsciously keeping her distance from the half frozen icy pool in the space. She was frustrated at her inability to do much about her situation immediately.
Knowing that physical activity like going for a run usually helped her think and cool off, Zalia decided to start heading up to the surface. Her sword wasn't quite a replacement for an axe but with it's magic, her passives and her enhanced attributes, she could probably take on a tree. She wasn't a furniture maker by any means but she had some practice making the basics and decided to make herself a nice log chair. Her sword could be somewhat compared to a machete in it's design as well. It was less broad in it's width, yes, but it would do just fine.
She sent a thought to Boreal, letting her know it was fine if she wanted to wait in the cave and she would be back soon. Boreal sent back a lazy affirmative and Zalia smiled as she made her way up. She wanted to gather some of the wiry vine-like plants she had seen around the place as well. A couple of traps to guard the entrance to her cave wouldn't be such a bad idea.
Zalia peaked out of the cave entrance to the ‘surface’ once more, looking up into the sky at the various shadows floating around. She realised that they actually held a similarity to the shade she had nicknamed Hidey.
“Could this be where he came from?” Zalia wondered.
He had once said that he wasn't sentient before Zayes had found him, only becoming so when the man had done something to form a familiar bond with him. Could these shades be the same creature? Could it be that Zayes had once been here and discovered Hidey’s true name? Her other thought was much more sinister. That Hidey had come from here and formed a bond with Zayes on purpose, under the control of someone else who knew his true name.
Pushing the thoughts away, she slipped out of the cave and made her way towards the closest tree that looked thin enough to be cut but still thick enough to be useful. The wood itself was warped and twisted as all the trees were but she might be able to whittle it down to something usable. She drew back her arm, summoning her blade and swung into the tree. Her blade hit with a loud thwock, digging several inches into the wood. Zalia stopped and looked up, none of the shades reacting to her great relief.
“Alright, that’s a good start,” she thought.
She pulled the blade out and swung again, the impact rewarding her with another thwock. Checking the sky again, the shades still did not react. She smiled and got to work, chopping quicker as her confidence grew.
Zalia eventually cut down enough of the tree for it to slowly tilt to the side, falling over. Zalia quickly ran away and hid behind another tree out of the trajectory of the quickly collapsing tree. It hit the spongy ground with a quite dull but still loud thud. The moment it did, the shades above finally reacted. The sound or the movement was apparently enough to finally get the creature's attention and Zalia ran even further, utilising her stealth skill and ability to stay hidden. A magical darkness formed in the air as the screeches and cries of the shades grew louder, the darkness billowing towards the fallen tree like a pitch black cloud. She watched as the darkness hit the floor and flowed outwards, creating a pocket of shadow she could only barely see through. The ability reminded her greatly of what Hidey had done when they had been captured.
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The shades eventually floated away back to their eternal screaming and the dark cloud dissipated. Zalia trudged up to the tree and inspected it. The shades hadn’t done any damage to it thankfully so Zalia grabbed it and tried to pull it towards her cave. Failing completely, she realised she would have to cut it up into a few pieces at least and got to work.
⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻
Some time later, she had finished cutting it into large logs that she rolled one by one to her cave. The shades thankfully weren’t attracted to the relative quiet of her chopping where the entire tree falling did. It wasn't a large thing, maybe twelve to fifteen metres tall but it still had a surprising weight to it. It also had no leaves which only added to the impact it made when it fell. Something Zalia learnt in her many years living in the wilds was that trees actually fell slower when they had leaves as they acted like a million tiny little parachutes.
She finished rolling the last of her chosen logs into the first cave and looked towards the smaller entrance to her more private cave. She hadn't really considered how hard it would be to roll these things through there but a few would be small enough to fit. Others, she would have to chop up a little.
Before making her way down she also collected a few good, sturdy branches and a few lengths of the wiry vine. Eventually, she managed to get her collection of various wooden bits and pieces into the icy cave where Boreal was making a tiny ice sculpture. When she had looked at Boreal’s profile it hadn’t told her about any of the passives that the feline had but she must have had her cold resistance in Iron, the ability allowing her to manipulate ice and snow to a minor degree.
Zalia stood proudly over her pile of wood, inspecting each piece once more, before walking over to see what Boreal was creating. It was a miniature icy recreation of Zalia, Zen, Ember and Indis fighting the icy winged creature atop the mountain home of the Born of Heat and Stone. Boreal had also included the landscape, recreating the battle pretty accurately to how Zalia remembered it.
“You’re pretty good at that,” Zalia commented.
Boreal looked up at Zalia, then back to her sculpture. Zalia noticed the larger dead Frostfang, Boreal’s mother, with kitten Boreal hiding in her shadow in the sculpture as well.
“I guess you have a pretty vivid memory of the battle too, hey?” Zalia thought.
Zalia rolled the largest log to a good spot and lay it down flat. The surface wasn't super comfortable but she cut it as smooth as she could and put the hide of the stone creature atop it. Her temporary chair done, she pulled another log over and slammed her sword into the side of it so the weapon stuck upwards, providing a good, stable and sharp edge she could whittle the wood against. The first thing she did was chop up one of the branches to make eight small wooden spikes. She used the tip of her blade to slowly carve a hole into the ends of each one. Tying a length of vine between two spikes and repeating the process, she ended up with four sets of vine with spikes on each end. She then took a bunch of splintered wood pieces and jammed them through the vine at different places along it's length. It wasn't perfect but she was hoping her trapper passive would make up for it.
She went to the entrance of the cave system and tried out her first tripwire trap. As she had hoped, the second she slammed the spike into stone instead of cracking or breaking, the wood buried into it. She slammed the spike on the other end of the vine into the opposite wall and the vine tightened between the two, pulling taut. The splintered wood along its length multiplied, becoming smoother and sharper before the whole contraption faded into shadows, changing colour and becoming incredibly hard to see. Zalia could still see it if she looked closely but thanks to her trapper ability, it was pretty well hidden. She planted one more at the entrance to the first tunnel, another at the T-section in the tunnel that went to their icy cave and the final one in the tunnel at the very entrance to the icy cave.
Satisfied with having at least a couple defences set up, Zalia turned her attention back to her other project. She had already made her log chair, a simple but effective piece of furniture but she also wanted to make some kind of stone tools. A hatchet and knife she could use to properly shape wood maybe. She wasn't really a woodworker or toolmaker but now was as good a time to learn as any. Setting her blade up as a whittling surface once more, she got to work.
⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻
A few hours passed as she worked, slowly whittling and smoothing a piece of wood until she got it into the shape she wanted. It was just a small handle with a slit down half its length that she could shove a piece of stone into. Using some thinned vine she could strap it to the wood and hopefully have finally progressed herself to the stone age. All she had to do now was find a piece and type of stone suitable for the task. Looking over at Boreal who was playing around in a tiny snowfall she was apparently making herself, Zalia had an idea. Maybe she didn't need to use stone at all and something like ice would be suitable for the task. Usually speaking, it would be a terrible idea but she had her Cold resistance at Iron rank, meaning she could manipulate the material.
Zalia held out her handle and started manipulating some of the nearby ice to flow up and form into a solid icy blade. She focused on compressing the ice as much as possible to keep any air bubbles or flaws from the material and eventually had what she wanted. Her sword was sharp as she could ask for but for a few parts of woodworking it just wasn't quite practical. Something smaller like this ice blade could be really useful for her, though she would definitely need to maintain concentration on it to keep it in good shape rather than a useless shattered clump of ice shards.
She worked for the next few hours again, using her ice blade and sword to create another handle. This one was longer and shaped like a hatchet's handle. Once it was done, she used her heat manipulation to even further dry the wood, not heating it too much or too little but allowing the wood to stiffen. She made the hatchet head out of ice and tested it on a piece of wood finding it to work quite well. It was disappointingly not as good as her blade at cutting the wood unfortunately so the effort might have been a bit of a waste. She felt better for having been able to actually do something though, so no harm was done.
Having finished her newly set task after only a good few hours, she sat down once more on her log chair and thought about what she would need to do to escape once more.