Boreal, Pounce and Zalia appeared on the surface as they stepped through Aylie’s portal. It had worked seamlessly, undisturbed by the dormant ritual circles already down there below the surface. There had been something familiar about those rituals down there, yet Zalia couldn’t place her finger on it.
Regardless, they were out now and she might have learnt something useful from them. While a terrifying situation for Pounce, it had turned out about as well as it could have.
Zalia smiled as Pounce was, well, pounced upon by her siblings. She was smothered by the four young cats, cleaned and fussed over even more. The five might fight and tussle quite a lot as siblings often did, but they also loved each other. The loss of one of the five would change each of them forever.
She felt sadness at having had to kill the mother worm and was concerned for the young. If the initial cave-in hadn’t crushed them, they should be able to escape being a creatures made to live in such a manner. While that was true, she didn’t know how old they were or what stage of life they had reached. It might be possible that they would be able to survive, not that she would ever know. They didn’t deserve to be killed but sometimes life dealt an unfair hand.
They dawdled only for a short moment before moving on. They knew now that the humid, musty swampland was filled with more life than the surface showed. If there was one depths dwelling creature, there may be others. Having seen some creatures moving about when they were above, there were also undoubtedly other things camouflaged amongst the dull greens, greys and browns of the shrubs, mud and water.
During the night, they slept safely in Zalia’s vault, the only entrance being the small portal that Zalia and Boreal protected whilst the others slept. It was a very rare thing for Zalia to ever sleep anymore and when she did, it was never for more than an hour at most. Even then, it only happened once every two or more weeks.
The dank swamplands slowly but surely turned into a flat plain, the small sickly looking shrubs becoming big bushes and tall grass. The younger cats that took after their father more than Boreal rejoiced at the change in scenery, loving the land that was akin to the land that their father came from.
In fact, they saw some other wildcats that looked like the young ones, though both parties avoided each other.
Zalia was beginning to wonder just how far away the Astar lived.
When she had been captured, it hadn’t been far from the border of Endaria. It had taken them two weeks to return from that now ruined castle to the war camp, though half of that time had been within the borders. That ruin would presumably be one of their outermost outposts.
They were now further away from Endaria’s border than that ruin, though not by much. She should have perhaps taken them to the ruin to see if there was any sign or hint of the Astar there but her memories of that place… no. No, she wouldn't go back there unless there was no other way.
At the very least, they did have a small hint as to where they were going. When Hildebrandt had freed her, Zalia had managed to affect one of the Astar with Hunter's mark before they teleported away. She knew the vague direction they had gone before she had dropped the ability and was heading that way now. It would be another few days of walking before they got close to that area, however.
⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻
It was two days later that Zalia began to see mountains in the distance, large and looming over the flat plains beneath them. These mountains were huge, taller even than the ones that the Heat and Stone denizens called home. Casting her eye down their range, she couldn't see the end of them either north or south and had a feeling that they very well might link up with that very same mountainous terrain in the north.
Fortunately for them, the place Zalia had let go of the Hunter's Mark was before, or at the base of, that range.
It was three or so hours of travel before there was another change in the landscape. A hint of mist appeared, slowly growing thicker and thicker until they couldn’t see past a few metres, with normal vision at least. It took Zalia and Boreal a moment to adjust their vision that was based on vibration. The way the mist swirled made each sound and each movement of a body look strange, distorted. They eventually got the hang of it. Their normal and heat vision was useless, as was the vision of the rest of their family, Ember and Aylie were latched onto either side of Zalia, barely even able to see where they stepped, while Boreal circled behind and around her children, keeping them roughly in line as they walked.
The mist didn’t get any less thick, instead blocking their vision for the next hours of walking. By Zalia’s assessment, it would be another two hours before they reached the base of the mountain.
She was about to ask if everyone was okay when a shift in the vibrations within the mist made both her and Boreal stop. The others immediately stopped as well, looking at the two of them in confusion.
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Zalia could feel Boreal’s aura release, the warm fog around them freezing to a chilling temperature. At the same time, she radiated fear. Zalia had to snap herself out of the effect and she noticed the others doing the same. While they were all used to Boreal’s ability, they still had to adjust when she released it.
The fog around them began to freeze onto surfaces, their skin, clothes and boots, the ground beneath them and the short grass growing out of it. As the fog thinned ever so slightly, they were able to make out an amorphous shape within it, slowly drifting along.
It didn’t react to Boreal’s aura, neither did it have ice accumulate on it from the freezing mist. It was incorporeal.
They watched it warily, but the mist creature ignored them, drifting onwards and out of sight. Slowly, they all relaxed as it did, Boreal constraining her auras once more.
Zalia looked over at Ember, who shrugged and gestured to keep walking. She did as suggested, continuing through the mist.
They ran into the odd mist creatures twice more on the way to the base of the mountain and were ignored both times. The second time, they just continued their walking and still, the mist creature paid them no heed.
In time, they reached the base of the mountain and began to climb out of the mist. The air got lighter, easier to see through and easier to breathe. It was refreshing, to be able to use their eyes and lungs as usual, despite needing neither.
Once they were high enough above the mist, they looked back down towards the base of the mountain, searching for any sign of an Astar settlement. Unfortunately, if there was one down there it wasn’t visible above the mist. Zalia knew it wouldn’t be easy yet had hoped all the same.
By agreement, they moved horizontally across the mountain range above the mist until they reached the point Zalia thought the Hunter’s Mark had stopped.
There was still nothing to be seen, so after a short conversation they agreed to set up a small base. From here they would spend the next few weeks, or even months, looking for any kind of clue. The mist would slow things down considerably but Zalia had hopes that they would be able to develop a passive to see through it if they spent a significant amount of time searching for something in it.
Zalia had the best chances of finding something due to Hunter’s Sight, which not only allowed her to see anything that the Astar who had tortured her interacted with but would also allow her to place a Hunter’s Mark on anything she tracked for long enough. This meant all they needed to do was find the tracks of an Astar and she could locate where they were. Next in line would be Aylie, who could see things that others could not. She had a strange perception of reality, perhaps one closer to the reality of things due to being able to see and touch the astral, the place where thoughts and magical bonds existed.
First though, they needed to set up that base.
There was some argument about whether to make it in the mist or up the mountain but eventually, the side in favour of the mist won. While it did have the strange creatures dwelling within it, the mist was too well hidden to pass up as a place to create their base that was meant to be out of sight.
Over the next few days, Zalia did most of the initial work.
Using her ability Natural Matter Alteration, she created a large clearing. The small trees, shrubs and grass within the area were moved to the edges while she worked, out of the way. She lowered the level of the clearing as she flattened it out, pushing the dirt up to the sides to create a small wall of earth with only one dip in it to form an entrance. The larger plantlife was placed on top of that wall, with progressively smaller plant life being placed lower and lower down to form a block. It would look natural to most, a little clump of plant life that would be easier to walk around than through.
Within the clearing, she used Herbal Magic to create many living rituals.
The first of these was a ritual using Dodge-vine major and Adastem minor to give the clearing protection from different types of perception. The next was the Anti-teleportation ritual so that if they were found by the Astar, they would still be safe from teleportation.
The next set of living rituals that were placed were using Adastem, Dodgevine and Soulroot. These created a dormant ritual that when activated would create a golem made of whichever material was appropriate that would protect the clearing.
The two final living rituals used the same herbs as the anti-teleportation ritual but instead protected the area from that anti-teleportation, and a living portal ritual. Zalia had an opportunity to test out what she had learnt in that underground structure.
She made the portal ritual normal but this time, instead of the part of the ritual that allowed it to target something as a bond to the other side of the portal, she replaced that part with the new peace she had taken a memory of, allowing it to use a name.
In place of a name, she just made up a new rune. It had no meaning other than what Zalia wanted it to mean.
That was all the protection she created for the clearing and once it was done, she dug deep into the ground and made an underground cavern. It wasn’t huge, maybe four metres tall and ten wide. At the centre of this cavern, she made a portal ritual the same as the one above. Miraculously, it worked.
She gave a mental thanks to whoever had created that underground structure, the occupants most likely long dead.
With all that done, they all spent some time decorating the inside of the clearing and cavern. The underground bit was a fallback location in case the clearing was found while they created some small hovels up top to live in. Zalia and Ember shared one, with Aylie creating her own with Plant Sentience as it retained its abilities from when it used to be Plant Manipulation. Boreal and the young cats had Zalia make them a small covering under which they placed a mattress of leaf litter and moss. All together, the clearing wasn’t super comfortable but in the short term, it would do.
With their temporary home created, it was time to roam.