After our lunch break we get back on the road towards the foot of the mountain range. The mountains in front of us were indeed quite a bit more impressive than the mountain ranges we’d seen in the distance up until then. The sun is already setting once we finally arrive. A bit later than planned but we still continue on with our plan and immediately set up camp.

“What’s all the hurry about?” Ruva asks.

“We would like to start at first light.” Hilda explains as she sets up one of the tents.

“I know we have a bit of time pressure but we should still be fine, right? Climbing a mountain while hurrying is not a good idea.”

“We have… our reasons.” Lise pats Ruva on the shoulder. “We will be fine.”

“If you say so.” Ruva nods but her face betrays that she’s a bit suspicious of our explanation. “I suppose I should go to bed as well then.”

“I think that’d be best.” Hilda nods, tightening the last line of the tent cover.

We all quickly get a bit of food into our systems before we all get cozy into our temporary abodes. I snuggle up to my girlfriend who’s thoughtfully gazing up while she’s idly running her hand through my hair

“Are you stressed, Sam?” I look up at her face.

“Hmm?” She looks a t me. “Ah, yeah, maybe a little. I’ve never done mountaineering before. My body feels like I know how to but my mind is still noping out of it a little bit.”

“You don’t have a fear of heights, right?”

“Not really, but these mountains are also a bit taller than most things I’ve been on top of.”

“I could make a dirty joke about that sentence.” I giggle.

“Heh?” Sam blushes a bit before her blush makes place for a smirk. In an instant she rolls on top of me and squishes me down with her body weight.

I giggle even more as my body instinctively begins to purr. Our bodies feel so perfect against each other.

Sam starts kissing me and I start purring even louder as I kiss her back. Sam’s purrs sound lower in tone but are quite a bit louder then mine. Their vibrations calm me down a lot.

After a couple of more minutes of me getting squished and us kissing each other Sam rolls back off me. “While I’d very much like to continue, we should probably not tire ourselves out for tomorrow.”

I smile and give her a nod. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”

“Mhmm.” She nods and puts her arms under me, so she can pull me close to her. “Night night, Ami.” Sam then gives me a kiss.

“Goodnight, Sam.” I kiss her back, snuggle up to her and close my eyes. It does not take long for me to fall asleep.

The chirping of birds wakes me up to the sight of my girlfriend. Apparently I’d drooled a bit on her boob while I was sleeping. I quickly try to wipe it off but that only causes Sam to giggle.

“Ami, that tickles.”

“Sorry, I drooled a bit.”

“I see you know what you like.” She smiles at me and softly caresses the side of my face. Her hand is nice and warm. “Although I’m sorry to tell you that there won’t be any milk coming out.”

The way she calmly said that makes my entire face light up red “W-w-w-what are you saying, Sam! Y-y-you idiot!” I hide myself in my bedroll to the amusement of my girlfriend.

“Hehe.” She pats my bedroll. “We should probably get up now. We will have to leave soon.”

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I stick my head out above my bedroll again with the biggest pout I could possibly make. “No, I don’t wanna anymore.”

“C’mon kitty cat.” She gives me a kiss on my forehead and starts dressing herself.

“Fine then.” I keep pouting and get ready as well.

It’s still quite dark when we get out of our tent but the others are already up. They help us put our tent away while Ruva is messing with her backpack.

Hilda walks over to her and looks over Ruva’s shoulder. “What’s that you are holding?”

“Ah, this?” She shows her some kind of mechanical bird. “It’s a prototype I was working on, it might come in handy for finding the temple a bit faster.”

“What does it do?” In the meantime Hilda hands Ruva a ration of dried meat.

“It’s a small reconnaissance device. You give it simple instructions, then it will fly out and search in a radius around you for what you asked. It will then fly back and depending on the colour of its eyes it will tell you if it found something or not. You can try it out if you want.” She hands over the birdbot to Hilda while Ruva herself takes a bite from the meat.

“So… for example… Find a pink-haired catgirl.” The little birdy starts flapping its wings and begins zooming around. It almost immediately comes to me, circles me three times and then flies towards Hilda with green eyes.

“The beak will then point in the direction of where it found what you asked for.” Ruva nods as the bird looks at me.

“Wow, that’s definitely going to be useful.”

Ruva nods once more. “I hope it will be, it’ll be its first real trial.”

A couple of minutes later we are all packed and we have all donned our mountaineering equipment. We camouflage our vehicle a bit and then we leave with Ruva in front, holding a rough map of the area.

“We have to concentrate on the uncharted bits, because… well… we are looking for an uncharted temple.”

“Makes sense.” My sister laughs as she climbs a boulder.

“The annoying part being we will need to go over there.” She points ahead of us at a part of the mountain that looks particularly steep.”

“Pfff.” Nikki sighs. “If only we could have an airship…”

“What’s that?” Ruva turns around and looks at Nikki.

“A ship that uses hot air to fly.” Hilda clarifies.

“Surely, you must be joking?”

“Hmm, not really.”

I walk up to Hilda and whisper into her ear. “Is it okay for us to tell these people about random technology they haven’t discovered yet?”

“I think it’s fine.” Hilda replies. “I was actually somewhat surprised that a continent with this amount of steampunky technology didn’t have airships yet.”

“Hmmm.”

Ruva opens a notebook and scribbles down a couple of things. “Once we are done with this mission I want to hear more about these airships of yours!” She enthusiastically states.

“We will see.” Hilda winks as we keep on climbing.

We slowly but surely make our way to the top of the first mountain ridge. Thanks to our guide we manage to avoid a lot of loose rocks and the route we take also doesn’t look as dangerous as what it could have been. However, when my sister slipped a bit, it was clear that what we were doing still held a lot of peril.

“Phew, that was close.” My sister wipes her forehead.

“We are almost at the top of the ridge.” Ruva looks behind us to see if we are still following.

Fifteen minutes later we can finally take a bit of a breather as the ridge we are standing on is relatively wide. Luckily for us it’s still relatively warm thanks to the absence of wind.

“We took a good day to go climbing.” Ruva nods with a smile while Hilda takes out her binoculars and looks around.

“See anything, Hilda?” Sam asks.

“No, just more mountains… Can you send your little device out, Ruva?”

“Already ahead of ya.” Ruva grabs the little bird machine she’d hung on her belt and starts speaking to it. “Look for ruins and temples.”

The little bird starts zooming and flies off with incredible speed.

“We can continue following the ridgeline to the east. Until we reach that mountain over there. The recon device will home back to us.”

Our group follows Ruva as she marches on. Sadly enough the ridge gets a lot narrower a bit further on so we can’t really pay much attention to the beautiful surroundings. When we reach another somewhat wider part of the ridgeline the little bird drone flies back to Ruva, it’s eyes lit up green.

“Wait, did it find something?”

“Apparently.” Ruva crouches down while the bird points its beak to the north-east. She compares it with the crude map of the area while making some notes. “Surprising.”

“What is?” Hilda walks closer to Ruva.

“Well, that’s one of the tallest mountains of the mountain range, I’d assume someone would’ve already prospected it before us.” Ruva puts her notes away again.

“Maybe it’s too well hidden?”

“Maybe…” Ruva then continues to lead us on. “We can get there if we climb the side of the mountain in front of us. It looks doable from over here, but as always, be careful where you put your feet.”

“Yes ma’am.” We all get our picks ready for our next climb.

-I’m really happy I don’t have a fear of heights.-