Chapter 5 - The fall
Roaring masses of water were splashing below him while he was hanging from a small crack in the cliff, only held by the strength of his fingertips and his toes. A small trickle of water was constantly dripping into his face. It was honestly pretty exhausting but it would be worth the effort. Once he'd reached the ground below there was nothing holding him back. Not a single soul on this planet could take away his determination right now. But this determiantion was exactly the thing that got him into this position in the first place.
Around an hour ago he had searched for ways to descend the cliff. That was when he noticed that the woods he had found himself in were basically cut off by the cliff. Although there was another forest extending itself into the distance down below, there was no direct connection in between the two. This left him with only two options: find a way to descend the cliff by walking around it and finding an easier path down or simply climbing down on the rock itself. Under normal circumstances he would have probably taken the first option as he considered it to be far safer but dusk was slowly arriving and he honestly didn't plan on spending his night out in the open with his back on to a fourty meter fall and his front facing whatever creatures would be trailing the outskirts of the 'upper' forest. He'd much rather spend the night outside near the lake where beasts seemed to at least be quite a bit calmer, probably influenced by the effects of the water.
After making his choice he had started planning his descent. Looking from above he found quite a few places riddled with edges and cracks that would surely come in handy when attempting to scale down a rock wall roughly twenty to thirty times your height. As he didn't own any kind of rope, something he should change later, there wasn't much to prepare apart from scouting out the route from above.
Well, back in the present Cantorn really started to rethink his descision. By not really doing any physical tasks back in his home the control of his body was fairly lackluster. He had problems coordinating his hand an foot movements although that had already drastically improved in the first few minutes of his climb down. Right now he was nearing the halfway point of his little journey but that was when the problems really started to arise. The cliff suddenly got a lot smoother and less and less cracks were to be seen. Moisture on the rocks also seemed to increase by a fair bit, making it even harder to get a grip on the already decreasing number of handholds.
With a loud cracking noise the rock gave in to Cantorns weight. His fingertips found no space to grip, no edge, no crack, nothing.
'Fuck, fuck, FUCK! AAAAAAA-', Cantorn screamed at the top of his lungs.
He desperately tried to regain his footing, flailing his arms around aimlessly. Once or twice he even managed to grab hold of some rocks but that didn't slow down his fall at all. The only effect it had was him getting a deep cut across his left forearm. Blood was flying through the air and got in his eyes, blurring his vision.
A second later he impacted the water. An unimaginable amount of force slammed into his back, forcing all air out of his lungs. His hearing and orientation were basically nonexistent as all sounds immediatly became muted when he entered the water. Despite all of this however, Cantorn still managed to keep his calm at least a little bit. No matter how much of a soothing effect this lake had, he would be dead pretty quickly if he didn't manage to regain his senses now. Drowning being the obvious danger but even in this place beasts would probably not refrain from pouncing on near dead prey.
With an incredible amount of willpower Cantorn managed to open his eyes. Reddish light was shining from below, or rather what he had assumed to be below him at first. Upon clearing his head up a little from the shock he realized that this light in fact was the slowly settling sun, now illuminating the lake with its dim light. He immediately turned himseld upwards trying to get back to the surface. With long and heavy strokes he made his way upwards, his wound now pumping out massive amounts of blood. Although Cantorn knew that if he continued like this he's probably bleed out quickly he still had no other choice.
Gasping for air Cantorn finally pulled his head out of the water. His lungs were burning and his arms felt like they would give in any minute and yet he couldn't stop. He started to drag himself into the direction of the coast, inching closer and closer.
As soon as the water was shallow enough to stand he stopped moving. Forseeing what would happen next if he got out of the water like this he began searching his belt for the little green leaves. Only a few had survived the fall but it was better than nothing.
Chewing down on the healroot leaves he immediately felt it taking effect. The smaller scratches began closing up after a few minutes, and even the bleeding on the flesh wound on his forearm stopped. Although his left arm was far from fully functional it was enough to move him at least a little bit. A few of his rips felt like they were broken as well, at least partially, but it wasn't too bad. Once he'd be able to find more healroot these wounds would probably close up as well.
To be quite frank, even he himself hadn't expected to get away with falling down a good twenty meters this easily. Finding out more about plants and their effects had just moved up a few spots on his list of things to do.
With this in mind Cantorn finally got out of the water. He probably wouldn't be able to rest much this night as he still had to pay attention while he wasn't fully healed but apart from that he felt pretty good about the coming days. Checking his belt one more time, making sure that his knife was still there, he went on to sit down under a nearby tree. Some of those little horned beasts that he had already seen in the 'upper' forest were eyeing him from afar and he had apparently lost his waterskin but what mattered to him the most right now was getting as much rest as possible.
