The pool is smooth, only the faintest ripples on its surface from the ever-plinking water droplets. I gaze at it in apprehension, but there isn’t even the hint of movement, the depths as still as the surface, as far as I can see. Knowing how fast the monster can react to something disturbing its domain, that doesn’t reassure me much. Still, at least it doesn’t appear to be actively searching for me.
I look up at the wall ahead of me. The light is fading; I don’t have much time. It looks achievable, though difficult; that will swiftly change if the sun sets before I reach the top. I really don’t want to risk spending a night in this cave. Who knows if that monster has different habits in the dark than in the light...
Breathing in deeply, I do my best to plan my route to the top. I’m not a climber habitually – honestly, previous to this, my exercise had been as exciting as lifting weights in the gym or occasionally running. Even so, I’ve heard a couple of horror stories of climbers getting stuck when they couldn’t advance further but also couldn’t get back down without falling…
Feeling the pressure of time as well as having a constant itching sensation on my back that I’m somehow being watched – although every time I turn around to check over my shoulder, the pool is as still as ever – I get going as soon as I can.
Taking several more deep breaths, I wipe my hands on my raggedy clothes and set them in the first handholds. The first few steps are surprisingly nerve-racking. It’s probably because I haven’t done any sort of climbing in years. In fact, probably not since I was a teenager and trying to impress a girl. Of course, that one ended up with me showing off at the top and then falling off in my arrogance, breaking my leg in the process. I’m sure the memory of that isn’t helping.
Anyway, once I start getting back into the groove, I find my nerves calming a little. As long as I don’t look down, I’m able to at least half-convince myself that I’m no further off the ground than I was when I started.
Of course, that’s the moment when my foot slips. It’s the stickiest moment – when I’m having to manoeuvre around a slightly bulging bit of wall. One of my feet just doesn’t have enough of a hold and slips out of its crevice. My fingers latch onto the wall with a grip of steel, panic sending the now-familiar adrenaline flood through my system. I scrabble with the free foot, pressing hard into the one still wedged in the rock, hoping with my heart hammering that it won’t also fail too – I’d be toast in that case.
A long, frantic second later, I manage to find a little space where I can lodge my flailing foot and relieve the pressure on the rest of my body a bit. My attention finally being able to return to more than my imminent death by either rock or tentacle monster, I notice a trickling feeling on my hands. I’ve cut myself by gripping jagged rock too tightly. Damn – that’s going to make the rest even trickier.
Idiot, I tell myself a moment later, directing a hint of healing magic to my hands. Stop thinking you’re on Earth. Carefully removing one hand at a time, I wipe away the liquid on my shirt – or what’s left of it. The sound of water below makes me freeze. Is it… I dare to look down, my stomach swooping a bit at the sight of how far I am off the ground. It dives even further when I see movement under the surface. Why?
Then I remember absently noticing a splashing sound just after my foot slipped. Did I knock a rock off into its water? I feel nauseous at the thought of another encounter with the creature, especially with me clinging like a fly onto this rock-face – and without the fly’s ability to just wing away if something swipes at it.
With fear fueling my limbs, I start climbing again, haste in all of my movements. I try to still take care – I won’t gain anything by falling straight into the monster’s maw, after all. I have to admit, though, that I’m not checking handholds and footholds as thoroughly as I had been before.
It leads to another slip, my hand this time, only my strengthened core muscles stopping me from just swinging out into open space. I don’t let the slip deter me: the monster is already sending its tentacle to quest around the cavern, each pass seeing it rise higher. But I have hope – the crevice is only a metre or so away.
That metre seems like a hundred with the rushed-but-slow pace I have to maintain, and the tentacle scraping ever closer to me. I’m sure it can’t detect me perfectly otherwise it would have already wiped me off the map, but it knows I’m somewhere near: it’s focused in on the area near where I’ve been and seems to know in which direction I’m going.
It’s probably the most nerve-racking experience I’ve had since arriving in this place, maybe ever. The combination of a tentacle from some sort of Lord of the Rings extra getting inexorably closer, while having to climb a rock-face several metres above the ground is enough to make my heart pound, my fingers shake, and my stomach make several noises about letting me see my breakfast again.
I overcome the symptoms with sheer willpower, determinedly refusing to pay attention to anything more than moving my hand, then my foot, then my other hand, then my other foot, rinse and repeat.
When I fail to find another handhold in rock and instead grasp a plant of some sort, I suddenly realise I’ve almost made it. Almost there, I tell myself, relief running through me. I’m not out of the woods yet – I still have most of my body down in the crevice – but now that one hand’s out, it doesn’t take too much to get the other one up as well, and then be able to lever myself out of the hole.
Rolling out, I pant as I stare up at the sky, my body turned to water from relief – both emotional and physical. I can’t believe I did that, I think to myself a little wonderingly. I climbed a wall and didn’t die. I managed to out-wit or whatever a monster that I’d stand no hope against physically. And even better, I got my salt.
Finally, I can feel a sense of achievement. I’ve confronted so many of my fears today, and I’m still standing. I overcame them and learnt more about my limits at the same time. I’ve learnt that although there are some creatures who can still kill me like the fly I compared myself to earlier, that doesn’t mean they’ll win.
It’s twilight, the sun almost gone. I need to find shelter, I realise. Standing up, I feel a frisson of fear run down my spine as I see the tentacle questing around the edge of the crevice. Nope. Not dealing with any more of that one, thank you very much. Facing my fear is one thing: stupidly staying in a clearly risky place is something else.
I start walking away smartly. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where I’m going. What I do know is that I’m not spending a single second longer near that creature. Tempting fate when I’ve so recently managed to escape its clutches twice is just too much.
Looking around the area, I sigh. Back to this. I’m on a mountainside, again. Hopefully I’m not going to revisit my encounter with the rock-dropping bird… I cast a wary eye up to the sky just in case. No birds to be seen. Yet.
Anyway, I need some sort of shelter for the night – the wind on the mountainside is cold and I only have a back-up shirt and pair of trousers in my Inventory. Just as well since these clothes are toast...like so many others. I’m really going to have to cannibalise multiple shirts and trousers at some point to try to create a strange patchwork which I can actually wear. But that’s in the future. For now, a shelter.
I go back to looking around. I’m too far away from the forest line to make it before night, but there’s an outcropping of rocks which looks promising. If there’s some sort of cave there, that would be great, but I’ll settle for an overhang which covers me on three sides and blocks out the wind.
By the time I reach the outcropping, twilight is almost over, the view in the distance having disappeared from my gaze. I’m in luck – it isn’t exactly a cave, but there’s a bit of an alcove which is well-oriented to avoid the cutting wind. Quickly pulling some firewood from my Inventory along with my flint and tinder, I get a fire going.
I remember the first time I lit a fire, how it took me the whole twilight time just to get a flame to catch. Now, after a month of practice, it only takes me a few minutes, and then feeding it until it becomes a warming blaze is just a matter of time. Returning almost back to the scene of my arrival is making me nostalgic.
Pulling out some cooked meat, I chew on it absently as I open up my Map to get an idea of where I am. It’s hard to gauge distances considering there’s no scale to the Map, but I know how long it took me to walk from my cave to the entrance to the copse of dead wood where I entered the tunnel. My blinking dot is probably about the same distance away from there.
It’s a bit of a relief – at least I didn’t end up on the other side of the mountains or something crazy like that. Hopefully Bastet is waiting at the entrance to the tunnel like I tried to tell her. And hopefully Kalanthia isn’t getting too hungry. She shouldn’t be: I was due to look after Lathani tomorrow – unless I was in the tunnel for more than a day, which I doubt – and I should be getting back within a day. With the extra meat I gave her, she should be fine to delay her hunting trip by that day.
Sighing, I close my eyes, pull my spare shirt and trousers tighter around myself, and lean into the corner of the alcove. It’s not the most comfortable of positions, but I don’t know what predators stalk the night so don’t want to lie down completely. Plus, the alcove isn’t big enough for that, and leaving the alcove would mean exposing myself to the cold night temperatures. I don’t expect to get a good night’s sleep, but any rest is better than nothing.
It’s a bit strange to not have the cubs or Bastet nearby – I’ve got used to the quiet sounds of their breathing. I hope they’re OK. I guess I’ll find out in the morning.
Advance chapters up on my Patreon. We're 2/3 people towards getting an additional chapter released for Hunter members! That would make it +21 chapters ahead of the free access.
