Mountain Climbing

Mountain climbing is not something Ogun anticipated himself doing, given his ability to fly, but with the dangerous and often fickle weather conditions of Roenden, it’s just not safe for him to try and be airborne, unfortunate, really.

Malt and Aneira don’t share his annoyance, given their lack of wings.

Why they’re here to begin with? There’s rumored to be precious stones up towards the peak of this mountain, and while under normal circumstances they’d be unlikely to bother… the temptation of filling her pockets with a hefty amount of Krones is a bit too much for Malt to be able to resist. Ogun and Aneira, meanwhile, were commissioned to grab a share of these stones by the guild.

While Malt isn’t terribly familiar with these two, she’s found that teaming up with members of that well-known guild to be greatly beneficial for herself. She doubts she’d be able to do this on her own, given her lack of knowledge and experience with this snowy continent.

To their fortune, the skies have been mostly clear, save for a few spare clouds, allowing them to walk at their own leisure up the mountain, following a rough map given to them by one of the locals. There’s no manmade pathway for them to rely on, like there would be on more well-traveled mountains, so this map, and their own navigational skills, is all they have to rely on to reach their destination.

Ogun sniffs, unused to continents coldness, “how much longer ‘till we get there, you think?” He eyes the skies above them, grumbling underneath his breath on his limitation, “ugh… can I really not just fly to the top? The weather looks just fine.”

“Don’t you dare,” Aneira calls back, the female currently leading the group due to her greater experience, “conditions can change within minutes, you’d be dead meat if you got separated from us if a storm decided to suddenly pick up,” she knows it’s inconvenient, but chances like that just can’t be taken, “if you were a native to Roenden, sure, I wouldn’t be opposed… but since you’re not, no.” She shakes her head.

The answer only makes Ogun groan.

Malt shrugs, “last we checked the map, we seemed to only be a few hours away from the peak.” She throws her head over her shoulder to glance back at the tyrian that takes up the rear, “it’s been a while since then… I don’t think we’re much further.” She peers upwards, trying to judge how much further they seem to be… it’s tough to tell, the sunlight bouncing off of the snow makes it blinding to try and survey things.

Aneira nods with her assessment, “we’re close, don’t worry… just up ahead should be a way straight to the top.”

……

True to her word, in thanks to the map, the trio are soon finding themselves at the top of the mountain, the area around them, while incredibly rocky, is quite flat, allowing them ample room to investigate what’s around them… and to their relief, gemstones are being found embedded within the rocky formations that litter the peak.

They’re wasting no time in trying to extract these stones, Aneira knowing full well that sticking around would be incredibly dangerous. If the skies turn nasty, they have absolutely no cover, and no safe location to try and create camp.

Ogun is a bit confused with how quickly Malt and Aneira are trying to hurry through this task, a mixture of tools and Malts acid separating the gemstones from their rocky home, while a little scuffed, these gems can always be cleaned up and repaired once they get back to a town.

“Why the rush?” The male is asking as he chisels out gems, gaze flicking about the various ones that surround them to try and evaluate which one to go for next, only wanting to go for whatever would bring the most value. It’d be obnoxious to try and lug back heavy, yet low quality, gems.

“We’d be sitting ducks up here if shit turns nasty,” Malt answers, she’s been through enough tricky situations since her stay here, she doesn’t trust this damn continent at all. “A blizzard on a mountain peak… ugh…” she’s already gone through a blizzard, and that was with shelter… doing that with nothing around them..? Hard pass.

“Yeah, we need to grab what we can, and get out,” Aneira is glad that Malt seems to understand their predicament. “Things look okay right now, but let’s not take our chances.”

Ogun frowns at how cautious they’re being, but then he’s shrugging with an exasperated sigh, his inexperience showing. “Whatever you say, fine, fine.” Tucking away gemstones into the spare space within his bags, he’s giving a bit of a huff, “we could probably make a second trip up here, anyways.”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Malt isn’t opposed to coming up here again in order to retrieve more, she won’t turn down the opportunity to get herself some more Krones. She spits out a mouthful of acid down onto the snow beside her paws as she finishes up collecting her haul, having rapidly filled her bags. “Aneira, you ready?”

“Just about,” she and Ogun aren’t as fast as Malt is, her acid being quite convenient for this task. “a lot of these are incredibly pristine… I’m surprised the locals don’t come up here themselves.”

That gives Ogun some pause, the male tilting his head curiously as he thinks that over. “That… is strange that they don’t come up here.” It’s not a poor village, no… but they could definitely be doing a lot better if they took advantage of this place, “it’s not a sacred location, is it?”

“Definitely not,” Aneira shakes her head, “they wouldn’t have given us this map… and someone would’ve definitely said something to us about it.” His suspicion has her thinking about it, too. “...Nor did they mention wanting a cut.”

“Should we give them a cut anyways?” Malt asks.

“Eh… maybe a little,” Ogun flicks an ear at the idea, “let’s worry about that later, though, when we get out of here.”