Day 3.9

It was something of an unassailable point—but there was an obvious counter, in that Gaian society was clearly worse, having killed off entire races once they’d outlived their usefulness. But saying that directly to the guy was insensitive at best and cruel besides.

August let it go and focused on finishing his side of the [A-Frame Hut], with all the wood stacked neatly in the piles Rittan had made; it wasn’t long before the both of them had finished walling off three of the four sides.

“It’s about a hundred times better than the [Lean-To],” August admitted, sending a glance over at the other structure. “No real reason to keep it around, I guess, suppose we tear it down for parts—tomorrow maybe, it’s starting to get dark.”

“Tomorrow,” Rittan agreed, studying the thing they’d built. “August, how cold will it become in the night? Without clothing, we are very exposed, and this structure will not provide any protection from the temperature.”

“I’ve only been here for two nights, so I haven’t really seen a great range of weather here,” August said, “I made a fire, but it wasn’t intolerable without it—we can set up another one inside.”

“If it were to rain,” Rittan said, leaving the implication hanging.

“Yeah,” August admitted. “We’d be screwed—it’s a work in progress, Rittan; Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Rittan tilted his head at the turn of phrase, and August caught the look.

“It means that problems require time to solve, but it’s often treated as a caution against rushing things,” August sighed, flapping his hand. “Can’t solve everything immediately, you know? We need to work at it, build up what we have over time.”

“Wise words,” Rittan said bemused. “Let us hope it does not rain in the meantime.”

Rebuilding the fire pit in the centre of the [A-Frame Hut] wasn’t an arduous task, and by the time the sun had once more passed out of sight, he was just sitting down to light it. Ladybug had planted herself firmly at the still open entrance, facing out into the dark, and clearly intent on returning to her guard duty, even though he hadn’t reassigned the task to her.

Even sitting down cross-legged, Rittan loomed large in the back of the shelter like a massive grey spider, a curious smile on his face. August turned his own attention back to the inert fire and sought out his [Hand-Drill] and [Friction Plate] to begin the process of setting it alight.

“August, can you speak more of this place?” Rittan said, watching the fire starting process closely. “How is it that you discovered it was indeed an island? There is not much to indicate such a thing from here.”

August didn’t pause, his hands spinning the rod back and forth, eyes seeking out any curls of smoke.

“I didn’t wake up down here in the crater, or whatever this place is supposed to be,” August said, “I appeared in a hole in the ground—back that way.”

Rittan folded his hands together as he listened.

“On the other side of the forest is a cliff, like the one across the lake,” August added, “I climbed down here to check if the lake had drinkable water or not.”

“It’s smoking,” Rittan observed.

August nodded, using the tiny coal to light the threads of his kindling.

“At the top of the cliff, you have a pretty good view of the surrounding area—Devil’s Nest is a big place,” August said, biting his lip. “I’m not good with distances, but the landmass is maybe twenty kilometres long? Half that, wide, and we’re surrounded by ocean on all sides.”

“An island indeed,” Rittan said, seriously. “With no signs of a greater landmass afar?”

“Nothing that I could see from here,” August confessed, “You can’t see to the direct west, because there’s a ravine, and on the other side another cliff face, but you can see the water just keeps on going around it to the north and south.”

“Troubling,” Rittan added to encourage him to continue.

“Yeah,” August said, “You said Hekaton was in the middle of Solarthorn? Could you describe what one of your maps would look like?”

“Solarvorn,” Rittan corrected, reaching out and taking a pile of twigs from the firewood stack. “I can try; the general shape will be close, I think, but it won’t at all be accurate.”

August watched as Rittan began snapping the twigs into short pieces and lining them up on the grass.

“Better than speculation, right?” August said, calling back to their previous discussion.

Rittan smiled, but his attention was focused on the ground—August watched as he slowly built three distinct shapes, none of which were familiar to him at all.

“Looks nothing like earth,” August mumbled. “I’m guessing the biggest one is Solarvorn—and the marker in the middle is Hekaton?”

“Yes,” Rittan said, nodding. “The continent at the top is Sigra; the one on the left is Cloudvale.”

August mouthed the names under his breath but found his eyes drawn to the large expanse between each of them.

“Where do you think Devil’s Nest is?” August asked.

“It is unlikely we are anywhere near Sigra,” Rittan admitted, the light from the growing fire sending shadows stretching across his face. “The climate is far too warm here for that to be possible; Sigra is quite cold—The bottom half of Solarvorn is a much closer match, but Cloudvale is supposed to be quite similar.”

“So we could be anywhere around the bottom half?” August frowned. “You don’t know of any islands around the bottom of Solarvorn or Cloudvale?”

“There is a stretch of islands along the south of Cloudvale, named after ancient creatures,” Rittan said, tapping his lip with a finger. “They are each as large as the lake beside us.”

“So it’s not them then,” August sighed. “You’d have mentioned if there was any approaching the size of Devils Nest, so that leaves us exactly where we started.”

“Unfortunately so,” Rittan admitted.