Gateways by Aer-ki Jyr (i like reading TXT) 📗

as he headed for what looked like the least steep descent…but when he got there he found it was a sheer drop down to more rock, so he backtracked and went further down the ridge line until he came to a slope of loose rock that ended in snow below.

Darren wanted to curse, but his lips were already starting to get numb despite his Rensiek. He took a moment to actually produce some extra heat and spread it out through his body, then he sat down on the rock and began a four limb crab crawl.

The rocks were cold, and he had no gloves, but he made his hands glow with heat as he moved and it kept his fingers from freezing as every other hand hold moved the rocks, but as long as he had one foot or hand stable he didn’t slide as the storm finally got to him and began to smack snowflakes into his face as they were blown upward towards the heights by the now sharper wind.

Several slipped into his mouth and melted there, but he didn’t close it. He was breathing hard and had to keep sucking in the thin, cold air in large amounts until he got to the bottom of the slope and his feet finally hit the accumulated snow on the ground.

But it wasn’t level ground. It was still a slope, and there was no way to keep his footing…so he put both legs out forward and tried to slide under control the rest of the way down to the trees, only making it halfway before his foot caught on something and sent him careening into a tumble, hitting rock underneath and hurting his arms, legs, and back before he finally came to a stop in a snowbank, half burying himself in it on impact.

Darren didn’t move for a moment, other than to swipe snow away from his mouth. He was hurt, but not too badly. He held still and used the healing technique he’d been taught, getting his own body moving faster in repair than normal, then he pulled himself upright and sat down in the snow, looking up the mountain he had just come down and not believing he hadn’t been hurt worse.

He tucked his hands in his pockets again and just sat there, glad to be out of some of the wind as snow continued to fall around him. It got so bad moments later he could barely see two meters in front of him, but Darren knew he had to keep going lower before he tried to set up a camp. He’d barely traveled at all, so he forced himself onto his feet and began to trudge through knee deep snow down through the sparse trees as the mountainside’s drop continued at a more reasonable tilt.

He slowly moved for what felt like forever before the falling snow stopped and he could finally see again, though the green tree spikes blocked most of his view at a distance. Darren checked his direction finder again, seeing it still led up the ridgeline, but he hadn’t found the bottom yet and he was already shaking with cold.

He made himself stop again and warm up, knowing his calories were being burned to do it, but he didn’t want to open his pack yet. He wanted to find the bottom first.

So he kept walking/crawling through the thick snow that made it so hard. His muscles were burning with the effort, but finally he came to a V in the landscape, with what was before him starting back upward again, meaning he had finally found the bottom of the valley.

And he stepped down through the snow into water beneath it.

His foot sunk in past his ankle, with the freezing water scaring him as he scrambled to climb out, clawing at the snow as the ice broke in multiple places beneath his feet, soaking both of them before he got back to dirt or rock or whatever it was beneath him that was solid.

“Shit,” he said, focusing on his Rensiek as it felt like all the warmth in his legs was now gone.

He looked around for a flat spot that wasn’t in the center where the water had to be, and began pushing snow away with his hands and arms, as well as using his telekinesis to help, until he had a patch of hard dirt showing up next to a tree trunk thicker than he was.

Darren pulled off his backpack, making sure to keep one hand on it at all times for fear of losing it, and pulled out the small tent capsule. He twisted the cap on the 8-inch long tube and set it on the ground, letting it unfold itself into a triangular tunnel, then crawled inside and sealed the flap-like door, triggering it to turn solid but with a mesh-like air vent in a strip near the peak.

He pulled out a small heater and hung it from the roof, which was so low he couldn’t stand up, but right now he didn’t care. He was out of the wind and back inside some semblance of civilization as the heater turned on and began warming up his small refuge as he peeled his shoes and socks off, with both dripping water on the slightly soft floor.

He grunted and begrudgingly opened the door again…then squeezed out as much water from his socks as possible, then telekinetically did the same thing to his shoes, getting a little more out of those than he thought was in them before bringing his gear back inside and quickly closing the door again and wishing the heater would work faster.

Darren realized he was starving, so he pulled out four ration bars and downed them all faster than he thought possible. He had no water, but there was snow outside and he got a cup of it, then melted it with