Leaning 07:Climbing (Frye)

The only way out is up. Frye has this.

So much climbing. So little editing.

All the good things belong to Monolith Soft.

Frye was lucky the current that had dumped him in the cave hadn't skinned him. It had certainly picked every pocket clean, sometimes ripping the entire pocket off. His communicator was god only knew where, his tactical vest likewise, his boots probably due to wash up on Noctilum shores in a month or two. His hands were as innocent of gloves as when he was first born. He thought he had hit paydirt when he found his lower left pocket intact and still zipped. He fished a small bit of small pulp out of it. It was a matchbook, he remembered. Had been one, with the number of a Mediator that Frye had idly wanted to get to know better. Make that reason number 6. He had someone to track down and see if their eyes were as striking when he was sober as they had been that dimly remembered night.

The number was gone with the tide, but Frye had some hope for the matches until he felt a gritty smear on his fingers. Whatever chemical had coated the matches was now just so much paste. Frye wondered what would happen if he snapped his fingers.

He'd let them dry first. He shoved the bit of trash back in his pocket, then stood in the darkness. "Pop."

The echoes definitely were telling him he was in a bigger space. He took a step forward and looked up. "Pop!" No echo whatsoever, just a fading lack of sound over his head. Was that a glow up there or were his eyes starting to spark? He squinted, looked slightly left, slightly right. His peripheral vision was definitely catching a change in the uniformity of the darkness.

Which meant climbing. He snapped his fingers. Nothing happened, but he dusted his palms with the grit. Useful for gripping ledges, he told himself. He hoped the walls were as grooved as the floors.

The walls rose straight up, not the worst thing for a climber if he could just find a groove. The first one he found, a miserly crack, worked for about a meter's worth of boosting before he had to drop back to the ground. He shook his arms tiredly. He'd never manage climbing too far like that in his current state. He renewed his search.

The main cavern was about 4 meters in diameter, and so perfectly round that he started to get nervous. It was starting to feel less like a cave and more like a shaft. Who had made it and were they due for a visit? If it was artificial, he wasn't going to find his way up unless there were decorations, and those were only useful if he could see the damn things.

Who would decorate a mine shaft anyway?

He kept his calm with difficultly, stretching his hands up the wall as high as he could before moving a pace further in the circuit. He thought he'd made a full turn, although it was hard to be certain, when he found something promising. A ridge, slowly coiling up the wall, beginning at waist height and raising to his shoulders in one pace, to above his head in another. He tried swinging himself along it. The indentation was a little too curved to be the best hand hold, but damn it had possibilities. He retraced his steps back along the wall for a bit. The groove continued downward if he went that direction. He gave a quick prayer to the gods of bartenders and free climbers, then fitted his toes into the groove and boosted himself up.

He caught the next coil of groove directly above him with his fingertips. Heck. Yeah. He'd get dizzy in the process, but he had a chance of reaching whatever was glowing up there.

a/n: I have made Frye climb lots of things and will not be swayed. October Surprise 2021/4 and Apriltober 2021/26 just to get somewhere. Apriltober 2021/26 up the ruins in Cauldros on a rescue mission that is related to this story, eventually. Apriltober-2020/24 chasing his idiot brother, uh then he falls and it's not great.

Next up: More climbing. Sorry.