It had taken longer than expected to get everyone up to speed.
At first progress had Ooga Booga thinking it would take years, but he dropped the news that he had been blessed by a spirit and that he could share wisdom with everyone if they tried hard enough.
Surprisingly it helped a lot to have the gods involved, where as before there was little motivation to learn weird words for no clear purpose.
Teaching people one on one was the best but slowest method, so he decided to focus his efforts on his mother, she would in turn spread the teachings and free up his time to help in other areas.
Ooga Boogas father was getting old and the village was increasingly dependant on his time, hunters hounded after his star skills, herbalists would weed out his suggested plants and then he also had his own sailor project he was trying to fit in during trips close to the ocean.
Not only would sailing over the ocean get him closer to catgirls, it would massively increase chances of survival for his tribe, fertile land and livestock waited for them in paradise.
As next in line for chief, their future relied on him to make the dangerous call.
Speaking of danger, he found out why he was jumped by Grimm in such numbers so quickly, turns out Jhinn failed to mention Grimm are drawn to the relic.
At first ooga Booga thought that was terrible news and that he would have to forever abandon the spirit in a random cave. but then he had an idea.
The relic draws Grimm in, but isn't actually attacked by them directly, the Grimm just happen to see humans near and attack on principle.
He could manipulate exactly where nearby Grimm would gather! Without having to worry about any kind of time limit or barriers breaking, it was an easy to maintain defence.
He also realised placing the relic between them and the nearest hostile tribe could kill two birds with one stone, unless the opposing tribe wanted to dedicate a lot of resources to moving around the large danger radius they weren't going to bother Ooga Booga's tribe any time soon.
Now, it wasn't perfect, Grimm wouldn't always avoid them, but it was a large improvement.
The problems would come in the future, when he planned to retrieve the relic.
He planned to do this for when they set sail, having a boat trail them with nothing but the relic on would increase chances of safe travel.
But in the end he was still working on how to make the boats, there was nothing but small fishing rafts and reed boats in his survival guide and vocabulary.
He would need something bigger.
A lot bigger.
His current plans were a little dubious to say the least.
"Brother, what is you testing?"
Ooga Boogas sister would have used "doing?" But has heard him say testing countless times and was trying to use it whenever possible as a result.
She was still young and was learning quickly, he had no doubt she would go far.
"I'm testing if ice can carry a lot before sinking." He followed his words by tugging his rope tighter, hoping that it would be enough to keep the stone slabs from sliding off the side of the small iceberg.
Nodding once and giving the ice a kick into open waters he smiled as it didn't sink.
However it did roll and end upside down, Ooga Booga frowns and noted to himself that he needed to take that into account in the future while retrieving the rope.
The gentle splashing of water was cut by his sister's voice again.
"Why do this?"
Ooga stopped and looked back.
What sounded accusing was just her using the easiest sentence for the job, and he relaxed at seeing a curious face.
"I wish to travel far over the ocean, to paradise."
She frowns and speaks again "Is village not best?"
He knew what she meant, they had the best location for a village for sure... but only for Solitas standards.
Ooga Booga gets up and dries his hands with his clothing before gently squeezing her shoulder and speaking with passion "Ugha, there is great lands over that ocean, warmer than our springs, more food than our hunting grounds, more plants than our gardens... it's amazing!"
She frowned and was clearly having a hard time understanding how such a place existed, and to be honest, Ooga Booga had yet experienced these wonders himself.
People had questioned his sanity but Ooga Booga had always been able to show them the fruits of his 'insane' ramblings whenever possible.
Just when they thought whatever he was saying was too crazy or wild, he would invent or solve problems they have had for generations.
"Let us return home, I have done enough testing for today."
And with that they start the hike home in comfortable silence.
And in that silence his thoughts go back to the iceberg.
It was a dumb and barbaric way to get over the ocean, but he believed aura and dust would be enough to get them across.
They were going to use the next cliff collapse that happens during the change of seasons to then modify the largest chunk of ice with ice dust to stabalise the natural iceberg by making it wider and deeper into the water, then chip away at what would become the deck and living space until the whole tribe could comfortably live in it for as long as the trip would take.
Using the sail idea from the reed boats and rowing with aura strength in shifts, they should also be able to move the massive entity in the general direction they wanted.
There were a lot of unknowns, and he would need to test everything on a smaller scale first.
But hopefully this worked, because there were no reed boats or wooden rafts big enough, Solitas having the worst possible wood and plant situation out of any continent
A/N; I'm not dead I promise! Just kinda burnt out and also lost notes for *all* my projects...
Still salty, still having trouble with motivation for main story, because that also lost the big *combat* chapter I had nearly completed :'[
Running low on the "it is what it is." stocks xD