It was kind of weird to see an iceberg tied down and secured to not float away aimlessly into the ocean.
The makeshift rope was made in advance just for this occasion, a brilliant show of the weavers skills on a large scale.
The reeds and plant fibre around the hot springs were not exactly the best, but enough tied together got the job done, it didn't have to last a long time, just long enough for the carving work to be done.
Some aura users were going the barbaric route of chipping away with force, others without aura used torches to melt away ice and then there was one person who had a semblance that could cut large chunks at a time.
Needless to say she was tasked with the middle compartment that needed a lot of space, it was gonna be the sleeping and storage area, with the surrounding rooms built to divert infiltrating water to the back of the ship and then dumped out into the ocean.
Using grooves, wedges, and test runs with buckets of water, they were confident in the system.
It would need to be cleared of gathering ice while they were still in Solitas but once they got into warmer waters it would be the opposite and probably become something they needed to fill in before it made larger holes or even cracks.
He was currently standing on the front, a hook tooth shape pointing into the sky, designed just in case they dealt with very large waves.
Also for if they potentially sunk into the water more as time goes on.
The water system they had in place could only deal with so much after all, best push the majority of the waves to the sides.
This wasn't going to be stable enough for him to stand on while sailing so they were making a small deck on the peak of the iceberg for scouting and general awareness, because the main deck walls were a little high and only really had holes for the oars
The walls were high simply because the deck was made of ice while also being slanted to encourage water flowing to the back, people would slip and slide on it at some point, and a waist high wall would not stop anything from going over.
All the walls and interiors also had bone pegs and rope to grab onto in a pinch.
They weren't cutting any corners but it meant they were taking their sweet time, some of the other cliffs had started to naturally fall now, meaning that they best start the voyage soon while the temperatures where still good.
"You really are serious about this"
It was his father, he didn't sound surprised, more like amused at the general situation.
"Yes, the tribe deserves warmer lives." His father looks at him for a bit before Ooga Booga caved in and adds "And I want to meet new people and see new places."
Dad just smiles and nods, like he expecting nothing less "You always have explore further than any hunter."
Ooga's mind adds silently that it almost got him killed too if not for Jhinn.
Carefully not bringing that up he moves on "How's the supply loading going?"
His father looks back to the general direction of the village as he responded "Two days before we are ready."
He could hardly wait, but that was not a bad pace.
Aura was truly a huge gift from the gods, being able to pull a sled so efficiently and effortlessly made this process relatively painless.
The scout deck they were on was perfect for this time, the sunset was amazing and the stars were starting to come out, brightest and fakest first, followed by the dim and distant.
"You know Ooga, you can't ignore the women forever, you are cheif soon."
Moment ruined. Thanks dad.
In the darker hour Ooga felt he could get away with the grimace on his face "Uh, what do you mean father?"
"Don't play this game boy, we know you are avoiding them." He was right of course.
Everyone generally agreed getting married and having kids earlier was better than later, the average lifespan out here wasn't the best after all.
"Could... could I ask for more time? You know we haven't lost a single life this year, I was thinking maybe we could relax a little." His dad was frowning but he could see it made sense in his eyes, the results spoke for themselves, no deaths in a year was a huge deal.
He didn't speak, but he didn't press it so Ooga took that as acceptance.
"Thanks."
They didn't speak for the rest of the night, just watching the moon fragments mix with stars until eventually heading off to bed.
In preparation for tomorrow's trip, Ooga was retrieving Jhinn.
He had a small hunting group with him, basically all of the powerful combat semblances they had.
The white spirit summoner, the woman who could cut with no blade, and a young new hunter who could create a black ice, things coming into contact with the ice would pass into it, being sent to some kind of realm they couldn't escape.
Grimm would charge or fall into the abyss recklessly.
He could retrieve things too, but it was very taxing and couldn't do anything larger than a pebble at the moment.
Which was bad, since he had unlocked the semblance to save his pet wolf with the black ice... poor pup was hopefully just frozen in time and not actually freezing inside the black ice.
At first they didn't need any semblance to deal with the outskirt saber tooth Grimm, but it ramped up in strength.
They were seeing a few more Stout packs, but it quickly became obvious that Goliath herds were becoming the biggest problem.
Strong, armoured and with good numbers it was a tall order to navigate to Jhinn without being heavily delayed.
Luckily the cutting semblance could get into the small cracks between the bone plating.
The cave system he put Jhinn in was simple but effective, he didn't want to deal with Grimm hiding in corners and turns when he came back, it was a strait crack all the way to the main room.
They all filter in with hands on weapons, but nobody expected a Centipede from the roof.
It was huge too, in a large spiral covering the whole dome shaped roof.
It was clearly an Alpha with no pack.
While Alpha Grimm were deadly in a pack and use basic commands and tactics to get the drop on humans, a lone Alpha was mad.
Very, very angry indeed.
The screech coming from that things mouth must have echoed down the mountain range forever.
They couldn't fight it here, everybody was on the same page.
They pumped aura into legs and sprinted for the mouth of the cave.
The Centipede was hot on pursuit, swerving around as it's countless legs skitter on stone and ice.
It actually was gaining on them, using it's body in a spring configuration and pushing against all the surfaces it touched.
Ooga shouts above the loud Grimm "Black ice!"
He hadn't been the first to think it, just the first to say it, the boy had already risked a glance back to deploy some.
The small windows of ice under the Grimm did nothing but make the body sag down in that area temporarily, bigger squares would also be avoided entirely.
"Spend it all! Clog the exit!" It was a huge waste of aura but they could cover the boy while he was low.
He nods and timed the next window perfectly, the Grimm shooting head first as it leaped the last distance to the humans.
The woman used her semblance to cut the boys semblance a moment later, not leaving any chance for the back legs to pull itself out.
The black ice shatters into a million shards and half the Grimms body remained to then eventually evaporate into smoke.
They were lucky the Grimm core had been on the right side of the black ice.
Dealing with a headless body thrashing until it regenerated was not fun.
It would have taken up to a week to regenerate but it was easier and less aura taxing killing it in one blow so it made it feel more important than it actually was.
A/N; just a simple little fight scene to warm up.