Once they were in the treeline Gunnar and Cassie both stopped and looked at each other for a moment, needing to reassure one another of the other's presence and company. The thought now of facing the unknown by themself was unthinkably lonely and a bit terrifying.
After reorienting himself, Gunnar began to take stock of his surroundings, noting the terrain and possible landmarks for navigation, just needing nothing to engage his mind. Anything to keep it off of the thought of the two of them being away from their safety net of their parents and gramma Shiela. So they had to do as Gunnar's mom told them.
"You look at the first problem. Solve it and look for the next, solve what you must to survive before looking for luxury. One step at a time, one problem at a time. Do that and you'll be just fine."
"We need to find a good spot for shelter. One with access to non sulphuric water or enough access to dry wood that we can melt the snow. Then we need to look for signs of smaller animals we can set traps and snares for."
Cassie nodded and moved forward with Gunnar towards the bottom of the Snelle volcano. While not violently active, it was not dormant either.
There were generally 25-30 years in between its minor eruptions and more than twice that for major eruptions. The last major eruption was only 10 years before, so they felt confident that they at least would get some warning before an explosion and the heat of the volcano would provide the best environment for a runoff of melted snow and there by a watering hole for the prey animals they were looking for.
They moved to the base of the mountain and began a sweeping search of the terrain, searching in particular for a place that they could build a good shelter but also for signs of the animals they might be able to hunt for food or outright avoid for survival.
As they walked Cassie took a sharp but quiet inhale that was almost a gasp. "Gunnar! Look at the trees to our left!"
Gunnar turned and at first didn't see anything wrong. but as his eyes left head height and traveled towards the top of these towering trees he noticed something that chilled his blood. About thirty feet off the ground right where the branches of the great oak tree began to appear and thicken, there were slashing claw marks. Territorial markings.
"A fucking Great Bear. Just my shitty luck." Gunnar whispered, his eyes darting about looking for more sign.
The markings were not fresh but showed signs of renewal, maybe a few days old. They continued ever so often off into the distance, slanting away from the summit toward the river on the far side of their half of the volcano.
"Best we head in the other direction now. If we stay away from this territory we should find more game and not have to mess with the Great Bear."
Cassie nodded in agreement. She remembered studying the Great Bear species along with Gunnar. The term was a broad one for the giant multi-elemental Bears standing a towering thirty plus feet tall on their hind legs. in this environment the bear could come in several elements. Fire, Ice or a combo Ground-Fire type commonly called a Magma bear. the best out come for the two kids would be an ice or magma type Great Bear. Those two were more even tempered, one due to its sluggish nature of ice and the other for the steadying influence of the earth element.
Gunnar led the way back in the opposite direction putting a little more space from the side of the mountain slope to gain some more terrain info. as they made their way back they made note of landmarks, looking for any of the signs of volcanic fissures or springs that might give water to any game they might be able to eat or follow to some edible roots or herbs for alchemic or tonic consumption.
After traveling for some time they reached the starting point of their trek and had marked several possible camps to be made with small game or other resources such as a small volcanic iron vein for making weapons or armor, or even a small spirit silver ore vein that was an excellent conductor of both atmospheric mana and internal mana. Often it is used in small chunks mixed into other metals to give better conductivity so even if they were not able to use it themselves they could trade it for things that they needed or wanted.
They had made these notes to create a map they could use to mark where certain resources lay or where certain animals could be found either for food or hides or even sinew for trap and bows. With a portion of the map for the area that they would be hunting in drawn in their minds they only needed to get the materials to draw the map and then slowly move those materials to the designated cache. But that would have to wait til they found a place to sleep safely and an easily defensible fall back point.
After traveling in the opposite direction for most of the rest of their day they found a partially hollowed tree that was over 40 feet wide that they could build their camp inside. They immediately began making raised hammocks using Gunnar's portion of canvas as the bed and some saplings twisted together as the ropes then pining them to the tree with shaped hardwood nails.
Once they had the beds set up they made a location outside the tree a designated cooking area and set it a little way away from where they slept so that if anything came for their food they still would have a place to escape to for safety and they wouldn't have to worry as much when they slept. once completing the set up of their camp to their own satisfaction, it was nearly dark so they gathered a bit of wood, ate a light supper of berries and closed the makeshift door of their "house" for the next three weeks starting a small fire to heat the hollowed out room.
Gunnar finished making the fire and making sure their was enough wood to last the night and sat to begin the first shift of watch so that Cassie could rest fully before she took over so he could do the same.