Free Web NovelChapter 537: Exploration
The men lingered on the shore longer than expected. The crunch of boots and the soft groan of ice shifting disturbed the stillness of the land.
Sarika took the first step forward. Her boots sank slightly into the powdery snow, which glittered like crushed glass.
"Secure the landing zone," she ordered.
Their landing spot was an excellent location to build a port. Unlike past explorers, Sarika intended to claim this land on behalf of the kingdom, regardless of whether it was valuable or not.
After all, having land is better than having none.
Two sailors planted the expedition’s first signal pole, a tall iron spike topped with Ryntum’s crest, into the frozen earth.
Their simple act marks the ownership of this land.
"Let’s follow the coast first," Sarika said, pointing eastward. "Stay close to the waterline. No one wanders off. We don’t know what’s out there."
The party advanced slowly along the frozen beach. The cartographers took note of all features of the coast.
Drawing maps of this land is their most important task.
Some places revealed black, slick rock where the tide had scoured the ice away. In others, frozen seawater created strange glassy ridges that fractured under their steps.
One man knelt to inspect something half-buried in snow. A cluster of dark stones, unlike any they’d seen. "Commander... these look like ore."
Sarika glanced down but waved him off. "Collect samples later. Focus on scouting for now."
They found signs of nature but no life. Once, a faint, distant rumble rolled across the horizon. An avalanche somewhere deeper inland, and every man witnessing it froze.
When they paused to rest, the silence pressed in again. No bird calls were heard, and no animal tracks were found.
Just the hiss of wind sliding across ice and the restless sea slapping against the shore.
As dusk approached, they turned back toward the anchored ship.
On the ship, the crew lit their first lanterns against the polar twilight. The light spilt across the deck and reflected off the ice-choked water like fire on glass.
"Tomorrow, we go further inland." Sarika decided.
....
The next morning dawned pale and grey. The air was so crisp it seemed to bite with every breath, and a thin veil of frost had settled on the ship’s deck overnight.
Sarika was already awake when the first men stirred. She stood near the rail, her cloak pulled tight against the wind.
Her eyes fixed on the bleak coastline they had touched the day before.
"Commander?" one of her officers approached.
"Rouse the scouts. Today, we go inland," she reminded him without turning.
Within the hour, a small party of twenty assembled on the frozen beach, armed and cloaked.
They carried ropes, axes, and shovels strapped to their backs. Clearly more prepared than before.
Beyond the natural harbour, the world stretched into a frozen wilderness. An endless tundra broken only by rolling hills blanketed in snow.
Further inland, mountains capped with ice that glowed faintly under the sun.
Sarika raised a gloved hand and pointed toward the hills. "We move that way. Stay tight."
The hill she pointed to was a perfect vantage point to see the entire landscape.
The trek was slow. The ground shifted between patches of hard ice and snow that swallowed their boots to the knee.
Then, one of the scouts ahead raised a hand. "Commander! Over here!"
The group gathered around a shallow depression where the snow had drifted less thickly.
Half-buried in the frost was something unnatural. It was a dark, weathered object protruding from the earth.
With careful effort, they cleared the snow and revealed what looked like wood, reinforced with corroded iron bands.
"A chest?"
"No, it’s... part of a structure. A wall."
The more they uncovered, the more their excitement grew. Beneath the snow lay what might have been a hut, its timbers preserved in the permafrost.
Sarika crouched, her gloved hand brushing over the frozen wood. "Mark this place. We’ll return later. If people lived here once, then there must be resources to be found or knowledge left behind."
The journey continues. They climb to a higher elevation to get a view of the entire place.
The climb was gruelling, but they managed to get to the top of a plateau.
The wind howled fiercely, whipping at cloaks and their hoods, but the sight that stretched before them was worth every step of the climb.
From this vantage, the cartographer immediately dropped his pack, pulling out papers, ink, and a set of instruments.
He crouched on the icy ground. His hands were shaking slightly from both cold and excitement as he began sketching the contours of the land.
Every few moments, he paused, measuring distances with careful eyes, then scratched lines and marks.
His work would be the first true map of this untouched world.
Sarika stood a few paces away. Her eyes were not on the paper but on the land itself.
She was silent for a long time, deciding in her mind where to establish a settlement.
The location where the ruins were found was one of the options in her mind. There must be a reason it was built there.
However, that place was situated far inland. They also lack knowledge about this place.
Who knows what caused the demise of that ancient settlement?
It is much safer to play near the coast. If anything happens, they can escape.
One of her officers approached, brushing frost from his beard. "Commander, what should we do now?"
Sarika turned her head toward him. Then her eyes moved from the officer to the cartographer, who was still bent over his papers, sketching the horizon with a feverish dedication.
"Some of you will remain here and guard the cartographer. Without his record, this entire journey is meaningless. The rest will return to the ruin we just passed. I want it excavated properly. Clear away the snow and ice, dig down to the stone, search every corner for valuables like artefacts."
