Inch by inch, Leo climbed.
His entire adventure in this strange world was now limited to just five motions.
Lift the left hand to find something to grab on. Shift his weight a bit then follow with the right hand.
Always maintaining three points of contact with the steep rock, he allotted a whooping five minutes for the cycle of moving each of his limbs up.
And bit by bit, as slow as a snail, Leo continued to climb.
'This is going to be one hell of a long day,' Leo thought, trying to distract himself from the evergrowing distance that separated him from the ground.
All it would ever take for him to fall was a single error. One lapse of judgment would lead to his hands or feet slipping.
And yet, having virtually no other choice, Leo continued to climb.
An inch at a time. A single limb at a time. A single point of contact at a time.
After what felt like half of an eternity, Leo finally could hold his curiosity no more, opting to take just one, short glance to the abyss below.
'Oh shit!'
Leo's body instinctively tensed up, gluing him to the face of the cliff.
What felt like an eternity turned out to be a mere hour. And the great distance he worked so damn hard to climb...
Turned out to be merely around ten meters.
'Damn,' Leo thought, gritting his teeth as he struggled to relax his muscles, even if only a tiny little bit.
'I might be climbing at an acceptable rate, but...'
After what turned out to be roughly an hour, Leo climbed roughly ten meters. A rate that he could live with...
If not for how quickly he was sapping his physical strength.
Sure, with nanites in his bloodstream, Leo could exert himself for far longer than an average human, but just like his experience after the fall proved - there was still a hard cap on how far he could go.
And worst of all, even if he managed to reach the cliff's top with the last of his strength, the last hurdle would still remain. And if there was one thing that Leo could tell for sure, it was how he would need all of his speed and strength during the very last stretch of his current exercise.
'The one good thing is, right now I'm mostly using my hands to climb,' he thought, gritting his teeth right when the first signs of exhaustion caused a slight itch in his arms.
In the end, though, during this climb, Leo got to experience the one and only element of adventures that all the stories, liquid memories, and movies happily omitted.
The boredom.
When reading a book, a single passage of 'then, a few hours passed' would suffice to describe an extensive effort of the character. In the liquid memories, several days long of marching the army down to where the battle would take place would be squeezed into a few snapshots of nice views, maybe an occasional talk between the soldiers. In the movies, the boredom of tasks that took a long time… would be largely omitted in the first place.
But when it came to reality, to living through his own, deadly adventure, Leo had no means of just skipping through the long periods of time.
Every second, he had to endure the constantly growing pain of his tired muscles.
Soon, just by slowly reaching out for the next part of the cliff's face to grab on, Leo would have to fight against the shaking of his arm. Upon grabbing the next support, he would have to spend several seconds just to let his arm rest, all so that his fingers wouldn't slip.
And just like that, with constant pain, fear, and boredom mixing in Leo's soul, several hours have passed.
'This place should be good enough,' Leo thought upon reaching roughly half of the cliff's height.
To anyone's eyes, this place was as ordinary as the one next to it and any of the places Leo has passed till now. If there was anything special about the part of the cliff that he was clinging to right now… It was it's height.
'Now, let's see if it will work…'
Daring not to drill a hole into the rock to secure himself with special hooks, Leo took an entire minute to let his arms and legs rest before letting go of the rock with his right hand and reaching toward his chest.
Detaching a round piece from the special strap on his chest, Leo then pressed it against the rock's face before turning the round's object outer rim, unlocking the glue pockets hidden at its bottom.
A few moments of slight, hissing sound later when the glue pretty much melted into the rock and then fused the bottom of the device into the cliff, a single, green diode flashed up on its top.
'Now, for the hard part,' Leo thought, gritting his teeth as he struggled to squeeze his right arm all the way across his chest and then even further to the left, not stopping until his wrist emerged from below his stealth cloak.
For the next two minutes, Leo simply hung to his dear life while trying to ignore the increasing pain of this unnatural and extremely uncomfortable position. Counting the seconds in his mind, he continued to bear with the pain before finally retracting his hand and bringing his wrist up towards his face.
On the face of his clock, a device with far more uses than just time measurement, he could now see the view he would get if he cast his cloak away and turned his head to admire the view.
Still, rather than taking a photo of the scenery for the propensity's sake, Leo then carefully used his nose to connect his watch to the round device he glued to the rock. Slowly, paying his utmost attention to every tiniest move he made, Leo continued to tap the tip of his nose against the face of the clock, selecting several settings for the round devices.
In the end, after tapping right at where the picture displayed the cultivator's camp by the forest, Leo finally completed his task and moved his right hand back to the support.
'Now that's done, I should have some time to rest a bit…'
The device glued to the rock was nothing more but a set of programable explosives. An ordinary type of 'boom' that Leo could manipulate with the help of his watch. And now that close to half of the device's firepower turned from payload into an ejecting propeller for the other half of the explosives, he was pretty much done with the task. And after a mere few minutes of rest, ignoring the pain of his already tired muscles, Leo gritted his teeth and started to climb again.
'Halfway there,' he thought, as he continued the perilous task of climbing the cliff at a snail's pace. 'I just hope my arms won't give up before I reach the cliff's top.'
//Sorry for the 3 weeks delay, life pretty much disallowed me from focusing on this passion-project of mine. Hopefully, today that changes!//
Inch by inch, Leo climbed.
His entire adventure in this strange world was now limited to just five motions.
Lift the left hand to find something to grab on. Shift his weight a bit then follow with the right hand.
Always maintaining three points of contact with the steep rock, he allotted a whooping five minutes for the cycle of moving each of his limbs up.
And bit by bit, as slow as a snail, Leo continued to climb.
'This is going to be one hell of a long day,' Leo thought, trying to distract himself from the evergrowing distance that separated him from the ground.
All it would ever take for him to fall was a single error. One lapse of judgment would lead to his hands or feet slipping.
And yet, having virtually no other choice, Leo continued to climb.
An inch at a time. A single limb at a time. A single point of contact at a time.
After what felt like half of an eternity, Leo finally could hold his curiosity no more, opting to take just one, short glance to the abyss below.
'Oh shit!'
Leo's body instinctively tensed up, gluing him to the face of the cliff.
What felt like an eternity turned out to be a mere hour. And the great distance he worked so damn hard to climb...
Turned out to be merely around ten meters.
'Damn,' Leo thought, gritting his teeth as he struggled to relax his muscles, even if only a tiny little bit.
'I might be climbing at an acceptable rate, but...'
After what turned out to be roughly an hour, Leo climbed roughly ten meters. A rate that he could live with...
If not for how quickly he was sapping his physical strength.
Sure, with nanites in his bloodstream, Leo could exert himself for far longer than an average human, but just like his experience after the fall proved - there was still a hard cap on how far he could go.
And worst of all, even if he managed to reach the cliff's top with the last of his strength, the last hurdle would still remain. And if there was one thing that Leo could tell for sure, it was how he would need all of his speed and strength during the very last stretch of his current exercise.
'The one good thing is, right now I'm mostly using my hands to climb,' he thought, gritting his teeth right when the first signs of exhaustion caused a slight itch in his arms.
In the end, though, during this climb, Leo got to experience the one and only element of adventures that all the stories, liquid memories, and movies happily omitted.
The boredom.
When reading a book, a single passage of 'then, a few hours passed' would suffice to describe an extensive effort of the character. In the liquid memories, several days long of marching the army down to where the battle would take place would be squeezed into a few snapshots of nice views, maybe an occasional talk between the soldiers. In the movies, the boredom of tasks that took a long time… would be largely omitted in the first place.
But when it came to reality, to living through his own, deadly adventure, Leo had no means of just skipping through the long periods of time.
Every second, he had to endure the constantly growing pain of his tired muscles.
Soon, just by slowly reaching out for the next part of the cliff's face to grab on, Leo would have to fight against the shaking of his arm. Upon grabbing the next support, he would have to spend several seconds just to let his arm rest, all so that his fingers wouldn't slip.
And just like that, with constant pain, fear, and boredom mixing in Leo's soul, several hours have passed.
'This place should be good enough,' Leo thought upon reaching roughly half of the cliff's height.
To anyone's eyes, this place was as ordinary as the one next to it and any of the places Leo has passed till now. If there was anything special about the part of the cliff that he was clinging to right now… It was it's height.
'Now, let's see if it will work…'
Daring not to drill a hole into the rock to secure himself with special hooks, Leo took an entire minute to let his arms and legs rest before letting go of the rock with his right hand and reaching toward his chest.
Detaching a round piece from the special strap on his chest, Leo then pressed it against the rock's face before turning the round's object outer rim, unlocking the glue pockets hidden at its bottom.
A few moments of slight, hissing sound later when the glue pretty much melted into the rock and then fused the bottom of the device into the cliff, a single, green diode flashed up on its top.
'Now, for the hard part,' Leo thought, gritting his teeth as he struggled to squeeze his right arm all the way across his chest and then even further to the left, not stopping until his wrist emerged from below his stealth cloak.
For the next two minutes, Leo simply hung to his dear life while trying to ignore the increasing pain of this unnatural and extremely uncomfortable position. Counting the seconds in his mind, he continued to bear with the pain before finally retracting his hand and bringing his wrist up towards his face.
On the face of his clock, a device with far more uses than just time measurement, he could now see the view he would get if he cast his cloak away and turned his head to admire the view.
Still, rather than taking a photo of the scenery for the propensity's sake, Leo then carefully used his nose to connect his watch to the round device he glued to the rock. Slowly, paying his utmost attention to every tiniest move he made, Leo continued to tap the tip of his nose against the face of the clock, selecting several settings for the round devices.
In the end, after tapping right at where the picture displayed the cultivator's camp by the forest, Leo finally completed his task and moved his right hand back to the support.
'Now that's done, I should have some time to rest a bit…'
The device glued to the rock was nothing more but a set of programable explosives. An ordinary type of 'boom' that Leo could manipulate with the help of his watch. And now that close to half of the device's firepower turned from payload into an ejecting propeller for the other half of the explosives, he was pretty much done with the task. And after a mere few minutes of rest, ignoring the pain of his already tired muscles, Leo gritted his teeth and started to climb again.
'Halfway there,' he thought, as he continued the perilous task of climbing the cliff at a snail's pace. 'I just hope my arms won't give up before I reach the cliff's top.'
//Sorry for the 3 weeks delay, life pretty much disallowed me from focusing on this passion-project of mine. Hopefully, today that changes!//
