It was time for quite a dangerous and long walk south. There seemed to be nothing but a massive tundra set before you while looking at a loosely cut path between trees and ice. There would be moments in this journey where you would just be walking without anything guiding you along the path.
The wind and snow falling seemed to intensive the moment you set forth south. Almost like this planet was determined to not let you make it to your end and unknown destination. Not having the ship anymore or its computer to help give you some indications of was you were going was a bit troubling.
Perhaps the scariest of it all was not having any proper shelter to hunker down in if things got rather bad. You were rather exposed to the elements. Thankfully you were wearing your spacesuit and even put the helm on to block the wind from wiping in your face.
There was quite a blinding glare from the sun as it got higher and higher in the sky. At the same time, there was enough snow falling in front of you visibility was starting to drop as well. It’s not like you could have seen across the entire tundra in perfect conditions. This just made it rather worse.
You wish you had a pair of snowshoes or something. Some steps in the mix of snow and ice were like walking in hardened mud and others you just hoped you did not sink knee-deep. It was quite a workout putting one leg in front of the other and slowly trying to walk forward.
It was quite clear there had not been anything traveling over the loosely packed snow perhaps in decades. The only thing that might have saved you from sinking right down the core of the planet it felt was when you hit a sheet of ice.
Black ice was however quite a more dangerous feeling than just powered snow. You never knew when you would hit black ice and that would on occasion send you sailing to the ground. This stuff was even more tricky any time there was an elevation change.
Sometimes it felt like you were marching up a small hill while other times you were hoping to not break any bones while sliding down one. This ended up making the journey quite a slow one.
By mid-afternoon on the first day, you almost collapsed into a snowbank for lunch. You had to put the food cube in your space suit for a short while just to warm it up enough to consume what was otherwise rock solid as they all had frozen.
You looked above you to notice quite a nasty set of low-hanging dark clouds starting to roll in. At least it made it a bit easier to see. You were however starting to reconsider heading south onto the tundra-like this.
After you got up from your lunch you started to scan the horizon a bit more often to keep an eye out for anywhere you could take shelter. It would be yet another hour of slow walking before you would need another break.
At one point you did come across a river. It seemed to go on further than you could see in either direction. The river was frozen solid and while you did slip a little walking across it. It was nice not having to walk in the snow.
It was somewhat tempting to just keep walking on the frozen river it however was not going anywhere you were. After a lot more time passed the sun was starting to set. You needed to find some kind of shelter for the night.
You ended up using your gloves almost like a pick carving out a mixture of snow and ice into a snowbank. You made yourself a makeshift igloo to spend the night in. You were so exhausted you passed out before even eating anything.
You woke up the next morning with the sun already in the sky. It was time for yet another harsh walk further south down the tundra. It was looking even gloomier than it was the day before. There also seemed to be a lot more snow flurries.
After several more hours, you spotted what looked like a cave off to the west. You could change direction and head over to the cave or continue walking further south.
Content is written by @Enjar of @Enjargames. AI artwork was created using Playgroundai.
