Future Planning II

The sun slowly rose above the horizon, bringing light of dawn to entire forest. In newly "built", more like excavated, base Sandro slowly opened his eyes and yawned. Slowly he stood up and walked out of the base with half closed eyes. As soon as he walked out he inhaled fresh air, but for some reason it smelled like a charred coal. - 'Seems Saba kept himself busy last night'- Sandro thought and walked forward.

After few steps his foot got stuck some kind of mud? Did it rain yesterday?

"Hmmm... The hell?" - Sandro exclaimed.

What he saw was small pool of lava and Sandro was drowning there a bit by bit. Weirdest part was that one could see small air bubbles coming out of the centre of it. Sandro furrowed his brows and almost immediately he understood reason for lava pool.

"Gory hell, wake the fuck up Saba" - He voiced it and then proceeded to put his hand in lava and pulled sleeping Saba out, who was releasing light and heat like there was no tomorrow. Holding him with one hand Sandro poked Saba till he started to wake up.

"Yo bro wake the hell up"

"Five more minutes, I'll work remotely today so it will be fine"

Slap

"Ahhh, what in the name of dragon's tits are you doing?" - Saba screamed with outrage.

"The hell? what kind of swearing was that?" - Sandro asked baffled.

"Why did you hit me man, it hurts like hell"

"Look around sunshine, what can you see?" - Instead of answering directly Sandro directed Saba's gaze to lava.

"What do you... Ah I see. The hell?" - Saba looked astonished - "Did I sleep there?"

"Yeah, when I pulled you out you were shining like nuclear rector on the verge of meltdown"

Saba focused and lowered intensity of his heat and light. Then he took deep breath to analyze the situation.

"Hoh, nice progress" - Sandro commented.

"Ye found method to more or less control it, well looks like it only works when I'm awake" - Saba sighed.

"Wait you pulled me out of lava?" - Asked Saba with Shock - "Now that I think you never had any reaction on released heat from me. Looks like you have immunity?"

Sandro paused to think for a bit and then said - "Don't think it's an immunity more like resistance. I could feel the heat on my skin... Good analogy will be holding cup of boiled water. I can hold it, but not too long. Of course when you are "normal" I don't feel anything too different"

"I see that's interesting. Well as expected from barbarian" - Saba joked.

Sandro rolled his eyes, sat down on small boulder and added - "Better we continue our last night's talk"

"What there is to talk about, again we need as much information as we can get. This is second day but, we should start collecting some data on local flora and fauna. I'll go hunting, probably all day, I want to figure out use of my magic. I'll try to collect all info I can and we can start analyzing it and maybe record it?"

"Hah Sumerian style it is.. Fine I'll take care of base and try to create all tools and infrastructure that we might need. Also I'll get some stone tablets, guess I have to work on my calligraphy till you will have better control on your magic"

"Superman style man. I'll sit on rock all thoughtful and carve words on stone tablets with heat vision" - Saba said with some excitement.

"Bruh, that's laser not 'Heat vision' and yeah would be cool. Back to the topic, while you hunt and train try to scout new places and maybe you could find some kind of mineral deposit? We need to get some metals too otherwise our tool won't make any sense if we ourselves can do same shit better and faster"

"Sure I'll look around and we also need to agree on how far from base one can go" - Saba suggested.

Sandro thought a bit, looked towards forest and said - "Hmm.. count 60 seconds starting 3.. 2... 1... now"

As soon as Sandro said "now" he almost disappeared and ground that he stood had small cracks on it.

"Bruh, oh I have to count" - Saba started the countdown.

After a minute Sandro appeared from forest, gust of wind that followed him swayed Saba's curly dark gold "hair".

"Okay initial range will be around 500 meters in any direction from base. Response time initially will be 30 seconds we will use either voice or magic to signal each other if something happens. Let's call it protocol red if you want or black meaning unknown/extremally dangerous. Protocol, range and response time will change depending on results of exploration"

"#So if we chart enough territory or even manage to cover more distance in 30 seconds radius changes?#" - Asked Snaky.

"$Do you understand how insane those numbers are? $" - Orochimaru chimed in.

"What? Why?" - Brothers asked in unison.

"#Bruh world record on 500m run was around 58 second or something and you two can do in 30#"

"Ohh in the name of Godzilla's claws we are in world of magic. We are not even that fast" - Sandro rolled his eyes.

"Anyway in case I discover something interesting further than 500 meters what do we do?" - Saba resumed previous conversation.

"If it's not too far and seems relatively safe you can check, just really carefully. Otherwise regroup and plan an expedition. We can't afford carelessness" - Sandro concluded.

"Sound good, It's time for me to start hunting" - Saba got ready to move out.

"Fine and just remember to try to bring intact corpses to study them better, also try to study some of their behaviour if possible"

"I know, I know, good luck man" - Saba said his good bye and left towards forest.

"Well well well, time for me to start gathering some materials. Lets start with stones and I'll test my strength limits while I'm at it" - Sandro proclaimed and got into action.

Sandro looked around and he moved towards cliff within few hundred meters of base, of course he chose direction relatively close to direction Saba went, just in case. In a few minutes he was standing in front of huge cliff.

"Damn it's lot bigger up close. Wonder what is its height?" - he looked a bit and then shook his head - "Whatever, I need to do some work"

Looking on base of cliff he could see sizable boulders spread out. Sandro moved closer to one that was with around 30cm diameter. He moved closer and tried to lift it.

'Hoh lot lighter than I imagined, but I was braking whole ass trees with my fists so nothing new' - He took stone in one hand and juggled it a bit. - 'Okay not exactly ideal size for tablets, but could be used for tools' - Sandro used his claw to scratch the rock - 'Hell from what my claws are made of? Well it's better for me and a bit sad that they are so short, but hey can't get everything from get go' - He stopped scratching the rock and looked back to base.

"Hmm not a clear path, maybe I have to clean up road a bit, but first let's try the range of throw"

Sandro got into position from where he could see large tree, holding large stone in his right hand.

"Can't call that tree just "Large Tree" forever, hmmm... okay let me call you "Mukha" then. Annnd now the test" - Sandro pulled hand back and threw rock towards the base.

Whooosh ..... Boooom

Rock flew dozens of meter and crashed on the ground. He moved closer to rock to check the results.

"Around 60 meters, not bad I guess, I should try once more, but need to add a bit running"

Sandro moved back and found a rock with similar size and this time he ran few meters before throw for more inertia. Result was better it reached around 100 meters.

'Okay, now that I got the range approximation need to understand how heavy can I carry' - He moved back to base of cliff and took rock twice the size of previous one. - 'Not exactly heavy, but moving it with one hand is a bit awkward and even if I just hold it using my claws, I still have to hold hand almost horizontally. Lets try throw then' - Sandro used both hands to throw this rock, but results were less than half he did on previous time.

"It's too heavy and I don't have enough power to throw it further. I'll try to get bigger rock, this is not optimal for me to carry back to Mukha" - Sandro returned and tried to lift next rock which was more than twice the size of previous one, maybe even more than that.

'Okay now I feel the weight, no way I can throw this thing more than few meters so better get going and bring it to the base' - Thinking it he started to move towards Mukha. With every step ground dented a bit and Sandro made deep imprints of his feet on it.

Back in the base he placed boulder on ground with loud crash sound.

"Noiceee. Now that we have the measurements I need to make nice and wide road to the cliff. Also I need to bring rocks of all sizes for tools and other useful things"

So the work resumed. Meanwhile Saba started his official training/hunting of the day.