Ch. 47: First Obstacle (2)

"You're joking, right?" Adrian asked Rosy, rubbing his temple. 

"Nope!" Rosy beamed. Why was she proud of this?

"How the hell can you say with a straight face that this is a 'way across!?'" He exclaimed, shouting at her. Rosy looked at him, nonplussed. 

"I did it." She told him. As if that helped him. They'd climbed ninety-degree inclines. Run through crumbling passes, but looking at this just filled Adrian with despair.

They were standing on the summit of the first mountain in the range. One of the main reasons that people had trouble getting past the first mountain was the insane little river that flowed between the furthest and second furthest mountain ranges. After several millennia, it'd worn down the area between the mountains to create a huge chasm with a tendency for rock-slides. If one attempted to climb down the chasm without using climbing gear, it was a death wish for sure. If someone attempted to actually use climbing gear to get down there, the ropes would inevitably cause a rock-slide, causing parts of the wall that they were attempting to climb down to fall right onto their heads.

If they somehow managed to get down, they'd need to cross the river at the bottom, which was, according to Rosy, infested with flying piranha (apparently, piranha chimeras were a thing). Managing to cross the river would only lead them to the rock wall on the other side, which was taller, and at an acute angle from the ground for nearly fifty feet before it evened out to a perfect ninety degrees for another hundred feet or so. A pretty much impossible cross, going down then back up.

The only real way to get across would normally be to tie a rope to both ends of the chasm and climb across that way. Unfortunately, there weren't any trees or anything on the other side. The only way to connect a rope would be to throw something heavy enough to support weight all the way across. Naturally, even if you somehow managed to throw something that heavy across the 25-foot chasm, the other side would instantly crumble under the impact, and flying devices hadn't been invented yet. Gliders had, but they wouldn't get enough lift. Whoever managed to glide across the chasm would still have to climb the actual rocks on the other side, with almost no chance of actually managing to hang on.

"Please, your highness. Explain how it's physically possible to get across a chasm of 25 feet or so without any help." Adrian asked sarcastically.

"Actually, it's closer to 35. There's a ten-foot difference or so in height." 

"So, twenty-five feet across and ten high?" That'd be an actual jump distance of a little less than 27 feet, but he'd need to jump a lot higher than that in order to make up the height, Adrian realized with a little mental math. He didn't know how far a human could actually jump, but that didn't seem possible to him.

"Yeah, thereabout." Rosy agreed.

"You honestly did it?" He asked her once more. 

She nodded, then explained further, "This spot doesn't have any obstructions, so we can get a good running start. On top of that, it's the only spot so close together. There's nowhere else in the entire range this close together. I ran the whole range last time, so I know. The only problem is with the fact that we need to be fast, precise, and light on our feet, or the cliff's going to crumble under our feet."

"Rosy, I seriously don't think that I can do it." Adrian told her, looking at the gulf in front of them.

"Just watch and learn." Rosy assured him, backing up. She was apparently confident that Adrian could manage the jump after watching her, relying on the crutch that was their bond. 

Rosy took a deep breath, remembering what she did last time. Last time, it had taken her nearly a week to pass this point, as she'd needed to find this spot on her own, then spent an entire day gauging distances and her own power to figure out the perfect jump. Now, she just needed to account for her higher body weight and... 

With a running start, she jumped, using magic on her body to enhance her own physical strength as she pushed off, straining her legs so much that Adrian could feel a little bit of pain through the bond. 

She soared through the air, landing on the very lip of the other side with a light roll, having perfectly gauged the power of her jump.

"How are your legs?!" Adrian shouted across the chasm once he realized that she'd made it.

"Fine! Instantly healed!" She shouted back. Once again, Adrian marveled at the power of a Royal Vampire. That jump looked like it was probably beyond impossible for a normal person to accomplish.

If even Rosy'd needed to almost break her ankle in order to make it, Adrian wasn't too sure about his own chances. Fortunately for him, the exact power needed for Rosy to make the jump was now imprinted in his mind thanks to their bond.

"Rosy, switch swords with me!" Adrian shouted across the chasm. His sword weighed a lot, and was a burden that he couldn't bear to deal with while he jumped. Normally, it'd be best for him to jump with as little extra weight as possible, but Rosy's Darkreina boosted magic power, which would inevitably help his jump rather than hinder it.

"Alright. Toss yours over with the boost from mine!" Rosy shouted back. After a moment, she tossed her sword, scabbard-less, over to Adrian. With her insane power, it embedded itself in a tree behind him. After getting it, he used the magic boost that it provided in order to toss his own sword back to her, so that he wouldn't need to deal with the extra weight when he jumped.

Sheathing Rosy's sword in the scabbard that was originally made for his own Whiteblood sword, Adrian took off with a jump start. With Adrian's low affinity for magic, he needed to draw a bit of magic from the bond in order to power his jump, funneling it through Darkreina.