Step One

[Albert Wesker]

Aside from a wide, sweeping detour around a newly formed molten lake, the first day of the journey went reasonably well. They'd had a brief run-in with a den of salamanders -- huge lizards, nearly the size of hunting dogs, bodies rippling with muscle and unnatural heat -- but had dealt with them easily enough. Despite the level of heat they gave off, making the very air around them shimmer and ripple like asphalt in the desert, the Gorons had seemed unperturbed. Striking and battering at them with bare hands, even going so far as to grapple and pick them up, hurling them aside and out of their path. The warriors held them off while the rest of the convoy shuffled and filed quickly past.

It was an interesting scene to witness, and at his command and with the assistance of one of the more amenable Gorons, Wesker had HUNK exterminate one of the salamanders, quickly doing his work on the fresh corpse. Extracting all manner of minor pieces and samples of it; blood, tissue, scales. Even taking the time to break it down into raw Omnilium, harvesting it for both further strength and information. Another potent aspect in what was to come, later down the line...

Beyond that, there had been little of concern, save for the worrying sighting of a rogue pterosaur. It soared overhead, so high that it was barely a blurred shadow among the hazy clouds. But the keen, alert eyes of Goron scouts didn't miss it, and were quick to point it out. "Where there was one," they said, "there were always more close by." Based on that comment, and the sheer size of the winged shadow...the former Umbrella executive was forced to assume that tangling with an entire group of the flying reptilians was completely out of the question. He wisely chose to simply hurry along after the rest of the group, taking the opportunity to send HUNK ahead to situate himself among the scouts. Make himself useful, with his specialized talents.

For hours, and then more, they walked. Traversing the Steppes, through a laboriously twisting and winding path among the uneven, constantly shifting landscape. At one point, a scout had reported back there was a clear path up ahead, and only minutes later when they reached it they found it already blocked by a slow-oozing lava flow. The Gorons could have forded it easily, being near-immune to even the temperatures of molten rock, but their belongings and supplies were another matter, and wouldn't survive being that close to that high heat for so long. Another course had to be planned, which called for doubling back upon their route for some time, before finding a suitable alternate path to follow.

By day's end, or at least when a temporary to the march was finally called, they had traversed nearly thirty miles of ground, in all their meandering walking. The constant detours and out of the way loops they had to take to find easy to traverse terrain for their more stout members to trundle and lumber along hadn't helped. Despite all their toil, they had barely covered a dozen miles, as the bird flew. It was still good progress, according to one of the more amiable rock-folk. Everyone hoped they could find a way to make better time, of course, but even at this rate they should be able to make it to the cave system they were seeking in just another day or two. From there, it would be less than a day's determined march onward to their next destination.

It put into perspective just how precarious travel could be by land in a place like this, and made Wesker cast his eyes skyward again. He had an all-new appreciation for why the creatures of the air might be so much more well-suited to a place like this. Much easier to get from place to place, for one.