A few days later the denizens of the mountain heard another loud noise. Ciaran had bombed the path again, his goal was to make his way to the road which was a lot wider and would be safer for them to walk on.
He bombed it again and again and again until finally the path was made. Now anyone, even those without wings could safely make it to the higher zone. The boy however waited one more day just so he could wait out the danger.
With the path open, there was a big migration. There were quite a few animals that could hunt in the higher zones, but as they lacked wings, or were too big to pass the narrow path, they had gotten stuck here.
The birds were not happy that their hunting zone was gone. They were circling and searching for anything that could tell them where the thing that destroyed it could be hiding.
They didn't even know what the bastard looked like. Ciaran and Ariadne were careful never to leave stealth when they were opening up a path. They were all highly territorial, and since for a long time this part of the mountain was very kind to them, and they were never short on prey, most birds hunted alone.
Thanks to their incompetence in scouting, the duo snuck past them and went on up. Even before he had his arsenal, the duo had been able to pass this hurdle last time. The real danger started from here.
The first real injuries they got were obtained here, Ciaran still got blurry vision in his eye every time he thought about it.
From here on the animals were dangerous not only to them but to each other as well. As such, they had learned to hunt in groups with at least two members.
"Last time we had to deal with only groups of two and we almost lost our lives, this time we will be the hunters. Remember Ari, we are hunters, not predators. We do NOT fight battles, we set traps. And most importantly of all, please remind me if I forget. I am patience incarnate but I do tend to get sidetracked sometimes."
The spider looked at him funny and rolled its eyes.
"Ok, often. Happy, now that your partner is embarrassed, jeez." The boy said with his left hand clenching his heart and the back side of his right to his forehead.
The spider gave him a good whack to the back of his head. She was happy he was once again able to joke around, but she needed him to be focused.
"I know girl don't worry. First order of business, we need to make a base. Not a temporary hideout, a base. Hunting the hawks will be very time-consuming, and we need to have a base of operations."
They agreed on the fact the thing needed to be built where no normal animal would try to get to, and most importantly it should be in a place without much traffic.
This zone had a naturally formed peace zone. That was an area of the zone where water was running down from the mountain. All creatures needed to drink, even Rank Twos, and as such all violence in that area was off-limits.
"It would be great if we could make our home now, but it would be too hard, but you see I had this amazing Idea. What if we lived beneath the safe zone, as in either underground or in the walls."
The spider was about to whack her partner again, but he continued his explanations, and she reluctantly agreed.
Due to yesterday's chaos caused by the mass migration, they were easily able to sneak past most of the zone and get to the water source. They innocently drank their fill and went back down. From here on up, Rank Twos were more common. And they didn't want to risk pissing them off just yet.
As always they dug a small crevice on the side of the mountain, about one kilometer ( 0.6 miles) away from the safe area, and then the boy put a small explosive in it. Ariadne then webbed the whole place up leaving just enough room to light it. Then Ciaran prepared to light the fuse, and Ariadne prepared herself to finish the stuffing.
The end result was a very light explosion, that did not make much of any sound.
"It worked, you unfaithful girl, it actually worked. Now we just need to repeat this process a few hundred times, and we have ourselves a home. "He said, barely stopping himself from cheering.
Ariadne murmured something about phrasing, but he didn't pay her mumblings any heed.
It took them six hours to dig, or in their case blow themselves a small cave. They used the ruble and the spider webs to glue together an entrance. It wasn't impenetrable, but unless someone was looking directly at it, and was consciously looking for it, it looked like a regular part of the mountain.
"I am a fish you are a spider, and together we are the Moles."He said, and she raised three of her legs trying to look as much like a mole as the spider could manage. Ciaran couldn't see her naturally, there was no light in their home, but he appreciated her, for going along with his antics.
The nights were cold, the higher they ascended the colder it got. But they had already learned a trick to deal with this issue. They cuddled each other, as Ariadne shrunk her body so she would need less heat to get warm.
Their days were spent profiting from the still ongoing carnage of the new pecking order. Their hunts were very fruitful. And after their belies were filled they dug.
By the time Verdania came for her biweekly visits, they already had a whole network of tunnels.
The dryad was speechless. She did tell them not to look for trouble and to be cautious, but they just went and buried themselves in the damn mountain.
"What is this? No seriously, what am I even looking at? Why are you IN THE FUCKING MOUNTAIN? What are you going to do if it comes crashing down on your heads? What happens if there is an earthquake?" It was safe to say she was beyond mad.
She thought they would stay bellow for at least a month and only at the last month would they try to hunt for the beasts that harmed them. Instead, they messed up the whole ecosystem and then buried themselves alive. She was so mad she just repeated those five questions again and again in varying order.
After they let her vent, they showed her that the cave was architecturally reinforced. The whole network was layered with webs, and it was made to be a maze with every corner being a trap. If anything tried to get in their base, it would die. Unless it was a teleporting Archmage of course. Ciaran's anti-theft measure protocols lacked the means to deal with those.
"We are now ready to try to hunt down some of the groups. We will start with, a group of two, and move on with more, or stronger opponents until we can hunt down our butchers. We pushed our goals until you arrived. If you believe we can't handle it, save us, and drag us back home in shame. Deal?" Ciaran asked and extended his hand to the wall. The cave was still dark.
Of course, he knew she could see them, and he knew where she was based on her voice, but how can he pass an opportunity like this. After all, messing with an Archmage at the age of seven was a privilege only he enjoyed.
"A flawless victory or your ass is grounded." She said through gritted teeth.
And then they got to work. They already had a mark, the mountain lions. They were already used to hunting them, and even though they didn't know which specific mountain lions hurt them before, they would still count it as having their revenge.
The duo of cats had very predictable patterns, at least for creatures that had stalked them for days. After they came to drink they would go for an evening hunt, and that was when Ciaran had them strike.
The mountain lions were hunting a herd of deer. And luckily for the boy and his familiar, the deer would fight back. The mountain lions were ferocious, they jumped from high ground and took down, two of the deer instantly.
The rest of the herd retaliated, and the preditors suffered a lot of injuries. It was a miscalculation on the side of the cats. Ever since the Migration, herbivores were sticking in larger groups, and this made hunting them much more dangerous.
Creatures at this altitude were at least Rank One with very few Rank Zeros. And the Zeros were just the young of the strong beasts.
The cats suffered a few broken teeth, and one of them even had a broken rib. They were even chased away, running in shame from their own prey.
Just when they thought they were safe, they suddenly fell down paralyzed.
Ciaran had just used a single one of his paralyzers for both of them. Then he and his familiar just dropped down from one of the exits of their base and finished the job. They did it fast and painlessly, just a quick snap of the neck for both cats. Then they dragged them back up in front of their sister.
"See, nice and easy. No need to worry about us Sis, we will just be enjoying our little camping trip." And he flashed her his iconic evil businessman smile. What really creeped her out, however, was that Ariadne was starting to copy his gestures, as she also attempted to pull off the Devil's smile.