Beastmen: She Tames the Land-Chapter 91: Finishing the gates

Visha wakes up the next morning feeling refreshed.

She has had to travel every day for the past few days. She didn’t really have time to relax. While she knew she was doing this for the pack, it didn’t make the journey any less tiring.

Last night, before going to bed, she made sure to hand the binder-reed over to Uri and Xeno. She didn’t want to cause any delay with the gate. She knew it would take a while for them to make it. Especially since they needed to make two gates to prevent people from entering.

They decided they would not mention the bond just yet. Building the gates was important. Even if someone wanted to pass on information ot another tribe, it would take more than 10 ten suns for them to approach the caldera. Not to mention actually sending out information. The only person who would be able to do it is Kaelen.

Visha’s worry about betrayal dwindled as the days passed. The three new members were still being monitored by the trio, but they were more relaxed around them. The more they got to know them, the more they felt it was unlikely for there to be any problems.

Now, all they needed to do was finish the gates and then do the ritual. This way, the trio would be completely at ease.

It was another day of building.

It has been almost twenty days since they started creating the gate. It was over ten feet high.

"Again!" Xeno roared.

He and Cato shifted and threw their combined weight against the gate. The gate made a groaning sound, only moving an inch before stopping.

The problem was the pivot point. They tried using ironwood, but it kept getting warped and splintered when they tried. Using cement was like one boulder rubbing against the other. Neither of the two was a solution.

Now, they are back to square one with a wide-open back door. This time, they have the means to close it, but that means is missing a piece.

Panting and frustrated, Cato said, "It’s useless. We need something harder. It needs to be slippery too."

"Something hard and slippery? Where would we get that? I don’t think there is anything in the entire caldera that would meet those requirements." Xeno grumbled. He was acting like a child instead of a leader, which showed how frustrated he was.

The pack members were gathered here today to think of a way to get the gate moving. So far, none of the options they had suggested worked. At one point, someone had suggested using tangle-root to simply tie it together. But that idea snapped just as quickly as the tangle-root did.

"If we can’t solve this one, what about the second gate? Are we going to make it and then be unable to close it?" Willa asked.

The current frustrations of the pack led to people speaking a little more freely than usual. Uri and Xeno didn’t reprimand them. They knew there were going to be times when people needed to vent. It became a problem when they disrespected their leaders and priestess.

So far, no one has said anything disrespectful about either.

Visha stood by watching everything that was happening. She herself wasn’t sure how to approach the problem of the gate. She could only listen to suggestions. She was the one who suggested using the same concrete, only to learn a hard lesson.

As she stood, a system notification came up.

[Task: The two keys]

[Objective: Build defensible gates at both known entrances of the caldera]

[Reward: 150 CP]

The system sending this notification did nothing to lift Visha’s mood. Instead, it made things worse. She didn’t see a visible answer or even an invisible one. She could only wait until they made some kind of breakthrough.

That breakthrough came a day later. Cato had hunted a rock-hide boar outside the caldera. He had just finished skinning it. He took up one of the tusks, thinking to make an accessory for himself. When he shifted and tried to use his claws to cut the tusk, he realized he only scratched it. He tried a few more times, but couldn’t make it break.

He had called Uri over, hoping he might have a way to break it. Instead, Uri came up with the idea of using it as a pivot.

"This is not bone. If it were, you would be able to crush it. The feel is more like a tooth."Uri asks Xeno to try to break it.

Xeno presses hard on the tusk and realizes that it bends but doesn’t break.

Uri’s eyes lit up when he heard this. They had been thinking about the problem of the pivot. If this tusk is hard enough not break from Xeno or Cato but is still flexible, it might be the perfect thing to use.

Uri looked at Cato. "Wonder if you are willing to have us try it as a pivot?"

Cato didn’t think much of it. He nodded and carried the tusk to the gate. Uri, Cato, and Xeno tried to insert that tusk; it fit.

The three tried to move the gate. To their surprise, it moved much more easily than it did before. This meant the first problem was solved. The next problem was making another gate.

The constant work, while fulfilling, was also tiring.

That evening, while they were resting, Kaelen came to Uri and Xeno.

"I will patrol the gates. You don’t need to think of them as two different problems. There are simply two gates with one solution. I will be the solution."

Uri and Xeno listened to his suggestion. Kaelen coming to them with such a proposal wasn’t out of the question. The entire pack knows the issue they are facing now. There are too many things to do with too few people. Kaelen’s offer to patrol both gates from the skies is the best route.

So, the suggestion became a reality. While they made the second gate, Kaelen was a constant source of vigilance. He was able to monitor both gates. They still made sure to have a guard, but now the security of the caldera was end-to-end.

Kaelen was able to find his unique strength in the pack.