Vhalar 29th, 709
The moment sunlight once again started to drench Idalos the half-breed was already up and read, lining up her compass with her map. All she had to do was keep going north at this point and she was in clear. Except there was one issue. The compass was going absolutely insane on her for reasons she couldn't begin to understand. The spinning of needle almost started to make her dizzy as she tried to figure out what was wrong.
Lifting up the compass made it return to normal. The compass pointing perfectly north. The problem was she really needed to line it up with the map itself so she could account for declination. The map was kind and because of its nature it wasn't too big a deal if it wasn't a perfect calculation thanks to how short the distance actually was. However the declination could be a problem in the future without proper caution. The declination was basically the angel between magnetic north and true north. Sometime that could be rather dangerous over very long distance trips if one didn't show at least some form of caution. The half-breed like to think she wasn't an idiot so she wanted to try her best and get her calculations spot on. Just for practice.
There were actually two north poles - the Geographic north pole which is the axis around which the world spins, and the Magnetic north pole which is where compass needles point. And mixing the two up could be a problem when most maps were in relation to geographical, not magnetic.
Which of course led to the problem she was having now. If she couldn't do this properly then she wouldn't be able to actually account for the declination, which would make everything screwy and gross. But what could be making the compass go screwy? Something that could mess with the magnetism could be making the compass go screwy.
Lifting up the map she looked under it quickly. "Are you kidding me?" She muttered quietly to herself as she realized she'd accidentally discarded her flint and steel where she had put down her map. Not only did it pay to be organized, it paid to be a little more observant and she quietly scolded herself for the mistake. She quietly promised herself she'd make no further mistakes that resulted from a lapse of observational skills! Not only that, but she almost lost her flint and steel, which would have been terrible if she found herself having to stay out in the wilderness for another night. She didn't actually know how to build a fire the, you know, old-fashioned way yet. When it came to actual fire starting methods she was clueless beyond belief. Far beyond belief.
Humming to herself quietly as she checked over the map and the compass she nodded to herself. She tilted the compass slightly so as to let the needle move ever so gently. When she was satisfied with the direction she'd be following she put the map away but kept the compass out. The other day she'd used aiming off to keep her bearing without constantly looking at the compass, but today she wanted to try and make things a little easier on herself. By just directly looking at the compass she could stay on course without the extra work. Though the practice the other day did help in case she ever lost her compass. Hopefully, it would never have to come to that.
Just as those thoughts were crossing her mind she felt the earth fall away underneath her, her arms fanning out wildly as her vision darted downwards. She didn't get any kind of proper look before the world was rushing past her, her body rag dolling about as she yelped. The compass flew out of her hand with ease during her tumble as she managed to fall down the roughly 3-foot cliff at a top of a steep but luckily not too tall hill. Her body was bounced about with abandon as she careened down to the bottom of the hill, her compass bouncing right alongside her.
Finally, she and the compass came to an uncomfortable stop as the bottom of the hill, all the air rushing from her lungs as she fell flat against a rock. There was a small cracking noise next to her and she felt the compass falling beside her head. Sitting up as quickly as she could with the wind knocked out of her she looked at the compass. The face was busted and the back was wide open. It looked like it had come into contact was a rather sharp rock on the way down as there was a hole all the way through the glass and into the actual face of the thing. The needle was definitely without a fraction of a doubt pointing the wrong direction now.
She felt a slight groan building in the back of her throat as she realized just how much harder her life had gotten. She was completely disoriented and now freshly without a compass. At the very least she'd landed in a relatively clear area. And to think, just that morning she'd been promising herself she wouldn't make any more stupid mistakes thanks to a lapse of observational skills. She was covered in bruises and small cuts, but nothing that Icarus wouldn't be able to fix up when she got back home. Sighing heavily she shook her head as she tried to banish the pain from her conscious thought.
Her biggest concern right now had to be on the fact she needed to once again find her bearing. She wasn't exactly sure which way she was facing now. For all she knew the hill could have really thrown off her sense of direction because she wasn't entirely sure how exactly she rolled. If she went straight down then she would still be facing true north. But if she fell at an angle or the hill itself was angled in an odd way then she could be facing west or east by now.
Her only choice was to try and attempt to use some form of really old-fashioned navigational methods. Looking around at her feet she located a large stick. Large enough she could see the shadow but small enough she could force it into the ground. With a little bit of effort, she did just that and placed a stone at the very end of the shadow. It was lucky it was still early morning. Just like every trial, the sun should rise in the east, meaning that the shadow would be cast in the west.
Looking at the shadow and where the rock was she looked towards the opposite direction. That would mean the opposition to the shadow was her east. Hopefully. She'd Icarus call this the 'stick method' of trying to figure out her direction but the details were still a little fuzzy. She knew that the south should still be behind her. The hill. Which meant she could easily point north! She wasn't entirely certain on what hemisphere she was on and she knew that where the sun rose could change because of it. But ultimately the sun would either rise in the east or the west. And since she was currently looking for the north the east and west didn't really matter. Perhaps there were come a time where she'd need to know from which direction the sun was rising but for now she had a north to go off of. Which was enough to start properly making her way home.
With a small proud nod to herself, she looked in the direction she'd decided was north. It looked like she had fallen straight down the hill.
Now the tricky part. Keeping her direction. If she lost it then hopefully it would get far later in the day. She didn't think her trick would work around noon. In fact, she didn't think her trick would work, at least the way she did it, until very late afternoon. And even then she wasn't entirely certain it would work at all. She'd just been using it mostly to confirm her own belief on the subject that she'd fallen straight down the hill. Which made keeping her bearing all the more important. Luckily she already started practicing yesterday.
Looking dead ahead of her she caught sight of something she could use as a goal point. A small shrub at the base of a tree in the middle of her path if she went far enough. That would be her aiming point. If she just kept walking towards that then she wouldn't have to worry about getting too off course. And then once she got to that point she could just pick a new one.
Without the compass, things had gotten a lot harder. But she still had faith that she could do this! She would survive and Icarus would be really proud of her and she wouldn't have to sleep outside during Zi'da!
