Nothing changed in terms of the view, but Ridge did notice that the more they travelled west, the flatter the ground seemed to be. He was unsure of the cause, but he wasn't going to complain. Flat lands were much easier to travel than hills and cliffs.
What he was hoping to find was naturally the Veltrite ore, so to ensure that they didn't miss anything, he had the men travel parallel to each other. Obviously, in case of emergencies, he didn't want anyone to be helpless, so they weren't split too far from each other, but in this way they covered much more ground.
Continuing west, the group stopped occasionally to crouch down and check if they spotted some ore, but there was no such luck. All they found were normal rocks just slightly discolored from the others in their surroundings.
The method eventually showed itself to be useful when, an hour into their travels, Ridge himself ended up finding more ore. This time it was what they were really looking for. Veltrite ore. Picking up the silvery-blue ore, Ridge smiled. Opening his comms, he let the others know that their mission was essentially complete.
"It only took a day and then some to find what we were looking for. Nice job, men. We'll form up once more and finish scouting west. We'll see if these rocky plains lead to the body of water in the west, then return home."
The others responded positively, some with simple congratulations to the group and others merely replying to Ridge's order to regroup. Looking at the signal on his wrist panel, he saw that it was still surprisingly strong enough to reach home base. Raising his brow, he didn't question it. Sending out the coordinates to Caroline, he saw that it buffered slightly longer than usual when using his panel for messages and figured the distance was the cause. It didn't take long for it to confirm he had sent it.
He had also sent out the coordinates for the first deposit they found while out here; he could have sent it out earlier, but for some reason he figured they were too far and didn't bother to check the signal then. It didn't really matter anyway, so he just shrugged it off.
Clearing his head of any complicated thoughts, he waited a few minutes for the group to come together once more before setting out further west. This time they weren't going to specifically look for any deposits, so anything they came across now could only be described as them being lucky.
The supplies they took would only last them around three days total. Ridge didn't know exactly how long it would take to possibly reach that body of water he was thinking about, but if at some point they weren't able to spot anything a little later in the afternoon, he would just call it off and return to base with their remaining supplies.
The rocky bedrock and gravel that they had been travelling on slowly transformed into more grass the further west they went, and soon enough they appeared to have entered a plains-like environment. The grass here wasn't as difficult to traverse as the foliage within the forest, fortunately, so they relished the change in scenery. As well as the lack of jagged cliffs and hills.
Hours passed...
The grasslands they were going across seemed to have nothing of interest to Ridge and the group until one of the men halted the group and pointed out at something.
"Look there," he whispered excitedly, "In the distance, an animal grazing."
The group quickly crouched down behind a small hill, peeking over carefully; they noticed in the distance what he was pointing at.
There was an animal in the distance eating grass. Ridge used the camera within his helmet to zoom in and get a better view. It was grazing on its own; it looked extremely similar to a deer. The only major difference he could tell from this distance was that it had an extra set of eyes, but other than that it closely resembled the four-legged animal they were familiar with. It had short brown fur, small horns which likely indicated its gender, though Ridge couldn't say for sure, and finally, its size was roughly the same as the full-grown deer back on Petania.
"Did anyone bring any kinetic rifles with them?"
Ridge asked quietly, to which one of the scouts responded positively.
"I brought one just in case we encountered any animals to kill. I need to get closer for a better shot, though," he answered.
Nodding at him, Ridge gestured for the group to slowly crawl through the grass. There didn't seem to be any wind, so they didn't need to be afraid of their scent startling the animal.
Minute by minute, they inched closer and closer, until they could see the whites of the animal's four eyes. Stopping, the scout with the kinetic rifle inhaled slowly and aimed.
Seconds passed before Boom! A bullet shot out.
The animal seemed to react instantly, raising its head and attempting to flee, but the bullet was quicker. With a thump, it hit the head of the animal, and its body instantly slumped down onto the ground with a thud.
Letting out his breath, the scout reloaded and switched the gun back to automatic.
"Great shot,""Nice one," Awesome."
The group responded by patting him on the shoulder and praising him. Ridge merely patted him on the shoulder and walked over to the carcass.
Unlike the red blood that the animals they were used to let out, this one bled violet. Similar to the color of the sky.
"Hm, interesting," he murmured before picking the carcass up and putting it over his shoulders.
The others had also, at some point, finished their praise session and curiously looked at the animal.
"We'll finish the scouting mission here. Let's head back to base before this corpse spoils and rots. We still have a day's worth of travel left, so we will also rotate the person carrying the carcass," He ordered.
The others nodded, and they began their journey back. To Ridge, it seemed like this trip south was much more materially valuable than the one in the north.
Though in his mind it had its own value as well. They not only discovered the first animals then, but had also found an enemy nest and a new type of fungi soldier. Either way, the information from these scouting missions was always valuable. He couldn't wait until they had the ability to deploy drones; it would more than likely open up a wealth of information that they missed or were unable to get previously.
They travelled in a relatively straightforward manner, so using his sense of direction, he led the group north from where they were and just kept on moving across the grassy plains until finally, after who knows how many hours, after the sky had gotten darker and darker, they made it to a tree line. It wasn't the same as the one they came from, but it was still very likely an entrance to Tall Trees, which was good enough. At some point, they could simply use the signal from their wrist panel as a compass once they entered, so Ridge wasn't too worried.
Naturally, since it was so dark, he had the group first create a camp just outside of it and, like the very first camp in the north, gathered wood from the nearby trees to start a fire. Although the temperature wouldn't really bother them in the suits, once they got into darker environments like these, Ridge always liked to have light for the lookouts to see more clearly.
Of course, having fires or other lights is like a beacon out in the plains especially, but he had no other choice. It was either that or attempting to be a lookout in the dark, which definitely wouldn't end well either way.
Unfortunately, their current suits weren't the type that had access to night vision; those were usually equipped for the actual army or special operations units, rather than navy units who usually spent more time fighting and living in space than on the ground.
With tents and more camping supplies, this time around the group was much more comfortable. Of course, the ground changing from bedrock to softer grass also helped.
Not feeling very tired at the moment, though, despite carrying the carcass for a good distance before passing it off to someone else, Ridge volunteered once more to be first watch. Once the fire started up, he simply sat near it and made sure to tend to it while watching his surroundings.
The others quickly fell asleep in their own tents. Looking at the carcass for a minute in silence, Ridge picked it up and brought it over to his tent to hide. It wasn't bleeding as much as when they first grabbed it, but he didn't know if it would attract predators, so he figured he might as well hide it and attempt to mask the scent with the tent. Returning to the fire and sitting down, he let out a breath and continued watching.
After a couple of hours, the next person woke up, and Ridge, having noticed nothing, went to sleep in his tent. Only, he had to move the animal's head to face the tent's walls before he went to sleep; it was a bit unsettling to have a corpse watching you while you slept.