Mastodons are Cooler

Red was pleased to see so many gathering at his call, but he didn't pause in his equipment gathering to do more than grin at everyone before diving back in. Finally everything was gathered to his satisfaction, and even somewhat organized thanks to Fidelias and Cairo's efforts. A quick moment with some charcoal and sticks and tinder, a spark from his firestarter to get the tinder burning to get the sticks burning to get the charcoal burning, then he nudged the pot of pitch towards it to begin to heat before he turned towards the gathered group. "A long time ago," he began with a grin towards the wolves who were undoubtedly not expecting a history lesson, "the world experienced an era of darkness, ice, and snow. Much like we are experiencing, but far longer than the longest lives of wolves. There were many strange creatures that were specially adapted to live in that time that, when it passed, died out. Or..." he paused for dramatic effect. "Or so we thought. There is a creature far taller than a moose or elk, far larger and bulkier than an ox. Bigger than nearly any creature we have now. A leathery skinned quadruped with a long flexible nose and huge tusks - far larger than Kaija's, sorry Kaija - and covered in shaggy hair. They were called mammoths, and somehow there is a herd of them to the north of us! They must have been surviving somewhere far more north than wolves go, somewhere cold enough for them to live, and somehow made their way here, maybe because of the unusually cold weather. And we are going to hunt one!" He didn't mention his fears that the cold, and the return of mammoths, heralded another ice age, and that they might later have desperate need of the preserved meat and fat and hide and hair of a giant beast like that. Let them all think of it as a big adventure.

"My plan was to make torches and set fires to drive them over a cliff," he said, nodding towards the stacked materials. "We could build barriers as well to funnel them towards where we want them to go. Big as they are, they might be able to outdistance us and I don't want them going in a direction we don't want them to go. We'll need relays of wolves to keep them running too fast to think so they don't stop in time. If we're lucky maybe we can get more than one, but either way we'll need to bring them back here, so there's materials here for all of us to put together travois, and maybe add some panniers over the poles for the older wolves to carry even more. I don't want the younger wolves carrying that much weight at their age," he added apologetically to his children, and Justice's, who he was sure would be so very disappointed not to do unexciting manual labor like the grown wolves. "There should be more than enough material here for a torch for everyone, with extras if they burn out, and travois material for everyone. If you all can pitch in we can get them put together quickly and we can head north before they move on. We'll build barriers out of junk trees, brambles, sagebrush, whatever we can get our paws on to pile together in lines to funnel them towards the gorge to the north, so we won't need to carry any supplies for that. We'll make due with what we've got there."

He quickly demonstrated how to make a torch, taking a fairly green wooden limb and combining pitch and moss into a very flammable blob wrapped around the end, ready to be lit. The travois wouldn't be needed until they'd finished the hunt, so those he simply bundled poles and hides together to be carried slung to each side of the simple, makeshift leather harnesses like cart horse poles. He could help the kids with theirs, but he hoped the adults would pick it up quickly enough that they could all get their kits put together without wasting any time. They'd need all the setup time they could get in the north.

OOC: this round they can build torches and ask any questions or concerns or whatever and round 3 we'll fastforward to them working on the barrier in the north, if everyone could get in this second round ASAP that would be great so we can maybe finish before the deadline despite me being gone