So shelter was now the top priority. He still needed to put handles on his other tools but figured that the axe should be sufficient for now to at least build a basic shelter. Going through his wood pile he put the rest of the trunk aside ready for tool handles, the rest of the branches were to crooked or small to really be good for building anything with so where put aside for firewood. Gazing up at the sky Gar figured he had about an hour before dark so wanting to get this sorted as soon as possible Gar takes his axe and heads out to find some materials for a base. He starts walking around the base of the cliff at the bottom of his plateau, he was looking at the trees trying to find a good one for his needs, there seems to be quite a variety of trees here. He was a little more than half way round his plateau when he spotted a candidate. It was a tall pine about a meter across at the base and sixtyish meters tall; it was a bit away from the cliff edge but tall enough that if gar could get it to fall in the right direction it would hopefully fall straight onto the plateau. So Gar took a few minutes working out the right angle then started swinging the axe to cut a nice big wedge. The axe was sharp and Gars strength wasn’t lacking so it bit into the trunk deeply with every swing, chunks of wood flying in all directions, not really knowing what he is doing Gar worked to take a massive wedge out the side of the tree practically halfway through the thing, before coming round the other side and just straight cutting, it was tiring work and it started to get dark, it had taken a lot longer to cut this tree down than Gar had thought. A few more swings and the tree started to fall it started moving quicker then there was a crash and the base of the trunk started going up, nearly taking Gars head off as it did the tree came to a stop not long after with most of the tree sat up on the ledge only about the bottom fifteen or so meters hanging over the edge.

  “New skill acquired Felling level 1”

  Tired and feeling grimy Gar decided the tree could wait until tomorrow so he headed back up the ladder to base. With a saucepan still full of water he used the water in the bucket to wash up, then he lit a fire, he didn’t have anything to cook on it so he just sat staring into the fire for a while. He was still so scared, he had been trying to keep himself busy to distract himself but he couldn’t get away from it. He had almost died the other day and that terrified him, he had thought this would be his fun adventure like he had read in books. He would level up, become strong, go on quests, and slay monsters. He hadn’t ever considered the fear, the pain. He had no real idea what he was doing and there was no one to help him, he had imagined spending maybe a night in the wilderness before finding a nice little town or village eating and sleeping in an inn at night, hunting monsters for levels in the day. Instead he was here, no signs of civilisation and not even a way to leave, no nicely prepared food just stuff he wasn’t even sure he could eat. Through it all there was still this strange compulsion to do stupid and reckless things, he could ignore it now he knew it was there but it had him second guessing every idea. Tears where now rolling down Gars cheeks as the ball of emotions roiled inside of him he eventually curled up and fell asleep by the fire.

  Waking up Gar already had messages in his vision

  “You have killed level 2 squirrel 2 experience awarded”

  “You have killed level 1 squirrel 1 experience awarded”

  “New stats added to status: + 1 Agility”

  Gar had to take a minute to think and understand what these messages were telling him. He realised a couple of his snares must have been successful which explained the kill messages but he didn’t really know where the agility had come from he didn’t think he had done anything particularly agile yesterday. He put it out of his mind, he didn’t feel any different and more stats were only a good thing. Not feeling any side effects from the berry he had eaten yesterday Gar decided they were probably edible and would make a good breakfast. Gar grabbed up the sack with the berries picked up a handful, when he noticed his axe lying on the floor nearby, and it occurred to him had he been being stupid. Would that work? Gar looked at the berries in his hand and activated inspect

  Thorn berry

  Small sweet berry with a slight sourness

  Uses: Edible, ingredient

  Value:????

  Quality: Good

  Rarity: Common

  Durability: 9/10

  Gar was stuck between laughing and crying, it really just told him it was edible. Wasting no more time he stuck the berries in his mouth enjoying the taste while also grabbing the bag of pods and there nuts. Pulling out a nut and a pod Gar used inspect on each

  Axen Nut

  The nut of an Axen tree grows inside a pod until matured and drops out

  Uses:????

  Value:????

  Quality: Good

  Rarity: Occasional

  Durability: 13/13

  Axen pod

  A pod from the Axen tree in which several nuts develop

  Uses:????

  Value:????

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Quality: Good

  Rarity: Occasional

  Durability: 8/8

  So neither of these showed as edible, did that mean they weren’t but it only showed question marks for uses so he didn’t know what it was for. This was so annoying, would inspect have shown no uses for the thorn berry before he tested it. Gar berated himself for still making stupid mistakes. Eating some more berries as he calmed down, he decided to go check his traps and see if his kills where still there to gather. Grabbing up his backpack, bucket and spear he headed off to see. First stop was at what he now knew was an axen tree that was where he found his snares had been successful, as he removed the first squirrel from the snare he got a welcome surprise

  “Traps levelled up traps level 4”

  It was interesting it appeared he got the kill experience anywhere but needed to actually check the traps to get the skill experience, it was a good thing to know, Gar reset his traps and adjusted a few of the others for squirrel sized prey. He had previously set up various sizes not knowing what was in the area to catch, and he still left some of larger sizes not knowing if squirrels where the only thing in the area. Despite being pretty sure he knew what they were Gar wanted to learn from his mistake so used inspect on both squirrel bodies,

  Grey squirrel level 2 corpse

  The dead body of a woodland mammal the grey squirrel

  Uses: Fur, meat

  Value: ????

  Quality: Average

  Rarity: Abundant

  Durability: 10/15

  Grey squirrel level 1 corpse

  The dead body of a woodland mammal the grey squirrel

  Uses: Fur, meat

  Value:????

  Quality: poor

  Rarity: Abundant

  Durability: 4/12 mangled/ rotten

  The level one corpse was not doing well, the head was nearly severed and the fur was covered in blood and other stuff. Deciding it was not worth taking with him and he might be able to get some use from it as bait he laid it out in one of his larger snares, it crossed his mind to cut it up to bait several snares but it was such a scrawny thing it didn’t seem worth it so with that done the other squirrel in his pack and a bunch of nuts and pods already at base he left the axen tree and continued onto the river. He checked out his other snares along the water front and spent a bit of time resetting a few that had been disturbed but none had caught anything. That done he collected a bucket full of water and headed back to base.

  Back at base Gar decided the best thing to do with the squirrel would be to eat it straight away, as he had no way to preserve it. So he rebuilt the fire in the fire pit and went on to prepare the squirrel. Taking his small but very sharp conrex claw knife he laid out the squirrel on the flat rock he had been using as a work surface and stared for a while, he wasn’t really sure where to start. He finally realised he needed to do two main things; remove the fur and the guts. With no other option but to try Gar started by cutting of the head. He then ran the knife gently down the front of the squirrel to try and only cut the skin, only to realise he hadn’t pushed hard enough and had only left a scratch, trying again but harder Gar split the squirrel open from top to bottom dropping organs onto the slab with a wet slump. It was a disgusting noise, figuring it needed doing anyway Gar switched it up and worked on removing the organs. Not knowing what he was doing with a knife, and not wanting to cause more damage. Gar put it down and holding his breath so as not to gag from what he was about to do, Gar stuck his finger into the cavity and scooped out what was left of the organs, the tip of his finger being sharp enough to sever any remaining connections. Seeing how effective this was Gar moved back to skinning the squirrel but this time used a finger, working the sharp tip of an index finger under the skin along the cut on the front he kept working it round until his hand was a complete mess but the fur was off and the squirrel meat was ready. Not knowing what else to do with it and the body being too small to make taking apart worth it, Gar stuck the whole squirrel on a stick and put it over the fire. It was still early but Gar felt he had already done so much that day and knew that there was still so much to do. He was content in that moment to just sit and watch the fire as his meal cooked he did make the brief exception to get up and use some water to wash his hands after preparing the squirrel but other than that he just sat and turned the squirrel as it needed. Once it was cooked he dug right in, Gar caught himself thinking he never would of thought he would be eating squirrel but then again a lot of things had happened to him recently he never would of thought would happen. That just brought back the memory of the pain. Gar shook his head and stopped thinking and focused on finishing his meal, once done he threw the remains into the fire, and went and grabbed his axe and saw, there were things to be done.

  The tree he had cut last night, the top ten-ish meters had snapped off when it hit the far cliff wall as the tree fell, with the next thirty five-ish meters lying at an angle across the plateau, the last ten-ish meters hanging in mid-air over the edge. Hopping over the trunk Gar first tried pushing then rolling to try and turn the tree to get the rest of it onto the ledge but it wasn’t going to budge. He briefly considered removing branches to decrease the weight and make it easier to roll, but he was hesitant in case he removed too much weight and the whole tree tipped off the edge. Seeing no better option Gar decided to cut off the overhanging piece. Decision made Gar set to it with the axe, cutting the treat a point just before it went over the edge. Gar was much further through the tree than he thought he would be before he started hearing cracking sounds, stepping back he watched as the end snapped the rest of the way off and fell to the ground below. He would have to work out if there was a way to get that up here later. There was still more work to be getting on with, starting with cutting all the branches from the trunk now there was no risk of it toppling off. Gar worked diligently through, only stopping occasionally to grab a drink or eat a few berries, it still took until the middle of the afternoon before the task was done and the branches where all piled up. He took a short break to relax his muscles before he was right back to it, he decided to leave the top section that had broken off as one piece after it had the branches stripped as it was much thinner but the rest of the trunk was going to need to be cut into pieces before he could even attempt to move it. So that’s what he did, cutting it into two and a half meter sections. Throughout this task he was also testing the axen pod for edibility in the same manner as he had the thorn berries.

  Gar had managed to cut ten two and a half meter sections of trunk before it got late enough that he decided to stop. Gar had been working all out to get everything sorted to build a shelter, he had been lucky so far that it hadn’t rained or gotten too cold at night but it would at some point and he didn’t know when so he had to be ready. He collapsed down next to the fire which he had kept going all day chucking in offcuts and scraps of wood from his cutting. He ate the last of the berry’s he had gathered, as he didn’t think they would last much longer anyway. He was also ready for the last test with the pods, picking a nice one out of the sack Gar split it open dropped the two nuts that had been inside back into the sack then took a bite out of the pod, it was fleshy and fibrous with a savoury taste but slightly bitter not great but not enough to stop him eating it, if they were okay he might try cooking them in some way see if that improved the flavour, with that he curled up and went to sleep.