The sun was already up when Gar woke the next day, he didn’t mind he was comfortable and for a brief moment he almost forgot his fears. All too soon they came back to him and he was up and ready to start his day, to be doing anything keep his mind busy. The first things to be done where the morning chores; checking the traps, and collecting water. He had not received any notifications of kills so no luck there but there were probably still some traps that had been disturbed and needed resetting, he was also contemplating if he needed to set out more traps, so gathering his bag, spear and bucket he set out. He was able to gather some more nuts and pods at the axen tree and check the snares even adding some nuts as bait to some, and then it was onwards to the river. He still moved carefully through the woods despite getting a bit more comfortable with the route, his fear wouldn’t let him be anything but careful. He took a drink and a quick wash in the river.
A surprise waited as he checked the traps along the river front, having not received any kill notifications he hadn’t expected to find anything, there was something though. It must have worn itself out trying to escape because there was a ball of fur in the middle of an area of devastation; broken branches and leaves, dug up and churned earth. The snare had been attached to the trunk of a tree and had held; whatever it was must have tired itself out because it was curled in a ball seemingly asleep. The creature hadn’t seemed to of noticed Gar at that point so he backed up. His heart was racing here he was again he was going to have to take a risk, his fear was spiking, but also something pushing him forward. Backing up even further Gar decided he needed to think about what he was going to do; he couldn’t rush in and make a foolish mistake that cost him his life. So what did he know; there was a furry creature about the size of a dog resting not far ahead, it was most likely caught in some way in one of the snares. From what Gar could see he had three options, Kill it, leave it, or try to let it go. As bad as he felt for the trapped thing Gar quickly eliminated trying to let it go, it was maximum risk for no reward. Just leaving it would be the safest option in a few days it would die or something else would take it out before then, but he would have to abandon this whole area he couldn’t risk coming back and it having attracted something else or simply managed to break free, besides he didn’t know how long it would take for the thing to die. Killing it now was a medium risk option but the biggest reward, if he killed it he would have meat for at least a few days and the fur as well as anything else that could be made from its body, but to kill it he would have to attack and if he attacked it, it would attack back even if still caught in the snare, not that he knew for certain it was.
Gar decided that if he could do it safely he would kill it but if not he would leave it and see what happened. First he gathered a few berries and a bucket of water and took it back to base; leaving everything at base except his spear he headed back to where he had seen the creature. It was in the same place as he had seen it before a ball of fur in a patch of destruction. The major piece of information Gar wanted to know was whether this thing was still trapped here or could run after him, so staying just close enough he could see it clearly with observe on Gar started circling around it away from the river, taking slow steps, careful not to break sticks or otherwise make excess noise. He was about three quarters of the way round the creature before he was able to see what he was hopping for the snare was wrapped around one of its back legs, Gar could see blood from where it had cut into the leg when pulled tight, continuing slowly round Gar was happy it was securely trapped there. So he worked his way back moving at the same slow speed, he didn’t want to attract attention he still didn’t know what was in these woods. He had been thinking as he came back though and by the time he was back where he started he had a plan. He got what he needed for the plan, when he was ready he had a pile of about fifty fist sized rocks next to him as he stood about ten meters from the creature spear in one hand a stone in the other. Taking careful aim he threw the stone at the creature and hit centre mass. The creature woke snapping and snarling of teeth and claws, it turned straight towards Gar who was stood watching but ready to run. It leapt at him but got pulled up by the snare round its leg. Gar had recognised it though it was a badger the distinct black and white markings, the head shape there was no mistaking it. After being pulled up the badger turned and snapped at the snare and its trapped leg. Gar picked up another stone and threw hard; missing the badger completely picking up another Gar threw again and again
“New skill acquired throwing level 1”
He was getting close to the end of his pile of stones before he got the awaited message
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“You have killed a level 4 badger 12 experience awarded”
Not wanting to spend any more time here Gar quickly freed the dead badger leg gathered up the wire for the snare, nothing else was going to get caught in this patch of destruction, wire in his pocket Gar slung the badger over his shoulders picked up his spear and headed back to base. Ascending the ladder up was tricky he couldn’t hold the badger in place and hold onto the ladder so he ended up dropping a rope down and hoisting the body up. He looked over at his shelter, he had wanted to make a good start on waterproofing it and finishing it off, but he knew this badger was quite a windfall and couldn’t be put off or it would go bad.
Gar hung the body by its back legs from one of the trees and then using his knife slit its throat to let it bleed out, a part of Gar disliked wasting anything and wanted to collect the blood in case he found a use for it, he did not have enough containers for it though so just let it run out. While he waited for that he used some of the wood around to build and start a new fire in the pit. When the blood had stopped running Gar started to remove the organs, pulling the muscle and skin away he cut into the front of the body being careful to not go to deep and cut any organs, once the hole was large enough to get his hand inside he was able to push the organs in while pulling the skin and muscle out to get a nice vertical cut from breastbone to anus, from there he was able to remove the organs trying to identify them as they were removed, the only ones he was absolutely confident in where the heart and liver and he put them to one side. This would have been easier if the body hadn’t been swinging around, so to fix that Gar carved two simple wooden pegs and tied them to the front legs before spreading and driving them into the ground. Which gave much less swing, for which Gar was glad as the next step wasn’t easy he started using his sharpest knife his conrex claw one, to skin the badger. Slowly with several slips putting holes in the hide, cutting away until it was removed he had to untie it to completely remove the hide so he did the last of it on the ground. Once he had it removed he laid the pelt out on the ground in the sun fur side down for now, it would need more doing to it but the meat needed dealing with first. Laying the body out on his flat rock he decided it was best to take it apart.
First he started by removing a back leg.
“New skill acquired butchery level 1”
After that he started to get a bit more of a feel for what he was doing but he still made lots of mistakes and there was plenty of waste, his butchery skill had improved by the time he was done
“Butchery levelled up butchery level 2”
He had kept one of the back legs whole while the rest of the meat had been removed from the bone and cut into thin strips with all fat removed he had also removed the tongue and eye balls, when he had got to the brain that was going too far for him he already had more meat than he could eat before it went bad but he was still reluctant to waste anything, still the brain was a step to far. Gar filled the larger saucepan with water then he put several of the bones with the most scraps of meat on them, the diced tongue, liver, heart and eyes as well as some cut up axen pods in, before hanging it quite high over the fire. It would slowly boil with the lid on it, he was hoping for something like a stew cooked slowly to soften the tough meat he was using, he had no idea how it would taste but figured it would be edible and different from just roasting it so why not try it, that was going to take a while though so for something a bit sooner Gar raked some coals to one side then placed the frying pan on them, before cutting the meat into chunks off the leg he had kept, and dropping them in the pan it didn’t take long before the scent of frying meat filled his nose. He cooked them until they were well done just in case; normally he would prefer his meat a bit bloody. The meat when eaten was a bit tough with a strong taste very irony and gamey but still pleasant enough to eat, a bit of seasoning would have been nice. Once he had eaten and washed up a bit, Gar got on with sorting the rest of the meat before it went bad.
Gar only knew of several methods to preserve meat; freezing, cooling, salting or drying. With no fridge or freezer and no access to ice the first two were out, he had no salt either so that was also out. The only other method was to dry it out but he didn’t really know how to do that but it was the best option he had, so he had cut the meat into thin strips hoping they would dry quickly and evenly, he had also made sure to cut off any fat as he knew that went bad quickly, next he needed a rack to dry them on. First he tried using several sticks with a small Y shape at the top and stabbing them into the ground to stand but he hit rock too quickly and was not able to get them to stand up, so instead he made a couple of A frames making sure the tops overlapped leaving a V to rest a stick in, then taking a sturdy thin straight stick he sharpened one end and started stabbing strips of meat onto the stick and spacing them out along its length. The stick was then secured to the top of the two A frames allowing the whole structure to stand up. Several more sticks of skewered meat where then fastened across the two A frames down each side. By the time all the meat was hanging Gar had three such frames spaced out in the sun.
