“New stats added to status; +1 willpower, +1 wisdom”

  A welcome message to wake up too, Gar still couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed he felt he should have gotten at least a point in perception for all his work the previous day but he was grateful for what he got, so he didn’t complain too much. He got his stuff together on autopilot it seemed he had gotten used to his life and his new morning chores to the point he didn’t even think about it anymore. That all stopped when he was stood at the edge of the plateau by his rolled up ladder. He had known this was coming but hadn’t wanted to think about it, had hoped that by just doing things without thinking he would just get it done. No such luck the fear that had been building since he had woken up, increasing as he got closer to that point. The some fear he had felt the previous day that had sent him running back to his base. As he stood looking down he felt a twinge of phantom pain running from his shoulder and down his back, it threatened to paralyse him with fear. Gar knew he needed water, and knew he would need to get more food at some point he couldn’t just stay on this ledge forever, humans could go three days without water, he didn’t know what it was for gargoyles but figured it couldn’t be much different and in that time he would only get weaker and weaker, it was better to go than to wait until he was to weak. Despite knowing that Gar still just stood there staring into the woods bellow. Stood there he admitted something to himself, this world terrified him but even so he had decided he would fight to live and to do that he needed water.

  With no further thought he kicked the ladder over the edge and climbed down, once at the bottom he stopped, looked around and listened. There was nothing standing out, he may have decided he needed to do this but he was going to be as careful and cautious as possible when doing so, he moved slowly stepping round fallen branches and dry leaves trying to make as little noise as possible. Stopping frequently whenever he heard any suspicious noises or when anything caught his eye, still there were no signs of anything out of the ordinary. When he got to the axen tree he thought about stopping to investigate, there was as much devastation and destruction as he had seen previously and no nuts or pods to gather so thinking better of hanging around he just kept going. His slow pace wouldn’t give it away but he just wanted to get some water and get back as quick as possible. He kept up his slow and cautious pace all the way to the river where he spent several minutes checking the coast was clear, hid in the last of the tree line before dashing out and into the river. He stood ankle deep in the water, filled his bucket up took a look around, tipped it back and took a long deep drink from it before filling it again, with his thirst eased he made his way back to base with the same cautious movement he had used on the way there. The trip was slow but uneventful he got back to the base of the cliff to find he had forgotten to fix down the base of the ladder he had to climb up grab the pegs he had been using, then come back down again to fix the ladder in place before he could climb up with his bucket of fresh water, with one successful trip done and as much as he didn’t want to leave again Gar used the bucket to fill the saucepans then made a second trip, that went much the same as the first to refill the bucket.

  Gar started a fire, despite having a big drink each time he visited the river he was still thirsty, so he was going to make some pine needle tea, not wanting to boil all the water in the saucepan Gar scooped some out in his metal cup and set it on the stones around the fire, it would take a while to boil. While he waited he ate some dry meat and planned his day, he wanted to get back to mana control training but he disliked his situation the previous day where he had no water, so a water store was something he needed so that would be todays task. First though Gar was going to sit and enjoy some food and tea. Once his breakfast was finished Gar gathered his chisels and knives and tested there edge, he found some of them lacking so with his whetstone he honed their edge and sharpened them.

  “New skill acquired sharpening level 1”

  With his tools sharp he went to the remnants of the tree he had felled, there was still a relatively large length of the trunk unused; using his saw he cut a meter long section of the trunk off. The trunk was thinner here than it had been at the base but was still about two thirds of a meter thick, standing it on one end and working from the top he used the chisels to start carving away at the centre of the piece with the aim to leave himself a nice hollow barrel to store water in. It was going well with the carving by mid-day he was about halfway down his section of trunk, it was getting harder to work though as he got deeper

  “Woodworking levelled up wood working level 2”

  “New subskill acquired carving level1 subskill of wood working”

  That was a new message, subskill, that was interesting Gar guessed that they were sets of skills all related to the skill they were sub of, interesting he wondered what other sub skills he might find. Either way his hands where sore and he was hungry so he took a break for some lunch, it was just a simple meal of the last of the axen pods boiled and some nuts, Gar knew he should get back to his log barrel it was of high priority but his hands hurt and his arms ached, and there was something he wanted to be doing instead. Exploring magic it had captivated him since he first found out it was real and the opportunity to use it himself was something he was unwilling to give up on. He put off finishing his barrel and dived back into playing, training, mana control. With little effort he activated mana vision and flipped his vision to see his mana core, it sat much the same as the previous day, despite staring at it for most of a day it still fascinated Gar. It was his key to unlocking magic of his own. He started where he left off the previous day, getting the mana to swirl, it took a bit of time but he got back to where he could swirl a little as he wished. He was unsure about the next step he should take. Should he try to get more of the mana to swirl at once or should he try to get a small bit to move further? What decided it for him was the flow of mana round his body, he didn’t know how it did it or why but he didn’t want to mess it up and if he took control of most or all the mana in his core then it might stop or mess up the flow, and he did not want to find out what that did. So it was safer to stick with moving a small bit he was just going to move it further, with that in mind his first goal was getting it out of the core. He managed it sometime late in the afternoon but the mana wanted to immediately spread out around the core he was just starting to be able to keep control of it when he called it a night. He had said one more try to himself over a dozen times at that point and it had long since become night. Not bothering to cook he ate some dried meat before heading to bed.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  His next few days where a repetition of that, he would work on his water store in the morning and his mana control in the afternoon eating through his supply of dried meat and a few remaining axen nuts. Those days had been good for Gar a bit of routine, and work to keep his hands and mind busy, he also saw his skills rise

  “Woodworking levelled up woodworking level 3”

  “Woodworking levelled up woodworking level 4”

  “Subskill carving levelled up carving level 2”

  “Subskill carving levelled up carving level 3”

  “Mana control levelled up mana control level 4”

  “Mana control levelled up mana control level 5”

  “Mana control levelled up mana control level 6”

  He also had a new log barrel with a cut disc of trunk as a lid, and his new mana control allowed him to do much more. He could move a bit of mana anywhere around his internal channels bringing it to any part of his body or even forming a bubble of it on the tip of his finger, the only problem he was having was the mana seemed to be sticky or like a string. He would move only a small bit of the mana from his core and it brought mana along behind it, when he brought mana to the tip of his finger it had a string of mana from the ball on his finger running all the way back into his core, this didn’t seem to do anything but it just wasn’t what Gar was trying to do so it annoyed him. Even so he was immensely happy with his progress; he just needed to work out how to use what he had learned to cast some actual spells.

  However with his water barrel finished the previous day it was time to fill it up. Having seen no more signs of disturbance Gar was starting to gain some confidence back in the trip to the river he was now walking normally not the slow stop start he had been doing, he still kept his head on a swivel always looking around ready for any sign of danger but he came across none. That day Gar did ten trips to the river to collect water and he hadn’t even half-filled his new water store, it was taking too much time, he had plans for the day. He left it at that there was plenty of water in his barrel for several days at least so he could get on with something else. That something else was exploring, he would have much rather just stayed at his base and worked on mana control but if he ever wanted to get out of this hole and too civilisation he needed to explore more, for all he knew there where stairs out not far away he just hadn’t found them. The other reason he needed to explore was that his food was going to run out, he had a fair bit of meat left but it wouldn’t last forever and with the axen tree picked clean one of his sources of food was gone he needed to find more. So that was what he was doing that day.

  Before that was breakfast, a big meal of dried meat and as much water as he could drink. It was then onto packing, it wasn’t going to be a long trip but he still would need some supplies, so his backpack was filled with; a knife, thread, rope, some dried meat to snack on, his burlap sacks in case he found anything, and the rest of his wire in case he found a place to lay some more snares as his current locations where showing no more luck. Bag packed he put it on his back and picked up his spear it was time to start exploring, Gar felt a bit of a thrill and a rise of the risk taking impulse but it was quickly squashed by the all-pervasive fear that had settled in him he was only exploring because it would be more dangerous in the long run not to. His aim for the day was to explore the woods at the base of his platform, he knew it was only about a kilometre in length and was wide enough to fill most of the space between the cliff face and the river.

  At the bottom of the ladder Gar started walking in an upstream direction following the cliff wall, he was going to follow the cliff wall until he got to the end of the forest before coming back the other way zigzagging between the wall and the river, that way he might not see it all but would see a large part of the forest and get to know a bit more about what is in it. Gar walked at a gentle pace as he followed the cliff round, he had observe active and was keeping an eye on the tree line to his left , he had several meters of clear space between the cliff and the tree line, it was rocky with a few stones presumably from the crumbling cliff face. As well as looking out for danger Gar was watching for anything that might be useful, in particular he was hoping to find another axen tree, the one he had found had been a good source of food until it was picked clean, and nuts lasted a long time so would be good for storing. He didn’t know how long he would be there.