Gar dragged himself up staggered away from the body and collapsed down against a tree. Despite the blow and the scratches he took Gar wasn’t feeling much pain, just a little numb really and a bit fuzzy headed. When he was sat and still he noticed a new icon in his vision a green tear drop shape in a black circle. Selecting it, it opened a new notification
“You have been poisoned slumbering vine sap 3:47 remaining”
It took him a moment to understand the notification and as he watched the number went down with the seconds, with only slightly over three minutes left and an addled head Gar decided to just sit there and wait. He knew as soon as the poison was gone because the pain was back and less obviously his head cleared, with the hint from its name and what he experienced he guessed the sap was some kind of anaesthetic and sedative if he had been scratched a few more times or eaten some of it, he probably would of passed out, with his mind clearer he started having a look at his wounds, his side didn’t seem too bad he had a couple of scratches but they already seemed to have stopped bleeding, his arm was a bit worse there were a couple of large scratches where the barbed thorns had caught in then been ripped out, there was also a couple of barbed tips still caught in the arm. The barbed thorns needed to come out, but they had snapped off under the skin, he gritted his teeth and started working the sharp tip of his index finger into the first scratch with a thorn in it, it was not a pleasant experience for Gar for the next few minutes but he got all the thorns out of his arm, his arm was bloody but had mostly stopped bleeding other than the last scratch he had been poking about in. Even though he was done dealing with his wounds he spent some more time just sat there letting his heartbeat return to normal after the fight, he pulled out some dried meat from his bag to snack on, more as an excuse to stay sitting for a bit longer rather than because he was hungry.
Gar had originally just wanted a few vines to take with him, now however he wanted to take the whole thing, needing to see what that entailed he started grabbing small bundles of the thin vines and hauling them in coiling them up on the ground at his feet as he did so, each Vine was between thirty to fifty meters long and he had collected thirty seven of them. So once all bundled up it was a large pile, fortunately he had only needed to climb up and free a couple of particularly stubborn vines to get them all back, most moved with a pull. Looking at the pile he knew he wasn’t going to be able to carry it all, that however was a problem he had already solved so he started building a large sled, it was larger than the first sled he had made but also better quality, his meagre skills still showing through. Putting the main body of the plant onto the sled he then tied the vines into bundles and the bundles together so they wouldn’t fall off the sled, the final thing he did was to collect the larger pieces of broken thorny vine, where the plant had landed on them, and put them on top of the pile on the sled. He headed back towards the cliff face because it would be easier to pull the sled along the clearer area at its base. He could move the sled but it was hard work, he could see his stamina dropping with every step but he was determined, he had fought and bled, he was going to keep his prize.
He got to the cliff wall and was ready for a break, he practically collapsed down against the cliff as he dropped the sled, his stamina wasn’t empty but it was low. He hoped for an easier journey now that he was out from the trees, before setting of again he grabbed some old sticks from the forest and made a large arrow on the ground pointing into the woods to mark where he had got to in exploring. In some ways he got what he hoped for, he stopped thinking and focused on one foot in front of the other, he stopped whenever his stamina reached twenty-five percent until it was full then kept walking all the way back to the base of the ladder.
His hauling had gone up twice on the journey
“Hauling levelled up hauling level 4”
“Hauling levelled up hauling level 5”
Gar was weary with tiredness it seemed emptying and letting your stamina refill so many times took it out of you. Gar took a few of the broken pieces up the ladder, dropped his bag, before grabbing his cup and taking a drink from his barrel, then another, he needed to work out a way to bring water with him. Tired he still had a job to do before he could stop; he climbed back down the ladder with a rope. The rope was tied round the body of the slumbering vine, all the vines where untied from each other and there bundles to let them hang. Up the ladder he went rope in hand, round the tree then he started pulling hoisting the body off the plant up to his ledge, the body was rolled over the lip onto the edge then pulled up a bit more, next handfuls of vines where carefully hauled up and coiled. Gar had intended to do more, possibly even go back and continue exploring but with how tired he was that wasn’t going to happen so instead he sat as he drank all the water he wanted and ate dried meat it was still light when he turned in for the night.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“New stats added to status +1 endurance”
Gar was always happy to start his day with new stat points, as he crawled out of his shelter he was reminded of his exploits the previous day when he saw the slumbering vine, and it just made him feel tired and wanting to go to bed, he was up now though so he would stay up, he had to finish exploring the woods. For once he didn’t need to collect water so he could start the day off a bit slower, it was a refreshing change of pace, he still needed to check his snares by the river but figured as he hadn’t gotten any kill notifications there was no rush and he would check them that evening instead. He started his morning with something he hadn’t been doing enough lately, a wash with a bucket full of water out of his log barrel, he stripped of his trousers and gave himself a full wash, he missed having soap, at least he was able to get off the blood and the sticky sap from yesterday as he stood there wet and naked he looked at his trousers they were the only pair he had and they were a mess he had been wearing them pretty much all the time since he got here, the first step was to wash them so with another bucket of water he started scrubbing, the water was brown in moments and had to be replaced with a fresh bucket, once he had them as good as he was going to get. He was now damp and his only trousers were soaking wet, while he was confident there was no one else here he was not going to go exploring the forest naked. So he built himself a fire.
“Fire starting levelled up fire starting level 3”
A pleasant surprise if not an inevitable one he was lighting fires nearly daily. With his trousers laid out on a rock near the fire Gar gathered his backpack from where he had dropped it he pulled out the sack with the nettles. When he had eaten nettles before he had only collected the fresh growth and new leaves at the top of the stems and left the rest because they were the best tasting bits but it took a lot longer to collect a decent amount and he wasn’t in a situation to be fussy. He started stripping the fresh growth and all the leaves from the stem and dropping them into a pan, he worked methodically and despite his best efforts he still got stung a few times but by the last couple of stalks he had got the hang of it and moved through them without any more accidents, he washed the picked leaves with water drained that away before refilling the pan with water and hanging the whole lot over the fire to boil. He didn’t really know what to do with the stalks particularly as he was hoping the vines would be a much better source of fibres for cordage. Still he had space to keep them around so he laid them out in the sun to let them dry. By that point his trousers where mostly dry, but he still had some repairs to do before putting them on. The worst area was the bottom of one leg that was in tatters full of rips and holes. Gar took his knife and made a nice straight cut across the leg just above the worst of it, he then rolled the new edge up a little to stop it fraying and started sewing with a needle and thread, before doing his best to sew up each of the rips. Once finished he had a repaired pair of trousers one leg longer than the other and a new skill to show for it
“New skill acquired sewing level 1”
Gar slid on his trousers happy to be wearing something again even if he was alone, he checked the pan and it was boiling away the leaves wilted, figuring it was ready to eat, he took the pot off from over the fire and set it down to start eating the nettles. It was quite nice to be eating something different after days of the same food, he got about halfway through them before he had had enough and with nothing else pressing to do he put out the fire grabbed his bag and spear, to head back to exploring the forest.
He had worried his arrow had been disturbed overnight but he found it easily enough and continued his zigzag exploration of the forest back towards base. The first site of interest he came across that day was an axen tree laden with pods, he made sure to fill a sack with them because he was still quite far from base. He needn’t have worried about filling up on the pods so early as he was finding axen trees more and more regally as he walked it seemed they were quite common in this forest which was a relief as they were a good source of food and the nuts would last a long time without needing preserving, he did his best to make a mental map of where the axen trees were to make it easier to find them again later.
