Accepting I wasn’t going to be able to get to sleep after a few minutes of listening to Liz’s heavy, content breathing, I decided to shuffle out of bed to go check on Monster Mash.

The fire was still burning, though significantly lower than when we’d gone to bed, forcing me to use the light from my phone to find the ladder.

Avoiding the creakiest rungs, I managed to get upstairs without either of the girls stirring, closing the hatch behind me before the early morning light could creep in and wake them.

Or worse.

Thankfully, it looked like the snow had eased up some as I checked around the kitchen for the van’s key, but with how foggy the windows were, I prepared myself for the worst as I found a spoon with the word ‘VAN’ carved into its handle.

I’d forgotten about that particular annoyance, mostly because it was one of the first things I got fixed the last time around, and with it came a flood of other less than great memories, like the fact that while, yes, there was a sink in the kitchenette, there was no tap.

The door was also even harder to open from the inside, and my heel got a sharp reminder of the exposed nail that curved up through the floorboards.

“You’ll get through it,” I muttered reassuringly to myself as I practically ripped the door open, “just got to get to work.”

That was easier said than done though.

While my Intelligence and whatnot played little part in my day-to-day activities, there was no denying that without the little bonuses of having those stats jacked up I was finding myself far less goal-focused than I’d been a few short hours ago.

Trudging through the snow towards Monster Mash, I had to stop myself from going back inside and crawling into bed several times, and even once I got to the rusty hunk of junk I struggled to remember what I was doing past the icy cold that had gripped me.

Of course, part of that would’ve had to do with the fact that I hadn’t eaten in quite some time and that I’d just woken up, but it hadn’t been that long since I was springing out of bed every morning ready to face the day.

I fought through it though, and managed to force my shaky hand to jam the spoon handle into the keyhole and unlock the van’s side door, a hefty dusting of reddish brown raining from the paneling as I did.

The first thing that caught my eye was the silver axe propped up against the passenger seat and a note stuck to its beautifully polished wooden handle, a small handsaw sitting at its base.

Climbing into and closing the van door behind me, I grabbed the note, ignoring the rest of the stuff around me, and unfolded it.

‘Hope this stuff makes up for the rollback.

Sincerely and wishing you the best of luck,

-N’

I couldn’t help but smile at the note, the thought that he was up there and actually gave somewhat of a damn doing well to improve my otherwise sour mood.

After folding the note and leaning into the front where I could put it in the glove compartment, I fell back into the pile of gear.

There wasn’t anything particularly special, couple of shirts, jeans, socks, three leather wallets and pairs of tan work boots, and two black sweaters.

What really caught my attention though was the single roll of toilet paper.

Truth be told, I hadn’t thought much about the bathroom situation on account of that fact that, despite feeling full and clean after my visit with Nimda, I hadn’t eaten, but upon seeing that roll I realized we really were in for a tough one.

Deciding that focusing on where we were going to go wouldn’t matter if I froze to death, I quickly pulled on some clothes, grabbed up the spares and the tools, and awkwardly shuffled out of the van, almost dropping most of the clothes in the process.

Thankfully I proved to not be completely useless and made it all the way back to the shack without dropping anything only to remember the sticky door.

After planting the axe in the ground and letting the saw slip unceremoniously into the snow, I used my body to hold the pile of mostly folded laundry against the wall and went to work getting the door open.

Needless to say, some socks fell to the wet earth.

I managed to open the door though, and proceeded to dump the clothes and boots just inside the threshold before bending down to toss the slightly damp socks in.

Figuring there still wasn’t much point in waking the girls, I pulled the door shut, grabbed the axe, and set off for the nearest, shortest tree.

Worrying at the last second that I was about to ruin it and that my lessened Intelligence was at play again, I quickly found the tab near the head of the axe and pulled it out.

Melee – AXE

Forest Axe - Silver

Durable and unforgiving. Splits wood as well as it does heads.

Have fun. -N

Handling

10/10

Damage

10/10

Fire Mode

--

Ammunition

--

Amused and confident I wouldn’t shatter or blunt the invaluable tool, I released the tab and let it slip back into the axe before marking a spot on the tree for me to swing.

It was strange, having a weapon in my hands again.

Not only was I noticeably weaker, but rolling back had seemingly had other effects on my body.

It wasn’t much, granted, but the difference between a 21-year-old and a 21-year-old plus four weeks was at least a little noticeable.

“You’ll be fine,” I muttered reassuringly, “it’s just a tree.”

The verbal affirmation did little to convince me that I would be fine despite my loss of strength, to the point where I actually internally mocked myself for saying something so foolish.

Surprisingly, the back and forth mocking was what ended up being the thing that drove me to take that first swing, the head of the axe burying deep in the tree proving that I wasn’t completely useless.

From there I took another swing, and another, and another.

Each swing took a little more effort than the last, but I eventually felled the mighty ten foot pine with much crashing and crunching.

It was a big deal for me at the time.

Smiling at the little ‘ARBORIST +50’ pop-up, I put the axe over my shoulder and dragged the fairly light tree over to the house, dropping it a few feet from the saw.

Worried about getting one of my few pairs of pants wet, I did my best to keep them out of the snow as I began sawing away, the handsaw doing a good deal of the work as I used the technique my father had shown me as a kid.

Without wanting to get too sappy, I missed my dad.

A lot.

He wasn’t dead or anything, in fact he lived not far out of town, but after I’d chosen to side with my sister over my mother it had made things a bit awkward to say the least.

Even then, I knew it wasn’t that big of a deal, but weeks without talking to each other turned into months damn quick, and it was nearing on a year since we’d seen or spoken to each other.

Being out on my own before I’d hit 21 and started leveling certainly helped that, and I wasn’t what you’d call a ‘dependent’ child.

It was starting to feel like I was near the point where we could consider getting back into contact with each other, though I still wasn’t sure how my mom would react to Millie and Liz.

A large part of me tried to convince myself that I didn’t really give a damn what she thought, but there was also no denying the beast deep in my belly that needed her approval.

Finishing sawing up the mostly dead tree, I was able to distract myself with better things than diving deep into my minor childhood scarring, such as what I wanted to do with the wood.

On one hand, the girls needed to keep the fire burning.

On the other, we could really use the money I’d get for trading it through the Trove.

After some internal struggle, I finally settled on walking around and checking on the Trove to see if any of the resources I’d deposited over the previous month had been retained.

The Inventory Management System’s Trove, or simply ‘Trove’, was a large, dumpster-like device that could break pretty much anything down to its core components which you could then sell for a fixed price, auction off, or simply store for later use.

I kept mine around the back of my house, though I’d wheeled it around the forest a few times when I’d felt lazy and ended up losing it after getting distracted by critters, monsters, or shadows.

Good news was that the rollback had put it in its default position, its wheels locked and its double lids closed.

With a preparatory breath, I pulled out my phone and loaded up the Trove – Mobile app, having correctly assumed I needed to reconnect it to the Trove.

Before long though, I’d typed the pairing code which had been texted to me into the Trove’s keypad and waited for the little green smiley to disappear.

Needless to say, I knew it was going to be empty as soon as I’d needed to pair it, but looking over the barren sheet was still a kick in the gut.

Inventory Management Solution’s TROVE™

Metals

--

ACCOUNT BALANCE

Fabrics

--

Wood

--

$0.00 (USD)

Minerals

--

Disappointed to say the least, I closed my phone and, in an attempt to make myself feel remotely better, I pulled out my wallet and hoped for the best.

Surprisingly, I found a crisp fifty dollar note, along with my credit card, license, and library card.

It wasn’t much, but it would certainly be enough to settle the growl in my gut, which had been seemingly triggered by the discovery of cash.

I didn’t want to waste our last few dollars though, and soon decided that saving the money and going out for a hunt with my trusty axe was a better move.

However, right as I went to find the nearby stream, my phone began buzzing violently in my pocket.

“Hey,” I said after answering without checking the caller ID, “what’s up?”

“Nothing much,” Millie yawned in response, “just woke up and was wondering where you got off to.”

“Just upstairs,” I replied, walking around the shack, “figured I might as well do something. You guys okay?”

“Mostly, yeah,” Millie said, “we could use some more firewood though.”

“How desperately?” I asked hopefully, wondering if there was any merit in me finding another, smaller tree to cut down so I could use what I already had to get some much needed cash.

“Pretty badly,” Millie replied somewhat concernedly, “like, maybe twenty minutes?”

“Damn…” I muttered, looking at the logs that were worth burning, “alright, I’ll chuck some down in a second. Found some clothes and stuff as well.”

“Yes please,” Liz called out, eliciting a little laugh from Millie, “any food?”

“No food,” I replied with a disappointed sigh after checking the other wallets to find they were empty, “but I’ve got some cash, could head into town and grab some stuff?”

“Frytown,” Millie suggested somewhat forcefully, the talk of food evidently making her desperately hungry, “maybe grab a-”

“Don’t worry, I know what you like.” I chuckled, “Alright, well, you guys get clear of the hatch and I’ll start tossing stuff down.”

“Okey dokey,” Millie said before muttering something to Liz as they apparently shuffled around the room, “see if you can find any work in town as well. The sooner we hit level five and can get Day-Walking the better.”

“Too true,” I agreed, “alright, talk soon.”

“Mmhm.” Millie replied, apparently distracted by whatever they were doing, before hanging up the phone.

If I’m being honest, I’d kind of wished I’d gotten more of an opportunity to talk to Liz, but at the same time it wasn’t like we hadn’t already ‘interacted’.

“Alrighty then,” I sighed, looking over the pile of stuff, “what first…”