Armed in an inventory filled with branches, August returned to the lakeside once more. He spent several moments dumping everything out onto the ground by the trees in an almost neat pile. He would need to dig holes for the uprights, and he didn’t particularly want to be digging into the mud.

August took one of the shorter branches and scraped at the dirt with the end, making a rounded indentation and then moving to make a second one, two meters to the side. He returned to his woodpile and took a piece that looked the right length, laying it between the two holes.

It was a bit too long, but it would work fine—He searched the branches again, finding two with offshoot branches near the end that he could use as a groove to seat the crossbar. August lined them up on the ground and dumped his stack of vines next to the mess.

He very quickly found out that vines were annoying to work with, not as easy to maneuver as rope, and harder to knot. Even so, with the new knowledge of [Lean-to] construction in his head, he seated the crossbar into the hook on the top of the upright and lashed it together with vine.

Once he was almost certain it would stay together, he used a shard of flint to sever the rest of the vine before moving over to the other side. August seated it into the hook, lashed it together, and then stood up once more.

He picked it up by the crossbar, the weight annoying but not truly difficult, and then walked it into the indents he’d made. He carefully placed it back against the ground and started digging with his shovel-branch to make the holes deeper. Within minutes he had managed to make it about three inches deeper, but he was already sweating, so he stopped to take a break.

The branch, as it was, wasn’t a good tool for digging a hole; he’d probably be better off thinning out the end of it out until it was shaped like a spade. August took a piece of flint out of his inventory and dug it into the dirt; it worked far better than the branch had, but the area he was working with was smaller.

Ten minutes of digging in the dirt like a caveman playing with rocks netted him two seven-inch holes, more than deep enough as far as he was a concern. August patted off the dirt that was now covering his ass and stood the structure back up. He got both the legs situated into the holes and then kicked the disturbed dirt to fill the holes once more. He packed it tighter with his feet and then slowly stepped back, letting go with his hands.

It stood upright under its own power, and August smiled.

He turned and selected the next piece for the actual shelter part of his [Lean-to] and laid it carefully against the crossbar. The weight of the roof branch seemed to help pin the entire structure to the ground. He lashed some vine around the angled roof and tied it off before moving on to the next piece.

August ran out of vine with three branches left and was forced to reenter the trees in search of more. The crunch of his footsteps on the detritus accompanied him as he moved through the forest, and once more, his ears picked up on the sounds of birds high above and out of sight.

He passed by a massive rock that speared out of the ground like the fang of a giant beast before he located some more vine. He used his new favorite piece of flint to retrieve as much of the plant as he could. All of it went into his inventory, and once he’d stripped the area of everything he could see, he decided he had enough.

He heard a sharp thunk noise ring out behind some distance away and very slowly turned around. Two red and black, spotted things were standing on the rock he’d passed; Their bodies were round and covered in fur, while one had a white length of something tethering it to a tree. Both of them were covered in spikes and sat upon two stumpy legs.

One of them chirped, like the unseen birds above, and August came to realize that they’d never been birds at all.

[Analysis]—one of them spun to face him as if it had somehow heard his mental command. He could see no face or eyes to indicate they could even see in the first place, so he remained where he was watching them.

Efkini

Female

Level 3

Tame Progress – 0/30

Tame Resistance – 17

Trait – Absorb

August had no idea what to do, he wanted to check the other one, but it might set it off again if he used [Analysis] a second time. In a blur of movement that was too fast for him to follow, the [Efkini] that hadn’t turned shot out something white from its body, and then it was gone.

It took a moment for him to understand what had happened—the spikes on the creature’s body and the length of serrated bone-like chain acted as some kind of grappling mechanism to reel the creature in.

The chain that was still tethering the remaining one’s body to the tree detached from the trunk, slowly reeling in and reseating itself as a spike on the rounded body with a click. It hopped off the rock, the meter or so fall to the ground, not at all any kind of obstacle to the thing.

August took a step backward, and the creature paused before making a sharp chirping noise. It came within a foot of him, and he stared down at the dangerously sharp bone-white tips of the spikes. It chirped again, and August slowly lowered himself down to one knee in front of it before carefully reaching out.

He ran his hand over the creature’s red fur, and it chirped again. The only thing going through his mind was that he was probably about to die. He’d probably never get a chance like this again, where he was within touching range of a non-hostile monster.

“Hey there,” August said nervously. “Don’t do anything crazy, okay?”

August swallowed before reaching for [Tame]. The [Efkini] chirped in surprise, but instead of murdering him instantly, it only pressed its body harder against his hand, like some kind of cat begging to be patted.

His mana bar vanished rapidly; at [10MP/s], it was gone in ten seconds even, and the creature seemed to notice when [Tame] shut down, chirping again, in what sounded like disappointment. He hadn’t dismissed the [Analysis] panel yet and turned his attention to it.

Efkini

Female

Level 3

Tame Progress – 10/30

Tame Resistance – 17

Trait – Absorb

A third of the way there—his mana regenerated pretty quickly, and if he could keep its attention for long enough, he might even be able to regain enough mana to fill up the progress bar. August scratched the creature’s fur, and it seemed to enjoy the attention enough to hang around.

As soon as he had enough mana, he used [Tame] once more, and the monstrous thing seemed delighted—it must have been able to feel the mana that powered the skill? It had reacted when he’d used [Analysis] earlier, expending twenty-five mana on the skill, and now it perked up whenever he spent more.

August sat on the floor of the forest with a monster in his lap, desperately wishing that his [Mana Regeneration] would hurry the fuck up.