Day 2.2

August lifted the stone up to check it once more and found the edge thin, slightly rounded, and smooth—exactly what he was looking for. His hands were throbbing now, between the aftermath of yesterday and today, leaving him with a constant aching reminder.

He fought through the discomfort, lifting the chisel handle he’d made up and pinning it between his feet. Then he took the [Flint Axe] and carefully lined it up before taking a light chop at the end, leaving a thin groove at the end of the wood.

August checked to make sure he hadn’t split the handle; his intention was to slowly carve out a chunk of the handle to slide the chisel head between. The irony that a chisel would have been the perfect tool to carve out this groove didn’t escape him, although he was pretty sure a saw would have been even better.

He eventually switched back to the [Flint Knife], using it to whittle away at the growing slot, every time he failed to get any purchase, and every time he ended up jarring his already aching hands, he felt his frustrations grow—

“Fuck!” August snarled.

Ladybug blurred about one foot to the left, reeled in by her chain striking the dirt, clearly startled by the sudden noise. August threw the half-finished handle away from him in disgust, glaring at the ground.

August wasn’t built for something like this—this place shouldn’t even exist in the first place. Why was he the only person on this fucking island? Why did he have to try and fool himself into thinking he could actually do this? Why did he have to crawl around in the dirt, pretending he could actually live like this?

Something touched his foot, and he lifted his head to find Ladybug, pushing the handle of the chisel he’d thrown away towards him. August reached out and rubbed the back of his knuckle against the creatures fur to avoid moving his fingers too much. Ladybug trilled something; the usual carefree nature the monster seemed to be disturbed.

“Sorry,” August sighed. “I’m not mad at you, Ladybug.”

Coming from a modern city life, where he’d never really had to do any hard physical labour, had left him completely unaccustomed to this kind of thing. It made him feel weak and pathetic that he was struggling to even use his hands—it was only the second day in this place, and he was already falling apart.

It just pulled his mind back to thinking that almost anyone else would have been prepared for something like this. Eric got paid to fight people for a living; sore hands wouldn’t have stopped him from doing what he had to here. Alex would have bullshitted his way through like always. Ryan—well, fuck Ryan, but the guys would have been nothing less than decisive and willing to do what needed to be done.

Alice wouldn’t have let this stop her; she rarely let anything impede her these days, not even her own body with its brittle bones. August remembered the day she’d fallen off the bleaches and snapped her shin in two places.

Everyone else had been losing their minds, but by the time they’d made it down to where she’d landed, Alice was already calling emergency services. Those incidents had come more and more frequently over the years, and in a way, it had left her different from the rest of them, more mature, and somehow more adventurous.

August took a deep breath and then let it out, trying to ignore how shaky the motion had been.

“Thanks for bringing it back,” August said quietly. “Hey, you want to help me make something?”

Ladybug pushed itself into his hand, and he smiled through the pain. He lifted his hand up and tapped his knuckle against the spike at the top of the creatures head. Either recognizing what he wanted or some quirk of personality it had already, the chain-spike unseated itself before trailing down to the ground.

August carefully picked the chain up by the spike, surprised again at how solid it felt and how much weight there. He put the chisel back between his feet and moved the spike towards the groove in the top of it. Ladybug sat down beside him and didn’t move to retract its chain from his grasp.

He pressed the spike down into the groove and immediately found it to be about a thousand times as sharp as the [Flint Axe]. What had taken him fifteen minutes to file away had been replicated and surpassed within minutes of careful work.

The shape of the spike made the motions require entirely different, and he found himself being even more careful than he had been before—stabbing himself with this wouldn’t end with broken skin or a small gash; he’d likely end up with a spike impaled through his hand.

August made sure the groove was large enough to retain the stone and then lifted the chain back up into the air. Ladybug retracted it, and within a couple of seconds, it had clicked back into place in its socket as if it had never moved. He used [Tame], rewarding its helpfulness with the rest of his Mana, much the creatures delight.

“Thank you,” August said, lifting the chisel head up and seating it in the groove.

He had to turn it over and thump it against the ground to get it to sink into the gap. Because he would be striking one end of the handle with a rock for its use, he would need to reinforce the socket because the wood would eventually split. August took another piece of vine from his pile and began winding it around where the rock was pinched between the wood.

Basic Chisel Blueprint Unlocked

There was less wrong with the [Flint Chisel] than he’d imagined there would be, but it wasn’t anywhere close to perfect. A flicker in the corner of his eye drew his attention, an element of the HUD that hadn’t been present before, a small [+] fading and brightening at regular intervals.

August, driven by his curiosity—and self-preservation—opened the [Menu] and navigated back to [Role]—sure enough, the new icon represented what he thought it might.

Skill Points – 1

75/600 EXP.

Finishing this [Flint Chisel] had moved him from [475/500 EXP] to [75/600 EXP]—that told him two things, the first, that the total [EXP] needed for each successive [Skill Point] would increase, and the second, that crafting the chisel had given him a total of [100 EXP].

August knew that in some games—the ones with embedded crafting systems—it would give reward experience for the first time creating something. This might have been the case here, but he would need to either craft a second [Flint Chisel] to see if he gained the same amount of [EXP].

“There’s no way I’m doing that now,” August sighed, resting his hands on his lap.

It wasn’t like he was so secure in his safety that he could waste time crafting things he didn’t need right now. He could always discover that facet of this system at a later time—preferable after he’d built himself a fortress to hide within.

August sifted through skills inside each [Role], refreshing himself on the contents, before settling on the choice that seemed the most useful to him right now within the [Leadership] role.

Replenishment I – 0/5

Members of your faction will experience an increase to their natural health regeneration and restfulness after sleeping; +10% increase per point, Lasts 2 hours.

It wasn’t clear if it would affect him personally, ‘Members of your faction’ could mean that he wouldn’t benefit from them, but others he recruited would. But it might also include him within its effect.

What would it be like after a week of living like this? The cuts on his fingers and feet, the aches in his joints, and the countless bruises he’d picked up in a single day? Would all of the minor injuries end up compounding until he died from some kind of infection?

An increase to health regeneration, even if a conditional one that worked for two hours after waking, sounded like an important investment for his future—August spent the point.

Replenishment I – 1/5

10% increased health regeneration for two hours after sleeping.