Leaving Uria to tend the fire, Urist set out to check over the rope making group. He had been here before to grab some rope and was already impressed at how fast they had learned how to make it.

They had discovered a supply of dried trees and plants nearby to use for their fibers in crafting cordage. Although it wouldn’t be the best handmade rope, it was good enough for what they needed.

Cordage; One of the best basic resource primitive men had ever created. With it; traps, doors, pulleys, baskets, clothing, and much more could be made. Seeing his fellow dwarfs making rope made Urist feel motivated to keep working hard. His only strong point in boy scouts had been making cordage, so it was gratifying to see that knowledge was being passed on to the dwarfs under his command.

Sitting down with the dwarfs Ormila and Urmom, he started picking through some dried tree fibers, looking for some ideal strands. Selecting some nice strands, he started to buffer them instead of twisting them into cordage right away. Buffing was a step that softened the fibers, allowing them to be more flexible. Even if it took longer to make cordage by working the material, that extra step made a rope of higher quality.

A smile slowly crept along his face as he started rubbing the fiber, bending and moving it around to split it apart into thinner strings. As he was getting into his old hobby, he gave a glance over at Ormila and Urmom. He frowned through when he noticed they were using slightly green stalks of plant material. This could not stand.

“Guys, you can’t use that to make rope. It has too much starch.”

Urmom tilted his head and raised his eyebrow. “Why? The book didn’t say anything about that, only to use fibers to make rope.”

Urist gawked at them briefly, mouth slightly agape, as he realized his blunder. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. Urist had to remember that these dwarfs were really like naive children. Case in point, he had seen someone going to the corner of the cave to do their business last night. It was truly shameless. Thankfully, the dwarf in question only had to go number one. Along with that thought, he resolved himself to shovel a temporary hole…

Urist shook his mind out of the gutter and replied, “The reason why you can’t make rope with fiber that holds starches. If rain hits it, the rope’s bonds will break down and will make the rope useless. For now, use bark like this until we can boil these plants later.”

Nodding, Urmom and Ormila abandoned the rope they were working with and started using the inner bark fibers. They used Urist’s method to ‘work’ the rope. Although slower, it should make much stronger cordage.

It satisfied to see them making cordage the correct way. Urist remembered that he had other errands to handle. He regretfully let go of the cordage he was making and handed it off to Urmom to finish. Consoling himself that he could always make some later, he headed over to where the bamboo team was crafting traps and water bottles.

Bamboo Team

Walking over towards the bamboo area, Urist saw Ariel working alone on making water bottles out of bamboo by scraping off their top skin. She cleaned the insides out with the bronze knife to increase the space inside before eventually putting each one in the finished pile.

Lun, Rork, and Rat, on the other hand, were working together trying to make some sort of fish trap out of bamboo, as was instructed in the book. Urist inched his way to them to get a closer look.

Seeing their plan in action, Urist felt like he was struck with lightning. ‘So bamboo can be used like this.’

They were weaving bamboo into baskets by intertwining strips of another bamboo through a stalk that was split in multiple with one tube at the bottom intact. They accomplished this by extending the stalk past the gap in the bamboo, so the split wouldn’t come apart.

Like a tiki torch but on a much larger scale. The dwarfs were in the process of making two baskets: one large and another smaller one with no extended stalk. Urist was curious about how they were going to use them.

Their choice of making a fish trap was a good one, since they had such a large river, though he didn’t exactly understand how it would work. Wouldn't making a large net to catch some fish be a better alternative? Thinking about it, Urist decided to not. What the teams were working on was better considering that there were other things to do. The more important priority then food was to start purifying water, which he figured they would start by tomorrow.

Unable to restrain his curiosity he asked them, “So how do these traps work?”

Turning their heads away from their work, the three manly dwarfs eyes beamed with fervor, clearly happy to explain the wonders of their craft. This threw Urist for a loop. Where were the lazy dwarfs he saw before?

Lun cried out with as he spoke in his natural Scottish accent, “Boss, Bamboo is so amazing. Following the fishing and foraging book, we learned that if you put a smaller basket into a bigger one it’ll trap these things called fish inside.

“All we need to do is get some rope from the rope guys and we can throw these traps into the river the things described inside this book.” he babbled, throwing his hands in the air and fantasizing about what this fish tasted like. “I wonder what they taste like. Do they taste like corndogs?”

Urist wanted to laugh at Lun’s last remark but kept it in, seeing how happy he was to show off his work.

“That's good, but I have a few questions about this project. Have you thought about using any fish bait? Why not use vines instead of rope? And how many of these can you make in a day?”

“Vines? What are those? Can you eat them?”

Pointing to a tree with a large network of hanging vines, Urist said, “Do you see that type of plant? It’s very flexible and can do the job of the rope since we are in low supply.”

“Alright, but what about this bait you speak of, boss?”

Rork spoke up passionately, “We’ll use these things called worms we read in the book as bait, boss. We’ll pack the base with them together with mud to catch them. But um, where do you get worms?”

“Check under rocks and dead fallen trees. They are these pink things that wiggle around. You can't miss them. I’ll help you find them later. Now, how many of these traps can you make?”

Scratching their heads the dwarfs huddled a moment to speak and talk leaving Urist out of it before coming to with a decision. Rat led the dwarfs and held up four fingers. “We can do four a day at most, maybe five if we get a better hang of it.”