Flames crackled from the top, showing that fire had taken hold inside the mound. Urist smiled, happy that the first step was working well. He didn't stop to take a break through since he needed to keep watch the fire he was about to create in the mound.

He remembered that he and his father once watched a demonstration at a convention on how to live primitively. Although he could remember what he had seen, he couldn’t remember his dad’s face. It was like anything that didn’t pertain to survival was filtered out, giving him a headache.

This was a good method of cooking wood into charcoal at least with the lack of materials on hand. Light the wood inside the mound and wait for the fire to pervade into the air vents then cover them. That was what the demonstrator told him and so he did it. One by one to plug up air vents that had fire coming out of them with mud.

What was the last step again? Cover all the holes on the bottom and then… Ah yes, that's right.

Urist watched the mound closely. As the fire raged inside the mound, it dried up the outside, causing the occasional crack to form. To prevent the whole thing from crumbling apart, he patched every split with fresh mud. He stood there checking the fire every so often as minutes passed onto hours, one hour after another, until he could see the fire through all of the bottom holes.

One by one, he filled the holes when the fire reached them. Soon enough, after around four hours had passed, it was time to plug up the final hole. Wiping the sweat away from his brow, Urist stretched and thought, Now all there's left to do is wait for this mound to cool off. I wonder how the others are doing?

Uroa came over with an addled but curious expression. She pointed at the mound. “What is that?’

Urist merely smiled. “That? That is our future path for our survival. Don’t worry, you’ll find out tomorrow. I’m guessing it’s time to eat?”

Uroa didn't answer at first. She pondered Urist's statement before sighing, giving up on what he meant. She nodded and grinned, showing her pearl white teeth. “Un! Everyone’s sitting around waiting for you, boss. Come on and join us.”

“Haha, alright, alright. Let's go eat.”

…

The sun was setting, so it was well into the afternoon. Looking around at the dwarfs, Urist could see their satisfied and proud expressions for a job well done as they dug into their food.

While they were feasting on their prepackaged food, Urist starting talking. “So, how did everyone's work go today?”

Ariel’s cheeks were full of food like a chipmunk’s, but that didn’t stop her from cheerfully speaking up. “Boss, I mad- 34 watr- bo-les. Did I do gud?”

Rork wouldn’t let Ariel take all the credit though and retorted comically with corndog bits stuck in his beard. “Big boss. Lun, Rat and I worked just as hard and got two fish traps and the door built.”

Urmom also shouted to contend for the boss’ favor. “Oh yeah? I and Ormila made over forty feet of cordage and supplied the rope for the door.”

“Oh, boss. We found some more plants we can turn into medicine. You’ve got to check out our collection we built up.” added Briana.

Seeing all the dwarfs brag about how much they had accomplished made Urist happy, but he noticed Uria feeling a little down that she had nothing to brag about other than creating a fire. He could tell by her downcast expression that out of all of them, she thought that she had done the least out of all of them. Which didn’t sit right with him.

Tomorrow. Just wait, Uria I show you how important your job is.

Raising his hand for silence drew the attention of the rowdy dwarfs. They listened when their leader spoke.

Eyeing every dwarf, Urist nodded his head. “Everyone, good work today. This is our second day here and we’ve done so much. But,” his face turned solemn as though to emphasize the severity of the issue,“it isn’t enough to survive!”

His words stunned the dwarfs, but he continued anyway. “Currently, we have used up thirty rations of food and water meaning we have sixty remaining. We have supplies for only three days. In three days we must be able to get water and food on our own.”

The dwarves looked at him solemnly as they absorbed the gravity of the situation. Seeing them cast serious faces made Urist inwardly happy, but he couldn’t stop talking yet. He needed to tell them his plan.

“But don’t worry. With the items we’ve made today, we will be able to survive. With the fishing traps, I hope we can catch fish with it and eat them. I’ll leave the matter to Rork and Rat. Plants are also good sources of food. Uroa and Briana, I want you to read over the survival book and look for edible plants for us to eat and harvest.

“Lun and Ariel, I want you to make more fish traps that we can use for now. We need at least eight more. When you finish that task I’ll have you work on something else. Come find me when you’re done.” The dwarfs in question nodded, happy to be relied upon by none other than the boss.

“Ormila and Urmom, I want you, after making one hundred feet of rope, to start learning how to make land traps. That will become another food source for us.”

Letting the groups digest their new jobs, Uria brought up a matter that he hadn’t mentioned at all. “Boss, you’ve talked about food, but what about our water supply?”

Urist smiled. “I’m glad you asked, Uria. With the bottle made by Ariel, the charcoal made by me, and the fire that you kept, we will be able to create filtered water.”

Sleep

Urist laid on his back. In the cave, he could see the flicker of the fire through the bamboo door, fending off the darkness. Despite being awake, Urist wasn’t thinking much about tomorrow and was instead thinking about the countdown in his head.

Time: 5 Days 2 hours 19 minutes until Market opens

Points Gained: 914

He had a good idea what the market meant, but he didn’t know what would be in the market, which made him curious. The points seemed pretty easy to explain. Using these points would enable them to buy things, but what those things were? He had no idea.

Another question that eluded him was what determined the number of points he gained. Was it the knowledge the dwarfs had gained? How far they have traveled on the path for survival? Was it the value of the items they had created? Or did it just naturally increase?

It was a very confusing question that he figured he’d find out when the market opened. Until then, he might as well throw that into the back of his mind and sleep. He turned to his side and adjusted his leaf pillow.

‘Oh well, I’ll figure it out later. Tomorrow I hope we can eat some fish; I’m getting sick of eating corn dogs.’