DAY 16

I woke up three hours before dawn. I had gotten the feeling that sleep schedules had the same weirdness going on as crafting things. It seemed like once you got the hang of it you could wake up exactly at the time you intended. No alarm clock required.

With my stone axe tucked in my belt, I grabbed my bow and my rabbit hide quiver, which was already patched once when an arrowhead had stabbed all the way through. I pulled up a bucket of water from the well and dumped some of it over my head and scrubbed myself off. My hair was long enough now to actually run my fingers through. I didn’t know if it would matter, but I wanted to wash off some of the strong scent of the forge.

I had done a bit of target practice with my first few arrow attempts, so I felt confident in my abilities with the bow. Though a moving, living, target would be more difficult. There would be that added bit of chaos. Especially since the only deer I'd ever hunted had been with the luxury of a rifle.

Breakfast came from foraged berries and roots as I walked. The place I had in mind was back toward the goblin region, but north along the river.

After about an hour's walk I started to find deer tracks, and so slowed down to walk quietly. The sandy clay of the bank was thankfully quiet, and the wind blew my scent across the river and away from where I hoped the deer would be.

This area had quite a bit of undergrowth so I selecter a tree with several wide branches that would get me above the bushes. The lower branches were large enough to comfortably sit on with my back against the trunk. A deer would come to get a drink sooner or later.

A few minutes wait turned into a few hours. The sun rose, and I saw no deer even though their tracks from previous days were all along the bank ahead. I suppose it were possible they lived on a different schedule than I had anticipated. Or perhaps they alternated.

I didn't really mind a slow morning. Though it would be better with some hot chocolate. Leaning my head back against the tree, bow laying across my thighs, I closed my eyes for a while. Did they even have chocolate here? It was one of those things that required global travel, because it didn't grow anywhere around here unless agriculture was just as weird as crafting.

I could remember multiple mornings like this as a teenager, though usually we'd set up camping chairs and a ground blind on a lumber cut line. Some trips we wouldn't see a single deer except along the highway on the drive back.

As it turned out, it was later. I had been considering calling it quits for today when I caught the smell of a deer. A moment later it quietly emerged from the bushes. I waited for it to approach the water, about thirty meters away, and then drew back the arrow. Holding it was a strain, but it took a moment to be sure of my shot. The arrow flew true, a clean shot straight into the deer’s chest. It's ears flicked up at the sound of my bow, but it couldn't react fast enough. The deer pivoted and started running in the opposite direction I expected, splashing into the water. I readied another arrow, but by the time it hit the deer in the neck it was already halfway across the river. It stopped thrashing, and was now floating downstream in a spreading pool of blood.

"Shit! Why'd you do that?"

I scrambled out of the tree, running after the deer. The water was too deep for me to wade out. I grabbed a branch off the ground and could barely reach it with the tip, not enough to do anything useful. Dropping the branch, I grabbed several sinews out of my pouch and combined them into a long rope and tied it into a lasso. A test throw still landed short, it wasn’t long enough to reach the deer now that the current had pulled it towards the center of the river. I shoved the rope back into the pouch and started running. It wasn’t much of a plan, but if I could get far enough ahead I could chop down a tree and that might be long enough to bridge the river and snag the deer that way.

I wasn’t sure how fast I could do it, so I erred on the side of caution and ran for an extra few minutes. Gasping for breath I picked a likely tree and started hacking at it, putting all my will into making it fall directly across the river. The deer drifted into sight. It was only a few meters away when the tree groaned and cracked, falling. It just barely landed in front of the deer, which got tangled in the branches and stopped drifting. I dropped my axe and fell to my knees, heaving for breath.

Slowly, carefully, I crawled out onto the tree. A few of the branches were tricky to get around, and the tree rolled back and forth a little. I managed to grab the deer’s fur and slowly drag it back to the shore. The closer we got the harder it became. The deer likely outweighed me by double. Eventually I got it all the way out of the water, though the mud didn’t make it easy.

I took off my quiver and dumped the arrows out. With a flourish of my axe I grabbed the deer hide and pulled it off in a single motion. That left me holding a huge section of hide with only a few small holes and ragged edges. I folded it in half, pressed some sinew against it, and it shimmered into a quiver, leaving me with a fairly large piece left over. I loaded all the arrows up, and then dismantled the old rabbit hide quiver. I only got half the components back but I combined them with the rest of the deer hide to make a small bag. Into that I stuffed a third of the deer meat, the sinew going into my pouch.

With that business taken care of I washed my hands off in the river and then sat down to start eating. It took quite a while, and was more than my full body weight. Afterward I lay on the sand, needing a moment to mentally recover.

Several large bones were left over, so I took a few back to the forge with me. They'd probably come in handy and this was the first time I'd gotten any that might be feasible for use.

DAY 17

I hadn’t been able to fall asleep due to how energized I was. Maybe it was a result of having eaten so much. It was now several hours before dawn and I stood at the workbench carving one of the deer bones. I had an idea for making some knife grips. Cutting the section of bone into the basic shape was easy, but I wanted to add some flair to it, something special. Maybe I had seen it on a show or something, but I was trying to carve some rolling waves into the bone.

Unfortunately whatever system controlled crafting here did not like my attempt to colour outside the lines. Cutting the bone was easy, just concentrate on what I wanted and it would split at a touch, but when it came to decorative carving it didn't work the same. That left doing it manually.

Several hours later, and several failed attempts, I felt confident I had one that looked good, and two that didn’t look awful. Maybe I could keep one and sell the others. At least as soon as I got some blades for them.

The sun was rising, and my energy was waning when I started hearing noises outside as Jordan woke up and went to tend the goat thing.

“Good hunt?” Jordan asked as he opened the door. I pointed to the new deerhide quiver and pack that were in the corner. He picked up the quiver and inspected it. “Very good.”

“What are you making today?” I put the pieces of bone aside and went to grab the shovel. Reaching up I scooped out the ashes and carried them over to the box.

“Two crates of nails, and four wood axes." He put the quiver back down and did a double take, blinking at me. "You got bigger”

I stopped and looked at him, and then realized I hadn’t needed to stand on the bucket to reach into the hearth. I had grown at least a bit. I was now about armpit height on Jordan.

“I’m a growing boy.” I emptied the bucket of ashes and then glanced over because Jordan had stopped.

He was standing in front of the bench, where the firestarting kit was stored. An odd expression on his face.

“Want me to start the fire?” I asked, when he noticed me looking and walked past it.

“Yeah. I will be back in a while.” He left the forge quickly. That was a bit odd, but I wanted to get this stuff made quick so I’d have enough time to mention my next intended project to him.

I had finished half of the first box of nails by the time he came back. It was possible to use the forge alone, it just took longer. He didn’t mention why he had left so I didn’t bring it up. I moved aside to stay on the bellows while he worked. We hadn’t made any wood splitting axes so far so I was interested in seeing one made. The process was the same as everything else. Heat up a few ingots, combine them, hammer them a few times, and then press onto a wooden handle. The process was an utter mockery of crafting, I felt like there should be a flashing button to click.

When we had finished the last of the axes, I figured it was the right time to ask.

“Could you show me how to make steel? You mentioned there was a way to change the iron.”

“Takes long time.”

“Was there something else you wanted to do for the rest of the day?”

“Okay. Get more coke. We need a full bag.”

Once that was done, he explained that the ingots would have to heat all the way up, and then stay there for two hours, which was ten times as long as normal. Some of the ingots would melt to scrap, but the rest would become steel. I had been expecting more of a secret to it, or a different process, but it made a sort of sense given the rest of the crafting system. Just heat the iron for a really long time. It was often seen as a luxury, since many smaller forges could only heat one or two ingots at a time, which meant if anything went wrong they might have wasted the time and resources entirely and need to start over.

We took a break for lunch, and then came back to check. The ingots were almost ready. One had gone to slag, but the other three were fine.

“What do you want to make?” He glanced at my bow in the corner “Steel arrowheads are good...but not really needed except for war.”

“Not arrowheads. How about a hand saw? That should be one ingot, and another one for a small hammer, and the last for a small axe?”

“Very good.” He looked far happier with that decision than I thought he would be. It just felt like the right choice, beyond them being useful tools.

While I got ready to craft the tools, Jordan instructed me. For the hand saw, first make a rod, and then flatten it. For the hammer, make a brick with rounded edges and then punch a hole in it for the handle. For the axe make a brick and hammer one half into the blade. I used the tongs to lift them out of the water basin and onto the bench, where I pressed wooden handles onto them. When the last one was done he clapped me on the shoulder.

“Good job, boy. You’re a smith now.”

The tension in my head melted into bliss. It felt even better than the crunchy cores from giant birds. For a few seconds, all was right with the world.

“I was thinking for tomorrow…” I trailed off, I could hear the squeaky wheel of the cart coming. I had completely lost track of time and forgot they were coming today.

“Stay in here. Put the crates by the door.” Jordan went outside and shut the door behind him. He started chatting with the men.

I hauled the crates over, panicking a little. There was only the one door, and the windows were too high to reach easily. If those guys came in here to grab the crates like they usually did they’d see me for sure. When bringing the crate of axes over I stumbled from the weight and it banged against the wall heavily.

“Careful!” Jordan snapped through the door.

I could hear one of the men ask something, though I didn’t understand the language.

“Just the boy.”

“Oh, he came back? That’s great. I thought he wasn’t interested in smithing?” This was the first time I’d heard the second man speak. He was usually the quiet one.

“You know, come to the cabin and I’ll grab you some drinks. I’ve got an order to send with you this time. The boy can load the cart.” Jordan loudly cleared his throat, and I waited until I had heard them leave and shut the cabin door. Quickly I hauled the crates up into the cart, and then grabbed my bow and pack and ran for the trees. I wasn’t taking any more chances that these guys wouldn’t try to talk to “the boy”.

Once I was back in the trees I slowed down and started looking around. Now that I had some steel tools, I should see if they gave any benefits when cutting wood. Maybe I could make a better bow, or straighter arrows.

Halfway through cutting off a branch I stopped as an idea that had been percolating bubbled up. Had the men been talking in the "old" language today? I had been able to understand them, so they must have been.