DAY 25

I woke up mid morning, feeling refreshed. For the first time in a while I had no obligations weighing on my mind. I felt free.

If I looked at the cabin walls too intently they turned into a wall of text. Each log had its own label, likely a result of crafting it the slow way piece by piece rather than as components of a whole. Ignoring that I stretched and scratched my head, a bit surprised at how thick my hair was now. It would make sense that I looked pretty similar to Abe, and he almost had a full beard. With a spring in my step I went to go find some breakfast, and see what secrets I could get out of this identification skill. Some things didn't have information, like the sky or the clouds or my hands. Other things did, though the smaller they were the closer I had to look. It was fairly unobtrusive, the labels only appeared for things I was focused on.

When I found a rabbit, I was curious that it had a bit of an aura around it. It seemed almost like a back light, making it more noticeable against the grass. When it sensed my presence it froze with ears tight against its back. The aura disappeared, but came back a few minutes later when the rabbit relaxed and stopped trying to hide.

I quietly slid my bow off my pack and nocked an arrow. There was a faint ghostly image in the air, guiding my hands and showing me how far to draw the arrow back, a new addition to the trajectory arc I had long since stopped using. I mentally dismissed it, and it faded away. Looks like I was getting the tutorial a month late. Even without the guide my aim was good and the arrow caught the rabbit right in the chest.

When I pulled the arrow out the guide images appeared again, showing me how to skin the rabbit, where to grab and where to cut, but when I started to just use my claws it switched to show clawed hands. That just made the concept even less useful since it was just grabbing the skin and pulling.

As soon as I had removed the skin I could see the label pop up. "Fine skin (rabbit). Durability 30/30." The rabbit itself didn't have a label. That seemed to be a trend with living things, and the environment in general.

The guide image changed, showing how to extract the sinew. I waved it away, it wasn't showing me anything I hadn't already figured out. Instead of eating the bones I decided to keep them. I inspected them, seeing only "Small Bone".

I was kind of hoping a guide would show up illustrating the potential uses for a material, but if such a thing existed I didn't have it right now. For the moment I was curious about the quality of materials. This rabbit skin was fine, but what would it take to be excellent, or rare, or legendary? Was it a hidden skill requirement, a quality of the creature, or was it something about the skinning process itself?

Making up my mind I tucked the skin away and went to look for another rabbit. The obvious culprit was the arrow hole through the skin on the chest and back. This time I was careful, waiting for the perfect shot, and putting an arrow right into its eye. This skin was also fine quality. Next I looked for another, though this took considerably longer. Again I killed it with a headshot, but this time I willed the guide back and copied it as closely as I could on claw placement and timing. This time it resulted in an excellent quality rabbit skin. Clearly matching the intended technique yielded better results.

Taking those skins and the pile of bones back to my cabin I decided to first construct a rudimentary lock. Right now the best I could come up with was just a stick protruding from the door, and another branched stick on the frame. Anyone with thumbs could open it, but it would hopefully keep the foxes out this time. Getting some storage containers was my next priority. Piling things onto the floor wasn't very efficient. Those bark baskets I had seen in the cave seemed like a good starting point.

I picked a tree far enough away that it didn't seem likely to fall on my cabin if it fell, it was a birch I think, but I'm not a tree doctor Then I got out my knife and started peeling off a ring of bark around the trunk. At the size I wanted, I got four sections of bark before getting high enough up the tree to not be able to reach. Hopefully that would give the sides and bottoms for two baskets. When I had enough bark I got out the sinew, fixed a mental image of what I wanted, and melded the two together.

The result was a basket about the size of my head. A line of stitches along the bottom and up one side. It was pretty flimsy and the durability was only 10. Curious about how durability related to function, I jabbed it with a claw and put a small hole through the side. 3 damage. I poked a few more holes and when it got to 0 durability the basket fell apart into pieces. Another poke and the scraps vanished with a puff of sawdust.

I might have to be careful about what I put in these, they might just collapse. Nevertheless I put together as many as I had sinew for, which turned out to be another five, then I stacked them together and carried them inside.

The rest of the morning went by pretty quick, as I experimented with what things I could make using just wood. For some things that ghostly guide would appear, showing the steps needed to craft it, like a basic stool I somehow carved out of a single piece of log, other things didn't have a guide, such as the small table I had to make out of separate pieces using a basic peg and hole design. I started throwing my rejected pieces of wood into a pile beside my cabin.

The stool was pretty rough, but I had no idea what steps were needed to smooth and polish the surface. Clearly my knife, saw, and hammer weren't right for that job. Maybe there was some sort of sandpaper somewhere. As a temporary solution I put some rabbit skins on top.

Sitting at my new table I idly flipped through the codex hoping to notice something new, like the name of the language it was written in. Unfortunately no secret wisdom had been uncovered during the morning. I was curious though about what the requirements to create a codex were. Surely it was more complicated than just writing on something since apparently they had magic abilities to instantly teach you something, and seemed to be indestructible. There must be something rare or complicated about it, otherwise people would be strapping them all over their body like body armour. Shutting the codex I stuffed it back in my pack, I didn't want to let it out of my sight. It might be my ticket home if my suspicion about the "gods" was right. Surely there would be a god out there who wanted it and they could tell me what was going on.

For the moment though I needed resources. I couldn't rely on the civility of people to keep from attacking me if they saw me in human lands. I might need to hire some people to get information for me, and for that I needed something valuable. Right now the only benefit I seemed to have was being able to cross the boundary between territories, memories that were mostly useless like having watched a lot of tv, and my keen nose. I needed some way to make that work for me.

"What did he call them?" I asked the roof of my hut. Jordan had mentioned the reason he crossed the river a few weeks ago was some sort of tree with valuable wood. If I could find that, we might be able to make some money, far more than normal smithing work. He hadn't described what they looked like, but said that you needed special tools to craft with them. Presumably they'd look different from the rest of the trees, so all I had to do was find a weird tree that my steel tools couldn't cut.

Leaving the cabin, I dropped my pack at the base of a tree and climbed up as high as I could, until the branches started bending under my weight. Visibility wasn't great, and I couldn't see anything that caught my attention. I could see a hill a few kilometers to the east, and from there I would hopefully have a better vantage point. After I was confident I could remember the direction I went back down to the ground. Grabbing my pack I set out at a quick pace. Finding my way back would be easy, I could just follow my scent trail. Keeping a straight trail in this thick forest would be trickier, but my imaginary compass helped with that.

Some time later I paused and dropped down to sniff the ground. A goblin had been through here a few days ago, one of my tribe, and they had smelled like rabbit blood on their way back. Continuing on, I had to detour around a thick region of thorny brush, but after that was the hill. I didn't have a particular tree in mind, so I just followed the slope uphill until it evened off.

All of these trees were pretty much the same, so I picked one at random and climbed up it. The view up here was much better. There was another clearing to my north east, to my north was a break in the trees that I suspected was the river. Twisting around I looked back towards the goblin caves. I didn't expect to see anything, and didn't. The instinct to blend in and hide was a strong one. It made sense seeing as how the average goblin had the size and strength of a child. An angry rabbit could probably gnaw one to death.

I spent a while shuffling around the tree to look in all directions. Nothing else caught my eye, so I slid back down to the ground and set off for the north east. Getting there took perhaps an hour. Thorn bushes grew thick here and took time to detour around them.

By the time I reached the clearing it was mid afternoon. This clearing was different than the other, with many large lumps. Nothing other than the occasional animals had been here as far as I could tell. After doing a lap of the clearing I realized that there was a pattern to the lumps. The largest ones were arranged in a circle, with a few smaller lumps scattered around. A scent caught my attention. Rust. I followed it to one of the smaller lumps outside the circle. Part of a rusted iron wagon wheel was visible through the grass. I grabbed it and pulled it free. It was junk. I seriously doubted I could get an ingot by melting it down, so I tossed it back down. It was a disappointment, but it was a sign that civilization had been here in previous years. Going over to the large lumps I sniffed the ground and dug out a handful. Old ash. Carefully I sniffed around each pile of dirt and cluster of bushes. One of them, a lush bush, growing alongside a crumbled section of brick wall, turned out to have a skeleton in the roots On its hand was a ring. Despite the time it had been here, the ring was shiny and clean, which made it seem fake. My headache sense tingled when I looked at it.

"Excellent Signet Ring(Silver, House Rlarian). Durability 67/75. Crafted by Arvyen"

I picked it up to take a closer look. The face of it had a stylized R with some antlers on it. My head throbbed and I suspected I knew exactly why.

"I wonder if someone would pay to get you back?" Sure enough the throb vanished, leaving behind a feeling of expectation. There was no big floating letters announcing it, but I got the feeling I had just accepted a quest. At least I now had a name to go off of, that would make the search easier rather than fumbling around showing it to people like I had with the codex.

Rolling the ring around my palm I looked around the clearing. I didn't get any special feelings about any direction in particular, so it wouldn't be as easy as just following the quest marker. Grabbing out a piece of sinew I tied it into a quick knot and looped it through the ring to hang under my tunic.

I spent another hour or so searching the ruins, finding a few rusty copper coins in the remains of a wagon, and some shining mushrooms growing in the ash of a building. They were quite small with slender stalks and fat heads, glowing a faint silver. They didn't smell dangerous, so I plucked one.

"Fresh Shimmercap Mushroom. Durability 1."

Curious, I ate it. I was a goblin and had eaten dirt, I wasn't worried about being poisoned. It tasted very much like a cucumber, and made my mouth feel rather wet, but nothing else happened. I plucked the other four and stuffed them into my tunic pocket.

I left the east side of the clearing. There was a very faint trail of trees shorter than others. It had probably once been a road. A few minutes into the forest I froze. The scent of deer was blowing in on the wind. Quietly I got my bow ready and nocked an arrow as I crouched down. I couldn't see it, but the scent was strong so it must be close. After a short while the deer relaxed and raised its head. The faint aura appeared around it, making it distinct against the bushes. It was an old buck, and had been good enough at hiding I hadn't even been able to see it. Scars streaked its hide, so I doubted I'd get a fine quality skin out of it, but I could use the meat regardless. I slowly let my breath out and aimed, my arrow streaking across the bush and striking true into the buck's chest, deep enough I hoped it hit at least one lung. It reared up and turned to face me, lowering its head to charge. I nocked another arrow and loosed it, hitting the buck in the thick muscles at the base of the neck. I dived to the side and narrowly avoided being trampled. I had just nocked my third arrow as the buck swung around for another charge. I released the arrow as it rammed into me, my arrow gouging a line across its head and cutting into the ear. I collapsed to the ground, the breath knocked out of me as the buck ran to the south. Standing back up took a few seconds and started to chase the buck as it crashed through the bush, but slowed down when I realized I had no hope in hell of catching it. Even despite the thick bush it was much faster than I, but it was leaving a heavy trail of blood. In short order it was out of sight and I couldn't hear it, but the smell of fresh blood was strong and easy to follow.

The sun had set by the time I caught the buck. It had run for several kilometers before collapsing, and was dead and cooling when I found it. The hide proved to be Tough quality, which I hadn't seen on anything yet. Laying the hide out like a blanket I started butchering the buck, getting several long lengths of sinew, a large pile of meat, an old arrowhead of unknown greenish metal that had been healed around, and a curious sphere out of the chest near the heart. It was hard to tell since it was covered in gore, but it seemed to be made of crystal of some kind, with a faint shimmer coming from inside the fissures on it. I held it up and a label appeared.

"Lesser Core Chrysalis(Stag). Durability 20/20".

It smelled much like the one from the Barghest, but not so angry, if things could smell angry.

"Chrysalis? What's the difference?" I asked myself as I wiped some of the blood off. Despite the many fissures it seemed solid.

It cracked between my teeth and flooded my mouth with warm tingles. Few of the other animals I had hunted had a core, but this was the first with a chrysalis. But none had been grizzled old survivors either. Maybe it took time, or experience. Did this mean I had a core now? I had a flashback to the early days in the cave, as we ate each other. Hopefully none of them would try to get at my crunchy core, though a part of me wondered if any others had one.

The arrowhead could not be identified beyond the basic fact that it was an arrowhead of unknown material.

I ate as much meat as I could, and then curled up to sleep. This core wasn't the same angry tingling energy as the Barghest had been, it was more soothing. A strong sense of contentment filled me.