《Taken : New Beginnings》Chapter 13 - Progress

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Waking up, I blink my eyes in mild pain at the bright-ish light which greets me. Getting up, I wince at the pain when I attempt to use my left arm to help lift myself up, as it is still slightly wounded from yesterday night. i figured it would be healed by now, however it seems that the system has many different rules that govern injury recovery.

I change out of my now ripped shirt into another one grabbed from the store, eat a small breakfst of more canned food, washed as best as I can in the stream, and headed back outside. Looking around the clearing, I see that in my absence the piles of sticks and vines I had laid out have all been battered around, mixed up, and many even are now broken.

Once again, I gather the different pieces of wood into their respective piles; by straightness and length, and survey what I have. After the wreckage done overnight, about half of the wood I gathered yesterday is unbroken, and all the vines are all still intact. Shuddering at the thought at heading back out to get more wood, I decide to make a start on some basic construction. Using my past knowledge, I begin placing sticks in the ground, using the vines to tie them together and make a relatively sturdy frame.

Soon, I use up all the sticks I still have availible after the wreckage done overnight. Seeing that it's about noon, I head into the dimensional structure to eat a meal of cold food. After lunch, I take some of the broken, yet still straight, pieces of wood. Layering them against the slanted walls of the shelter, I build up a thicker layer of wood, so that, especially after the addition of other features, will help protect the interior from rain.

About an hour later, I run out of the usable sticks, and decide to get a fire going so that I can cook all the food I have in my inventory. Luckily most of the food is of the same type, and so it doesn't bog down my relatively small inventory with only one or two things. Having dropped all the dry kindling in the woods after the snake attack, I have no choice but to either go and try to find more, or collect what I lost. Sadly, both involve a trip into the forest, and so I pull both knives from my inventory and head out along the same path as yesterday.

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Soon, I reach the area where I first encountered the snake. Looking around in the relatively bright light, I can only see a few pieces of spindly kindling in the area, all of which are covered in the moist earth of the forest. Giving up on that plan, I continue deeper into the woods, until I find the fallen tree. Searching underneath, I again find the dead and dry vegatation from before, and collect a decent amount before heading back. This time, thankfully, I manage to avoid any monster encounters - although it would boost my experience, I do not want to have to do this trip again tomorrow.

Back at camp, I start digging out a small firepit. I build it about two meters away from the shelter, and out of the way of the dimensional shelter entrance - I don't want to break an ankle in it when I leave it in the morning, after all. Sadly, there are no rocks around either, as no fire pit looks complete without a stone ring around it, as well as the added safety it presents with the massive amount of wood around.

Once it's dug, I place the kindling and different thicknesses of sticks near me, in organised piles, to help build the fire when lit. Then, I take out a box of matches from the store back on Earth. However, when I look at the once colourful and well-branded box, I see that it has now become a small wooden container, which still has a sliding compartment like a matchbox. Opening it up, I can see a flint and striker, as well as a small pile of tinder. 'Really, a bloody tinderbox...'.

Deciding to go with it and not check what lighters have become - what medieval equivilent would that be? Hell, it might be magical or some shit - after all, mana exists - I place a small amount of tinder into the centre of the firepit, and attempt in near-futility to light it. The forest is currently near windless, which certainly helps, however I have no practice using an actual flint and steel. I have used ferrocerium rods before, but never a true flint and steel.

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After about 10 minutes of trying, I finally get a small spark to catch. As the tinder starts to burn, I carefully place the kindling I had nearby over the flame, to build the fire. Luckily, it takes, and the kindling rapidly ignites into a much larger flame. I spend about 10 minutes growing the flame with progressively larger pieces of wood, before I have a relatively large fire burning, on substantially sized wood.

While I wait for the flames to die down enough to cook on, I decide to check through the notification I have had building for the last while. The first thing I check is the death notification for the forest snake;

Large Forest Snake - Level 15 - Has Died

2500 XP

Drops;

Snake Scales x23

Snake Meat x4

Snake Tendon x2

Looking at the window, the loot appears to be pretty standard - body parts only. Then again, now that I am on Terrae, these monsters are probably considered to be the lowest of the low - after all, the system has repeatedly told me that even young children from Terrae are much stronger than I am now, and if I can beat these monsters, then they're not really a challenge for anybody from here.

Despite this, they obviously have a working ecosystem, so perhaps this is an area controlled by a nearby town to train the younger generations, or provide food to the town. That, or this is some sort of initial growth area for low-tier monsters, where they grow and gain in strength before leaving to go to areas with higher levelled populations.

However, such a topic can't be answered for now, as after all I have nobody to give me the answers. And so, I look through the remaining notifications, of which there was nothing interesting, and by this time the fire has begun to die down. I take out a frying pan from Earth - the most fitting tool I have for the job - and the pan has obviously changed to fit Terrae aswell - it's plastic handle is now varnished wood, and the once shiny stainless metal is now a matt black, and is probably now cast iron, or perhaps some alloy similar to stainless steel from this world.

Despite the colour though, the pan is still just as smooth to the touch as polished metal, so perhaps the rules that govern the change decided that stainless steel was too far above cast iron to merely become that. However, such things don't change the cooking of the meat I have, so I get to it.

I cook each piece of meat the same way - well done, pretty burnt, and miraculously none ruined. I finish cooking the large amount of meat, before letting the fire die, and taking the pan inside to wash in the stream. All the cooked meat is also stored in my inventory. After all this, it's late evening, and I'm exhausted from the day's work. i sit down and eat a meal of burnt rabbit steak - I'm not brave enough to try sewer rat yet - and lie down to get a good night's sleep, thankfully not injured like I was yesterday.

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