I awaken once again to the dull throbbing of my thigh. This time with the added bonus of sore arms and legs. This is becoming a theme. A thoroughly unpleasant theme. My thigh wound didn't hinder me much yesterday except for the occasional shooting pain when it was rubbed the wrong way. Right now it's a mild inconvenience. That changes if it gets infected though. I should clean and rebandage it. I start uncurling myself out from underneath my cave, moving my impromptu wall of spars out of the way and letting more of the late morning sun through. I slept in later than usual today, no doubt a result of my jumpiness last night.

I do a bit of light stretching to ease my sore muscles and further rouse my body from sleep. It's a good habit to get into considering how much physical labor I need to survive.

I spend an enjoyable half hour bathing and cleaning myself and my clothes. Maintaining cleanliness is another good habit to have, though it's more for my own mental health rather than a physical need in this case.

The last staple of a good morning is breakfast. I'm actually not all that hungry; I absolutely gorged myself on coyote yesterday. Still, morning calls for breakfast. Or lunch by the time I catch it. Brunch? Semantic debates going around in my head, I grab my trusty spear and head for the river.

Stabbing at anything that moves, I manage to get plenty of fish for my meal of the day. Preparing and cooking the fish was time consuming, but the reward of a hot meal was well worth it. Lighting a fire only took me three tries today too.

My basic needs met, I survey my cave and turn my mind to progress. The spars I have now are enough to build the skeletal structure of my hut. I still need materials to span the gaps, however. I also need something to tie my spars together so I can make the structure for my roof. Let's explore the area around my camp and look for some sturdy canes or grasses.

A cursory inspection down river reveals vines I hadn't taken much note of until now. The vines have the tensile strength necessary for lashings, and are easy enough to tie knots with. I start cutting off the longest and sturdiest lengths of vine I can find.

Their coloration I find odd however. The vines are a deep, rich brown inside and out. They look subtly alien when paired with the pale birch-like trees that I occasionally see in the forest. It's a wonder I didn't notice this oddity before being confronted by the twin moons. I suppose I expected this to be a normal forest and that's what I saw. Not that it would've been a sane to see a weird tree and conclude that I've been transmigrated to an alien world. It'd just be a good idea to keep more vigilant.

As I think this, I notice I've walked around this same copse looking for more vines for the third time.

Let's just try not to get completely stuck in my own head for now. Baby steps, yeah?

...

It was early evening by the time I lugged the coils of vine back to camp. This was immediately followed by a brief nap. Cutting vines is surprisingly hard work.

After my siesta I set to work anchoring my spars that will make up my hut. I mark out a rectangular area that connects up to the edges of my cave. It's eight feet wide and six feet deep. That leaves me with an area of around 80 square feet, counting the extra space added by the cave. Connecting it to the cave like this leaves me with only 48 square feet of roofing necessary as well.

I spend the next couple of hours digging holes around my demarkated rectangle and setting the spars in them. This was followed by lashing a crossbar to all of the set spars. I then set up the structure of the roof by lashing smaller spars across the top to make a peak. It's a bit lopsided and parts of the lashings aren't exactly pretty, but the basic structure of my hut is complete. My only major gripe is that the house isn't as well anchored as I would have liked; I could only dig so deep without proper tools.

Looking at the sky, I see that I have several hours left before sunset. I should spend that time giving my house proper walls.

While cutting vines I spied canes growing near the water. I plan on weaving those through the intermittent spars that make up my walls right now. That should add some more rigidity and weight to the whole structure, and more importantly, actually provide some protection.

I set off for the second time today to go scavenge plants, and two hours later I return with a large bundle of canes underneath each arm. I set about splitting them lengthwise to help them bend around my hut's spars shortly thereafter. They split easy enough, but it's still a time consuming job. After every split I wedge the canes into my walls and come sunset I realise I've run out of canes. My house looks a lot more proper with most of the walls filled in. The finished texture looks like thick wicker, and is surprisingly sturdy. I only have the bottom four feet done of the six foot walls, but it's as complete as I'll get it tonight. I take the time to move all the tools and materials I've amassed over the past few days inside. I have my "kitchen" rocks, fur scraps, various sticks and rocks I plan on using for tools, coyote bones, hand ax, and my trusty spear. I took the time to move my fire ring inside the hut as well, placing it equidistant from all the walls to prevent accidentally burning my house down. I lay down on my coyote fur bed, and place my spear within arms reach.

All in all, it's been a productive day. I've put up some proper structure, and I feel like I've made some genuine progress. My status probably reflects that.

General Information Name: Derrick Finigan Species: Human Sex: Male Age: 24 Titles None Stats Name Value Intelligence 102.5 Perception 101.5 Dexterity 106 Endurance 102 Strength 102 Skills Name Level Value Investigation 3 Int +0.5, Per +0.5 Harvesting 6 Dex +1 Woodworking 2 End +0.5, Str +0.5 Mathematics 1 Int +1 Construction 2 End +0.5, Str +0.5

That's interesting, I've gained some new skills. Construction makes sense since I've been doing just that the entire day. Mathematics is a bit more surprising though. When did I do that? Ah! Right, when I was planning out my hut I did some basic multiplication. That netted me a level, but an entire day spent building a hut only gets me two levels in construction? Perhaps it has to do with proficiency or familiarity. I have a deep knowledge of math, but only a basic understanding of construction techniques. Then again, the real reason could be completely different. I don't have a large enough sample size of skills to make any confident conclusions. As a bit of an experiment, let's try and grind up mathematics as I go to sleep.

Eight times fourteen minus ten is one hundred and four.

Six to the power of three plus twenty-two is two hundred and.. thirty-eight.

Sixteen times five times...