From the shadows came out the largest raccoon that I had ever seen. It had to have been the size of a dog, and its eye glowed red. It chirped a few times and sat up on its back legs. It brought its front paws up in front of its body and held them together almost like a prayer. Then it smiled, licked the back of its paw, slicked its fur back, and jumped towards me.

There was a red glow around its sharp little paws as it hurtled through the air at me. I could have sworn that they were even on fire. When it made contact with me, I hit the ground and rolled backward. My head hit a rock on the ground, but my instincts took over, and I threw the beast over me even as I was going down.

It squealed as it hit one of the boulders behind me. Then it charged back at me. This time I knew something was up with those paws because I saw smoke where they hit the ground.

I spun my spear to put the point facing the right direction and just missed the terror. It slammed into my legs, cutting them with a swipe of its red paw. My health bar popped up with a little flame beside it that had a count down of 3 showing.

I kicked at it as it was swiping me. My kick looked good as it made contact, but the little devil arched its body in just the right way to take most, if not all, of my force away.

He jumped back towards my leg that I hadn’t kicked with, and I felt all four claws dig in as he ran up my body.

I dropped my spear and grabbed the raccoon with both hands as I was falling away from the side he was on. I twisted as I fell and put the beast under me, which was a mistake.

When we hit, he did that awesome thing that cats do when they are on their backs. He held on with his burning front paws and tried to gut me with his rear ones.

He very nearly succeeded when I head-butted his face as hard as I could. I was down to half health, and I was taking burn damage the longer I held on to him. So we went for a swim.

I rolled the dazed fire raccoon and myself right into that cold mountain river that we were fighting on. Then I held him away from my body and under the water as it was thrashing.

The water was steaming, and it was biting at me, but I had my hands just far enough away that it couldn’t bend right to bite.

It wasn’t a clean fight; it wasn’t a good way to kill. I won, and that was what mattered.

I stood up and dragged the nasty little monster up to my ledge with me, where I started to figure out what I was going to do to try to heal.

The cold water stopped the burn damage, and so it was just the cuts that I had to wait to heal, and food helped with that. I will deal with the body tomorrow.

I got my expected messages, and I was happy to see what I got. I went up two levels in tools!

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Primitive tools (level 4)

Tracking (Level 2)

New knowledge has been granted to you!

Stone knapping skill unlocked (level 0)

That night I dreamed again about being part of a tribe.

We were near a new cave, and I was sitting with an older man. He was showing me how to knapp stone and flint. Whenever I asked him a question, he would just grunt and show me again what he was working on. It was a slow dream since it was just knapping stone. Finally, he ended by showing me how to make glue from fish bones and scales to glue the head of a spear.

I woke up and thought about the dreams I'd had so far. They seemed to be tied to me learning new skills but not all of the skills I learned triggered a dream. Some were more in-depth than others were, but they all seemed to be linked. They also seemed to be showing me things that, when I woke up, I thought of as memories. Not that I thought back to the dream and remembered dreaming, but rather once I thought back to what happened in the dream, it was like the memory was mine.

The first thing I did that morning was skin the raccoon. I then got my smoker going as I was going to try to smoke the meat and turn it into jerky. I also took the time to try to stretch out the skin down on the beach.

Then I set out that morning working on fishing. So I stripped down and waded into that too cold water. I spent the first few hours fishing as I wanted to ensure that I had enough meat for several days. I also needed bones and scales for glue. I fell face-first into the water by slipping more than once, but by the time I was done, I had 14 fish.

I started my fire and got the fish cooking for lunch and smoking for keeping and put on a few of the Potatoes. I took the green part of the onions, put it in the fish that I was cooking, took the little onion balls, and shoved them in the ones I was smoking. I hoped to move some of the flavors over.

After lunch, I went back to fishing. I'd changed my mind about what I was doing as I wanted to make sure that I could work on other projects for a while.

I spent the rest of the day and ended up with another 24 fish that I smoked. If I figured that I ate two of them each meal, I could stretch my fish out for the next 6 days, which meant that I'd have time tomorrow to finish my spear and knife, and I might be able to even figure out a way to trap one of the unnts.

I spent the last hour of the day on my ledge, thinking and trying to figure out the system that was my life now. I knew that in games that I'd played and books I'd read, I should be able to see my hit points if those were real, and I should be able to see more about myself. I could see my whole character sheet, and I was able to get messages about skills saying what they did, but I was still having problems with my other stats.

I gave up as the sun left, and it got dark. So I settled into another night of sleeping in the open on my ledge. As I did, I got the normal message that I was expecting.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Spear (level 3)

Spear fishing (Level 3)

Primitive cooking (Level 4)

I'd no dreams that night about my life on this planet. I was kind of half-expecting that to be an everyday thing, but it seemed like it wasn't going to be. I dreamed just normal weird dreams of my life on earth. Talking with people being chased through hallways fighting zombies. Just the same stuff, I always did disjointed dreams where first I was on a boat, and then I was in an office.

The following day when I woke up, I planned on doing some Knapping today, and I wanted to see if I could train my spear as well. I wanted to try to keep spearfishing as a sub-skill so that it would give experience to my primary spear skill, as that was my only current combat skill.

I spent the first part of the day working on my spear tip. It took me a few hours to get the point made, and now I just needed to get another shaft to attach it.

I went looking for a nice sapling to turn into the spear I never knew I always wanted. I found a lovely hardwood that I felt would be a good tree and set to work with my new axe.

Cutting this tree was more demanding than back on earth but much faster than when I was working with the hand axe. It was amazing what three feet of branch did for the power of a swing!

Back at my beach, I sat down, made my stone knife, and used another stone to work it to a sharpish edge. I then started the hard work of making my new spear.

It took the better part of an hour to strip the bark off and work things almost smooth. I'd lunch and then went back to it. I used the sand to rub the spear shaft smooth. I ended up with about a seven-foot-long stick, so I should be good if I messed up the shaft when mounting.

Before I fit the head on, I started to mess around with the shaft. It was a little long to call it a staff, but that wasn't too bad for me.

When I was younger, I was in martial arts for several years. I picked up a little bit of bo staff some Escrima, and I even studied Iaido for a while, but most of my time was spent in small circle Ju-jitsu and Taekwondo. I walked through a couple of staff forms I kind of remembered and worked up a good sweat.

After pretending that the spear was a staff for about thirty minutes, I sat down and attached the stone head to the spear. The head I made was about the size of my hand; it was more of a broadhead shape with a taper on the back to slide into a notch that was cut at the end of the shaft. I slid it into the shaft and then slammed the tip into the ground.

Next, I climbed up on a nearby rock and hammered on the butt end of the staff. I saw the head slide into the ground a bit but also saw it move into the notch a bit more. I then dug out the head and tied it on with the vine.

After it was tied, I made a hole in the sand where I'd my fire and started to make glue. The whole process took me about an hour. I'd just enough to cover the vine on the spear and on the axe when I was done.

I took the next hour working with the spear getting a feel of how it moved and worked. My old spear was just a stick with a point; this one had about a pound of stone at the end and was a foot and a half longer.

It behaved much differently. I walked through my staff swings again, seeing how it would work with a tip, and then I worked on stabbing a bush. I was using a bush for target practice because I didn't want to break the stone tip in a tree or not be able to get it out. I also jabbed it into the sand because I wanted to feel it when it was making an impact. After working with the spear, I checked to see if the vine was still holding up, and I saw that I was good to go.

After making the spear, I took my axe back to the woods and cut down about a dozen thumb-sized branches around 4 feet long each. I took everything back up to my ledge because it was getting late. I worked at my ledge, giving all the thin sticks a sharp tip. Then I laid down for the night.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Spear (level 4)

Stone Knapping (Level 3)

New knowledge has been granted to you!

Staff (Level 4)

Well, that was nice. I got staff up to level 4 today just by a good workout. I did go through most of what I know, so perhaps I can work it up higher as that will be nice to have as a good backup since losing a tip of a spear was a reasonably common thing before metal tips.

I started to dream that night of earth.