The barking was from the other side of the river, and they were running away. Likely scared by the loud sound. I didn’t know if they would be back to try to eat me, but I had a feeling that the few left would find a way to mess with me in the future. Dogs remember things like the beating I gave them, so it was likely I was on their hunt on scent list.

I looked around at my surroundings and didn’t see any intimate danger. So I quickly hung the necklace around my neck and stuffed it into my tunic. I looked up at the sky and yelled, “Great and Mighty Sam, I the lowly Arn Beseech you to answer my question.” Then in a normal voice, I asked, “what does this necklace do?”

I started hiking upstream again, looking for a place where I could set up for a while and work on some skills. Not sure what all I wanted to work on, but I knew that I needed to somehow beat the dogs, and so to do that, I would need better reach.

I was also checking the river on my right for crossings as I hiked, and I never saw a good place which made me very happy. I ended up having to cross a tributary stream by climbing up and over some car-sized rocks and jumping from one to the next, which also kind of pleased me because I knew the dogs would have a hard time going up if they were over here and the water in this area was narrow and swift, so it was acting like a moat.

It was about two hours till sundown when I saw what I’d been wanting from the start. It was just about as near to perfect as I could ever hope to get.

There in front of me was a waterfall that appeared to be about a hundred feet tall if it was all one fall. This thing was stair-stepped into five steps. The first step up was only about four feet off the river bed, then it ran back another twenty feet or so to the next step, which was another ten feet or so feet and then back another maybe ten and up another thirty, and then it backed up about fifty feet to maybe ten feet up and another thirty feet back and then the big one of another fifty or so feet in drop. It was grand; it was huge and was mostly perfect.

On my side of the river, there was a slop that went up and out of the gorge, and as it went up, the slope got too steep for much of anything to climb. That being said, there was an area to the side of the waterfall between the third and fourth step that looked like it was higher than the waterfall and growing things. I saw trees and grass, some bushes two, but the slope never got over to the area.

While the waterfall had four steps, not counting the bottom or top, the land to the sides was different. On the far side, the wall went straight up. There were a few little areas that jutted out, but it was mostly rock face that looked like it was the full hundred feet or more of the falls. On my side, things were different. The first landing, which is where I was trying to get to, was only about thirty feet or forty from ground level. There were large rocks that jutted out to make climbing up much easier. The tallest climb I’d have to do was about ten feet.

I started my way up to the landing to see if it could be my new home for a while. It couldn’t be forever since I wanted to find people and have a life that wasn’t barefoot and stranded. I also wanted to see what I could do to learn to read in this place.

It took about a half-hour from the time that I saw the falls until I was up to the plateau. The trees off to the side were just a little higher than the water. It looked like that if it flooded here, then there would have to be at least another 4 feet of water in height coming over the falls to reach the same elevation as the trees were on, and they stood a good fifteen feet away from the river.

Pulling myself up into the corpse, I saw right away that I would like it here. The little plateau was just about 300 feet wide and between twenty-five and fifty feet deep. It was kind of a pie-shaped rise with the narrow side to the slope and the wide end facing the water. The slope-side was about a 15-foot drop to the ground as this place jutted out from where the slope would be. It meant the only way to get to this little place was to climb either up or down, which made me very happy. On the backside was the stone wall, which went up another ten feet to another ledge. I quickly jumped down to the waterfall level and went and looked in. Sure enough, there in the water, I saw some trout.

This seemed like it was the best day I’d hear. The dogs were unable to get me. I’d fish and enough trees that I should be able to make some sort of shelter even tonight. I got right to looking for a place to bed down. The back of my new yard hit the rock wall and went up about eighty feet on about half of it.

In my yard, I’d several evergreen trees in a clump near the slope side, and from there, I saw several other hardwood trees. I also had a fair number of scraggly cliff bushes and trees right on the edge. Near the back wall, there was a huge stone and a scattering of smaller ones around it. I figured that a section of the cliff broke off and fell down.

As night was coming on quickly, I didn’t have much time to make my shelter that would come tomorrow. It might even be an all-day thing.

I went over to the evergreen trees; they were mostly fur, and so did the great thing where the insides all die out because of lack of light. I cleared out enough of the branches that I wouldn’t hit my head, and then I cut off some to make my bed. I soon had my dinner out and was eating fish, and then I racked out.

As I settled in, I got my leveling message that I’d been waiting for.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Climbing (level 3)

Natural Shelters (level 2)

Hiking (level 2)

Tracking (level 3)

New knowledge has been granted to you!

Running (Level 3)

Then I recounted what I was doing today. I went through all of my actions, my run for my life, and my encounter with Sam. I was sure that him calling me bozo was a jab at me. I hated that I was so reserved in his study and that I didn't push for more info. If I'd been able to talk more, I was sure I'd have asked to be put where people were, but I got dumped back out where I was.

I was looking forward to my first answer from Sam, but before I fell asleep, which is when he should answer me, I wanted to take a look to see if I could find what he did to me.

Name

Arn

HP

20

MP

40

Race

Wild Human (0)

SP

30

Defense

1

Primary Class: Enchanter*

Level: 0

Secondary Class: Linguist* (ancient languages)

Level: 0

Strength

14*

Intelligence

8

Vigor

10

Dexterity

12*

Willpower

9

Vitality

10

Wild Humans have a plus 3 to strength

Wild Humans have a plus 2 to dexterity

Wild Humans have a plus 2 to all survivalist and warrior class skills

Wild Humans have a negative 3 to all Language skills and can not start as the linguist class

Wild Humans have a negative 1 to all Magic class skills due to low intelligence and cannot start as a enchanter class because of linguist issues

Wild Humans are all illiterate

Skills

Skills

Level

Racial

Spear**

1

Survivalist**

3

Tracking**

1

Primary class

Enchanting

1

Script*

*

Ink making

1

Etching

1

Power imbuing

1

Socketing

1

Secondary Class

Ancient languages*

*

Non class skills

Hiking**

0

Climbing**

0

Primitive tool**

0

Natural Shelter**

1

Spear Fishing

2

Primitive cooking

4

Herbalism

0

Stone Knapping

1

Staff

4

Taekwondo

10

Running

3

Snake handling

0

*due to Wild Human starting restrictions of being illiterate this skill can not advance until literate.

** Racial Bonus for Wild Human, effective levels of all Survivalist class and warrior class skills plus 2

Spells

Communication spells

Level

Mana usage

Beseech a greater knowledge**

1

50

**Once per day powered by sunlight

While I was looking over my info trying to see what all changed today I fell asleep. That night Sam didn't answer anything in my dreams.

I dreamed again of a life not my own.