I was with the wild human men again. We were in a canyon with steep cliffs on both sides. The entrance was close by, I knew, but we couldn't see it from where we stood, nor could we be seen from past it. We each had our best spear and a club or hammer. There were more than just our small band like last time. It appeared there were hundreds of us all in fur with weapons. There was tension in the air, and you could almost smell the fear and anger. We were one big mass of men all watching the same spot. We waited for what seemed like hours for something or someone to cross through the opening.

I wasn't the first to notice, but when we did, we all gave up a shout. Marching into the canyon was a troop of men in metal armor. They didn't outnumber us, but each looked to be as strong as our strongest. We raised our spears and yelled at them, yet they still came. When they were about 50 feet from us, the ground fell out from under them as our traps gave way. Just under a third of the army fell into the pit.

From the back-line, balls of magic started to fly at us. Some were green and others blue. Where they landed, we were thrown into pain, yet we held. We advanced as a mob and threw out our spears. Most just bounced off the armor of our foes. Our shamans were next sending magics of the land at them. Vines grew from where we planted them to tangle the feet of the invaders.

Then we rushed around to the right side of the traps. The army shifted to face us and locked their shields. We had thrown our spears, and now it was just us and our hammers and axes. We charged and yelled.

Our brothers showed up then from on top of the cliff. They announced they had joined the fight with rocks falling on the invaders. I was yelling as I reached the line of armored men. Stone hammer in hand, I pounded on the shields of those in front of me. It was the chaos of a fight, but it was the order of war.

The battle ended, and over half of us were dead. Most of us were wounded, but we had defended our pass. We kept the enemies out. They used weapons that we hadn't seen before, yet we broke them as we would a herd. We laid our traps and forced them to fight where we wanted.

I reached down and picked up from one of the invaders a metal hammer and swung it. It made me happy to have something so strong to use. Those of us who lived took the armor and weapons of the dead. No longer would I fight in fur and with stone, but I'd use metal. We had the shamans speak over them, and then we burned them all.

When I woke up from my dream or memory of war, it dawned on me as the sun came up that I didn’t get my answer as to what my necklace did. It kind of grated on me that I was in a place that I never asked to be in, and something was wrong with me. That Sam guy who was full of himself never told me what was wrong, only that there was a problem with my class and race. I understood that I shouldn’t be starting off as an enchanter because wild humans couldn’t read. However, I could learn to read, so why not just move me someplace and let me learn.

I was given a necklace that was compensation for this problem, and since it didn’t seem like the problem was a huge obstacle, then I figured that the compensation wasn’t that great either. So unless it was one of those “we are embarrassed because of this, please don’t tell other people” types of compensation. I gave some of those out when I worked in call centers, so I understood that sometimes the level of problem and compensation didn’t match up as they should.

As it was, it was time for me to get moving on the day. I liked where I was, so I wanted to stay put for a while. However, now that I knew that I wasn’t running from someone but that I would need to search for someone, I knew I needed to prepare. The more that I got lined up and working better, the better off I’d be. The thing that kept early civilization down was the amount of time that people worked just to get food. If I had to be a hunter/gather, then I would have problems figuring out everything that was going on with me.

I needed to have some stores of supplies built up so that I could figure out what these skills were and how I could go about working them and using them to get better. I also needed to figure out what this necklace did. The best way to do all of that was to get a base camp built so that I could stay put. As long as I moved around, I’d have to spend too much effort on shelter and food to learn about this world and find people.

Going back to the rules of survival, I knew that shelter was first, and while I’d something that was slightly passable, it wouldn’t be good long term. As such, today would need to be spent making a lean-to. It would be more challenging than I’d have liked, but I figured that I could get most of what I needed from dead branches still hanging in the trees and then fill in with additional work.

Once I got the lean-to built, I’d plan on making a longer-term shelter here. I figured with the pack I’d I could travel about three days out in any direction before I’d need to restock. That should give me enough range to figure out where people were if I wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. While I wanted to find people, I had no idea where I needed to go to start with, so I needed to make plans for both finding them and a long-term strategy of not seeing them soon. If this new world of mine was anything like Earth, then there was a chance that I was months away by foot from anyone else. If that was the case, I needed to know how to survive here.

I started off giving the landing a better look over. I wanted to find at least two places to build a shelter. One for the lean-to and then someplace bigger that I could put a cabin if I needed to. If I was here more than a couple of months, then a cabin would be well worth the effort as it would raise my standard of living and provide more security. Security was the main thing I was after. With the close calls I have had with nature so far, I wanted to have a good-fitting door with a heavy bar on it to keep snakes and dogs out.

After spending about an hour looking over my yard and seeing how it slopped, I found the spot that I wanted. I wanted to see if I could build a stone house right next to the rock face. It would be a big project, but I was sure that in the long run, it would be the best course of action, even if I was planning on leaving sometime. Which I was; I just didn’t know when. Before I built the stone house, I’d put a lean-to on the house site. It would be a little exposed because I needed the only clearing on the landing to build the house. I think it would end up best because as the walls came up, it would add to security for when I slept.

The first thing I did was start gleaning all of the loose branches and other sticks that I could find. I picked the whole landing clear of anything longer than afoot. Then I followed that feeling I got when the skills kicked in started to select my poles for my verticals and my cross beams. Once I got those, I started on the hard work. I had to dig by hand or pick into the dirt to set up my verticals. Getting those two posts in was hard work since just under the topsoil was lovely orange Georgia clay. That stuff was hard as a rock when dry and a mess to clean up.

Once I got those up and laid the cross beam on them, I started in with the other branches. This was the easy part, and it went like cake. I’m a nice-looking bare wood lean-to which meant that it would do nothing for me. I then took my stone axe over to the fur tree and started cutting off short branches. After I’d about 20 of them, I took them back and laid them down as the next layer. I put the cut-off end on top and used them much like shingles. After layering in the fur branches, I started to get as many arms full of leaves as I could. I started putting them on top of the branches and started to build a leaf pile like I’d jump in as a kid. It just had a shelter under the pile that looked bigger.

About lunchtime, I was happy with my shelter. I’d the opening facing the rock wall about six feet from it to the lean-to, which should give me room for a fire. The opening of my shelter was about five feet tall and about seven feet long. My sleeping and storage area tapered down and was about nine feet deep in the far back. I then spent most of the rest of the day clearing up my sleeping area making it smooth and then building my bed. I then set about getting stones for a fire ring. I’d conflicting ideas on what to make. Part of me that felt like the skill was wanting me to just make a small ring to have an open fire in. Part of me that was the camper when I was young was leaning toward trying to make a rocket stove out of rocks and clay. I ended up making both because I wanted the stove for cooking, and I wanted the fire for warmth.

As the sun was setting that day, I was, for the first time, truly happy. I watched the sun go day from the ledge of my cliff. It seemed to set right down the river valley. The rocks caught the light, and I saw reds and grays and every shade between. It was springtime, so I knew that soon the little green I saw would take over and hide most of the other colors. As odd as it sounded, I was happy that I was stuck here for whatever reason. I knew there were people back home that would miss me, but I also figured that it was only family. I knew the old saying about work that they don’t care when you leave. They just replace you. I figured that after being here a week or so, they would already have hired a replacement, and the machine would go on.

I walked over to my bed and laid down. Not sure what I’d get as far as skills today.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Survivalist (level 5)

Well, that was a letdown. I spent all day working on my home and only got a level in survivalist. I also forgot to try to ask Sam what this necklace did. I needed to try to remember to ask my questions each day.

That I didn’t have pleasant dreams at all.