I jogged the ridgeline back to my descent down and across the crevasse back past the bird’s nest with no bird still. Then when I got down to the river, I made the effort to do a full run back to my home. I had a plan for tomorrow now. I would scout out and see if I could find where the fires were.

I climbed back up and heard a very angry lizard. I left Blink this morning when I headed out since she was so small. What I hadn’t thought about was how she would feel being left behind. The noise that she was making when I got back up on the landing was kind of a hiss-yelp when she was looking at me.

Being that I was from the south, I knew what a full-blown conniption fit was, and she was having one in her cute little lizard body. When I bent down to pick her up, she swatted at me and then started to purr.

“Its okay girl, I’m back. I didn’t think that you would like coming with me when I went out so I thought you would be happy here.” I cooed at her.

She started to rub her head against my beard and produce that odd purring sound that lizards can make when they are happy. So I sat down for a few minutes and started to pet her. After a little while, she hopped out of my lap and went over to the bowl that I carved out yesterday, and pushed her head on it.

“Okay, I’ll go get you water. Don’t know why you can’t get it yourself the river is right over there.”

When I got back with her water, she started to drink as I started to get the vines gathered. I had to climb up to the next little section above me to get all of them. I then got all the nuts I’d dropped before gathered up and piled in my shelter. I started my dinner fire going and then began to work on weaving the ropes.

I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I was hoping that survival would kick in or perhaps primitive tools, but I felt like both were laughing at me. So I stayed at it, remembering back to being a kid and making friendship bracelets and key chains. I was able to get a decent braid going, and when I got close to the end of one of the four, I was braiding, so I tried to add in another line. It took me a good dozen tries before I realized that I needed to start my new piece sooner. I worked on braiding the rope until it was time to eat.

Once I finished eating, I washed up and got ready for bed. It had been a good day, and I was looking forward to seeing what skills I’d gotten. As I climbed into my bed, I felt something squishy in the middle of the fur. I sat up and reached down to discover that Blink and been truly good and mad and left a pile in my sleeping fur.

“Blink! You had the whole landing to use you and you used my bed!” I roared as I sat up, throwing my blanket off of me.

I ended up moving the whole fur out from under the lean-to, and then after washing up again, I headed to bed without anything to sleep on. I would have to clean my fur in the morning and take her with me when I left.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Hiking (level 3)

New knowledge has been granted to you!

Rope making (level 0)

Rope making, Grouping non-combative Craft:

Rope making is just that making rope out of available lines or fibers. Higher levels require equipment. There are sub-skills.

The next day I got up early. Blink didn’t wake me up, but I was up just before the sun came up. My guess was it had something to do with the branch poking me in the face. I had to move the little lady off my chest where she was sleeping to get out of bed.

I packed my bag for a long day out and made sure to refill my water. I wasn’t sure where the path would take me, but I was convinced that I wanted to be ready. I took the time to pack up a coal from the banked fire. While I was expecting to be back that night, I wasn’t sure, so I needed to be ready for most anything.

What wasn’t fun was that I would need to leave my fur cloak/sleeping fur behind because I needed to clean it. I still wasn’t happy at Blink, and as the sun finished coming up, I found myself down at the river with sand and soap root, giving my fur a complete washing. I also was talking bad about my lizard because of the mess.

Once I was done there, I got my breakfast ready. As I started to eat the Princess lizard Blink, the bed pooper came over and demanded food with a yowl.

I tossed her some of the geson we dried out, “Here you go princess bed pooper. Breakfast!”

She snapped the meat out of the air and then started to purr as she chewed up the tough meat.

“I’m heading down-river today to look at the fires I saw yesterday.” I said around a bite.

Blink pounced on my barefoot and took a nip at my ankle.

“Ouch!”

“We are going downriver today to look at the fires,” I corrected myself.

Soon we were both done, and I picked up the little kitten-sized lizard and stuffed her in my pack. She stuck her head out and chipped like she was the happiest and most proud lizard in the world.

“Up you go girl.”

I swung the pack up and on my shoulders. Then Blink let out her cute sweet hiss. When the backpack was settled, I felt her move around a little until she was both on the pack and my shoulder.

“Might be tough there I got to climb down.” I said as I cocked my head back toward the right to look right in her eye.

Then I headed over to the ladder. I dropped my spear down and climbed down, and then hopped down the last few feet to the rock and sand ground. It was time for us to find a fire. I would likely be back for a few things, but depending on the type of community, I thought I might be waving goodbye to the waterfall.

We made good time down the river to the assent. I knew that it would be easier to see where I was going up higher, and I didn’t want to have to double back if the path ended down next to the river.

I hiked about two hours downriver when I came across the first signs of something else. I found lying next to the path I was on a small green primate with a bright red mohawk, half a loincloth, and a broken spear. The dead thing, which I call name a goblin, was no more than 2-feet-tall and so thin all its bones were showing.

I knelt down to get a closer look at it and saw that it had been gored by what looked like an unnt horn. As I scanned my surroundings, I noticed that there were about 10 of these dead guys. There were little spears littered all over the place and patches of mud to boot. As I was looking more closely at what I saw, I noticed that on the backs of several of these little guys, there were whip marks.

I wasn’t sure at this point where the rest of these guys went or if there were more. What I did know was that I needed to be careful. There was a wounded unnt, and a race of little spear uses that were close enough to hunt a unnt.

My guess was that none of these guys weighed more than about 30 pounds. That meant that there would have to be a mess of them to carry back the 150 or so pounds of meat from an unnt. With ten of them dead and cold, that meant that these guys had either completely lost or didn’t care about their dead.

I turned my head slightly and softly said, “Okay girl we are heading out of here. I have a bad feeling about following these guys right now.”

We took a bit longer getting back as I was checked to see if I could find more signs of the green guys. Finally, we got back home just as the sun was starting to head down. I was glad to be home but also kind of sad that I was thinking of it as home. I wanted to be gone from this place and back to people.

That night I dreamed.