It is one thing to be dive-bombed by a seagull trying to steal your food. It is quite another to see a glowing blue hawk drop out of the sky. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any of my weapons with me as they were all about twenty feet away at my camp. The only thing I had was the rock in my hand.

I was never good at throwing balls, so I had no doubt that I would just miss if I tried to hit this angry bird. However, I wasn’t overly keen on standing still, so I dropped low to the ground and raised my arms up to block.

When the talons hit, I felt my arm tear and start to turn cold. I thought that it would strike and take off, but it began to try to peck at me with its curved beak.

“Ah!” I screamed as I shook my numb arm and started to try to swat the bird, but as I tried, it flew off.

I glanced at my right arm to see the holes from where it impaled me and saw that the skin around them was blueish. My health bar showed a snowflake with a count down of 10.

I looked up and saw the bird was flying away but was joined by a flock of 5 others. They all started to circle high above, screeching and diving. None got close to me, but each dive was aimed at me, just ending far above my head.

End of combat:

You survived without giving damage to your enemies!

Cold Damage 3

I moved over to under the trees. I figured it would be best to be undercover for a while. If I moved out of sight, I might end up out of mind, and the hawks might move on. Then again, they might be the type of bird that figures that I needed to be hunted all my life.

I then got out my etching rod and my little hammer and started to make doodles in the stone. I wanted to see if I could get this skill level up without knowing runes. I also wanted to know if I could pick up any art skills just so that I’d see if they could improve my general life like fitness training would.

As I started to work, the little bundle of joy, my pet ropola, came over to see what I was doing. As I would move the etching rod, tapping it with the little hammer, she would pounce on my hand.

“Blink stop that! I can’t work with you attacking me.”

She looked up at me like I was stupid and then pounced on my hand again.

“Fine, I can take a hint you want to play. I guess I need a break,”

I started to rub her belly and scratch her like I would any other pet.

“You really are a good pet.” I said to her with a smile and a light chuckle.

Right as I called her a pet, her head came back; she hissed and bit my finger, drawing just a little bit of blood. I yanked my hand back, getting my arm scratched by her claws as I pulled back.

“What the hell was that for! I yelled as I stood up.”

She hissed at me, turned her body away from me, and sat down looking the other way.

“Stupid pets, never know what they are going to do.” I muttered.

Blink didn’t even look back at me, but I saw the little spins on her back raise, and she hissed a little.

I sat back down and looked at my hand and then at her.

“Your my bonded companion not not a pet?” I asked.

I watched Blink slowly turn back and look at me, then she gave me one of her slow, painfully slow blinks.

“Sorry, I will be sure to watch what I call you.”

I slowly got back to work with Blink just watching me. After about an hour, I stopped work as it looked like my mana had recharged enough for me to try to force the power imbuing like I’d a spell. So I sat down with a fist-sized rock and started to try the same mental trigger I’d for my one spell.

I felt my chest heave a huge sigh, and then I felt my power come out of my right hand and pass through the rock into my left and around to my chest again. It was like a NASA centrifuge for the pilots. Only there was energy and no person going round and round faster and faster. I noticed that the rock was slowly starting to glow as more time went on.

I don’t know how long I went imbuing the stone, but when I stopped, the rock had slight cracks in it that glowed with pale blue light, and the outside was even smoother than before.

Success!

River Stone Imbued with power

1 mana stored!

Well, that told me I did it right this time. Looking around, I knew that it also took a while. I saw that the sun was about to set, so I figured it was about four hours to store one mana. Looking at the little blue bar, it looked like it took about ten times that much to do so. At least at these levels, this wouldn’t be something that worked for me long term. That being said, I might do this on a rainy day or at night before going to sleep. I knew I was feeling drained mentally, so I wouldn’t want to think after doing this.

I headed over to my lean-to, pulled out some dry fish for myself, and saw that Blink was already lying in my bed, curled up like a cat in the middle of my fur. After I ate, I tried to lay down without bugging her too much, but she protested my movements and then got up and laid back down on my chest, purring. So I scratched her a bit.

“Okay Blink, time for bed. See you in the morning,” I cooed to my lizard.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Power imbuing (Level 2)

Etching (Level 2)

I woke up happy that I had no dreams. I hadn’t asked Sam anything, and I didn’t dream of memories of the world. So I woke up kind of refreshed for once. I also woke up with a lizard making biscuits on my face. That kind of reminded me that my beard was getting out of hand.

It was a great morning once I got Blink off of me long enough to get food for both of us. I got my regular practice in, and then I went fishing which was fun with Blink. For everyone I caught, she grabbed two.

Click... Click... For whatever reason, that dumb clock was back in my head.

She also was willing to let me have them after she had her fill, which was just the first two. She was in everything as I was gutting the fish, and she watched as I hoed everything under. She even dug it all back up and added her contribution to the compost.

Click... Click...

The whole morning I was still hearing that dumb click in the back of my brain. I hated that clock more than anything right than two days, and it was still creeping into my mind. After getting the fish smoked and lunch was done, it was time that I did more exploring. I needed to try to do tracking to raise that skill, and I wanted to think more about how to catch me a unnt. I also needed to be on the lookout for more signs of goblins.

While I’d not wanted to go off yesterday so that I could give Blink time to grow, she was already moving faster than I thought she should be able to and was keeping up with me somewhat. I figured that she would be safe on the ledge from anything big as there were places she could hide.

I put down my ladder and headed down to the first step of my climb down, and Blink followed right along. When I made my first jump down about 4 feet, she was doing great behind me. When I did the first jump, she started to hiss and whine at me. I went over to it, and she jumped onto me. I went back up to see if she could follow, and after a few minutes of waiting, she looked at the wall, jumped on it, and scaled almost straight up. She gave me a long slow blink followed by a swishing tail and a smug look. When I went back down, she hit me from a dive as my feet hit the ground. She then sat on my right shoulder like a parrot and started to purr.

Click.

I sighed and got to work. I needed to find tracks to track and work on my skill. I also wanted to look at the unnts some more. So I was taking my rope with me. I would go back around to the top of the falls. Just before I needed to go up, I found some hoof prints in the soft sand. So I changed my plans and started to follow them. The great thing was that they were going back up the way I needed to go. I slowed down as we went up and got to the crevasse after about an hour. I lost the trail there for a while. Then picked it up again when I saw that what I was following had jumped across.

When I got to the top of the slope, the hoof prints went the other way. So now I had to make up my mind. Do I go after this animal, or do I go up the other way to do what I planned? I wanted to chase after it because I wanted to see what it was. That being said, I also wanted to go get a fast way to the top put in. So I did what I knew I should, not what I wanted to do, and I headed to the top.

Click… Click… Click… If I could, I’d kill that man for that clock or at least break the clock.

I got to the top a bit slower than I’d wanted since I got to practice tracking when Blink jumped off my shoulder and went after something in the brush. It turned out she had found a small bird, and she was happily eating it. I did steal the tail feathers since I thought they might be long enough to use on arrows if I could ever figure out a bow that would work.

Once I got to the top, Blink went over to the edge of the water and started to sun herself. So I got to work trying to find a good tree near the edge that I could lash my rope to. I ended up connecting it around an old oak that was about 10 feet from the edge and four feet wide. I dropped my rope off and saw that it made a small coil at the bottom, which was fine by me.

I didn’t know how to repel down, but I did know how to climb, and I also figured that I could use the rope to lower stuff down that I didn’t want to haul around. So I pulled the rope back up and coiled it up and hung it on a branch on the tree. I then went looking for something that I could make into a basket.

I felt one of my skills kick in, but I wasn’t sure if that was the Survival skill or my tool skill. It took me a while of feeling my way around until I found a willow tree. I started to cut out the small branches, and as I cut, I began to let my skill take over, which I think was tool-making. Finally, after about two hours of work, I’d myself a loose basket that I felt I could use to lower supplies down the cliff. As I’d been working, Blink had been chasing the willow ends and so was tired. I took a deep breath, happy that I’d gotten some work done. I was also delighted that the stupid clicking had stopped while I worked.

I went and tied the basket to the rope, and then I went and started looking for food. It was something that I hadn’t done in a while, so I wanted to see if I could find any herbs or wild food. I was just about out of everything again except for fish, and I knew that would end up being bad.

I spent about two hours finding food. I let my Herbalism or survival skills drive my work as I got roots, leaves, and nuts. I tried to gently uproot any of the leaf plants I could find and not just take the leaves. I also found several plants that I knew would be good to eat as herbs. I knew what mint smelled and looked like, so I got some of that when I found it, and I found basil and thyme. By the end of the two hours, I had my pack full and the basket full. It was a good load for my garden and for eating.

I lowered the basket down, and I was tired when I got it down. It must have been a good 60 pounds of plants in the basket, and it was at the end of a rope. My triceps and upper back were killing me as I’d not used muscles in that way in a long time. My legs weren’t too happy with me either.

The good thing was my cargo was down. The bad thing was that I’d have to take a two-hour hike to unload it as I couldn’t get it all to dump out safely. That meant that my rope would be hanging all night. To me, it wasn’t a great thing because when it rained, I didn’t want it to get wet. I also didn’t want something that announced where I was. So I tracked down Blink and got her on my shoulder and pack and started back home.

I was only a quarter of the way back down the ridge trail when I heard a yell and crash behind me.

Blink hissed.