Brandon had been a boyscout for a long time. Once they reached the base of the tree, he pointed out to the group that there were lots of long sticks. He had them all go around and grab as many sticks as they could carry and bring them back. No could take more than two at a time due to the length of the sticks. Most were between 6 and 8 feet long and many had leaves on them still. He used the time they were gathering sticks from under the tree to refill the water bottles as a start and then he began to skin the deer. It was not an easy process to skin it with a sword and cut off some meat to try and eat, but he did it while they were gathering. He also cut four long strips of hide and used a rock he found to scrape off all the hair then set those aside, laying over a larger root, to bind the horns to the sticks to make weapons later.

Once he was done with the deer, the first thing he did was scrape off the bark and bits of wood off of some of the tree limbs the group had brought for him and show Thysse how to do it.

“Make sure you dig out a ring using your sticks, feet, or anything else you have on you. We want to make sure the fire doesn’t light the grass and everything else around on fire. After that, put wood shavings, then small sticks, then larger sticks so we can start a fire. I have some flint and steel and if we can get the shavings I can hopefully start us a fire.” He patted Thysse on the shoulder and walked over to the other three who were discussing how to build a house out of sticks.

“I think,” Brandon said as he approached, “you are all thinking too grand. We need to start with a more simple structure to protect from the weather as we sleep. If we use that massive trunk, we can lean some of these long sticks against a tree and use the leaves and smaller sticks lying across.”

“How are we supposed to live in that?” Dylan asked, an incredulous look on his face.

“We aren’t here to live comfortably, we are here to survive. It is only an hour or so till dark, we need somewhere to rest, preferably close to that fire. Hopefully animals here get scared of it too.”

Dylan complained but went along with it and helped Brandon build a lean-to against the tree while the girls worked on their own a few feet down. The guy’s had room to lay all three next together but it would be a tough fit. Brandon built a small door for each by weaving sticks together like an old pot holder. It wasn’t anything great, just sticks crossed over each other with going over one and under the next with the gaps filled by leaves, but it would give them some privacy.

Once the shelter was built, Brandon started a fire, It took a few minutes and more than a couple curses, but he did eventually get it started. After that he sat by the fire while Thysse cooked the deer meat on sharpened sticks and looked at the horns, hide strips, and sticks. He started by taking his short sword and infusing his mana to make it easier to cut the wood. He slid the sword into the top to split it open. He cut it twice to make four sections. The sticks were both about an inch and a half in diameter, so he thought they would be strong enough to do that.

After he split the wood, he struck the base of each horn till he had a rough wedge shaped pint he slid into the wood by taking tha hide strip and placing it between the prongs on the horn and pulling it into space. Once he had it in, he secured it to the top with the hide strip, wrapping it around tight and crossing over it a few times. It was not the sturdiest construction, but it was serviceable. He lifted his new spear up to try and test it a few times. Ding!

[Rudimentary Thunder Spear (Uncommon)]

+5 piercing damage

+5 lightning elemental damage

Durability: 75/75

The damage of the spear was not bad, and there was even flavor text at the bottom about him crafting it, but as he finished reading the stats, he got another notification. Ding!

[You have succeeded in crafting a new item. You have gained 20 crafting experience towards your first level! Experience will be awarded when you pick a profession or you have accumulated enough experience in a profession that one is picked for you.]

Brandon read the notification and smiled. If even crafting gives experience, it may be worth it to try and make even more things after we have enough materials. Brandon got up and stretched. He laid the first spear against a tree and began working on the second. Once he had finished this one he laid it to the side as well. He only got 10 experience for this one but he wasn’t bothered.

“Jade, Dylan!” He called across the fire to them and gestured for them to come to him. When they got close, he handed them each a speat. “Try not to touch it, the tip is still electrified, but this should make it easier for you to fight without getting hurt. It probably won’t help against another deer like the one we fought today, but it should do well enough for you.”

Dylan’s eyes glowed when he was handed his spear. “Thanks Brandon! This will be great!” He looked like a kid in a candy store, but Brandon understood. He had been chased his entire beginner class dungeon, it must have been hard on him.

“Thanks.” Jade said as she took her spear off to the side and started practicing thrusting with it.

“Hey Jade, does cleave work with the spear? It isn’t exactly a blade.” Brandon asked.

“Oh? I don’t know, let me try it.” Jade held the spear off to one side and slightly crouched down. She swung the spear around in an arc of 180 degrees in front of her, a slightly crackling blue and purple trail followed behind the tip of her spear. “It works! That is much better than using a dagger!”

Brandon left Jade and now Dylan as well to their practice and went over to the fire where Thysse was cooking the deer. As he approached, Thysse said, “It’s almost ready.” Brandon sat down next to him and looked up at the fading sun.

“What do you think, will we last all three months?”

“I hope so. It’s hard to say.” Thysse turned the roasting deer on the skewers slowly as he spoke.

“True. Hey, at least we survived today. There is still so much to do even to make this camp livable. I am worried about going out because of the monsters though.”

“I understand, we also don’t want to leave the camp alone, others could come and ransack it.”

“True, we will have to figure out what to do once we start getting valuables and materials. Maybe we can find more people with different skills to come help!”

“Maybe, but for now we need to eat and sleep. DINNER!” The last was a call to everyone from Thysse.

They sat in companionable silence as they ate the meat. It was similar to venison Brandon had eaten before but he could feel the static electricity around the meat every time he went in for a bite. It made the taste somehow more metallic. We need to get plates and bowls and things like that. Jade's dagger could be used for carving and it would be nice if we had an axe to take down trees. Maybe I can use arc slash for it. We will need closed grain woods if we want to make cups and things, I’ll look for an oak.

“So,” Mia said, swallowing her last bite of deer. “How do we handle the watch schedule?”

“Do we need to take a watch?” Dylan asked.

“Yeah,” Thysse said, “If we don’t, animals and people could sneak up on us.”

“True, we need firewood to last the night as well, we should collect it before it gets fully dark. I’ll take first watch. I’ll use the timer till we leave to time out two hours and wake up who is next. We need to gather the wood before that though.”

“I’ll go on second watch.” Mia said, raising her hand.

“Third,” Thysse said.

“Guess I’m next.” said Jade.

“I’ll go last.” Dylan said.

“That will work, we will each get a full 8 hours of rest then. Alright, let’s grab some more sticks and get ready for the night, toilet paper will be in my bag, we don’t have a latrine yet, so dig a hole at least 20 feet from our lean-tos and bury it after. Get some water before bed too, I filled up the bottles.” Brandon stood and tossed his stick into the fire after tearing off the last of the meat.

They went about collecting sticks, and Brandon took the rest of the deer meat and started letting it roast by the fire slowly. Then he took the deer hide and bones off to the side to use as materials. He used his sword and infused his mana into it, cutting off one of the ribs then taking it back next to the fire. He sat down and began carving the bone down to try and make a knife, but after getting it thin enough to cut, the rib was too brittle and broke. He tossed the pieces next to the tree and as the sun finally set, he watched the others get into the lean-tos and try to sleep.

He got up again and grabbed the thigh bone instead. He worked the bone for almost his full two hour watch, glancing up and looking around every few minutes. Twice he saw creatures moving through the tree line, one was a herd of thunder deer so massive he could not tell how many there were. The other was what appeared to be a bear with glowing runes carved into its skin. It stood watch at the edge of the clearing looking at him for a few minutes before wandering back into the forest.

By the time his watch was up, he had carved the smooth bone into a fair approximation of a knife. It was short and not as sturdy as he would like, but it should be more serviceable for carving out a bowl than his sword. If he infused his mana into it, he could make the edge sharper so it would take less wear. Having nowhere on his person to store it, he walked over to his bag and placed it next to the bag with the point facing the tree.

After that he walked over to the girls’ rough lean-to and opened the door. He gently grabbed Mia’s leg to shake her awake, but as he did so, she sat up and hit her head on the sticks above her, falling back holding her head. The shaking of the lean-to and falling of leaves almost woke up Jade. She stirred and rolled over, but she didn’t wake up.

“Are you okay?” Brandon asked as Mia moaned.

“Okay enough for watch.” She whispered back. She kicked at him to get him to move out of the way. She shimmied down along the grass and leaves till she was out, wiggling like a worm to not disturb Jade. She held her staff as she did, there was even a mark on her face from where the quartz at the top had dug into it gently.

Brandon reached a hand down and she took it as he helped her up. He could smell both of their need for a bath, the sweat and blood of the past day or so hadn’t been washed away yet. She was very disheveled and much less guarded than she had been throughout the day. “Mia, be careful on watch. There were things past the treeline already tonight.”

He saw her face start to harden and she nodded. It could be easy to forget where they were if he had just woken up so he understood. “Hey, I made a small knife, it isn’t great and won’t make any sort of weapon but it is a little sharp make sure you don’t cut yourself on it.” He pointed out the knife next to the bag then went to open the lean-to but turned before he went inside. “Goodnight Mia, stay safe.” He crawled inside and laid down next to Thysse. His swords were uncomfortable, but he didn’t dare take them off.

* * *

Brandon woke up for the third time, he had woken up during both watch changes for the guys and quickly fell back asleep, it was annoying but he was somewhat of a light sleeper. The stress of the situation didn’t help. Both times he woke up thirsty and had to drink for his canteen. When he woke up the third time, the sun was shining through the leaves and branches, so he surmised it was morning. He slowly pushed against the ground, his arm gently scraping rocks and twigs as he went. It was not a comfortable night’s sleep, but he felt better rested than the night before an exam or job interview.

“Good morning.” Dylan looked over to Brandon and smiled. “Honestly, that rest was so necessary. I am sorry about yesterday. I hadn’t slept, I was exhausted, scared, I dunno man. It was a lot. I am still nervous an’ scared but it feels a little different now.”

“I get it.” Brandon grabbed his bone knife he had been working on and tied it to his bag with another strip of hide as he spoke. “We were in fight or flight all day. Don’t relax too much, we need to survive but we can’t just stay here. I am level two, but I think the rest of you are still level one. We need to build up a base and still work to get stronger.”

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“True dat, hey, know how you did that crazy sword slash?” Dylan was leaning back next to the smoldering fire on his hands. His body formed a triangle with the ground as he tilted his head backwards to look at Brandon. He smiled again. “Think I can do that too?”

“Probably not the same thing, But I think you can do something similar though. Once we get settled enough to feel a little more secure, I’ll do my best to teach you what I know about mana.”

“Thanks man. That was cool, I don’t want to have to run forever.”

“I think you’ll be running anyway.” Mia yawned as she joined the conversation from in her lean-to, Brandon heard her shake jade and tell her to get up after.

Dylan had a slightly sour expression but leaned over the fire, effectively exiting the conversation as he poked at it with a branch. Brandon finished preparing his bag for the day and took some of the meat they had finished roasting and set aside last night. He gently tapped Thysse’s foot with his till Thysse stirred and sat up groggily. After that he started on his breakfast of deer meat and water. The others eventually joined him and once they were all finished eating and making morning small talk about what they needed to do, Brandon decided to organize everyone as best he could.

“Okay, we have two important jobs we need done. We need to have at least two people guard the camp and at least two gather some wood and things like that. I feel like I would be best for cutting the trees but we need one or two of you to help carry it back as well. No one should go off solo, we should stay in pairs at least.”

“I am going with you. We are the best fighters I think, so we should be safer exploring than the others.” Mia said, raising her hand up.

“I was going to say the same thing, but if she’s going I will stay in camp. I have something I want to test anyway.”

“I’ll stay too” Jade said at the same time as Dylan said, “I want to try some things too.”

“Okay, Mia and I will go try and gather some wood to make some bowls and essentials. We will be back in 3 hours or less. If we aren't, something happened. Stay safe and kill monsters when you can but be careful about it.” Brandon glanced at Mia. “Alright, lets go, I want to get a couple of oak logs for this. We will have to carry them back, but we can probably only take one each for now, just to be safe.”

Mia and Brandon started walking to the edge of the clearing, he had seen some White Oaks in that direction. They walked mostly silently at first, but about halfway through the clearing Brandon started to speak. “So, I am not the most knowledgeable about woods, but I did grow up in the South. Sorry, I mean the Southern forests of North America. I am familiar with some things is what I was trying to say. White Oak is a good tree for plates and bowls I think. I know it is non toxic and somewhat water resistant. It doesn't last as long as live oak, but we have no sealant. We need to use a more resistant wood, something to do with their pores. I don’t know how it all works though. I know there are better woods and these forests have all sorts of trees, but the white oak I can identify.”

He knew he was rambling a bit but tried his best to not. He was pretty tense being alone with a stranger going into the woods. It was a little different with everyone together but his nerves were on end. He only met Mia yesterday. She slightly broke the tension by laughing at him. She covered her mouth and looked away as she started to giggle, leaning on her staff. “It is okay. You know more than the rest of us. It will be easier to survive with you.”

“Not really, just the survival stuff I think. You probably know some too from the military.”

“I only just started my training so it isn’t much honestly. I could probably survive but it wouldn’t be comfortable.”

As they entered the tree line, Brandon looked around for the trees he had seen before. They were not far from the white oak he was looking for, but there was one problem, there was a boar the size of a sedan between the tree and them.

“Dammit” he whispered. He grabbed Mia’s arm and pointed at it. The Boar was laying there asleep, it didn’t have the fur of a normal boar but what appeared to be mud covering it instead. The mud rose and fell, ripples spreading across its surface, as the boar breathed deeply. Brandon could even see flecks of mud fly off its nostrils. “We need to go around to chop the tree, I don’t think we should tackle something that big yet. Even a deer was dangerous.”

“I agree, let’s go quietly.”

They gave the boar a wide berth, walking around far enough the could barely see it, Brandon being careful to avoid stepping on the twigs that would snap and the piles of leaves. He tried to show Mia where to step, but it was slow going. By the time they arrived at the tree, Brandon realized another problem: the tree would make a lot of noise when it fell. As white oaks do, the tree had a split trunk. The trunk split into 5 separate trunks, each over two feet in diameter.

Brandon indicated for Mia to be quiet by raising his finger to his lips. He gestured for her to stay there and once he saw she understood, he ran at the tree. He took two steps up the bark and pushed off, jumping and grabbing onto one of the split trunks so he could swing his foot into the valley they all connected at. Once he was up in the tree, he found it easy to climb. It was a forgiving Oak with branches all within six feet of each other. It took him a while, but he was able to find a branch suited to their needs. It was about 8 inches in diameter and that thickness lasted for a few feet. He just wanted that thick section, so he walked slowly along the branch beneath it, careful not to move too fast as it bent under his weight. He cut off the end in pieces, gently dropping down a few inches at a time to make as little noise as possible.

Once he reached the 8 inch section, he swapped sides and held the branch under his right arm as he infused mana into his sword to swing again. He only had around 40% of his mana left even though he had been trying to conserve it. He slashed through the log like butter, but the added weight was too much. He could hold the log, but the suddenness of its weight pulled him off balance and he slipped off the branch he had been standing on.

He let out a shout as his side hit the branch beneath him. He was able to scramble back on to the limb, winded but not badly hurt. The log, however, fell and crashed into the other branch pieces he had cut off. He heard the crashing and breaking of wood, then he heard a loud snort. He looked around the trunk of the tree, and the Boar was snorting and beginning to stand. Brandon panicked and turned to Mia, he gestured for her to climb the tree, but she tried to emulate him, running and pushing off the trunk and she couldn’t reach the trunk he had grabbed. Brandon quickly climbed down, his bag making noise, but it was too late to be careful of noise now.

He reached the base where the trunks connected and he held out a hand to Mia. This time when she ran up and jumped he was able to grab her hand, with her trying to scramble up and him pulling, he managed to pull her into the space between the trunks. They were pressed against each other in the small space, not enough space to slide a piece of paper between them. Brandon reached up and grabbed a branch and whispered, “We need to climb up carefully. Don’t stand on the branches as I am on them but follow carefully.” He knew that pigs didn’t have the best vision and it would be more concerned with a predator on the ground, but he didn’t know if that held true for boars or not. Heck, I don’t know if anything applies here anyway.

They climbed up the tree till they were about 40 feet in the air. The branches were thinner here, but close to the trunk, they were able to hold their weight. Brandon’s breathing started to relax. He watched as the boar approached the tree. When it was closer, a name and health bar appeared. [Mud Boar. Level 7]. Brandon had to stop himself from holding his breath as he watched. The boar circled the tree till he found the fallen limbs and sniffed them. It shook its head, disgruntled and mud slung everywhere.

The Boar looked around, and seeming satisfied with its safety it rolled over onto its side and began to drift off again. It was laying at the foot of the tree and it was breathing deep again, but he couldn’t tell if it was sleeping just yet.

Mia reached up and pulled Brandon’s leg to get his attention. She pulled out her phone and mimed texting him and gestured to her ear. He got the hint and turned off his ringer. She’s smart, I should have thought of that instead of whispering. As he was thinking that text came in. “Did you see its eyes?”

“No, what”

“They are gems! Ruby or garnet, I’m not sure, mud was flowing over them.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, If it falls asleep under us, we can surprise it.”

“It is level 7.”

“Yeah, but they have weak points. If we can surprise it, we can kill it.”

“It may be our only way out anyway. Lets wait till we know its asleep tho.”

“Okaayyy” At the end of the last text she sent an emoji that had her eyes rolling.

Truthfully, he had been thinking the same thing but not to get the gems. He wanted to be able to get out of the tree. He spent the next thirty minutes planning and recovering his mana. After he had thought it over, he had a plan though it was reckless. Brandon sat back against the tree, trying to enter meditation as he did. He pulled in mana from the environment as he rested, recovering some mana and by time he opened his eyes a full hour had passed but his mana was full. Mia was staring at him and gestured to her phone.

He pulled his phone out and checked it. “How can you sleep at a time like this?”

“I was not sleeping. I was meditating to recover mana. I have a plan.”

“A plan?”

“Yeah. I can actually charge my arc slash. It takes more mana but can do a lot more damage.”

“You should have said something before you fell asleep on me.”

“Sorry, I didn’t think about it.”

“Are you ready to do it?”

“Yeah, but it will use most of my mana, I will be exhausted and unable to fight at full capacity after, you’ll have to finish it off.”

“Got it.”

They started climbing down slowly and carefully, taking extra care to be quiet. She stayed about 20 feet up, but Brandon stood in the crook of the tree where the trunks met. He needed the better footing.

Brandon raised his sword above his head and charged up almost all of his mana. He felt the energy flowing through his veins, the hot sensation of power and the chill it left behind as mana flowed into his now glowing sword. It took a full thirty seconds to pack as much power as possible into his mist steel sword. He slashed down, aiming at the neck of the boar. The arc of mana was steaming as it left his blade and he could feel the mist created during the slash. He fell to one knee, barely stopping himself as he almost tumbled out of the tree.

His slash connected with the neck of the boar. It reared back and screamed as it awoke, Brandon could not breathe as well as normal. He saw the health bar of the boar still had just over 10% left. As he tried to calm his breathing and let it return to normal, he saw white flashes head towards the boar. It took an additional 15 of Mia’s quartz mana bolts to slay it, all while it rammed the tree, trying to knock the tree over or them out of it. It got scarily close to succeeding multiple times. Brandon did not have a chance to recover from the mana usage and his head hurt. He almost fell three times as the boar attacked. Mia almost slipped once too. By the time the boar was dead, they were exhausted.

Brandon glanced up at Mia and smiled, she was exhausted too but she beamed broadly as the notifications came in. They both reached level 3 because of the fight, and he could feel power flowing into him as his level raised. He started laughing as he looked at his stats.

[Status]

Level: 3 [60/375 exp]

Class: Magic Swordsman

Health: 145/145

Mana: 260/260

Strength: 18

Dexterity: 14

Stamina: 16

Endurance: 12

Magic Power: 14

Free Points: 6

[Skill: Arc Slash level 2 (Uncommon)]

Channel your mana into a blade infused with your mana to overload it.

Slash with this overloaded sword to create a short ranged arc of mana that slashes opponents in front of you. Damage and range are based off the damage of the weapon and amount of mana used. Your mastery over Arc Slash has increased and now costs less mana and does more damage.

Brandon grinned seeing his arc slash had upgraded. Sword manipulation was still only at 19.8% of progress towards level 2, but even without using arc slash, he could feel a deeper understanding of it. The usage of mana had helped him understand how the channels flowed and how he could quickly control and allow mana to gather. As he considered and thought on it he got a new notification. Ding!

Mana sight had upgraded as well. He was more easily able to feel the flow of mana in the environment and see with it. The higher his mana sight level got, he could see he would rely less on his eyes. It was not as good as his eyes yet but he could feel one day it would work even better.

Brandon looked back down at the boar and he saw it was melting down. The only things that remained as the mud settled into the ground were the tusks of the boar and its two eyes made of thumb sized rubies. Brandon climbed down and picked up the rubies. The rubies have the full shape of eyes, the pattern sometimes was hidden but if you felt across the ruby you could feel the iris and pupil as the ruby was raised then felt like it was cut into.

“We did it Mia! You want to come get these?” He held up the ruby and waited for her to climb down.

“Thank you!” She said as she plucked them from his hand. She bent down and collected the tusks of the boar as well while Brandon walked around to grab the log.

“Let’s go. I think we have enough to head back with.”

Brandon took out his phone to turn the ringer back on and saw messages from the party chat asking about what happened and if they were okay. Thysse just said “Level 7? Noice.”

The rest of the party was now level 2 and almost level 3. Brandon texted back as they walked, “Yeah, it was an accident, but we will tell you back at camp.”

They walked back, chatting about the boar and what Mia could do with the rubies. They would not fit on her quartz staff, but when she channeled the gem’s nature the ruby caught fire, and when she channeled mana bolt for it, it became a fire bolt. Brandon had to run to put out a small fire when she used the fire bolt, so they decided to be more careful with it in the future. It would be a great fire starter though, better even than a lighter. As long as her mana was infused in the ruby he could ignite it from anywhere just like when she grew a blade from her quartz staff.

When they were walking across the field, almost as soon as they exited the woods, Brandon saw some sort of overgrowth where their camp had been. He pulled out his phone and texted the group. “What happened to camp?”

“My experiment!” Thysse replied.

“Huh?” Mia said out loud then texted after.

“It is some wild black berries! I picked a few after the deer fight and grew them with my skill!”

As they walked closer, He could see large blackberry vines wrapped around each other. They were an arm thick with thorns to match. There were no berries growing on the outside, but in the gaps in the vines he could see the berries on the inside. As they walked around, they saw the wall of vines only covered a quarter of the campsite. The vines were growing out of a patch of dirt near the tree and Thysse was sitting, smiling, but clearly exhausted. “Sorry,” He panted a little. “I wanted to surprise you, but I ran out of mana.”

“I am surprised, what the heck is this?” Mia said before Brandon could speak.

“Like I said, Blackberries.” Thysse smiled. “Welcome to The Hedge!”