CHAPTER THREE

Eight years ago

Although the sun had gone down well over an hour ago, the temperature was almost unbearable. I took another hard look at the daunting mountain of boxes that sat on the unfolded shipper unit, in the front lawn of my family’s new house.

I knew that we could afford robotic movers, but my old man was stubborn. He insisted that a little hard work now and then did a person some good.

“Hmm, better get on it.” I rolled up my sleeves and began staging the boxes into separate piles for each room. I knew my father would be home in a few hours, but if I got a significant portion of it done, my old man might throw me some coin.

I flopped to the lawn in exhaustion. The grass was itchy but comfortable and I found that the breeze had picked up, which suited me nicely.

A voice came from over the hedge that divided our property from the house next to us, “Hey, you the new neighbor?”

I sat and squinted in the direction of the voice, “I guess so.”

“Good enough for me, …trampoline launch!” He whooped and came flying over the hedge, and rolled to a stop, arms and legs splayed widely nearby.

The boy was smaller than me, and was what mothers would call ‘husky’. He appeared a little worse for the wear and raised a thumb at me, “I’m OK!”

I laughed at his antics, “My name is Jose, what’s yours?’

He grinned, “Nate. Pleased ta meetcha!” His arm flopped down and he groaned in pain as he stood, dusting the grass from himself as he rose.

And that was how my closest friendship began: acrobatically.

***

The present

After a solid half-hour of chopping, my axe proficiency managed to rise five points, and all I had to show for it was a smallish stack of mangled wood.

Sigh.

I suppose that will do for firewood. I had hoped to craft some simple viking chairs, like the ones I saw at the SCA’s Cascadian wargame back in ’76, which was just two simple pieces of lumber fitted together, however I had expected too much from the crafting system, I would have to do everything, no shortcuts! Since I didn’t have any real tools, I was limited in my products.

Since the area in front of the cave was a little sandy, I had little trouble getting small and medium sized rocks to build a proper firepit. As I rolled the last stone into place, I loaded some of the wood into it, and stacked the rest just inside the cave mouth so it could dry.

The underbrush rustled and Laurel appeared, tears streaming down her cheeks.

I dashed towards her, arms outstretched, “what happened?”

Laurel smiled as she rubbed the tears away with the backs of her hands.

“Killer Onions!” She raised her other hand and held aloft four onion plants by the stems, except where the roots ought to be, were strangely muscular little human legs, “They sprayed me when I tore off their arms.”

I blinked twice, trying to make sense of it.

Stolen story; please report.

“You …tore off their arms?”

She looked at me like I was crazy, “Well yeah, they ambushed me while I was collecting herbs.”

“…but their arms?”

“They had weapons! I don’t! Plus they look like they’d be delicious grilled.”

I looked at the onions again and nodded. She had a point. Grilled onions were pretty good. Hopefully Nathan would return with some rabbits or something.

“Fair enough. What else did you get?” I peered at her bulging pouches

“Oh, some healing herbs and some spices. The herbs are really weak, but If I use them with some other stuff, I can make a low level healing potion. The spices are a bit weird though.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, just chew on one, you’ll understand.” She reached into her pouch and pulled out a handful of herbs, and held them out for me.

Curious, I took one and gave it a sniff. My eyebrows shot up in surprise. I stuck in into my mouth and chewed it gently. The distinct flavor of bubblegum filled my mouth, so weird!

Laurel grinned widely as she saw my expression, “I know, right!?”

“Bubble gum!’ OK that’s cool, but… I can’t imagine using it to flavor anything.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. Taste this,” she held out a second herb for me. “That’s the healing herb.”

I took it and bit down, and immediately spit it out, desperately trying to scrape the taste off of my tongue with my fingers.

“Gah,” I said desperate to clear this flavor out of my mouth.

Laurel handed me a second bubblegum herb, which I chewed vigorously. Unsurprisingly, its pleasant flavor dulled the awfulness that was the healing herbs flavor and eventually replaced it.

“I’m going to use it to remove the nasty flavor of healing potions. I got the idea from the way pharmacies flavor medicine for children.” She grinned, her excitement growing.

“You are one smart cookie, you know that?” I pulled her in for a bubblegum flavored kiss, which she drew out for a deliciously long time.

“I know. I wasn’t always a model, you know?” She winked and looked at my handiwork, “We have a while before sundown, so I’ll let you get back to it.”

She pulled the pouch off her belt and handed it to me.

“Can you lay these out to dry? I’m going back for more.”

She dropped the Killer Onions near the firepit and headed back to the field she was harvesting in.

I looked at the pouch and thought about what I’d need to do that properly.

Hm.

I’d want a rack of some sort, or a large cloth maybe. Neither of which I happened to have. I had my starter tunic, but I’d need it later, I’m sure…

“Ah!”

I had a bright idea!

I took a second look at the trees around me. There were trees that resembled willows with long thin branches nearby. I had ignored them at first, because I didn’t think they would make very good firewood, but for this….

An hour later, I had stripped several trees bare of limbs and had taken the bark off in long strips.

From the new materials, I had been creating a sort of woven wicker mat, tied together with the strips of bark. As I finished my handiwork, I received a system message informing me that my handcraft skill had gone up by ten points.

Cool!

I’d be able to make better things down the road, for sure!

I set my mind to making a second item, a wicker backpack! It would basically be a basket with some braided bark ropes to slip my arms through. If the guys were going to be taking advantage of the craftsman skills, I reckoned that we’d be needing it since we only had four slot inventories provided by the game. Those four slots would be used to store treasure and important things, so they wouldn’t be dropped by accident.

As the day stretched on, I lit the fire with some tinder and a spark from some flint and my hatchet. As the fire grew in strength, Laurel and Nathan returned, both loaded down with the results of their labor.

“Whatcha got there?”

“Rabbits and a wild bird!”

“…How?” I asked, baffled by the amazing haul.

“Stealth, baby!” Nate crowed. “They never saw me coming.”

“Good Job!” I clapped him on the back and turned my attention to the beautiful one.

“How about you, sweetie?”

Laurel held out four more Killer Onions and another bulging pouch. “More onions, herbs, and some wild potatoes!”

“I think we have a meal here guys!” I took the spoils from them and laid them on the drying mat I had made.

“Ah I’ll be right back!” Nathan exclaimed, dashing back into the woods.

“Better hurry, we’re losing daylight!” Laurel shouted after him.

“Ya!” He replied as he disappeared.

***

As I had just prepared the rabbits for cooking and thoroughly mangled the pelts in the process, sadly, Nathan returned from his excursion and pulled out a big wad of clay, about a foot wide.

“What’s that for? Crafting?” I asked, curious.

“Nah! For the potatoes! He took a handful of clay in one hand and one of the small potatoes in the other and began covering it with clay. Once it was covered in a thick layer of clay, he dropped in the ashes at the edge of the fire.

“Aha! Baked potatoes!” Laurel said, as she realized his thought process.

“Those scouting days are paying off, Nate.!

He flushed in excitement, “If I had a trap, I could get us some fish from the river where I got the clay…”

Nathan’s eyes lit upon the backpack I had crafted, then down to the mat. “Joe? Can you make me one of those? And maybe add an inverted funnel to the mouth? Because you basically made a fish trap there.”

Nice! We’re eating fish tomorrow!

“I’ll do it first thing in the morning.”

As the three of us ate our fill of herb-roasted rabbits, a wild bird, with sides of onions and baked potatoes, we settled down for the night.