An unpleasant morning followed Jack, though he had fallen asleep because of his fatigue, he had woken up well before the sun had. Even with his inconsistent sleep schedule, he wasn’t prepared for the frost that had blanketed both him, and the ground. The lake having provided a convenient source of cooling for the area surrounding it. While building a fire could have at least extended the time he would be warm for the night, he had no shelter, something he realized was more necessary now. He wouldn’t let himself suffer a morning like this again.
Jack turned to the other boar leg he had brought with him, now even less appetizing in the predawn cold of the morning. Not helped in the fact that his hunger wouldn’t mask the fact it was now well seasoned in dirt. Still, he forced himself to ingest the cold uncooked leg meat. Each bite as unsavory as the last, sparsely battered in the dirt and earthly particulate, giving an unsatisfactory crunch every time he chewed. Guessing himself lucky, that maybe a kobold could digest and consume such unhealthy sources of water and food, as comparatively to when he was human.
“Ugh,” a vocalization escaped his lips, still unadjusted to eating raw meat, or drinking the murky water of the lake. Even if he was to be incapable of fluent speech, he still found himself able to express himself in the cruder capabilities of a kobold. These short moments of speech would do for now, Jack wasn’t that social of an individual, and yet, knew that, as a human, he still needed to interact with others. He would need to find a means to communicate in this world, it would be unreasonable for him to assume he could remain a hermit in this forest. Still, Jack knew he wouldn’t be reading anything he would want to any time soon, he didn’t even know a language native to this world. All he could hope for now, is that he wouldn’t become dependent on projecting onto an inanimate object to keep some fragment of sanity.
While the pre-dawn morning light had yet to brighten, his eyesight wasn’t much worse than if it was already day. Yet he still wasn’t ready to hunt, his last endeavor to do so had already shown his lack of preparation in such a task. He sat there, wondering what he might be able to do in order to fill the morning hours. He had no means to start a fire, something that could at least bring him comfort, or at least provide him with a means to cook food in the future. Though he even knew where to start in gathering materials to start such a fire, he could gather fallen wood, but to cut it was another issue. He was as well unwilling to waste the head of his crude spear for such a task.
His next best option would be to construct a shelter, he had a rough idea on how to approach such an issue, and would take less time than trying to find enough branches and twigs to sustain a fire long enough to cook meat, or last through most of the night. Now, his problem however, instead of quantity, was more an issue of finding fallen branches and trees suitable for such a structure. He already knew there were plenty where the boar’s corpse was, but he wasn’t sure where that was. He was also unsure if it was safe to go near it; a corpse was bound to attract attention from some of the more confrontational creatures that lived in the forest.
Knowing that, he thought it's best to travel another direction, picking opposite of where he had traveled the day before. This time, aware of his long wandering trek back to the lake, he had decided to mark every few trees in a way so that they would be visible on his way back. Occasionally he marked a tree with an arrow, on either side of the sign he had carved, allowing for him to spot his tree path with more ease, instead of needing to look at a particular spot.
Every so often, he would find a fallen tree small enough for him to carry, which he would prop up against one of the marked trees. Making it, so he wasn’t just hauling an ever-growing bundle of fallen trees and branches as he progressed further away from the lake. After he had walked for most of the day, he made his way back. Slowly hauling his selected bundle back, comparing what he was carrying with what he had found earlier that day, occasionally discarding whatever didn’t make his cut. Eventually he found himself carrying his limit, he didn’t actually think he would find this much.
A problem he didn’t think he would have, even after discarding the worst he had found, so he started leaving a few at every marked tree, as to limit the amount he was hauling, he might have a use for them later, but for now, they would only be excess weight. When Jack finally brought what he intended to the lakeside, his next goal would be to find a place he could build a shelter. He didn’t exactly have a blueprint, nor would just having a bundle of sticks as a roof really protect him from the cold, but what means would he have to construct anything greater than that? When he was finally standing beside a spot he could build his shelter, it was already noon. While he still wasn’t confident in his ability to hunt, he at least had a spear he could use.
Setting aside his project, having marked it with the haphazard bundle of fallen thin trees and branches he intended to use. He found himself heading off into the woods again, instead hunting for food. Jack had happened across a rather odd bush, dotted with bundles of berries, what had dissuaded him from nearing the bush however was the pungent smell it had given off.
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Something odd however caught Jack’s eye, he noticed a few fallen trees, curious, he approached the fallen trees. On occasion, he had seen fallen trees before in the forest, though normally they would have been old trees, or had long since rotted into hollow logs. These however were fresh trees, and when he had finally arrived before the fallen trees, he realized it wasn’t just a few. In a rather large area, Jack could see there weren’t any trees standing. Looking closer to the tree in front of him, the tree itself looked warped and misshapen, as if buckling under the force of some massive behemoth of force. Through force, most of the trees had been sheared from their roots, if the roots hadn’t held, they themselves would be pulled from the ground. Accompanied by odd tracks traced by the ground giving way, sat opposite of each fallen tree.
Finding himself at the edge, Jack was both amazed and frighted at such a display of such destruction. He didn’t think he would find such an industrious level of deforestation in this new world. He didn’t know if there was any living thing that could replicate such a feat, bar some contraptions humans could use from the world he comes from. Still, he was unwilling to find who or what kind of creature could even accomplish what was in front of him. He had hoped it was some fight over territory, where both participants had somehow managed to inflict fatal wounds on each other, so that he wouldn’t need to come across a living being like that.
Now wary of his very surroundings, hoping himself lucky that he might not encounter anything capable of what he just witnessed, he turned about, following his trail back a great distance. The further he got from the wooded carnage, the more he had realized he was sprinting across the forest, and by the time he had stopped, he had more than covered half the distance back to the lake. Thinking it still safe, and knowing he should still hunt, he braced himself, facing a new direction, he began his hunt again. Jack would not be so lucky this outing, most of the forest was not as brave as he was, or rather, they weren’t ignorant to the rampage as he had been for most of the day. Jack wasn’t as perceptive as he thought he was, he had not noticed, for his entire outing, how quiet the forest had been.
The only one willing to venture forth was him, and by evening, Jack chalked up to his inability to hunt. Making his way back to the lakeside, he began working on his shelter. Jack was interrupted, suddenly, first by the panicked screeching of birds, then by the distant sound of wood cracking, closer, and closer, Jack heard as each tree fell. Soon, he saw the shifting trees, slowly the skyline cleared, until he saw something he swore he wouldn’t. A towering boar, adorn with the hind legs of a rabbit, though not as short as he was. It towered over him, standing twice as tall as he was easily, still he stood, stupefied by the sight, as the boar let out a shill war cry, it had finally found the thing it was looking for.
The massive boar bounding after him, even at a full sprint Jack couldn’t outpace the boar, each bound getting ever closer, each marked by an ever encroaching THUMP. The boar had disregard for everything in its path, the trees it smashed into being Jack’s only savior, slowing it down ever so slightly if only for a moment. With each tree crashing down, and the trees before him, Jack couldn’t make his mad dash in any straight line. Just like the boar’s of his old world, they were notoriously terrible at turning during their charge, even more so as this boar could not contort itself as a cat would midair. Though as it stood in his favor, Jack also found it hindered him, he didn’t have eyes on the back of his head, he could only hear when the boar slammed into a tree, and the terrifying sound it made as it slammed back into the ground, bounding after him. With each sound, he was more and more unwilling to turn his head to see when a tree was about to fall onto him.
Jack knew he probably couldn’t out run the boar, even with the tree’s to aid his need for survival. He was also well aware he had no means to defeat the boar, his spear could at best only further anger the boar. He continued, weaving in between the forest trees, hoping he could run into something big enough that could take down the boar at his heels, instead of attacking him, the easy meal on legs. Jack finally saw something off in the corner of his narrowing vision, not what he wanted to, but it was enough. The hunter he had seen the day prior. Intentionally slamming himself into a tree, he redirected himself, hoping that would give him enough time to make it to the hunter. The boar had such luck, slamming into a tree would only topple the tree, yet it was already on its way to slamming into the same tree Jack had used to stop himself.
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The hunter’s past few days had been miserable, She had failed her hunt yesterday, and the forest was amiss today, no creature dare come from whatever hole it found. She was even less thrilled when she heard trees falling, some forest tyrant duking it out, she thought. She had the means to brave a few more failed hunts, having brought rations with her, not something she looked forward too however.
More so, the hunter found herself further on edge when the sound of crashing trees got closer and closer, followed by a screaming naked kobold now making a mad dash for where she was. It wasn’t a threat by any means, and the spear it carried was even more crude than ones she’s seen other kobold’s use. What she wasn’t fond of was the towering boar charging after the kobold. Was the kobold the unlucky one among the tribe that had failed the hunt? What she had not realized was that Jack never intended to hunt such a massive creature. One, even an experienced group of hunters would struggle to do so, let alone a tribe of kobolds.