After dealing with that. I took some time to inspect the damage to my fence line with a sigh. I considered trying to fix it but knew it would just come to more harm when I dropped the other trees. Instead, I picked through the limbs I had already collected and found a decent stout looking limb about the length of my leg. I took this over to a flattish large stone and gathered up the remains of my last axe. It wasn’t too complicated of an item. The shaft was split with the stone jammed into it and then bound as tightly as the twine would allow. I knew there was probably a component having to do with wetness and getting the wood to swell or dry a certain way, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out how it factored in.

I used Deconstruct to scavenge the old axe head and a decent portion of twine from the broken axe. The use of the skill was miraculous. I focused on the item and the System felt my intent. The item broke apart in my hands, trash dropping to the ground and the useful salvage left in my hands.

[You have deconstructed a Crude Axe.]

I was a little awestruck to be honest. Amongst all the strangeness and changes this System and god brought, this was real, in my hands, power. Something that I did with my own intention. It wasn’t something involving a fancy tech GUI or showy ‘god’. It was something I wanted to do and suddenly it was done with no intervening effort. It was truly manifested will and intent. Real magic.

I shook my head clutching the twine and stone axe head. Wow.

Using the old axe head and another stone that was handy I split the limb down the center. I was paranoid of going too far and splitting the whole thing. I had to pry and lever with another piece of wood to open the split I made and position the axe head properly. The twine went above, below, around, across, and every which way I could to secure the axe head in place. It seemed solidly placed and once I held the axe out to inspect it, I got another set of skill notifications.

[Congratulations! You have unlocked the Primitive Crafting skill!]

[Congratulations! You have unlocked the schematic for Primitive Axe!]

[Primitive Crafting]

Unlock Conditions - Purposefully create a primitive item or tool.

[lvl 1] - Create a very crude tool or weapon out of basic resources.

[lvl 3] - Create a very crude tool or weapon out of some of the basic resources.

[lvl 6] - Create a very crude tool or weapon out of little to no resources.

[lvl 9] - Create a very crude tool or weapon out of nothing. LET THERE BE STICK!

Interesting. It looks like eventually one could spawn items at will. Granted it probably wouldn’t be anything impressive, but manifesting something from nothing was pretty devastating to the laws of physics. And I loved the idea of breaking the system. Both big S and little s.

The other notification informed me that I acquired a schematic. I assumed it was because I knew how to create a basic-bitch axe. The skill descriptions kept hinting at things I needed to know or understand, this must be the indication of that understanding. It seemed to follow a logic that was special to survival games in that way. Except instead of unlocking or buying the schematic, I must have to build a sample first. I wonder if I leveled up my deconstruct skill enough and took something apart if it would grant me a schematic. I loved that idea. Plunder, Pillage, and Learn. This afterlife was sounding more and more interesting.

I grabbed the last of my twine supply, the spare axe head, and another decent looking stick for a handle. The skill was easily activated with the simple intent of wanting to create another axe from these supplies. In a blink I was the proud owner of a new Primitive Axe.

I gripped one axe in each hand and cackled like a mad man.

“I am the axe lord!” I yelled into the air. “All trees shall tremble before my might!”

I only managed to fell one smaller tree before I called it a night. And that was thanks more to the Logger skill than anything else. It didn’t help my chopping much, but the extra instinct on where to hit the tree that it seemed to impart to me sped up the process a little. And luckily the axe didn’t break. I had an apple and water dinner before creating a rough bed out of some leaf-heavy limbs. At some point during my tree murdering Pest had headed off for a hunt. I used my bag as a pillow and watched the sky turn to night. It was hard to not think of home and family. I was lonely. I hated being alone. I also hated being around people. The joys of being contrary. But I missed them. So much.

Akin to when I was a teenager, I was awoken by someone flicking on a light to interrupt my sleep. It instantly infuriated me. And the fact that it was unavoidable, and all-encompassing, made it worse. I couldn’t stuff my head under a pillow to block out the light like I could as a teenager. To finalize the pain, it was that shade of blue. I hated it, every day, a little more.

[Congratulations! You survived the night! Welcome to a new day in the afterlife. As with all Norse afterlives, you spent all day fighting, pillaging, and plundering. Some lived, and some died. But all those lives lost are returned, to pillage and plunder again until the Ragnarok decides to come and create the cycle again.]

I slammed the mental confirm button to get the window to fuck off.

As I grumbled and complained about the early wakeup call and ridiculous method of delivery my body complained. The work yesterday and uncomfortable sleeping arrangements were showing results in my back and limbs. Avatar bodies were just as treacherous as real bodies.

I got up, grumbling and cursing in the early morning, channeling my inner old man. My body tingled, which was new, my skin prickling with an odd sensation. I tried to rub the feeling out of my arms and debris rained off to scatter in the air like sparkly glitter. I was amused at the sight. Until I noticed the glitter still on my arms was moving. A flash of confusion ran through me as I brought my arm up to peer closely at the glitter. It was a tiny iridescent speck, with eight tiny legs. And there were so many of them that the only way I could think of the number was zillions.

Zillions of little sparkly spiders crawling all over my body. I don’t have a phobia or anything, if anything I enjoyed spiders. But bugs of any sort on me, much less in quantity, were a no go. I did a good Charlie Brown style ‘Arg!’ and ran straight towards the water. The slight bank before the water I did not consider.

I made a new discovery about my chosen camp location, the water was deep enough to safely dive in to. And it was fast moving underneath its sedate looking surface. Something I haven’t touched on yet, I grew up around water and felt comfortable about it in nearly every way. But something I never could grasp, for whatever reason, was swimming.

The river grabbed hold of me and pulled me swiftly downstream. I flailed about, thoroughly panicked, and struggled for some time before I found myself on the sandy side of the river. It wasn’t particularly difficult to extract myself from the river, after the two joined and mixed the river shallowed and I managed to guide myself to the edge. Coughing and sputtering my sinuses burned with inhaled water and I could already feel a follow-up headache encroaching. Panting I gave myself a cursory inspection for glitter spiders as I lay on the sand. Mission accomplished. Delousing complete, I raised my arms in triumph.

I decided to stare at the sky and rest as the daytime overtook the residual darkness of the night. It wasn’t cold, I decided, which it should have been, me being drenched in the river and if still being in the early morning. The water still felt cool if I touched it. But right now, I should have been close to freezing to death after a dunk in a swift river and early morning still in the air. I wondered if Loki had forgotten the ambient temperature coding as well? I don’t think I was going to report this one. I’d rather not have to deal with that aspect of life. Probably better than whatever boon he decided to stick me with anyway.

I started trudging my way along the sand flats back to my camp, about halfway back I tripped over some driftwood that was buried in the sand.

[You have taken Fall Damage.]

I rolled onto my back using some wood as a body shield and glanced around without getting up. The last time I had face-planted like that saved my life from an arrow. No cannibals came rushing out from the scrub brush to eat me. Nothing much of anything seemed to be around. The morning was quiet, only the calm susurration of the river passing and slight breeze through the sparse grasses to break the silence. After a final cannibal check I decided to get up. I used the smooth wood of the buried drift wood to brace myself as I got up. The part I grasped looked almost purposely built to be a handrail, I noticed. Looking more closely at it, I got the impression that it was purposely built. Even though the waters and weather had worn down the edges significantly it held the look of a worked piece of wood. It wasn’t a small object, longer than me as it lay on the sand and still going under the sand for an unknown length. I took a few steps back and compared it with some of the other wood and bits strewn along the beach.

Most of the fallen and collected wood amongst the scrub brush was of the same aged weathered look, but some other pieces shared the same worked look. I cleared away, using my handy frontiersman skill, some of the brush and obviously unrelated debris. After a few minutes of work, I had an object roughly traced out. The piece of wood I had used to hunker behind was on one side of an arch shaped object. Where the arch joined at its apex a jagged chunk of wood rose to around my hip before slowly following its edge down and into the sand.

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Based on shape and context, I was looking at half of an ancient broken and battered boat. The wood joins and separate boards had been connected so well that after the weather and river had eroded and planed the wood down it appeared almost one solid piece of wood. Expert construction techniques of an ancient skill long lost to a mechanized world. Crossbeams that I had initially taken for scattered tree limbs made up an internal skeleton for the sides of the ship. The figurehead broke off and lost, I didn’t even know which end of the ship this was. Only the one end and sides were unburied so who knows what treasures may or may not still lay within the bottom of the ship. I was excited. It was a fascinating find, what things could I learn from deconstructing the object, and what treasures might I find if I exhumed it from the sand? I tried to dig at it, but the hard packed wet sand made it difficult.

I would have to return with tools in the future and see what secrets lay beneath the sand.

With more pep in my step, I finished my trek along the river. Returning to where the rivers joined I had another issue to conquer. How would I cross the river to return to my camp? As I was staring forlornly at my worked area a tickle in the back of my mind brought my attention to Pest. He was standing on the bank staring at me, as he was prone to do. If it wasn’t for the bond's subtle directionality, I probably would have never spotted his tiny camouflage and furry face. He blended in very well. After we shared a good stare he disappeared back into the camp, and as far as I could tell back into the forest beyond. Odd little fellow, but respectful in his own way.

I sighed, one way or the other, be it finding somewhere to cross or having to swim/flail my way across, I would need to do it from upstream, so I started further that way.

It was quite the adventure to find a reasonable place to cross, which meant my camp had good defense, but was not easily accessible if I wanted to go adventuring and stay dry at the same time. Maybe if I fell a tree across the river and used a rope hand guide. I’d have to learn to make rope. The grass and brush on this side of the river might make good plants for ropes and twine. I collected some of the tall grass and began to fiddle with it. Rope isn’t a complicated thing, it is just long materials combined together in strands. You then join together those strands to get thicker strands. Repeat until your stand is as thick as it needs to be. Right?

I have a daughter. I knew the rough steps to braiding hair. She never let me do it, but I had tried a few times out of sheer dad-pride. Using a plant that I had no idea what was, I experimented. The plant consisted of nothing but batches of really long leaf sections; it looked like a house plant you’d commonly see for sale in the garden section. I got a few strands of it and gave it a tug, it didn’t instantly break. I knew whatever I did end up using would need to be dried, but for right now I was just going to fiddle with what was around as I walked. I first tried to braid three strands like you would with hair. It seemed to hold up but wasn’t quite right. It was loose and didn’t hold up to any sort of force beyond what a single strand could. I discarded the pieces and tried again. This time I thought about how annoying it was when a rope would come unfurled, it would unwind all the way from tip to tip if you didn’t stop it in some way. Multiple strands untwisting one way as the strands there were made up would twist another way. A lovely little pom-pom that made a great cat toy but made a poor rope at that point.

I grabbed another collection of long leaves and tried to apply that concept. I had to stop walking as my chin became an extra appendage to pin one end of the strands to my chest. Using my hands, I separated the bundle into two strands and twisted them independently while wrapping them together in the opposite direction. After a couple failures at the chin end of things I got a nice strand going. I managed to make a very ugly and juicy leafy cord about six inches long before I ran out of materials. Tying an ugly fat knot on the end, I inspected my handy work. It did indeed resemble a tiny rope! The System agreed with me.

[Congratulations! You have unlocked the schematic for Primitive Twine!]

It was awesome! I felt elated at having worked it out! The system decided I was a good boy and gave me another burst of dopamine.

[Congratulations! You have unlocked the Ingenuity skill!]

[Ingenuity]

Unlock Conditions - Create something slightly complex out of nothing.

[lvl 1] - You can guess how things you know about should be made.

[lvl 3] - You can take an educated guess on how things you know about should be made.

[lvl 6] - You can reasonably figure out how things you know about should be made.

[lvl 9] - If you know about it you can recreate it. OMNIPOTENT REINVENTOR!

Wow. That one seemed a little OP. But I’d take it! Being able to figure out any object for crafting by a little study and experimentation was right up my alley. I'd have to really start grinding some of these skills soon. God damn I’m hungry, I complained internally. Since my impromptu bath had forced me to leave quite quickly, I hadn’t had breakfast.

I gathered some more of the plants as I came across them until I had just about as much as I could handle.

“Let there be rope!” I yelled as I focused on a portion of the leaves and made use of my Primitive Crafting skill. Nothing happened. I stared at it for a moment. I went through my notifications really quick and checked my status. I hadn’t done that in a while.

[Viktor]

Strength 5

Agility 5

Constitution 6

Wits 7

Recollection 5

Charisma 5

Luck 8

Titles: Alpha Tester

Perks: Golden Ticket

Boons: Loki’s Boon (Furry Lover)

Skills:

Crafting

Deconstruct Ingenuity

Leathercraft Primitive Crafting

Repair

Battle

Bullrush Grapple

Kick Powerslam

Outdoorsman

Frontiersman Hiking

Logger

Misc

Corpse Desecration

Schematics:

Tools

Axe

Supplies

Rope Twine

“Oh,” I realized my error. “Let there be twine!”

And so, it was. My hands filled with a thin twine crafted from the leaves of the mystery plant. I tugged on them and found them too not to be the strongest. The skill made use of the materials provided I guessed and didn’t let me cheat my way to a strong product from inadequate supplies. I repeated the process that I had used to make the first twine using the freshly crafted twine as a material.

[Congratulations! You have unlocked the schematic for Primitive Rope!]

And thus, I had a small ugly handmade rope and a new schematic. One product led to another, as these things generally went. I only had one more question about this part of the System. First, I took the remainder of my leaves and willed it into twine. The leaves became twine. Then I willed that into rope. The twine dissolved and a short section of rope was in my hands. Leaves make twine. Twine makes rope. Okay, and here is the kicker. To really test just how tedious crafting this life would be. I grabbed up another bundle of leaves and tried to will that into rope. It worked. It took all the leaves and skipped the step needed from twine. That was a time saver, and if it worked here it must work for other things. It meant that down the line I’d only have to worry about having enough raw resources for crafts. I wouldn’t need to do the in-between bits. No need to tan hide into leather. No processing required. However, if one did tan the hide, it may provide better quality end results. Just like the rope being made of fresh wet leaves. I could imagine a fresh cow skin coat being a little bit different than a leather jacket. Gross. I would have to see. Tossing all my experimental rope down, it was a trash rope that hardly held with my pulling my strongest on it, I took a better look at my surroundings. I had wandered the bank playing with my crafting project a good distance. A small flight of rapids in the river was ahead of me. Large stones poking up and making any rafting down the water treacherous, but probably close enough that I could cross with minimal drenching.

I scavenged up a long and sturdy stick from nearby to use as a walking pole and hopped over to the first rock. I was surprised that I didn’t receive a skill for that. I used the stick to probe for depth, it was still chest deep even amongst the rocks and rapids. The flow was steady enough to be a little unsettling as it tugged at my tool. Finding it has a good purchase on the bottom I used it as a pole-vault to cross to the next rock. It reminded me briefly of being a kid, crossing streams and creeks as I would wander the hills back home. My dad was all about going out on wilderness adventures. Horses, motorcycles, hunting, fishing, rock hounding, horn hunting, and just plain hiking. His hobby would last a few months before he moved onto a new one, but it always involved the outdoors. Last, I had heard he was planning another big gold dredging trip. Always an odd hobby I thought. Taking a large vacuum to a remote river and sucking at the fish shit and debris at the bottom of the river to find shiny rocks. I don’t think he ever struck it rich, but I had hope he would. I missed him too, in times like this, out in what I considered his element. I bet my mother wished he liked vacuuming at home as much as he enjoyed it at the bottom of a river.

My fond memories were cut short mid pole vault onto the next stone. My stick shifted as it took my weight and went out from under me. I went for the second swim of the day. And remember, I do not swim. I bobbed and cursed and spluttered and inhaled some water.

[You have taken Drowning Damage.]

In my mad struggles and horrible imitation of a swimmer I must have done something right, because I found myself on the river bank I desired to be on shortly after. I coughed and vomited up water as I crawled out of the river on my hands and knees.

“Jesu…” I belched up a mouth full of water and snot. “Is this my karma for giving Pest a bath?!” I heaved again.

“Fuck!” I yelled, slipped, and slopped myself down into the mud puddle I had made. My mind tickled and a tiny little head poked out from the top of the bank above me.

‘Pest. Here!’ The ferret announced. I gave him a thumbs up.