Approximately one moth after the ambush
Hello, John there.
I am already over thirty days in this shitty world. I hate it here. This goddamned forest is fucking harsh to survive. Although, I managed to survive so far. I've got lot of time to work on myself and my campsite. And I have made big progress. What was once small tent is now small house, with walls made of clay and sticks. The roof is from shafts of grass which is covered by some substance reminding tar, that I found on bark of one rare tree. Or it looks like it's rare. Anyway, this tar substance is really convenient. When you boil it, it works like a super-glue. It is also good repellent and it is waterproof. I have also built stove to fire ceramics, cuz I found pretty good and clean clay.
I don't wear my uniform anymore.
When I received that blueprint, I hunted many hares and even some hinds (easy-peasy job, you just wait nearby some trail and then pull the trigger) and created trousers, jacket, small coat and big overcoat with hood.
Btw, the sensation while receiving blueprint is very weird. It is like something is inscribed in your brain. It doesn't hurt but it's not even comfortable.
My crossbow skills have improved too.
My Str stat grew up like a crazy, and I am able to reload completely freely. Hard work and exercising give its fruits.
And to the bolts, I created many of them, but many were useless. Crafting bolts sounds easy but it's not.
To make a bolt man needs stick of hardwood, sharp stone shard, feathers and several milliliters of tar-glue.
Sounds easy, but it is hard as fuck.
The stick must be made from hard wood, which is hard to find. This wood must be completely straight without any flaws and rots. Then you must carve it to the form of perfect stick.
For the tip, you have to find flint or similar silicate glasses or forms of quartz. Next step is to split this stone to make perfectly symmetrical tip. This tip must be enough big, in order to move center of gravity more forward. On the other hand, if you make it too big, it could damage crossbow and the bolt won't fly properly.
Then you make a small cut in the stick, but carefully, or you'll destroy the whole thing, and put the tip inside. Several centimeters of some wrapped natural fibers and several milliliters of tar-glue and you have a bolt.
Bolt, which won't fly straight because you are fucking stupid asshole and forgot the stabilization ailerons. But you are lucky, because this is the easiest part.
Go and find some feathers, cut them and glue them to the bolt. Ta Da!!!
Congrats, you have crafted a bolt.
ONE FUCKING BOLT. This whole shitting around for one damned bolt.
Praise or ancestors because they have done so without glue and steel tools.
And so I have crafted around sixty useful bolts, and around hundred useless.
Believe or not but is it so.
I once went to explore neighborhood and found a fucking big tree. On this tree were growing some nuts as large as big coconuts. I broke the shell tried to take a bit, but it was absolutely disgusting and very oily. And it was even worse, it drained my Hp by one thirth plus I vomited the whole thing. Never, but absolutely never eat unknown nuts. Anyway, I've got good idea to extract that oil.
I marked my location on map and collected twenty of them.
To do this, I chopped three nuts to pieces, it went surprisingly smooth.
I put these pieces into leather pouch, put it inside of two stone plates, which have I wrapped by rope made from some natural cordage plant. Into this loop, have I put one stick for each plate and bind them to epsilon like tree.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
When I started to rotate with the whole pouch, I could have seen small drips of oil coming out. With each turn were there more drips. In the end, three nuts made about half liter of oil.
However, this is not the most important part. The most interesting thing happened, when I tried to use this oil as lamp oil. At start, it was calmly burning, but when the fire heated the oil, it started to boil while evaporating white vapor, which burned in instant. And then the whole oil burned like a gasoline.
Fuck, it almost burned my ass too.
I wonder why evolution made this, why would be good for the plant to contain volatile carbohydrates. Maybe it is something with it disgust.
I went back to the tree and yes, wherever the nut falls, there is circle of dead plants. These carbohydrates are herbicides, and this tree is immune to them. Good strategy.
Whatever. I pressed about ten liters of oil and overboiled about one liter.
Boiled oil is as flammable as gasoline but is as viscose as kerosene.
I wanted to use this like a Molotov cocktail, however this substance burns too slow and by the little flame.
Easy to ignite, bad to burn.
Although first time, the basic oil burned as fuck.
The vapor probably consist of
the most volatile chemicals and the oil itself is from lipids that diffract at high temperature. The rest, simpler and non-volatile carbohydrates remains as "boiled oil". So I have combined both in ratio of fifty-fifty. Boiled oil as initiator and normal oil as main fuel.
This gave me well flammable substance with great viscosity and high calorific value.
No, this is not everything, I have remembered the tar.
That tar I have collected from bark of the tar-tree is probably composition of very complex carbohydrates. Its purpose is to defend the tree against parasites and diseases. In raw form is it nonflammable like a diesel. If you put it on the grass, it will burn slowly creating black smoke, similar to petroleum.
Luckily for me, the tree oil could dissolve the tar very well, making dense black thing. And when have I added boiled oil, the result was something like a basic low napalm.
My advice: girls and boys, learn chemistry, it will help you a lot in another world.
One of the most primitive things our ancestors have created is ceramics.
Just dried clay is solid enough to store many things like a grain.
But any liquid would destroy it.
But primitive man has known fire for long time, and he learned the fire would harden dried clay enough to store liquids. But like everything, it isn't so easy. My first ceramic creations usually ruptured. And because I have done it on campfire, it was very poor.
I tried to build stove four times and only the last one was good enough.
Firing ceramics is hard task.
To make something useful that won't break, many procedures are required.
First, the clay. Clay must be clean, without stones, low quality parts and biological remnants. This is hard.
In the next step, you'll model your pot, cup or something and let it dry for about week. Then comes the process of firing.
Ideal is to have coal fuel but I have used
some dry local hardwood.
The firing process last four to five hours.
And it is fucking difficult, collect wood and fire, keep stable temperature and so on.
Many of my creations have cracked and it pissed me a lot. Really, imagine you are fucking yourself around just for nothing.
After firing, you'll let it several days rest and voila, you have pot, or cup, or flask for your super awesome Molotov.
For those who don't know, molotov-coctail is an incendiary mixture in some breakable bottle. I could be used against tanks, bunkers, houses, motherfuckers or enemy ammo.