Cutting a wide berth around the sponge-shaped rock, Scott took a deep breath. Knowing that the island has shifted... or, god forbid, larger, was intimidating to say the least. Especially if the Lirepoles were new additions... odds are that things were going to get dangerous fast. That creeping, consuming anxiety in the back of his head began to roar again and his vision began to blur. Before he could crumple, Wilson swept in front of his vision and began to dart between his eyes. "Scott? Scooooooooott? Watcha doin?"

The relentless optimism -or naivety- of the wisp was enough to anchor him. "Just figuring out what we need to do next. This wasn't here last time I came through, and I need to be able to find my way back to the spring. and back 'home'"

"But that's easy? The spring is this way!" With that curt revelation, the wisp took off, winding around the trees and brush. Scott barely had time to take stock of what that implied before he had to begin sprinting to follow Wilson to... wherever he was headed. He would've began calling out for Wilson to slow if yet another surprise hadn't immediately taken place. The spring, it was there. Scott had barely ran more than 100 meters. Surely, he would have recognized the previous surroundings, or even saw the brook itself. Still, all the strange happenings could wait, and at the end of the day Scott was probably just still shaken by the encounter with the Lirepole and hadn't realized where he was. The shifting island probably played some role too. As Wilson danced and played in the quiet waters, Scott filled up his canteen and surveyed the area. It seemed the area was clear enough of predators for now, though with the changes on the island for all Scott knew they were currently engaged in a new power struggle as the ecosystem reworked itself. During this brief scouting session, the sponge-y rock was... nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, Wilson. How did we get here from the Lirepole Rock so quickly? I can't even find it anymore..." The green wisp seemed to launch itself from the water and nestle itself in Scott's hair. "I know lots of shortcuts! Like a lot a lot a lot of them!"

Scott was starting to suspect that the status window he saw for Wilson wasn't completely forthcoming with everything he was able to do. Which, while good information for the future, continued the trend of answered questions multiplying into even more unanswered ones. "Well then, I don't suppose you could lead me home, could you?"

With a giggle, Wilson slid off the side of the side of Scott's hair, which was now soaked as the wisp dried itself off in the matted mess. He then once more took off, bobbing and weaving through the woods once more, and Scott followed. Within two minutes, he was back at the beach, where his spare spears lay stuck in the sand. "Wilson, you are just... amazing. You know that?" The wisp rapidly shook itself from the sand, having embedded itself like a crab in hiding, and beamed. "I'm amazing!" As the energetic spirit did laps around Scott's head and cheered itself on, Scott got to work on the second item on his ramshackle to-do list. It was getting late in the day, and ideally Scott would have a non-ground place to sleep before fatigue started setting in. Between some of his hobbyist knowledge and Crafter II whispering in the back of his head, he had a couple ideas. The were was of course, the classic lean-to, though he would still need to make some sort of bed. It would protect him from the weather. The idea that was most appealing to him was making a hammock between some trees. It'd have him off the ground, it'd be a bed, and it would just be more comfortable of a setup. Granted, if he screwed it up he would wake up to a free-fall at some point. It also meant no shelter from weather, but that could also be dealt with, and it wasn't like anything he had at the moment needed protecting from rain. Seeing it as basically a foregone conclusion, Scott set to work gathering plant fibers and weaving. Even without any otherworldly skills and assistance, grabbing fibrous plant matter and simply making a mesh out of it didn't take a genius so long as you had some sort of basic knowledge. There's definitely some weaving skill and tricks that Scott lacked, the fiber mesh being...less than clean, especially where he decided the "edges" of the hammock would be. Taking advantage of some spare fiber, Scott made what could, politely, be referred to as a knife by knapping some stone and tying the sharpened result to a short branch. This sped up work significantly, even despite the knife's poor quality. There was a reason the 'correct' answer to what to take to an abandoned island was considered a knife by many.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

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By the time the sun was beginning to set once more, the hammock and it's bindings were finished. While Scott worked, he would get distracted every now and again by Wilson as the wisp itself would get distracted by something new. Childish though the creature was, Scott took solace in the company of something so cheerful. He reclined against a nearby tree as Wilson fluttered up to the hammock and nestled into it, despite that at the moment it was really just a collection of woven plant fiber laying on the ground. Snickering to himself, Scott grasped either end of the hammock's bindings and snatched it up, making a little net in which he caught his energetic little friend. "AHHHHH you got me!" The wisp barely put up a fight, loudly squealing from within the net of fiber. Releasing him, Scott went back to business. "How am I going to get this tied up in the trees? I guess I could just climb a tree and tie one end, but I'd like to not have it be a chore every time I want to go to bed, so I should get some way to easily do it..."

"Oh, I can help! I love helping!" Scott watched with some amusement as the little spirit attempted to lift up an end of the hammock and barely got more than 3 inches off the ground. "I don't think you're gonna be pulling that off any time soon, lil buddy."

Hoping that something would come to him while he set up, Scott paced over to the spot he had picked out while lashing things together and clambered up one end. He took the opportunity to try and score a foothold into the tree with his knife, but the awkward position combined with the pitiful tool made it near impossible. Scott resigned himself to dealing with the matter of easily getting in tomorrow, as he was already exhausted. He scrambled on over to the opposite tree, then realized he had no way of reaching the other end of the hammock hanging limply from under the first tree. "Uh, woops. Not sure how people typically handle that... Some help, Wilson?" An unusual silence came in response. "Guess he's ran off to play with the birds or something..." Scott spent the time trying to figure out how in the world people typically did this in high up trees, and felt rather silly. This had to have some sort of simple, elegant solution, but there was nothing coming to mind. Eventually, he came up with the next best thing: the tried and true "first thing that comes to mind". He wrapped the binding around one of his spears, then attempted to embed it in the opposite tree. This method wasn't just messy and hard to pull off, it looked INCREDIBLY stupid when Scott failed. His first throw went wide and just send the spear dangerously bouncing around. The second attempt smacked into the other tree, but at an off enough angle that nothing stuck. This went on for two or three minutes until Scott finally got the spear to embed itself near where the anchor point for the hammock would be. He then scuttled up the tree once more, untying the hammock from the spear and tying it to the tree's trunk. "And, like that, a hammock is born! Let's hope it doesn't rain tonight because I am EXHAUSTED." Scott then engaged in an incredibly perious climbing session as he clambered into the hammock. Even after this first attempt there was a couple improvements that came to Scott's mind, but those could wait. Sleep needed to come first, and come it did. Scott was thoroughly asleep. So thoroughly, in fact, that he didn't hear the high pitched whining drifting out from the woods.