Waking up was a gradual process. I’d spent most of the night hovering between true sleep and paranoid wakefulness. Grumbling to myself about mattresses and duvets I started out by inspecting the deadfall traps. The first five had all killed mice. The mice were now very flat but I gathered them up anyway, heading towards the last trap with them swinging from my felt hand.

This one had been triggered but whatever it was had been a lucky son of a bitch as it had made a clean getaway. I took my booty back to the cave and picked up six berries. I didn’t have many left so made a note to gather some more when I went for water later.

I reset the traps, baiting them with berries that I squeezed slightly to free some of the juice. Hopefully sweet fruit would work just as effectively as bits of bear guts.

From my notifications I confirmed that Normalis Mus must mean mouse. Five dead mice and five Souls from Normalis Mus. I’d also killed a single Vilis Lepus and eleven Normalis Lepus while I dozed. Fervently hoping that a Lepus had nothing to do with leprosy, I grabbed my gear and set off down to the river with my litter in tow. I took the new cordage and stopped regularly to set new snares.

When I got to the first of the traps I’d set yesterday I found it was undisturbed so I continued on with a shrug. At the next I found a strangled rabbit that I slipped free from the noose and chucked on my litter. I reset the snare and continued towards the river.

By the time the rushing water spread before me I had eleven regular rabbits and one big bastard of a rabbit, twice the size of the others, laid out neatly across the top of the litter. Vilis must mean steroid addict or something and would explain why the bear had been such a monster. I’d reset all my snares and added another dozen along other nearby animal paths. Hopefully tomorrow I would reap the benefits of purchasing the extra cordage.

Slipping off my uncomfortable footwear on a stone I sat down and rubbed my feet. The wood was polished smooth and waxed or oiled in some fashion so I hadn’t suffered any splinters but the loop that held my big toe in place and the thongs that tied the shoes to my ankles had rubbed the skin raw as I walked.

I stripped down and walked into the water for a wash. As I was splashing water across my chest and shivering at the chill I froze, locking in place. On the far bank stood a deer the likes of which I’d never seen. It stood six feet high at the shoulder and was covered in long shaggy green-brown fur. A rack of antlers nearly three feet long grew in delicate whorls from its forehead. They looked almost fragile at this distance but I was quietly grateful for the rushing water separating us.

Hello ambulatory bag of Souls. I wonder what you’re worth? Was this a Vilis or a Normalis? I had no idea but I knew how to find out. I continued to wash myself and kept an eye on the beast. It didn’t seem to be scared of me. The stag kept an eye on me as it drank but otherwise paid me no mind. Perhaps there weren’t enough people in this part of the world for the animals to have learned to fear us? Maybe the only people in this world were the six of us killed in Mortimers fancy smoking room by the green eyed bitch?

I finished my crude ablutions and went back to shore to dry off and get dressed. I started pulling out clumps of the clay-like mud that lined this side of the river. I formed them into rough bricks and flattened them out before adding them to my litter. Once I had as much as I was comfortable to risk loading on my fragile construct I turned to check on my new friend and future victim but it had moved away without me noticing and I was once more alone.

With full waterskins and having rinsed off the mud that had caked to my fingers, I set off back towards my camp. As I walked I began to hum a song I’d liked many years ago. I couldn’t remember the words but I could hum the tune. It was about being a survivor. A veteran of a thousand wars or something. I whistled the tune happily as I climbed back up the hill, stopping occasionally to dig up some tubers or pick some of the berries I was now fairly sure were safe to eat.. The off pitch tune I hummed was strangely soothing and I arrived back at camp in a much better mood than I’d felt since being dumped on this world.

I dropped my sleigh of goodies just beyond the treeline and went to boil some water. I had a busy day planned but the sun hadn’t reached its zenith yet so I stretched out as I waited for the pot to boil and continued humming to myself.

“What do you reckon?” I asked the bear's head which was perched just outside the cave, snout aimed at the fire.

“Nah, about the song. I know you’re pissed off I killed you.” I knew it wasn’t talking to me but I felt a need for some company. It would be a while yet before loneliness drove me mad but I could feel it looming in my future if something didn’t change. At home I'd had interactions with people almost daily, even it was just a few words at a shop counter, the sense of complete and utter isolation would get to me sooner or later.

“Fine. Screw you fluffy.” The water had boiled and I moved the pot aside to cool. I stood back up and went to gather yet more wood. I’d soon be running out of deadwood in the nearby area but I should be ok for a few more nights of fuel. I rebuilt the pile just inside the cave and set up another tripod. I’d used the one I’d dried the bear pelt over as firewood last night.

I went looking for branches with plenty of green leaves on them, flipping my dagger in my hand as I went. I dragged the leafy masses back to the cave and sat down to weave several lattices of sticks. Once I had three ready to go I set up my newest tripod in a clear area and used some of my precious cordage to tie off the lattices along its height, making sure that the lowest was far enough off the ground that the fire I planned to build wouldn’t cook the meat.

The bear meat was sliced thinly so that I could hang them from the lattices and began propping the branches covered in leaves around them. Once it looked like it was pretty well covered I built a small fire and took a burning stick from my main fire to light it. I huffed and I puffed and soon enough the flames caught and I sat back happily. The smoke was leaking out of the badly made thatch of greenery but enough would be trapped inside to do a decent job of smoking the meat.

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I sat down to skin the rabbits, carefully piling the gizzards onto broad leaves for later removal. As I worked, my flint knife flicking easily through skin much thinner than that of the bear, I contemplated my situation. Fishing was an option. It would be expensive in terms of cordage but there were other options as well. I could make a latticework fish trap easily enough. Or I could dig a small depression out to the side of the river and bait it to lure the fish in, leaving them trapped with a narrow channel they could get back up.

Twelve souls left in my account... I ran through the options I had available once more as my hands worked on automatic to make a neat pile of skinned bunnies. A kilo of salt was one Soul. That would last me a long time if I just used it for seasoning. A lot shorter period if I tried to use it to preserve meat.

I finished up the bunnies, ending up with a small stack of bodies to go in the pot and a small stack of furry skins. I wasn’t too confident about my piss and brains tanning method so I chose to put them around the fire to dry them out rather than adding them to the muddy and stinking hole that I had consigned the bearskin to.

Time to experiment in pottery. The main crafting equipment available in tier one was kilns. The simplest was way too expensive and the largest and most complex example was even more bloody expensive. I’d need to improvise but if I could start producing small pots they could be used for storage, especially if I made lids for them.

I pulled over a flat stone and sat in front of the fire. I brought over a couple of slabs of clay I’d dragged up the hill and began sorting through it. I pulled out all the stones and twigs creating a smaller mound of hopefully clean clay. With a little water and some careful sculpting I produced three bowls that I set to the side of the rabbit fur to dry in the ambient heat of the fire. The sun had definitely started to fall by the time I was done so I took some more meat and skewered it over the fire.

Another meal of boiled tubers, berries and shit-tasting bear meat followed that left me full if not happy. An army marches on its stomach and I might be an army of one at the moment but the food situation was already starting to affect my morale. I resolved I’d have rabbit stew for dinner to break up the monotony in my diet and I felt my mood perk up a little.

Twelve Souls left… I was hopeful for an even bigger haul tonight but for now I had to assume this was all I’d get. I weighed my options again and came back to the same issue as before. Range on my “spell” would be helpful but I could live without it for now. Intensity on my spell didn’t make any sense to me. It made the fire talk about politics when everyone else was just trying to have a good time? As an unknown I ruled it out for now.

After some pondering and popping over to check on my smoker I sat down and made up my mind. A kilo of salt appeared in front of me in a flaxen bag. Bonus. If my pots worked I’d transfer the salt into them and have a free bag. Then I spent ten Souls to go up to level three.

I picked physical strength, bringing it up to ten and put a point into mana. I was pleased to find it went up by ten just like health had. My new stat sheet now floated before my eyes.

Level 3

Primary Stats: Body: E Mind: F Soul: F

Available Souls: 0

Secondary Stats

Physical strength: 10 Reflexes: 10 Health: 10

Magic strength: 6 Focus: 7 Mana: 80

I was now completely into the E grade for my body stats which was interesting. If what the arrogant god-voice had told me was true my physical characteristics were now all at the peak of human capability. I checked my smoker and added some more green wood to the fire under it before moving off towards the trees to put myself through my paces.

I sprinted back and forth. I was faster than I was used to being but not by a significant amount. I played reflex games, letting a stick fall and trying to catch it in a specific place with my other hand. That did seem considerably better than I thought I was capable of before but I was releasing the test stick so I was probably cheating. However, my hand would snap shut with unerring accuracy on the bit I was aiming for. My health had recovered back to full during the night and I wasn’t willing to start injuring myself to test it so I shelved any experiments that ran the risk of strains or wounds.

I eyed one of the thicker trees and took off towards it at a sprint. I leapt up, my feet landing a good metre and a half up the foot wide trunk and I monkey climbed rapidly to the first main branches. That was definitely an improvement of some sort. Not that I had spent much time doing similar tasks back home but I felt the fluidity and strength in my muscles more clearly than I ever had before. The thought of what the future might hold if I could continue to increase my stats made me smile savagely. Those poor bastards wouldn’t know what hit them when I finally hunted them down.

Dropping back to the ground with a thump I went back to my fires. I was going to run out of firewood quickly at this rate. The fire on the smoker burned more slowly and needed wet wood rather than deadfall to generate the smoke but it was still an extra drain on my resources.

As the sun began to set I ran around the hill building up a huge pile of firewood in the cave. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t be able to use it sooner or later. Before the light failed I took the smoked meat out and wrapped it in leaves with a light dusting of salt. I replaced the meat on the racks and fed the fire once more.

The rabbit stew was bland but a delicious change from the last couple of days. I salted it and the flavour, while gamey, at least tasted like proper food. I slurped down the dregs of the water I’d cooked it in and laid back to try and sleep.

Despite waking to refuel the fire regularly I felt more refreshed the next morning than I had managed thus far. I was also twenty five souls richer. The next week passed in a pleasantly dull and similar fashion. I gathered water and wood everyday, smoked meat, set traps and collected the bounties in meat and Souls. My first clay pots failed, they cracking apart as they were fired but I ground them up between some stones and used the grog to mix in with the next batch. I soon had an array of relatively waterproof pots with lids. The salt was stored in them, deep in the cave which I had by now cleared out. Salt was valuable and while I hadn’t seen any rain yet I suspected it was only a matter of time. I refrained from spending any of my Souls and as the sun rose on my eighth day in this world I had one hundred and eighty three Souls sitting in my “wallet”. For some reason my Soul stat had risen to E when I passed one hundred. It must operate differently to the others for some reason but the answer eluded me..

I munched on grilled rabbit and poured water from one of my new clay vessels into the cooking pot while I contemplated how to increase my rate of Soul gain. I wasn’t entirely happy at being forced to kill some of the others, Patricia at least had seemed like a fairly decent person, but it was the only way to get home and take my revenge. It was time to spend Souls to make Souls. Once I was strong enough I’d go hunting my fellow contestants.