I reach above my head towards the sky and stretch my aching back. The release of tension and change of position feels so good that I actually lie back onto the ground and stretch my whole body. Sitting cross-legged for hours is a good way to get cramps everywhere. And I’ve been doing that for two and a half days now.

I’d upgraded my mace relatively easily. A mace is a pretty simple weapon – it swings around and bashes into things. Certainly, even my pure-wood mace had saved my life many times, both by crushing bones and stepping in as a make-shift shield a few times. Still, it could not be denied that it hadn’t moved very far from its beginnings as a branch of a tree. By carving wood out of the bole at its head and slotting a stone into the hollow, I multiplied its damage-ability.

I didn’t want to do this before I had my pitch because I was worried that any sort of rope I put in place would just let the stone fall out after a while. Having that happen in the middle of a fight would be a quick way to lose the advantage – and possibly my life. With the pitch and a bit of bark-fibre, I was able to work wonders.

Of course, it took time – everything takes far longer in this world of primitive tools than it would on Earth with power tools – something that could have taken five minutes with the right drill or saw takes close to an hour here. Still, it was worth it. Not only does my new-and-improved mace have significantly more heft, but I chose a stone that had a fair number of nobbles, just to increase its crushing power. A mace inspired by a morning-star.

After letting the pitch cool down a bit and set, I couldn’t resist taking a few swings. After making sure there were no cubs underfoot, of course. The new weapon is significantly more top-heavy than previously, and takes a fair bit of strength to resist its momentum and stop it swinging or change its direction. With its new design, circular swings are going to be a lot more effective than just straight up and down attacks. Just to add another plus point, it’ll be a much better weapon against multiple attackers than my knife is.

I reckon if I’d tried to wield the weapon before gaining points to Strength and Dexterity, I’d have been facing quick exhaustion and difficulty in aiming. As it was, I almost wished I could go up against another crocodile. Forget dumping a ton of rock on its head, I calculated that with my Strength, a direct swing of this would probably have done more damage.

In a moment of curiosity, I actually pulled the dead crocodile out of my Inventory. Laying the corpse down, I’d lined up a swing with my mace. Hitting its head with a loud cracking sound, I was gratified to see my mace punch through the bone like nobody’s business. I’d suddenly felt a lot better about my chances in the forest, with or without Bastet. Inspecting the head, I’d also gained another idea which I’ve since proceeded to put into practice.

My next task, finding a good length of wood for a bow, wasn’t too difficult, though it did necessitate a few broken branches that simply weren’t flexible enough to handle being bent before I found one with the requisite flexibility. I did find a couple of branches which will be good for spears before I found one I wanted to use for a bow. Hopefully it won’t become brittle even once it’s dried, but I intend on rubbing it with animal fat to keep it supple as well as improve its resistance to water: it might not have rained since I came here, but it will at some point. Besides, there’s no guarantee that I won’t be tossed in the river at some point and if that ruins my bow, I’ll be...annoyed.

My main task yesterday was finishing processing the sinew that I’d almost completed the day before and then twisting it into cord. At that point, I was very glad that I’d made the large water pot as I had to keep wetting the sinew strands to ensure their flexibility. Having to keep going down to the river would have been extremely frustrating, and actually doing this task by the river would have been far too risky. So yay for multi-usage pottery? In the end, I was able to make a length long enough for a bowstring, and another length hopefully long enough for my armour.

The rest of yesterday was spent making arrow-heads. I grimace as I remember the frustrating endeavour – about seven hours resulted in just eight arrow-heads. That’s barely more than one per hour! I mean, at least it’s getting quicker: the first three arrow-heads took almost four hours, and the other five took just over three. I figure that’s probably due to a mixture of me becoming more familiar with the practice of flint-knapping, not just the theory, and the fact that I picked up two Dexterity points, improving my fine-motor skills.

I also picked up a Wisdom point from somewhere. I’m not exactly sure where, but have a feeling it’s either when I decided not to pursue revenge against Trouble for just acting as male raptorcats act, or when I thought that trying to control nature the way so many humans back on Earth wouldn’t be the best path to follow. Either way, I’m pleased that I only have two more stats to get to ten before I dedicate my Energy to levelling up. Given how much detail-work I still have left to do, I reckon Dexterity won’t take long before it crosses that threshold.

Right now I’m working on preparing the arrow-shafts. Including the arrow-heads I made yesterday, I have thirteen flint points ready to go onto shafts. Not many, right? Sure, but this is where the brainwave I had about the crocodile comes in. What does a crocodile have lots of? Teeth!

Sharp, mostly round points. Perfect for arrows! And this crocodile has a lot of them. Although not all are immediately useful for arrow-heads – the longer ones tend to be a bit curved – the majority are fine with perhaps a little bit of filing. All told, I’ve managed to collect about thirty points which I can use immediately on arrows.

It seems like the crocodile is the gift which keeps giving – if we ignore how I almost died to ‘receive’ the gift. The sheer usefulness of its carcass and my new and improved mace almost make me want to encounter another one. Almost.

Anyway, I’ve decided to make thirty arrows to start: ten with flint heads; twenty with tooth heads. That means a lot of vanes to make from feathers – ninety, in fact. Of course, my attempts to make the vane are complicated by the fact that all four cubs find feathers fascinating, and I have to fend off attempts to steal my work on a regular basis. If I hadn’t had my Inventory, I reckon I’d have already blown a fuse. Seeing my hard work being chewed up and torn to bits the way the off-cuts are currently being treated would have been way too much for me to cope with mentally.

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

Still, at least when the cubs are raptly focusing on their games with the feathers, they’re not elsewhere causing trouble. Speaking of, I scan the area around me, looking for one specific cub.

Not seeing him, I widen my field of view. There he is.

“Trouble!” I shout, startling the three female cubs closest to me. The dark-coloured cub freezes with a paw still raised in the air. “You know you’re not allowed in there during the day,” I remind him with a warning note in my voice. His body language slumps and he slinks back out of the open mouth of the cave. Yes, he understands me when I speak. No, I don’t know how. Is it something to do with my Bond with Bastet? Or my Animal Empathy which is well on the way to reaching Novice thanks to all the communication I’ve been having with my animal companions?

I don’t know, all I know is that I’m grateful he does understand me as that makes things significantly simpler. Bastet gives me a look and then goes to lie in the entrance to the cave. I send a wave of gratitude to her, knowing that she’ll make sure he doesn’t simply try to sneak in again when my back’s turned.

I know that there are tempting things in there – I’ve got some meat cooking on the fire so that I can collect more fat for sealing my bow, sinew cord, and arrows, for one thing. Not to mention the soap that’s currently drying in its mold after I succeeded in collecting enough animal fat to mix with the boiled lye. That said, I don’t know if the soap is actually the draw – while it might smell of animals still, it’s got to also smell a bit caustic which is surely a bit off-putting… Anyway, the point is I don’t want him in there, and now Bastet will make sure he can’t.

On the other hand, if she’s in the cave mouth, she’s not able to make sure that no cub wanders down the slope, the reason she wasn’t lying there to begin with. I’ll have to be a bit more vigilant, I guess, especially if the girls get bored of playing with feathers. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be likely any time soon given their continued enjoyment.

Getting on with preparing my vanes, I carefully trim the barbs to a shorter length, then strip the centre of the feather – the rachis. I allow a bit of bare rachis at either end of the vane – wrapping sinew around this will keep it on the shaft. I get one, sometimes two vanes per feather so it’s good that I have plenty in my Inventory from all the feathered foes I’ve faced so far in this strange quasi-dinosaur world.

I take breaks every so often to stretch my back and give my eyes a rest. Apparently even having a Constitution of ten doesn’t eliminate eye-strain, though I will admit that it doesn’t come as frequently. During one of these breaks, I get a welcome message.

Congratulations!

You have worked hard on your Dexterity and have earned a point. Would you like to apply this to your status?

Y/N?

Uh, no. Of course I don’t want to increase my Dexterity. Though I make sure to think that after I’ve already accepted the point – I don’t know how much this interface is based on my focused thought versus my intentions, and don’t want to test it by accidentally declining a point which I really do want.

I pump my hand in the air with elation – Dexterity up to ten! If my calculations are correct, that means that I’m now up in the top ranges of what is humanly possible – at least on Earth. I know the points here on out will be more difficult to earn naturally, but I’m still pleased with my achievement.

Deciding to make an effort to bring Wisdom up too, I take a break over lunch and spend some time in meditation while the cubs slumber together in a pile. I’d feel a bit bad sitting there with my eyes closed if Bastet was having to keep an eye on four cubs alone, especially since technically it’s my job to look after Lathani while Kalanthia isn’t here. But if everyone else is sleeping, what’s the harm? Even Bastet is snoozing in the sun, though I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take much to bring her to full alertness.

Before coming here, I’d never have seriously considered meditating: I’d always considered it some weird airy-fairy, new-agey thing. I can’t deny, though, that at times I’ve felt a genuine connection to the world around me and everything in it. These sensations have always only happened when I’ve been feeling exceptionally serene and at peace; if that’s not meditation, I don’t know what is. I can’t say I’ve ever actually sought out the feeling, though, despite meaning to do so for a while.

So, feeling a bit self-conscious despite no one actually being there to see me, I sit down on the ground and close my eyes. Focusing on my breathing, I can’t help but think of Lucy, my ex-girlfriend. She’d read something in Vogue or Cosmopolitan or some women’s magazine and had got into it for a while. I’d honestly only paid enough attention to avoid her accusing me of not listening. Frankly, I’d considered the whole thing to be a sop for the gullible and lazy masses, an excuse for laziness and irresponsibility. I regret not paying more attention to her now. In more ways than just this: only now I’ve been forcibly broken away from it do I realise just how consumed by career ambition I had become.

I find myself trying hard to remember her half-heard words, poring over memories of what she used to do when she was trying to meditate. From what I remember, she used to light a candle, sit on a cushion in a darkened room, and close her eyes. I think a few times I heard her hum? And other times she played weird music which made me put in my earphones or turn up the TV.

Well, I don’t have candles, or weird music, or cushions. With my eyelids providing the only darkness, I sit in silence. Thoughts pass through my mind. This is stupid, is one. I don’t know what I’m doing – this is probably useless, is another. I accept them – they’re true. I don’t know what I’m doing and I do feel pretty stupid. And if this doesn’t work, I’ll try something else, but all I know is that I’ve gained Wisdom points when I’ve felt calm and comfortable in my environment. Meditation is supposed to make one feel calm, so it seems logical that the two are linked.

The thoughts keep coming, but as I sit there and enjoy the feeling of sunlight on my body, the cooling relief of the breeze, and hear the sounds of the birds and the moving trees, I find that the barrage slows. I find that the time between each thought elongates, and a sense of calm enjoyment of the present creeps in little by little. It’s a bit like the grounding techniques my therapist taught me to help with flash-backs, but far more positive. I become lost in the moment, time becoming irrelevant.

When I hear the chirping mewls of the cubs as they wake from their slumber, at first they just blend into the general surroundings. It’s only when one of them brushes past me as it runs into the clearing that I’m pulled out.

Feeling like I’m surfacing out of a lake of stillness, I sense a calmness cradling me which I haven’t felt since arriving in this place. For a few moments, I’d forgotten that every minute that passes could be my last. Or maybe not forgotten, but accepted and disregarded as being unimportant. Does it matter if the next minute doesn’t come when the moment now is vast? I feel like I’ve been pulled back from some edge of mental sanity without even realising I’d been standing there.

An ironic smile quirks up one corner of my mouth. Maybe meditation isn’t so useless after all. A look at my messages makes my smile widen. Not useless at all.