Weapons is another topic. I’ve got the iron ore in my Inventory, but it’s going to take a lot of processing to render it into a useable form. While both metal tools and metal weapons would be an immense upgrade, I’m not sure whether I’m going to have time to do that as well as the tanning before the quest timer runs out. And I’d rather go and investigate the quest area before it gets down to the final day anyway.

It takes two days – well, a day and a half – to get to the tunnel down to the Pure Energy stream, with no delays. Of course, that’s definitely not predictable, even if we should be reasonably safe travelling as a big group. I’d better build in extra time so, say I want to be there a few days before the quest timer ticks down to zero, we’d better leave at least five days before. Which means that I only have thirty-seven days until we need to depart.

Thirty-seven days, more than a month, might seem a lot, but not with the amount of preparation required to make metal tools or weapons. Primitive techniques are as long-winded as they are laborious. Once more I heartfully wish for an inter-dimensional Amazon. Heck, I’d even take an inter-dimensional DHL at this point! At least they might be able to take an order and bring it to me.

I’m going to need to make charcoal for one thing; green wood won’t be able to burn as steadily or as hot as charcoal will. However, even the most simplistic method will take time to collect or process enough wood, chop it into the right sorts of sizes, build it into a mound, cover the mound with mud, and then the actual time that the wood will take to char until it becomes useable charcoal. That last alone will take a couple of days. So all together, probably a week of work.

Then there’s all the processing of the ore itself. Another good two weeks of effort when I consider all the time it takes to create the tools as well as actually do the job – I’ll need to build a kiln, and hollow a log to make bellows. And then even after I’ve actually got a lump of rudimentary iron out of the process, it’ll take a good amount of time to turn the unformed metal into the shaped tools I’ll need to even begin creating the arrowheads and spearheads which are my first priorities.

So, we’re looking at about twenty to thirty days of pretty consistent effort before I can expect to be able to make some better quality weapons. And that’s just the black-smithing work. For arrows I’ll also need to make a balanced arrow-shaft, fletch it, then attach the arrowhead. Not to mention that the tools and spear will need handles or shafts, all of which take time to create.

Even if the tanning was the only other thing I needed to do, it probably wouldn’t be possible to fit them both in. Though, at least the longer days on this world and my reduced need for rest and sleep do mean I can get more work done than the average person on Earth. Heck, more than the average person in Nicholas’ world too since, although a twenty in Strength is technically possible for anyone, not everyone will have it.

Besides, I have other aims in mind too. I want to explore more of the connection I felt to fire. Obviously I don’t want to have unexpected events like what’s just happened, so I need to work out how to exert some control over it. Perhaps applying some of what I’ve learned with Flesh-Shaping could help? Certainly, being able to control the temperature of the iron would make my task of processing the metal significantly easier. So I definitely want to work on both of those.

In addition to Flesh and Fire-Shaping, I do still want to work on Earth-Shaping since I reckon that that would be very useful too, especially with my plans for the future. Both practical for daily life and useful in combat, I’m keen to find a way past the obstacle stopping me from ‘feeling the earth’, whatever it is.

And then there’s weapons training. As I learnt this morning, actually taking time to focus on technique is a good way to earn a new Skill which offers good benefits to using that weapon in combat. I’m determined to get an equivalent Skill for archery, and then to train both of them up. That means dedicating time to sparring.

One thing I didn’t think of earlier regarding tanning is also my need to create some more clothes for myself. Though armour is a must, I need things to wear under the armour, and my current clothes are in bad condition. Either I need to create softer hides which can replace my clothes, or I need to cannibalise clothes to create intact items I can wear. I’m getting there with making a needle, but still haven’t completely succeeded in making one which will be suitable.

In addition to making the needle, I’ll need to also make the thread. For that, I guess animal hair would be my best bet if I can find something with long enough strands – so far I haven’t come across many furred animals. My own hair hasn’t yet grown out enough to use – though I’m certainly sporting an increasingly impressive beard. Otherwise, I could use sinew or bark-fibre. I add ‘make needle’, ‘make thread’, and ‘make clothes’ to my list.

Stolen story; please report.

Finally, there are all the normal daily tasks. Fetching water. Cooking food. Hunting. Collecting Cores for River’s debt. Helping my Bound to get closer to their evolution. Not to mention helping the new additions become comfortable with the rest of us. Plus, my experience so far has taught me that I get restless when I do one activity for too long. Then again, I think ruefully, I suppose that with as many things as I’m adding to my to-do list at the moment, I’m not going to have to worry about running out of different things to switch between.

Adding ‘Fire-Shaping’, ‘Earth-Shaping’, ‘Sparring’, ‘Charcoal’, and ‘Ore processing’ to my to-do list and eyeing it once more, I decide that I’d better give up definitively on making metal tools and weapons before needing to address the quest. Which means that I need to resupply myself with arrows and create another flint-headed spear. Maybe two more, actually, in case one of ours breaks. I add ‘arrows’, and ‘spears’ to my list.

Ah well, at least River’s poisons add another element to the weapons, plus my bow is only just now starting to reach its full draw with my current strength. When I increase my strength, I’ll have to either find another material or a different construction method to enable it to cope with me. Or change to a weapon which will more directly translate my strength into damage. An atlatl, perhaps? It’s worth considering: I haven’t dedicated so much time to a bow that I couldn’t switch to a different weapon right now. But whether it’s a good idea or not, I’ll have to decide later. Besides, I like my bow.

It’s a lot to do. Fortunately, I do have my Bound who can help out, especially when it comes to hunting, collecting resources, and in River’s case, some of the processing too. A plus point to having a sapient, humanoid Bound, for all that the whole thing leaves me with a knot of guilt in my stomach now when I think about it.

Mentally, I put collecting enough Cores to pay River’s debt to the top of the priority list. That, and saving his village, are what need to happen before I’ll be able to offer him his freedom and feel confident that he won’t feel obliged to accept a Companion Bond unless he wants to.

Satisfied at having decided how to spend the next thirty-seven days, though already exhausted at the thought of all the work ahead, I decide that it’s time to get going on my to-do list. First, I feel that I need to experiment with the potentially practical uses of Flesh-Shaping.

Deciding to go outside, I pull a torch out of my Inventory and light it. Perhaps it’s a bad use of resources, but I’m awake now; I might as well get some work done. It’s probably more of a waste to lie down here and just stare at the ceiling when I’ve – clearly – got so much to do.

Walking out of the cave, I head towards the Bisonisan corpse that Bastet and the cubs happily tucked into a few hours earlier. Hopefully the fact that it’s not complete won’t make a difference. I don’t see why it would: that’s the whole point of a ‘healing’ spell, after all – making torn and broken things whole again. Whether it being dead is a limiting factor is another question.

Time to find out, I decide, touching the body and feeding mana down to my fingertips.

This time, instead of my mind hitting a wall as I try to follow the mana, I’m able to actually enter the corpse of the ostrich-dinosaur hybrid – apparently called a bisonisan. Immediately, I notice the differences with this experience compared to when I’d experimented with my Bound.

When exploring Hades’, Persephone’s, River’s or Bastet’s body – and to a lesser extent Fenrir’s and Sirocco’s – I felt a resistance to my presence. I guess it was from the Energy or mana already circulating in them. It hadn’t caused me any issues since the resistance was only slight, mostly serving to make it easier to keep my mana together while I moved it through their bodies. I’d imagine that’s either because they’re my Bound, or because they consented to my presence. Or both.

Here…there is very little resistance. Practically none, in fact. If anything, the flesh I travel through seems to suck at my mana, pulling it away from me rather than pushing it together. I find that it’s draining to move in the body, making it more of a struggle than I was expecting. There’s also…something missing. I can’t quite put my finger on what but I feel a lack. Hmm, worth trying to identify later, I decide.

Scanning the body is even easier than doing it with one of my Bound, but there is one drawback to the body being dead: when I encounter an organ I don’t recognise, I have even less idea about what it could be for than I had for the mysterious organs I identified in River and Fenrir. At least those I recognised were for producing some sort of fluid; this could be used in digestion, reproduction, or even magic, for all I can work out.

When I’m finished with my scan, I head to one of the wounds closest to where I’m touching with my fingertips. Not that I care much about this body, but it’s a good test of whether I can heal damage even after the creature is dead. It’s quite possible I’ll damage a desirable hide while killing the creature, so being able to repair it after the fact would be rather useful.

Getting to it, I start directing my mana into the body.