Chance was still standing there, trying to work out just what to do about the kobold situation when Yrip returned from out of the cave. The message was still showing on the parchment he held, looking at him accusatively;

Camp Halfscale Cleared: 0/1.

Yrip looked far too pleased with himself on his return, and eagre to please, carrying five fish in his hands and another clenched in his toothy maw. What did this place have against kobolds anyway, Chance wondered. Sure, they looked a bit like a scaly version of those ugly dogs you often saw posted around on social media, but if they were anything like Yrip they were small and excitable and harmless. You couldn’t hate them, let alone try and eradicate them; it would be like kicking a friendly dog.

There was probably something somewhere in the parchment that would help explain it all, if he could just hunt down where it was. And that was easier said than done.

Yrip came to a halt before him, still bouncing around on his scaly, clawed feet, spitting out a half chewed up fish and grinning from ear to ear. “Look master,” he beamed, showing off the fish he had caught. Three messages rang through Chance’s mind again as he looked at them, more nature knowledge checks revealing just what kind of fish they were. And that they were edible, which was a bonus this time around. He did his best to ignore the messages.

“Well done, Yrip.”

Chance wasn’t sure how the grin on Yrip’s face could get bigger, but it did. The kobold positively glowed with pride, his chest puffing out.

“How are you with cooking, Yrip?” Chance asked.

The grin half-faded into a look of confusion. “Cooking?”

“You know, preparing food over a fire.”

Yrip looked aghast at the very concept. “Why would you want to do that?”

While Chance had tried sashimi in the past, he wasn’t sure if the fish that Yrip had caught were the right type for it, or even how to prepare them. And he knew that he didn’t want to eat them raw like Yrip had done to one of the fish already.

“Never mind, Yrip, I am sure that we can figure it out.” While he had never prepared a meal in his life, not a proper meal that wasn’t a quick sandwich or an instant meal, Chance thought that he could manage it; he kind of needed to after all. It sounded like a thing that a druid should know how to do anyway, and he was a druid after all. The parchment said so. He had seen it done on TV and the movies as well, and it didn’t look all that hard.

“Okay, Yrip, what I am going to need you to help me with is to start collecting some dried twigs and branches. We are going to need a fair collection of them and there should be plenty around here in the forest.”

“Yes, master,” Yrip replied, bouncing about from foot to foot in his excitable, eagre to please manner.

“Bring them back here when you are done. I’m going to have a bit of a hunt around to see what else might be available. Maybe the old brain messages can point out some useful items.”

“Master?”

“Never mind, Yrip. Come on, let’s go.”

Chance led the way stomping along with the small, excitable kobold darting along beside him, every so often picking up a twig or a branch, adding them to a growing collection in his arms. Yrip seemed proud of each one, showing them off to Chance every time he picked one up, seeking praise and affirmation. Chance simply nodded and said something along the lines of “Well done,” each time, as for the most part he was studying the forest around them. It seemed that each time he had to barely look at the surroundings before a new message went off in his head, along the lines of;

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Knowledge Check

Affinity: Nature

Tree, Oak: Wood, other uses unknown

Oak, ash, pine, sycamore, the list went on and one, and thrown in with it were various shrubs and bushes, grasses, mosses, mushrooms and more, not to mention the rocks and stones that were triggered by his dwarven affinity to Earth. So many and so often did they go off that he felt he was going to go mad from the inundation. Or madder. The whole place was designed to induce insanity.

Eventually the messages slackened off as his affinities ran out of new things to identify. It hadn’t proved a completely useless flow of information either, for the knowledge that he, or rather the dwarven druid that he was meant to be, possessed was able to identify a number of herbs, mushrooms and berries that were edible, and some of them weren't even poisonous, which was an added bonus. These he collected up.

With their bundle of wood and food, the two of them made their way back to the entrance of the cave. The wood was stacked in a pile beside the wide entrance to the cave, while the collected food Chance placed in a long strip of bark that he had peeled from a nearby tree. It had surprised him when he had started to peel it, for he hadn’t even thought about doing so; it was almost like his hands had moved on their own volition and done so, placing the berries and herbs and mushrooms in the peeled bark. It had been, for a moment, like losing control over his own body, and that was an experience that he did not like at all. Strange, foreign thoughts came to him as it was happening, of memories not truly his own, vague glimpses of events that he could not properly see, words that he could not quite properly hear. There had been a vague hint of picking berries in the sunlight, of laughter, of a bark container much like the one that he held, and a fire. He knew that it wasn't his memory as he had never picked a berry in his life, so where had it come from?

“Master?” Chance became aware that Yrip was standing alongside him, tentatively tugging on his sleeve.

“Sorry, Yrip, what was it?”

“You were standing there a long time, master. Just standing and staring.”

“Just thinking thing over, Yrip.”

The kobold nodded, apparently assured by the answer. Whatever the master did, it must have been for a good reason, and that was enough for him.

Chance looked up, noting that the sun had moved some distance while he had been lost in the foreign memories. A shudder rolled through him, and a cold sweat crept across his brow. He had enough troubles with the headaches and the blanking out back in the real world; for to have it happen here as well, but worse, was concerning. If he got lost in the memories again like that when there were enemies around, how was he going to be able to keep himself safe?

The memories had stirred something up though, a recollection of fire, and more, how to make it. Using a small stone he picked up from the ground, he cleared away a patch of earth near to the entrance, excavating a shallow pit in the centre of it. He began to take bits of twig and dried grass that had been collected and started to arrange them in the middle of the pit, first the grass and then the twigs, layering the large pieces over the smaller pieces.

When at last all were in place, he knelt alongside it and a word came to him.

“Avaq,” he said as he extended his hand towards the pit. A surge ran through him, electrifying, exhilarating. A burst of flame snapped into existence in the heart of the pile, slowly growing in strength.

Power unlocked:

Firestarting

Affinity; Nature

Power Source: Primal

“Master is a powerful sorcerer,” Yrip said, large eyes bright with awe as he stared at the ever growing flames.

“Ach, nay laddie, nay a sorcerer; a druid.” Once again the strange manner of speaking escaped Chance’s lips; he clamped down hard on it. Strange thoughts were bad enough; to have strange words coming out of his mouth was another thing. He couldn’t lose control of who he was, would not forget who he was.

Yrip gave an enthusiastic nod. “Master is a powerful druid.”

Chance smiled. “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”