The sound of a peaceful babbling brook was what Bjorn woke up to. Taking a minute he just laid there breathing, relief flooded over him, just being thankful he was alive. The need for a cough overtook him, and that was when the peace was broken, and he immediately changed his mind, no longer thankful to be alive. When he coughed, pain racked his entire body. Looking at his health bar it was sitting at 5 out of 154. Luckily he had his health ring on, otherwise he would have died in the fall. Opening his eyes he started to take stock of his situation. He was at the bottom of the ravine, from where he lay he couldn’t tell where Medera’s and his home was at.
Memory came flooding back, Medera was dead. There was no escaping that fact, he watched her get cut in two. He could see her lifeless corpse dangle from the mauler's leg as it ran towards him. He could see the scene play out in vivid detail, he could see her eye as it fell out of her socket by the force of the mauler’s leg stabbing into her head. Laying his head back down he closed his eyes and cried.
Bjorn wept for a long time, he cried for the loss of his friend. Everytime he thought he couldn’t cry anymore, he would remember small parts of her personality and the process would start all over again. It was crazy, how attached he had become to Medera, how her presence became a rock in his life. Whenever he had a problem Medera was there, she had the answer, and she helped him in whatever way she could. He was aimless again, he had no motivation besides the drive to live. And so he laid there and wept.
A snuffling sound jolted Bjorn awake, it was dark out, the time on his clock told him it was morning. Some time during the day he must have fallen back to sleep. The sound happened again. Trying to sit up again he failed to do so, as he tried the pain overwhelmed him until he gave up. So he just laid there, oddly, there was no fear. With nothing to strive for he welcomed the thought of death, he wanted whatever it was that was making that sound to just come over and finish him off. So he just drifted back to sleep.
The next time he woke up it was mid afternoon. Laying there, it was quiet again. Looking at his health bar again, it was at 8 out of 154 this time, meaning that he had laid there on the ground for 3 days so far. Opening his eyes and looking around, there was a rock about 6 feet away from where he was laying. Rolling onto his stomach pain overtook him and he passed out.
When he awoke next consulting the clock on the edge of his vision an hour had passed. Using both of his arms he began to drag himself towards the rock. His right leg refused to obey his orders. His left leg felt extremely weak. Progress was slow, putting his arm towards the rock, digging his fingers into the grass, and then pulling. And then his entire body would be racked with pain and he would stop moving until the pain went away. Once he was pain free he started pulling again. Going from an outstretched arm to having it right next to his chest took around an hour each time. Finally dragging himself to the rock he turned himself back around onto his back and passed out.
The next day Bjorn woke up and slowly propped himself up so that he was in a sitting position with his legs outstretched in front of him on the ground. That was the first time Bjorn got a good look at his leg, his right leg was sitting at an odd angle, the part where his leg attached to his hip was just fine. About halfway down his thigh the entire leg was sitting at a 45 degree angle. 4 inches after the first break there was a second break, and the leg sat at another 45 degree angle so that the lower part after the second break sat parallel to this left leg. With dread he knew that the leg had to be set. Grabbing his right leg he quickly jerked the leg to the right holding the upper portion of the two breaks in place with his other hand. With a crunch his leg now looked to be in two pieces instead of 3. Pain shot up his body and he passed out again.
Waking up again it was late in the day. Opening his eyes there was a small squat furry animal digging in the dirt not far away from where Bjorn was laying. His first thought was to kill the animal, but he thought better of that. There was no guarantee that he would be able to get to the animal, so it had no use for food, if he killed it, its body could attract other predators to come and eat the body, and finding it in his weakened state they most likely would finish him off. So instead he cast his cast stone spell and shot it near the animal, scaring it and it ran off.
Next thing on the list was to bind the portion of leg that he set, looking around there was a mostly straight stick not far off from where he laid. As he worked up his courage to go for the stick he had a thought. When Bjorn fell down the hill he had his bow, it was on his back. Reaching behind him he felt the bow, and he pulled it out. The bow was snapped a little above the middle. Pulling the bow string off of the bow he took the two pieces of the bow and placed the bow on either side of his leg, then he looped the bowstring around his leg 2 times before tying the string into a quick release knot.
With his leg splinted he grabbed his leg right above and below the first break with another jerk and another crunch his leg moved back into place. This time instead of passing out Bjorn stayed conscious through this ordeal. Untying the knot he moved the bow further up his leg and tied the pieces in place again, luckily the bow was long enough that he was able to use it to splint both breaks.
Now that the leg has been taken care of the next pressing issue Bjorn had was he was getting dehydrated. The distance between the rock and the stream was around 10 yards. With trepidation Bjorn started to drag himself towards the stream, the process was faster than it was earlier but it was by no means fast. By the time he got to the stream both of the suns had gone down casting the ravine into darkness. Drinking his fill Bjorn was exhausted and passed out again.
Feeling something crawl across his fingers Bjorn woke up with a start, pulling his hand back, a small centipede scuttled away on the ground. From where he laid the stream wasn’t overly far away from Bjorn’s face. Looking in the pond Bjorn contemplated how his life had changed. Looking at his health bar it was now at 14 out of 154. Nine days, it has been nine days since Bjorn first time he woke up. His stomach rumbled from a lack of food, but Bjorn didn’t care, there wasn’t a way for him to get food. As he laid there with his head next to the water he saw a patch of moss on one of the river stones.
Bjorn recalled something Medera said to him once before, “One of the most common healing herbs is called Water moss. I know super creative. If you ingest it your natural rate of healing will double for the next 24 hours.” Sticking his hand into the water he grabbed ahold of the small rock, and pulled it towards him. Using both his hands he stabilized the rock and picked the moss off of it. Once he got a clump off the size of an apricot he stuck it in his mouth and started to chew. The moss tasted like dirt. He forced himself to continue to chew disregarding the taste. When he swallowed a few notifications appeared in his vision.
You have consumed a bit of river moss. Your natural healing with be doubled for the next 33 hours.
Doing some quick mental math, the duration of the healing effect was increased by 39%, which coincided with the benefit he got from the level 13 herb-lore.
As you chew on this river moss you get the impression it could be used to make a rather decent healing salve, and a weak healing potion.
Although useful, it was also rather useless. Without knowing what else he could use to make the healing potion, and the healing salve the information was mostly pointless. But his situation had just gotten better, all he had to do was sit and wait. Dragging himself back over to the rock he sat and contemplated how to change his situation, No matter what he came up with there was nothing he could do until some of his bones mended. The pain that was caused by the broken bones stopped whatever he tried to do. That was when he decided to check the rest of his notifications.
For your part in killing a level 19 death mage, and killing a level 33 death grimoire you have gained extra experience.
Level up times 3! You have 9 stat points to allocate.
You have advanced your skill level in Leatherworking, reaching skill level 3. Durability of items that you make will be increased by 3%
You have advanced your skill level in small blades, reaching skill level 2. Damage from your use of small blades is increased by 5% over base damage.
You have managed to break over 15 bones in your body in less than a 5 minute span, each bone broke to a varying different degree. Because of the amount of damage you did to your own body, and still somehow survived. (I think that ring was a cheat) You have gained an increased pain tolerance, you will feel 25% less pain than you normally would as soon as you finish reading this prompt. You’re welcome.
As soon as he finished reading the prompt the pain that constantly racked his body decreased immediately. God damn it. Why hadn’t he checked his notifications before? What a dumb ass, the last 9 days wouldn’t have been so bad. And what a pain in the ass, why hadn’t he gotten the pain tolerance before. Why couldn’t it have just applied as soon as he got the notification. Silently he held up a middle finger at the universe. “You are an asshole.” Bjorn blurted out directed at the universe.
Because someone is an ungrateful bitch, your pain tolerance will be decreased by 5% making your new pain tolerance 20%.
Bjorn had to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying something else that would most likely make him lose even more of his benefit.
Now that he was level 11 Bjorn pulled up his character screen, what to do with these 9 stat points. Having an idea he put 2 of the points into constitution. Raising it to 15. His health bar grew a darker shade of red, and the bar became 17 out of 174. “Damn it.” Said Bjorn as he saw the size of his health in the entire bar had not increased. It just stayed the same. Doing more mental math, seeing how he had the time. His previous health total before he put the 2 points into constitution was around 9.5% with his old total health, he was now at around 9.5% of the maximum total he could have. Swearing that he didn’t find a way to cheat the system he moved on.
He next put 3 points into endurance. 2 into charisma. Finally he put the last 2 points into intelligence. That last allocation was purely out of survival, Bjorn reasoned that going forward, seeing how his bow was broken, the next best thing he could do was use his cast stone spell for ranged damage. More mana meant more stones, which meant more likely to kill whatever it was that was going after Bjorn, or more likely to successfully hunt. With nothing else to really do Bjorn decided it was time to sleep.
The next time he awoke the first thing he checked was his health, it was at 20 out of 174. Grunting with pain he also kept an eye on his stamina, it was currently full, but it was draining at a rapid rate. “No wonder I keep sleeping so much. I’m not even doing anything, I’m at rest and my stamina keeps draining.” Watching the bar steadily decline Bjorn grabbed his rock and picked another batch of the river moss off of it. This time the moss tasted of dirt, and of decay. Still he got the same notification he had last time. This time it didn’t tell him the uses of the plant.
You are starving, until you eat all healing you receive will be cut in half.
Swearing under his breath, he had to get food. That was when he remembered that he had rations that he and Medera had packed to make the trip into Nontorum. Slowly he removed what was left of his pack and took stock of what he had left.
He had enough food for about a week and a half, which would help, but it wouldn’t solve his problem. All of the potions that he had broke in the fall. Somehow a few of his empty vials were still intact. He lost his bed roll, his sword, and all of his arrows broke. About half of the arrow heads went missing, his bag of arrow heads had ripped and most were gone. He was able to retrieve 9 of them from the bottom of the bag. He lost his tinderbox, and the little rope that he had to set snares. The thread and needle that he got to use for leatherworking hadn’t got lost, and his knife that he bought. The glass bauble that he got from the farmer was still intact. His winter clothes were torn in multiple places. They were torn only on his extremities. The leather armor had saved the body and most of the legs from being torn, he lost the hood of his jacket. The armor itself had small cuts in it, there was one small gash under his right arm. Based on the blood on the clothes underneath the armor, he had gotten cut there but it had already healed. The cloak that he picked up at the farmers market he also lost. His alchemy set, although it was a little beat, still looked like it should work, it’ll be harder to make any potion, but it should still work.
All in all, it could have been worse. Most of his useful possessions were lost, and what other useful possessions he kept wouldn’t be of much use to him in his current situation. Still, all was not lost. Grabbing the food he ate until the debuff of starving went away. Which took roughly half of his total food.
Grabbing his thread and needle he began to sew up the holes in his pack. It was a long and laborious project. He worked until his stamina bar got close to 0. Setting the pack aside he went to sleep.
This time he wasn’t out quite as long as he had been. Upon waking he still had 14 hours on his extended healing buff. Slowly Bjorn got into a kneeling position and crawled on his hands and knees to the river, fishing out another moss covered rock he picked enough moss for 3 uses. Then he crawled back to his pack and set to finishing up sewing the pack. Once he finished he was exhausted, taking another dose of river moss Bjorn went back to sleep.
A low growl woke Bjorn up from his sleep. Opening his eyes a wolf was 20 feet away from where he lay. This wolf was big, bigger than he expected it to be. It looked to be the size of a great dane. It’s body was close to the ground, like it was getting ready to lunge at him. Doing the only thing he could think of doing he drew his knife with one hand to put it between him and the wolf, and with his other hand he cast, cast stone. The wolf continued to growl as it moved closer. Not wanting to wait for it to make its move, Bjorn cast the stone at the wolf, his aim was true and the stone hit the wolf in the head, with a yelp the wolf jumped back and then turned around and ran away.
After Bjorns heart rate slowed, he set about loading up his gear and remaining food. He then started to crawl away from his spot. The wolf now knows where he was, he couldn’t chance it coming back, let alone it coming back with other wolves. Setting off in a slow crawl, due to the pain he felt, and his useless right leg that drug behind him as he crawled. The entire process was awkward, he moved both of his hands forwards and then did a small jump with his left leg and moved it forward. Each step forward brought with it a new wave of pain, which caused him to stop to wait for the pain to subside. With no better idea, Bjorn set off down the stream, figuring eventually he would have to run into something. He spent what he had of his awakeness crawling that day, his stamina dropped at a very fast pace, it took less than 30 minutes of movement before it bottomed out again.
The next few days were spent doing the same thing, waking up. Crewing some moss, and then crawling downstream. By the end of the 3rd day his health was sitting at 34 out of the 174. The pain he felt in his chest had decreased significantly. His leg on the other hand didn’t seem to have made any real progress, the pain was still there, and he couldn’t put any weight on his right leg without a searing pain. His time spent crawling went from 30 minutes to just under an hour before bottoming out and forcing Bjorn to stop, and sleep.
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It was on the 4th day the wolf came back, it was alone again. The wolf paused and sat there looking at Bjorn’s attempts at crawling. It alerted him to its presence by a low growl. Pausing and turning around to face the wolf again, Bjorn froze. The wolf this time was about 25 feet away, and it was sitting on its haunches this time. Its body language didn’t hint at it wanting to jump at or attack Bjorn. The pair just sat there and stared at each other. Taking a gamble Bjorn pulled out one of his 3 remaining portions of food, dried meat and threw it inbetween the wolf and himself. The wolf looked at him and cocked its head to the side. It slowly got up and came forward, grabbed the meat and turned tail and walked away.
Just shaking his head, Bjorn took off again. On the 5th day the wolf came back another time. It sat 25 feet away again and this time it alerted Bjorn with a little woof. Turning around again Bjorn looked at the wolf and said. “Go on get! I don’t have much left for food, and if you can’t tell I am not really making much progress forward. I’ll most likely starve to death out here, and you aren’t helping.” The wolf just sat there staring at Bjorn expectantly. Sighing, Bjorn pulled out his last bit of smoked meat and threw it to the wolf. It caught it out of the air and sat as it started devouring the meat. After it finished eating the meat it licked its jowls and then stood and walked towards Bjorn. It walked up to him and nuzzled his arm. Picking up his arm, he pet the wolf, and then it stepped back, just outside his reach, walked in a few circles and then laid down.
You have gained the skill: Beast Taming. Why would you ever want to do anything yourself? (You lazy bastard) When you can get other creatures to do your bidding for you. There are only two different kinds of beast masters, the first are the ones who force creatures to bend to their will, basically making the beasts slaves. The second are the ones who care and build a relationship with the animals. Which one will you be?
You have advanced your skill level in Beast Taming, reaching skill level 2. You now have a 5% increased chance to tame an animal.
You have successfully tamed level 8 Tamber Wolf. Would you like to name level 8 Tamber Wolf? Yes/No.
Looking over at the wolf Bjorn asking it. “Are you a boy or a girl?” The wolf for its part just looked at Bjorn and sighed before turning back around. “Alright, how about an ambiguous name. How does Kris sound to you?” The wolf was as indifferent as it was before. “Alright, Kris it is then.”
Pulling up the notification he mentally clicked yes this time. Another prompt popped up, asking him to input a name. Entering Kris Bjorn clicked yes. A new icon appeared on the edge of Bjorn’s vision, it was in the shape of a wolf howling. Mentally clicking on it a new screen appeared.
Name:Kris
Race:Tamber Wolf
age:3
Hp:80
Stamina:120
Mana:20
Level: 8
Stats from items (*)
Strength:12
Constitution:8
Dexterity:6
Agility:12
Endurance:12
Intelligence:4
Wisdom:4
Charisma:6
Abilities
Slow metabolism
Stealthy
Disadvantages
Dumb
The Tamber wolf is the most common dog predator that is native to wooded areas. The tamber wolf gains 4 stat points per level. 1 in agility, 1 in endurance, 1 in strength, and 1 free point to allocate.
Slow metabolism: Decrease the amount of food needed to survive by 30%
Stealthy: Increase the effectiveness of any stealthing skill by 25%
Dumb: Decrease the effectiveness of any mental stat by 50%
“Well, you were easy to tame. Did you want to be tamed?” The wolf once again ignored Bjorn. “Either way I’d like to make more progress today.” He turned around and assumed the crawling position again and took off. After 20ish feet he turned back around and Kris was standing there looking at him. “Come on, or stay, I don’t overly care.” Said Bjorn as he kept crawling. Throughout his time crawling Kris kept up, sometimes Kris would range behind Bjorn, other times the wolf walked alongside him, other times it couldn’t be seen in the foliage around him.
That night when Bjorn stopped for the night because he was exhausted Kris came padding over to him and laid down right next to Bjorn. Stroking the wolf, Bjorn just smiled, tamed a wolf, what a piece of cake.
The next time he awoke Kris was laying next to him still, all curled up. Reaching out and patting Kris on the back the wolf's eyes shot open as it tensed up and jumped up a little.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, everything is alright.” Bjorn said in a soothing voice. And Kris calmed down. Scratching behind Kris’s ears, the wolf closed its eyes and pushed its head into Bjorn’s hand as its back leg started to kick. Moving down to the neck, and then the main body the wolf rolled onto its back.
“Alright, so you're a boy.” Said Bjorn looking at the dog's belly. He kept rubbing and then rubbed the belly, the dog started panting. “Well boy, let's keep going. We will need to find some way to get food. I am out, and I don’t think I'll be able to do much to get some food soon. Unless something falls into my lap.” Then he turned and started to crawl away.
About halfway through his stamina Kris came out of the foliage around Bjorn with a baddit in its mouth. Bjorn stopped to look at Kris, as the wolf came bounding up to him, stopping right in front of Bjorn and dropped the baddit right into his lap.
“You know, when I said ‘Unless something falls into my lap.’ I wasn’t being serious.” The wolf for its part just sat on its haunches panting and wagging its tail. “Alright I’ll see what I can do with this.” From where he sat Bjorn did a survey of his surroundings, he was on top of a small hill that ran along the stream. Although to call it a steam wasn’t entirely accurate anymore. As he had made his way along the river going downstream he had to cross multiple small streams that formed up with the one he was following. At this point the stream had turned into a small river running along the bottom of this ravine. Off to one side back about a hundred yards from where he just came from was a small bluff which should be some sort of shelter.
Turning back around and making his way towards the bluff Kris picked the baddit backup and trotted along behind Bjorn. They made it to the clearing and Bjorn set about collecting small branches and sticks. With a large tree on top of the bluff there were plenty to choose from. Taking his knife he cut some kindling from one of the branches and set about rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. Soon he had a fire going with not too much hassle. Taking 5 sticks he fashioned a rudimentary spit, the stick that he used as the spit itself he cut as much of the bark and barbs on the stick off, and then sharpened one end of it.
Turning towards where Kris was sitting with the baddit still in its mouth Bjorn looked to him and said. “Come here.” Kris just sat there with the baddit in its mouth, wagging its tail. “Don’t make me make you regret it.” Still the wolf just sat there. “Alright, you forced my hand here.” Bjorn said as he started casting cast stone. As soon as the stone formed Kris scowled at Bjorn. Somehow a wolf scowled, and then dropped the baddit to the ground, turned around and walked away.
“Hey! Don’t give me that attitude.” Called Bjorn after the wolf’s retreating back. “Of course I tame the wolf with an attitude problem.” he grumbled under his breath as he crawled over to the dead animal to retrieve it.
With the carcass in hand he crawled back to the fire, and pulled his knife, setting to dressing the baddit. After everything that wasn’t what he would eat was removed he skinned the creature. Then he cut the leftover meat into sections and skewered it with the spit. Then setting the spit over the fire to slowly cook. About half way through the cooking process Kris came sulking back and grabbed the meat that Bjorn cut off and drugged it to the edge of camp. Kris then turned his back to Bjorn and set to eating the meat scraps.
“Drama queen.” Said Bjorn to Kris’s actions. Getting a growl in reply. Bjorn turned back around to watch the fire and make sure it didn’t burn the meat. After finishing his meal, Bjorn turned back around and Kris was laying there with his back towards Bjorn. “Alright, you drama queen here you go.” As he threw a chunk of cooked meat at Kris. The wolf just lazily picked its head up, looked at the meat, and then at Bjorn, and then turned so that his butt was towards the meat and Bjorn, laying back down and going back to ignoring Bjorn. Sighing with exasperation he just went to sleep.
The next week passed in relative calm. Bjorn spent all of his energy on building a rudimentary shelter for both himself and Kris. The wolf’s attitude didn’t change much, it was pretty accepting of him, and listened to him, at least a little bit. Mostly when Bjorn asked Kris to do something Kris complied, but Kris still had plenty of sass to give.
On Kris’s end he would leave during the day, and come back every other day with some sort of animal that he killed. From there Bjorn would cut up the creature and give Kris the less appetizing parts of the animal. It’s not like the wolf cared, He would eat just about anything. Kris was a good enough dog, and friendly, but he wasn’t overly smart. Bjorn was pretty sure he saw Kris trying to eat a rock at one point. Although he didn’t have a good look so he couldn’t say for certain.
At the end of the week Bjorn tried using his splinted leg. Removing the two pieces of the bow, he slowly put weight on it. With no pain he started to put more weight on it. Soon he tried walking, being able to move faster so far his leg didn’t hurt too bad. There was a dull ache from both of the breakpoints, but it was manageable. He spent the rest of the day testing his leg to find his limits. A slow walk was currently as much as he could handle before his leg started to hurt too much again. The slow walk was still faster than he was traveling with the crawl.
The next morning Bjorn packed up everything from camp and he started to hobble off. Sensing that something was changing Kris stayed around in the morning, instead of wandering off. They took off together heading downstream again. They made progress, it wasn’t fast by any means but it was faster than they made initially. It was around mid day when they made their big discovery.
They came up to a stream that met up with the brook, being too large for them to easily cross, they started to range up stream to find a crossing. A little up stream there was a small grove of plants. Upon seeing them Kris bounded off and immediately started to eat the plants.
“Hey! Let’s see what they are before you eat them!” Yelled Bjorn. But Kris completely ignored Bjorns words and just kept eating. Sighing Bjorn cast, cast stone and shot it into Kris’s romp. Luckily he was able to change the speed at which the stone was thrown. And Bjorn threw it hard enough to get Kris’s attention, but not enough to do any real damage. With a yelp Kris ran a few paces away from where he stood chewing on the plant. Turned around and started to look around trying to find out what just bit him on the ass.
“Serves you right!” Called Bjorn to Kris as he walked towards the plant that Kris was just eating. Kneeling down The plant was a pale blue in color, with leaves in small clusters of 5. It was a plant that Medera had told him about, it was a herb called Bliscus. Medera talked about the healing properties of the plant. Trusting his old teacher Bjorn took one of the clusters of leaves off of the plant and put it in his mouth and started to chew.
As you chew on this bliscus you get the impression it could be used to make a weak healing potion, and that it could make a hallucinogenic.
Well, that could be interesting. Bjorn’s mind was filled with visions of making a hallucinogenic poison and affecting his opponents with it rendering them mostly useless in the fight. He figured if someone was tripping balls it would make them pretty useless in a fight. But that is a long way off. Medera hadn’t talked at all about the possibility of something like that. Shelving his hopes for later he started to collect as much of the bliscus as he could. As he was collecting the plant Kris was going around behind Bjorn looking at what he was doing. After Kris drooled down Bjorn’s neck. Bjorn shooed him away. With another yelp Kris ran away into the bushes.
After everything was collected Bjorn took off looking for a place to cross again, soon coming across one, he continued following the river. This time he had a goal in mind, instead of trying to cross as much distance as he could, he started to look for a place that he could make camp for the night. He had a plan that he wanted to try to do.
Soon after he got camp all set up how their previous camp was set, he set to work. There were things that Medera had told Bjorn about alchemy. When making potions there were 3 main forms that healing ingredients needed to take if ever testing to make your own potion. The first one was a pure liquid that could be achieved by steeping the alchemical ingredient in water to make a tea of sorts. The second was a paste, which could be achieved by grinding the ingredient up by itself, or with other ingredients. The last was just wholesale. Of course there were hundreds if not thousands of different ways to make healing potions, and just because you knew how to make healing potions one way with certain ingredients. That doesn’t mean that it would work if you changed out one of the components for something else. Alchemy was a complicated practice.
And so Bjorn started to test, he wanted to see if he could come up with some sort of healing potion using the Bliscus and the River moss. Although the theory was sound in practice Bjorn failed over and over. That first night he had no luck, the second day nothing changed. Same with the third and fourth day. On the fifth day everything changed.
When he finished adding the last bit of the Bliscus leaf to the liquid in front of him the potion took on a thin red color. With a woop he took the liquid and drank it down.
You have drank a truly pitiful health potion, made by a pathetic alchemist. You will regain 10 hp over the next 12 hours.
Bjorn was so ecstatic by his success he just completely ignored the dig at his ability to brew potions. The potion was just his first success after all. From here on out he could refine the process and make the effects of the potion stronger. First things first though, seeing how his stock of the Bliscus was starting to run low he brewed 5 more draughts of the potion he had just made. Which took most of the rest of the day and part of the next. He spent the rest of the sixth day using up the last of his Bliscus and with no success he planned to move on again on the next day.
For Kris’s part the wolf barely spent any time in camp, apparently Sitting around in camp all day didn’t sit well with the wolf, so it explored. On the 3rd and 5th day he had brought small animals into camp to be prepared and cooked. On the morning of the 7th day, seeing Bjorn packing everything up he started to bump into Bjorn as if to say “Come on, this has been boring, let’s go.”
Taking one more look at this health pool it was sitting at a steady 74 out of 174. Nodding in content, it looked much nicer than the 5 it was initially. A little over a third of the bar was full. Pulling out a potion he drank it down getting the same prompt as he got earlier, shaking his head in annoyance he set off out of camp with a bit of pep in his step.
The day was a beautiful day out, spring was starting to be in full swing. There was still snow all over on the ground and up higher up in the mountains. But it was a nice warm day, with clear blue skies. Bjorn and Kris walked in high spirits. Stopping around mid day to have a meal. As they took off again just after noon, they continued along the river.
Soon taking a short break again to take a drink out of the river. Bjorn took a look at his surroundings he was at the bottom of the ravine, behind him was a small cave entrance, all around him were large trees, not quite as large as the ones on the side of the mountain, but trees around 60 to 100 feet tall, about what was normal for back on earth.
A crackling sound reverberated through the ravine. Pausing Bjorn started to look around to find the source of the sound. The sound was almost the sound ice made as it slowly broke. There was one final resounding crack as the snow on top of the mountain Bjorn was at the base of, broke free and started to slide down hill directly towards him.
Standing there watching the majesty of the avalanche it was lost on him that the snow was coming straight towards him and Kris until the wolf grabbed ahold of his sleeve pulling him away. Then it dawned upon him that he was in danger. Kris was trying to pull him away from the avalanche. Quickly Bjorn realized that they wouldn’t be able to get clear of the snow before it hit where they were at. Looking at the cave Bjorn started to take off towards it. He was pulled to a stop, as Kris tried to pull him the other way. “We can’t make it, that cave is our only hope.” Bjorn yelled as loud as he could, as the avalanche picked up speed it also got louder and louder. Pretty soon the sound was deafening.
The wolf must have heard what Bjorn said because it shook its head which held Bjorn’s arm. Obviously he didn’t want to go into the cave. Bjorn tried again “We must go into the cave. That snow wi- ll kill us.” in the middle of the word will, the wolf let go of Bjorn's arm, took one more look at Bjorn and turned tail and ran. Taking one final look at Kris’s retreating back Bjorn turned and ran towards the cave. It was a race between the snow and Bjorn, It looked like he was going to lose, and not make it to the cave. The snow was almost upon the cavern. Bjorn swore under his breath, if that dumb dog hadn’t slowed him he could make it to the cave just fine. Gritting his teeth he put on speed.
He made it to the cave. As soon as he got inside the cave the snow and ice started to cover the mouth of the cave. WIth horror the snow started to fill the cave Bjorn was standing in. Pushing his way into the cave he blindly flailed around trying to get away from the snow. The snow had fully covered the mouth to the cave and it was plunged into darkness. Realizing he was being an idiot flailing around the cave Bjorn cast simple light. The cave was long and shallow, in the back of the cave there was a single exit. Looking back the snow was halfway across the cave and it continued to encroach. Without a second thought Bjorn threw himself into the new passage. Not long afterwards the snow stopped right next to the entrance to his tunnel. There was no way he was going to be able to dig his way out before he was out of food and water. Turning around he took off down the tunnel, plunging himself into the depths of the earth