George’s POV:

For the next few days we both seemed to have a schedule. I got up, at some berries for breakfast, and went out to check my traps. I would then bring all of the animals back and start processing them. The guts were strung up to dry so we could use them as string. The skins were hung on a new rack, as none of the other hides had finished drying yet. The meat was cut into strips using a quarter of the beak of some sort of crow, and then hung in the smokehouse. For now, we had no use for bones of the other entrails, so they were being used by Katerina outside of the camp. All of the meat was being stacked in baskets that Katerina made.

“You are really good at making baskets. How did you learn that? Did someone teach you?”

“No, figured it out by self. Did learn to tend fires and clean birds from Babushka though.”

“Babushka?” I asked. That word seemed familiar.

“What is word? Mother’s mother.”

“Grandmother.”

“Ah, yes,” she said looking at me. “Grandmother.”

Katerina had been trying to cook for us, and had been dealing with predators by using the entrails and bones out in the woods to bait traps for them. I had made her several traps and shown her how to set them up, and every day she came back with at least one of the native wolf creatures and sometimes animals with weird traits, like a lizard whose scales were hard enough that they tanked a lightning bolt. That would be made into armor once I got good enough to do so.

Today, however, she came back from somewhere out in the field with a woman following her. The woman looked Asian and was wearing a bra and underwear made out of red animal skins. “Hello.” I said to the new woman. “Welcome to our camp.” She gave me a look like she was afraid and hid behind Katerina.

“She is Chinese, named Lo Ming.” said Katerina. “I know a bit of Mandarin, so we talk okay. She is level four martial artist, and needs place to stay. Can she stay in the camp?”

“I don’t mind. I assume she can hunt, and fought those animals whose skin she’s wearing.”

Katerina nodded. “Yes, killed many foxes that live in bamboo forest on other side of clearing. Saw the smoke and came this way.”

“Do you mind taking her with you when you go out, then? She can help deal with the predators.”

Katerina nodded and said something to the woman in Mandarin. “She say she will fight monsters. She asked about water. Wants to take a bath. So I will take her to the creek.” With that, they made their way down the edge of the woods in the direction we had decided to call east. If you faced the sun it was to your left. I had found a creek there two days ago, but we had no way to bring back water. Hopefully the skins would finish drying soon and I could make water skins for everyone, and a large one to bring water back to the camp.

I cleaned out the storage hut and made another beside the drying racks. By the time they were back all of the things had been moved into the new lean-to and I was putting pine boughs down in the old one.

Katerina showed her around the camp so she could find everything, and soon it was time for supper. Katerina had gathered enough clay at one point to make a pan, even if it wasn’t the best, and was using it to cook something. I didn’t know what it was, and she seemed to just be mixing whatever meat and vegetables we had, but it wasn’t bad. After supper we both started teaching teaching Lo Ming English, as it was more common in a lot of Earth. Of course, if we ran into another person that spoke Mandarin I would learn that, and might do that anyway. There wasn’t much to do other than work, but learning a new language was pretty interesting.

Three days later, while the women were out hunting a groups of fire vipers, snakes who produced methanol instead of venom, and somehow could light it to breath fire, someone else walked towards the camp from the west, or to the right if you face the sun. They were a dark skinned man. He was short at about one point six meters tall, but had a lot of muscle. He was carrying a tree like a club and had a wolf pelt tied around his waist. “Hey!” he called out. “Anyone in there?” I had managed to build most of a small log cabin in the last few days, and was inside sealing the cracks when I heard him call out.

I grabbed my spear from where it was propped against the wall and went outside to greet him. “Yeah, I’m here.” I said. “Are you American?”

“Yep, and you sound British.”

“Yeah, I’m from a town near London. And you?”

“Northern Cali. Nice place you got here. Got room for a Blacksmith?”

“Oh, production class, eh? I’d love to have you around to help build stuff in town if nothing else, but the other two have to agree.”

“Other two?”

“Yes, there are two women that live here too. Katerina and Ming. Katerina is Russian and Ming is Chinese, but they both speak pretty good English. So, mind telling me your name and level?”

“Oh, my friends called me T-bro. That’s short for Terrance Bronson. I’m only level one, though. Only experience I got was when I collected this iron ore from that swamp I walked through on the way here.” He held up another wolf skin, but this one was tied up like a bag. “I was thinking about finding some clay and setting up a smelter when I got to the forest, but then I saw your smoke and came this way.”

“Well, T, we got plenty of food if you are tired of eating whatever it was you found out there.”

“Mostly nothing. I did eat some raw snake meat when I killed them in the swamp, and I found a few wild onions near the edge of the forest, but I wasn’t sure about anything else. I died the first time and have only been walking for two days.”

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Two days? That meant he died pretty quickly the first time and had to ‘respawn’ at a random place near here. “Well, hope this time is better.” I motioned for him to come into the camp and, after he ate some of our berries and nuts, he started helping me chink the log cabin. When I called it that he got a look like I had said something wrong, but when I explained that was what filling in the cracks, and the material you used to do it was called, he understood and started helping.

Two hours later he was out getting more clay when I heard Katerina yelling. I ran outside to see her waving her sparking hand at T. “Woah, what’s all this.” I called.

“Who is he?” she asked. “I come back and there is new man in camp.”

“Oh, this is Terrance. He saw our camp and came over to see if we needed a blacksmith. He’s only level one, but I let him eat something and help me with the cabin.”

She looked at me and lowered her hands, turning the lightning off. Ming had taken a stance like she was about to swing at him, but she relaxed and started looking at him. That look definitely didn’t say ‘fear’.

After everyone talked for a bit the women brought the jug of methanol they had collected from the snakes into the camp and put it in storage. While there were over a hundred snakes, only a few were big enough to bother eating, and they had brought those back with them.

The women decided to make snake for supper and Terrance and I finished with the cabin. After we were done I went to go get some clay so that we could build Terrence a bloomery furnace, letting him start earning experience. When I got back Terrance and Ming weren’t around, but I saw Katerina making a basket near the fire. “I figured you and Ming would be getting some sleep after a hunt.” I said.

“I would be, but she and Terrance are breaking in the new cabin.”

“Breaking it?”

“Yes. It seems Ming has a thing for black men.”

“Oh.” I said realizing exactly what she meant. “Does that mean I need to build another cabin so that they can use that one for themselves?”

“That would mean that you and I share a cabin. Maybe one day that will happen, but for now the girls will have one cabin, boys other, and we will just need to be outside when they need to use cabin.”

“Right.” Well, so much for that plan.

I wanted to have Terrance build the bloomery, as I suspected that his class knowledge told him exactly how to do that, and he could get experience by doing so, so I went to bed.

When I woke up Terrence was in Ming’s old shelter, asleep. She had stayed in the cabin, though. I went to collect more clay and when I got back both of them were sitting beside the fire, eating. I had carved three wooden bowls, three spoons, and three sets of chopsticks for everyone, and all three were bring used, so I just moved all of the clay and hay to the place where we would be building the furnace. When we were done, I washed the bowl with a bit of the water we had and got what was left of the food, not that it was much. I had made two large water skins that held about ten liters each out of two dried wolf hides, and only one of them was still full. The other was almost empty.

After breakfast Terrence and I went over to where we would be working and got to work. I wasn’t sure what all would earn him experience, so I just poured the water for him to mix the clay. When he had a mixture he liked he got to work. Two hours later he loaded it with wood and lit it. After it was about an hour into the burn he closed off the vent on the bottom and threw a hide over the top. This smothered the fire. Once were sure it was out, he removed the charcoal and said that we could get started. First, he took the hide he had use to snuff it and made a bellows by basically tying it off as an air-tight bag and having the only vents being a one-way reed valve and a clay tube which lead to the bottom of the furnace. This would let him lift and push on the bag to blow air into the furnace. I would have to make him a better one later, but for now this was good enough.

At that point he went to gather the ashes from the camp’s main fire, then relit it after he had collected them. This was the only flux he knew where to find at this point. He then mixed alternating levels of charcoal and crushed iron ore, throwing a layer of ash over the iron ore every time. “This probably isn’t a good way to do it, and definitely isn’t the best, but it should work for now.” With that he lit the charcoal through the blower hole, reattached the blower, and started the burn.

It was probably six hours before he finally stopped pumping the bellows and let the smelter cool. Not wanting to limit his experience, I had limited myself to bringing him water and refilling the water skins. The rest of the time I had started work on a second cabin beside the first. Mostly that meant carrying logs over and laying them nearby. We would have to carve the corners out tomorrow, so that they fit together properly. These cabins had no windows, and had a dirt floor, but they would be good enough for now and could serve as storage space once we had better housing.

Once he had rested, Terrance helped me carry over all of the other trees that had been cut down. We had cleared out a good chunk of the nearby forest, as none of the trees on the edge of the forest were more that twenty centimeters in diameter. “Well, I went up to level two after that.” said Terrance as we carried logs. “And got an extra point of Endurance.”

“Nice. Any idea what you’ll do with the level up?”

“Oh, I got a skill called ‘Leatherworking’. It should let me make hide armor, even if it’s meant for the leather handles of weapons and the leather lining of metal armors.”

“Nice. I’ll probably dump my three skill levels into Hide Preparation the next time I level, so that I can get to Tanning faster. Once I can make real leather you can turn it into clothes for everyone.” I was already at level five in that skill, so if I could just get to seven before leveling up, this level up will get me to ten, and next time I can just get Tanning.

We built the bottom two layers for the cabin to mark its location, then went and smashed the furnace. At the bottom Terrance pulled out a shiny chunk of glass and, after breaking the material off of the outside, he revealed a chunk of iron the size of two double fists. “So, what do you want to do with this?” he asked.

That night we discussed what to do with our lump of iron. Ming wanted a weapon. I would like a spearhead, but I didn’t know if that was the best use for it. I hadn’t made a bow yet, so I didn’t know if I needed arrow heads. As it was cast iron, Katerina had an idea. Why not make a skillet? We had been using clay plates to cook on, but they usually only held up to being used one or two times. Apparently, ceramics weren’t meant for cooking. A skillet, though, could be used for decades with no real wear.

In the end we decided to go with a skillet and a kunai for Ming. That would give her an iron weapon but not use up all of the material. After that, if there was any left, I could get a spear head or he could make nails, depending on how much was left. Terrance also taught all of us what iron and copper ore looked like, and told up to bring back a sample of anything we suspected was one of those, as, with a larger supply of ore, he could make us more tools.

The next day we started work on a forge. That basically meant building a sled to haul back all of the rocks we could from the forest. Those were all put together using a mortar made with clay and ash, until we had a platform that could hold charcoal in the middle. We let it set up overnight, and the next morning I started building a top for it the same way I had seen someone build a bread oven. I piled up dirt on it in a dome shape, made a cage over the dirt, then covered the cage in clay with hay mixed in to prevent cracking. Once it was done, I dug out the dirt and started a fire inside to fire the clay and burn out the frame. Was it ideal? Probably not, but it worked.

Terrance got to work building a charcoal kiln beside it. As we didn’t have any metal to separate the burned would and the wood that would become charcoal, he made it so that it could be snuffed out whenever he wanted, using hides as gaskets to seal it off. Once he was finished he lit it and came over to help me. By that point, however, I was digging the dirt out of it, so that was all he could help with.

The next day he set to work on his own, hauling a one hundred or more kilo piece of granite out of the forest, as the mountain was the only nearby source. Most of the rocks we dug up here were quartz. He had forgotten something important when asking what we wanted, the fact that he would need tools to make things. This chunk of granite will carved into crucibles and an anvil, so that he can actually forge things. The crucible will need to be used to heat iron to its melting point so that he could pour it into the mold for the pan. As much as Ming wanted a weapon, he would need all of the remaining iron to make a hammer so that he could work with metal the next time we made something.

Now that he had the Leatherworking skill, he could make a proper bellows for his furnace. He softened the hide up by constantly moving it, and then cut out the strips he would need to make a large bellows, the wooden boards being made from some of the scrap ends from the trees I brought in with a flint ax.

An outside person might be wondering how we cut the trees down without metal tools, but that would be thanks to the girls. At first I was making flint ax heads and replacing or sharpening them between every tree. Then they realized that they had skills that could help with that. Katerina had a Kinesis skill called Cut that just cut pushed out small amounts of material in order to cut an object, kind of like a chainsaw. Ming had a mana-enhanced martial arts move that let her cut things by giving it a karate chop. They had felled dozens of trees just that morning. I suppose I could ask them to make boards for us when they got back, but I didn’t need boards for many things.

Once he was done with the crucible a day later and two sets of bellows the day after that he made two sets of tongs, basically just bending a stick in half, and heated up the furnace. While it heated he made two clay molds, one for a pan and one for a hammer. After several hours of bellow pumping the iron became a liquid and he poured it into the pan mold, setting the top of the mold in after he had enough iron in it. The excess went back into the crucible along with whatever was left of the original bloom and when it became liquid he poured it into his hammer mold. He had a tiny bit left, but not enough to do anything with, so he poured it into a rectangular ingot mold to be used later.

That night we had our first pan fried food, using some of the animal fat we had collected.