I was able to remake all my tools, speartips, and pot after a couple of days. Following the new river, we were able to find another deposit of cobanium which I smelted down to make everything again. Having done it before, it was easier this time around.
But other than stopping to remake everything, we didn't stop traveling. We followed the river, fought off dinosaurs that attacked us randomly, and we made sure to rate their meats out of ten. So far my favorite was the ankylosaurus meat, a nine out of ten. Nora's was a scaly snake that was twice as long as she was. She said it was a ten out of ten, but I think she was just saying that to get me to try it.
We followed that river for about a year before it ended. There was no sign of civilization at all. So, with nothing else to do, we set off directly southwest into the forest, leaving the river behind.
I kept my eyes out for new veggies or fruits or even things I could use as spices or tea. I was able to find some weird looking plants that actually tasted good, so I saved some seeds for when I settle down later. And whether I liked it or not I was going to have to settle down when Nora is taken to another world. Without Nora, I would be having a lot more trouble with those dinosaurs that always seem to attack us. I swear, it's like they know exactly how to find us.
Anyways, we traveled through the woods heading southwest, keeping an eye out for signs of human life or a nice place to settle down. But so far we have seen nothing of either.
For another year we traveled southwest, not worrying about the lakes and rivers we came across. Although we did have to go along some of the rivers to find a place to cross or go around the lakes, we did our best to travel as far southwest as we could. Occasionally, I would climb a tall tree to look around for smoke from cooking fires, but no luck.
As we traveled, the trees started becoming taller and thicker. They were spread farther apart as well, with dense foliage and an even denser underbrush. Vines were hanging off the trees and were strung across the branches.
It was official, we entered jungle territory. Or was it a rainforest? I didn't know, but it was very humid. I hated it, not because of the humidity, but because of all the snakes. They were everywhere, and they were massive. We even saw one whose head was as big as Nora! It was swallowing a T-rex whole, so we booked it out of there..
We pushed on through the jungle as fast as we could. After two months of jungle, we finally left that snake-infested place behind and entered a more mountainous area. There were still lots of trees and even a large river flowing directly west to east from the mountains and into the jungle we left behind. It was a thick river, we could barely see the other side, so we shifted course a bit to head west along the river. We followed the river upstream going deeper into the mountains.
The banks of the river gradually got steeper and steeper, and eventually formed into cliffs that were twenty feet tall. Twenty feet became fifty, fifty feet became one hundred, then one hundred became hundreds... maybe even a thousand feet. A massive ravine about four hundred feet across, with a long drop to the bottom. As we walked, following along the top edge, we saw several streams of water coming down from the surrounding mountains to pour off the edge to the river below.
"Woah..." I stopped to stare at the sight. The tall mountains, the surrounding forest, the deep ravine, the misty waterfalls, and the river raging below. The sun was even setting behind the mountains, lighting the sky orange and pink. "What do you think, Nora? Should we settle down somewhere around here? There's plenty of water here, plenty of things to eat in the forest... and to be honest, I don't think we're going to find anybody else on this world, and I am kind of sick of walking."
Nora barked.
I sighed, I really wasn't looking forward to this. I wanted to find civilization... but it was time to face the facts. Nora and I were probably the only intelligent life on the planet. There was no civilization to find. So I should settle down, build a nice home, and spend what time I have left with Nora. She would be gone... in less than two years now. About a year and eight months. Not much time left until I was left alone on this dinosaur infested world. Then I would have to survive, alone, for another six years.
Can I even do that? Nora has done so much for me... She takes care of most of the big dinosaurs. I mean, I took care of that T-rex looking dinosaur that one time, but most of the time I’m not able to take them out before it reaches us. Then Nora gets it...
I shook off the pessimistic thoughts.
I can do this! I got about two years, I can get better at dealing with the large dinosaurs. But for now, I need to focus on building my home for the next eight years...
I looked around for a good spot.
“I don’t want to live right next to the ravine,” I said to Nora, spotting a large stream up ahead that looked like it came from a valley between two mountains. “What do you think of following the stream into that valley right there to see if that’s a good spot?”
Nora barked, still gazing at the ravine. She wasn’t looking at the falls though, she was looking straight down. I looked at her then at the ravine, inching closer to the edge to look over.
“Yeah, that’s a long ways down... Come on, it’s almost dark. Let’s see if we can find a good spot to camp.”
Nora turned away and started towards the valley I pointed out... only to freeze in place. She squeezed her eyes shut and started breathing heavily.
“Nora?” I said, placing my hand on her shoulder. She was trembling. “What’s wrong, Nora? Are you okay?”
Nora didn’t say anything, so I stood there petting her gently. After a minute, she shook herself as whatever it was passed.
Whatever it is... Is it those rainbow lights? Those headaches that I got more and more often until I got dragged to this world... It's happening to Nora now.
"That isn't the first headache you've had is it?"
She licked my face and barked softly. I gave her a quick hug.
"You really are close to leaving aren't you?"
She barked again.
I sighed and said, "Come on, let's find a place to camp for the night."
We followed the stream between the two mountains. The little canyon had two small, rocky bends before it opened up into a small valley. The stream passed right through the middle to another small canyon on the other side. The valley was forested and had steep slopes on either side. You could fit three, maybe four, football fields.
The slopes were a little worrisome, but there were lots of plants and several trees on there so there shouldn’t be any falling rocks or mudslides... maybe. I was also worried about what would happen when it rained. The slopes would funnel all the rain right to the valley. Would it flood? It didn’t look like there were any traces of flooding. There were places where it looked like water frequently ran, going straight to the stream in the center. But other than that, the slopes looked fine. Steep, yes, but it looked like there were only a couple segments that would require climbing. I could probably hike up to the top if I wanted. Something to do in the future. Right now though, the entire valley was in the shadow of the mountain and it was getting dark.
I jumped over the stream to the western side and picked a spot near the canyon wall that was relatively clear of trees and away from the water run-off areas.
“This is as good a spot as any for tonight,” I said, setting my backpack down. “We can see if there’s a better spot in the morning.”
I quickly got a fire going and started setting up camp while Nora disappeared into the canyon leading to the ravine. She came back an hour later with dinner hanging from her mouth. A large deer. I sliced a portion off for myself before she tore into it.
We lay down for the night. I wrapped myself in my fur blanket and snuggled up against Nora.
In the morning we walked around the whole valley and decided that the best spot was where we had camped. Now that I had a spot picked out, it was time to get to work.
First thing that needed to be done was a temporary shelter for them to live in until they finished their more permanent home. So, I got to chopping down a tree. None of the trees here were that thick, I could easily wrap my arms around them and still touch my elbows. Once the tree fell, I chopped all the branches off and threw them all in three piles to sort them by size. The log I was left with was about thirty feet long. Because this was just to make a temporary shelter, I didn't bother debarking it. I then used my axe to chop notches along the length of the log, each of them spaced about a foot apart. I did the same thing with a second tree that was about the same size.
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With those two logs done, I had Nora lift them up into place. The place we had decided was pretty close to where we were going to build our new home. I didn’t want there to be a tree in the middle of the opening to this lean-to, so we found two trees that had thick branches that were close together but still had enough room for Nora to walk between the trunks comfortably. Nora bit one end of a log, dragged it closer to the two trees, and walked her front paws up the trunk to place the end of the log in the crook of the chosen branch. She did the same thing with the second log, placing it in the crook of the branch on the other tree. The notches facing up.
I cut more trees down, clearing more space where I wanted to build my home, and cut off all of their branches. I cut each log in half with my axe. With that done, I cut more notches into the ends of the halved logs then fitted them into the two logs that made up the frame of the lean-to. They fitted in nicely, like the lincoln log toys I used to play with as a kid. Once all the logs were in place, the lean-to looked like a ladder going up into the tree’s canopy. Now all I had to do was take all the branches I had collected and layer them neatly on the “ladder” to rain-proof it.
While I was busy layering on the branches, Nora went off to hunt again for dinner. It took me the rest of the day to finish the large lean-to. When you have nothing else to do except the task at hand you can get things done really quickly. It was especially true for me because I didn’t need to stop for breaks all the time. Four, almost five, years of nothing but traveling on foot, hunting for food, and fighting off dinosaurs has made me really fit.
The next morning, Nora and I cut down the rest of the trees in the spot I wanted to build my cabin. I cut the branches off, sorting them as I did, and Nora dragged them to the side of the clearing. I grabbed several sticks and used my axe to quickly chop the ends into points to make stakes.
“Alright, Nora, lay down in the middle so I can stake out how big this cabin needs to be,” I said, showing off my stakes with a grin. But Nora didn’t move. “Nora? Come on, it’ll be quick.”
She growled and walked over to the lean-to we built, circled twice, and lay down. She looked at me and growled again.
I stared at her, looked at the clearing, then looked back at her. “Are you saying you don’t want to live in the cabin with me?”
She growled and then barked.
“So you would like to, but you’re not going to?”
She barked.
“Why not? I mean, I know you’re going to go off to another world in about a year or two, but if we work fast then we could still finish before...”
She cut me off with a growl and just stared at me.
“Fine, I’ll just build a cabin for me then...” I sighed, turning back to stare at the clearing. I tried to think of what dimensions the cabin needed to be, but I couldn’t.
“Is this because you’re sick of being the big spoon?” I asked, almost shouting as I turned to face her again. “Because if so, I’m sorry, you are way too big to be the little spoon. You’re like four times my size!”
Nora’s jaw dropped, then she just started laughing, rolling onto her back.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," I said, "You just want to make sure I actually have a cabin before you go off to another world."
Nora struggled to her feet, still laughing her chuffing laugh. She came over and gently nuzzled the side of my face... before pushing me down and laying on top of me, supporting most of her weight on her legs that were on either side of me.
"Oof! Nora!" I shouted, trying to push her off, but it was no use. She started licking my face. Once she gets like this I could only accept my fate and wait her out.
Eventually she stopped licking me, but this time she didn't let me up as she usually does. She just nuzzled my face and the top of my head, letting out a quiet whimper. I wrapped my arms around her neck.
"Hey, come on, Nora," I said softly, "I'm sure we'll see each other again. If we keep traveling to other worlds then we're bound to run into each other eventually, right?"
She let out a little woof.
We lay there quietly with Nora nuzzling me and me gently petting her.
"Oh, but I'm only moving into the cabin after you leave. No way am I missing being the little spoon any sooner than I need to."
Nora laughed, licked my face again, then finally let me up.
"Alright," I said, picking up the stakes I dropped. "I guess I just need to mark out a size good enough for me."
With that, I got to work again and quickly marked out a ten foot by ten foot area. Or at least it looked about ten by ten. I did my best with the tools available to me, eyeballing and guesstimating. And I didn't really want a large cabin anyways, I wasn't going to be here long and I wouldn't be spending most of my time indoors. So, ten by ten was big enough for me.
From then on I spent the rest of my time preparing the logs I would be using. For the first log, I lined it up on the ground next to the stakes and used those as a guide for the dimensions I needed. Then I used that first log as the rule and made each log look like the first log. Each log was about fourteen feet long and a foot and a half thick, with notches cut near the end to look like a lincoln log. The extra length was so that the walls of the cabin would be built just on the outside of the stakes and so the logs could overlap and so the inside would end up being ten by ten and not the outside.
It took me about three months of working to get the amount of logs I thought I would need. Mostly because of the debarking process and doing my best to smooth out the logs. I could knock a tree down pretty quick, but boy was scraping all the bark off tedious... especially with my axe. Luckily, Nora found another vein of cobanium metal in the canyon where the stream came from and I was able to make myself a scraping tool. It was basically just a knife with a handle on both ends. I also made myself a shovel so I could dig things once Nora left.
During those months I worked on my oversized lincoln logs, I tasked Nora with digging up the stumps of the trees in an area close to the cabin. I wanted to use that area for my garden. I had saved a bunch of seeds and wanted to see if they would grow. I didn't know how to properly care for each of these plants or when their growing season was, so when Nora was done clearing the area and I wanted a break from chopping at logs, I planted about half of each type of seed I had collected. I had planted them in rows and watered them each morning, but so far nothing sprouted.
Once I had finished the logs, I had Nora dig out large holes at the stakes and four holes close to each other in between two of the stakes. I set a log in each of the holes to use as posts to build the cabin on top of. The ground was already pretty flat, so the logs on top of the posts were almost flush with the ground. With the logs on the posts, the frame looked like a square with a small alcove facing the valley’s wall. That little alcove was where I was going to build a fireplace and chimney. For the floor I squared off some logs so they'll be flush with each other and have a flat floor, leaving the space for the fireplace.
Once I got the floor in place, it was quick work to slap all the logs in place. Each log fitting nicely into the notches, and I used moss in between the logs to prevent wind from blowing through. For the door I cut four feet out of the middle of the logs going where I wanted the door and cut new notches in the log ends. I cut the four foot pieces in half and cut notches in the middle of those pieces. I used those small pieces to support the log ends where the door was going. The fifth log up just went straight across the doorway. The doors hinges were just pegs going into the floor and into the log above. It was stiff, but it worked. The door itself was made up of rough wooden boards that I nailed to a frame of branches. For the nails I just forged a couple for each board I made. It was tedious and it wasn’t really necessary to use nails for everything, so I only made enough for the door, the windows, and a ladder to help me get the rest of the walls up.
The two windows were the same thing as the door. I put a window on the two walls adjacent to the wall with the door. While the door was four logs tall (the fifth log running across the top), the windows were only two logs tall and were three logs off the floor. I put little doors in so I could close the windows if I wanted to.
For the fireplace, it was also like with the door and windows. I had the wall cut short in the middle to leave an opening in the wall that was three logs tall, with the fourth log going straight across, then just built the wall like the rest all the way up. I’ll fill in that opening with rocks later.
When the walls got to be six logs tall, I got the roof up. To make the roof, all I did was almost exactly the same as the walls. Each log has two notches on each end, one on bottom and one on top, so all I did was shift the top notches a little closer to the middle on the logs going on the width of the cabin. Nothing changed for the lengthwise logs, they were just offset slightly from the log below it. But this time I pressed clay into the cracks between the logs, I wanted to make sure water wouldn’t seep in through the roof.
With the walls and roof done, all that was left was the fireplace. I stacked rocks carefully, filling in the little opening left in the cabin floor and the area outside the wall until it was level with the floor of the cabin. I used clay as the “glue” between the rocks. Once the whole area was level with the floor, I stacked rocks only on the edges, raising thick walls of stone that arched to meet in the middle. I had to hold the stones up using logs until I got the top stone in. I filled the spaces between the arch and the wooden walls of the cabin with more rocks and clay. Outside, I continued the archway a little, so there was a stone tunnel going through the wall, then started building the chimney. I stacked the rocks in a square, leaving an opening for airflow. I used the ladder to continue stacking up the chimney until it was a bit taller than the roof.
With that the cabin was done, and it only took about six months total! Three months of prepping the logs and another three to assemble and build other miscellaneous things that I needed along the way.
In those last three months the garden actually started sprouting. I was excited about that. I’ve been doing nothing but building and hadn’t had time to go out and explore and gather food, so I’ve just been eating stuff that Nora hunted for me. A garden of fruits and veggies would be awesome.
There have also been times where a dinosaur of some sort would wander into the valley. Sometimes it was a large beast, other times it was a group of some things, but almost every time they attacked us. It was mostly just an annoying distraction from my work, but it was handled easily enough by Nora or a couple of thrown spears.
But the work was done... Now, I could settle in for a few years until I was taken to another world.