Tutdun Chapter 11) Strength build. Or, She who is without sin.

York was of course, disappointed that she was only going to get two more starter quests, but was satisfied when I quickly set up the other quests rather than use them to bribe her for more favors.

First, she climbed up the fifteen foot wall.

[ Tutorial quest 2 of 3 completed ]

For which she asked for Strength again. Then she drew her name in the sand of the Jumping room after getting the jump Skill unlocked.

[ Tutorial quest 3 of 3 completed ]

For which she once again asked to get a point of Strength, and picked up on me trying to give her a questioning look despite not having anything to look at her with.

“I know, strength isn’t everything, and I will diversify when I get the chance, but starting off with my strength nearly doubled might be what keeps me alive if I step through the exit gate right into trouble.”

She nodded to herself. “They’re going to know newbies are coming out that way and every ecosystem has its predators."

In the Fire Starting room, I talked her through it unlocking the skill.

“So you already grabbed the fire starter bag which has a steel striker that goes across your knuckles so you can knock it along the flint stone to make sparks. The box in the alcove in the entrance should have the same things, plus some sawdust or something else easily flammable. It's up to you which one you want to haul around, but I suggest opening them both up and trying both."

I considered some other options. “Also you can grab some of the leather cording from back in the entrance if you want to use a friction starter.”

She gave me a confused look, so I explained. “Starting a fire with two sticks.”

York seemed like a pretty smart gal, just not an outdoors type of person, so I talked her through building a tepee of sticks stood up on one end with the other ends all leaning up against each other on top to make a sort of cone. Then filling it up with tinder made up of some of the dried weeds and the dry brittle fallen twigs broken up into splinters. Then building up a log cabin of larger sticks stacked up two by two on top of each other.

She looked pretty proud of herself as she got a little pile of splinters and dried up stuff to light up with a shower of sparks and stay lit up long enough to push it into the tepee.

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After watching her fire spread through the stacked up wood, and then poking at it because everyone just has to play with fire, she split a stick, and carve a notch into it with some tinder dusted around it. Then she whittled a stick down to a point on one end and tried several times to spin it between her hands until the tip got hot enough to ignite the dried up weeds.

“Now if you got two people, one can hold the stick in place, while the other pulls on either end of a piece of rope or cord wrapped around the stick, which is a whole lot easier and faster. For some reason, I thought I could help you with that even, you know, not having any hands.”

She nodded, “Make sense.”

Then we watched the fire for a bit until she stood up and dusted herself off. "Seems a shame, but I guess I should put this out."

I bobbed up and down a bit “Or…?”

York set her hands on her hips. "Or?"

I began to circle the fire. “Or after you kill the horned rabbit, you can learn how to dress game, and cook it on a fire.”

She looked a little grossed out but nodded. "Yeah, that might be something I need to know."

Floating out of the room, I let her know that “I’m going to get the rabbit set up. Meet me down there.”

I set the rabbit off to one side of the entrance so I could find out if it would attack her on sight as she entered the room or not. After making it, the thing just sat there, motionless, even after York entered the room with the stone from the pool in one hand and her spear in the other.

York looked at the rabbit and her face softened. “Oh damn, you didn’t tell me it was cute.”

Hmm… “I’m warning you. It has nasty, big, pointy teeth.”

She leaned her spear up against the wall and lifted the round stone I had made over her head as she began to walk towards the rabbit. “Then I guess I’m better off hitting from a distance then.”

As she got within ten feet of the horned rabbit, its head suddenly twisted to the side as one of its eyes locked onto York and it began to charge at her. She let out a yelp but braced herself before bringing the stone down to slam it into the face of the rabbit just as it paused to get its feet under it to leap at her.

As the rabbit went limp, York raised her hands above her head as she read something in front of her face. “Hurled object basic weapon skill unlocked! I knew it.”

[ Stone added to equipment list ]

How does that work? "Well, thanks for giving everyone who comes after you another option for a weapon."

I waited up till she was done dancing and chanting “Go me. Killed a rabbit. Threw the first stone. Got no sin.”

“If you’re done. Now you got to cut it up.”

York got pretty grossed out, even having to choke down whatever it was that was trying to come up. But she managed to get it cleaned up enough to lay out on a bed of soaking wet sticks over the mostly burned down fire.

The wet sticks kept the meat from burning, and the steam helped keep it moist as it cooked, or at least that’s what my uncle taught me, and I had taught my scouts.

After that she went ahead and unlocked all five of the other weapons.

I watched her run around poking at the slime with her spear and realized the thing she really needed to fight, was something capable of thinking when it fought back.

"Looks like you poked it enough to kill it, go ahead and get the rock out of the leftover goop. Then get ready to unlock your sword."

She shot me a grin, posed, and then began to try to poke the little cruddy looking blueish uncut chunk of quartz out of the slime.

Across the room, I created a goblin, and then floated up close to Focus on it and take control.

Taking a firm grip on its club, I let out a cough, then a yell.

"Yeeeee Haw!”