Back at the grotto, Fyn deposited his vines, gourds, and the tree which was too tall to be called a sapling and too thin to be called anything else, next to his fire pit. He headed to the east side of the clearing.
Working without rest for hours, he hauled branches and stones furiously. He picked flowers on his way to and from the south end of the clearing. In his frenzy, he was tempted to grab everything he could, but a nagging sense of responsibility held him back. He stuck to things he could use immediately or that could be dried for later.
Three or four hours in, soaked in sweat and feeling fatigued, Fyn picked early chorus berries to curb his hunger. On the second handful, a white orb popped out as he striped a branch of its fruit. The anger that had been driving him fizzled out as he collected the improvement point.
Small steady gains, that was the way life worked. Bursts of brilliance and windfalls wouldn't be valuable if they came along every day. Ignorance was his biggest problem, and that was trouble that could be resolved. He was no worse off than anyone else.
Except he was, he was trapped in a hellhole of a forest without a change of clothes or…
Fyn pushed that thought down and tried to smother it. He was alive. He had food. He was figuring life out. The sun was shining, the water was refreshing, and he was damn good-looking. It didn't matter that he had never seen himself before. Facts were facts.
He was the best looking, hardest working, toughest man trapped in a boy's body that ever walked out of this clearing. He had three improvement points to spend now and with time, he'd have one hundred. Before you could spit, Fyn would be kicking gryphons in the crotch and forcing them to carry him to the nearest bar for a drink. God help the bartender who said anything about legal drinking ages.
Tossing the handful of berries into his mouth, Fyn bent down and grabbed the large flat rock he had been carrying. Tucking it under one arm, he grabbed a long heavy branch with his free hand and started trudging back to the grotto, stick dragging on the ground behind him.
With the foul mood his level up had inspired dispersed, Fyn started to admire the natural beauty around him again. It wasn't so bad here. Why was he in such a hurry to leave?
He could settle down, explore and gather to his heart's content. He could turn the grotto into his personal fortress, be a king of all he surveyed. The next time some poor souls got dropped in a pack of blood wolves, Fyn could be the crazy old hermit that taught the confused child all he knew.
It was tricky navigating the eastern path into the grotto with his hands full, but Fyn managed it. Dropping his load, he stretched with a groan and sank to sit cross-legged.
He was beat. Two days of constant physical activity and two nights of poor sleep was starting to catch up to him. He had noticed the exercise hadn't improved his attributes either. He suspected there was something wrong with that.
If you could fill prerequisites nodes with prior knowledge and study, then physical nodes should be trainable as well. It could be his diet, or lack of rest. Fyn fully intended to enhance both of those aspects of his life. He would see then.
He was going to start with the food. Roots filled him up. The trouble with that was, once full, you started to concern yourself with taste. A starving man didn't care. You would eat what you had to when your stomach was planning a revolt and chanting slogans of insurrection.
A man with enough food wanted more. He wanted salt, and meat. Fyn craved spaghetti with homemade sauce, none of that canned nonsense. Fyn would kill for bread and butter. That didn't seem unreasonable either when he considered that to get meat, killing was inevitable.
But meat would have to wait, there were still supplies that needed to be brought in. Fyn made his way back along the narrow eastern path. At the outer edge of the path, he paused, looking up at the sky. Dark, ominous looking clouds were coming fast, he could already make out the curtain of rain they brought with them.
"So, I'll get wet," Fyn muttered, wiping his damp face, "I've been wet all day. A little rain…"
In the distance, a bolt of lighting flashed, racing towards the ground. The low rumble of thunder followed, deep and heavy, daring Fyn to complete his brag.
"On the other hand," Fyn took a step back, reaching out to steady himself as his foot slipped on a slick rock, "there are plenty of things to do inside."
Fyn watched for a few more minutes. He had expected the weather to arrive earlier, and he had anticipated that it would be an intense bout of rain, but he hadn't pictured this. Not only was the storm late, it arrived with greater ferocity than Fyn could have imagined.
The trees began to rock in sudden gusts of wind, their branches cracking and snapping, trunks creaking in protest. Flash after flash of lightning illuminated the sky, dancing in the clouds and hammering towards the earth. Each burst of energy had Fyn taking another step back until the waterfall blocked his vision.
Retreating to his camp, Fyn built up a fire and set his damp boots and socks next to it to dry. Settling beside the flames, Fyn pulled the weaver's vine close to his side and began to strip the gourds from it. The vine was strong, and elastic feeling, capable of serving as a rope, but it was the gourds Fyn had the most use for.
Carefully separating them from the vine, Fyn worked until all six shiny red gourds were in a row in front of him. Fyn picked up one and turned it over in his hands. It had the look of a melon, maybe a bit larger than a cantaloupe. The outside shone, looking soft, but when he squeezed it, there was no give in the gourd at all.
Tender appearing but harder than a coconut, Fyn knew a dozen ways to use the gourd. Only, that wasn't quite right. He knew a dozen ways other people might use the gourd, but he didn't know how to process the fruit himself.
Holding the gourd with his feet, Fyn attempted to cut the top, pressing lightly with his knife at first and soon exerting as much force as he could. He gave up when the knife slipped, and Fyn came close to peeling his leg, all without scratching the gourd.
Turning the hard fruit on its side, Fyn picked up a rock and began hacking at the ground. When he managed to break the skin, creating an indentation, he took up his knife again. Placing the blade in the groove, Fyn held it firmly, then used a thick branch to tap at the back.
Striking harder as the knife dug in, Fyn turned the gourd. Pounding and turning, Fyn kept beating at the knife until he had made a cut that went around the outside of the gourd. He proceeded to tap and spin, deepening the split, until the top was loose.
Ever so carefully, Fyn took hold of the lid, pulling it free. The top separated with a slurping sound. Staring closely at the inside center of the lid, Fyn found a thin white line connected to the bottom of the stem.
The line disappeared into the flesh of the gourd. Fyn pulled at it, seeds and pulp fell out as the string of plant matter grew longer. Soon, a pile of thread was lying on the ground beside him as Fyn continued to pull. By the time the thread grew taunt and refused to come out anymore, Fyn estimated there was around fifty feet of line.
He used his fingers to scoop out the remaining innards. Then he began to scrap at the interior of the gourd with a rock, removing all the fleshy bits until only the hard shell remained. At the bottom of the gourd, the thin string could be seen, still attached to the base.
No amount of pulling would separate the line, and even when Fyn used his knife, it resisted cutting. He had to saw at it for over a minute before the string gave way. Separating the string from the bottom and the lid, Fyn ran into between his thumb and index finger, removing a layer of moisture that dripped down his palm.
Fyn tugged and pulled at the line, marveling at its strength. Even when he wrapped it around both hands and yanked at it as hard as he was able, the string showed do sign of give. Setting it down, Fyn heaved a sigh and proceeded to process two more of the grounds, until he had three strings, three empty containers and one giant pile of pulpy red mess.
Next, Fyn turned his attention to the sapling. He cut off the thin top, and trimmed the stuns that remained of the branches, leaving a pole two inches and diameter at the base and an inch and a half at the top. Cutting a notch on the thin end, Fyn smoothed the wood as much as he could.
Tying all three pieces of his string to the notch, Fyn made sure they wouldn't slip and gathered the lines in his hand. He stared at them, fingers rubbing against the silky plant matter, trying to think of the best way to braid the three strings into one.
The vine was named after weavers. There was a good possibility that, Weaver, was a class, and that class was bound to know how to braid better than he did. It would be easy enough to confirm, but in the end, Fyn decided to stick with his uncertain memories. There was no rush and no need to make things perfect. Functional would do.
When the three lines had, roughly, been made into one, Fyn secured the untied ends with a rock. He stretched aching fingers which were tired from unusual work, and frustrated from keeping slick string from slipping away.
Going to his pile of "things that might come in handy," Fyn dug out a branch, cut from a bush, which was covered in wicked looking thorns. Taking care not to touch the tip of the thorns, so as not to damage them or his skin, Fyn cut the branch into sections. Each section was three or four inches long, with a thorn in the middle and a section of branch jutting out on either side.
Picking the sturdiest look thorn, Fyn took up his line again, and he began to loop and wrap the ends around his makeshift hook. Knotting the line at the top of the hook, Fyn studied the results, tongue in his teeth.
Seven feet of pole, forty feet of line, and a hook that Fyn, for one, didn't want digging into his skin. It was a mess, but Fyn thought it would work. And if it didn't, he could always try again.
Fyn rummaged in the pulp of the red gourd, digging out a piece of the innards that was big enough to tempt. He stuck it on his hook, pricking his finger in the process.
Carrying the pole and sucking on his finger, Fyn moved to the edge of the grotto's pool. Gathering the line in his hand, Fyn tossed it into the water. It floated there, five feet from the edge. Fyn rolled his eyes.
Not only was the line far too long, but he had forgotten to weight it. The fish that he could see, darted around the bottom, not bothering to look up to see the treat he had prepared for them.
Holding the pole by the end, Fyn began to wrap the excess line around the notch. When the string was halfway lopped and his hook began to slide across the surface of the water, Fyn let his hands work absently while his eyes searched for a stone that might work to sink the line.
It happened while he was distracted. Coming not from the center of the pool but from beneath Fyn's feet, a shadow darted out from under the recess it had been hiding it. The line tightened and jerked from Fyn's hand. He gave a cry as the pole clattered to the ground.
Fyn stomped on the pole, slowing its journey towards the water. Fyn winced as the bark of the wood dug into his bare feet. Collapsing onto the pole, Fyn grabbed it with both hand, and clung to it.
Grimacing, for a moment Fyn couldn't tell if he was trying to catch a fish or simply keeping the aquatic monster from stealing his stick. The wooden rod battered him as the unseen fish thrashed at the end of his line. When the string slackened, Fyn seized the chance to sit back.
Bracing himself with his feet, Fyn jerked back hard, thinking to set the hook. The pole rose up straight, the line going taunt. Fyn grinned, his eyes wide. He sprung to his feet, walking backwards quickly to keep the tension up.
He expected the fish to dive for the hollow it had come from. What Fyn didn't expect was for a shadow to leap out of the water, a massive mouth, full of teeth, heading right for him.
The fish opened its jaws, the hook falling out. Fyn blinked, and shouted, striking out with the pole and scoring a hit. He was knocked back a step and the fish was knocked to the floor.
Tossing his rod aside, Fyn lunged forward, anxious to grasp the monster before it could flop its way back into the water. The fish saw him coming and snapped at him, causing Fyn to falter and flinch. Taking advantage of his hesitation, the two-foot-long yellow scaled beast, flexed, hurling its body up.
A tail fin slapped against Fyn's face, catching his ear and causing his jaw to ache. His head twisted to the side, wrenching his neck. Stumbling a step to the side, Fyn's fist lashed out instinctively. Fyn shouted out a curse as his punch grazed the fish's side and the animal's scales cut his knuckles.
The blow flipped the fish, and it fell on its side. Jumping forward, Fyn pinned it with his body. He grabbed its back and the fish responded by unfurling its dorsal fin. Sharp spikes pierced Fyn's palm and he bit back a scream.
Using his forearms and twisting his torso, Fyn heaved the fish farther away from the pool. It glared at him with soulless fishy eyes as he scrambled to his feet.
Shaking his hand, Fyn darted to the side and grabbed his pole. Wielding it as a staff, Fyn stood between the fish and the pool. Pouncing forward, Fyn drove the butt of his pole into the fish's head. It snapped at him, but he could see it was starting to flag.
Taking a chance, Fyn dropped his pole and ran to where he had left his knife. Rushing back, he pinned the fish with his foot, and stabbed into its brain. The animal flopped, its jaws opening wide and Fyn twisted the knife for good measure.
Pulling the blade free, Fyn stumbled back a step. Gasping, Fyn sucked the puncture wound on his palm. He brushed the yellow scales from the scrape on his knuckles, backing up another step, afraid the beast might launch another assault.
Two feet long and at least ten or fifteen pounds, in other circumstances, this fish would be the crowning moment of all Fyn's fishing trips. Its yellow scales sparkled, and the green of its fins would look like jewels when it was held up for a picture.
When he had seen the weaver's vine this morning, Fyn had immediately thought of fishing. He had been certain of a dinner of trout or whitefish. He had drooled over the idea.
However, glancing at his dwindling fire and comparing it to the impressive sized fish, now Fyn had no idea how to cook this beast.