He awoke early the next morning, his first thought upon awakening was how uncomfortable he was, so that was it he had to get up, so he rolled over and got up. He had expected his body to ache after a night on the cold hard floor but apparently it didn’t, he did a few stretches to try and get some blood flowing and hopefully wake himself up. It hadn’t occurred to him to save some fire wood for morning so he couldn’t start a fire. So that would have to be his first task of the day, picking up his knife he headed of towards the tree he had used the other day to get some wood he was able to return shortly with some wood for the fire, grabbing some more of the Conrex hair and his flint he was able to get a fire going, took a while and more patients than Gar thought it should but he did manage it.

  “New Skill acquired Fire Starting level 1”

  A new skill, not a very exciting one but should prove useful. With that done and taking of the early morning cold, he turned to breakfast, the only thing he had was the second conrex he had brought with him, he just hopped that it hadn’t gone bad overnight, he resolved to make sure it was well cooked before eating it. Before he could do that though the conrex needed butchering. Gar decided that now not so tired and in less of a rush to eat he would take more time with it, see if there was anything else useful or edible on the corpse. Deciding it couldn’t hurt and might help him spot something Gar activated Observe and Mana sight with the dead conrex before him.

  The thing was about three foot long with about two foot of that being the grass like hair on top, it had narrow eyes very low on the face with a mouth just below it that was as wide as the whole face, it had a large split in the top of the head where his knife had killed it, the wound was filled with dirt and insects. Taking his knife he started to cut away the hair and gather it up, he had already found it was good for starting fires, while doing this he was a bit surprised to find a long thin pair of ears sticking straight up from the head, the same colour and hidden in amongst the hair. Gar finished giving the thing a shave which was a bit difficult his knife was a bit big for that kind of thing but he had managed, he thought about searching the inside of the mass that was its body and head but really didn’t think there was going to be anything in there. As he was dismissing the idea he caught a glimmer of something inside with his mana sight. It was just a faint glimmer of something but it caught his eye. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to ignore it so again he picked up his knife and this time sliced into the conrex body lengthening the cut that had killed it, being careful as he could so as not to damage anything inside, any more than it already was, he kept going until the body came away as two halves, it was surprisingly easy, the head/body bit seemed to have no bones just a web of a cartilage type substance. Once in pieces the insides just spilt out across the floor, it was a mess, a disgusting insect covered mess. Gar started poking about with the tip of his knife spreading things around trying to identify organs and find the thing that caught his attention, he had been hoping for some kind of crystal or core something that he could keep and might find a use for later but instead what he found was a pinkish purple sack, about the size of a walnut, what stood out was that it still contained a red glow of mana about it. He tentatively picked it up; it was firmer than he had thought it would be, like a mozzarella cheese, he wasn’t sure what he could do with it, if he could do anything with it, he didn’t think keeping it was an option it looked like it would rot and quite quickly at that. Staring at the thing with mana sight and observe fully activated focused on the organ something unexpected happened

  “New skill acquired Inspect Level 1”

  Almost instantly the skill activated and a new pop up appeared in his face floating just above the organ in his hand

  Conrex Mana lung

  Breath in, breath out, now do it again but with mana

  Uses:????

  Value:????

  Quality: Poor

  Rarity: common

  Durability: 28/31 Rotting

  Gar could see how useful this skill could be, he had been right about not being able to keep this, the rotting tag on it, and it had already lost some durability. Needing to level up inspect to make it more useful he started inspecting all the weird lumps and organs in the pile of offal, most of the time it just failed and on the few times it worked he was just returned with conrex organ nothing else, he was not sure what was going on but Gar decided to just go with it and move on, he would keep trying and hopefully get some answers later. Moving on he removed the legs same as he had last night but stopped to check them over before he cooked them, he first looked at the big claw on each foot. Both appearing identical, about as long as his hand with only a slight curve down at the end coming to a point, and they were sharp, he used inspect on them

  Conrex claw

  A sharp claw and a Conrex’s main weapon

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  Attack: 3-8

  Uses: basic crafting material

  Value:????

  Quality: good

  Rarity: Common

  Durability: 40/40

  Seeing this he decided they might make a decent pair of knives for smaller work than his big knife, so he set to removing them. He then considered the skin on the legs, should he keep that. It had been quite tough when he tried to bite it, but ultimately decided against it his knife had pierced it easily enough and in all honesty he would only end up with a couple of small scraps. So he skewered the legs on his sticks he set them over the fire. Then went to the lake to wash up and get a drink, he returned to the legs cooking nicely and a huge bloody mess right next to where he was sleeping. Yeah he was going to have to move on, he would not be spending another night here. But that would wait, at least until after breakfast, the legs were left for even longer this time and the skin practically fell off under prodding from his knife but the meat tasted ok and it filled his belly and that was the key point.

  Sat eating Gar decided on what he was going to do next, long term was obviously get out of this hole find civilisation make a life but what about the short or medium term, he supposed he needed a home base a place to store his stuff a place to come back to, and to put it simply this wasn’t it, it made an acceptable camp out spot but for any period of time it wasn’t going to work, especially with the bloody mess he made right nearby, so that was medium term goal home base. What was he going to do that day, following the wall round away from the lake seeing what he could find, see if there was a good location for him there. That decided and belly full, he re-tied his knife to his stick giving him his spear back, set the bundles of hair, the claws and his flint rocks on a large stone to pick up later, then rethinking he picked up one of the claws, wrapped one of his bits of twine round the base to create a kind of handle then put it in his pocket. Setting off with the cliff face on his right, walking away from the lake. The area near the wall was just lighting up, the morning sun just being high enough in the sky to shine down on the base of the cliff. Not much growing here just bare stone or patches of short grass, running his hand along the stone walls, they felt far smoother than he thought they should be and solid stone, there would be no repeating his trick with the tree to help him climb out. Gar moved cautiously round the wall keeping an eye out for anything of interest.

  He had been feeling a bit thirsty for a while wishing he had thought way to bring some water with him but it hadn’t occurred to him before setting off, what caught his attention was that his hand was wet. He had been trailing it along the cliff wall as he walked, not really for any reason just doing it, feeling the sun heated stone under his fingers , now though his fingers where wet. A glance and then a longer look at the wall, there just behind him was a trickle of water running down the cliff face, looking up for a source he could see where it just started coming out the rock face a couple of meters above his head. Looking down the water wasn’t even creating a puddle on the floor, being absorbed back into the wall and ground before it could get that far. He was thirsty and this should be fresh spring water, so should be safe to drink was all Gar was thinking. Feeling a bit foolish Gar looked around to make sure no one was watching before pressing his face to the rock and lapping up the cool water, it was a bit minerally but refreshing all the same he had to spend several minutes lapping, mouth against the wall to get enough water to quench his thirst. Having done so he set of again, only then it occurred to him he could have cupped his hands under the stream and drank from that, instead of pressing his face into a wall. Gar laughed to himself at his own foolishness and was just glad that no one had seen him making a fool of himself muzzled face pressed into a wall.

  He pressed on round the cliff, the ground was starting to slope gently up a bit and there were more trees about, old trees that had spread tall and wide. Nothing within at least twenty meters of the cliff walls but further away it was no longer the grassland, but he wouldn’t say it was dense enough to be called a forest yet either. Gar was mildly worried about this new environment having new creatures in it, emboldened by his successes yesterday he couldn’t help but think of them as potential food and experience, he had his spear and he was keeping his eyes open for signs of anything. It was hard to remain vigilant it was so peaceful no sound except the wind in the leaves, bright sunshine on his back, he wanted to just spend some time enjoying this pleasant place. He had to press on, it was too soon to be wasting time he did however promise himself when he had time he would come back to relax in this place maybe have a picnic. He moved with a bit more of a spring in his step.

  It was a while later when he noticed a cave in the cliff face. Unlike his little dent this was a proper cave. He approached cautiously, he didn’t see anything at the cave entrance but his angle approaching from the side didn’t offer the best view into the cave. Gar tried looking for signs of something entering or leaving the cave, he didn’t see any but he had to admit he had no idea what he should be looking for with that kind of thing, he activated observe, still nothing stood out to him, he activated mana sight and from what he could tell from the colourful mana around him nothing stood out as unusual or in need of further inspection. Well lots stood out as needing further inspection all this mana was new and exciting and Gar wanted to study it all, none of it appeared relevant to his situation so he left it alone. Gar still wasn’t convinced the cave was empty, he was thinking it might make a good base so it wouldn’t surprise him to find something else did as well. He just didn’t know enough, about tracking, about animals or about this world, because even the little he thought he knew could be completely wrong here. He crept closer, pressing himself in against the cliff, spear held tightly to reassure himself, he got close enough he could stick his head round the edge, dropping to the floor he stuck his head out and looked into the cave. The first thing he noticed was the smell it was rancid; he immediately decided something had to be living in there. The smell was so bad he brought his head back and backed off a couple of meters to recover before he even registered seeing anything. He knew he had to go back and look again but really didn’t want to, steeling himself he crept back and repeated his actions from before. Again the smell hit him but knowing what was coming that time he was able to hold out and look around. Yes there was something living in that cave it was large and had dark fur, quickly activating observe he saw

  “Young Dire bear level 8”