The best way Gar could come up with to celebrate when he was stuck alone in the wilderness was some good food, having lived off cold nuts and berries for days other than a couple of roasted pods at that point just a hot meal would be good. With that in mind the most obvious option for something different he could cook was some fish. When he had caught one previously it was by hand, with the higher water level and faster currents he wanted some equipment.
First he found where the slumbering vine thorns had ended up, then after some searching and chucking excess stuff out of his shelter Gar was able to find a stray strand of slumbering vine fibre. With the necessary pieces he started making what he had in mind. He measured off the first four meters of the fibre then started tying on the barbed thorns at regular intervals, by the time he was done he had twenty-three thorns tied onto the fibre the last one right on the end.
The next step was tricky, each of the thorns where hollow and like little hypodermic needles ready to inject the slumbering vines sap into it’s would be victims. They had lost their load when Gar had removed them, what he wanted to do was to reload them with sap in the hopes it would both lure in fish and stop them struggling or escaping when caught. Sometime later after one brief paralysis, when Gar had gotten the bright idea to try and suck the sap into the tiny hollow tube where he had ended up swallowing a small amount, and countless small pricks from the thorns and sticky fingers from the sap Gar was confident he had gotten some sap into most of the thorns.
It just needed one last thing. Gar carved a large wooden spike, basically a sharpened stick about the length of his forearm and drilled a hole in the non-sharpened end. He then tied the beginning of his line through that hole. Wrapping the line gently round the stick so he could carry it without it getting tangled or caught he was ready to go, especially as he had finally got his trousers dry from sitting next to the fire.
With spear and badgers he set off to the river. The amount the river had swollen in the recent rains it didn’t take too long to reach it, Gar continued on upstream a little ways until he came to a section that he thought would be good for fishing. He had no real knowledge to base his decision on so it was all just guesswork; he started unwinding his line looking at the thorns as he did so. Despite the slumbering vine sap in the thorns he wasn’t sure it would be enough to lure any fish to bite, so he put the line down got on his hands and knees and started rooting through the leaf litter. He hadn’t looked before so hadn’t realised how alive it was, he soon found a number of beetles and bugs along with snails slugs and worms. Not knowing what would be best Gar tried them all spiking them onto the thorns.
With his line properly baited Gar held the stick then flicked his wrist forwards sending the line out into the water then stabbing the sharpened end of the stick into the ground he looked around. He hadn’t really thought this through he had been so focused on the act of catching the fish he hadn’t thought enough to bring his knife to gut the fish once he caught some. He washed his hands in the river checked the stick was securely in the ground then turned back to base, he could pick up a knife and anything else he needed as well as kill some time.
He collected his knife as well as a section of leather from his supply, needles and thread along with bringing his bucket. By the time he returned to where he had left the line he’d only been gone for about quarter of an hour, while he thought it unlikely he reeled in his line to see if he had caught anything yet. As he had suspected he hadn’t caught anything and somewhere along the line he had lost a couple of pieces of bait so a couple of extra minutes to root around and replace them then he recast his line.
Leaning up against a tree not far away he stationed the badgers round him keeping an eye, ear and nose out for anything coming their way. With one eye on his spike and line he started trying to make a sheaf for his knife. The leatherworking was slow so a good task for keeping him busy while he waited. He went for a simple design folding the leather over cutting it to the shape of the blade then stitching it along one edge. It was slow work he found he had to pierce the leather each time with the tip of his knife just to get the needle through. Gar didn’t mind the time or effort though it kept him busy and even earned him a new skill.
“New skill acquired leatherworking level 1”
He had left a strip of leather up near the top that he folded back then stitched onto itself to create a loop so the sheaf could be slipped onto a belt and then the sheaf was finished. He didn’t know exactly how much time had passed so just went with it being long enough to check how his fishing was going. He pulled up his spike then started rolling the line up onto the stick slowly bringing it in. Slightly disappointed when the first five thorns had come in all with bait gone and no fish his mood dramatically changed when there was a fish on both the sixth and seventh thorn. He tried not to be dissatisfied when he only got one more very small fish on the very last thorn. He had caught three fish two level 2 Brown trout and one small level 1 Brown trout. Pulling them off the barbs as they came he had dropped them in a bucket of water he had prepared. Seeing no reason to wait he finished off and gutted the three fish quickly.
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“You have killed a level 2 Brown trout 0 experience awarded”
“You have killed a level 2 Brown trout 0 experience awarded”
“You have killed a level 1 Brown trout 0 experience awarded”
The 0 experience was unexpected but made sense it would be broken if he could keep getting experience from such easy kills even when he was double their level. The guts where chucked back in the river and with all his stuff packed up he hurried back to base with his catch. The fire had burned low so Gar added some of his dry wood and stoked it back to flame; the fish was put on a stick and roasted over the fire. Gar liked to think of himself as smart enough to only need to be taught a lesson once so learning from that morning he focused on just what he was doing cooking the fish. He adjusted their height from the fire so they would all cook at roughly the same speed he watched and turned them when needed, this meal was his celebration he was going to make sure he did it right and it seemed the world agreed.
“Cooking levelled up cooking level 5”
Gar didn’t let it distract him just letting the message pass him by and stayed attentive to his cooking. He wouldn’t say he was an expert but he had learnt by that point that cooking on an open fire was much different from cooking in an oven or on a hob there were no temperature controls and the heat wasn’t consistent. Gar did his best and kept constant watch adjusting as he felt it needed and when he thought it was ready he pulled the fish out of the fire.
The cooked fish was set down on his large flat stone and Gar slid the sticks out of them. Using the sharp tip of a finger he started pulling the meat away from the bones, it flaked beautifully. Scooping some up in his fingers Gar put it in his mouth and moaned in satisfaction, it was good, worthy of his celebration. He finished the first fish in no time flat, so forced himself to slow down for the second one. He was enjoying the fish very much yet he still wished for something more he had always liked a squeeze of lemon over his fish the acid just added to the flavour.
Realising while he might not have any lemons he did have something tart and acidic, the thorn berries. He got some of the berries from the sack in his shelter and then squeezed one onto a small piece of fish in his hand. He wasn’t going to ruin the whole fish by squeezing berries over all of it in case it didn’t work. Trying the mouthful he couldn’t help but let out another moan of satisfaction, while it wasn’t quite the same as adding a squeeze of lemon it did add that extra something he had been wishing for. More berries where squeezed over the remaining fish and Gar enjoyed himself in front of the fire, slowly eating the fish. He took this time to remind himself he was working to get out of there and survive and in order to do that he needed to be in good shape and that meant mentally as well as physically so taking some time to just enjoy things sometimes was important.
Lying back by the fire he was warm and comfortable despite the grey and gloomy day. He could have laid there for the rest of the day content in enjoying having a fire and he would have been happy. Instead he had one more task he wanted to accomplish before he went back into those tunnels the next day and that was, he needed some kind of pen and paper or something to mark a map as he went. The one on his wall was okay except he was sure he had made some mistakes, trying to do it all from memory hours later was never going to give perfect results. He needed a way to mark a map as he went something he could take with him and reference in the future, a perfect map on his wall was no use if he was lost in the tunnels.
Writing implements was easier. He knocked a couple of coals out of the fire to let them go cold, they would work well for marking walls as he travelled. For drawing the actual map he took a stick and broke it into pencil sized pieces before burning both ends, he didn’t let them catch completely on fire just had them in the edge of the fire pit so the ends charred until he had a pencil like stick with charcoal ends. They didn’t write for a great deal of time but with their ease to make and their light weight he could easily carry a number of them to make up for their short use time and having both ends done was a big help.
With one of his new writing sticks Gar just went round his base testing writing on various things. It marked his pots and pans but came off easily, it didn’t really mark the ant carapace, and it worked fine on the stone except he couldn’t take it with him. It worked on his leather sheet but that was far too valuable for this, then he rediscovered something in the pile of stuff he had thrown into his shelter when it started raining. The badger skins, they had become stiff and tough, testing his writing stick on the inside of one it marked well. Gar was happy to have found both a use for the skin and something to make a map. He took the three skins outside to get a better look at them, one seemed to be rotting and not very good. He used his rot spell on that one several times to get rid of it.
“Rot levelled up rot level 2”
The other two seemed to have been scrapped better and dried out properly, he unfolded and stretched out the two skins he had left then picking the slightly smaller on he cut off the head, legs and tail section giving him a near it rectangular piece of skin and a much more manageable piece, it was stiff enough to maintain its shape when held out for drawing on but with a bit of effort it could be rolled to put it away safely. With his final task he wanted to get done, done Gar sat back down to enjoy the fire and relax. Sometime after sunset his relaxation was brought to an end by the returning of the rain, so he called it a night.