He crawled out into the rising sunlight ready for a new day he still had enough water in his bucket for the morning but he would have to get some more later, he ate a breakfast of boiled axen pods, out of pure curiosity he boiled a couple of the nuts with the pods just to see what happened, they were fine a bit softer than they normally where but no real difference in taste. As he cooked and ate he planned his day, he had two tasks at the top of the priority’s list; finish processing the slumbering vine and to carve a new water barrel. Both where high priority, the vine needed to get done before it rotted and he was already missing the sense of security his own supply of water gave him, it felt like a massive risk not having it. Knowing that both tasks were liable to take multiple days he decided to do both at once he would spend the morning processing the slumbering vine and the afternoon making a new barrel.
Not wanting to start with the thinner vines as he knew the tedium that awaited him there instead he went to the only part he hadn’t looked at, the thicker thorny vines. He had eleven mostly intact ones reaching a max of about twenty meters in length and a number of large chunks. Taking one of the chunks to examine he looked it over, as thick as his wrist and leaking the same sweet smelling sap however where the other vines where flexible and squidgy this vine was hard and woody, it would bend but there was no way he was going to be able to squeeze the sap out. The other thing of note was the large barbed thorns that from what he remembered of the fight he knew where loaded with the sedative sap, he was tempted to test how sharp they were with his finger but already knew first-hand how they stung so thought better of it. He could tell that the thorns might be useful and realised that to do anything else with the vine he would need to remove the thorns first. With his conrex claw knife he started to remove the thorns from that section of vine and piling them next to him, the section wasn’t particularly large so it didn’t take that long, the thicker vines didn’t seem to have the same fibres as the green thinner ones so the only other thing about them that could be of use was the sap there was plenty more room in his barrel.
Removing it was a difficult task, squeezing and rolling like with the other type of vine was out as it was a lot less flexible than the other vine and didn’t have that kind of give in it. He tried splitting a section of it open with his knife with hopes of pouring or scraping it out, the sap however was more in the flesh of the vine as opposed to the vine being a tube for it like the other type. After some time and his hands getting numb from getting covered in the sap as he tried to extract it Gar made up his mind it wasn’t worth it he would just collect the thorns from the thicker vines. He rubbed his hands on the ground to remove excess sap and waited for the numbness to go, his hands were still sticky and needed a wash but he figured they would get messy again harvesting the rest of the thorns so he would deal with that afterwards. The rest of the morning was spent removing and piling up the thorns, he really needed some containers, finishing up at just about the right time for some lunch.
After a bite to eat and a quick trip to the river for some fresh water Gar worked on his new barrel, first was to cut another section of trunk, this was slightly narrower than the previous piece but it was still plenty big enough for the job so he didn’t worry too much with the one meter section cut it was onto Carving.
That is how the next three days went; the morning was processing the slumbering vine and the afternoon carving his second barrel. Between his experience in doing it and his skill increases he had the barrel finished by the end of the second day, having only gained a single skill level.
“Sub-skill carving levelled up carving level 4”
He had spent the whole of the third day just working the vines and reducing them to bundles of fibres that were then left out to dry. By the end of the day his hands where green, and numb from the sap, he had half expected some sort of skill in it but no such luck. He went to sleep that night with thoughts of doing something different and more exciting once he woke.
Gar awoke early, before dawn, having slept restlessly. He just felt like he hadn’t really done anything over the last few days, he knew that wasn’t true but he felt it all the same and wanted to do something that would obviously progress him towards getting out of this hole. As he stood in the predawn light looking up at the towering cliff face, he realised that he did have a way to work towards getting out and even better it was a measurable one. His climbing skill, if he raised it high enough then he would be able to scale the cliff and get out of there. As a morning workout he started climbing the cliff, he didn’t go high up as he wasn’t in a position to deal with any injury from a fall so after getting about a meter off the ground he started moving along the cliff. It was different from climbing up and down but Gar was still confident that it would raise his climbing skill either way so he kept at it until he got the message he was waiting for.
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“Climbing levelled up climbing level 3”
The sign of progress made Gar happy he could feel he was actually progressing towards a way out. He still had chores to do though so he got on with them, first was filling his new water barrel, having finished it the previous day it was just sitting empty. So he took some time to fill it, well at least three quarters of the way before he got bored and moved on to other things.
The next thing he had to deal with was fire wood, he had been using a lot of the sticks and branches from the tree he had cut, to feed the fire but with how regularly he was lighting fires, he had gotten through most of them so to still have a supply of fire wood he needed to cut and split some of the larger branches, it surprised Gar how easy he found it in only a couple of hours he was able to get a supply sorted that he thought would last a few weeks.
As he was sorting things out he checked on his food supply. He had a sack full of axen nuts and pods, some thorn berries but not that many, he had always had a sweet tooth and as the sweetest things he had he was always snacking on them, and about two kilos of dried badger meat left. So food wasn’t an issue at that moment but he wanted to look at getting more before it could become an issue.
Then he checked on his stick experiment he had been watering where needed daily and had even added to the rot for the last pair once. glancing across them he was pretty sure he had his final results all but the branch planted in the soil mixed with rot and watered daily where dead filled with grey mana, the final one seemed to be doing quite well even having sprouted some roots as he had discovered when mixing new rot into the shallow soil and having to be extremely careful not to damage the delicate things. Putting an end to the experiment he gathered up the other five sticks and chucked them into the fire pit to burn up later. Whilst doing so he had left mana site on and he caught a glimpse of another source of the grey mana in his camp.
It was the badgers bones and unlike the branches the bones where dense with the grey mana. It took Gar a moment of thinking to remember how long it had been since he had killed the badger; it had been over two weeks, plenty of time for the grey mana to gather. Sitting down next to the pile of bones Gar picked up the skull to examine it, every part of it was filled with thick grey mana to the point there was a slight cloud of it extending outside the skull. Picking up several other bones to examine them he could see that they were all the same packed to the point they could no longer contain the grey mana. Gar was now curious could he do something with this mana, could he use it? Having finished his other chores and having no further plans for the day Gar settled in to find out.
His first idea was could use the mana directly with his mana control? He spent a good while straining and struggling at the skill, trying to impose his will upon the mana inside the skull, Gar was unsure how long he spent trying but he was getting nowhere, he decided to try something different and go back that if nothing else worked. Instead he flipped his vision to the internal mana site he used to look at his mana core, then carefully taking control of some of his own mana he brought it from his core along the channels to the tip of his index finger; he managed it easily enough having practiced exactly that many times before. The next step he was a little unsure of having not done it before but it turned out rather easy to hold the mana at the tip of his finger and flip his vision back to the external.
What did mess Gar up and force him to restart was when he tried to move his hand and lost control of the mana at his finger tip. He was back to the same point quickly enough and was able to move while keeping control of the mana shortly after, it wasn’t overly difficult, it was a bit like rubbing your belly and patting your head at the same time, doable but requiring more concentration than you normally would with movements. With control held he brought his finger to touch the side of the skull, holding it there he brought his will to bare in again trying to move the grey mana inside the skull. It didn’t take long for Gar to give up on this as it wasn’t working, instead he started trying to get his mana to interact with the grey mana, the small blob on the tip of his finger pushed up against the skull, when he started focusing on his mana he was encouraged by being able to feel something. He couldn’t describe it exactly it was almost like a tingling or a pressure in the mana at his finger but that wasn’t quite right, still feeling something encouraged him because it meant there was some interaction something was happening.
After several hours Gar was getting disheartened he had thought he was onto something but he had made no progress he had tried to move the grey mana with his mana, tried to push his mana into the skull but nothing happened. It was only when he stopped and let go of his control of his mana that something happened. Suddenly the grey mana was moving, he couldn’t see where but thought he knew anyway. There was a feeling that was both freezing cold and burning hot traveling up his arm, it only took a moment for him to flip his still active mana site to internal vision, it was just in time for him to see the blob of mana he had been controlling returning and spread round his core, it was not alone though as it returned it had brought along a string of the grey mana with it. He watched as the grey mana hit the outside of his core and spread out, he was relieved when he saw it go past the area where his mana entered his core but the panic spiked again as he saw the grey mana slowly start to enter his core from a different point and more was still coming from the skull. The grey mana was joining into the mana in his core, this scared him everything that was filled with the grey mana was dead he did not want to find out what happened if he filled up with it.
