Day 25

I got up bright and early, my makeshift hut retaining far more heat than I expected, I didn't have to wrap myself around the Manaphage to keep warm, I had been able to stretch out a little bit. I crawled out of the hut, and got to my feet, stretching, yawning, and cracking my back. I was feeling good, excited even, now that I had completed the bigger project of making a house of sorts. Looking at the fire, or the remains of it, the coals red hot and my prepped logs with a light dusting of snow on top, I grabbed a couple, cleared the snow on top, absorbed the moisture inside, and warmed the wood with some magic, practicing restraint with the heating spell, and trying to spread the warmth out throughout it. Soon, it warmed up my hand, and I quickly put it in the embers, along with kindling and sticks.

I unearthed my slow-roasted meat, and slowly ate it, along with a nibble of snake jerky to refresh my palette with its lemon-mint taste. The Manaphage was shoved into a pile of snow, slowly absorbing it to refresh me. I put my makeshift plate to the side, and laid back, leaning against the giant log behind me, and I felt a sneaking suspicion come over me, encouraging me to check my phone. I pulled it out and opened the lock screen to find that the bar on the side had disappeared, and the symbols all appeared highlighted again, with the heart icon shining green.

I studied them closely, knowing now that each one could affect me differently. The heart had given me a heads up display for health, but it had been noticeably missing now that I thought about it, but it might have shown up when the snake bit me, I vaguely recall now a flashing light or symbols, but I wasn't really in the best state of mind then. There was the home symbol, the lightning bolt, the star, a speech bubble, and a diamond. I had no idea what any of them could do, the home could either let me go home, back to my planet or it would just let me know I was home or something. The lighting could shock me, or summon lightning bolts, or let me shoot lighting. The star, maybe it would grant my wishes, but I doubt that. I figured the speech bubble would let me speak the language around here, but who could I talk to? And the diamond, I had no idea what that could do, would I get money, or harden my skin? Lastly, I could choose the heart again, and somehow improve it, maybe make it so I always see it, or something.

I looked at my choices, unable to come to a decision about what to pick, and closed the phone, for now, figuring I could stand to wait, and giving myself a longer chance to consider my choice. I slid the phone back into my pocket, and started whistling to myself, a six-note tune, and found it familiar, 'tweet tweet tweet ~ tweet-tweet ~ click' I would click my tongue on the sixth note, the beat getting faster as I got used to it. I was doing my morning camp chores at this point, cleaning my plate, throwing more logs on and around the fire, and cleaning up the snow around my camp.

I entered the forest after putting more meat to roast, with the sun still near the peak of the mountain, not even mid-day. I ran through the forest, following my now well-tread trail, familiar to me like the back of my hands. It only took me what felt like 45 minutes to get to the tree I had marked, and before I really thought about it, I leaped and caught a branch of the tree, quickly pulling myself up, and started climbing up the tree like a squirrel. Eventually, I reached the top, or at least the safest part of the top, and looked out, seeing the path of destruction wrought by the giant worm creature four days ago. It was a massive trail, starting only a mile away from me, heading deeper into the forest, and a massive gaping hole exposing roots and what looked like a cavern 1000 feet across, easily.

In stunned silence, I made my way back down the tree, I knew the great worm had been massive, but that scale, that was terrifying, I don't even know how id fight something like that, would I be able to even absorb its life force from the inside if it swallowed me? Would it be too powerful like the trees? Whatever the case, I wanted to examine the hole, if only to see what was beneath the thick root layer, since the hole in the clearing seemed to lead below it too. I got down the tree, and started in the right direction, marking every tree I passed so I wouldn't lose my way, and a short time later, reached the edge of the hole, and was stunned by what I saw.

In the hole, about 50 feet through the thick dirt and roots, I saw tree trunks, and they looked to be the same ones as the trees above them. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the hole, I was able to see a deeper hole, and I thought I could make out what looked like more trunks. I started walking around the edge of the hole, studying the upturned roots and realized something, these roots were really thick and branch-like, and on the thicker pieces, seemed to still have bark. There was a lot of evidence suggesting to me, that I might in fact, not be living at the bottom of a mountain, and in fact, I was living relatively close to the top, or at least the top of a peak. I was going to have to climb down to one of the lower layers, I just knew it, and I was going to have to use that hole in the clearing, hopefully, that rock stretched all the way down through the layers.

I got to the other side of the hole, and looked at the downed trees around me, the great worm, as I was going to call it, had really done a number on the landscape, knocking over the trees, or the tops of them, and had made a huge path of destruction going deeper in, one that seemed relatively easy to follow. I walked back to my starting point and started walking back to my tree, grabbing broken branches and sticks, planning on making a shelter of sorts high in the tree, maybe a little tree fort. Getting back took a little longer, what with my bundle of branches, and I noticed the trap pit, still open and uncovered, reminding me of the snake, and I noticed fresh blood that hadn't been there when I left to check the giant hole. I thought about going after the animal for a second, then thought about it some more, recognizing a pattern, it never turned out well for me overall if I chased that creature, and started to pull the spikes up, and shoving the dirt back into the pit, burying it. I still needed traps, but pit traps just didn't seem to work.

I grabbed some more fallen sticks, and slowly and carefully brought up bundles of wood and the spikes, planning on reusing them for something, not knowing what yet. After an hour, I had brought up everything and sufficiently wedged them into a nook in the tree, the beginnings of a platform, of sorts already started. I took a break on my little seat in the trees and found it was pretty stable, considering the conditions. After an hour of sitting around planning on what to do next, I got down and started heading for camp, my stomach starting to growl a little.

I made it back to camp, with the sun approaching the treetops, and checked the roast I had left on the spit, turning it over to cook the other side, and walked a ways away from the campsite, about 50 feet to the side of the mountain, and started punching it with the Manaphage, trying to break off large sections of rock, so I could use them as the beginnings of tableware. It worked, for the most part, I broke off a large section, about three feet tall and 5 feet wide, and was able to somehow shove it out of the side of the mountain. When it was clear of the mountain, I took a step back and sat down, absorbing the snow around me, the Manaphage dimly lit at this point.

I got up after a bit, the Manaphage shining again, and swung it down in a karate chop, right across the middle, with the intent to fully cut the rock in half, as you see in shows and stuff. It worked, partially, and I broke off a large chunk, about 1 foot around, and I shoved it off the side and rolled it away from the main stone. I could work with this, or at least practice my rock carving with it. I chopped the piece, like I did with the larger chunk, and was able to break this bit in half, making to large hemispherical chunks, that where much more manageable, and started to chip at them with my chipping hammer, and every now and then trying out more delicate work with the Manaphage. It took until sunset that I was able to carve out a shallow dip in the bowl, maybe 2 inches, before I stopped for the day, and went back for my dinner.

I ate my dinner, thinking about what I was going to do the next day, knowing that I'd have to at least try to go into the next layer down. I hoped I'd be able to find some sort of mushrooms or vegetables below, but who knows, now that I knew there where multiple layers to this forest. Thinking on all that I soon crawled into my little hut, and meditated, before slowly drifting off to sleep.