Day 29

Waking up to birds chirping was more startling than I thought it would be, the general noiselessness of the forest had gotten me used to the silence. All I had heard before was just the general creaking of treetops and whistling of the wind. I pulled aside the curtain with the Manaphage, and glanced around, my paranoia was spiked through the roof, so far I had only met one critter that didn't want to kill me, and that's because it was more scared than anything else.

I stuck my head out fully, holding the Manaphage above my head, and looked around fully, not seeing anything, and started to crawl out the rest of the way. Getting to my feet, I looked around and didn't see anything circling overhead or anything perched in the branches of the trees close by. I noticed the sun was already beyond the mountain, and the snow had started to melt, the treetops already had green peeking out of the snow. I unearthed the meat I had placed under the fire, and put it to the side, then grabbed some logs, drying and warming them, and put them on the fire pit, before lighting it up.

I sat back, eating my slow-cooked meat, grimacing a little, I had mixed the bird beast and the snake meat together, and the flavors did not combine well, sweet and spicy lemon-mint sounds pretty alright, but it didn't sit right in practice. I finished the meal quickly, trying to swallow it all down rather than taste it, and set the bowl aside in a pile of snow, steam still rising from the plate.

I got up and stretched, I wanted to explore the under forest as I was starting to call it, but I didn't have a suitable weapon, my spears where one-time use and my ax barely marked the trees. That's not even mentioning that I didn't have reliable armor or means of protection. So I grabbed the panels of leather, and the half-finished knife, and got to work carving the talon knife into a sharp cutting tool, rather than a nasty stabbing instrument. It was taking a while, the ax kept slipping, and the chipping hammer could barely make a dent, but eventually, with the sun beyond midday, I finished it, mostly, I just had to sharpen it on something.

I was taking a break when I heard a loud creaking, then a crash and boom of a tree falling. I grabbed my ax and new knife, and couched behind my hut, peering over, worried I was about to meet a new beast. I peaked out and what I saw left me speechless and I started laughing, it looked like the tree I had thrown the acid mix on had finally fallen. I was happy I had gotten rid of it when I did, there was no telling what would happen if that got on me.

I walked over to the tree, trudging through the wet snow, and eventually got to it. The tree was even more rotten than before, the trunk was rotted halfway up the trunk, and the stump it left didn't seem to be fairing any better. It was black and crumbly, and I could smell the faint scent of the chemical mixture still. I was tempted to try absorbing the rotting tree, to see if I could absorb its life force now that it was half dead, reasoning that I couldn't absorb the tree deep in the forest because it was considerably older and probably very healthy, whereas this one was probably much younger, and dying. I wavered back and forth on the issue before the smell of the chemicals started giving me a headache. I walked away, suddenly remembering that I had uncontaminated stumps at my campsite.

I rushed back, wanting to test my hypothesis, and found one of the stumps, still sitting there, I shoved the Manaphage deep into the splintered remains, and tried to absorb it. I knew it was working because I got a new taste in my mouth, an earthy, bitter taste, and the feeling of sour invading my mouth ruthlessly. I pulled the Manaphage away quickly, not even close to absorbing everything. Spitting, and scraping my tongue with my teeth I gagged a little, not expecting the tree to have a taste, I had absorbed plenty of logs, and they were tasteless, and I expected the same. It was a terrible taste, but not entirely impossible to absorb, it had been more surprising than anything else.

I recovered after a little longer, and braced myself, going at it again, and started to absorb again, chewing on snake jerky to try and maybe pair it with something better. It helped, the tastes weren't entirely incompatible, but I didn't account for one thing, in particular, I ran out of snake jerky 10 minutes in, and I still wasn't done absorbing the life force of the tree. It flowed slowly into the Manaphage, like tar, and for another hour and a half, I stood there awkwardly, slowly acclimating to the taste. Eventually, I didn't feel any more flow, and pulled the Manaphage away, shaking my stiff half-frozen body. The taste was still in my mouth, but it was slowly leaving, and I walked back and grabbed some more meat to get rid of the last of it.

I sat back down by my fire, noting the sun was already well on its way to set, and I got to sewing up my leather armor, hoping I would be able to finish the basics of it by the end of the day. It took a while, with the sun already casting long shadows, but I got the main portion done, making a basic sleeveless robe essentially, my sewing getting noticeably better as I got further along, tighter and wasting less material as I went. I put it on, and nodded, for the first time sewing something more than a hole in pants, it was pretty good. It didn't seem to be falling apart at the seem, so that was nice. I walked around in it and did not feel anything too restrictive.

I went over to my boulder I had made, and quickly knocked off a small chunk, a slab maybe a half foot in size, and brought it back to my camp, and I started to flatten it out with my chipping hammer. It was well into the night before I stopped, the slab was well worn now, and almost ready for what I needed. I got ready for bed and started meditating, before once again, drifting off to sleep.