Day 60

I hiked my way into the second layer forest, the sounds of life growing louder and louder, reaching a crescendo. I had grown used to it before long and was walking casually with Lupe, seeing the beginnings of turf and grass growing, moss and little things started appearing. Eventually, I saw a couple of flowers and immediately picked them, after absorbing them I got the faint taste of black pepper from one, and just an oily taste from another. I marked their location and pressed them further in the book, with a quick description of their taste below.

I continued on, finding more and more fauna and flora, I saw a squirrel analog scurrying up a tree from a distance, it seemed the intruder. I saw scuff marks and claw marks on trees here and there, some shallow abrasions here, some deep cuts, digging into the wood there. It was rather interesting, I hadn't run into any more kinds of large animals like they weren't on this level. I chalked it up to coincidence and was just happy I wasn't going to have to fight some new monster of the week. Seriously, it was like human musk attracted predators.

I stopped a couple more times, taste-testing various plants and marking their locations and such. It was getting late after a while, and I had been wandering for a while, Lupe had started chasing the squirrels and managed to catch one. Trotting back to me with his prize in his teeth, he offered it to me. I grabbed it by the head, finding that it was still barely alive. I put it out of its misery quickly, getting the faintest taste of berries from it. I was starting to head back, having absorbed the moisture from the squirrel, and had started to carve out the little usable meat it had, tossing the bones and skin to the side as I walked, tossing scraps of the meat to Lupe and taking bites of it here and there, only getting the light taste of berry still.

I got back to my treehouse, and quickly ascended, it was already dark, and I didn't feel like finishing my bottom hut. I grabbed a handful of food from my pack and got to chew. I tossed some to Lupe and poured out some water in a wood bowl I had made for him. He lapped it up and tucked into his meat quickly. I laid back, meditating before falling asleep.

I didn't have any weird dreams, just the usual inky voids and flashes of light, everyone gets those, right? Oh, and the occasional streak of something passing by, like things were being launched past me at high speeds. It was weird but not the first time I had had those kinds of dreams, and probably wouldn't be the last. I woke up pretty early, the sun peeking over the horizon and greeting me on a new day. I had a couple of plans for the day, and first would be quickly building my bottom hut, as much as I wanted to put that off due to laziness, I figured it was better to have it and not need it than vice versa.

I go to the bottom of the tree and quickly got to work, building the hut with the tree as the backing, making the walls eight to nine feet tall, and soon after added the ceiling. I left a gap for the staircase and made a normal door with a little closable window near the middle and top, so I could peek out in case anything came to my door. I put the finishing touches on it when the sun was fully overhead, and felt a bit drained. I didn't have a constant supply of snow or water to absorb and was essentially out of mana for a bit. I sat down in my little hut and started meditating for a bit, slowly charging the Manaphage back up to full.

I came out of the trance after an hour or two, the sun having moved an insignificant amount across the sky, and the Manaphage was brimming with power again. I stood up and chewed on some meat, walking out and calling for Lupe, him running from somewhere close by, the icon highlighting him all the way home. I gave him a couple head and back rubs, before stretching m arms and starting to jog forwards. Before I had ended my walk for the day, I had noticed the animal markings and noises were trending in a particular direction, like a meeting point or something, which I figured would either be some sort of food source, or a body of water.

I was jogging for a while, Lupe keeping level when I got to my endpoint for the previous day. I sniffed the air, hoping to smell something in the air, more than the now noticeable smell of flowers, it had taken a while but my nose seemed to have been clogged with by my sinuses or something. Because only now was I able to really smell the flora well, the smells getting much more clear and stronger than before.

I started jogging in an east-south direction, noticing more markings in that direction, I marked trees as I went, dragging my hand along the way. I was hoping to find the watering hole soon, maybe find some larger fruits or something, maybe watermelon that tastes like strawberries or something, or some sort of corn that has a texture like pudding and tastes like avocados, I can hope alright.

I was jogging for a while when I heard it, the faint rush of water, and I started going faster, still marking my path. I soon found the source of the sound, along with several animals. The river was large, I could barely make out the other side, and saw birds diving in and out, pulling up fish it looked like. What I didn't see though, was any obvious fruits or vegetables. I saw however that fucking cow-bear thing, with the 6 legs, and the plants on its back. I also saw several of pig analogs, similar to the one that ran away from the giant bastard snake from slightly more recent awhile back.

I pulled to a stop, not wanting to bother the powerful cow-bear nor the obvious group of pack animals. I decided to climb up a tree, to take stock of my surroundings, and just as I started up, I grabbed up Lupe, not wanting to leave him behind in case they or he got curious. I could tell they had smelled me, at least the pigs had, as when I started climbing the tree they all looked up and around, like they had, as aforementioned, smelled me. I got to the thicker branch layer and decided to get cozy for a bit, and sawed-off a couple of branches, then melded them back into the tree as a platform to lay back on, I even included some guard rails. I set Lupe down, and climbed the rest of the way to the top, looking out and saw the river cut a mean swathe of land, and confused me greatly because I knew there were at least one or two more layers below me, was the layer between each layer progressively thicker, or was there some sort of walls in the below layer that guided the river. I thought about it for a while, before seeing the animals all leave.

I clambered down the tree, grabbing Lupe and sliding to the bottom. The sun was already on the sinking end of the sky and I got a move on. I shoved the Manaphage in the river, finding it was ice cold which made sense since it was probably snow runoff from the mountain. At least, I think, I'm not a meteorologist or geologist or whatever. I absorbed the water, getting a clean refreshing taste from it, and then took a proper sip. It was the cleanest water I had ever tasted and was so refreshing. I grabbed a satchel and after cleaning it several times, filled it to the brim, and sealed most of it up, making an improvised water skin.

I sucked up as much water as possible, and after Lupe got his fill, we started heading back to our first waypoint. Plans to improve my life in even more ways going on in my head, calculations, and timings going on, as I mindlessly followed my markers back.