Part 1 - Morning Dew

 

Waking up early, Urist rose with a stretch. He saw that everyone except those on guard duty were asleep. With the sun out now, he guessed it was eight in the morning, a good time to start the day.

It hadn’t been that unpleasant of a sleep, since they had flattened the ground and covered it with leaves for bedding. Even though it hadn’t been too terrible, Urist still missed his comfy bed dearly. 

Chasing the useless memories away, Urist slapped his cheeks and cracked his neck for work needed to be done. He stretched, then shook the lazy dwarfs awake. After all, they had work to do. Before handing out jobs, they needed to eat. Forming a circle outside the cave the hungry dwarfs dug into the prepared meals.

“I've thought about what to do today,” he started, breaking the silence. “We’ll be working in teams. Our most important objectives are to make rope, a proper door for the cave entrance, some fish traps out of bamboo and water bottles, and to get a fire going.

“The groups’ work will be split. Uria and I will try to make a fire as one group. Rork and Rat will help the bamboo and rope making teams. The bamboo team while you wait to make the cave door make some bamboo water bottles and traps.”  

“As for the Medicine group, I want you to keep studying after searching the surrounding area. Try to collect some medicinal plants if you can find some. It would also be nice if you can keep an eye out for edible food, but don’t go too far.” he advised them while finally wrapping up his series of commands. “Does everybody understand?”

“Sounds good, boss.”

“Yup.”

“Let's make a door. It was getting a little windy here anyways.”

Urist replied with a smile, “Then let's get to work.”

Desperation

“Why won’t this fucking coal start?” Urist cried out in his thick, Scottish accent. Frustration evident as he started pulling on his hair. Uria patted his back, trying to comfort him. Judging by the position of the sun, they had been trying to get a coal going for three hours, but all they had to show for their efforts were sore hands and a few wisps of smoke.

It seemed that the log Urist chose wasn’t dry enough to make a fire. It was either that, or he was just terrible at making one. The method was simple rub a stick on another stick to create fire simple right? It seemed easy. Pathetically easy, when described, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t do it.

Urist was fed up to the point that he went over and snatched some rope from the rope making team to make a bow drill. They needed this fire to start purifying water; heavens know what diseases lurked in the river. No doubt boiled water that had been filtered water was the way to go.

Finding a curved stick Urist strung its ends, then looped a straight stick in the rope. He used a flat stone with a small indent in the center to push it the top of the stick down to apply extra force. With this, everything was prepared. Beads of sweat trickled down his face at the thought of failure to start a fire.

He didn’t even want to look Uria in the eye for fear of what he’d see. So keeping his voice calm he said to the girl standing next to him, “This should work now. Be ready on the other side to switch with me.”

Moving into position Uria nodded her head in approval. “Un!”

“Let’s do this.”

Urist gave a battle cry, pushing the curved stick back and forth anew. He was able to move the stick twice as fast as he had by hand. With this much effort, even the stubborn firestick started to show signs of smoke.

Back and forth, back and forth, the curved stick went. More smoke kept coming. This time a coal would appear for sure. His arms felt like noodles, but Urist kept moving his arms gritting his teeth until he yelled, “Now, switch.”

Uria swapped drilling duties with Urist in a quick and efficient manner. She managed to catch up to his previous pace under a few seconds. Seeing how close they were to start a fire, he gathered the tinder and wood shavings and readied himself for the coal to appear.

Eyes narrowing, he saw a bright red light appear under the dry leaf. Urist’s thoughts thundered, ‘The cherry. It’s here.’

“Uria remove the drill.”

At his command, Uria lifted the fire stick and the drill away leaving the cherry exposed. He didn't waste a moment as he put the tinder on top.

‘This is it.’

He thought momentarily about his boy scout leader as he crouched down to stoke the ember. In his thoughts, he heard leader mocking him that he would never make a friction fire, that he would never be able to swim, that he was the worst boy scout in existence.

He would show him that he was wrong. He would survive.

Steadily and slowly, Urist breathed into the fire, hyper-focused on not screwing up. He couldn’t fail now, not after coming so close.

Breathe, Urist. Breathe like it’s life or death.

Seconds felt like hours as Urist kept breathing into the tinder in his hand.  The whole experience felt so unreal to Urist. For the first time in his life, he was about to make a fire by hand. His heart was thumping in his chest so hard that he felt like he was about to pass out in excitement. With all his being, he focused on one thing and one thing only: to see a flame ignite.

Then it appeared.

A single sliver of a flame that contrasted the immobile elements of stick and stone came into existence. Then, it grew. With each careful breath, the fleck of weak flame grew in vigor to a ball of flame. When the fire was strong enough to grow on its own Urist fell back with a goofy smile on his face.

They had done it.

They had created fire.

Urist moved the fire hastily into the pit and told Uria excitedly, “Quick, Get more twigs from the pile.”

The two worked diligently to build the fire. First was the twigs, next sticks, then the small logs they had collected beforehand. And finally, after almost two days of trying, this small dwarven civilization had created fire. 

The two dwarfs sat there, watching the fire frolic with satisfied expressions. One proud after conquering the exhausting ordeal while the other felt something deeper. It was hope. Hope that this small flame would be the stimulant that moved their survival forward. This spark wasn’t something one could describe as a simple accessory, but rather an amenity, a need, an essential.

Uria turned to Urist and asked, “So this is a fire? What can it do?”

Laughing at Uria’s question, Urist gave her a deep look, “Many things Uria. Many things. But shouldn’t you know this?”

Clearly embarrassed Uria scratched her chin and replied, “It seems unlike you the things I remember is a mess.”

Pushing no further Urists thoughts returned back to the fire his thoughts swirling. With this fire, they would be able to boil the filtered water. With this fire, they would be able to cook food. With this fire, they would be able to make pottery. And with this fire, they need not fear the night.

Part 2 - Progression

 

Leaving Uria to tend the fire, Urist set out to check over the rope making group. He had been over here before to grab some rope and was already impressed at how fast they had learned how to make it.

They had discovered a supply of dried trees and plants nearby to use for their fibers in crafting cordage. Although it wouldn’t be the best handmade rope, it was good enough for what they needed.

Cordage; One of the best basic resource primitive men had ever created. With it; traps, doors, pulleys, baskets, clothing, and much more could be made. SAnd seeing his fellow dwarfs making rope over at the side made Urist feel motivated upbeat to keep working hard. His only strong point in boy scouts had been making cordage, so it was gratifying to see that knowledge is passed on to the dwarfs under his command.

Sitting down with the dwarfs Ormila and Urmom, he started picking through some dried tree fibers, looking for some ideal strands. Selecting some nice strands, he started to buffer them instead of twisting them into cordage right away. Buffing was a step that softened the fibers, allowing them to be more flexible. Even if it took longer to make cordage by working the material, that extra step made a rope of higher quality.

A smile slowly crept along his face as he started rubbing the fiber, bending and moving it around to split it apart into thinner strings. As he was getting into his old hobby, he gave a quick glance over at Ormila and Urmom. He frowned through when he noticed they were using slightly green stalks of plant material. This could not stand.

“Guys, you can’t use that to make rope. It has too much starch.”

Urmom tilted his head and raised his eyebrow. “Why? The book didn’t say anything about that, only to use fibers to make rope.”

Urist gawked at them briefly, mouth slightly agape, as he realized his blunder. He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. Urist had to remember that these dwarfs were really like naive children. Case in point, he had seen someone going to the corner of the cave to do their business last night. It was truly shameless. Thankfully, the dwarf in question only had to go number one. Along with that thought, he resolved himself to shovel a temporary hole…

Urist shook his mind out of the gutter and replied, “The reason why you can’t make rope with fiber that holds starches. If rain hits it, the rope’s bonds will break down and will make the rope useless. For now, use bark like this until we can boil these plants later.”

Nodding, Urmom and Ormila abandoned the rope they were working with and started using the inner bark fibers. They used Urist’s method to ‘work’ the rope. Although slower, it should make much stronger cordage.

It satisfied to see them making cordage the correct way. Urist remembered that he had other errands to handle. He regretfully let go of the cordage he was making and handed it off to Urmom to finish. Consoling himself that he could always make some later, he headed over to where the bamboo team was crafting traps and water bottles. 

Bamboo Team

Walking over towards the bamboo area, Urist saw Ariel working alone on making water bottles out of bamboo by scraping off their top skin. She cleaned the insides out with the bronze knife to increase the space inside before eventually putting each one in the finished pile.

Lun, Rork, and Rat, on the other hand, were working together trying to make some sort of fish trap out of bamboo, as was instructed in the book. Urist inched his way to them to get a closer look.

Seeing their plan in action, Urist felt like he was struck with lightning. ‘So bamboo can be used like this.’

They were weaving bamboo into baskets by intertwining strips of another bamboo through a stalk that was split in multiple with one tube at the bottom intact. They accomplished this by extending the stalk past the gap in the bamboo, so the split wouldn’t come apart. 

Like a tiki torch but on a much larger scale. The dwarfs were in the process of making two baskets: one large and another smaller one with no extended stalk. Urist was curious about how they were going to use them.

Their choice of making a fish trap was a good one, since they had such a large river, though he didn’t exactly understand how it would work. Wouldn't making a large net to catch some fish be a better alternative? Thinking about it, Urist decided to not. What the teams were working on was better considering that there were other things to do. The more important priority then food was to start purifying water, which he figured they would start by tomorrow.

Unable to restrain his curiosity he asked them, “So how do these traps work?”

Turning their heads away from their work, the three manly dwarfs eyes beamed with fervor, clearly happy to explain the wonders of their craft. This threw Urist for a loop. Where were the lazy dwarfs he saw before?

Lun cried out with as he spoke in his natural Scottish accent, “Boss, Bamboo is so amazing. Following the fishing and foraging book, we learned that if you put a smaller basket into a bigger one it’ll trap these things called fish inside.

“All we need to do is get some rope from the rope guys and we can throw these traps into the river the things described inside this book.” he babbled, throwing his hands in the air and fantasizing about what this fish tasted like. “I wonder what they taste like. Do they taste like corndogs?”

Urist wanted to laugh at Lun’s last remark but kept it in, seeing how happy he was to show off his work. 

“That's good, but I have a few questions about this project. Have you thought about using any fish bait? Why not use vines instead of rope? And how many of these can you make in a day?”

“Vines? What are those? Can you eat them?”

Pointing to a tree with a large network of hanging vines, Urist said, “Do you see that type of plant? It’s very flexible and can do the job of rope since we are in low supply.”

“Alright, but what about this bait you speak of, boss?”

Rork spoke up passionately, “We’ll use these things called worms we read in the book as bait, boss. We’ll pack the base with them together with mud to catch them. But um, where do you get worms?”

“Check under rocks and dead fallen trees. They are these pink things that wiggle around. You can't miss them. I’ll help you find them later. Now, how many of these traps can you make?”

Scratching their heads the dwarfs huddled a moment to speak and talk leaving Urist out of it before coming to with a decision. Rat led the dwarfs and held up four fingers. “We can do four a day at most, maybe five if we get a better hang of it.”

Part 3 - Charcoal and Medicine

 

Urist finished talking with the bamboo team, leaving them to their work. Headed back over the fire to see how Uria was handling it. Pushing some brushes aside while walking through the forest, he noticed Uroa and Briana coming back from the forest with plant shoots of various colors in their hands.

Since medicine wasn’t his forte, he had to work together with the other dwarfs to learn medicine making. All he knew was basic first aid from his supposedly forgotten past life. Add the fact that there weren't alcohol or band-aids presently available, even his small knowledge didn’t suit the situation.

He came to a sudden realization that if any of them caught an infection, they would have no way of fighting it. They had to start making some medicine or they could be wiped out from disease!

He followed Uroa and Briana into the cave.

“Hey girls, what did you gather? Anything good?”

“Un. We gathered some helpful berries that should help with diarrhea if we boil them and make it into a tea.” 

Briana then started to explain more by plucking out a berry from a shoot. “And this type of plant with the yellow tips can be ground into a powder to cure insomnia. These blue leaves can be boiled into a tea to help ease the pain. While this purple colored can be crushed into a gel to help clean wounds and ease burn pains and…”

Briana went on and on, showing off different types of plants with a passionate expression while Uroa sorted the plants in the containers they ate from the yesterday. He had made sure they cleaned the dishes in the river, so it should be fine to store things in them until they got something better.

With them talking his ear off, Urist felt his worries dissipating. But although they seemed so happy gathering the plants for their applications, Urist felt the need to remind them one thing.

“It’s good to gather medicine but make sure not to over harvest alright? Or we won't have any future medicine down the road.”

“Understood, boss.”

“Got it, boss.”

Urist said his goodbyes and left to see how headed back to the fire with a question sticking in his brain. ‘Why are they calling me boss?’

Fire Keeper

Coming out of the cave, Urist saw Uria stoking the fire with a good-sized stick in her hand. She moved the fire around and tending the coals. She also added new logs to feed the fire when it demanded it. The fire wasn’t too big that it hurt to stand by or small enough for the wind to blow it out.

The fire was nothing new to Urist, but the lustrous eyes of Uria were something else entirely. The orange reflection of the fire danced around, clashing with her blue irises. Instead of looking chaotic, the flickering light lent her a natural beauty. A few moments passed by as Urist stared at her, transfixed. Fortunately, Uria was too focused on the fire to give him a glance.

‘We just met. What am I thinking? We have to survive first before thinking about those things.’

Chasing such thoughts away, Urist walked towards her. “Hey, Uria. How’s the fire going?”

Uria turned to him and smiled. “The fire is doing great. Though I wonder if what I’m doing is really important.” She resumed tending the fire but her smile was slightly melancholy. “The others are making traps, medicine, rope, and doors while I’m here watching this... thing.”

Hearing dejection made Urist feel a pang of guilt in his chest for not explaining why her job was the most important. Instead of talking, it would be better to show her that her efforts were not in vain.

“Trust me, by tomorrow you will see why your job as a firekeeper is so important. I’ll go prepare now. Just wait.”

With that, Urist left the confused Uria. Picking up the bronze hammer and the bronze pot from the cave, Urist walked out of the camp. He picked a fairly clear area of land somewhat away from the cave, closer to the river, and set down his tools to find some rocks.

He found what he was searching for seconds later: a nice, large, sharp, rock that needed two hands to wield. He would be using it to throw against another rock planted in the ground. Next, he hunted for large, dry logs, then gathered smaller sticks until he had a good amount of wood.

Now it was time to get his hands dirty. Urist proceeded to dig a hole in the ground since he forgot the shovel a while ago in haste and was too embarrassed to run back. This would be his pilot hole for the starting log in making his charcoal mound.

After he finished digging, he placed the largest log inside the pilot hole and embedded it a few inches deep to hold it in place. He then broke up large sticks to the length of around a foot and half and then layered it around the pilot log. He kept putting more layers around the center log, each a little shorter than the next.  He took a step back to admire his work that looked much like a campfire ready to be lit. Now it was time to gather dry leaves and plants to cover the logs. And the final piece was to cover the entire mound with good, old mud.

Urist mixed mud with his bare hands and carried it to his mound from the riverbank. He slapped it onto the mound until he covered the entire thing. The last step was to make eight holes in the bottom of the mound to let air inside, then to carve a hole at the mound's peak to allow the fire to be lit.

Now done, Urist headed over to Uria, not caring to clean himself off, and went inside the cave to get a shovel. Grabbing the shovel, he walked over to the fire. “I’m going to need some coals.”

“Ok...?”

Thoroughly confused at Urist’s appearance and why he needed to ask her for coals, she moved out of the way and watched as he got a shovel full of coals and headed off in a certain direction. 

“Oh yeah Uria, tell Uroa to find me in that direction when it’s time to eat. I’m going to be making charcoal.” He pointed to his worksite.

“Ok…?”

 

Part 4 - Foundations

 

Flames crackled from the top, showing that fire had taken hold inside the mound. Urist smiled, happy that the first step was working well. He didn't stop to take a breakthrough for he needed to watch the fire he was about to create in the mound.

He remembered that he and his father once watched a demonstration at a convention on how to live primitively. Although he could remember what he had seen, he couldn’t remember his dad’s face. It was like anything that didn’t pertain to survival was filtered out, giving him a headache. 

This was a good method of cooking wood into charcoal at least with the lack of materials on hand. Light the wood inside the mound and wait for the fire to pervade into the air vents then cover them. That was what the demonstrator told him and so he did it. One by one to plug up air vents that had fire coming out of them with mud.

What was the last step again? Cover all the holes on the bottom and then… Ah yes, that's right.

Urist watched the mound closely. As the fire raged inside the mound, it dried up the outside, causing the occasional crack to form. To prevent the whole thing from crumbling apart, he patched every split with fresh mud. He stood there checking the fire every so often as minutes passed onto hours, one hour after another, until he could see the fire through all of the bottom holes.

One by one, he filled the holes when the fire reached them. Soon enough, after around four hours had passed, it was time to plug up the final hole. Wiping the sweat away from his brow, Urist stretched and thought, Now all there's left to do is wait for this mound to cool off. I wonder how the others are doing?

Uroa came over with an addled but curious expression. She pointed at the mound. “What is that?’

Urist merely smiled. “That? That is our future path for our survival. Don’t worry, you’ll find out tomorrow. I’m guessing it’s time to eat?”

Uroa didn't answer at first. She pondered Urist's statement before sighing, giving up on what he meant. She nodded and grinned, showing her pearl white teeth. “Un! Everyone’s sitting around waiting for you, boss. Come on and join us.”

“Haha, alright, alright. Let's go eat.”

…

The sun was setting, so it was well into the afternoon. Looking around at the dwarfs, Urist could see their satisfied and proud expressions for a job well done as they dug into their food.

While they were feasting on their prepackaged food, Urist starting talking. “So, how did everyone's work go today?”

Ariel’s cheeks were full of food like a chipmunk’s, but that didn’t stop her from cheerfully speaking up. “Boss, I mad- 34 watr- bo-les. Did I do gud?”

Rork wouldn’t let Ariel take all the credit though and retorted comically with corndog bits stuck in his beard. “Big boss. Lun, Rat and I worked just as hard and got two fish traps and the door built.”

Urmom also shouted to contend for the boss’ favor. “Oh yeah? I and Ormila made over forty feet of cordage and supplied the rope for the door.”

“Oh, boss. We found some more plants we can turn into medicine. You’ve got to check out our collection we built up.” added Briana.

Seeing all the dwarfs brag about how much they had accomplished made Urist happy, but he noticed Uria feeling a little down that she had nothing to brag about other than creating a fire. He could tell by her downcast expression that out of all of them, she thought that she had done the least out of all of them. Which didn’t sit right with him.

Tomorrow. Just you wait Uria I show you how important your job is.

Raising his hand for silence drew the attention of the rowdy dwarfs. They listened when their leader spoke.

Eyeing every dwarf, Urist nodded his head. “Everyone, good work today. This is our second day here and we’ve done so much. But,” his face turned solemn as though to emphasize the severity of the issue, “it isn’t enough to survive!”

His words stunned the dwarfs, but he continued anyway. “Currently, we have used up thirty rations of food and water meaning we have sixty remaining. We have supplies for only three days. In three days we must be able to get water and food on our own.”

 The dwarves looked at him solemnly as they absorbed the gravity of the situation. Seeing them cast serious faces made Urist inwardly happy, but he couldn’t stop talking yet. He needed to tell them his plan.

“But don’t worry. With the items we’ve made today, we will be able to survive. With the fishing traps, I hope we can catch fish with it and eat them. I’ll leave the matter to Rork and Rat. Plants are also good sources of food. Uroa and Briana, I want you to read over the survival book and look for edible plants for us to eat and harvest.

“Lun and Ariel, I want you to make more fish traps that we can use for now. We need at least eight more. When you finish that task I’ll have you work on something else. Come find me when you’re done.” The dwarfs in question nodded, happy to be relied upon by none other than the boss.

“Ormila and Urmom, I want you, after making one hundred feet of rope, to start learning how to make land traps. That will become another food source for us.”

Letting the groups digest their new jobs, Uria brought up a matter that he hadn’t mentioned at all. “Boss, you’ve talked about food, but what about our water supply?”

Urist smiled. “I’m glad you asked, Uria. With the bottle made by Ariel, the charcoal made by me, and the fire that you kept, we will be able to create filtered water.”

Sleep

Urist laid on his back. In the cave, he could see the flicker of the fire through the bamboo door, fending off the darkness. Despite being awake, Urist wasn’t thinking much about tomorrow and was instead thinking about the countdown in his head.

Time: 5 Days 2 hours 19 minutes until Market opens

Points Gained: 914

He had a good idea what the market meant, but he didn’t know what would be in the market, which made him curious. The points seemed pretty easy to explain. Using these points would enable them to buy things, but what those things were? He had no idea.

Another question that eluded him was what determined the number of points he gained. Was it the knowledge the dwarfs had gained? How far they have traveled on the path for survival? Was it the value of the items they had created? Or did it just naturally increase?

It was a very confusing question that he figured he’d find out when the market opened. Until then, he might as well throw that into the back of his mind and sleep. He turned to his side and adjusted his leaf pillow.

‘Oh well, I’ll figure it out later. Tomorrow I hope we can eat some fish; I’m getting sick of eating corn dogs.’