Part 1 - A monster spotted

As morning dew covered the land and the sun rose between the mountains, the dwarfs woke up and began their duties. The only one sitting at camp was Urist; he felt a little bad for making Uria sit by the fire all day the day before.

He took fire duty so that she could explore with the medical team. He hoped that they would find edible plants using survival and foraging books. If they could find a high yield plant to eat from, it would be a great boon. He tempered his expectations when he remembered that most high yield plants took hundreds, if not thousands of years, of careful agriculture to reach modern civilization standards.

They had found those strange furry leaves to use as sleeping beds, though, so who knew what other kinds of plants were located in the forest? He just had to wait to see what they brought in. Urist threw in another log into the pyre, sitting there listlessly. He cut the bottoms off of their store of plastic bottles for later use.

Besides watching the fire, he had a lot of preparation to do this afternoon.

Plants

The trio of girls—Uroa, Uria, and Briana—marched through the forest searching for useful plants with the books in hand. Though the sky was bare with not a cloud in sight, the light breeze cooled them down. Occasionally, streams of light poured down through the canopy of leaves and blinded them.

The fallen leaves scattered on the forest floor crunched as they walked. Every plant they passed, they meticulously eyed and classified using the books they carried.

While walking through the green work, Briana started up discussion. “So I have to ask, what do you think about Boss, Uria?”

“Eh? Well, he seems pretty hard working. Why do you ask?”

A mischievous smile crept up on Briana’s lips. “He does, doesn’t he? But I wasn’t talking about that, I was talking about what you think of him as you know… a man.”

Uroa and Uria blushed under the question.

“Briana. We’ve only known each for three days.”

“That’s right. You can’t ask something so shameless.”

Seeing them get all riled up, Briana chuckled. “Oh come on, you must have noticed him giving you the eyes. I saw it the other day when he went up to the fire to talk to you. Come on spill it, what did you two talk about hmmm?”

Blushing a deeper shade of red, Uria turned away. “We weren’t talking about that sort of thing. He was just asking how I was doing.”

Briana gave her a look saying she didn’t believe her, then turned away, smiling.“Sure, that’s all it was.”

They were left with an awkward silence. Before long, Uroa couldn’t handle it anymore and attempted to change the subject. 

“If we’re talking about Urist, I wanna know why you guys follow him.”

Uria, although surprised by the question, was thankful for the diversion and jumped at the chance.

“We haven’t talked about that, huh." She stopped and thought deeply for a moment before continuing. “I follow him because, out of all of us, he has a plan and an idea for the future. Since he’s the only one who has any memories about survival... it just seems natural.” Uria sighed, looking up at the treetops. "Him shouldering all the responsibility makes me less scared of what's to come, but I feel bad forcing him to take care of everything. I actually feel pretty selfish leaving him to look after the fire because of my boredom." She chuckled ruefully.

Briana put her hands behind her head. “Hmmm, I’d have to agree with Uria. I know squat about how to survive by myself. And I don’t like the idea of leading people; it seems like a chore," she whined while shaking her head and shrugging. “How about you Uroa? You got a reason to follow the boss?”

"For me," Uroa replied fidgeting with her hands in front of her, "I kind of like his eyes that shine with excitement. Seeing further than the rest of us, making sure that we keep going. But I wonder if he’s trying too hard. You get what I mean?”

Grinning, Briana put her arm around Uroa. “Oh do my eyes deceive me? Uria, it seems you have some competition.” 

Feeling Briana’s eyes on her, Uroa face blushed and fidgeted with her hands even more. “What? Eh? No! That isn’t what I meant! Uh… I meant uh… Oh, look at that!”

Looking for an escape, Uroa spotted a large plant blooming petite, white flowers. It looked almost like a white handkerchief tainted with a single drop of blood in the middle. She was so overcome with the prettiness of the flower that she crouched down and started caressing it.

Briana opened up the foraging book and searched inside. The book had pictures along with descriptions of which plants were edible. She flipped through the book until she found the illustration of this flower. According to the foraging book, this flower’s’ root was edible.   

This plant was called Queen Anne’s Lace. It grew a root called a carrot. The root must be pulled in the first year of its growth, otherwise, it would taste bitter and be hard to eat.

Briana could easily judge the current age of the plant by comparing it to the illustrations, allowing her to tell which ones were new or old plants. With a quick look around the surroundings, she saw there were many Queen Anne’s Laces. They were standing in a field of wild carrots.

She decided to pull up the plant and look at the root to be sure her analysis was correct.

The carrot was white, long, and narrow with small roots shooting out from the main root; it was exactly what was in the picture.

With a smile, Briana pulled up some of the flowers to retrieve the carrots from them. She would take them back and show Urist to see if these were edible. She heard Uroa stuttering angrily next to her. Was the thought of Briana giving carrots to their boss that offensive?

Tilting her head in confusion, Briana looked over to Uroa.“What’s wrong?”

It was only then that Uroa turned from being horrified to indignant, pointing at the flower tops that Briana had carelessly tossed away. “Why did you treat the flowers badly?”

Briana understood her mistake and figured out a way to make Uroa happy. She picked up the flowers by their stalks and tied them together with a few stocks of long grass to a makeshift bouquet. She handed them back to Uroa with a sheepish smile.

Uroa's anger vanished, replaced by a wide smile when she took the banquet of flowers. “Thank you, big sis.” She twirled around, flowers in hand.

Briana was stunned, not only because of her quick mood change but also because of the honorific. “Why am I the big sister?”

“Because you’re taller,” Uroa said seriously, nose buried in the flowers.

“Eh? That's the reason?”

“Of course.”

“Hey guys, check out what I found.”

The two girls turned around to see Uria carrying a strange, small, brown mound that looked like dirt. They tilted their heads in confusion. Why would she bring over something like a dung ball? Seeing their befuddled looks, Uria started wiping away the dirt from the ball and handed it over to Briana. “I think this thing comes from a plant called taro. We can eat this.”

Briana held the weird plant in her hand, staring at it intently. “Can you show us where you found it? I wanna look at the plant it came from.”

Uria nodded. “Sure, just follow me and I’ll show you. I would have missed it if I didn’t study the survival book that said taro plants could be found here pretty easily.”

Taking the lead, Uria led them fifty feet away to where the taro plant was. After checking the pictures, Briana was pretty sure that she had identified the correct plant. She wanted Urist’s final say to see if it was truly taro, so they carried it along.

Besides that, they found a patch of wild blueberries, which they happily collected. When they didn’t identify anything else in their range that stood out to them being a food source, they decided to head back and show their findings.

As they started heading back, Uria held out her arms and stopped the other girls when she noticed a strange creature nibbling on a wild carrot. he three girls stared intently, not making a single noise as they watched the frightful, monster-like creature they had never seen before. Its body was small, walking on four legs. It had two large ears and its body was brown, black, and amber. Its black beady eyes stared absentmindedly at the dwarfs while it nibbled the carrot.

The girls ran away from the unknown animal in fear. But if Urist was here, he would instantly know that this monster-- no, this animal-- was called a hare!

Part 2 - Hares and Charcoal

After running away from the deadly ‘creature’, the dwarfs fled back to the camp. They found  Urist smashing away with a fist-sized rock in hand into another rock sized head. He kept hitting the center, breaking chips and making a hole in the middle. Next to him lay a smooth, tear-shaped rock that was big as a fist.

While working he heard a sound that made him look up to see the three sprinting through the forest. Their fearful faces instantly put him on alert. Putting aside his work, Urist stood up and walked to meet them. “What happened?”

Uria, short of breath, started to speak. “A furry creature.”

“Large ears.”

“Short legs, beady eyes.”

The girls spoke over one another trying to relate what they saw. He raised his hand to silence them. “Alright, alright. One at a time. Uria, go first. What did you see?”

After standing there for awhile Uria had caught her breath, “Urist we saw this…”

One by one, the three gave their testimonies. As he heard more about the ‘monster’, Urist’s eyes shone with expectation. ‘If what they say is right, then they most likely saw hares nearby. If we can capture these hares alive, we could breed them and raise them for slaughter, for their skins, meat, and intestines.’

The skin would be useful for bedding and clothes, the meat for eating, and the intestines to hold water. With this information in hand, he planned how to capture these hares. First, he had to calm the girls and tell the rest of the dwarfs at lunch about the creature.

Urist wanted to laugh but held it in. “Don’t worry about that creature. Judging by what you told me about it, I’m guessing it’s a hare. It should be an herbivore, not a meat-eater. I’m pretty sure about that. It’s good to be wary of your surroundings when you can’t identify animals..” 

It took a while to calm them down before they reverted to their usual selves. Urist decided that it was time to get the charcoal. “Don't mind it for now. We’ll figure out if it was truly a hare later, for now, we need to get the charcoal into the cave. Uroa and Briana, grab a shirt and follow me. Uria, I have to trouble you to wait here by the fire until we get back is that ok?” 

“Un.”

Urist smiled and set forth. “Then let's head out.”

Filter 

Urist broke open the earth mound and smiled, seeing that the charcoal turned out well. Filling the makeshift shirt bags full of charcoal, they headed straight back to camp. 

It isn’t activated charcoal, but it should work for filtering water.

Despite the river being clear, Urist didn’t want to take a chance of them drinking contaminants and dying. So it was time to start his three-part plan in making safe drinking water. He choosing filter water over decanting. He reasoned that although decanting would have taken less work he had a few reasons in not doing so. 

First to show Uria that the fire was important to their survival more then just for cooking. Second his unrealistic fear of not drinking filtered water as he did not know the biology of a dwarf. He didn’t know if there were particles that could be poisonous to their bodies. Although he felt it was a baseless fear with no truth behind it, something had been growing at the back of his mind to do it this way.

When we have more backbone I deal with this inefficient method later, he thought as he headed back home, dumping the coal contents from the shirt into a pile further into the cave. He retrieved the bronze sword and a shirt. Going to the fire, he sat down with sword and shirt in hand and cut off the shirt sleeves. Not finished with cutting the sleeves, he cut them further down to the size bigger than a water bottle cap. Taking the sword once again, he grabbed a water bottle and cut off its bottom. Removing the caps, Urist laid the cloth over it and re-screw it to the bottle.

The dwarf women watched on with curiosity and when he finished the first bottle, he turned to them, “I need one of you to start cutting up these bottles and screwing the fabric with the cap together. Somebody else, gather sand from the beach in one of the bamboo containers. I also need one filled with pebbles and one with bigger stones. Any volunteers?”

“I’ll take care of the sand and stones.”

“I can do the bottles.”

Uroa and Briana went off in their respective duties, leaving Urist and Uria by the fire. Throwing a log in the fire, Uria pouted that they were faster than her in reply. Now she wouldn’t have a job to do.

Seeing her displeased expression, Urist smiled wryly. “Don’t worry, I have a job for you as well. See this bowl I made while you were gone?”

“This is a bowl? It just has a hole in the middle of it.”

Urist felt like crying, but he remembered that she might not know what a bowl was.

“I mean who would want to eat out of something this crude?”

Clutching his chest, Urist leaned back, staggered. ‘I was wrong.’

He let out a forced laugh to hide his embarrassment. “Ha Ha… No, this isn’t a bowl to eat out of, it’s a mixing bowl or a better term would be a mortar. Using this small pestle you’re going to crush the charcoal into a fine powder which can be be used for the filter.”

Her head tilted slightly. “How do I do that?”

“Here, let me show you how to do it. First is to take some charcoal and then...”

Uria listened attentively as Urist talked through the step by step process. He put a few pieces of charcoal into the mortar, then picked the pestle up and started crushing the charcoal inside into tiny pieces, before grinding the pieces into a fine dust. 

When he was satisfied with the consistency of the charcoal powder, he made a funnel with a green leaf and poured the contents inside a plastic bottle. By now, Uroa had returned with the bamboo full of sand and stones.

Thanks to the bottles being so large, he would be able to put many layers in the filter. The sand collected was excellent quality with no rocks inside. Pouring a layer of sand inside he moved onto the next step, putting a layer of stones inside. A layer of large stones on top completed the filter.

It wasn’t the greatest filter by modern-day standards, but by primitive standards, this was a first-class item.

 

Part 3 - First Catch

 

Putting the filtered water into the pan, Uria boiled it to kill off any germs. With Urist’s suggestion, they added some charcoal to the water for extra taste. With every filter they made, the amount of processed water increased, allowing for more clean water to be made. When the water was finished boiling, one of them poured it into the bamboo water bottles Ariel made.

The dwarfs took turns running to and from the river to gather water and within two hours, they had gathered enough water to fill over ten of the bamboo bottles. Doing the math in his head, at this pace they could finish about sixty to one hundred bottles a day. Whatever they didn’t use, they could store in the cave. Although a slow method, the dwarfs wouldn’t need to worry about water.

The next problem was finding a stable supply of food for their day to day needs. Urist asked the others if they found anything of interest while they worked on making filters. Other than what they had just brought in they had seen nothing else.

He didn’t know the current season, yet with how warm it was and the stage of the plants growing, he guessed it was spring. If that was the case, then planting was around the corner. With taro plants, they could get some plant fiber from the balls of roots they create. As for the wild carrots, it would be best to eat them on the go and wait to harvest the seeds at the end of summer. The blueberries would also be a late summer plant as well and couldn’t be easily moved.

Even the hares would take time to mature and grow into a sizeable farm. The chickens would be better to raise if they could hatch some of the eggs and increase the flock’s size. And of the plants found only the taro plants would be of good to plant all year round until winter came. The leaves could be eaten for greens and the roots could be cut into chips to sunbake or used in a stew to be cooked.

Urist was roused from his thoughts as a sudden shuffle came from the bush. At least it wasn't some beast, just Rork and Rat walking with smug smiles carrying the bamboo traps in their hands.

With a closer inspection, fish could be seen inside splashing about. He looked at the fish inside the traps and his mouth started to water. “Today we shall have fish for dinner. Corn Dogs be damned!”

It didn’t long for Urist to see that the dwarfs had blank expressions on their faces along the lines of, ‘How do we eat these things?’

“Hey guys, come on over here. I’ll show you how to prepare the fish on this rock.”

The newbie fisherman moved over to where Urist was and handed over the traps to him. Urist fearlessly reached inside the trap and pulled out a fish.

As expected of a fish it felt slimy, but another thing caught his eye, 'I’ve never seen this type of fish before.'

Its eyes were that of a cat’s and were glazed yellow. Its scales were silver, with a black line running down its sides. This fish had pronounced teeth and three pairs of fins on its side. It also had a split tail.

It was so strange that he opened the survival book to see if this thing was even edible.

Black Steel Fish

Distribution: Black Steel Fish appear from temperate to cold, fresh and salt waters. A person can tell if the fish is a Sea or Saltfish depending on the color of its meat. The darker the meat means it was caught near the ocean. Otherwise, it suggests that the fish has lived in rivers and doesn't frequent the sea.

Characteristics: The Black Steel fish is known to swim without company. Only when they sense danger will black tails release a special scent signaling others of its kind to swarm together and create a school for defense. In rare cases, a mega school can be created if major climate dangers threaten the species.

Editability: It contains no poison and is a perfectly edible fish. Only beware choking on its large bones. 

--

Reading about the sea a thought occurred to him that they needed salt. Not just for tanning but also dietary reasons although he didn’t know much about a dwarfs biology he figured that dwarfs would fall into the mammal category when he checked his member.

As a test, he decided to taste the sweat on his arm and found that it was salty, meaning that their bodies excreted salt. In the beginning, their bodies would be fine but after a week of not digesting salt at stable levels, they would die from how much salt they were sweating out.

Fish could supply the salt intake for a while, but it wouldn’t good to rely on just fish to meet their salt needs. If they couldn’t find any natural salt licks, he hoped that there were at least large mammals to hunt for their meat and cook their blood into a gel for salt.

Urist started dissecting the fish. He remembered how his old man taught him how to clean a fish and went through the motions.

Finding where the fish’s skull ended, he cut down between it and the body, but not too deep as to cut into the organs. Doing the other side, he separated sides and guts into two different piles. The heads were saved to be used for the soup and the gills removed for flavor. Next, the skin on the fish was removed to leave the meat. Scaling the fish would be too troublesome with only one knife.

Rork and Rat watched with amazed expressions as they saw how their boss treated the fish, asking questions along the way. Urist answered them one by one with a smile. He enjoyed talking about survival since it was a subject so dear to his heart. He was happy to see that the Black Steel fish had a fairly strong pink color to its flesh, meaning that a salt sea was nearby.

After gutting and cleaning the fish, the three dwarfs took turns cutting up the fish. Despite not being used to dissecting yet, they handled it fairly well, with only a few fish being ruined.

They only had two traps going, so the catch was low, around twenty fish. Four were ruined, making a total of thirty-two fillets and twenty fish heads. Even if the amount was small, it was the first time that they had caught any food.

“Let's cook some fish.”

 

Part 4 - Fish Head Soup

 

Pouring eight bottles of bamboo water into the pan, Urist brought the pot to a boil. He turned to Rork and Rat and told them to gather some bamboo and split them in half. To his delight, the bamboo team had gathered a good amount of bamboo to use. Urist figured he could cook with the bamboo as a one-time use mini pot.

He had read somewhere that rocks and bamboo could be used to cook items like a pan if they were hot enough. Having the cooking problem taken care of, Urist watched eagerly, mouth-watering, as he thought about fish head stew. It almost made him jump with glee.

He turned to Uroa and Briana who had finished making the filters. “Can you gather the taro plant roots you found? I wanna add them to the stew. Oh, but make sure to be careful with the plant and rebury them in the ground afterward.”

“Un!”

“I hope we don’t run into those monsters… I mean those hares.”

The pair headed off into the forest while Urist got to work with Uria, cooking some of the fillets on rocks near the fire. Soon the water in the pan began to boil and Urist estimated it was time to throw the fish heads inside. Both of the teams came back with the items requested. The two dwarfs split the bamboo and then used it to cook.

Into one of the split bamboos, Urist poured a bottle of water. He used it to clean the dirt off the dozen or so taro roots that looked like brown balls. Then cleaned the bronze knife in the water to wash away the fish smell.

He placed the taro roots on the rock cutting board and used his knife to dice them into cubes. Grabbing the freshly cut taro, he threw it into the boiling pot and stirred. The smell of fish and taro floated near his nose moving his heart. The only regret on his mind was they hadn’t found any good spices to use. He could only pray that the fish and taro could make up the taste.

By this point, the rest of the dwarfs had returned to the cave and were watching the cooking take place. Urist took the leaf full of fish guts and far away from camp so large creatures wouldn’t be attracted to the smell. Digging a deep hole with a shovel, Urist hoped to feed the soil nutrients in hopes to make this spot rich for growing plants.

Finishing his work, he headed back to the camp.

Finished with the task, he headed back to eat with the group. As he approached, he could hear a cheerful discussion between the dwarfs about how their work went. Uria was watching the food, making sure it was thoroughly cooked on each side and stirring the pot with a peeled branch used as a makeshift spoon.

Rolling up his sleeves, Urist helped her out with the cooking. Within an hour, the meal was ready to serve. Each dwarf got three fillets and two fish heads while the guts were fed to the chickens and dogs.

They dug into the food and Urist almost cried. "Finally, something other than corn dogs. Let’s eat some fish, guys.”

Everyone cheered. Fish heads and taro cubes were poured into split bamboo as makeshift bowls. The fillets were eaten from the bamboo they were cooked in. Nine water bottles and corndog meals were taken out to eat as just the fish wasn't insufficient for the dwarf's appetite.

Which surprised Urist at how hungry everyone was, Where does a dwarf stomach put it all?

The dwarfs finished the meal by popping the fish eyes into their mouths and picking at the heads for meat.

It was a nice time but Urist kind of wished they had some sort of booze to drink. He had a faint recollection of his other life being young. He and his father in the moonlight shared good times, drinking while fishing. The only thing his father told him about drinking was never to drink sad only for celebrations.

A feeling of longing filled Urist. 

Father. Are you alright?

Although his memories were distorted and twisted, he remembered drinking under the moonlight with his old man, cracking bad dad puns together. The only frustrating thing was his father's face being etched out with black squiggly lines. It was like that for everyone in his past life; their faces were erased from his memory. 

It filled him with grief and heartache to know he forgot the faces of the family he once loved.

I want to see you guys again.

He had no answers, only questions. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know why he knew he was dwarf. Heck, he didn’t even know what stopped him from breaking down into madness. Why was he trying so hard to survive? What’s the point? The deeper he thought, the sourer his mood became. Did anything he did here have meaning?. 

“Hey boss, you alright?” Uria poked Urist’s cheek. 

Her voice was like a light that shattered the storm brewing in Urist’s thoughts. He looked at her clear blue eyes. That bright complexion that brings relief to any, and that unabated curiosity that made him want to protect her. 

He cut his line of thought and looked around to see the merry dwarfs having a good time. Every one of them cheering without fearing tomorrow. They were living in the present, celebrating the past, and excited about the future. Perhaps it’s because of these guys that I can keep going forward.

He smiled, hiding away his thoughts. “I’m fine. I’m just thinking about the things we have to do tomorrow. Actually, it’s a good time to tell you guys my thoughts, what we need to do tomorrow is…”

Countdown

Time: 4 Days 3 hours 5 minutes until Market opens

Points Gained: 2148

The clock in his brain kept counting down as the points had stopped at 2148 for today. It was a strange concept to see them growing and not know the meaning. Despite thinking about it all this time, could only come up that these points he gained somehow were connected to this so-called 'market'.

He did have one worry. After the countdown was finished, what would happen? Would there be another countdown? Would it open up the market again? Would it instead make another event? What if more than one countdown appeared?

His thoughts chased him to no end, to the point it felt like he was driving himself mad thinking about it. He would just have to wait and see. For now, it would be best to stop thinking and get to bed. They had a lot of work to do tomorrow.

Man, that fish soup could have tasted better with some salt... Ugh, I wish we also had potatoes. At least we didn't have to eat only corn dogs today. I'm starting to hate their flavor.