Chapter Thirty-Six: Round the Twist (Patreon)

I continue building my fireplace, using the same strategy of moulding a thin sausage of clay, choosing shards of shale, pressing down gently, then rinse and repeat. It takes me a while, but I can’t say I really notice the time passing. I have to break some of the stones into smaller pieces by banging them carefully with one of the flint nodules I picked up, and sometimes they end up a lot smaller than I intended, but even the small stones find a place in this 3D puzzle of mine.

As the walls reach knee level and then beyond, aiming for the hole in the wall which is about hip level, I begin narrowing my chimney, not wanting it to continue being as much as fifty centimetres in radius. Ideally, by the time I get to the hole in the wall, the radius will be ten centimetres or so. It’s at this point that I also I start getting a little worried about my structural integrity. It seems OK, but I don’t want to realise it’s not because half the wall has fallen down, so I use sticks here and there to help prop the walls up while they dry. Building upwards, I run out of shale just as I reach the hole in the wall.

I honestly can’t be bothered to walk all the way back to where I found the last lot, so I...improvise. There are a couple of pieces of slate that I’d set aside as chopping boards because they were unusually large and, being shale, are nice and flat. One of them is big enough for my purposes, so I pick it up and place it on top of my chimney.

Hmm, not high enough, I muse to myself. The level of the wall is only up to about a quarter of the way up the hole, so lying the slate flat means that there probably isn’t enough ventilation. What about tilted? I try it, tilting the slate up so its top edge is above the hole, and bottom edge is touching the top of the front of my chimney. Maybe. It’s a bit short, so I’ll still have a gap between the top of the slate and the top of the hole in the wall, but it’s better than lying it flat.

As the situation stands, though, there are far too many holes at the top of my chimney for smoke to escape into the room since an angled slate is by no means air-tight. To fix this, I work with pure clay and some of the stones I pulled out of the clay when preparing it. My aim is to build up the sides of the chimney to essentially fill in all the gaps between the slate, the wall, and the rest of the flue.

Stepping back after I’ve finished, I give it a critical look. It’s not perfect – my amateur nature when it comes to either building or pottery comes through clearly, but it hasn’t fallen yet, so that’s a good start. Plus, although I hadn’t planned it, the fact that the slate ‘roof’ of my chimney is removable will help with providing an alternative cooking arrangement in case my earlier brainwave doesn’t work – I can suspend things from above through the hole with a simple structure using five branches and cord. Yes, I’ll probably then get smoke in my cave, but possibly not – if the draw of oxygen is correct, air should be pulled in at the bottom, and then pulled out of the cave by the movement of air outside. I guess I’ll find out.

The clay is already starting to dry, so I build a fire in my new fire pit. I’ll need to keep an eye on it for the next while, making sure it doesn’t burn either too hot or too cool as it will hopefully help my clay dry and harden.

In the meantime, I start on the idea I had earlier. Taking some more sticks out of my Inventory, I use some bark to tie them into a grid pattern. Then, putting the grid – which is by no means sturdy – onto one of the big leaves, I cover it liberally with clay, cutting out the spaces between the twigs, but leaving the sticks covered with clay. Then, after making sure it’s not stuck to the leaf below, I leave it alone to dry. Hopefully this will work, but if not…

I’ve got a bit of time. I need to keep an eye on the fire so I can’t go far, but I’ve got some time for now. A good opportunity to start the easy, though boring, task of twisting cord. I’d been lucky today while walking with Spike – I found a fallen tree which was a perfect source of bark fibre and harvested as much as I could. In the end, I managed to fill two Inventory slots with fibre, and now seems like a good time to twist it. Cord is something I desperately need, so it’s not waste of time to get going on creating it.

It’s hard at first, taking me a while to get the knack. Eventually, though, I find that my fingers are managing to twist the fibres together, and I’m even starting to know when to add the next set of fibres to create a cord which is smooth: my first few attempts were...lumpy, to say the least. Eventually, I actually untwist my first attempts in order to redo them with a smoother texture. It hurts my fingers, not having the right kind of calluses to deal with the rough fibres, but I ignore the irritation: my regeneration will deal with any damage soon enough. And if it doesn’t, I can always use Lay-on-hands.

After a good while and a couple of metres of decent cord later, I feel the nagging feeling start up again, reminding me that I never checked my messages. Deciding that now is as good a time as any for a break, I put my cordage project down. In fact, I wouldn’t mind having a snack – my stomach’s telling me it’s been a while since breakfast. As I munch, I open my message box.

I accept, of course. It doesn’t indicate whether it was Depth or Breadth that was increased. Do I only choose those on level-ups? And how did I earn it in the first place? I go on to the next message while I ponder the question.

Huh, that’s different. No option to accept or not… Moving on, I see a similar message.

By this point very confused, I close the message and shift across to my status screen. Sure enough, I can see I’ve gained a point in Constitution, Wisdom, and Dexterity.

But why? Unless… A thought occurs and I close my eyes as I concentrate on the memory from the System stone. Using Energy is a shortcut to increasing stats, but it’s not the only way: people who don’t have any access to Energy increase their stats all the time through hard work. Heck, everyone on Earth, for one thing! Maybe that’s what’s happened here.

In terms of my point to Dexterity, I’ve just been working on a task which requires a fair bit of dexterity to do well, and I’ve improved significantly in it. In addition, working with clay is also rather dexterous, as have been several things I’ve done since I’ve been here. Perhaps all the work has added up and given me the point?

What about the other two points? I try to remember back to when I felt the nagging feeling before. I’m pretty sure one of the times was soon after I was attacked...and fought off the poison it infected me with. Perhaps fighting the poison was a sufficient catalyst to earn a point in Constitution, especially considering all the other times I’ve been injured and recovered in my time in this world.

I don’t know how it works exactly, but the System stone was clear that Constitution is essentially ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. While that’s not always true with physical – and mental – trauma on Earth, apparently the presence of Energy on Nicholas’ world, and here as well I guess, makes being hurt a different story. Actually, that makes me wonder whether emotional or mental damage might improve Wisdom or Intelligence… Either way, I probably shouldn’t try it out – my past has traumatised me enough, thank you very much.

As for the point of Wisdom...I think that happened this morning sometime. Oh, yes, I remember. It was after that little ‘talk’ with Spike. So something about that triggered Wisdom. That’s...not really very useful, actually, as I have no idea what about that little talk seemed ‘wise’. Was it the fact that I was trying to get along with a being which has no choice but to follow my orders? Or was it because Spike has no choice that Wisdom was triggered – me showing empathy could be a wise trait? Or was it because me being nice to him then meant that he would help protect me later? But how would I even know something like that?

And I still don’t understand the two sub-categories or how they affect anything since, unlike with Strength, my mana regeneration doesn’t seem to be impacted by one or other of the subcategories. There must be a reason for and a consequence of my choices, but nothing in the System stone talks about it.

I huff in frustration – Wisdom and Willpower are my least favourite traits, to be honest. All the others are fairly clear as to how to improve them. Not so the two big Ws. All I can do is try to keep track of when they rise and then attempt to draw some conclusions from that.

As I consider my screen once more, something else strikes me: my Energy. It’s too high. I haven’t killed anything since I leveled up, and although I’ve been absorbing Energy naturally, it hasn’t been enough hours for my Energy store to have risen that much. Add to that the fact that I increased at least one stat – I’m not entirely sure whether the ones I didn’t have any choice but to accept actually cost me anything, but I’m going to guess not. My reasoning is that having as much Energy left as I seem to after having increased my stats by three points is even more unbelievable. So where has this extra Energy come from? I mean, I’m not complaining, but it would be nice to know so I can do more of it!

Racking my brains, there are only two possibilities that come to mind: one, that despite not killing that ambusher, I gained credit; and two, that it has something to do with my Dominating Spike. Of the two options, I lean towards the last one because surely a single ambush predator wouldn’t be worth so much Energy that not even killing it would net me enough to increase a stat with more left over! Well, I know how to narrow down the possibilities, at least, and it’s a thought that fills me with dark pleasure. All I need to do is sort out a bow or some sort of ranged weapon that will put me on more even ground with the wretched thing.

Just before closing the screen, I notice that Dominate has risen to level two. Good, I suppose. I still don’t really know whether Skill level makes much difference to the Skill itself. Fade has also risen to level two as I’ve been doing my best to use it at various intervals, including while I’m sitting here, twisting bark fibre, but equally I haven’t noticed any real change to it. Stealth has also risen to level two, though I haven’t really been using it much apart from during the testing last night. Just another question which I guess I’ll find out the answer to later…

Checking on my work with my fireplace, I’m pleased with most of it. There’s one spot where the stones are bulging out a bit, the weight from the top forcing them out sideways. I push them back into place and then spend some time trying to figure out how to prop that section up. My clay-covered grill of branches is fairly dry, at least, it’s stiff enough for me to lift without it bending or falling apart. I prop it up above the fire. It’s almost in the fire itself, but not quite.

Sitting back, I pick my half-finished cord up again, quickly putting it down again when my previously unnoticed blisters protest the action. I grimace as I look at my fingertips. Yeah...no. I cast a quick Lay-on-hands, smiling as the blisters fade away as if they were never there.

Back to the grind, I guess. Too much of this and I’ll going round the twist. Hah.