Checking the traps one last time they acquire another hare and a few more squirrels, unfortunately, still no deer. They headed back to the cave and put the new hare inside the shack they made, skinned the squirrels and fish they caught before late afternoon and started settling down do some tasks around the home.

Rork and Rat helped out Ormila and Urmom by weaving new baskets and rope. Lun and Ariel crafting forks and spoons out of some bamboo from the stockpile inside the back of the cave.

Uroa and Briana were setting up their plants to dry, they hoped to make some powders out of them. They then started sanding the bottom of wooden bowls using rocks and cloth to smooth them out.

Uria and Urist were together working on a new item. Uria pecking shale into arrow head shapes while Urist was working on a four foot large stick. He decided to chop it down while walking back to as it was the perfect material to make a bow.

They had food and water manage why not make a bow? As the thoughts crossed his mind, his legs started he retrieved the axe and cut down the tree.

As he expected from the young tree the strength and flexibility well met his standards. Although he didn’t know what kind of tree it was a high class material. He asked Uria to help him make arrowheads from shale after showing her how to make them. Then he got to work and cut the wood down the middle making two halves.

Ripping off the bark Urist noticed that the wood was a gray color which surprised him, still, he got to work with his stone tools and started chipping away at the wood. He had a few design choices to go on to remember, keeping the limbs a good thickness and making the handle around five inches.

At the ends, he started tapering the backends and the ends to allow the bow to bend better bend. He switched from stone tool to stone tool chipping and smoothing where needed. When he was satisfied he moved onto the handle to start shaping it, using the stone tools he slowly but surely managed to make the handle fit well on the palm of his hand.

Next, he went to the end of the limbs and made notches on both sides to allow the rope to set inside. When everything was all said and done it was very late in the day and the moon was just peeking out of the horizon.

Urist looked over when he finished the body of the bow to see next to Uria was a pile of arrowheads that were sharp to the touch. As expected of a dwarf her craftsmanship had been done well, when they got some shafts and fletching they could make great primitive arrows.

What surprised Urist though came from himself making a bow from scratch. In his last life he had seen many boow designs but could never make one that didn’t break on firing.

Should I think it as a blessing that I was given a dwarf body? But what about my life before this one? Does that say my life from before was cursed to never create?

While he swam with his thoughts everyone had called it a day and now sat to brag and make merry before heading to sleep. Urist and Uria got up from their project and decided to join their fellow dwarfs in drinking some woozoo tea that Uroa whipped up.

By no means could it substitute booze but for now it was enough to slate his taste buds. Drinking from his bamboo cup Urist brain was working on what to do next. He figured it was high time they finally decided to make beds in the cave tomorrow, his ass was sore from sleeping on the hard ground.

Tomorrow in the morning he would hand over the responsibility in checking the traps to Rork and Rat to focus on making finish making the short bow by the afternoon. He also wanted to build a greenery roof over the fire so in case it rained the fire would be protected from the elements.

And then--

“Hey Boss what are you thinking about?”, Rat patted Urist on the back with a smile making merry of the good time they were having.

Urist woken from his thoughts gave Rat returned the smile in kind, “I was just trying to remember how long the meat must say being smoked. If I remember right you only one day, but I heard it’s best to wait two days to make sure the meat is fully cooked. Since we are going to be smoking a lot I was thinking of if we could make a smokehouse thinking of how we could do it.”

Urist looked around to see everyone's expressions only to see them all confused about what a smokehouse exactly was. With a slight sigh, Urist started explaining and motioning with his hands, “A smokehouse is made out of bricks and mortar simple as that with a connection to a fire to allow smoke in. The main problems are making a kiln, and getting enough clay and limestone.”

“What’s a kiln?”

“What’s clay?”

“What’s limestone?”

Bombarded with questions from the dwarfs Urist give a slight sigh and smiled explaining each of the subjects one by one, “The Kiln will be used to fire the clay bricks which we’ll find the clay along the river. As for the limestone we need to find more shells or limestone rocks then heat them the limestone in the kiln to make quicklime. Then taking the quicklime we mix water to make a putty and then we add sand to the mixture at about double the amount of quicklime which will allow us to make mortar.

With the number of materials we have on hand as long as we get enough lime we’ll be fine, the main problem is that I don’t know how to make a Kiln. As I never bothered to learn about it much, as such until we can figure out how to make one it’s a pipe dream.”

“Hey, boss I have another question!”

“Me too! Me too!”

And so for a little while, the dwarfs kept asking Urist about the smokehouse to the point Urist had to run away saying he felt tired and wanted to sleep. Truly he was actually tried he had done a lot of things today which made him feeling fulfilled in a hard day's work.

Before heading off to dreamland he checked the clock in his head to see how much time was left on the countdown.

Countdown

Time: 2 Days 2 hours 47 minutes until Market opens

Points Gained: 4621

‘Hmm only two more days now, I wonder what's in store. I hope we can catch a dear tomorrow… I want some tenderloins…’