I lived in a cave with several people who all wore fur tunics. I knew when I saw them that they were my family. There were men with fire-hardened spears who had gathered to one side of the cave opening. Each had three spears, two in their left hand and one in their right. When I looked over at them, one of them beckoned me over with a wave of the hand. I felt like this was more a memory than a dream as I didn’t even feel myself choose to go; I just went.

As I got close, the one that waved me over spoke, “Arn, this will be your first hunt with us. Today we are hunting the migrating herd of Thunder Bison. You must stay close with us and throw your spears as you’re told. You’ll scare the whole herd if you throw too soon, and we will not get enough meat. On the other hand, if you throw too late, they might have time to Thunder.”

That last part caused a few of the men to grimace, and a couple of others chuckled.

I nodded my head and grinned at the men. “Hunt leader,” I said, “I’ll follow your lead and throw when you speak. I’ll do well by my father’s memory.”

“If you hunt half as well as he did then today will be a good day indeed,” spoke the hunt leader. “It is time we leave we must walk far to reach the point of attack.”

I didn’t remember much more of what was said in the dream. I only remembered that we walked for over an hour to reach a valley. In this valley was already a heard of bison. They looked like the same I’d have expected to see in a zoo. No difference in their body type. Each was large and woolly in the front and smooth in the back, with two short horns on its head that curved up slightly. They were large, but the herd was small. I knew that in the Old West of the US, the bison herds could get into the thousands. This one was only around forty.

The hunt leader waved us over and quickly gave out our placement commands. To me, he said, “Arn for this hunt stand at the front with me. Learn to throw as they pass and don’t run no matter what.”

In my mind, I was as I was dreaming; I couldn’t figure out why we were placing people as we did. We were going to get in front of the herd as they moved towards us, and then we would charge. I’d have thought this would have made us get injured more, but it is what we did.

It didn’t take long before we closed on the bison, and when they saw us coming, they kept moving forward at a slow walk. It wasn’t until we started to run at the herd that they seemed to care that we were there. We were less than 100 feet away when I noticed the difference between these bison and those I was used to. As they stamped their feet, I saw sparks. It was then that they started at us at a run.

The hunt leader yelled, “Hold your spears till they pass then hit them from behind!”

They ran through our group without hitting anyone, and as the last one passed us, he threw his spear at it. I followed his action and threw my first and then quickly my second one. His spear hit it right behind the front right leg and seemed to go in. Mine both hit but glanced off. Then the rest of the men were all throwing at the same one. Of the twenty spears, only about 4 stuck on the first volley. Yet those that stuck seemed to slow it down. Our next ones came crashing in, and a few more got it. Then the bison mewed and stamped its foot hard. The ground shook, and my knees went weak, and I fell.

Several others fell as well, and as we started to get up, the others closed in on the bison. It was shaking its head around and doing short charges. The men without spears were now trying to get close enough to get one from the ground, and the ones that still had one were charging in to stab it.

I went to charge in when I felt a hand yank me back. The hunt leader said, “Arn your arms are not filled with enough strength to harm it and you don’t know its dance of death. Watch and learn as we hunt. Watch the dance of death so that you’ll know the steps and can dance with it as a partner.”

I felt in my memory or dream that I was mad. I wanted to be part of this. I wanted to charge in, but I did as I was told, and I watched the bison fight us. It was then that I saw that all the ones that would stab would come in from the back after someone in front threw a spear. The thrown spear was towards the face, and the bison would block it with its head. Then the ones from behind would stab it. It would turn to face the ones that stabbed, and the ones now behind would run in and grab spears or would then stab.

The Hunt leader rested his hand on my shoulder and spoke with a joyfully booming voice, “Arn, we hunt like the wolves on the heels of the great beasts. We are too small to fight head to head as they do each other. Yet we can kill this one as a group because we can think and plan. This one by itself will die today and if we are focused then we will not lose anyone.”

The dance of death went on for over an hour before we could bleed it out. Then we started the process of cleaning the bison. First, they bathed me in the blood as it was the first group hunt I’d been on. Then we butchered it with stone tools. It took as long, if not longer than the hunt, to break it down into pieces that we could carry.

When I woke up, I felt like I was starting to understand better what my life would be like. The dream I'd felt to have been memories I'd from this place. If that was the case, there was even more here to worry about. Magical animals with lighting footsteps. I could see my stats and skills, which was odd.

I had food for breakfast, even if it was just two smoked fish from the day before. It seemed like the skill levels were coming easy, which made sense from the few games that I'd played. Of course, I was never one of those great gamers who spent all their time playing, but I did play a few, so I knew what I was looking for.

In most games and even in real life, the first part of a skill was easy to master. It was that last part that was hard. There was this thing called the 80/20 principle, which, when applied to skills, said that you would use 20% of your knowledge 80% of the time. So when learning the basics, things were easier since you were picking up that part that mattered most.

After breakfast, I climbed back down from my ledge. Today I wanted to see if I could spend a little time looking for anything to eat other than fish.

I now understood that my survival skill was likely what was helping me learn some of the other skills I now had. So I was hoping that I'd be able to have it trigger to get me some veggies. I wanted to see if I could find some wild potatoes or carrots. I'd even take some herbs that I could use on my fish. Smoke was okay, but there was no salt, so that was rough.

I spent the better part of the morning in the forest near the river. I never went more than about 300 yards away from the water. I wanted to be able to find my way back since I liked sleeping on that ledge for now.

During that time, I ended up finding some onions and potato-type things. I dug up more than I needed for the next few days. I figured that if I'd five or ten pounds of roots, then I should be doing okay for a bit.

I also found a few nut trees that I felt were the right ones. I got dozens of those nuts; they looked much like a pecan but had a thick shell. I also saw a berry bush that I thought would be good, but I wasn't sure if it was survival kicking in, ink making, or both. So I skipped on all the berries because I didn't want to end up sick or dead.

I spent the rest of that day pulling out fish. I'd figured out how to spear the fish fairly well, so I caught 14 that day and smoked 10 of them. I ate two for a late lunch and two for dinner and had roasted root with it for dinner. The potato-type thing looked more like a sweet potato in shape but cooked just like a potato, so I figured it was one.

That night I went to bed happy just to have food and a mostly warm place to sleep. But, as I lay down, I saw the message that I was expecting.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Spear fishing sub skill (level 2)

Primitive cooking (level 3)

New knowledge has been granted to you!

Herbalism skill unlocked (level 0)

Then it was time, before sleeping to take a look at Herbalism.

Herbalism Skill Grouping non-combative:

Herbalism is the skill of knowing which plants can be eaten or used. At low levels, this skill lets you find common food plants. At higher levels, this skill will let you find plants used for other reasons and what those reasons are.

Those odd dreams I had the night before kept going for me.