Sam shook me awake gently. I swatted his arm away and curled deeper into my sleeping bag. When he shook me harder, I jerked up as the last few days flashed through my groggy mind. "What, where!?"

"Calm down, Ron. Danny is putting breakfast together, but there is something strange outside that I think you should look at," my friend said. When I looked at him, I saw him scratch at the blond stubble just starting to grow in. Accepting his offered hand, I rose to my feet and waved at Daniela. The woman was hunched over our pre-packed breakfasts, adding in what looked like dried tomato slices.

Chagrined, I walked over to the open doorway of the lobby. With dramatic flair, Samuel pointed at a small herd of cows that were peacefully grazing in the space I'd barred off. I drank in the sight for several seconds before looking at my friend. "What are they doing?" I asked. It was a dumb question, since I could see they were eating, but Sam got my meaning.

"No clue. I tried to spook them with my magic and a few pebbles, but they just looked my way before going back to their business."

"Have they shown any... magic stuff? Attunements or anything?" I asked, gesturing to the larger than expected, but normal looking cows. Normal at least based on the information we had from the world pre-Landfall.

"None that I could tell. There is that guy, though." Sam pointed out a darker colored cow with a large set of horns spread wide from its head. As my eyes landed on the creature, its information populated on the implant.

"Oh man," I said, scratching my head awkwardly.

"What? Did you see something?" Sam said, looking back at the creature he'd pointed out.

"I think the other cows may be normal cows, or something, but that's a mana creature. Attunement for Life and Refinement for... Fertility."

"Oh. I... see." Sam looked around at the gathered herd, and then back to the Life Bull. "Can we take it?"

"I... think so. But..." As soon as I realized that we could probably kill the bull, an idea popped into my head. "How long have they been out here?"

"Eh, a few hours. They poked their head against the door but just drifted over to eat the scraps from my first tomato planting. They are almost done." Looking over, I saw that the half dozen animals had munched through the grass in the space with a vengeance. A few dark mounds in the space also told me where the tomatoes had gone after being eaten. Grimacing at the addition to our budding foothold, I turned to Sam.

Under my squint-eyed scrutiny, Sam tilted his head in confusion. When I wasn't able to hold back my smile, Sam backed away slowly. "Oh, look. Breakfast!" He bolted the short distance back to Danny who gave us a curious look.

My face remained split in a grin and Danny's morning person cheeriness flagged slightly. "Oh no."

"Oh yes. Best eat up, friends. We are gonna be honest to goodness cowboys today."

---+---

"This is a terrible idea," Danny complained as she hid behind a double barrier of my stone spikes.

"What's the worst that can happen?" I said from the other side of the four foot barrier.

"That cow goring Sam! What do you mean what's the worst that can happen!?" Danny said glaring over at me.

I didn't meet her eyes, since my concentration was already zeroed in on my other friend and his approach to the bull. The seemingly normal cows parted as the human approached. Sam handed each of them a small bundle of fresh grown magic grass before heading for the bull. With the herd milling around him and a wide smile on his face, the blond turned to the attuned creature. His smile slipped completely as he focused on the first step of his plan.

Sam had been vehemently opposed to my plan at the start, until I pointed out the fact that the bull was both fully grown already and just as likely to murder us all if we didn't deal with it. Instead of opting for the death option, we'd decided to try to tame it. Sam's arm lit up with a soft green light and I saw the ground around the bull rise and reach for the sky. As if it had sensed that something was amiss, a similar green glow encased the creature. Confirmation enough of its attunement.

Unlike the mesh of vines I'd expected from Sam, a deluge of grass surged out of the ground to bind the bull. It lowed and its eyes widened as its attempt to charge was halted. My friend had preemptively rolled out of the way, but seeing the magnified effect of his Skill, doubled down. Another surge of vines exploded out of the ground to grasp the Bull's head. This second casting looked like the ones he'd used before and seeing the weakened binding, the bull started to thrash. Sharp snaps marked the breaking of the bindings keeping the creature down. Another two casts from Sam thickened the vines again, but the snapping continued as the bull fought for its freedom.

Seeing that the attempt to bind it was failing, I moved in. Danny was a step behind me, but not for long. The woman shot by, giving Sam a hand as he struggled to stay on his feet. Clinging to the hope that my plan could still work, I summoned one, then another stone spike to form a cross over the bull. Its thrashing snapped the earthen pillars, and it sagged under their weight. My stomach heaved at my quick casting, but the bull redoubled its efforts for freedom. Loud lowing echoed out behind me as the herd responded to the bull's frothing frenzy.

Gritting my teeth, I summoned another cross to lock the bull's flailing horns. The pain was immense as I triggered two times simultaneously and dropped to my hands and knees. My eyes watered and I blinked the tears away to watch as the bull continued to thrash. Thankfully, with its thick neck caught right against the ground by two foot thick pillars of rock, it's thrashing weakened. One final casting from Sam snapped into place around the bull, sealing its movements completely.

Taking a wary look behind me, I saw the herd calm with the quieting of the bull. The cows still shuffled around anxiously, pushed against the far side of my spike wall, but they went back to grazing. With some effort, I made it to my friends. The two of them were looking at the bull, having the strangest staring contest I'd ever seen.

"Quick thinking there, Ron. I don't think I could have nabbed him," Sam said weakly. The blond was nearly as pale as his locks, and rested heavily on Daniela. The woman gave their friend a look of concern, before looking me over.

"Are you alright?"

"Good as new." I gave her a tired smile before looking at the bull. The creature had calmed down completely and its eyes were flashing between us. "So, any ideas for the next step?"

Both of my friends glared at me, but eventually Sam sighed. When he was able to stand on his own, he brought his magic to the fore and revitalized one of the few surviving tomato plants. Before my eyes, the plant righted itself and bloomed. Several small red cherry tomatoes dropped onto Samuel's waiting hand and he walked slowly to the bull. The creature strained against its bindings once again, but stopped when Sam did too. The two stared at each other for several minutes before he took a few steps closer. When the bull tensed, he repeated the process of waiting and advancing. When he was a few feet from the creature, he dropped half of the tomatoes within reach of its mouth. My friend took a step back and smiled gently at the bull.

The creature snorted loudly, sniffing the curious red fruit before nibbling on one. The snorts increased as it dove back into the small pile, chomping through it and some of the surrounding grass in its desire to snag every bit that he could. Wary of its enormous horns, Sam set another three tomatoes and stepped closer.

When the creature finished eating, and then looked at Sam expectantly, Sam held his left hand out with the tomatoes for it to eat. The bull hesitated for several moments. I caught it looking between my friends hand and his face and a chill ran down my spine. The creature had a noticeable intelligence beyond its reactive nature. When it ate out of Samuel's hand and allowed the man to run his hands along its head I could only hope we'd succeeded.

"Come say hello, guys," Sam said in a barely audible whisper. I hesitated, but followed my friend's lead and ran my hands along the creature's head. Its fur was thick and silky in a way I couldn't have expected. Up close, its horns were even more impressive as they shot out and up to the sky. Even with a Quotient of 2, I had no illusion that I matched up with the bull. This beast was many times physically stronger than me. It made me consider the effects Quotients had on us physically. If the rate of growth was proportional to the species... Another shiver ran down my spine as I thought of a number of creatures that did not need to be magically enhanced to be terrifying.

I'm not sure how long we stood there loving on the first 'friendly' creature we'd ever interacted with, but when the other cows started eating the vines binding the bull in their monotonous hunger, we stepped back hesitantly. At some point during our petting session, Sam had fashioned a halter from his vines and placed it on the bull's head. It had protested, but after some additional tomatoes and petting, it had calmed.

One final, surprising, development that happened was that when the bull worked to free itself the soft glow of life attuned mana radiated from its body. In response, Sam's body also glowed the same shade until the beast shrugged off my binding spikes. I stepped back, ready to throw out my magic if the bull charged. Instead, our bovine neighbor lowered its head and rubbed it into Sam's side. The man let out a nervous giggle as it petted the now free bull and we all let out sighs of relief.

"Time for that final part of the plan then. I think we are going to need many, many more tomatoes, Sam." Mischievous smile in place, my two friends groaned. Having successfully appeased the bull, the real mission could begin. Retrieving the Entity Cluster.

Over the next hour, Sam wrung himself dry of mana to produce a rucksack's worth of tomatoes. He also used the growing plants and vines from his passive skill to craft several feet of cordage with Danny's help. While they tinkered with the finer bits of weaving, I chopped down a tree.

A wide blade hatchet had been included in the set of tools Ben had supplied us. Taking hold of the rubber-handled, steel implement, I swung from the hip into the base of a roughly ten foot tree. My eyes widened at how far the blade sunk into the oak, but I shook my head. Can't expect the same results after the increase in Strength I've had. Yanking my hatchet out of the tree took considerably more effort, but once it was free, I swung a bit slower. Before long, I was calling out 'timber' as the wedge I'd made forced the tree to topple. A few more strikes freed it from its stump, and I began to strip it of limbs. Chucking the larger branches towards the Bunker and the shoving the rest out of the way took a good half hour.

As I paused to assess the foot and a half cylinder of wood, I scratched my head as to how I would be able to split the thing lengthwise. Deciding there wasn't anything immediately clever I could do, I began to mark out the midpoint of the trunk. The process of raising my arm and dropping it onto the wood was even more monotonous than casting and waiting for my stomach to settle before casting again. Mid swing, however, inspiration struck.

With a plan formed, I finished marking a one inch groove down the length of the log. I called Danny over and she helped me twist and flip the log so that the groove faced towards the ground. Instead of watching my ingenious idea, she patted my shoulder and returned to Samuel. Huffing in indignation, but excited to see if my plan would work, I bound each end of the log with an X of stone spikes. No shoving or kicking or pushing caused the log to shift, pinned under the compacted earth. I hopped onto the uneven wooden surface and glared a hole onto the top. I visualized the groove hidden underneath and where it would exit on the other side. Then triggered .

The result was a bit more than I'd expected, but worked splendidly. The condensed earth shot out of the ground straight into the groove before pushing deep into the wood. The stone of the two bind points at either end groaned in protest, but held. The spike pierced through the wood, splitting one end in the process. It wasn't perfectly centered, but it would work. Waiting for my mana to regenerate, I marked the other side of the log with a shallow groove in the hopes of guiding the split as much as possible. Two more spikes and the log was snapped mostly in half. Breaking and rolling the stone spike bindings released the tree and it twanged mostly apart. A few hatchet strikes later and I had two halves.

Excitement built in me as I worked on the biggest thing anyone in the Wildwood had for decades. The wood shaping was harder than I expected, but the work had me gleefully attacking each half of the log. Before long, I'd carved two holes on one end of both logs, as well as two indents perpendicular to the length of the wood. Taking one of the thickest branches, I set it onto the indent across both halves and hammered it into place. Repeating the process with the other indent, the Bull Sled 1.0 was complete.

While Sam and Danny finished the bindings that would hopefully attach the bull to the sled, I did my best to smooth out the bottom and top surfaces. I'd deliberately picked the closest, modestly sized and least knotted tree around us, but it wasn't perfect. After some deliberation, and a delay on my friends’ side due to an overeager cow that ate some of their tomato supply, I added another two perpendicular supports for the sled.

I was all smiles as Danny arrived and tied up some cord to reinforce my work, before doing a complex knot to the front of the sled.

"Man, I guess I am glad you and Sam spent that summer learning how to tie knots. Who would have thought it would serve us well here," I said as I watched her work.

"Sam did. He'd used them several times with his dad to fix up stuff in the Greenhouse. Figured it would fill in gaps in our knowledge, should we need to move or secure stuff on the surface," Danny said, tugging on the single woven vine that secured the front of the sled. "This is a bale sling hitch, and hopefully will work as well horizontally as it's supposed to work vertically."

She continued to explain some of the other knots and weaves that they'd used to create the several foot long rope at her feet, but the terms and concepts flew over my head. She sighed in defeat and laid down on my rough handiwork. We watched the woods, listening to the occasional bird call and the wind shifting the leaves. The sweat covering us and the twinge of oppressive heat didn't bother us in the least. The space and freedom to do was reward enough to keep struggling for our little spot of land on the surface.

"You two gonna space out, or are we going to get us an alien rock?" Sam called out from behind us. He had the bull close in tow, a series of ropes tied to its head, horns and shoulders. My perception focused on the small red liquid dripping from its mouth, but that very perception allowed me to recognize it as tomato paste. With a jump in his step, Sam alternated between hitching the bull to the sled and feeding it a handful of tomatoes.

When the whole mess of wooden bars, metal clips and vine rope was complete, my friend nudged the bull in the rear. The cart took off after the bull and we all resisted the urge to cheer loudly. Sam had warned us it could spook the bull.

"Perfect! That's an amazing job you two!" I said, half whispering half shouting at my friends. Sam tried to glare for a second, but couldn't help the smile that worked its way to his face. Danny was the same. She adjusted herself on the sled, braced against one of the indents I'd carved, while Sam was at the head keeping the bull calm and guiding it. "Let's go get us a crystal!"