I was with the wild human men again. We were in a canyon with steep cliffs on both sides. The entrance was close by, I knew, but we couldn't see it from where we stood, nor could we be seen from past it. We each had our best spear and a club or hammer. There were more than just our small band like last time. It appeared there were hundreds of us all in fur with weapons. There was tension in the air, and you could almost smell the fear and anger. We were one big mass of men all watching the same spot. We waited for what seemed like hours for something or someone to cross through the opening.

I wasn't the first to notice, but when we did, we all gave up a shout. Marching into the canyon was a troop of men in metal armor. They didn't outnumber us, but each looked to be as strong as our strongest. We raised our spears and yelled at them, yet they still came. When they were about 50 feet from us, the ground fell out from under them as our traps gave way. Just under a third of the army fell into the pit.

From the back-line, balls of magic started to fly at us. Some were green and others blue. Where they landed, we were thrown into pain, yet we held. We advanced as a group and threw out our spears. Most just bounced off the armor of our foes. Our shamans were next sending magics of the land at them. Vines grew from where we planted them to tangle the feet of the invaders.

Then we rushed around to the right side of the traps. The army shifted to face us and locked their shields. We had thrown our spears, and now it was just us and our hammers and axes. We charged and yelled.

Our brothers showed up then from on top of the cliff. They announced they had joined the fight with rocks falling on the invaders. I was yelling as I reached the line of armored men. Stone hammer in hand, I pounded on the shields of those in front of me. It was the chaos of a fight, but it was the order of war.

The battle ended, and over half of us were dead. Most of us were wounded, but we had defended our pass. We kept the enemies out. They used weapons that I hadn't seen before, yet we broke them as we would a herd. We laid our traps and forced them to fight where we wanted.

I reached down and picked up from one of the invaders a metal axe and swung it. It made me happy to have something so strong to use. Those of us who lived took the armor and weapons of the dead. No longer would I fight in fur and with stone, but with metal. We had the shamans speak over their bodies, and then we burned them all.

I woke up grumbling, “That two bit jerk didn’t even bother answering my question! I never asked to be here, never asked for a class, never asked to be a wild human or an enchanter. He told me there was a problem and offered me a necklace that I don’t know what does and fails to show when I ask the questions he said I could. They should have just moved me to a city so that I could learn to read. Would have been better than being stuck out here.”

I got up and got moving for the day. I had things I needed to learn and this seemed like a much better spot than my last.

“No I know I am running to someone and not away puts things in perspective. I got to figure out how I’m going to travel and how I am going to get strong enough to make it somewhere else.” I muttered as I was looking around the landing.

The more that I got lined up and working better, the better off I’d be. The thing that kept early civilization down was the amount of time that people worked just to get food. If I had to be a hunter/gatherer, then I would have problems figuring out everything that was going on with me.

“So if I am going to figure out these skills and how this place works I can’t be traveling all day every day. Won’t have the time to do anything but find food and a place to sleep which means I will be at risk too much.” I sighed.

I shook my head and muttered. “I got too much to do and not enough hands. Shelter first and then food. Bet a lean-to is what I need to make… Once the lean-to is built something that could last longer even just a wall around it could help. Need to scout around for more people. I might be close enough to others that I could just go for help. Then again I could be in the middle of nowhere.”

I sighed hard and got to work. There was no since wasting daylight. I walked around giving the landing a better look over. I wanted to find at least two places to build a shelter. One for the lean-to and then someplace bigger that I could build a cabin if I needed to. If I was here more than a couple of months, then a cabin would be well worth the effort as it would raise my standard of living and provide more security. Security was the main thing I was after. With the close calls I had with nature so far, I wanted to have a good-fitting door with a heavy bar on it to keep snakes and dogs out.

After spending about an hour looking over my yard and seeing how it slopped, I found the spot that I wanted. I wanted to see if I could build a stone house right next to the rock face.

“This is the spot. Lean-to here and build a cabin around it. Don’t need the cabin if I leave soon but even here for a couple of months, it will be worth it.” I said as I used a stick to trace out where I was building.

The first thing I did was start gleaning all of the loose branches and other sticks that I could find. I picked the whole landing clear of anything longer than a foot. Then I followed that feeling I got when the skills kicked in started to select my poles for my verticals and my cross beams. Once I got those, I started on the hard work. I had to dig dirt by hand to set up my verticals. Getting those two posts in was hard work since just under the topsoil was lovely orange Georgia clay. That stuff was hard as a rock when dry and a mess to clean up.

Once I got those up and laid the cross beam on them, I started in with the other branches. This was the easy part, and it went like cake. I had a nice-looking bare wood lean-to which meant that it would do nothing for me. I then took my stone axe over to the fir tree and started cutting off short branches. After I had about twenty of them, I took them back and laid them down as the next layer. I put the cut-off end on top and used them much like shingles. After layering in the fir branches, I started to get as many arms full of leaves as I could. I started putting them on top of the branches and started to build a leaf pile like I’d jump in as a kid. It just had a shelter under the pile that looked bigger.

About lunchtime, I was happy with my shelter. I made the opening face the rock wall about six feet from it to the lean-to, which should give me room for a fire. The opening of my shelter was about five feet tall and about seven feet long. My sleeping and storage area tapered down and was about nine feet deep in the back. I spent most of the rest of the day clearing up my sleeping area, making it smooth and then building my bed. Then I set about getting stones for a fire ring. I had conflicting ideas on what to make. Part of me felt like the skill wanted me to just make a small ring to have an open fire in. The camper in me from when I was young was leaning toward trying to make a rocket stove out of rocks and clay. I ended up making both because I wanted the stove for cooking, and I wanted the fire for warmth.

As the sun set that day, I was, for the first time, truly happy. I watched the sun go down from the ledge of my cliff. It seemed to set right down the river valley. The rocks caught the light, and I saw reds and grays and every shade between. It was springtime, so I knew that soon the little green I saw would take over and hide most of the other colors. As odd as it sounded, I was happy that I was stuck here for whatever reason. I knew there were few people back home that would miss me. I knew the old saying about work that they don’t care when you leave. They just replace you. I figured that after being here a week or so, they would already have hired a replacement, and the machine would go on.

I walked over to my bed and laid down. Not sure what I’d get as far as skills today.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Survivalist (level 5)

That was a letdown. I spent all day working on my home and only got a level in survivalist. I also forgot to try again to ask Sam what this necklace did. I needed to try to remember to ask my questions each day.

The following day I got up knowing that I had more work cut out for me.

“Got to get all the balls rolling.” I said with a sigh. “I need to work on skills and make a hoe to get the garden started. Need to smoke up more fish as well so that I don’t have to fish everyday. Also I need to do those dumb exercise skills to reduce stamina use.”

After breakfast, which was the last of my fish, I built a smoking rack. Then I spent about an hour building a hoe and selecting where I wanted to have my garden. I wanted it near my lean-to and out of the footprint for my future stone house. It would be nearer the ledge so that it could get more light. It didn’t take me long to get everything planted. I even took loose stones and made a bed around it so that I’d remember not to walk there.

Next, I went fishing since I needed to get food. I spent a good three hours fishing on my level of the falls. I saw lots of fish, so I wasn’t worried about overfishing right now, but I also felt like I’d want to fish the lower levels more than this one. If something like the dogs came in again, I wanted to be able to hole up on my level and not have to worry for some time about food. That was part of the garden idea too, but mostly I wanted to see if I could get an easy food source for myself.

I took all of my fish back to the fire for smoking. All the guts I hoed under near the garden where I thought I’d expand towards. I even mixed in some leaves with it. I was hoping that since I was high up, I could start doing some direct composting and not worry about attracting unwanted scavengers.

After lunch, I got to work on building my first ladder. Since the cliff was a thirty-foot climb down to the next level, I knew I wasn’t making a full-height ladder. When I climbed up, I did so from one small level to the next. The biggest climb was about ten feet. I figured that If I took a thin tree and cut off the branches, I could make a usable stick ladder. It wouldn’t be the best, but it would be better than trying to climb everything freehand. The tree I selected was about four inches thick and ended up being about sixteen feet tall of useful height. I chopped off most of the branches, leaving about four inches sticking out from the ones I’d use to climb.

I used some of the vines that I still had to tie the top of the ladder to a tree where I wanted to climb down. I then lowered it down to the next level. I climbed down without the pole and worked on finding a good place to wedge into and not slide off. I then started up my new ladder. My vines kept it from sliding. I didn’t like that by too far, I meant that it didn’t drop me off the side, but I ended up being supported only by the vine by the time I got to the top.

I took it as a good sign that the vines were strong, but I didn’t want to tighten it up since I wanted to use the vine to pull the ladder up to make this more secure. I got out the stone hammer and started work on the ledge. I wasn’t sure how long I swung the hammer, but it was a while before I got the notch in the ledge where I wanted it. I settled the ladder back into the notch at the top. It now sat about two-thirds of the way into the cliff face.

I smiled while looking down the ladder, “That’ll hold.”

Then I went up the ten feet to the next level above my basecamp to look around. This level had less growth and looked more like a stone outcropping. There were a few trees on the slope side, but once again, the slope didn’t make contact with the ledge. I found lots of nuts from the few trees up there so tossed them over near the lean-to so I could gather them later.

I looked up at the 50-foot section of the falls. “Got to figure out a way up that cliff. Would be funny if there was a road up there I didn’t find…”

I then spent the rest of the day moving two-handed stones from the river over to my future home. It was tiring and horrid but also fun. I was starting to build a house. I got the outline of what I wanted laid out. It would be one room that backed right up to the cliff with a door that opened toward the waterfall. I’d then walk out from that door and be about six feet from the large rock that fell. I’d thought about using that rock as part of my home, but right next to it was a tree, so I didn’t want to go about removing roots since that was hard on Earth.

Before the sun went behind the waterfall, I took a bath and then yelled, “Oh great and mighty Sam, I Arn have a question for you! What does this necklace you gave me do?” I then went and cooked up some of the potatoes and onions to have with my smoked fish. It wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Primitive tools (level 5)

Climbing (level 6)

Spear fishing (Level 3)

New knowledge has been granted to you!

Stone construction (Level 0)

Stone Construction, Grouping non-combative Craft:

Stone Construction is the set of skills needed to build using stone. Low levels let you build low walls using uncut stone. As your skill level progresses, so does your wall height. This skill also teaches you how to make mortar based on what you have nearby and your other knowledge.

This day had gone well. Everything was working, and nothing was trying to mess with me. I even remembered to ask Sam my question. I was sure that everything had taken a turn for the better. As I was drifting off, I heard the baying of dogs not far away.

I woke up mad!

“I was to be compensated for rules that I didn’t know about but that hadn’t been followed, and every time I tried to ask that two-bit low-life used car scam artist a question, he didn’t show up! I bet this necklace wouldn’t do anything either.” I grumbled out while I started my day.

I ate and then started to get worried about the dogs. They were close enough that I could hear them. I didn’t know if they were looking for me or just letting the world know they were there. I was worried about my life again.

I needed to get better at fighting, and I needed to figure out a way to be safe. The most pressing worry was safety. The tier of the cliffs and waterfall I was on was inaccessible without climbing.

On the far side of the river was a rock face that went all the way to the top of the falls and then some. It meant that I wasn’t worried about the dogs crossing on my level. However, the valley through this part was a very narrow canyon. If the dogs came, they would have to come up my side of the river.

Feeling more secure in my immediate surroundings, I prepared for another fight. I went down to the waterfall level and cleared out a spot that was about 15 feet by 15 feet. I made sure there were no rocks on the ground. There was just the fine gravel and sand and some weeds.

“Let’s see what I can remember from training…” I said.

Then I sat down and started to stretch like I used to do at the start of every Tae-Kwon-Do class I’d ever taken. After about fifteen minutes of warm-up, I started to go over all of my stances and strikes. I worked through standing still and striking and kicking to one and then three-step sparring drills. I started practicing all the forms that I could remember. Some of them felt great but most felt like I had a ton of rust on my body and my brain. Next, I felt my way through some of the katas that I could remember, and finally, felt the skill kick in and kind of remind me of the next move.

After I went through all twenty forms that I had learned for my rank, I started to work through the ones I had studied to help with aspects of my training. I went through my hard breathing katas and my focusing katas. I took the time out from training to run back to my camp and get both my spear and staff and came back. I ran through the two katas I knew with the staff and went through the strikes that I knew. I then changed over to my stone-tipped spear and worked the same katas trying to change them to work with the spear’s point.

After working through my katas, I started to work on falling and rolling. It had been a while, so it hurt as I threw myself onto the ground over and over, but I remembered that this was how you trained. So I spent about two hours working on training my combat skills. I then went and took a nice cold soak in the deep water and got clean.

After my soak, I took my weapons back to camp and moved more rocks. Next, I worked on making the outside walls around my cabin two stones deep. After I got the second row filled in, it was off to fire harden the spikes that I had made when I first thought about Unnt trapping. When I finished with the spikes, I took the time to eat and think.

“Gotta keep pushing or this will never work. This place is nice right now but the world is more dangerous than I am use to. So I can’t relax too much or I am going to die,” I said under my breath.

I pulled up my info again because the last time I looked at it was right as I was sleeping. I wanted to see how my leveling had been going, and I needed to see if other changes had happened. It would be good to stay on top of things more than just seeing the updates as I drifted off to sleep. Honestly, it would be nice if I could change it to show the updates when they happen or when I woke up. At this point, I didn’t know if I got the skill raise when I practiced enough or when I went to sleep.

Level:0

——

Name: Arn

Race: Wild Human

HP: 20

SP:30

MP:40

Defense:1

—-

Primary Class: Enchanter*

Secondary Class: Linguist* (Ancient Languages)

—

Strength: 14*

Dexterity: 12*

Intelligence: 8

Willpower: 9

Vigor: 10

Vitality: 10

*Wild Humans have a plus 3 to strength

*Wild Humans have a plus 2 to dexterity

*Wild Humans have a plus 2 to all survivalist and warrior class skills

*Wild Humans have a negative 3 to all Language skills and can not start as the linguist class

*Wild Humans have a negative 1 to all Magic class skills due to low intelligence and cannot start as a enchanter class because of linguist issues

*Wild Humans all start out illiterate

—

Racial skills

Spear 6**

Survivalist 5**

Tracking 3**

Primary Class

Enchanting 1

Script* NA

Ink Making 1

Etching 1

Power Imbuing 1

Socketing 1

Secondary Class

Ancient Languages* NA

Non class skills

Hiking** 2

Climbing** 5

Primitive tool** 5

Natural Shelter** 2

Spear Fishing 3

Primitive cooking 4

Herbalism 0

Stone Knapping 1

Staff 4

Taekwondo 10

Running 3

Stone Construction 0

Snake handling 0

*Due to Wild Human starting restrictions of being illiterate this skill can not advance until Intelligence is higher than 12

** Racial Bonus for Wild Human, affect levels of all Survivalist class and warrior class skills plus 2

Spell/Level/Mana cost/ Cast time

Communication spells

Beseech a greater knowledge** 1/50/45 seconds

**Once per day powered by sunlight

As I scanned my full stats, I noticed something. Sitting right there was the reason that Sam wasn’t answering me. He had told me that he would make this a spell, but I forgot it with everything else.

I started to think back on my interaction with him, and it didn’t make sense to me. Part of it was that I didn’t press for more information and then part of it was that things were kind of blurry. I was starting to think that some of my interactions with this guy would always get messed up.

“Now I just had to figure out how to use the dumb thing,” I grumbled.

I spent a while doing mental leaps to get the spell description to come up as I did for skills. I knew it was a spell, and it showed up much like a skill did. I knew that skills influenced me to make the correct action, but I wasn’t sure what all they did, and I’d only rarely been able to help a skill influence me. I was still unsure how to activate a skill to make it do all of the work.

I mumbled a bit as I was watching the waterfall, “skills work beside what I’m doing, showing me what I need to do. But they only do that while I am doing the thing. No climbing skill active while fishing and stuff like that. So I got to get my butt into the sun and act like I’m going to cast a spell. Then it should work.”

So I went out to my clearing near my garden in full sun since the spell said it needed the sun and started thinking about casting. I intended to use the spell beseech a greater knowledge. I felt my mouth begin to move on its own like I sometimes would with the spear. Then I felt my arms shoot up over my head like I was calling at touch down. My head looked up at the sky, and I started to yell as I also saw my vision start to close in around like I was blacking out.

“Oh great and mighty greeter Sam, I the lowly Arn beseech you to answer my question,” I yelled. “What does this necklace do?”

With that, my knees went out from under me, and I fell face-first into the ground.

I woke up with a headache, a bruised face, and a little blood running down my face. I went over to the river, splashed water on my face, and cleaned off the dirt. Then I went back to my fire and sat on a rock close by and waited for my face to clear up. About five minutes later, I was up and moving again, and the headache wasn't trying to keep me from seeing.

I noticed that in the top right of my vision, where the green bar sometimes showed up, was a blue dot in an empty bar. Along with the green bar showing just a sliver missing.

“Blue bar must be mana and I only got forty so using fifty bottomed me out. Health loss too. Either from mana over use or from kissing the ground.” I said while holding my sore head.

One odd thing that I'd noticed about all of this world was that I was taking it, for the most part, in stride. I doubted that many people would happily go along with being thrust into another world and or into the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing. Well, nothing of the modern world, not even a folding knife.

Once I got my head screwed on straight again, I grabbed my stone spear, water, and empty backpack and started down to the bottom of the falls. I had some exploring that I needed to do to see what was around, and I had about five hours of light left. So, I should be able to do about three hours in a half-circle and see what I could find. I knew that going up would likely be a challenge this close to the falls, but further out, I might find something that would let me ascend.