I slept poorly because of both visiting Sam and being in a tree. I kept worrying that I was going to fall out or that something would come along and try to eat me.

When I woke up, I was stiff and mad. I wasn’t one that tended to get songs stuck in my head throughout life. It didn’t happen much with me, likely because I couldn’t remember lyrics very well at all. But that morning, when I woke up, I did have something stuck in my head. Click… Click… Click… It almost sounded like I was still in that stupid office.

I was still not happy with the answer that I got from Sam. It was uncalled for to not fill in the implied question and only answer the explicit question. Sure, feed my necklace, whatever that meant. Yeah, I would end up asking him how to feed it. I’m sure his answer would be missing something, and then I’d get to ask him yet another question. He had the gall to say that I was wasting his time when he could’ve just answered my question directly the first time and not made me come back again.

“That man is as petty as me,” I grumbled as I was working my eyes open.

Yesterday I was tired all day, and then today, it seemed like I was tired again when I woke up. Granted, this was the second day in a row that I woke up after getting my butt kicked the day before. But, I was grateful to be alive but hurting now that I was moving.

I got out of the tree and headed home using my spear as a walking stick. I got nothing out of the fight yesterday as I was almost dead when it was over, and the dogs were gone now. So something had come at night and cleared them out. Which was, all things considered, kind of scary to think about.

When I got back, I was even more sore. My limping had made my back hurt and so climbing back up to my lean-to wasn’t easy at all. I spent the rest of the day recovering the best I could. Finally, I got washed off, and ate some of my meager supplies.

I was beaten and worn down. In the past few days since I came to this world, I had been attacked by giant bugs, dogs twice, and chased by a wolf that looked like it would fall apart. This place was a mess. Add to that, now I had this stupid click click click in my head all day.

The following day when I woke up, my leg felt better. My timer was down to one day, so I wasn’t too worried. There were things that I could do where I didn’t have to climb down. I had tools to make that just took time to do. First, though, It was time for me to have that egg that I found.

I pulled the egg out and set it by the stove, and started up my fire. The rocket stove didn’t take much time to heat up as it was a small, contained fire. As I reached for the egg to crack it, I saw that it moved on its own. It fell over, and then I heard it crack. I saw it shake again and a crack formed. My breakfast was hatching, and there wasn’t a thing I could do. I should’ve known that things were too easy when I found the egg.

I backed up a little to watch, not knowing what type of animal would come from an egg this big. But, heck, I had magic, so this could be anything… The egg rocked again, and then I saw a section of the egg break out.

“Please be a dragon I can tame.” I said with a smile. Then I got serious, “With my luck it’s a snake that will try to kill me.”

I reached over and grabbed my spear up. I needed to be ready. Then I saw a paw, no not a paw, a claw all scaly and sharp. It went back in, then a little snout with a huge tooth bashed the eggshell making more pieces fall out. I watched as my breakfast turned into a black, gray lizard about the size of a six-week-old kitten. It was all gooey and dripping with egg on it. It looked up at me, and I heard this cute little squeak like it was trying to bark or roar.

I heard a hiss from it, and it bit into its eggshell. So I sat down and watched for the next few minutes as I watched this little lizard eat its shell and then start to lick itself clean like you would see a cat do.

After about ten minutes, it stood on its own, turned towards me, and jumped. I fell back off the rock that I was sitting on as this cute little monster started to nip at me and try to crawl up. I couldn’t tell if it was attacking me or trying to get in my lap.

I stood up and took a step away, and it pounced on my foot, biting at my toes until I picked it up. I held it up at about head height with one hand in the middle of its belly and my pointer finger under its chin so that it couldn’t bite. The scales were surprisingly soft, almost like fur, and when I looked at its eyes, I saw that they were little bulbs on the side of its oversized head, each moving in different directions.

As I was looking at it, I noticed the black and gray scales were changing to match my tan arm and my brown fur tunic. The lizard turned its head slightly, and one eye looked at me and got bigger. Then the mouth turned to a smile, which I thought was both cute and odd.

It was a sly smile, almost smug like the little one knew some tremendous and funny secret. It then snapped its mouth open and licked my hand. Between that and the pop-up that jumped in my vision, I fumbled and dropped the lizard on the ground, where it hissed and pounced on my foot as a kitten would.

Ropola Hatchling has bonded with you.

Care for your bonded companion to increase bond level.

Bonded Stats added

“Hey!” I yelled as I jumped back with both feet. “That hurt!”

I looked down, and my big toe had blood coming out of it, and the ropola seemed ready to jump on me again. Once again, I picked it up, and this time I treated it like a kitten and started to pet its head. I sat back down on the rock and heard it start to purr just like a cat. I pulled or, more correctly, tried to pull up its stats but couldn’t, so I pulled mine and saw a tab for its stats, but it was grayed out. I also saw another pop up that showed up asking for a name for my bonded companion.

I looked back down at my new lizard and asked, “What should I name you, little one?” The lizard just looked at me, and slowly blinked its quarter-sized eye. It was one of those that took two seconds to close, held for half a second, and then it sighed at me before opening its eyes and looking back at me. I knew people who didn’t have as much sass in a blink as this little thing did.

I sat staring at the lizard’s eye and found that I was losing the staring contest for what felt like a good two minutes before it gave me yet another slow, petty blink.

“Well, that settles it,” I happily said. I smiled back at the lizard and filled in the name prompt.

“Your name is Blink!”

With that, I set Blink down and pulled out some smoked fish, and started eating and sharing. I also pulled up the now un-grayed (Stats: Blink) and was able to see Blink’s stats. It turns out that Blink is a she, I was glad I wasn’t calling her a fella… Also, she had skills to start with.

Level:0

——

Name: Blink

Race: Ropola* Female

HP: 6

SP: 36

MP: 20

Defense: 2

Ropola are large chameleon type lizard. The eyes of the Ropola are some of the best as they can match their skin to whatever they see or have seen. Ropola have body sacks that they can fill to make them appear bigger and a thick boned head.

*Bonded: As a Bonded Ropola Blink will be able to grow, level and change faster. As the bond deepens so do the benefits to both sides.

—

Strength: 8*

Dexterity: 6**

Intelligence: 4

Willpower: 12

Vigor: 12

Vitality: 6***

*Strength is relative to size. As Ropolas grow, the negative modifier will be removed for DMG. Until young adult size or level 15 is reached DMG is figured at half total round down.

** Dexterity is relative to size. For all movement, dexterity uses figure at three times normal. Once young adult size is reached all Movement Dexterity uses figure at two times normal.

*** Health is relative to size. Until young adult size or level 15, health points figured at half total rounded down.

—

Nature’s Gifts

Scales +2 Defense

Claws +1 Attack Slashing

Mouth +2 Attack Impaling

—

Natural Skills

Pounce 1

Stealth 1

Tracking 1

—

Skills

Pounce: The Hatchling at this stage acts like a cat and from a high place pounces. This attack is Weight Divided by five plus claw damage.

If done from surprise, it triples the damage.

Stealth: The Hatchling knows how to move without being seen or heard. As this develops, they will even be able to disappear when being looked at.

Tracking: This skill lets the hatchling track something. At low levels, tracking requires the proper area to track in and can easily be thrown off. At higher levels, the hatchling will know the tricks to hide tracks as well as see tracks. This skill will help to identify what is being tracked.

Having a day-old pet to care for set back my plans a bit. While I wanted to go out, I figured I could wait a few days and finish bonding with this little lizard. I also wanted to ensure that it got enough food to grow right. Young animals were often guarded by their parents, and while I wasn’t sure if this one would have been in the wild, I got to be with it now.

So I shifted gears from planning ongoing tracking to figuring things out and keeping an eye on a small lizard that thought my feet were the best thing in the world to play with. I wanted to get at least my morning routine in play as much as possible, even if I had a new pet and a limp. Working through everything with a limp was hard, but knowing how my body moved when messed up was good.

All things considered, my morning with my new pet went well. That being said, as I walked, Blink was always hunting my feet, and anytime I stopped, I’d hear the stupid tick of Sam’s clock. Except when she was tracking bugs, and other tiny things I didn’t even know were here with me.

She started hissing when I climbed down to the water level, and she walked back and forth until she made the jump and ran over to me. Then she saw the water, drank some, and played on the edge while I was getting my sweat on. Then, when I took my bath, she swam around next to me and even went under the water to come up with a fish about twice the size of her mouth.

She laid back out on a rock and sunned herself when it was lunchtime, so I got to eat in peace.

Since I wasn’t going far with Blink having just hatched today, I went back and fished for the rest of the day. I now had a growing lizard that wanted fresh fish and bugs. While she could catch everything herself, it would be better for the bond if I gave her food as much as I could. However, I figured that even with me hunting, she would turn out to be as smug about hunting as cats are and start to leave me gifts.

I chose not to ask Sam anything because I wanted to test out the theory that the time in his office didn’t count as rest for my mind. I was worried that not only was I getting bogus answers but that it was also impacting the way I functioned. I knew that I still could almost feel the tick of the clock as I lay down to sleep. Blink cuddled up on my chest once I settled down.

“Okay girl, I’m going to sleep now. See you in the morning,” I mumbled to my lizard.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Fitness Training (Level 6)

Tumbling (Level 4)

The second day after what was hopefully my last dog fight and my last time being half dead when I got home, I woke to my fingers being nibbled on by Blink.

“All right, All right, I’m up, girl.” I grumbled as I climbed out of my sleeping roll.

As soon as I was out, I looked around while my eyes adjusted to the morning light and my body to the slight chill. I heard Blink yip from inside my lean-to and saw that she was happily settling down in the warm spot I had just left.

“I guess pets are the same in every world. You get me out of bed just to steal my spot.”

Blink raised her head, looked at me, gave a slow deep blink, yipped, tucked her nose under her front leg, and promptly went to sleep.

I chuckled as I got my day going. “Okay girl, now that my debuffs are gone I need to find out what made that little spear.” I thought for a few moments and added, “Also we need to find a better way to the top of that cliff if I want to hunt.”

I grabbed my pack and spear and headed out with Blink still asleep. I would head to the top of the falls again to see what all I could figure from up there. Unfortunately, when I was last there, I had to fight and didn’t get a chance to poke around any.

Because I knew where I was going, I made quick work of getting down the river bank to the ascent. I had taken a look a couple of times on my way, looking for crossings and other ways up, and now I just moved.

When I got to the top, I saw that the Unnt herd was still there. It was good seeing them so peaceful. A peaceful herd tended to mean that there were no predators around. So as long as they were happy, I should be okay. The caveat to that, of course, were things that might attack me but not them.

I spent some time scouting the area. I was looking for signs of people or other tool makers. I couldn’t believe that the little spear had come from a human unless for a child, but even so, they seemed wrong. I felt like I needed to be more careful of the owner of that spear than most anything else.

After looking around, I started to try to figure out how to get things from up here down to my camp. It was about a 90-minute hike one way, and while that wasn’t awful with an empty pack, if I was trying to carry an Unnt back, it was going to be unfun.

I could drop almost everything down, but it was a fifty-foot fall. Which for an Unnt might break usable bones and ruin meat and skin things which I couldn’t afford to waste. So, I took my time trying to figure out a solution. It wouldn’t be easy, but I would build a sled to put an Unnt on, and then I would send it down the slope. If I could get about 150 feet of rope, life would be better, but as it is, this would have to do.

I knew that I didn’t have any vines back at my base, so I spent another hour getting vines. Finally, I took all of them and just dropped them off the edge of the cliff. Most of them hit the landing above mine, and some of them had just enough lift to make it to my landing. As I was looking out the cliff, I saw smoke. It looked like it was several miles away downstream and on the same side as I was on. Which was just a guess since the river could bend by the time I got that far.

I could see that it was more than one fire as there were at least three smoke trails. The smoke excited me.

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Where there’s fire there’s people… I hope.” I muttered.

I jogged the ridgeline back to my descent down and across the crevasse back past where I found Blink. Then when I got down to the river, I made the effort to do a full run back to my home. I had a plan for tomorrow now. I would scout out and see if I could find where the fires were.

I climbed back up and heard a very angry lizard. I left Blink this morning when I headed out since she was so small. What I hadn’t thought about was how she would feel being left behind. The noise that she was making when I got back up on the landing was kind of a hiss-yelp when she was looking at me.

Being that I was from the south, I knew what a full-blown conniption fit was, and she was having one in her cute little lizard body. When I bent down to pick her up, she swatted at me and then started to purr.

“It’s okay girl, I’m back. I didn’t think that you would like coming with me when I went out so I thought you would be happy here,” I cooed at her.

She started to rub her head against my beard and produce that odd purring sound that lizards can make when they are happy. So I sat down for a few minutes and started to pet her. After a little while, she hopped out of my lap and went over to the bowl that I carved out yesterday, and pushed her head on it.

“Okay, I’ll go get you water. Don’t know why you can’t get it yourself, the river is right over there.”

When I got back with her water, she started to drink as I started to gather the vines. I had to climb up to the next little section above me to get all of them. I then got all the nuts I’d dropped before, then gathered up and piled them in my shelter. I started my dinner fire going and then began to work on weaving the ropes.

I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I was hoping that survivalist would kick in or perhaps primitive tools, but I felt like both were laughing at me. So I stayed at it, remembering back to being a kid and making friendship bracelets and keychains. I was able to get a decent braid going. When I got close to the end of one of the four strands I was braiding, I tried to add in another line. It took me a good dozen tries before I realized that I needed to start my new piece sooner. I worked on braiding the rope until it was time to eat.

Once I’d finished eating, I washed up and got ready for bed. It had been a good day, and I was looking forward to seeing what skills I’d gotten. As I climbed into my bed, I felt something squishy in the middle of the fur. I sat up and reached down to discover that Blink had been truly good and mad and left a pile in my sleeping fur.

“Blink! You had the whole landing to use you and you used my bed!” I roared as I sat up, throwing my blanket off of me.

I ended up moving the whole fur out from under the lean-to, and then after washing up again, I headed to bed without anything to sleep on. I would have to clean my fur in the morning and take her with me when I left.

By your actions today

You have increased your level in

Hiking (level 3)

New knowledge has been granted to you!

Rope making (level 0)

Rope making, Grouping non-combative Craft:

Rope making is just that, making rope out of available lines or fibers. Higher levels require equipment. There are sub-skills.

The next day I got up early. Blink didn’t wake me up, but I was up just before the sun rose. My guess was it had something to do with the branch poking me in the face. I had to move the little lady off my chest where she was sleeping to get out of bed.

I packed my bag for a long day out and made sure to refill my water. I wasn’t sure where the path would take me, but I was convinced that I wanted to be ready. I took the time to pick up a coal from the banked fire. While I was expecting to be back that night, I wasn’t sure, so I needed to be ready for most anything.

What wasn’t fun was that I would need to leave my fur cloak/sleeping fur behind because I needed to clean it. I still wasn’t happy with Blink, and as the sun finished coming up, I found myself down at the river with sand and soap root, giving my furs a complete washing. I also was talking bad about my lizard because of the mess.

Once I was done there, I got my breakfast ready. As I started to eat the lizard Princess Blink, the bed pooper, came over and demanded food with a yowl.

I tossed her some of the geson we dried out, “Here you go princess bed pooper. Breakfast!”

She snapped the meat out of the air and then started to purr as she chewed up the tough meat.

“I’m heading down-river today to look at the fires I saw yesterday.” I said around a bite.

Blink pounced on my barefoot and took a nip at my ankle.

“Ouch!”

“We are going downriver today to look at the fires,” I corrected myself.

Soon we were both done, and I picked up the little kitten-sized lizard and stuffed her in my pack. She stuck her head out and chipped like she was the happiest and most proud lizard in the world.

“Up you go girl.”

I swung the pack up and on my shoulders. Then Blink let out her cute sweet hiss. When the backpack was settled, I felt her move around a little until she was both on the pack and my shoulder.

“Might be tough there, I’ve got to climb down.” I said as I cocked my head back toward the right to look right in her eye.

Then I headed over to the ladder. I dropped my spear down and climbed down, and then hopped down the last few feet to the rock and sand ground. It was time for us to find a fire. I would likely be back for a few things, but depending on the type of community, I thought I might be waving goodbye to the waterfall.

We made good time down the river to the ascent. I knew that it would be easier to see where I was going up higher, and I didn’t want to have to double back if the path ended down next to the river.

I hiked about two hours downriver when I came across the first signs of something else. I found a small green primate with a bright red mohawk, half a loincloth, and a broken spear lying next to the path I was on. The dead thing, which I guessed was a goblin, was no more than 2-feet-tall and so thin all its bones were showing.

I knelt down to get a closer look at it and saw that it had been gored by what looked like an Unnt horn. As I scanned my surroundings, I noticed that there were about ten of these dead guys. There were little spears littered all over the place and patches of mud to boot. As I was looking more closely at what I saw, I noticed that on the backs of several of these little guys, there were whip marks.

I wasn’t sure at this point where the rest of these guys went or if there were more. What I did know was that I needed to be careful. There was a wounded Unnt, and a race of little spear users that were close enough to hunt a Unnt.

My guess was that none of these guys weighed more than about thirty pounds. That meant that there would have to be a mess of them to carry back the 150 or so pounds of meat from an Unnt. With ten of them dead and cold, that meant that these guys had either completely lost or didn’t care about their dead.

I turned my head slightly and softly said, “Okay girl we are heading out of here. I have a bad feeling about following these guys right now.”

We took a bit longer getting back as I checked to see if I could find more signs of the green guys. Finally, we got back home just as the sun was starting to head down. I was glad to be home but also kind of sad that I was thinking of it as home. I wanted to be gone from this place and back to people.

That night I dreamed.