Fresh Blood

by Jessica Hicks

  Felix selected the knife and hit craft. Rather than a green outline, the screen flipped to one that was nearly identical to his inventory. Instead of item descriptions, however, the knife recipe took up the right side.

  Beside the each requirement for haft, binding and sharpenable, was the familiar empty box. He mentally selected the branch, vine and stone, then confirmed his selections. As soon as he did, the vine Felix was still holding in his hand simply faded away, as did some of the weight off his back. A moment later, Felix was holding a brand new knife. Neat.

  He looked over the knife. It had a rough, tapered blade that was about as long as Felix’s hand. Near the end, thin strips of vine were braided together. They began toward the end of the stone blade and continued over a wooden handle.

  The stone was sharpened into something approaching an edge. The stone was likely not suited to a finer point. Felix carefully tested the give on the handle. It didn’t immediately break, so all in all, it was much like the desk. It was both garbage and also much, much better than anything he could do.

  “Found it!” called Koale.

  Felix stepped outside and looked down the ridge. Koale was several yards down the ridgeline. “Found what?”

  Koale pointed to the spot where he stood. “This is where the research disappears.” He started walking back towards Felix. “It’s very interesting. Given your inability to make a knife, and my own ability to do so, I figured there must be a falloff point. Our access must be tied to a proximity to the desk, and that is the point which is too far.”

  “So, does this change anything?”

  “No, not as such. These things,” Koale patted the back of his neck, “are simply fascinating. I’ll have to more testing.” Koale wandered back to the cave, muttering to himself, his eyes focused on nothing in particular.

  “Whoa there buddy,” Felix said, waving a hand in from of Koale’s face. “Forget something? We’ve got a lot to do yet if you want to eat tomorrow. At least, eat anything beside those rations.”

  Koale blinked. “Oh, yes, absolutely. Vines, branches and stones, yes?”

  Without waiting for answer, Koale headed towards the vines and started hacking. He was still clearly in his own world, but it would probably be okay.

  Felix decided he best pick out the sticks and rocks. He’d check on Koale’s progress after he picked up a dozen or so, and then he could put out snares.

  While gathering he tried to find good places to put the snares after they were completed. He wasn’t really sure what a good spot looked like however. He supposed the obvious answer was, “where the creatures will be.” Where that was though, he hadn’t a clue.

  He decided to make a snare to see what it looked like, hoping that would help. Plus it would let him check in on Koale, make sure he didn’t get eaten by something while he had his head in the clouds.

  Felix took out his new knife. Time to see if a nicer look was worth the effort. He had one hand on the vine to steady it, and the knife in the other. It cut through with much less effort than before. Felix grinned. It was no Vorpolade, but it would do.

  As the first end of the vine was severed, Felix felt something ooze onto his hand. He looked over and saw a translucent green blob still halfway on the vine. It writhed further up his hand.

  And then it started to burn. It stung like the start of a sunburn.

  Felix shook his hand wildly, trying to fling the thing away. All me managed to do is pry the mass from the vine and plop it onto his wrist.

  Panic rising, Felix rushed to the tree, trying to wipe it off on the bark. The creature? The whatever it was did not come off. The burning was getting worse. Felix bolted back to the cave for the second time that day.

  “Help!” he called. “Get. It. Off. Me!”

  Koale ran to the cave in time to see Felix come bounding up, arm outstretched, with a green lump over his hand. Felix waved the appendage in Koale’s face. “Get it off. Get it off. Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!”

  The burn was adding an edge to Felix’s voice and tears to his eyes. Koale grabbed a branch and tried to scrape the thing off. With the two of them working together, they managed to pull it back some.

  Where it had been was an angry red. Blisters were already beginning to form. Koale took out one of the water bottles and poured it on the wound, hoping to flush the chemicals from the skin before they did more damage.

  Felix screamed when the cool water hit his skin. More interestingly, the slime slipped off Felix’s hand where the water hit. Encouraged, Koale dumped more until it lay in a quivering puddle on the ground.

  Koale thoughtfully poked it with a stick. The slime stuck to it, and Koale smiled. He turned to go inside.

  “Nope,” said Felix, “Just nope.”

  “With acid like that, it could make for a marvelous-”

  “Nope.” With that, Felix grabbed the stick and flung it into the forest. He walked in, cradling his wounded hand, and heading to the medkit.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Felix walked to the back of the cave and shoved his hand at the auto diagnosis for the medkit and let it do its thing.

  While he waited he pulled out all the branches and stones he gathered earlier. No vines, of course. He had gotten rather suddenly distracted there.

  Koale came in looked at the medkit. “Your hand okay?”

  “I’m sure it will be. That acid was no joke though. Another minute or two, and I might not have a hand anymore.”

  The medkit beeped. Chemical burn, but not too bad. The kit treated and wrapped his hand.

  He pulled his hand away and examined the binding. Neatly bandaged and thankfully numbed. They would be in a world of hurt, literally, when the kit ran out of supplies.

  Medical needs addressed, Koale picked up the goods Felix had dropped. He looked at the numbers and said, “Looks like we can do three snares, a spear each and one set of tools. Objections?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  A spear popped into existence in Koale’s claws, followed by a second shortly after. Felix put the snare in his inventory and grabbed the proffered weapon.

  It used to the same base materials that their handcrafted attempts had used, and that is where the similarities ended. Their spears had stones set beside the branch. They were held together by roughly cut vine stripes wrapped haphazardly. The stones themselves were just broken rock that held something resembling an edge.

  In comparison, these new ones had spearheads that were actually shaped into a point. There was a small groove on either edge near the base. Thin, even vine strips crossed in an “X” over the end of the spearhead and then twined around the haft. There was even a notch where the spearhead nestled into the haft.

  Felix bet he could throw this thing at a tree critter without it breaking. He doubted he could aim well enough to hit it, but small progress.

  The snares finished crafting shortly after, and Koale offered one to Felix. It had two horizontal sticks set in parallel. Between them were two more sticks at an angle, forming a triangle. A small hoop made of vine hung in the triangle, and more vine secured all the intersection points together. It looked much different than he pictured.

  “I kind of expected one of those boxes held up on a stick like those old cartoons,” he said.

  Koale shrugged. “At least they’ll stand up on their own? I would assume we brace them up somewhere the critters will already be headed?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. You get to skin our catch this time though. It was weird, and I think that scientist head of yours will find it fascinating.”

  While Koale made up the rest of the tools, Felix checked on the research.

  As he turned to the desk, his head spun. He stumbled at the sudden vertigo. He sat on the stone seat by the desk. After a moment, his vision cleared.

  “Hey Koale, would mind setting up the snares? I think the medkit gave me some sedative, and I’m not sure I can make it now.”

  “Sure. But, are you sure it was the medkit an
d not the slime?”

  Felix thought it over. “If it was the slime, it wouldn’t have hurt so much when it tried to eat my hand. I’m sure it’ll wear off in a few hours. Sooner if we are lucky. Either way, the snares need setting so we don’t have to break into the ration bars.”

  Koale collected the snare from Felix and turned to the exit. “Wait,” Felix called. “Before you go, one more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “I need the wood you got earlier,” said Felix with a nod toward the nearly completed research desk.

  “Wood? I was working on vines. We didn’t need wood for anything we made thus far.”

  Felix raised an eyebrow.

  Koale grinned, and a log materialized in his hand. He tossed it at Felix. “Be back soon.”

  The research desk showed progress on the leaves at 96%. Whatever the medkit gave him had Felix yawning and wanting nothing more than to take a nap, but he had to wait until he could start the next project at least. Time passed in a half-awake daze. When the leaves finished, Felix tossed the log on. He laid down next to Liz for a nap, not even bothering to check the results of the research.

  Some time later, Koale shook him awake. “I see, leaving me to work while you take a nap, eh?”

  Felix sat up, careful not to squish the baby lizard who was now awake and crawling over him. “This, coming from someone who slept through half our first day.”

  Koale held up his hands in mock surrender at the shot. “Snares up. I’d like to say I found good spots for them, but quite frankly, we’ll have to see. I can say that I am reasonably sure I can find them again.”

  Felix hadn’t considered that last part. What a waste it would be to catch something and never find it.

  Koale spoke again, “I was looking over the new research before I woke you. It looks like leaves are considered foliage.”

  “You don’t say,” said Felix.

  “Shocking, I know, but that is what we need to convert the nets into camo nets. I was thinking we could make one or two and hang them outside the entrance to hide this place.”

  “Can’t hurt, right? I’d rather something defensible, but I’ll take what we can get.”

  “The downside is we’ll have to gather quite a few of the vines.” Felix made a face and Koale continued, “We know the slimes are there now. We can avoid them. We’ll also need a bunch more leaves unless you want to cannibalize your nest.”

  “It’s a bed.”

  “Whatever you say. More leaves than?”

  “Absolutely. Mind if I grab those first?”

  “You can push off risking hand and soul if you like.”

  Pegged, Felix shrugged. He felt better after the nap, but he’d like to put off the possibility of another encounter for as long as he could.

  He held out an arm and Liz climbed up. She settled onto his shoulder. Felix fed her a chunk of meat as he walked.

  Once outside, Koale went straight to cutting vines. They had cut enough now that he had to go further afield. There was still plenty around, but the ones immediately at their shelter were gone. Something to keep in mind.

  As for Felix, he headed out along the cliff. Opposite the direction he had when he was attacked earlier. He told himself it was because he had already swept for goods that way earlier.

  He was tasked with gathering leaves, but he picked up any good sticks and stones he found. He knew the recipes well enough to know they would need plenty of both.

  Liz was growing on him quickly. She didn't help at all, but her excited scampering back and forth across his back and shoulders made the labour less of a drudge.

  All too soon Felix had too many leaves to pretend he was still being productive. He headed back towards the shelter, but this time, he examined the vines as he passed. It wasn’t long before he saw a slime.

  If he hadn’t been looking for it, he wouldn’t have seen this one at all. It coated a section of vine about a foot long. The menace spread thin enough that it was hardly thicker than the rest of the plant. The coloring was nearly the same as well. In fact, the only thing that gave it away was a faint glisten.

  He saw two more creatures before he reached his intended harvesting spot. He sighed and tried to steel himself. The things were clearly not aggressive, or they would have made their presence known when they first arrived.

  He would be fine if he was careful. He scrutinized the area and, finding nothing, got to work. Sooner started, sooner done.

  He gathered a dozen and headed back to the cave. The recipe didn’t specify how many they needed, reading only ‘variable’, and he wanted to turn them into ropes before using them in the net which had another ‘variable’ cost.

  Koale came in shortly after with another two dozen. He dropped them to the floor and rolled his shoulders. “I am not looking forward to gathering more of those large stones, overly much.”

  “That had crossed my mind,” said Felix. “There has got to be an easier way.” His mind drifted to his pallets of samples, and the hand forklifts they used to move them. He made a mental note to continue that line of thought later.

  For now, “I was thinking of turning these into ropes before we make the nets. Thoughts?”

  “The system produces better results than we do. That would give it two steps to work its magic.”

  Felix opened the craft menu and selected the rope recipe. For the fibrous option, he dropped in the vines. Once it had been selected, ‘variable’ was replaced with ‘x2’. Felix completed that one and made five more.

  He examined the first one when it appeared. The vines had been cut into thin strips and woven together. It was green, and it was slightly sticky, but it was rope.

  Once all six had completed, he selected the net recipe. A green outline of a net appeared on the floor. Unlike the desk, when Felix focused on a wall, it clung vertically to it.

  Outside, Felix positioned the net plan to connect just over the crevice leading inside. He placed another beside it to obscure the whole area.

  Felix put a rope into one of the outlines. A coiled rope appeared at the foot. The text changed to read “Rope, 1/9”. It would take almost the entire haul just to make two nets. He dropped his other five in and put in a leaf. It was going to take twenty. Per net. Felix was two short.

  This would be the worst part. He put the remaining leaves into the nets, which appeared neatly stacked next to the vines. He then walked into the cave, plucked two leaves from the bed with an exaggerated care. Koale watched the whole procedure with a look of mock horror on his face.

  Felix met Koale’s eyes and dropped the last two leaves in. “It’s for the greater good,” he said, keeping a straight face.

  “Your sacrifice will be remembered throughout the ages,” said Koale.

  Felix turned to examine what his sacrifice had wrought. It provoked mixed feelings. On one hand, the nets were rather well made. Tight knots held the ropes together and clever work with the leaves kept them both secured admirably and maintained excellent coverage of the net.

  On the other hand, it was clearly a large rectangle of tree leaves on a patch of otherwise bare cliff face. Rolling a red carpet might have been a little more conspicuous than what they had managed, but Felix was not sure.

  The chuckle died on his lips and he grimaced. Felix wasn’t sure what he expected, but this is not it. He turned to Koale, “Is that worse?”

  After a long, thoughtful pause, Koale said, “I don’t think so. I doubt it helps any either though.”

  With that, they stopped for dinner. They were out of meat, much to Liz's dismay. They broke into the ration bars with a side of waterfruit. Liz nibbled at Felix with notable disdain.

  While they ate, the research on the log finished.

  Log

  Researched Tiers: I

  Properties: Wood, medium; Structural;

  Traits: Unknown

  With it, they now had recipes for a number of constructions, ranging from walls to ceilings to staircases. They could build simple furnitur
e, and, interestingly enough, shields.

  Between Felix’s injury and the lacklustre camo nets, they decided to wait another day before beginning the trek to the pod. It would give them a chance to build up some walls that might actually help, unlike the new netting.

  They could also build a second set of tools and check the snares. Felix hoped they caught something. The thought of fresh meat, properly cooked on a rotisserie made his mouth water.

  They were on the verge of half decent living. A few more days and they might even have this place built up to a respectable level of comfort.

  Plans finalized, Koale headed out with the axe to gather more logs, and some vines for their construction plans. Felix went inside and crouched near the fire. He pulled up the rotisserie and positioned the outline over the fire. Maybe it was optimistic, but he thought he’d be using this thing in the morning. He piled in the required six branches, and a vine. He had thought about using rope instead, but he only had one vine and didn’t want to wait for another.

  The spit was simple enough when completed. It had two triangle braces on either end of the fire with one long stick in-between where the meat would go. There was a handle to allow easier turning while cooking, but that was it as far as frills. Overall, it was a far cry from Koale’s proposed triple pronged rotisserie, and Felix figured that was for the best.

  That done, Felix turned to the empty research desk. They had a few things they hadn’t researched yet, but Felix was leaning towards one of the giant cave gecko by products- specifically the hide or bones. The more useful of the two would be the hide, but the research consumed what it studied, and they only had one hide. Bones didn’t seem particularly useful, but they had several of those at least. He mulled it over and tossed in the hide on the off chance they would have more hide soon, and that it would be compatible enough research to be useful.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Felix opened his crafting menu and examined the new options. He passed over the furniture options. As nice as an actual bed would be, it was too much work without enough return for now. The same with chairs and tables. It would be nice to get off the ground, but he didn't think whatever had silenced the forest the previous night would spare them because of functional decor.