NESCraft II Day Six
"These hills are sandy. Trees are dwarfed here. Crows
Caw dismally in skies of an arid brilliance,
Complain in dusty pine-trees. Yellow daybreak
Lights on the long brown slopes a frost-like dew,
Dew as heavy as rain; the rabbit tracks
Show sharply in it, as they might in snow.
But it’s soon gone in the sun—what good does it do?"
- Conrad Aiken
Daftpanzer
You wake early and finish the last of your fish. You then begin your hike, foraging as you go. The foraging takes you along the river and marshier areas where you find small snails and edible berries enough to fill your stomach. Its also where you stumble into the territory of a herd of large grey hippos bathing in the muddy waters. One charges you, moving surprisingly quickly. You have no choice but to launch your spear and it strikes it in the shoulder, glancing off its thick hide and landing amid the reeds. None-the-less, it buys you the time you need and you run away as fast as you can, heading south as you do. Panting and out of breath you look around and realize the sun is setting.
You pull your blanket around your shoulders and settle into the shadow of an abandoned termite mouth, glad to be away from the dangerous hippos.
Daftpanzer
Traits: Ranger
Status: Healthy. Well-fed (+1AP), Rested.
Action Points: 4
Inventory: woven grass blanket (moderate quality, poor durability), silk thread (1)
Stashed Nearby: raw veggies (1)
Decamper
Morning comes and you are hungry, tired, and have a splitting head-ache. Its all you can do to commune with the spirits of the totem and immerse yourself in the calming magics of the earth and its plants before you slip into much needed sleep.
During the late afternoon, as you lay dozing, you hear a thrashing and splashing nearby and notice the tiger from the southern areas has returned and seems to be hunting crocodiles in the shallows nearby. You wave your pick-ax at it and shout angrily and it runs off. Investigating the scene you find a small dead crocodile, and drag it back to your camp before falling back asleep.
Decamper
Traits: Spiritual
Status: Healthy. Hungry (-1AP). Rested. Warm.
Action Points: 2
Inventory: Stone Pickax (poor quality, poor durability)
Stashed Nearby: Rose Quartz WIllow (basic totem: 1 mana). Alligator meat (1). Alligator hide (very poor quality, very poor durability), Salt (1)
Mana: 1
Karma: 1
Everblack
You awaken to the chittering of monkeys nearby. The creatures seem very curious of you and as you set about cutting and braiding long grass to make string, weaving grass to make a thatch cover and gathering long branches to form the frame of a tipi, they follow you closely. In your mind's eye you can easily imagine them sneaking past your guard as you work and stealing your atlatl but despite the realism of this short-lived vision you realize that while you were day-dreaming they did sneak past your guard, but instead of taking your atlatl, they take your deer antlers and bones, waving them at you from nearby treetops.
As the sun sets your tipi comes together nicely, the thatch cover woven tightly and tied down securely and while the materials are perhaps somewhat fragile, the construction is solid and promises to keep you from the wind and any rain.
You roast and eat the last of the deer meat, curl up in your deer furs near the fire, and feel well-nourished and well-rested when the sun rises in the morning.
Everblack
Traits: Ranger, Stalker
Status: Healthy. Well-nourished (+1 AP). Well-Rested (+1 AP)
Action Points: 5
Inventory: Atlatl (poor quality, poor durability), Spear (Poor quality, Poor durability), Cured Deer Hide (moderate quality, poor durability)
Stashed Nearby: Tipi (good quality, poor durability)
Karma: 1
Everblack, I realize i accelerated your orders a bit but there are certain balance elements I wanted to maintain that meant the tipi finished with regular sticks instead of timber. If you wanted a log cabin, then things would have been different.
J.K. Stockholme
You begin the day by foraging from the local trees, feeling somewhat safer when you find that the giant crabs seem to have moved on during the night. The fruit is plentiful but largely unripe and you find only relatively few that you trust to eat. Your stomach full, but aching, you turn to building a fire, using the tarry-soup bubbling at the heart of the island and finding the substance accelerates the fire considerably. You next turn to building torches, wrapping tar-soaked grasses and dried seaweed around stout branches.
As the sun sets, you rest your head, happy with the the path to recovery you have begun to take.
You feel that all your efforts to build various tools and exploring the use of new substances has provided you with valuable experiences you might apply in future crafting.
J.K. Stockholme
Traits: Waterborn, Crafty
Status: Crushed shoulder (malus to any action requiring two hands). Healthy. Nourished. Rested
Action Points: 3
Inventory: Spear (poor quality, poor durability), Stone ax (moderate quality, poor durability)
Stashed Nearby: Torches (3)
Karma: 1
Kyzarc Fotjage
Tired to the point of collapse, your wound aching painfully, you can do little more than throw all the sticks you can find on the fire before curling up in your wooly sheep's furs and letting sleep overtake you. You wake frequently, aware of animals moving about and as the sun sets you see the fire's light reflected and shining in the beyond, threatening you with their mystery and unknown. Driven by your explorer's nature, you grab your spear to investigate what you might find, and instead of a pair of eyes you find an outcropping of stone veined with a yellow metal reflecting the fire's light from under a pile of leafs.
You uncover the leafs and find a thick vein of yellowish metal winking in the fire's light. Whatever this material, it may offer new opportunities; potentially it might be a valuable metal from which you might build potent tools.
You return to your fire, eager to continue your rest but notice that there are more reflections in the dark than just the yellow stone. Lazy snarling suggests something large watches you from beyond the fire's light.
Kyzarc Fotjage
Traits: Explorer
Status: Gut wound (malus to movement, all tasks involving strength or lifting, slowly healing). Hungry (-1AP). Rested.
Action Points: 2
Inventory: Bone spear (poor quality, poor durability), Stone tools (moderate quality, poor durability), Cured wooly sheep hide (poor quality, poor durability)
Stashed Nearby: Nothing.
LordArgon
Tired and without rest, your head splitting, you turn your efforts to building yourself protection from the sun, a hut of sorts from string and timber you have collected in days past. But your exhaustion and illness stop you frequently and you throw up what little water you take on several occasions. As the sun sets you cannot even see straight and looking around you find only a pile of debris and vomit. Tired, exasperated, and frustrated, you finally let sleep overtake you.
Your rest is deep and you awake with the dawn, feeling much stronger and rested, though hungry. What is less promising is the females of a pride of lion that seem to be watching you with hungry curiosity.
LordArgon
Traits: Crafty
Status: Healthy. Hungry (-1AP). Rested. Warm.
Action Points: 2
Inventory: Stone axe (poor quality, poor durability), Sling (moderate quality, poor durability), Lizard skin satchel (+2 inventory, moderate quality, moderate durability)
Stashed Nearby: String (1), Lizard skin, Timber (1)
Lord Herobrine
Sick from heat exhaustion, hallucinating from exhaustion and lack of rest, you turn your efforts to setting a fire that you might cook the striped animals meat up but as you begin rubbing sticks together you find your mind wandering widely and you stop frequently to drink water only to throw it up shortly afterwards. At some point you awaken, the sun rising, not sure when you fell asleep, the day promising to be better as your head feels clearer and you can think clearly.
Lord_Herobrine
Traits: Ranger
Status: Nourished. Rested. Hot.
Action Points: 3
Inventory: Stone spear with prickly cactus spines (poor quality, poor durability)
Stashed Nearby: Rotting zebra meat (1), Zebra bones
Karma: 1
Marcher Jovian
You begin the day with a breakfast of day old forage and then set about to look for medical herbs that might serve you if you ever are wounded again and have some luck finding willow bark, ginger root, and goldenseal. These you set to drying for preparation in future poultices. Next you focus on on building the tools you will need to better coax sustenance from the swampy land, successfully crafting a hoe you can use in future days for gardening or related activities.
You return to your camp by the lake and wake suddenly as you feel something wet on your hip where once you were badly wounded by a leopard only to look directly into the eyes of the same leopard, its eyes bright and yellow-green in the moonlight and only feet from you. You scream in absolute terror and surprise and it perhaps surprised itself, turns and runs into the night. Your hip is wet where it was licking you and the whole experience has left you feeling exposed and vulnerable.
As the sun rises, you note that the leopard does not seem to be done with you, watching you from the jungle without attempting to hide itself.
Your craft of herbs and green things is improving as you explore new applications of your knowledge.
Marcher Jovian
Traits: Leafy, Herbalist
Status: Healthy, Nourished. Rested. Warm.
Action Points: 3
Inventory: Stone ax (poor quality, poor durability), Stone tools (poor quality, poor durability)
Stashed Nearby: Stone hoe (moderate quality, poor durability), Timber (2), Medical herbs (2)
Omega
You spend the morning flaking and shaping stone to better make yourself tools, all too aware of the large bear prowling outside. Finally, knowing that you must face this creature eventually, you step outside, attempting to draw it away from you and your cave by throwing it scraps of otter meat further and further from your home. The creature is glad to gulp back the otter meat but does not seem to lose interest in you and when you run out of otter meat, casually strides towards you and opens it jaws wide, roaring at you and causing your body to shake.
Undaunted and filled with with your warrior's natural prowess, you stab at the creature with your bone spear only to feel it bounce off its thick hide. It rears up and launches itself at you, swiping at you with a mighty paw, sending you flying and opening your your stomach from one end to the other. It rears up to attack again, to finish you off but you manage to stick it in the shoulder with your second strike. Perhaps not willing to risk its life, it turns and runs off into the wilds, leaving a trail of blood as it does.
You are badly wounded but know that your body will need food to heal and so make your way to the river where you manage to spear a fish for supper before nightfall and rest in your cave.
You wake well-rested, well-fed but wounded, your prospects mixed for today.
Omega
Traits: Warrior
Status: Gut wound (malus to movement, all tasks involving strength or lifting). Well fed (+1). Well-rested (+1 AP). Chilly.
Action Points: 5
Inventory: Bone Spear (moderate quality, very poor durability), Stone tools (poor quality, poor durability)
Stashed Nearby: Stone pickax (moderate quality, poor durability), Stone tools (poor quality, poor durability), Rabbit bones, Tiger claws, Tiger teeth, Fish bones.
Karma: 0
Thomas.Berubeg
Despite your fatigue, you spend your morning munching on forage and meditating upon the sun's rays as they pass through the archway, falling upon your naked skin. Something greater than you fills you, a calm, a storm, order, and chaos, all in balance and that something is greater than you, something of the land, and somehow, you feel it as part of you now.
You then withdraw to your lean-to to rest only to find your lean-to invaded by a small group of giant millipedes. One bites you viciously and you immediately know you are poisoned. The others fall upon you, their mandibles clicking dangerously and you have no choice but to run. The millipedes follow you, perhaps hoping the poison will slow you that they might finish off the job. You run for most of the night, tired and frightened and find yourself in a strange forest of dry-bark trees with bloated trunk. Large birds, colorful but vicious, circle in the west, and you hide from these in fear that they might be the next to hunt you.
As the sun rises, you are fed but deeply exhausted and poisoned, unarmed, and far from the home you have built.
Thomas.Berubug
Traits: Leafy, Builder
Status: Deep Exhaustion (small malus to all tasks). Poisoned (minor malus to all actions this turn, major malus to all actions next turn). Nourished. Tired (-1AP).
Action Points: 2
Inventory: Medical herbs (1)
Stashed Nearby:
Mana: 1
Karma: 0
