here was a humanoid corpse with its stomach ripped open, its small intestine wrapped around its neck almost like a scarf. Its cheeks were cut, making it look like it was smiling. Its arms were ripped off, and where the legs used to be, one was hanging out of its mouth while the other was placed inside the top of the skull. Carved into its chest were the words, "I can smell your fear." The worst part was that as I stood there in shock, I could hear the subtle breathing of this man. I stood shaking, my mind fixated on one image: a deer skull.
A small magic circle appeared to my left, similar to the one that previously showed my statistics. I was too scared to turn my head and look at it directly. In my peripheral vision, I could see words hovering in front of the magic circle. They read: "New status effect: Self-inflicted paralysis."
A timer appeared beside the words, showing 5 minutes and 37 seconds and counting down. I stood there, hearing the man's breath grow weaker and weaker until it stopped entirely. His head began to hang lower and lower until it went limp.
I stood frozen, feeling like ages had passed, until I saw in my peripheral vision that the timer had reached zero. I took a deep breath and reached for the spear on my back. Using the spear as a walking stick, my stomach turned and twisted, and I felt like I was going to vomit at any second after witnessing that monstrosity.
After walking for a little while longer, I made it back to my cave. I continued walking until I reached the entrance and realized I had forgotten to fix the crude door, so I spent 15 minutes doing that. Once the door was fixed, I walked around for a bit and gathered some pine needles with the plan to make a bed out of them.
By the time I finished, the sun had completely gone down. It wasn't snowing tonight, and I was able to see the moon once or twice as the clouds slowly broke apart. For the first time, I noticed another moon behind the familiar one, a dark purple moon. I wondered what this meant, but considering the moon is usually covered by clouds, I didn't think much of it.
I slid the door across the cave entrance, went to sleep, and tried my best to forget what happened that day.
--------------------
I woke up the next morning in a bit of a daze. As I gradually regained full consciousness, I noticed something hard to explain. It was the magic circle that had shown my abilities previously, but now it seemed to linger in the back of my mind. When I closed my eyes, I could see it, albeit faintly. I tried concentrating on it, but the harder I focused, the more it seemed to fade. So, I stopped concentrating and simply took deep breaths, calming myself until the words started to become clear:
Proficiencies:
Medical Equipment (2/100)
Crude Lumber Tools (2/100)
Polearms (1/100)
Basic Craftsmanship (3/100)
Crude Leather Working (2/100)
Name: Ivan
Magic: None
Skills: None
Titles: Lost One
Alias: None
Weapons:
Crude Axe
Crude Spear
Rough Pocket Knife
Hands
Weapon Masteries:
Crude Spear (1/1000)
Status Effects:
Cold
Paranoid
Wendigo's Curse
There's more information on the magic circle this time. And I finally have a title even if it is questionable. My proficiencies haven't even reached the double digits. Maybe I should do more work all around with the items I have. But more importantly, what does Wendigo's curse mean?
Is that why I've been seeing deer skulls in my peripheral vision at night or is that just cuz I'm paranoid maybe it's from the corpse I saw yesterday. I shake my head. I need to focus on repairing the house.
I started my morning routine, thankful that it hadn't snowed last night, which meant I didn't need to chop down another tree. This gave me more time to work on defleshing another wolf pelt. As I was working on the pelt, an idea struck me: I should try to make a tanning rack, even if it had to be made out of sticks. However, I needed more twine to do this.
I went up to a decent-sized tree and used my pocket knife to cut a large chunk of bark off. Just like before, I used the fibers closest to the tree trunk, avoiding the rough outer bark. I cut the inner bark into very thin strips and began wrapping them around each other. This is how I made twine.
After making three meters worth of twine, I cut it into nine equal strips and attached some wolf teeth to them. I left three inches of room on each strip and tied a loop. Using the wolf teeth, I pierced holes through the half-fleshed wolf pelt and threaded the teeth through the loops in the twine. Then, I tied the nine twine strips to two sticks that were about a meter and a half apart from each other. This stretched out the wolf pelt, successfully creating a very crude tanning rack/fleshing rack.
After I fully fleshed the wolf, I crawled back into the cave and laid it on the pine needles I laid the previous night. This would make it more comfortable.
After the water has done nothing in the bucket I drink some of it while eating the last bit of wolf meat I have. Sadly again nothing in the traps I set. I walked around and gathered some pine cones since that's what I'll be eating for the rest of the day and then I had an idea. I grabbed some of the pine needles from a tree put them in the bucket and left the bucket above the fire for a little longer. If I couldn't eat the pine needles I could probably make tea with them.
While I was waiting for the pine needles to boil in the water, I quickly went around and gathered some pine cones that had fallen from the trees. When I got back, I used one of the clay bowls to scoop up a bit of the water. I went to take a sip and burnt my tongue. After waiting a few minutes, I took another sip. It wasn't good at all—it was horrible—but after finishing the drink, the stomach ache I had yesterday went away. It was probably because I was finally drinking water, not because of the pine needles, but either way, the stomach ache was gone. I picked up the bucket, took one clay bowl with me, and gathered five pine cones before starting to make my way back to the lakeside house.
This routine of mine continued for a couple of days: working on the lake house, encountering something weird on my way back to the cave, sleeping, doing my morning routine, and then heading back to the lake house. My hypothesis about the traps at the lake house worked, so I set up a few more while I was there over the past couple of days.
Before I knew it the Lakeside house was fully repaired. The roof was a bit Wiggly but I solved it by putting in thicker boards horizontally then laying the roof boards vertically. The house looked like a child's drawing a cube with a triangle on top.
I didn't want to stop here though I want to make a seller beside the house a place where I can keep food and don't have to worry about it spoiling. Not the food was going to spoil fast in this climate. I guess for more storage so I don't have to smell meat when I go to bed.
But for now I will stop. I'll make the basement later, maybe when I have some better tools. How am I going to get better tools? It's not like there's anywhere to forge it. I mean I guess I could try. I'm not that skilled.
I suppose it's time to move everything from the cave here.