Chereads / Imprisoned in the cold / Chapter 7 - New house

Chapter 7 - New house

I gather my things after reading the letter. I can't fight the Wendigo in close quarters So the plan is to make a bow.

The first thing I did was go up to a tree, take a section of bark out, and gather the fibers from it. I went back inside my house and started making twine. I repeated this process for the rest of the day, only stopping to get a bucket of water, put it on top of the wood stove, and start a fire inside the stove. The reason I was making extra twine was because I planned to make rope. For every one meter of twine, I needed roughly two hours, and I needed nine meters of twine to make one meter of rope. This was going to take a while.

After making the twine for a bit, I decided to start boiling it with pine needles. I've gotten used to the taste after a little while of making this pine needle tea. The best part about this is I don't need to wait for any snow to melt anymore; I just walk up to the lake, break the ice, and scoop up some water.

After the pine needle tea was done boiling I took one of my clay bowls and scooped up a little bit. This time I waited 5 minutes before drinking it. As I drank the pine needle tea I felt this warmth engulf my body. I felt calm. Every step I took from this warm beverage I felt a little bit more at ease. It was nice to feel this way before I had to sit in a cold damp cave. Now I'm more civil. I live in a house for the first time. I think things are looking up for me.

I decided to experiment instead of making twine because I was already getting bored. I took another bowl of pine needle tea, and I put pine cones in the rest of the tea that was in the bucket. The plan was just to soften them up a bit because as much as I like crunching on a cold bitter pine cone I would like them to be a little softer for my poor teeth. The last thing I want to happen is for me to break a tooth.

Well, this is happening I decided to create another Contraption of mine. None of mine exactly but the plan is to make a sundial so that I am going to have a lot of sun in the first place. But whenever the sun peeks out through the clouds I will know roughly what time it is. I don't know where the Rocks should go exactly but I put one long thick stick down in the snow and put four rocks one directly above it one directly below it went to the left and went to the right. At least I'll know when it's 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00. The rest of the time I can just estimate.

After I was done making this I went back inside and waited for another 5 minutes or so. I grabbed another Bowl and gently poured the pine cones that were engulfed in boiling tea. The pine cones were much softer and it seems like they have gathered some of the taste from the pine needles. which I don't know if it's good or worse but it's a taste. Pine cones were much softer which is what I was going for; they're just more chewy now.

I sat back down and started making more twine for about six hours, taking breaks every thirty minutes or so. During these breaks, I noticed that a storm was starting to pick up, so I went outside and chopped down a small pine tree. I trimmed off all the branches and then chopped the trunk into firewood.

While I was chopping the tree branches, I sat down to take a break. I started playing with a tree branch, bending it backward and watching it snap back into place. As I did this, a thought crossed my mind: I should search for a much sturdier branch, one that wouldn't snap immediately if I bent it.

I found one after a little bit of searching and ran back into the house I grabbed some twine three strands (the ones I've been working on for the past 6 hours) wrapped them around each other tied two loops on each end put one loop on each end of the stick it took a little bit of effort to bend the stick properly then immediately tightened the loop. I have successfully crafted myself a shitty bow. I don't know why I didn't make one of these sooner.

After this, I set the bow down on the ground next to my bed and went back out to continue chopping the trunk of the tree to make more firewood. As the storm picked up, I gathered the last of the firewood and brought it inside, stacking it next to the wood stove. I added some of the wood to the stove to keep the fire going from when I made tea. This fire lasted much longer, probably because it wasn't exposed to the elements like the one back at the cave.

Time passed, and I went back to making twine. As I worked, I thought about how I could take down the Wendigo. The last time it appeared, it was late at night. Every time I've seen something strange, it's always been when I'm heading back to the cave or after I've killed something, like a squirrel or rabbit. According to Eloise's journal, it can smell my fear. Maybe I can lure it into a trap using my fear or a recently killed animal. I might be able to kill it with ranged attacks, but I need to make arrows for the bow first.

As I continued to think about how to kill a wendigo I eventually made two meters worth of twine and by then I was getting pretty tired. I got from my bed which I was sitting on while making the twine can I do a few stretches before going to bed all I was doing said stretches the wind was starting to pick up I hoped I didn't get snowed into this house or else it has to break the door down which I did not want to do I already replaced it once.

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I woke up the next morning very rejuvenated. It was nice to sleep in a house for once. I got up and I thought about making more clothing with the pelts and Twine. I have three wolf builds that I'm not using currently. I can make Wolf Pelt armor for my forearms. I don't know how useful that would be in combat though I guess you'd be useful to warm me up. However, it's not like the cold affects me for some reason.

I looked at the wood stove. The fire was just barely still alive and it looked like the tea that was in the bucket evaporated leaving only the pine needles and pine cones. I grabbed the bucket and with the help of my crew axe, I scraped all the certain Ash that's been building up in the wood stove into the bucket. I walked a fair distance away from the house and dumped the Ash out of the bucket. Went to the lake I broke the ice in one spot to rinse out the bucket and walked 3 m to the right, broke the ice again, and filled up the bucket with water.

I went back inside and it looked like the fire that was going before went out while I was doing the small task. I don't mind using a match today. I left a match and used the last little bit of my birch bark twigs to start a small fire. I used some of the sticks that I gathered from the tree I chopped down yesterday and placed them into the wood stove followed by one piece of firewood. All the pieces of firewood were Catching Fire. I dropped most of my equipment. I only kept my Spear and clothes on me including the Wolf Pelt cape. Walked a little bit on the frozen lake and found a good spot and I started bashing up the frozen lake with my foot.

It started to crack so I took off my clothes and put my spirit to the side. Did one big jump on the spot that had cracks across it and fell into the ice-cold water. I kept my hand raised to make sure I didn't lose the spot that I broke through. I grabbed them to the edge of the hole that I broke through. I kicked my legs and my face re-emerged from the water. "damn this is cold" keeping one hand above the ice and using the other to splash water on myself. After 5 to 7 minutes I bathed myself for the first time since I woke up in the prison Realm.

I climbed out of the hole I made in the ice. Grab my things and ran back inside because I was freezing. Once I got back inside before putting on my clothes again I let myself dry by the wood stuff I put another piece of firewood in because the other one was about to burn away. After I was dry and warm again I put back on my clothes and grabbed my equipment again. The crude spear, crude axe, the small pouch, Eloise's Journal, and my pocket knife.

After the bucket of water served to boil I put in more pine needles and pine cones. After some time the pine tea was finished I got used to the taste of pine tea. It's pretty good.

I used to Bowl to scoop up some pine tea. With the bowl of pine tea in one hand I went around and checked some of the traps I set up in the past couple of days. there are seven to be exact. In the traps, I caught two rabbits and a bird. This was the first time I caught a bird that wasn't a big one but a bird nonetheless.

I put the bowl down in the snow making sure not to spill it. flipped open my pocket knife, reached down towards the cage with the bird in it, and quickly killed it. I did the same for both the rabbits. Carrying all three dead animals in one hand and the bowl and the other I went back inside my house and began to butcher them making sure to keep the rabbit pelts in neat condition. I also plucked a lot of the feathers from the bird, which can help me make some arrows even though I don't know how to. Maybe my proficiency and craftsmanship will be able to help.

I preserved one rabbit's worth of meat skewered the other on a stick and cooked it on the wood stove. I would occasionally turn the skewer to cook the other side while drinking my hot bowl of tea. Along with some tender pine cones from the tea and the rabbit meat, it was a nice little meal.

Because yesterday I spent a lot of time inside, I want to go back to the cave with Eloise's Journal and copy the map I made on the cave wall. But before that, I want to have something sweet. I went outside using my spear as a walking stick walked a little bit and eventually found a maple tree the leaves were not there and the tree looked like it seemed better days however Maple tree nonetheless. 

I used my knife inserted stab a triangle-like shape into the tree I didn't want to break the knife so I grabbed A nearby stick in between where I stabbed a knife and the chunk of what I was trying to get rid of and tried to pry it out of place it didn't work the first few times but eventually I heard a crack and I went back in with my knife and wedged the piece of whatever after this a little bit of sap started pouring out of the tree. I hesitated for a few seconds, ran back inside, and grabbed some twine in a bowl. Ran back out towards the tree and tied the bull to the tree making sure that the sap would collect in the bowl.

Now that I'm thinking of it, how do I know what a maple tree looks like? How do I know what a maple tree is? How do I know a maple tree can produce sap? "No never mind Focus," I said out loud to myself

I dipped my finger into the semi-transparent sap; it was a little sweet but not as sweet as I expected. The sticky sensation gave me an idea. I could use this sap as some sort of glue, which meant I could glue multiple pieces of paper together, making a bigger map, this gave me an incentive to explore. "And I can also use the glue too," I muttered to myself.

I ran back inside with the bowl of sap, grabbing a nearby stick on my way in, making sure it was semi-straight. I grabbed the last meter of twine I had left and broke one of the wolf bones in half, using my pocket knife to sharpen it into a point. With the twine and a little bit of the sap acting as glue, I fastened the bone point to the end of the stick. Using more twine and sap, I attached three feathers to the other end of the stick. I had successfully crafted one arrow.

Now I needed to rinse and repeat this process 14 more times, and wait for the materials to be ready… "God damn it," I sighed. I wanted 15 arrows before I went to kill the Wendigo.