by Dan Thomas
Taking steady breaths, Max kept this up for a couple of minutes, rubbing the stick quickly up and down the groove, gradually increasing the amount of pressure he was applying. After a couple of minutes, the smell of smoldering wood hit him. Max then pushed down hard on the end of the stick as he increased how fast he was scraping it against the groove on the log. His throat burned with his deep breath, which now began to fill his lungs with acrid smoke.
His shoulders ached but just when Max was about to give up, he saw a faint glow coming from the end of the groove where charred wood dust had been gathering and had now ignited. Max forced himself to push out another couple of strokes before stopping, dropping the stick to the ground.
He reached into his other pocket, grabbed the felt-like moss, and placed it gently over the top of the glowing embers. Bringing his face close to the trunk, he blew gently onto the embers, the orange glow brightening with every exhale. The ends of the moss began to curl in on themselves and then took light, the flame catching the bottom of the bundle of moss, beginning to grow upward, the orange flames casting a weak light over Max, who blinked against the glare.
Max cupped the tinder bundle in his hands, turning back to where he had stacked the sticks, which he could just about see in the light. He walked briskly, careful not to move so fast as to extinguish the young flame but motivated by the growing heat beginning to burn his hands.
He knelt next to the stick stack, placed the burning moss on the ground underneath it, and blew into it to keep the flame alive while he grabbed a couple of the thinnest sticks from the bundle, slotting them into the construction just above the fire.
He then continued to blow onto the flame, nurturing it as the kindling caught, the fire rising through the crisscross of twigs.
As the fire grew, Max sat back on his haunches before it became too hot for him to have his face close and placed a few of the thicker branches onto the fire. The cold chill that had been creeping through his body began to recede as he sat close to the dancing flames.
Max looked around the small clearing he was in, only just about to see the shadowy edge of the trees looming in around him, and the blackness that lingered by where he had trampled down the thicket to get into this place.
He was as safe as he could be for now, with the fire warding off most of the animals that would be wandering nearby.
Getting back to his feet, Max returned to the tree. He dug around in his bag, pulling out the laser pistol. He flicked it on, and checked that all the lights came on, then turned it back off, placing it at the end of the groove he had made. Now that he could see, it would be useful if he had to fend off anything or anyone.
He then grabbed the hammerstone he had been using to take flint flakes, feeling its weight in the palm of his hand. Sifting through the flint in his bag he found, one that was a little more elongated than the others and placed this on top of the trunk, standing at an awkward angle so that he wasn’t blocking the light from reaching his work.
The flint core was much smaller than Max would have liked to be sculpting into an axe with his character’s level of skill, but it wasn’t impossible.
He turned the stone over, looking for a break in the creamy shell that wasn’t too rounded. Finding one area of the rock that looked as though a flake had broken off, forming a wide flat platform, Max placed the flint down, this platform facing toward him.
Holding his hammerstone above it, he brought it down with a swift strike. There was a loud cracking sound. Max lifted the flint core, leaving behind a wide flake that had been broken away.
He pocketed the nicely sized flake, before looking over the flint for the next platform.
With a bit of skill and luck, taking flakes would begin to form the next platform to strike, and so one could continuously work around the flint, having to stop only every so often if a flake came off wrong, and another platform had to be created.
The next strike wasn’t so clean, the flake, smaller than Max would have liked, shattered as it came away. Max took the hammerstone and abraded the sharp edge, by rubbing the stone against it, blunting the edge, and making it more uniform so that it wouldn’t as easily shatter or break awkwardly.
He then struck again, working his way around the stone, taking off the creamy shell of the flint, as well as forming it into a roughly elliptical shape by turning the stone over every so often and working it from the opposite side.
Without any assistance from his Traits to find suitable platforms and strike at the correct angle, Max took his time with the piece, having to judge everything by eye. As a result, Max swore more than a few times as flakes came off wrong. Some overextended, removing more material than he wanted, causing the centerline of the rough axe head to become more concave, which would weaken the finished tool. Many more crunched into tiny shards, and Max also ended up with several dreaded step fractures, which was where the flakes broke off too early, causing a sharp ‘step’ in the flint instead of the smooth divot that flakes normally left, which made that part of the flint almost impossible to work with.
As he worked, Max kept turning the flint over every couple of strikes. He began to form a more uniform center line along the edges of the axe, creating a dull edge around the entire thing. Max struggled to keep that line actually center and had to keep nibbling away at the edges of the flint to push the line back from where errant blows caused the edge of the axe to go off-center.
The fire was beginning to die down, and Max was struggling to see what he was working on by the time he had roughed out the oval shape of the axe. If he were playing to his usual standard, he would’ve thrown the rock away by now, with its uneven shape, bad blade geometry, and one of the flat faces of the axe being concave, sloping inward instead of outward.
But, as Max ran his fingernail over the wider blade end, he could at least say that it was sharp.
Kind of.
But he could tidy it up with pressure flaking, for which he silently thanked Chopsticks for the earlier trauma to get the horn.
Taking a moment to place more branches on the fire, and stoke the flames, Max took a breath, listening to the quiet night.
The soft sound of nocturnal insects formed a steady background noise that had been absent before, which he could hear distant movement over. It didn’t seem that his late-night activities were drawing any attention. Or anything that was approaching was very stealthy.
Max pushed the thought aside. While he was not in the most secure camp, anything trying to approach him would be hard-pressed to do so silently.
With the firelight returning, Max returned to the tree trunk and rough flint axe head.
Turning the head over in his hand, he looked directly at the blade, seeing that the blade had an almost zig-zag shape from where he hadn’t worked the stone evenly. While the blade was still usable, it wouldn’t be highly effective or sharp and would dull more quickly than a well-made blade.
Max used the hammerstone to abrade the blade end of the axe, intentionally dulling it, but by doing so making it more uniform, and to an extent, thicker as he ground away at the thin stone.
Max then reached into his bag and replaced the hammerstone with the Kentrosaurus horn he had snagged from under the noses of the swarm of Coelophysis.
Just over half a foot in length, and perhaps three fingers wide at its thickest end, it was a little cumbersome for any delicate work, but it could be worse.
Laying the axe flat on the trunk again, Max now tilted the axe head so that the blade was as flat as he could get it against the rough surface of the tree.
Holding the horn as close to the tip as he could, he rested the sharp tip of the horn against a part of the blade which he hadn’t managed to thin as much as the rest.
Slowly applying more and more pressure, Max winced as he heard a pop from the flint as a piece gave way.
He picked up the rock and looked at the piece he had taken off. It hadn’t been the cleanest flake, but it had started to thin the blade and bring that part ba
ck toward the centerline.
Max carried on this process, working his way up the blade, flipping the axe head in between flakes as he tried to even out the edge of the blade, as well as sharpening it by taking off slimmer and slimmer flakes.
He had to stoke the fire again before he was happy enough with the blade geometry and sharpness. He then quickly went around the other edges of the axe head, cleaning up the worst of the jagged stone.
He picked up the axe head and crouched by the fire, turning over the worked stone in the ruddy light, sighting down its two faces with a grimace. It was crude, but it had an edge.
Moving back to the downed tree, he jumped and awkwardly hooked his leg over the wide trunk, hauling himself up.
Leaning forward into a crouch, he crawled his way along the tree, keeping hold of the axe head.
Soon he was moving in darkness, the light from the fire only casting shadows around him. It wasn’t an issue, though, as Max had reached high enough up the tree that branches stuck out in abundance, suspended over the thick clusters of the Wark shrubs, preventing him from going any farther.
Feeling around in the near darkness, Max found a branch that felt like it was about as thick as his wrist.
Clutching the axe head, he struck the base of the stick repeatedly, chipping away at the branch. He took some time to work his way around the branch, bending it toward him as he went. Eventually, he heard a cracking sound as the branch snapped toward him. With a sawing motion, Max severed the last few fibers holding the branch to the log, before shuffling backward, branch in one hand, axe head in the other. Once he was back on the part of the tree that lay in the clearing, Max hopped off, returning to the fire, where he placed more branches onto the dwindling flame, making sure that he placed one of the longer sticks so that one end was stuck well out of the fire.
As the fire grew in intensity once again, Max sat quietly, watching the orange ribbons and listening to the cool nighttime sounds.
Once the flames were hot enough for him to have to shuffle backward from the blaze, Max took the branch he had just collected, laying it across his lap. The end that had been attached to the trunk was a little thicker than the rest of the arm-length branch, but not by a lot.
Using the axe head, Max cleaned up the branch, taking off any small offshoots that had started growing out when the tree had been alive.
He then began to hack at the branch, aiming to hit it a few inches below the thickest end, holding the axe so that he cut in line with the grain of the wood.
Not wanting to risk splitting the wood, Max quickly switched to his flint scraper, digging out clumps of wood fiber. He wished that he’d managed to find some Kousa wood to make a really sturdy tool, but the mystery wood that he had would probably be fine.
Once he had made a divot, about a finger’s length, Max reached for the stick he had left only just in the fire. Pulling it out, he made sure that the one end was well alight, before holding it over the hole in the branch he had been making. He tapped it a few times, trying to knock as many burning bits of coal onto the dip in the branch, before holding them against each other, blowing gently into the smoldering wood.
He kept blowing into it to keep the coals burning, which slowly ate their way through the branch, until they bored a hole straight through and fell out of the other side and onto the ground, making sure they didn’t fall into his lap.
Max tapped the branch on the forest floor and then used another stick to rub around the inside of the hole, clearing out as many of the coals as possible, and then rubbed dirt into it to put out the last of the smoldering wood.
He then placed the thin end of the axe head into the hole, seeing how it fit.
The hole was wide enough to accommodate the axe head but wasn’t quite long enough.
Max took hold of his scraper once again, using the flint blade to carve away at the ends of the hole, making sure to check the size against the axe head frequently, as he needed it to be a tight fit.
It didn’t take Max long to make the hole large enough to fit the axe head in. He slotted the thin end of the axe into the hole, then took a loose branch and hit it against the blade of the axe, forcing it farther into the branch, the friction securing it in place.
Max then held the head end of the axe over the fire, turning it slowly as the heat from the burning sticks blackened and charred the wood of the axe. It would provide a little more durability, making the wood stronger, and shrinking it so that it held the head more firmly.
With that done, Max laid the long-handled axe across his lap. Then he cut about a foot off the Strangler Vine on the axe blade and tied it off around the base of the handle so that he could tie it to his belt.
He rubbed his eyes, the strain from the heat and dim firelight was beginning to take its toll. That, and his tiredness.
Pleased with his work, Max held the axe in his hand, feeling its weight.
Item Type: Crude Flint Axe
Type: Weapon, Tool, One-Handed
Damage type: Slashing, Crushing
Base Damage: 25
Durability: 100/100
“Yeah, I think I’m done.” Max groaned as he got to his feet, hanging the axe on his belt. He had hoped to get more done before he logged off, but the axe had taken longer than he’d expected, and he didn’t think he could go on anymore without falling asleep.
He went about his makeshift camp, gathering up all his items and reequipping them, threading the Strangler Vine around his bag strap again. It was unlikely that anyone would find his camp and loot anything but seeing as he could fit everything he had on his person or in his bag, there was no reason not to take the safer option of logging off while wearing it, as it would disappear out of the world along with his character.
Once he had done a final sweep to make sure that he had everything, he kicked out his fire, stamped on the embers, and pulled heaps of damp dirt over it, leaving him in darkness.
He then gave the mental command to quit the game, confirming that he was sure.
He didn’t even notice a change from the Primeva night to the black of the inside of his visor, though the sensations of sitting on the sofa in the warm room told him that he was out of the game.
Max reached up and took the visor off, blinking away the mild headache from the transition as he took out his earpiece.
The TV hanging on the wall hadn’t been turned off and was once showing the ‘Awaiting Input’ message.
Max glanced over to where Chopsticks was curled up on the chair at the end of the table, fast asleep. Max always admired his friend’s ability to sleep practically anywhere.
He hauled himself off the sofa and walked around the table to turn off the TV, leaving the room in almost pitch darkness, the only light coming from the kitchen appliances, and light leaking out from around Pez’s door.
Rubbing his head, Max shuffled toward the kitchen, grabbed a glass, and ran it under the faucet then took a swig of water.
Placing the empty glass down next to the sink, Max walked back into the living room, sinking back onto the sofa. He shoved the cushions to one end, lay down, and closed his eyes.
The vista he had seen of the sunset over Primeva hung in his mind’s eye as he drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Max called out as a dinosaur bit down on his shoulder. He reached out and tried to claw at the dinosaur’s eyes. He had to fight it off. There was no way he was going to die here. He was not going to get eaten alive and repeat the ordeal of getting back here with such a low-level character.
“Max!” A yelp from behind Max’s head confused him. Dinosaurs did not talk. “Max, what the fuck!”
Max’s eyes flew open and he whirled around to face Chopsticks who was cradling his arm against his chest.
“It’s morning,” Chopsticks said by way of an explanation. “I was waking you up and you attacked me.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Max’s brow furrowed as he rubbed his eyes and tried to focus. “Morning? Do you mean in-gam
e or in real life?”
“In-game...and you could probably class this as morning in real life,” Chopsticks said. “Come on! We don’t have time to waste.” His sore arm was already forgotten as he indicated Max’s visor on the table.
“You’re much too chipper for this early in the morning.” Max threw himself off the sofa and stumbled over to his gaming chair where he slumped down, his eyes burning from lack of sleep. Max gave a jaw-breaking yawn. “I need coffee and cereal.”
“Way ahead of you.” A steaming mug seemed to appear in Chopsticks’ hand, which he shoved into Max’s hands. “I figured you’d need a pick-me-up.”
Max sipped the scalding hot drink, then rubbed his eyes with one hand. “What time is it right now?”
“In Primeva? The equivalent of 7:00 a.m. Here? Maybe around five in the morning.” Chopsticks dumped himself on the chair at the end of the table, grabbed his phone, and used it to turn on the TV, which was still set up to show the viewer whatever Max could see in-game.
Max winced at the hot coffee, placing the half-empty mug back on the table. “Geez. I don’t think I’ve ever been up this time for anything. How do you think I’m doing? With Murf, I mean?”
Chopsticks raised an eyebrow as he looked at the ‘Awaiting Input’ message on the black TV screen. “I think you’re handling it well. I mean, considering how much we struggled when we first started in Terra Verse, you’re miles ahead of where you should be.”
Max rubbed his forehead again. “Well, that’s good to hear.”
“It is! That being said, you do need to get your ass moving. You could do with getting across the Olgar River because Pez won’t be able to cross it with Abe and Lis.” Chopsticks pulled the case for his earpiece out of his pocket, putting it onto his ear.
