Tamer_King of Dinosaurs 3

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “I would like to help, if I can,” Galmine said as she raised her gray hand.

  “You are the best with clay,” Trel said with a shrug. “So, if you can lend us any assistance, I would appreciate it. The issue we will have is the rain. The air is too wet and it will add time to the drying process. We can’t bake anything until it is dry.”

  “I can help drive the dampness out of the clay,” Galmine said. “My ability lets me work with the earth, and the clay is a part of it.”

  “Galmine, before you help them with the kiln and pottery, you are going to come with Kacerie and me to the river. We’ll lay the fish cages, and then we’ll do a slow tour around the valley to look for edible plants, plants we can use in our soap, a big rock we can use for a workbench, and some sort of bird we can try to domesticate for eggs. I doubt we’ll find the latter because of the rain, but we’ll keep our eyes open.”

  Everyone nodded, and then the three groups went their separate ways. Kacerie had gone back to the huts to retrieve four cone-shaped baskets, and I helped her load them onto Tom’s storage platform behind the saddle.

  “Are we just taking Tom?” she asked after I held my hands out so that I could boost her into the saddle.

  “I’ll take him and the troodons,” I said as she put her bare foot into my grip. “I was thinking about bringing Hope so she could dig out the plants, but I think the troodons will be fine to do it. If we find something big that we want, we can always come back.” I lifted up as Kacerie held onto my shoulder, and I felt a bit of surprise at how light she was. The hairdresser had lost a bit of weight since she had arrived here, but I double checked my Eye-Q really quick and let out a gasp of surprise.

  Strength: 5

  Stamina: 3

  Movement: 3

  Special skill: Tame -- Level 3

  My strength had increased, so the muscle I’d noticed on my chest and arms last night wasn’t just because I was losing fat. I really did feel a lot stronger, and I wondered if my attributes scaled linearly or geometrically. Liahpa had a rating of 10 in strength, so did that mean she was twice as strong as me, or was she exponentially stronger?

  I also didn’t really understand how I gained these attributes. Obviously, I needed to exercise to get stronger, tougher, and faster, but was there a minimum amount? Were there any shortcuts I could take? I was a gamer at heart and not knowing the rules to my own stat screen was a mystery that I wanted to solve.

  Galmine came to me with a stack of baskets in her arms. Some of them were the leaf ones we used for the clay, but most of them were the more wicker looking baskets that we weaved with the thicker parts of the ferns.

  “We’ll need these to hold the friendly plants we might find,” Galmine said, and I helped her stack them on Tom’s storage shelf before I lifted her up. Then I climbed up and into the saddle between the two women and commanded my squad of troodons to take their positions around me.

  Liahpa and Sheela were working on the last platforms at the gate, and they lifted them open so that we could go through. The corpses of the three allosauruses were still right outside our fort, but pulling them out of the trench or into the forest while it was raining would be a real pain in the ass, so I figured that I’d do it when the rain let up.

  The ride to the river was uneventful, but the river had swollen to a torrent of angry jets, and I turned to Kacerie with a questioning look.

  “The tide pools over by those boulders might still work,” she said as she pointed to the place where Sheela had first shown me the river.

  “Let’s try,” I said. “Galmine, stay on Tom.”

  “Yes, Victor,” she said as she ran her hands through her wet hair. It was actually almost the same color as Liahpa’s, but Galmine’s looked more metallic instead of just hair that happened to be colored silvery-gray.

  Kacerie and I grabbed the fish traps and slid down Tom’s wet scales. The pool area by the boulders looked like a slower part of the rapidly moving river, but Kacerie didn’t seem hesitant. She showed me how to tie the cordage around the funnel, where to put the river stone that would weigh it down, and then tossed it into the water. As soon as we had placed all six, she took the lines and then tied them to a rock that sat on the shore.

  “We’ll come back tomorrow if it isn’t raining and pull them up,” she said, and then we ran back through the rain to Tom.

  “See anything on the shore you can use?” I asked Galmine after I had helped Kacerie up on Tom’s back again.

  “Not here,” Galmine said as she pointed east along the river. “Can we head in that direction?”

  I turned Tom to the left and then commanded him to move at a brisk walk. The rain started to pick up a little, and it was cooler than yesterday, but it could have been a lot worse, and if the storm had been a lot worse, then we wouldn’t have been able to get much done today.

  “There!” Galmine said after we had walked for less than five minutes. “The one on the ground with the wide long leaves. I think it is a cassava plant. Can I get down and look closer?”

  “Hmmm, wait,” I said, and then I ordered the troodons to do a quick perimeter search. Scoob gave a hoot of approval, and the five tiger-striped dinos slipped into the redwood forest.

  We waited for a few minutes, and then the troodons returned. Fred actually had what looked like a ten-pound rat in his mouth, and he twisted his neck up to swallow the twitching rodent in one gulp.

  “Alright,” I said as I helped Galmine get down from Tom’s back. As soon as we were on the ground, Kacerie threw me a spear, and I motioned for her to stay put as I walked over to the plant.

  “Yep! Just as I thought,” the rock woman said as she dug her hands into the mud at the base of the plant. “Oh, there is another one over there. And another! This is the perfect crop for us.”

  “What is cassava?” I asked.

  “It is a root vegetable,” she explained as she moved her fingers around the base to dig it out. “Very high in vitamins and carbohydrates, but also very poisonous if not prepared correctly.”

  “Uhh, poisonous?” I asked.

  “Yes, most everything besides fruit is poisonous. It is the plant’s way of protecting itself. Cassava doesn’t want you to eat its roots, or it will die, so it makes itself poisonous. Same with grain type plants. Their seeds are spread through the air, so they don’t want to be eaten.”

  “Huh,” I said as I bent down to help her dig, “I never thought about it that way. I guess fruit has seeds inside, and they need animals to poop out the seed.”

  “Yes!” Galmine smiled at me. “But normally the seeds are not good for you to eat.”

  “Weird, I ate beans and wheat all the time at home, and never really got sick.”

  “But they were processed,” she explained. “I will take the root and then soak it for several days to get rid of the poison. It will be fine to eat then, and very nutritious.”

  “Cool,” I said, and then I commanded the troodons to dig up the other two trees while Galmine and I worked on the first ones. The troodons were a quick study, and they got the other two plants up before Galmine and I finished ours.

  “Good boys and girls!” I said as soon as they were done digging. The troodons lowered their head, hooted happily, and then the five of them pressed their heads against my stomach and back so that I could pet them.

  “Aww, they love you!” Galmine said.

  “Everyone loves Victor,” Kacerie replied, and I laughed as I petted each of the gang.

  “Let’s keep looking,” I said, and then I helped Galmine up into the saddle.

  We continued along the swollen river and spotted a few more cassava plants that I had the troodons dig up. We also found some blackberry bushes, blueberry bushes, and a bush with the orange berries Galmine introduced me to when I first arrived. Some of the bushes had fruit on them, and the gray-skinned woman ate the berries once I set them back in the storage area.

  “Ahh shit,” I sighed. “I forgot that we were out of berries for you
.”

  “It is fine, Victor,” she said as she smiled at me. “You were busy and had much going on. I knew we would look for plants today, so I was fine fasting yesterday.”

  “No,” I said. “I have a lot of stuff going on, but it’s my job to take care of all of you, if you need something, please let me know, and if I forget, remind me. I should have carved some time out to gather food for you yesterday.”

  “I feel like shit too,” Kacerie groaned. “I got so wrapped up in soap making, I forgot about your food. You even cooked for us all day.”

  “You both are so sweet,” Galmine said as she laid her hand on each of our arms. “But it really isn’t a hardship. My people would often go weeks or months without eating during our winters. My body is used to fasting. Please don’t be concerned. These few berries that I ate will keep me going until I can cook the cassava.”

  “Alright,” I said as I matched her infectious smile. “But let’s find some more. You laid out a pretty big plot for the garden, and I don’t think we’ve even filled a tenth of it with what we have gathered so far.”

  The river twisted around to the north, but I didn’t want to cross it for fear of getting too close to the lake. It was possible the black feathered Utahraptors were long gone now, but I didn’t want to risk getting seen by them again. I was confident that defending our camp against a group of allosauruses meant that I’d be fine against a group of Utahraptors, but there were a shitload of Utahraptors at the lake, and I didn’t want to bring conflict to our home if it wasn’t necessary.

  “Oh, Victor, do you see those bushes by the river?” Galmine asked as we made the turn.

  “Mint!” Kacerie gasped before I could answer, and I stopped Tom so that we could get off.

  The two women investigated the plant while I sent the troodons out to check the perimeter again. As soon as I was sure the area was safe, I walked over to the bush and took a long smell of the leaves that Kacerie held up to my face. The mint’s sharp smell stung my nose a bit, but it was a wonderful scent.

  “It grows aggressively,” Galmine said as she moved to dig up some of the plants. “I will put it in the ground on the other side of the large tree so that we don’t risk it coming into contact with the rest of our garden. It will prefer the shade over there, anyway.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Kacerie said, and I helped them both pull a part of the plant from the ground.

  We continued along the river and found a group of wild parsley. Then we found the motherload: small leaf wild spinach. Galmine practically did a dance when we saw the cluster of plants, and it took us about half an hour to secure every single one of them.

  Tom’s storage area still had a lot of space, but then we found a bitter melon patch, a small lemon-like citrus tree, and a group of pepper trees. The smallest pepper tree we could find was about four feet tall, and it took another half an hour for the troodons to dig it up.

  “This will be good for today,” Galmine said as she snacked on some spinach. “Even with what we have, I can create a garden that will provide us with a plentiful amount of food.”

  “We’ve only explored a tiny bit of the valley,” Kacerie said. “We can probably find a bunch more stuff here.”

  “And even more if we travel to the next valleys over,” I said. “There is some great potential for agriculture. It’s crazy to think how all this stuff was just right under our noses.”

  “Soon it will be on our plates!” Galmine cheered, and I turned Tom around so that we could head back toward our fort.

  The most direct path was through the redwood forest, but even though I’d been through the grove a bunch during my travels, I still hadn’t familiarized myself with every nook and cranny. The path we currently traveled was probably half a mile south of the route I would normally take, and I didn’t remember any of the landscape.

  About halfway through the forest, we trotted past a stack of boulders that were jutting out of a small gully. It looked like a redwood might have once grown here, since the root structure seemed to be present, but the wood was rotting, and I saw no evidence of a fallen tree.

  I slowed Tom down and then circled the group of boulders. They kind of formed long shelving that rose to the top of the gully some twelve feet up, and I saw that one of the steps looked to be perfectly flat and smooth.

  “Kacerie, what do you think about that boulder in the middle?” I asked as I commanded Tom to lay on his belly and the troodons to scout for danger.

  “Let’s take a look,” she said, and we got off Tom so we could climb up the first few boulder ledges. We were soon on the shelf, and I moved around carefully so that I didn’t slip in the rain.

  The rock was shaped like a number “7” and was wedged under the lip above it slightly. It was difficult to tell if it was part of the other rock, or was just pressed under it, but the part I was looking at was a good ten feet long and sat some four feet high. It was completely smooth on top, and it would be a perfect workstation.

  It must have weighed twenty tons. The thing was just massive, and even if we could figure out how to move it, I didn’t know how we could get it down the three-foot tall step below it.

  “It looks perfect, but it also looks like a ton of work.” I laughed at my use of the word “ton,” but Kacerie didn’t seem to get my joke.

  “Would you like me to look at the rock?” Galmine called up to us from her seat on Tom.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “That would be great. You can tell me how solid it is.” I crawled back down, helped her get off Tom, and then lifted her up on the ledge. Galmine rubbed her hands along the long, flat surface, and she smiled when she reached the joint.

  “This is a fine piece,” she said. “It is very solid. This end is not attached to the ledge, and we might be able to wiggle it free without damaging it. I still don’t know how you would get it down or back to our fort, but I would leave that for Trel.”

  “There might be other boulders. We weren’t really looking and found this one, but this would be a wonderful workspace.” Kacerie turned around and gestured toward the smaller rocks that sat on the ledge. “These would work great as stools. We don’t really have any furniture, and I’m kind of sick of sitting on the ground.”

  “Yeah, we need to make some chairs. I’ll have to add it to the to-do list.” I climbed up on top of the 7 shaped table and then pulled myself up to the next level of steps. I was at the top of the ravine now, and I had a high view of the surrounding redwoods.

  “There is one more cluster of boulders over that way,” I said as I pointed to the northwest a bit. “Let’s check it out.”

  “Sounds good,” Kacerie said, and we climbed back down the steps and rode Tom over to the other spot.

  The next pile of boulders had rocks that were either too small for a table, or too large. I also didn’t see any with a flat surface.

  We visited two more groups of boulders on our way back to the camp, and I kind of chuckled to myself as I tried to recall all the various rocks I had ridden by. I had never given any of them a moment’s worth of consideration, but now each pile of boulders seemed to have potential treasure, and I felt myself get excited about the thought of using one in the camp as a table. It really would make everything a lot more efficient.

  But we had to find one and get it home first.

  We returned to the camp at about lunchtime, and I parked Tom over by the garden that the parasaurs had plowed. Kacerie and I unloaded all the plants, trees, and bushes for Galmine, but she told us that she could handle the planting process. We then left the rock woman to her tasks and walked around the other side of the wall to see what Trel and Emerald were up to.

  We found both women putting the finishing touches on the third kiln. This one was the same size as the first they built, but my attention was drawn to the kiln in the middle of the workspace. This oven was massive. Maybe as tall as me and with a chimney that was a good five feet wide. They had actually built steps on the side of the oven so someone could walk u
p to the top, and there was even a platform hanging out from the lip.

  “Wow,” I said as Trel and Emerald looked up at Kacerie and I. “This is a monster. It almost touches the roof, are you worried that the fire might burn the ferns we put up there?”

  “I don’t need to light this fire very hot,” Trel said. “It has the potential to burn hot, of course, but I will mostly use it for bigger pots and my water filtration funnels. I will also want to replace this shelter with a wider and higher version that has clay tiles. Ideally, we have all three kilns working throughout the day, and we can generate a lot of pottery and other tools. If I can figure out how to get them hotter, I might even be able to smelt iron.”

  “Damn, you can get us iron? How?” My mouth hung open as my imagination swirled with thoughts of cast iron pots, pans, arrowheads, armor, and weapons.

  “We would need ore, which I do not know how to find, but Galmine might. Then we will need to mine it. Then I will need to heat it up super hot so that it distills into pure metal. I’m sure I’m missing some steps out of there, but I don’t really know much about smelting metal. All I know is that I’d take the rock and get it really hot.” She shrugged as she spoke.

  “If anyone can figure it out, you can,” I said. “We found what I think might work for a work table, but it’s big and in a tricky spot.”

  “This last kiln is pretty much done,” Trel said. “How far away is the table?”

  “About a two minute ride,” I said.

  “I will come with you and look at it,” she said as she held her hands out to the rain so that the mud washed off them. We were all soaking wet, but it felt as if the rain was starting to let up a bit, and I imagined the storm would end soon.

  “Emerald, can you stay with Galmine?” I asked, and the green-haired woman nodded before she waved to us and walked over to the garden.

  A few minutes later, Trel, Kacerie, Liahpa, Sheela, and I had closed the gate to the fort and were riding toward the stack of boulders. We brought Tom, Bob, Sonny, Cher, and the troodons, and I felt a flash of cocky confidence when we all charged through the redwood trees. Only a month or so ago, I’d been terrified of leaving the cave, but now I felt a calm confidence when my small army rolled out.