Soul Caller 1 - Chapter 6 (Patreon)

The rabbit sat well in Merrick’s stomach, allowing him to get good sleep for the first time since he had fallen from the cliff. That, in turn, allowed him to wake the next morning full of energy. Before the day had even dawned, he was up, stoking his fire, and beginning to work on a spear. When he rose, he had been met with a floating window, informing him that he had gotten another experience point, though he had no idea what it was from. After staring at it for a while, he waved the window away and started his day, figuring he would deal with it later. Heating the end of a sturdy stick and charring the end of the wood over the fire, he began to scrape at it, once again forming a crude point. Repeating this process allowed him to get a better shape until a fairly sharp end adorned his spear. By heating and drying the wood, he was able to harden it, giving him a weapon. Though it would not work against the likes of a bear, it should be enough to help him hunt and maybe ward off a wild pig or two.

Once the sun was fully up, he took his spear, gripping the makeshift knife he had made in his other hand, as he headed to check his traps. The first three he checked were still empty, but in the fourth, he was rewarded with an amazing sight. A small doe had passed under the deadfall, triggering it and dying as it came crashing down on her neck. Bowing to say thank you to the deer and give praise to the spirits for this kill, Merrick was ecstatic. He removed the deer from the trap and reset it as he had with all of the others. Slinging the corpse over his shoulder, he made his way back toward camp. This time, he dragged the deer up high into a tree, binding its legs to a branch with a strip of buckskin he had cut from his ceremonial shirt.

He made an incision in the neck of the deer, allowing the blood to slowly drip into the hole he had dug under the branch, and then hurried to the lake to wash off before returning to check on his prize. He had chosen a spot that was a good distance from his camp, not wanting to attract predators, and while waiting for the deer to bleed out he checked the rest of his traps, making quick trips to ensure that no wandering predator came by and took his prize. There was another trap that had killed a rabbit, so he took that with him as well.

With all the traps reset and the rabbit skinned and drying, he gathered some coals from his hearth and returned to where the deer had finished bleeding to set up a small fire. After cutting the deer down he began to work on it, once again using his crude knife and a sharp stone he had found to cut it open as best as he was able. It was tough work, but he relished it, excited to have some venison. Setting up a simple rack using strips of buckskin and some long sticks, he cut chunks of meat from the deer's back and thighs, trying to make them as thin as possible, and then began setting them up on the rack to dry.

The rack was positioned over the fire, and he stoked it high, wanting to dry the meat out as much as possible. The meat would take a few days before it was fully dried out, and so he reserved a full half of the deer to cook directly over the fire, eating it as it finished cooking. Without salt or spices, the meat wasn’t incredibly tasty, but as hungry as he was, there was no reason to be picky.

This time he had tried to keep both the rabbit and the deer's hides a little bit nicer, hoping to use them for some of his traps in the future. But what really interested him were the deer’s bones. Carefully selecting a few of the deer’s leg bones, he laid them out on the rack next to the meat to dry, and then spent most of the night tending the fire. The next day, after checking his traps, he continued to dry the bones out while he worked to process the deer skin. The rabbit pelt was dried and turned into strips, but he kept most of the deer skin intact and rubbed it regularly to keep it from stiffening. On the third day he caught two more rabbits and a pheasant, and found some wild tubers in a small meadow south of the lake before returning to work on his new weapons.

As soon as he killed the pheasant, he heard another ding and saw a window telling him he had gotten an experience point, causing his brow to furrow. Whatever these experience points were, they were starting to stack up. It appeared that every time he hunted a new creature, one experience point would appear, but when he killed the same type of prey again, he wouldn’t. Currently he had three of ten experience points, but what they did was anyone’s guess.

Testing the bones he had set out to dry, he figured that they were dry enough, and began to work on them. Breaking one of them in half, he found a rock with a sharp edge and began to scrape the bone, slowly shaping it into a point. It was hard and time consuming work, but there wasn’t anything else to do, and over the next few days his spear tip and knife took shape. The spear tip was about six inches long, and ended with a joint that he set against the end of a forked stick. Once he was happy with how they fit together, he went down to the edge of the lake and put his rabbit skin strips in some water, getting them wet and making sure they stretched before he bound the bone spear tip to the stick.

While he waited for the wet leather to dry, he cut himself a long strip of leather from the deerskin and dunked it as well before wrapping it tightly around the handle of his bone knife. When the leather dried, it would shrink, tightening around the handle of the knife and making a secure grip. Pleased with his crude weapons, Merrick tested them out to make sure they wouldn’t just fall apart. The bone knife wasn’t quite as firm or as sharp as he wanted, but it could cut animal skins better than his wooden spike so he was happy with it overall. He was ecstatic to finally have something to use to protect himself, and it was with high spirits that he went out the next day to check his traps. Whether it was his recent successes or the fact that his belly was full, that caused his defenses to lapse, he wasn't sure. But just as he was checking the third deadfall on his route, his senses went wild.

The forest was quiet, but he didn’t notice how quiet it was until it was almost too late. A great sense of fear overtook him, and he suddenly abandoned the trap he was trying to reset, lunging to the side. He was quick, but not quick enough to avoid the claws of the wolf attacking from his back. Sharp claws ripped through his skin, landing a strong blow and lacerating him deeply. Ignoring the pain, he rolled to the side, scrambling madly to try and grab his knife or his spear, which he had placed down on the ground while he reset the trap. The wolf, not wanting to give him time to defend himself, spun, its teeth gleaming as it lunged for him. Merrick felt his hand close around something and he jerked to his knees, thrusting out the weapon he had grabbed with a desperate yell, meeting the charging wolf. The weight of the creature bowled him over, its teeth latching deep into his shoulder as his spear pierced deep into its chest. The snap of his spear as the weight of the wolf pressed down on him sent a shock wave of terror through his body and he sensed the wolf was about to try and break his bones with its powerful bite.

Yet even as it tried to bite down, his vision sharpened and through its thick fur he saw a throbbing vein in its neck. With absolute certainty, he knew if he could just plant his dagger there the wolf would die. But his dagger had been thrown, and the spear he had used to meet the wolf's charge had been broken. Instead, craning his neck around, frantic with fear, he opened his mouth and bit as hard as he could, using his canines to rip a chunk of flesh from the wolf's neck. With a desperate howl, the wolf jumped back, releasing its hold on his shoulder as blood spurted from its torn jugular vein. Desperately trying to turn, its legs gave out as warm blood gushed all over Merrick. It fell quickly as its powerful heart continued to pump the warm life out of its body. Gasping for air, his body covered in blood, Merrick turned over and crawled to find his weapons. The spear he had created was broken off in the wolf's chest, where it had pierced deep into the creature's lung.

[Ding! Three experience points.]

As he scrambled through the fallen brush and leaves, he finally found his knife and clutched it close. The wolf had done significant damage to his shoulder, and his arm hung loosely at his side, unable to be used. Still, he did his best to gather up his things, and as he turned to stagger back to his camp, he paused. There was no reason to leave the corpse of the wolf behind. Fueled by adrenaline, he held his dagger in his teeth as he picked up the wolf and slung it over his shoulder, carrying it back with him to his shelter. The trip through the woods was fraught with danger, and he staggered more than once, nearly toppling over under the weight of the large beast. But something unknown burned deep within him, and he found himself drawing strength from a well he had not known existed.

When he finally made it back to the lakeside, he was exhausted, and dumping the wolf to the side, he sat down near the water. His body felt like it had been run over, like it had been trampled by a herd of deer, but he forced himself to go down to the water's edge and clean the wolf's blood off. He couldn't tell what was the wolf's and what was his, and as he examined the wound on his shoulder, he realized that he was in trouble. The wolf's teeth had cut deep into him, tearing at his skin and cutting through the muscle beneath. Thankfully, it didn't seem as if there was any damage to his tendons or his bones, but it had been a close call. Gritting his teeth, he endured the stinging pain as he washed out the wound, getting himself clean before returning to his camp.

The one bright side to his encounter with the wolf was that he now had a set of teeth and claws much sharper than the crude bone weapons that he had been able to create. For the next few days, he didn't move from his camp, relying on the dried food that he had stored up. While he rested, he worked on skinning the wolf's corpse and removing its bones, teeth, and claws. The large canines were added to his knife, forming a double bladed weapon, while the thicker wolf bones were turned into a higher quality spear. While he waited for his wounds to heal, he ate as much wolf meat as he wanted, not worrying about rationing it. The wolf meat was stringy, but he didn't care. It would nourish him. Every day he could feel the power of the world seeping into him, causing his body to heal faster than normal, and within four days, he was back to normal. As he looked at the scabs that had formed on his arms, he was astonished, his mind returning to the deep and fierce scars that the warriors of his tribe bore.

His skin was healing without blemish, indicating that the wounds they had taken to get such scars must have been horrific. With a new appreciation for the warriors of his tribe and the hardships they went through to provide for and protect him and the other villagers, Merrick gathered his courage and took up his weapons once again, heading out to hunt. He knew that the only way he would get free of this place was to establish himself first, to remove the basic needs he had for food and equipment, buying him the time he needed to explore the basin fully. He was still convinced that there must be an entrance to it, but where, he was not sure. After recovering from the fight with the wolf, his days fell into a simple routine. He would go out and hunt, checking his traps and occasionally setting new ones, before exploring the forest for the rest of the day. The traps had to be moved every so often because the animals of the basin were cunning and would learn where they were, but this area had clearly never been trapped because he found that his success rate was quite high.

After his nearly deadly encounter with the second wolf, Merrick did not see any other predators for a few weeks. It was only once when he was hunting a deer that he noticed the sound of a large creature coming from a distance and realized that it was the bear. Judging that it had been drawn to the scent of blood after his spear had stabbed into the deer's neck, Merrick quickly grabbed his spear out of the deer’s corpse and ran, heading for the lake where he could wash the scent of blood away. He was not about to compete with the bear, no matter how badly he wanted the deer, trusting that he could go and find another one if he needed to.

As the days progressed, Merrick found, to his astonishment, that his observational ability made things much easier. It wasn't just that by looking at things, he could dredge up the strange internal knowledge that seemed to reside in his heart and mind, but rather that his actions became smoother and easier. It was as if he had been out of harmony with the song of the world, but by living in this basin, he was slowly returning to a state of oneness. It was a strange and slow feeling, and he didn't let himself dwell on it too much since there was too much to do to ensure his safety. When he wasn't hunting or setting new traps, he was trying to improve his shelter and create the equipment he would need to scale the basin walls. He had yet to stray out to the edge where the cliffs rose high into the sky because of the lingering fear in his heart of the predators that roamed the basin. But as the days passed, courage bloomed in its place, and one morning when he woke up, he knew it was the day.

Taking the weapons he had fashioned, along with a long length of rope he had been braiding from the tall grass at the river edge and most of the dried meat he had left, Merrick closed up his shelter and set out. First, he skirted along the edge of the lake, wanting to keep himself from getting lost in the deep forest. Setting the waterfall at the far end of the lake as his destination, he began to walk around the lake toward it, stepping from rock to rock and occasionally moving into the forest when he couldn't pass along the lake's edge. He took his time, not rushing, and within a few hours, he was standing next to the pounding waterfall. Two hundred feet high, the water fell, looking as if it fell from the sky itself, as it roared down from above and crashed into the lake with a thunderous sound. The fact that he had survived such a fall was astonishing to him, and once again he marveled at how lucky he was to be alive.