room9/BoredomDay

9.1.2023 ROOM NINE : Boredom Day

You decide to go through Clays pack while you wait hoping for him to return. 

It contains;

 

An earthen jar of sticky brown ointment with a wood and cloth bung.

A fire-making kit, including a bow, spindle, hearth, fluff and tinder. 

A water-skin, half full. 

A small cauldron of green metal. 

Dry meat and various culinary herbs and possibly for other uses, in dry woven-grass envelopes. 

A fat leather pouch, finely hand-crafted, containing half a kilogram of indigo-purple powder which appears to sparkle with silver flecks. 

A woven-grass tube containing a vellum scroll. 

The vellum scroll is a map. It has paragraphs and isolated words of a runic script which you cannot read. The illustration on the map is more detailed than the verbal description Clay gave you of the land and extends to depict a wider area. 

You stay within sight of the Tor for the next day, deciding to circle around it to stretch your legs and prevent yourself from being bored. The body you inhabit is fit and used to a higher level of exercise than your old body back home was trained you. You wonder what has happened to it. Was the 'switch' a direct swap? Is Clays brother walking around wearing your original body, exploring your homeward? You hope not because the probability he would be put in a mental asylum reactively unable to adapt to your own world.  

You spot some rabbits and remember how Clay had made you laugh by explaining "Them's called Rabbits because you lay down-wind above their hole waiting for one to poke its head out. Then you grab-it. Grabbit, rabbit, see?" It passes through your mind perhaps Clay had gone hunting in the night and simply hasn't returned yet. Are rabbits nocturnal in this world? 

Suddenly you realise you're starving so you take Clays advice and pass the hours hunting for rabbits by waiting next to a rabbit hole wondering why they're also called 'bunnies' on your home-world. 

Your patience pays off. After an hour of waiting followed by missing grabbing at one rabbit you move to another hole and wait another hour. This time you are able to grab a rabbit and firmly grip it with both hands. It scratches at you ferociously causing your hands to bleed. Instead of dropping it you slam it to the ground and struggle to snap its neck without letting go of it. The screech of its death-cry will haunt you forever. 

You now have a dead rabbit. You also have no idea how to skin it and get its guts out. Experimenting with this is a gory experience which is if anything more disturbing than confronting the horrible frightening creature last night. There is no water nearby to wash yourself with either. Perhaps there was a well back in the abandoned village? Eventually you manage to get the mess of rabbit fur and guts in a pile while the meat is ready enough to cook. 

You have only a vague idea how the fire-bow works. Something about pressing down on one stick while spinning it with the bow to create friction heat and a spark. You discover as darkness falls how useless you are at this task. You cannot get a fire lit. For the first time you begin to realise how useful cigarette lighters are and how much you took it for granted that modern inventions of your world makes life so much easier. Convenience culture. 

You pack your bag and decide your best bet is to continue walking through the night to keep yourself warm and until you find something more useful along the way. Not sure what to do about Clays bag you decide to take the useful items from it with you and leave his bag and its basic items where it is leaned up against the Tor. You dig an arrow into the dirt with your heel in case he returns, telling him which direction you are going. 

Do you head South toward the Port?

Do you head North toward the Farm Fort?  

Do you head East toward the Hills? 

Do you head West toward the Forest? 

Where at least there will be a supply of wood and probably more variety of food available to hunter-gather.

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