Hands of Fate - Survivors of Flight AA214

Chapter 10

Bianca - Day of Landing 3

Population of Unnamed Settlement - 6

My headache and queasiness had finally subsided. The food poisoning I suffered yesterday was finally gone, and somehow, despite lying on the hard ground, my back felt better. Maybe my body was getting used to sleeping on the ground like a tatami mat. Lots of people slept on the ground in the world, after all. I had to look on the bright side. Have to look on the bright side, Bianca.

The morning did leave me with one problem though: I was dying of thirst, and my mouth felt like cotton balls. The pots of “clean” water we had were drained, with just a few drops pooling near the bottom. I picked up the pot, drank the last drops, and spat them out as the remaining liquid was gritty and tasted ashy. Orion had gotten to the water first and used what was left to boil over the campfire. I asked him why he was boiling water twice and noticed he had chicken feet and other bones in the pot.

“Making broth,” Orion said.

The poor guy looked like he didn’t get much sleep, both getting to bed later than us and waking up earlier than all of us. Orion came over to my leaf basket to search through the forage he picked yesterday. He started chopping up something that looked like a leak and put it into the boiling pot. Our resident cook rummaged through the bag of forest goodies, sniffing leaves and brown mushrooms Alex had gathered.

“Were you a cook before this, Rye? Did you work in a kitchen?” I asked, curious, sitting beside him, my eyes on the pot boiling.

“No. The closest thing I was to a cook was working at McDonald’s one summer when I was 14, but other than that, I was studying computer science,” Orion said, not paying much attention to me as he grabbed a cracked pot full of gray salt.

“How do you know how to cook?” I asked.

“My mom is always working late, so I cook for myself and Cass most nights,” Orion said, adding a generous portion of the salt into the broth.

“At least you have some experience. I was thinking last night... I don’t know why I got the Founder class. You and Ethan both know something about your class, but I don’t know anything about building stuff or founding, whatever that is,” I frowned.

Orion didn’t say anything and kept working. I expected him to comfort me and tell me it was alright and I'll be a great Founder, but it seemed like he agreed with my assessment.

“I leveled up last night. I’m level 5 now,” Orion said nonchalantly, stirring the pot with his knife and giving the end of the blade a taste. That was kinda gross. Wasn't he worried about food poisoning? He probably used that knife to cut up the raw chicken or whatever bird that was.

“Wow... already?” I asked.

“Yeah. Look, when you reach level 5, you’ll have to make a choice. You'll meet our dark friend again. Just... make sure you pick a card that benefits the group and take your time with the decision,” Orion said.

Great, just another thing to worry about. There wasn’t a strategy guide out here that could just give me a god-tier build, was there?

As the day broke, more and more people woke up. Cass was first after me, then Alex, who looked like he had come out of hibernation. Anika was next, and somehow Ethan managed to sleep like a log several hours after daybreak. We gathered around the pot for our breakfast and realized something: we had no bowls to serve the broth in.

Improvising, we cleaned out the now-empty freshwater pots with broth and shared communally, splitting ourselves into two groups---the girls and Cass sharing one bowl, and the older boys sharing the other bowl.

“Now this I like,” Anika said, to which I nodded in agreement.

“This isn’t bad at all,” Ethan added, smiling as he sipped.

“Rye is an amazing chef!” Cass said enthusiatically.

“Relax, it’s not that great,” Orion said, a flush of pink coming to his face as he finally redeemed himself for yesterday’s debacle. He pretends not to care, but he likes it when people like his cooking.

The broth was hearty and earthy. It was a bit bitter for my taste, but well-seasoned. It satisfied both our hunger and thirst at the same time. It wasn’t as good as Mom’s homemade chicken soup, but it wasn’t bad. It was probably the closest thing to five stars out here, though.

“Where did you find the herbs?” Anika asked.

“In the forest up in those hills. They are everywhere if you look for them. My Forage skill kind of highlights them for me,” Orion answered, pointing past our stockpile of wood.

“And I found those mushrooms you added in a grove near here, but there are a bunch of boars there,” Alex said looking over his scarred leg.

“Do you want to go foraging instead, Anika?” I asked her.

“Maybe for a short while. If this card skill system you all have is as useful as you say, I think I know what class I’m going for,” Anika said.

“What class?” I asked.

“Herbalist or alchemist, of course. It would make sense for me if Ethan became a Doctor class. Maybe I’ll get a herbalist or chemistry-related skill,” Anika said.

“Dude... that makes total sense,” Alex said. “I need to go kill monsters or something for a Warrior class.”

“Me too! Me too! I can kill monsters!” Cass said.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Orion said, shaking his head at Cass sternly.

“If we finish the kiln early, I will go look around for some herbs and start making my ‘potions',” Anika said, putting potions in air quotes.

When we finished our breakfast and morning discussion over our plans for the day, both Alex and Cass complained they didn’t want to make rope and instead wanted to go hunt monsters and boars. Orion, Anika, and Ethan spent a while designing the look of the kiln and talking about the mechanics of making it, using sticks and sand to draw out the designs. Orion would be in charge of food but said to not hold our breath for lunch to be served, to harvest clams across the shore if hungry, and instead look forward to a big dinner.

Before Orion left to go solve our food situation, he showed Alex and Ethan how to use the fire drill. We would set up another better-built campfire closer to the entrance of the forest and away from the beach. Afterward, Orion then showed them which bark to strip and vines to gather to braid into rope.

Ethan, Anika, and I looked at my stockpile situation. I pulled my Stockpile card out of my palm and threw it in front of me. It levitated before me, presenting the following information:

Stockpile:

Wood Logs: 44

Wood Sticks: 30

Wood Chunks: 9

Leaves: 39

Tinder: 6

Large rocks: 5

Small rocks: 15

We had tons of wood. Slate had worked endlessly through the night to clear a whole section of the forest and packed the logs, branches, and leaves in the clearing he made himself.

“Are you okay, Slate? Are you tired, big buddy?” I asked, patting Slate on the back as he continued whacking away at the next tree, not responding to my question. His rock axe’s head was barely holding onto the slot and strings that kept it together. I would have to get Orion or Slate to make another one. Since Slate could learn by watching others, I thought they could make it themselves.

“It’s still amazing how this thing works,” Anika marveled, her eyes scanning the golem up and down.

“Don’t you think we have enough wood? Geez... I guess everywhere humans go, we have to deforest the entire place,” Ethan commented, looking around the now-cleared area full of stumps of fallen trees, a mix of awe and horror in his eyes.

“Can Slate gather mud?” Anika asked.

“He can do it all. If I just throw my card at it, he’ll harvest it,” I said proudly, pushing out my chest.

We held three empty clay pots as I gave Anika and Ethan a tour of the areas of the forest I knew. Someone had marked a trail with sticks to the nearest stream, where we refilled the water. Anika pointed out an area of ochre-colored mud that looked useful for harvest, so I pulled out my Harvest card and made Slate work it. The golem stared at the mudflats in puzzlement, tilting its head at the scene.

The three of us watched as Slate crossed the stream to the red mudflats, scooped up some clay with his rock talons, and came back across the stream towards the trail that led to our camp and the nearby stockpile. Drops of mud slipped between his “fingers,” coating the trail with mud slime. By the time he reached the stockpile, he had maybe a handful of clay left, which he piled in front of the logs.

“I think we have to build Slate a wheelbarrow,” Ethan said.

“How... do we do that?” I asked, having no clue where I could get wheels from.

“It’s highly inefficient, but having a tireless magic worker do it handful by handful makes me less eager to complain. At least it’s not our backs breaking doing it,” Anika said, and we all nodded in agreement.

Slate had his orders, so we let him do his thing while we boiled our freshwater pots in the new campfire. The pots we managed to make yesterday were now blackened and on the verge of breaking. In his destruction of the forest, we chose a spot for the kiln closer to the heart of the land we were in and further away from the beach. The kiln was maybe a football field away from our base camp. The three of us looked around for flat, shovel-shaped rocks to dig up dirt and mud and build the fire pit the kiln was built on. When we realized we were going to be working in the mud, Ethan rolled up his sleeves and took off his jeans, revealing his navy blue boxers underneath. Anika and I both tried not to giggle while he rolled his eyes at our immaturity. I took off my white shirt, now sooty and stained, and went down to my black sports top, rolling up my pants sleeves. Anika had a long yellow kurti which she rolled to her shoulders.

We, or rather Anika, settled on a circle shape for the kiln about a yard and a half in diameter. Besides the clay that Slate brought back from the river, which Anika said would be mostly used for pottery, we gathered mud from a closer source and worked tirelessly to make a dirt igloo. Every so often, Ethan and Anika would gather sticks and stones to layer the kiln walls to support it. When Slate came back, I had him help lift some clay over and do grunt work and he was handy as a makeshift ladder. We topped it off with a chimney and began to gather wood to place in the firebox below the kiln. After the kiln's structure was complete, we let it dry while we headed back to the stockpile. Slate’s efforts of gathering the ochre clay had piled up like a dinosaur’s dung heap. We dug out the moist clay underneath the dry surface, and the three of us spent time making pots, bowls, plates, cups, and other tools.

I spent some time making a large watering jar with a narrow neck and handles. Anika made a mortar and pestle, while Ethan made storage jars with accompanying lids. When Slate came back with another hand of clay, I made it into a cup. It looked like he observed us quietly before getting back to work. I had a feeling Slate was like a newborn; the more he grew, the better a builder he became. Hopefully, Slate had observed enough to make another kiln for us so we could fire clay pottery two at a time.

The three of us transported our new clay pots, ready to be fired, to our dry kiln. It was past midday, with the sun directly overhead. I didn’t see any signs of Orion. Cass got bored of making rope, so he came over and helped us carry the newly created clay pottery to our kiln and play with Slate. Alex, however, looked like he got bored of making rope as well, but it looked like he was crafting himself a sword, tying two sticks together in a hilt with a pointed end on the longer branch.

Ethan handed me a torch carrying the fire of our base camp’s campfire as we finished loading all the clay pottery into the kiln.

“You should do it; it might help you level up,” Ethan suggested handing me the torch.

I lit the wood underneath the kiln, and it began a roaring fire. Through the holes we placed in the kiln to let in air, I could see an orange light coating our clay pots, burning bright and pure. Cass let out a "cool" remark as he got closer, but I held him back so he wouldn’t breathe in the smoke.

Kiln

Quality - D

Clay pots you make are 20% lighter

Founder - Level 4

Build - Level 3

Crafting - Level 2

Pottery - Level 2

Tracking - Level 1

“Why don’t you guys wash up or something? I’ll stay here and feed the fire, and after you’re done, I’ll go myself,” Ethan suggested.

I could kiss you, Ethan, I really could.

Anika and I stared at each other for a brief moment and nodded in agreement.

“There’s a river nearby I can show you guys,” Cass said. “It’s good water; I wash up there sometimes. It’s near where Rye and I caught that bird.”

We marched to the river, following tracking sticks that Orion left to guide us. It felt weird following a kid, but Cass was really smart for his age, so we took his word for it. My tracking skills were getting better. Instead of just taking Cass’ word for it, I closed my eyes and listened for it. There it was—a flowing stream straight ahead and to the left.

I pulled out my cards to see if I had leveled up my tracking skill, as I had become more aware of the woods like it was my backyard. It was still level 1. But when I checked my Pottery card, the number 2 at the top of the card changed to a 3. When that happened, the level 4 of my Founder class card changed to a level 5. The next thing I knew, I was no longer in the forest but in a familiar dark void.