Welcome to The Crucible

I did not sleep well that night, mostly because of the ‘bed’, but also because of the nightmares – fortunately there wasn’t much noise or annoying insects or I wouldn’t have slept at all.

At some point, I couldn't close my eyes anymore and I just laid there thinking.

While I didn’t have a restful sleep, I at least felt calm.

I still felt awful just remembering my deaths but if I avoided thinking about them I could manage somehow.

Thinking back to the previous day I realized how panicked I was, I thought I acted rationally but I was, indeed, totally out of it, and I was moving around like a headless chicken – I don’t think many would have done better though.

Still, things had to change.

I had to plan things better if I wanted to stay alive for longer, since death, though not permanent, will sooner or later drive me crazy; I had received too much pain in one day to believe I could go on like this.

“And in three days, no…two days… things will get way worse.” I thought, staring into the darkness.

In the process of thinking back, I realized I had missed something that may have been of help – I had forgotten about the second blue box I had gotten.

I tried to remember what was written, and slowly it came back.

"It told me I had additional information of some sort, and I could access it if I said… Information Panel? Or information screen?” I thought.

“Information Panel” I tried saying in a low voice.

I waited for a few seconds but got nothing.

“Information Screen” I said.

This time a blue box appeared in front of me just after I said the words.

I stared at it for a moment.

Back in my world, we were not yet at the level of the holographic screen, so it was quite a novel thing.

“Back in my world…” I thought.

Just that thought was enough to take away my attention from the floating marvel.

Until now I hadn’t had the time or the state of mind to really think about it – I knew of course that I wasn’t in my world, but it was more like being aware that there was something in your peripheral vision and now this thought brought it into focus.

I allowed myself enough time to internalize the matter, and then decided to postpone it until later – I knew my priorities, and getting depressed over things I couldn’t change wasn’t one of them, so I turned my attention back to the screen.

I noticed that while I could see the screen perfectly, it didn't seem to give off any light, because I couldn't see things illuminated around me, nor had my eyes hurt when it appeared.

I tried selecting Information Menu with my hand to see if it worked by touch too.

My finger passed through but the screen changed.

“The Crucible” I said aloud, just to see if I could navigate vocally too.

It looked like I was given some useless info, though the fact that it refers to the trials in the plural doesn't reassure me at all.

Until now I hadn't had any good news, and just thinking about it made me want to curse the shitheads that put me here.

“It will probably update with more information in the future, either with time or by some special action I suppose.” I thought.

I tried clicking everything else but all except the Status window were empty.

This one also had useless information so I closed the box and started planning the day.

I realized right away that mostly I would start my day by doing what I did the previous day; in other words, I had to find food and water, and I needed to find some rocks.

The eat and drink part wouldn’t be hard, since I already had places to find them, and even if I had to be careful when went out I believed I could manage since they weren’t too far.

I had no idea where to find stones of a good size on the other hand; my guess would be to search for a river and see if I could find them there but that would imply moving very far out and, well, I really didn't want to do that for obvious reasons, and for obvious reasons, I would also have to do just that sooner or later.

So my plan of action was going to be, eating, drinking and after that, I would try to search for fallen trees and branches to see if I can manage to build something with just that, otherwise, I would have to move out and hope for the best I suppose.

I also wondered if, before I started searching for materials, I should try to make some ropes to tie things together.

I didn’t think it was going to be hard to find the materials, but I probably won’t find it easy to make one since I never tried before, though I had a vague idea on how to do that.

I could also try to make some sort of fence around my campsite, to see if I could keep the beasts at bay.

Thinking about it though it wasn’t the best of ideas – there should be plenty of animals here that were good climbers and thinking back about the size of that tiger I would have had to build a really big fence if I wanted to keep it out.

And this brought out another thought; the animals.

“Both that serpent (a boa or python I think) and that tiger were way too oversized from what I know to be the norm, and I already didn't fancy my chances with normal-sized ones let alone these bigger and probably tougher ones.

Add to that all the animals I know and don't know of, that live in a tropical forest and I really got a nice picture here.”

After some time, while I was trying to remember all the various plants and animals that I could find in this forest, I noticed that it was getting a little brighter than before and also that there was an absurdly thick fog.

"Mm... I don't know if this will complicate things or help me.." I thought.

I didn't know if predators usually hunted at this time of the day but I doubted it would be tigers or jaguars since their sense would be impaired in the fog, but maybe snakes did and whatever else may come out in these conditions.

In the end, I decided to wait and see if it would lift because I doubted there wouldn't be anything dangerous out there regardless of the time and whatever was out there was surely way better than me at moving around in these conditions.

I sat up and looked around to see if there was something to occupy myself while I waited.

There were a few rocks that I used to mark the location of my resurrection point, which, in hindsight, was strange, since there weren’t rocks anywhere else, even small ones, but I decided to just accept that and move on – no use thinking about it now.

I prepared to make some stone chips to use like cutters, not much else I could do since they were a bit too small to do anything more with them, maybe I could make an arrow point, but I would need an arrow for that and before that a bow, which wasn’t something I could even try to build right now, or maybe a small knife but I was sure I wouldn’t be able to make something good without a great deal more rocks and time.

So I took a few of them and tried to do like I saw in the videos I used to watch.

“I feel lucky I liked to watch survival videos, though I doubt I will find it easy to replicate what I saw, especially since I don’t remember everything perfectly.” I thought.

After a few tries, I managed to split the stone I picked, and then I tried to split off some flakes.

I was very careful since from what I remembered they could sometimes shoot off in unexpected directions, and they were razor-sharp, after some time I managed to get one which seemed usable if a bit small, though I couldn’t expect much if the stone is smaller than my fist I suppose.

I looked around and found some leaves and small branches to try it on.

I found some and gave it a try; it cut well, but it chipped when I tried to cut the branch.

All of a sudden a blue box appeared in front of me.

“Holy shit!” I said.

I nearly had a heart attack, and I also cut my finger, though not too deeply.

“These things need to learn when it’s time to pop up and when it’s time to wait, what if I was running or in a dangerous situation?!” I thought while my heartbeat slowed down.

I then looked at what the damn windows wanted.

I looked at it dumbly for a few seconds while licking my cut – I really didn’t expect something like that.

I closed the screen with my other hand and opened my information screen and selected manuals.

There was the section stonework and when I selected it showed a flintknapping and then basics under it.

I tried to click on it and it opened a page on how to correctly chose the stone how to hit the stone where to hit it and other useful things, though it didn’t show how to make anything specific.

“For real?!” I thought excitedly.

I couldn't believe it, and if what I thought was true, then my life was going to be immensely easier in the next few months.

So I tried to calm down and tried to make a small knife to see what would happen.

It took me quite a lot and a few more cuts on my hands to make what I wanted and it was a really crude thing, especially since I only used another stone as a striking tool, but if I’m right this should be enough to prove my guess.

And just as I thought, after I used the knife to peel a branch I got another notification.

“Yes!” I said excitedly.

I opened the manuals menu and indeed found a knife manual under the basics.

I opened and it showed step by step how to create a knife from a stone, I expected something like an advanced manual but this is even better.

I was really happy, it wasn’t a superpower, sure, but it would surely improve my life a great deal, and right now I would have celebrated even a bush of berries inside my safe zone.

It was getting brighter now and it seemed that the fog was lifting but I still had some time so I started making ropes with some things I had on hand and, after I tied it to a branch, that too gave me a manual, under the cordage and knots section.

The fog was mostly lifted now and I have been thirsty for a while so it was time to go.

My jubilant mood subsided a bit now that I had to go out but I didn’t feel as depressed as this morning or out of it like yesterday, I was determined; I now had a bit of hope that things could go better and that I could be more than a simple snack for the beasts out there, and I would do my damn best to make it would happen sooner rather than later.

They were going to be MY snacks.