It took Jack the rest of the morning and a few hours of the afternoon to strip & process nettles for cordage, then get the roof of the shack made. The sun was not yet terribly low in the sky; about the same time they had arrived in town the day before. Mama had been curiously watching him work the whole time, while lazily grazing and sunning herself, but as the roof went up, her opinions of his being silly for picking this spot began to diminish. He knew, because he had been asking her opinion on things as he was working.
He sat down against the tree he had used at the upright support for his central roof beam, lazily stroking mama on her fat tummy while looking through the first book in the series had had borrowed from the library. The material was terribly dry, but full of simple exercises to try and get used to manipulating one's "Internal energy reserves", to guide it for doing tasks. The first few chapters he had read were all about breathing, posture, and mindset and were not that entertaining at all-- some even seemed outright comical, and he would occasionally share the more hilarious bits with his ursine companion.
More than anything, she was interested in the 'concept' of books; Recording a visual representation of sounds, which were themselves representations of thoughts and concepts. She wondered how 2 legged things managed all the representations of representations, and still keep their thoughts straight-- even made a few wry implications that this was why 2 legged things were so crazy all the time, and always overthinking everything. (like building that 'den', when he could have just dug out a nice deep hole, and been done hours ago.) Despite the jokes though, she still wondered about how the very idea of such a thing could have gotten started, and was secretly proud of Jack for making such a very comfortable and easily accessible all-weather bed. (She had tried it out after he had filled the dug-out space inside full of dry leaves, and found it very enjoyable and secure feeling.)
While Mama had been snacking all day, he had eaten nothing at all this whole time, and his stomach was growling at him like an angry animal. He looked into his bag, and counted the 3 gold coins he had remaining, and grimaced, then started thumbing through the book he had been reading, thumbing for sections on actually working with plants. He knew mushrooms grew quickly on their own anyway-- popping up in just a day or two after a good heavy rain-- perhaps something like that could be done, even if he was working out-of-order that was intended with the treatises he was reading.
Picking the book up again, he thumbed through the first book, then the second... It was in the second that he found what he was looking for; a whole chapter on mycology and fungus. It was actually a very fascinating read, but he was getting hungrier the longer he read. Apparently, the mushroom itself was just the part that makes a fine particulate dust, which is what what the actual mushroom-- a sprawling tangle of white fibers that works its way into leaves or dead wood-- actually grows from. The notion was fascinating to him, as it had numerous implications-- There was a whole section on collecting that dust, and inspecting it to identify the kind of mushroom properly, and general guidelines for assisting and manipulating their growth. By then his stomach was threatening to eat his other internal organs, and then start devouring his spine if he did not feed it. The locals had been picking the local area of anything remotely usable for some time now, and there really wasn't much that as edible to a man like himself. Mama could get by on grasses and sedges this time of year, but he couldn't. With renewed vigor and urgency of purpose, he rushed through the appropriate sections of both books, trying his best to commit the information to memory.
The thought crossed his mind that he had plenty of wood chips on hand (from all the hatchet work he had been doing), and the inside of his bag would surely contain traces of those fine particles (since he had carried mushrooms in it to munch on, and share with mama while walking), so perhaps he could try to put this into practice. It was a long shot, and there was always taking a bite of that special bread as an option, but he wanted to save that for true emergencies; He would rather take one of the gems he had grabbed from that drawer and set up a tab at the inn than break into the bread again. He trudged to the bath-house, along with a few of his glass jars, washed them thoroughly, then filled them to the top and carried them back. He stuffed one of them with wood chips after shaking them around in his bag a fair bit, saturating them with water--
Then he bit his lower lip, felt like the biggest fool on the planet, and went through the directed routine. Either this would work, and something perhaps edible would grow out of the top of the jar, or he would have to hawk one of the gems at the inn-- But he was gonna sure as hell try the free option first.
Taking a deep breath, he did his best.
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Topic: Mystville [Game Thread] (Read 120304 times)