Summoned! To Grimworld

Chapter 5: A System Menu is the Best Survival Tool

Although new, the blade in his hand felt like an old friend. Not because the creation of a knife had led to him feeling safer, but because it allowed him to engage in the one activity that truly made him happy. The shard of spaceship-glass that Marcus had bound tightly onto a handle was only about ten centimetres long, so it wasn't particularly useful as a weapon. As a knife to whittle with, however, it was perfect. Much better than real glass, it held its edge after repeated use and had an effective weight, more like that of metal than glass. If his knife was a person, then it would be a sombre and careful, middle-aged civil servant, in contrast to the flighty, brittle character of a knife made of Earth glass.

Smiling to himself, Marcus shaved another sliver of wood from the side of the block he was working with. As with timber from trees on Earth, the effect of pushing a sharp blade against wood varied enormously according to the grain. For him, the art of sculpting in wood was about realising what the wood itself wanted to express and allowing that to emerge by a kind of flow between it, the knife, his fingers, and his mind. Turning the block around and around in his hands, he visualised – felt, rather – all the possibilities and collapsed all but one of them with another stroke of the knife.

Only now did he realise how much pleasure in life he had lost while aging. Back on Earth, his eyes had misted over with cataracts and his hands had lost much of their strength. The process had been so gradual that it never felt as though his ability as a sculptor was noticeably declining. Not until now. With his strength and vision restored, Marcus felt transformed: that it was possible for him to make more daring art than he'd ever managed before. In the case of this piece of wood, it would take some effort, but there was a bird inside of it, which he could release, one of those purple-breasted equivalents to robins.

Wearing only his cotton long johns, Marcus was sitting on a fallen tree, just inside the treeline. The princess was nearby, looking for nuts and berries in the hope of triggering the forage skill. She was working hard, crawling through bushes and bringing out seeds and fruits, which she had made into a pile on an area of bare earth. Her new spear was leaning against a nearby tree. Which was just as well, thought Marcus. All the way back from the wreckage of the spacecraft, he had felt that they were being followed by that lion-like creature.

It hadn't taken much tinkering with the blades and suitable branches for them both to get Weaponsmith One and complete the spear quest. His own was lying on the ground in front of him. And with the spears having been made, several other quests had come into existence, related to fishing and hunting as well as the manufacture of a sword, javelin and bow and arrows. The latter appealed to Marcus for hunting as well as defence against possible slavers. If he had to fight, he was handy enough with his fists. But the smart option was always to hit an enemy from a distance.

'Got it! I got it!' Sina's delighted cry caused Marcus to look up sharply from the nearly-finished bird. 'These nuts are called viabrands. And I'm Foraging level one.'

'Are they edible?' Marcus got up eagerly. He was thoroughly bored of the Rittle berries and never satisfied by them.

'According to the menu they satisfy hunger, the same as Rittle berries. Here; you should be able to see for yourself.' The princess tipped four little nuts – like pine nuts – into his hand and immediately he opened his completed quests.

Obtain vibrand nuts