There was actually a lot that I wanted to do, I realized.
Cooking had been something I'd never... WANTED to do before. It had been a thing I'd done because I had to - that was all. When I was little, I'd cooked with my dad, and that had been fun, but when I was an adult in the world after it collapsed, I cooked because I needed to eat, because the water needed to be boiled and things I'd had to eat needed heating up, not because I wanted to exactly. And yet here, in this world, there was a definite and tangible... reward to cooking! What else would the World reward me for doing? What else could I cook? I had to preserve the meat somehow - that was plain enough. Dehydrating it would be the biggest thing to making it go farther, so I decided that was the next thing I should do.
Also, caring for my salvaged cookware with the animal fat so it wouldn't rust up again was near the top of my list of things to do! Ooh! I could also grind my Knapping skill, make some roof tile tools! The tiles were bloody everywhere - the town seemed to almost exclusively use that kind of roofing material, so I figured it might be worth grinding. Also-also, I still had to clear the bridge and keep my word to Gelidia. I looked to the Shade, who smiled at me, and felt a pang of guilt gnaw at my heart. Now that my needs were sated... maybe that was actually my next step? It should be. I nodded at her, and after cleaning the cooking sheet with the shriving stone and water, I set as much of the venison as I could on it in thin strips, and shoved it in the oven. I'd experimented with it a bit, and somehow the units on the stove were in a language I could understand. Low and slow - that was the ticket. The goal wasn't to cook the meat as such, it was to dehydrate it. It'd take a bloody long while, that.
While it was going, I started making a broom. It wasn't a sophisticated endeavor by any means - I just had to strap some sticks to a vaguely straight branch, right? Little whippy sticks, and a sturdy branch about as long as I was tall without being too big or heavy. I went into the woods, and found a young tree. My roof tile knife came out, and helped with the action of getting whippy little branches off and cleaned of leaves. Twenty or thirty or so would be more than enough - then came the branch. It shouldn't be old and brittle, nor too young either, so I selected a branch off a tree that must have fallen recently - the wood was still white and semi-vital. For cord, I had plenty of deer... stuff... right?
Looking at the bones and sinew, I felt I was... thoroughly at sea. I had no idea how to turn this stuff... into string or something, so I gave up on that and resigned myself to tearing some of my scrap fabric into strips and knotting the whip branches to the branch repeatedly, until they felt pretty secure. The result... was... well, it was...
> Crude wooden broom, flimsy, created by Emily Smith
... That. But something I didn't expect happened next. A menu popped up in front of me!
> Your [CRAFTING, PRIMITIVE] Knapping skill is eligible for evolution into [CRAFTING] Toolmaking! This will reset it to Rank F.
> Evolve Knapping into Toolmaking?
> Yes / No
"Gelidia... my Knapping skill wants to uh... evolve into Toolmaking?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the prompt. "... Should I? It'd dip it back to F..."
"What? What even is Knapping?" she asked "Is that the primitive thing you were doing to make a knife with a roof tile and a piece of bone that shouldn't have worked as well as it did?" she asked, hand on her hip.
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, that's the one."
"Well... Skill evolutions happen when a basic skill gets practice outside its normal scope within a more advanced skill category - I say do it. Toolmaking sounds much more useful - and it might let you make a better broom than that sad thing." she said, and I nodded at the menu. It seemed to 'get' it.
> New Skill Acquired: [CRAFTING] Toolmaking, Rank F: 0%
> [CRAFTING] Toolmaking, Rank F: 0%, The ability to make tools.
Wow, so descriptive! And yet... I found my eyes drawn back to the deer sinew. There was a fair bit of that stuff... and... new ideas suddenly occured to me. I looked at my broom, and realized that the knots I'd used... well they'd work, but they were anything but effective. What I needed was to turn what I had... into cord! I also instinctively knew it'd take... a good while, but I could make a lot of the stuff to make it worth it. I mean... I had a lot of materials to work with! As for the knapped tools, I still knew how to do that too, but maybe I could make better bindings for what I had? And this bone I had would still be super useful!
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Hunkering down to work, I started using my crude knife to get the sinew from the deer, and bonking them steadily against the flagstones, flattening the juices out, then... separating tough little fibers! I don't know how I knew how to do that - probably just the skill at work. I'd seen something like that with my Knapping skill - I learned things from experimentation and from gaining skill ranks in practice! I started separating the fibers of the cloth too, and twining them with the sinew cords to make them both go farther... and soon I found myself twisting them, twisting and pulling gently, stretching and working them into a new... more useful form. My stamina dipped down steadily, failing to heal as I continually used it. Did crafting cost stamina? Soon I was at half stamina, and the sun was past its zenith in the sky, but I looked at the new cord I'd made with some pride as I helped myself to another bowl of soup.
> Composite cord, common, crafting component. A durable length of cordage made from wool and sinew.
I had... a lot of the stuff? I could stretch my arms out three times before reaching the end of it, and I figured that was plenty for my purposes. I checked my Toolmaking skill - had I gained experience in that?
> [CRAFTING] Toolmaking, Rank E: 20%
Not much, but I wasn't exactly making a tool as such... just making stuff to MAKE A tool with! I couldn't just... tie a thing with this. I had to make sure the cord binding would actually stick - and a basic glue was super easy to make with the materials I had!
"Wow, good job. You made rope." Gelidia deadpanned. I grinned at her
"Yup! Good rope! Now it's time to get sticky!" I said, and bounded out of the Inn and into the forest again. Pine trees were easy to find... and sap wasn't all that hard to locate. The stuff stank, especially to me! I'd find a bead or two of the golden sticky stuff with minimal searching.
"World, what are you doing NOW? We're running out daylight!" Gelidia demanded impatiently.
"I'm making Glue!" I said cheerfully! A little bead of spite sparkled in me "So I can make a not-sad broom!" I said, and she threw her hands up in the air. Once I'd gotten a couple handfuls of the stuff, I took them back. No way no how was I using my skillet to make glue in, so I got a saucepan that was still rusty and after scouring it, plopped the sticky golden tree sap into it. Charcoal was easy - there was soot in the bottom of the oven,and with it so low it was barely hot at all. I just scooped some out with my hand and added it to the liquefying tree sap. Stir, and bam - instant pine tar glue. While that cooled, I tried again with the broom. My new skill was telling me that while sticks were alright... grass and birch sticks would be better. It didn't take me long at all to find those, and bring them back. I lashed them to the broomstick I'd found earlier, and used the new tar to make a binding agent, turning the head black. After wrapping a piece of cloth over the tar and tying it in a bow, I inspected my work.
> Wooden Broom, Common, Sturdy, created by Emily Smith
Awesome! I'd made a really good broom, I figured!
> Your [CRAFTING] Toolmaking skill has improved, and is eligible for rank up! Rank E is a free rank!
> [CRAFTING] Toolmaking, Rank E: 0%, The ability to make tools. Tools you make are better at doing what they were designed to do.
Awesome! I hoisted my broom into the air in both hands and shook it up and down, honking at the heavens as I did so as I loosed the battlecry of my people! Gelidia just stared at me.
"What in all the hells!" she cussed, and I laughed at an old meme she would not even possibly get. Tuskan raiders never got this excited about a broom, I bet! Then, without so much as a beat or even an attempt at explanation, I carefully used my tongs and checked on the deer meat. It'd been... hours burning at low heat, needing only occasional attention to keep mana in it. I recovered mana faster than it needed it, really, for the fire rune at the heat level I'd been using it. The meat was dry! I inspected the fruits of my labors.
> Dried meat, Common, Cookery ingredient. Dry lean meat, decay rate reduced significantly
Perfect! that was exactly what I wanted. Setting my broom aside, leaning it against the wall, I started untying my clothes.
"What are you doing?" Gelidia said, her spectral cheeks heating as her eyes widened. "you're... oh."
I could feel night coming. It wasn't yet... but it was soonish. "Yeah." I said "I'm not going to ruin my only other set of clothes. No way no how." I said, and once I was naked again, I started mixing some of the left over fibers from string making into the glue I'd made, rolling and mixing them in until I made a kind of... sticky black bolus of sticky black glue! I rolled it in some of the ashes in the bottom of the oven carefully, making it less sticky, and then put the cooling wad in a mug I could cover with what had probably been the left side of some giantess's bra, tying it shut with a bit of my cord.
I paused to get a feel for how much time I had left. I could feel things... and feel as night approached. The daylight was almost gone... and I could feel that same sense of something about to happen to me creeping on.
"Alright... I'm about to change I think. If you don't wanna watch, better wander off a ways now. I'll come outside when I'm done, okay?" I said politely, and Gelidia's mouth thinned into a line.
"... you sure? I... it's horrible but... if I can help in some way..." she said, but I shook my head.
"I'll be alright - I've gotta get used to it. Not like it's gonna stop happening, right?" I sighed, streeetching, and getting down on the ground in anticipation of what was, very soon now, going to happen.
Gelidia hesitated just a moment, then cussed and fled. I couldn't say I blamed her.
> What a beautiful night to have a curse...