Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe looked through her bracelets to sort her belongings. If this would be her home for a while, she could leave some of the less perishable supplies in her cave, and leave her bracelets open while she explored the area.

She had her clothes, which she wanted to keep in her bracelet for now at least. Three comfortable, colourful dresses, four different pairs of rugged cloth pants and shirts, two skirts, a pair of yellow shorts and the light fur coat that had lasted all these years. Before she knew what kinds of bugs might be in the cave, Zoe wanted to keep her clothes on hand.

There were the books she’d purchased from John, and her flimsy certificate from the hunting school she’d attended. Those would stay in her bracelet as well for the same reason.

Zoe had gotten rid of the weapons she’d been keeping just in case early on during her years in Flester. They just weren’t all that important when she could make things from ice so easily. When she was lower level, it was nice to have the backup. But at this point the mundane dagger she bought when she was level eight didn’t hold up to what her Frozen Arsenal would make.

Her camping supplies took up a big portion of her bracelet’s storage and she summoned them all to the cave floor. There was a sleeping bag, a new firestarter she’d purchased, some basic cookware and a handful of containers to store food or whatever else she might need. The sleeping bag she put back in her bracelet. It didn’t take much space and she’d rather have it than not if she took a long journey out somewhere.

The climbing supplies were also for the most part, unnecessary she found and sold off most of it before she left. The pitons were nice, but the best use she’d found for them so far were as a makeshift spatula. And just like her weapons, the pitons could be replaced with her Frost skill quite easily if she did need to climb. And she didn’t need much assistance climbing anyway with her sharp claws that dug into the cliff walls. Zoe kept a hundred feet of rope in her bracelet as well as her harness, and left the remaining two hundred in the cave.

She had a handful of tools for her skills stored away in her new bracelet. She decided to keep most of her mining tools as well as her hefty lumber axe and then left her carpentry tools and fishing supplies resting up against the wall next to her bed.

Which brought her to the last, and most exciting bit of her supplies. The food. This time, Zoe had opted for a more ambitious plan with fewer prepared meals and more supplies to cook food with. She had purchased some basic cookware and plenty of spices to keep her meals interesting and diverse.

More than anything on her trip to Gafoda, what Zoe enjoyed was the day she spent cooking. Making her meals and storing them away for later was far and away the most interesting part about the whole experience for her. The problems she faced, and the solutions she landed on were a big part of that.

But she enjoyed cooking, she found. And so instead of buying a bunch of prepared meals, or even raw ingredients, Zoe decided to stock up on everything she needed to make what she found in the wild taste good. Enough salt to last her for years, whatever dried spices she could find, and plenty of different fats. An even split between animal fats and oils from whatever vegetables or fruits people made them from.

Zoe did buy some food, it would be silly to wander the wilderness without at least some kind of fallback plan. But that’s what it was, a fallback plan. She went to the fanciest restaurant she could find and purchased twenty meals from them, and kept them stored away in her new bracelet.

All of her cooking supplies would stay in her bracelets, of course. Leaving food out in her home would be a great way to invite bugs and wild animals into her cave, and she didn’t want to do that. If anything, she wanted to put up big signs telling them to stay away if possible.

With everything sorted out, Zoe summoned one of the two large boxes she’d purchased and filled it with all of her belongings she was leaving in the cave. Then she strapped the lid shut to keep any would be invaders away at least somewhat, and left her cave.

The sun was beginning to set, and Zoe had still not eaten anything. It would feel quite awful if on her first day out, she had to dip into her reserves of food already so she decided to hunt some of the local fauna.

With her much higher level skills, it didn’t take long for to find a deer and take it out with one of her piercing Frost projectiles. She made quick work of cleaning it and brought it back to her cave in her bracelet while she gathered some fallen twigs and branches.

Zoe set the bits of wood she gathered down below the hole in the wall and then made a makeshift chimney by stretching out the wall with her Earth Manipulation a little. It wasn’t perfect, and the hole was far too long to be a great chimney. But if she combined the natural convection effect with her Wind Manipulation to push the smoke up it, she wouldn’t suffocate herself. Probably.

She blasted the stack of wood with her firestarter gem, and it flashed to flames. Smoke began to rise from the burning wood and most of it was caught by the chimney she’d made. Zoe urged the rest of the smoke towards it with her Wind Manipulation and worked to extend the chimney to cover the areas where smoke was leaking out.

After a minute of careful work, the smoke was flowing up and through the chimney just as she’d hoped. The vacuum created from the heat rising up the chimney drew in air from her cave and created a gentle breeze that Zoe could only feel because of her Wind Manipulation. The flames cast an unsteady warm light on the damp cave walls, which bounced and refracted through all the water droplets to create a mesmerizing lightshow.

Zoe watched it for a few moments and tended to the fire, then set up her cooking tripod. The thin metal grate slid into notches on the metal bars and rested just above the flames. She summoned a few thin pieces of venison and placed them on the grate.

The flames flared up with each drop of fat that dripped through the grate and sizzled away on the burning wood. Zoe flipped the meat often with her metal tongs, and after a few flips she sprinkled on some of the dried spices to let them toast but not quite burn from the intense heat.

A moment later and her dinner was done. She pulled the pieces of meat off and sprinked on some salt. They were well seared with a nice dark brown colour and a few charred bits. The smell was incredible. A meaty, earthy smell with a hint of the burning wood mixed together with the fresh dewy smell from the cave and enticed her to dig in.

The meat was tender and full of flavour. One of the spices must have been rosemary, and it paired well with the venison. The salt alone was amazing, the sharp crystals provided a welcome salty crunch to the meal and intensified the unctuous pieces of venison.

Overall, it was a far departure from the bland venison she cooked back in Gafoda. Spices and salt were a must have in any survival situation, she decided. At least, if you have bracelets that can store as much of it as you want. Maybe she’d feel different if she had to lug around all of it in big bags everywhere she went.

Zoe rested on the cave floor as the fire flickered away, burning the last remains of wood and lighting up her cave like the inside of a disco ball and just enjoyed her time for a moment. Leaving to do nothing was the best decision she could have made, she thought.

She knew she’d enjoy it more, just being anywhere and doing whatever she wanted without some rigid structure. But she really enjoyed her first day out here. It was relaxing to just create her own goals away from the pressures of society. No expectations, just a simple pleasure and her own imagination.

When the fire died off, Zoe stomped out the remaining cinders and then stored them away in her bracelet to finish dealing with later. In the morning, there was lots more work to do, but Zoe wanted to enjoy her first night in the wilderness in her new bed.

It wasn’t the most comfortable bed she’d ever had. The mattress was filled with rough grass and cloth which poked into her in some places. But it was her bed, and she fell asleep with a smile on her face.

Zoe dreamt of carving out a little home for herself, filling it with everything she could ever want and delving deep into the caves to see what her home had to offer. She woke up sore but well rested and stretched out as she rubbed the rheum out of her eyes.

Her first plan was to find a better temporary solution to her fireplace. At some point, she wanted a proper forge and alchemy setup which would be much larger fires and require significant infrastructure. But for now, she just wanted a place she could start a fire and not worry about suffocating herself in.

The hole worked great as a chimney, but having the fire in the open air made it a lot harder to make an effective chimney. Instead, she wanted to carve out a small hole in the wall and connect it to the tunnel. If she did that, then the original entrance to the tunnel could hold a fan of some sort that would help ventilate the cave when the fire wasn’t running, and when it was it would help create negative pressure that would pull up the smoke.

Satisfied with her plan, Zoe started carving out a small hole in the wall with her Earth Manipulation and then connected it to the tunnel above. The fireplace was large enough for her to fit in if she squished herself into it, and the chimney that attached to the tunnel above was much smaller than the tunnel itself.

When the fireplace was done, she crawled up in the tunnel and formed a small lip where the fireplace connected, so that if she blew air in from her cave it would flow right past the fireplace entrance and suck up air as it went past.

Zoe started another fire in her fireplace as she pushed wind through the tunnel with her Wind Manipulation, and it started with a lot less effort this time. The smoke was pulled up through the chimney without any additional prodding from her.

And after the fire was running for a few minutes, she didn’t even need to keep feeding the tunnel more air. The fire’s natural convection pulled air in as the smoke rushed through the tunnel and kept the whole system running smoothly.

Zoe cooked herself some breakfast, and then left the cave with the fire running. She wasn’t concerned about the fire spreading, and she could just air it out when she got back with her Wind Manipulation to make sure she had fresh air to breath anyway.

Her plan for the day was to go check out that gaping hole in the ground she found. She didn’t want to go too far and get lost, but she felt this insatiable desire to at least poke around inside a little. Maybe she’d find an even better place to call her home, or a nice deposit of iron to harvest.

She tied off some rope to a nearby tree, tossed it into the hole and then hopped down to the grassy landing ten feet below. There wasn’t much more to see from her new vantage point, so she continued climbing down the rocks with her rope.

Bits of rock fell from below her and clattered down the descent. The bottom was about sixty feet down the winding, unstable cave. It was a small opening at the bottom and the walls were filled with cracks, but she saw a faint red hue in them and hoped it would be hematite.

Zoe summoned her pickaxe and enchanted it with Mining, Earth Manipulation and a piercing Frozen Arsenal effect, then started digging into the red tinged walls. At first, when she got her Earth Manipulation skill she tried to just use it to mine for resources instead of needing to swing her pick, but it wasn’t as effective as she’d hoped.

The ores took much more mana to fully saturate than some random rocks or dirt did, and her goal when she was mining didn’t require the precision of a manipulation skill. She just needed some large chunks to refine later, so a good pickaxe did a much better job.

At least when compared to her Earth Manipulation. Roland, her tutor, had some skill that made even the ore just peel away from wherever his pick moved in large sheets. Maybe when Zoe upgraded her skill or got it to a much higher level, she’d be able to use it more effectively to mine.

But a part of her did end up enjoying the more manual process anyway. There was something satisfying about swinging a pick and collecting the fragments of rock that broke off from the wall.

Zoe collected a few pounds of the reddish brown rocks and then climbed back up her rope to return to her cave. The fire was still just flickering away in the fireplace and the smoke was still being pulled up through her chimney. She tossed another couple sticks onto the fire and sat down on her bed.

She had found hematite — iron, though she had expected to find some pretty soon anyway. It was quite a plentiful resource and she would have found it strange if she didn’t find any iron around the hill, but it was still nice to have.

To process it, she’d need a forge of some kind. She could go to Flester and rent one, but if she went back to town for every mild inconvenience then that would defeat the purpose of her trying to find her own independence.

And if she was being honest, building a forge herself wasn’t something she wanted to do so soon. Her next goal would be finding something interesting. Maybe there was something at the top of the hill, or maybe there was another cave she could go climb into. Or maybe she’d just wander through the forest for a few weeks.