Path of Dragons

Book 1: Chapter 10: The First Steps

Elijah ran his hand over his head, feeling a light stubble that should not have been there. After all, hair just wasn’t supposed to grow that fast, was it? When the plane had crashed and the System had descended upon Earth, he had been completely bald, his hair having been sacrificed at the altar of chemotherapy. By his count, only a couple of days had passed since then.

Except for the chrysalis.

He had no idea how long he’d been in there. It could have been days. Years. Months. Or it might’ve been mere hours. His only hints were his budding hair growth, which wasn’t really as informative as it could have been. After all, his entire body had changed – he could feel the Strength coursing through him – was it really so unthinkable that cultivating a body of Wood might prompt some rapid hair growth?

Letting out a sigh, Elijah left the majestic tree behind and went about restoring his stock of dandelion fluff. He might have been cured of his cancer, but his needs were still the same. He needed water, food, and a fire, and that was just the beginning.

After gathering two pockets full of fluff, Elijah headed back into the woods. On the way back to the fallen cabin, he realized that he’d left his walking stick in the meadow. However, because he expected to find that it had become an empty husk, just like the moss, berries, and mushroom, he chose not to go back for it. He would just find a new one.

So, as he walked, he kept an eye out for three things. First, he wanted more mushrooms and berries. They wouldn’t be enough to sustain him indefinitely – he knew he needed protein and fat – but they would go a long way to staving off hunger while he sorted out his other needs. Second, he wanted a new walking stick. It wasn’t absolutely necessary, but he’d always carried a stick while hiking, so it felt right to have one now. Besides, a stout stick could function as an impromptu weapon if he encountered something dangerous. And third, he wanted to gather fallen branches for firewood.

Only a few minutes into the woods, Elijah found more bushberries; it wasn’t surprising, the little, red berries were all over the place in the Pacific Northwest. He’d hoped to find some blackberries too, but he hadn’t been that lucky yet. A couple of minutes later, he found a clump of lion’s head mushrooms, which were white and looked a little like bunches of cauliflower. Not for the first time, he silently thanked his father for teaching him about foraging in the wilderness. Otherwise, he’d have run the risk of gathering something poisonous.

But that begged the question – was his new body of Wood susceptible to poison? He had no idea, but it would be foolish to assume that it wasn’t. So, he kept gathering until he finally reached the cabin. Once there, he carefully placed his meager stash of food – a few handfuls of bunchberries and the lion’s head mushrooms – on the ground and grabbed the old pot he’d found when he’d first moved into the cabin. It was a little rusted, but he estimated that it would hold a couple of quarts of water. Being that it was his only viable container, he knew he couldn’t be terribly picky.

With that in hand, Elijah trekked back to the stream and, after spending quite some time washing the black gunk from his body and clothes, he gathered a pot full of water. It was going to be such a pain, going back and forth. It was late in the summer – assuming that he hadn’t been in that chrysalis for months – so the only real danger was the unforgiving terrain. But it was navigable. In the winter, though? That would be a different story altogether.

He’d gotten sick after drinking the water last time, but that might have been the remnants of his fight against cancer. It didn’t necessarily mean that the water was contaminated. Sure, the smart thing to do was to take it back and boil it. However, with the size of the pot, only drinking water that had been boiled would see him spending the majority of his time going back and forth to the stream.

The way he saw it, he had three options. Just suck it up and resign himself to wasting so much time when it might not even be necessary. He’d learned enough about wilderness survival to know that any time he spent doing that would be time he couldn’t spend finding food. He’d gotten lucky with the bunchberries and the mushrooms, but as the weather turned, those would slowly disappear. He needed to stock up, or he’d end up starving to death. And that meant spending as much time as possible gathering food.

The second option was to move his camp. But on the first day, he’d looked around, and he hadn’t seen any likely shelter. Sleeping out in the open was out of the question. It might work out well enough for now, but the moment the weather turned, it would become a death trap. The old cabin wasn’t perfect, but at least it had most of a roof that would protect him from the weather.

The third choice was to simply drink the water without boiling it. It was clearly the most convenient option, but that didn’t mean it was the right one. After all, he had gotten ill the last time he’d tried it. But that might’ve been the cancer or the remnants of failed chemotherapy. The water could have been perfectly potable.

In the end, his decision came down to his ability to heal himself with Touch of Nature. Certainly, being forced to do that wasn’t particularly pleasant, but it was a nice safety net if the water was contaminated. If it was, he would just have to use his lone spell to heal himself.

But he was also banking on his new body of Wood. His attributes hadn’t changed, but he’d already felt a qualitative difference in his Strength and stamina. So, it wasn’t out of the question that he would be more resistant to waterborne diseases and parasites.

He hoped that was the case, at least.

So, Elijah bent down next to the stream, cupped his hands, and drank. The water was clear, and it tasted cool and fresh. But he knew better than most that that didn’t mean anything. The water still might make him sick, but he had a way to easily fix that. Sure, he’d lose a bit of hydration if he woke up vomiting, but that was a small price to pay for the convenience of simply drinking from the stream without the necessity of boiling the water.

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Once Elijah had drunk his fill, he cleaned the pot as best he could, then used it to carry some water back to the cabin. When he got there, he dug out a shallow pit, surrounded it with gathered stones, and leaned the sticks he’d collected together into a pyramid shape.

It wasn’t ideal, but surviving in the wilderness without supplies never was. You had to take what you could get. To that end, he searched the cabin for a likely piece of wood. There were a few options around the collapsed wall, and he chose the least rotted board he could find. With that done, he settled down and used the old, rusted knife to carve a notch into one side of the board. It took a while, but beneath the rust, the four-inch blade was sturdier than Elijah could have expected.

When the notch was finished, he let out a sigh of relief. Before, even that much work would have left him exhausted. And while he was frustrated and tired after a long day of trekking through the woods, he still had energy to spare. That, as much as anything else, told him that he’d left the effects of the cancer far behind.

Back in the meadow, he’d gathered a few pieces of thick horseweed, which he intended to use as a spindle. So, he stripped them down and selected one roughly as big around as his pinky. Then, he carved a small dimple in one end; it was intended to increase airflow – a tip he’d learned from his father.

So, with all of that set up, Elijah carved a divot on the inner edge of the notch he’d cut into the board. With that done, he was ready to attempt to create his first coal. He’d done it before, but that had been under ideal circumstances while camping with his father. Now, though? He had suboptimal tools, barely acceptable materials, and a damp environment. Even if he did manage to get a fire going, it would take a lot of work.

But Elijah knew that his life would eventually depend on that fire. Not only would it provide warmth during the chilly nights, but it would also allow him to cook any food he managed to find as well as keep most predators away. He didn’t know if the transformed animals in the area – none of which he’d actually seen, aside from the enlarged crabs – would be afraid of fire, but he was banking on their natures remaining static. At least for now. Who knew what else would come?

Elijah shook his head and focused on the task at hand. He couldn’t plan for everything; he just didn’t have enough information. So he could only take it one step at a time, combatting any changes as they presented themselves.

He set a bit of dandelion fluff on the divot, then followed up with the dimpled end of the spindle. Sitting crosslegged by his poorly constructed fire pit, Elijah set about creating a coal from which he could start the fire.

Friction fires were fickle at the best of times, but using a homemade hand drill was an acquired skill. Still, Elijah had done it before, and even if it had been quite some time, he hadn’t forgotten the technique. Twisting the spindle between his palms, he rapidly rotated the stick of horseweed. For a few minutes, nothing happened, but eventually, small tendrils of smoke started to drift up from the wood. Nothing caught, though, so he kept at it.

He'd optimized the process as much as he could, but that wasn’t saying much. So, it still took quite some time before, finally, he created an ember. Leaning forward, he added more dandelion fluff to the coal. It caught easily and burned quickly, so he kept adding to it until he had a nascent flame.

Carefully, he pushed forward and placed that flame in the pile of twigs at the bottom of the pyramid of sticks in his fire pit. Then, he added some more dandelion fluff.

It caught, and he pumped his fist in celebration before adding more and more sticks to the growing flame. The fire wouldn’t be much with the fuel he had available, but it was proof that he had remembered his father’s teachings.

Elijah sat back and admired the growing fire for a long moment before he looked at his hands. He’d always had plenty of calluses, but his battle with cancer had kept him abed for weeks at a time. So, his tender hands had developed a couple of blisters.

But he had an answer for that, didn’t he?

Focusing on his core, Elijah dragged some Ethera into his soul before embracing his spell, Touch of Nature. His hand glowed with verdant light, and before his very eyes, the blisters healed. After that, Elijah inspected the rest of his body, looking for any other injuries, but he found none. The transformation that had come with his body of Wood had left him completely healed. Only the blisters he’d gained while making his fire and a few scratches on his feet needed healing.

As he finished his inspection, the fire roared to life, finally eating into the pyramid of sticks he’d created. He added a few bigger pieces that he’d foraged, then turned his attention to the food he had gathered.

The bunchberries were mildly sweet, but didn’t really taste like much else. And the mushroom had a thick, earthy flavor. But Elijah wasn’t in any position to be picky. He needed a lot of calories to survive, so he’d take whatever he could get. Still, he had to admit that he wasn’t a particular fan of mushrooms.

As Elijah sat there, he began to make plans for the future. Some of his needs had been met. He had water. A little food. Basic shelter and fire. But there was a time limit on most of it. Foraging for wild edibles was a good start, but it wouldn’t sustain him for long. Besides, those sources would be gone soon after the weather turned. He needed something else. Preferably meat.

That’s when he thought of the crabs.

He’d already killed one of them, and they hadn’t seemed that difficult to find. Perhaps they would offer a ready source of protein. He also had some ideas about how he could go about fishing in the nearby ocean. There were some hurdles he’d have to clear – like making some line and creating a hook, not to mention finding the right spot – but he felt confident he could make it work. It just might take a lot of trial and error.

Meanwhile, he’d need to build up his shelter, both for protection against the wildlife as well as the weather. He also needed to explore some more; rare was the environment that had been completely untouched by man, and he hoped that he could stumble across something he could use. Perhaps some plastic bottles had been washed ashore. Or an old barrel, maybe. The possibilities were endless, and Elijah knew he couldn’t afford to ignore any potential means of survival.

Just like that, he realized that he’d already made his decision about whether or not he intended to stay. Certainly, there were merits to setting off into the wilderness in search of civilization, but ultimately, he’d decided that it was better to stay put at least until after he made it through the winter. Maybe then, he’d be able to make such a journey with some degree of confidence.

As Elijah sat there eating bunchberries, he continued to make plans for how he was going to survive. Idly, he wondered how the rest of the world was getting by, but ultimately, he couldn’t afford to split his focus. He needed to concentrate on keeping himself alive, and then, once his survival was assured, he’d be able to spare thoughts for others.