With his armour done Gar was looking for other projects to do around his camp. When he spotted the wheels he had made he knew what he would do. His cart didn’t need to me massive just big enough to hold some of his stuff. He cut himself about a meter and a half section of the truck from the thicker end, and then he used axe and wedges to split it into some rough boards. Taking the time out to make sure his knife and axe were nice and sharp.
“Sharpening levelled up sharpening level 2”
He then used knife, axe and files to take out the roughest areas on the boards smoothing them down and removing the big splinters. They were still rough planks once he was done but they were usable.
It was the middle of the afternoon so he decided to take it a bit easier after the hard work. As well as the planks he was going to need wooden pegs to put the cart together so he would make them. He screwed his larger auger into a spare piece of wood to hold it in place then he started hammering sticks through the hole in its top. This removed the outer layer of the stick leaving him with straight dowels the right size to fit in holes made by that auger. The dowels where then cut down into the pegs he would need and using his knife one end was slightly narrowed. He ended up with a bit over a hundred pegs, it was probably more than he needed and Gar knew it. It didn’t bother him though as it was simple work and it kept his hands busy. He ate a cold supper that night not because he couldn’t have lit a fire but because it was only when he stopped did he realise how much his hands ached from the work he had done that day. He felt he should have had blisters all over his palms, so he just ate something cold and went to sleep.
As he stepped out into the early morning sun he could feel a slight ache in his leg, he had left the bandage off and when he had looked upon waking up his leg was close to being completely healed. He decided that it would be the day to try climbing again his leg was strong enough and he wanted to keep his skills sharp so didn’t want to have too many days without doing it. He kept it simple climbing the rock at the back of his platform the rock he had the most experience with. The session was also kept short as he did feel some pain in his leg while climbing, that didn’t stop Gar from feeling he was getting things back on track.
Once down off the wall he put his armour back on, he had taken it off to sleep and while he might consider wearing it to climb in the future he wasn’t ready for that yet. He went to work on the cart, two of the wider boards with a stick across the top, middle and bottom, he used his auger to drill two holes in each stick for each of the boards then a peg was hammered into the holes to hold it all together, the ends of the pegs where then cut off flush this gave him a bit over a meter wide by a meter and a half long base. For the sides he took a single board and pegged it too three straight sticks top middle and bottom of the board. The sticks where longer than the board was wide so he was able to use the hole in the top of the auger to trim the ends of the sticks down to size, then using the side board to work out where they went three holes were drilled into the base and the side could be slotted into place. Repeated for the other side.
“Woodworking levelled up woodworking level 6”
The front and back where done in much the same way except the boards where cut down to length first. Like that he had a base for his cart that slotted together. The hardest part was working out how to make it so the wheels could turn freely while still being attached to the cart. What he came up with was; he found two straight sticks then carved them until they were as straight and round as he could get them. The stick was slightly larger than the hole in the centre of the wheels so when hammered onto the stick the wheel stuck and would turn with the stick now the axle.
Before he put on the second wheel he added two pieces that where shaped the same, they were equilateral triangles with a rounded corner at the top and a hole cut in it slightly larger than the axil, on the bottom in the middle of that edge was a rectangle sticking out with two holes drilled in it with the auger. The pieces where slid onto the axle by the hole in the top then the rectangles where slotted through holes that where cut in the cart base before pegs where put through the holes in the rectangles securing the axil in place while letting it turn, this was done for the front and back axle.
Finally he had a cart it was rough and far from perfect but it functioned Gar spent a few minutes pushing it around and testing out the cart, it needed a way for him to be able to pull it as well as push it but the best thing about the cart was he could take it apart into pieces which would make it so he could actually get it through the tunnels and up the cliff. To enable him to pull it he simply tied two straight sticks to the side panels so they stuck out the front and worked as handles. He was ready to go back into the tunnels and to do his final preparation for leaving, because while he wanted to do some more exploration he had been shown how unsafe it was it was time to just get out and find other people and safety he could explore more once he had doctors and a safe place to rest. Gar had gone to bed early so he awoke before it was fully light, he started to climb he could feel the injury in his leg if he thought about it but he wasn’t convinced that wasn’t just in his head as he thought injury’s should take longer than a few days to heal. Either way as long as he didn’t focus on it he didn’t notice the injury. Taking a look at his leg once he was done climbing he could see some scaring and that was about it for his injury. He set himself up gathering what he needed for the day; pick axe, water, food, rope, map, spear, knife, along with putting on his armour his knife sheaf was moved onto his new belt and then he felt ready to go back into the caves.
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Except that wasn’t true he was still scared of going back in he had gotten overconfident and ended up hurt again he didn’t feel ready, that didn’t matter as his best way out was in those caves and he was as prepared as he could be so he would go.
He waited by the blocked off cave entrance and listened, there was nothing to hear. Carefully he moved the stones away half expecting a zombie or death dog to pop out the hole with every stone he moved. He crept along the short tunnel coming to the snail cavern, briefly wishing he had brought a light, death dogs could be waiting for him in the dark just outside his dark vision’s range and he wouldn’t know. He crept out not having been this cautious to enter the cave since the first time. No death dogs leapt at him he could hear no barking he seemed okay for the time being. He started to move a bit quicker once he was into the maze of tunnels having crossed the cave snail’s cavern at a crawl. He realised that if he was going to get anything done that day he needed to move quicker. While he made the concession to move quicker he kept his guard up and was on high alert the entire time he moved.
His vigilance was rewarded when he was in a long straight section of tunnel, he had mana sight active after having found it would show mana even outside his dark visions range and it was showing something peculiar in front of him. Seemingly moving away from him where two indistinct blobs of death mana. Gar watched the blobs move away from him carefully checking for any other types of mana. He was pretty sure they were a pair of zombie dwarves , the death dogs had other mana in them as well as the death mana and the only other things he had seen full of death mana where his badgers. This is what he had been worried about. Had he brought those things to his base?
The mana was getting a bit far away even for his mana sight to see so he crept closer he was looking to see if these zombies had a mana thread connection to the death dogs or anything like how his badgers where connected to him. If it was there Gar could not see it so he was hopeful that the death dogs wouldn’t be able to tell if something happened to them because he was going to make sure it did. He got close enough to see them and observe identified them.
“Zombie (dwarf) level 2”
“Zombie (dwarf) level 2”
Two of the lower level zombies if he could take these out before they could regroup into a horde it was all the better for him. If he was extremely lucky he thought these might just be stragglers that get separated and lost while the rest returned to their home. Gar was keeping the Zombies just on the edge of the range of his dark vision and they didn’t seem to have noticed him while he worked out his battle plan, it needed to be quick and quiet he didn’t want to give an opportunity to attract attention or for more to join in. He had seen previously that the zombies where slow and seemed to ignore his badgers he would use that. Gar edged closer keeping as quiet as he could which was harder in his new armour than it had been, which is why the message was so unexpected.
“New skill acquired Sneak level 1”
He sent Bodger and B1 on ahead, when they were about fifteen meters away from him either the noise from Gar or the badgers made the zombies turn around and they started shambling towards Gar completely ignoring Bodger and B1. This worked in Gars favour as he had Bodger and B1 get behind a zombie each as Gar moved towards them. A few quick swipes of his badger’s claws and the zombies where on the floor. Gar took stepped forward and drove his spear into the head of the one on his left, the one B1 had taken down. The zombie let out a moan, the spear hadn’t penetrated all the way in it wasn’t dead. Gar stepped to his right to avoid clawing hands. Only to be grabbed on the ankle by the second zombie, even unable to walk it had dragged itself towards him with its hands. With surprising strength the zombie pulled itself to Gar and bit at his leg. The Greaves took the blow, with his spear still stuck in the other zombie’s head he grabbed his knife from his waist then kicked his leg trying to shake the zombie off. The first zombie still wasn’t finished and was coming for him.
He couldn’t shake the zombie off his ankle until B2 came to his rescue he had not given them any orders before the fight other than the initial ambush as he had expected a quick finish. In his panic he had called for the badgers to protect him, B2 bit into the wrist that was holding Gar loosening the grip enough for Gar to escape. While B3 had bitten into the shoulder of the other zombie not hurting it but for the first time it did have its attention drawn to one of the badgers. Gar took a few more steps back as Bodger and B1 where savaging the zombies legs. Using the moment of space Gar dropped his bag and pulled out his pickaxe, swinging it down on the zombie that bit at him. This time he got the result he was after the pickaxe drove straight through its head.
