Title: Origins: part 2 Author: PanicPirate Pastebin link: http://pastebin.com/2L412vMZ First Edit: Sunday 2nd of February 2014 08:49:12 PM CDT Last Edit: Sunday 2nd of February 2014 08:49:12 PM CDT A few days later, and I had built a little shack for myself. The reeds I had woven together worked perfectly as both walls and flooring, and the bark I tore out made a great roof. I had gathered some stones from the river for tools. I found a sharp one that got me a new scar on my left forearm. It was also useful for cutting branches that I could make fishing spears out of, but the fish were faster than me for now. I was looking for a better bedding. Dirt was better than stone, and I had no complaints except that my black jacket was becoming brown on the back. If only I had some kind of bag to stuff leafs into. That would make for excellent bedding. But if I wanted to make a bag, I’d have to get some more reeds; I had used all of them for my lean-to and roof patches. Grass would easily tear from my weight, which I should probably watch. I had become lighter and my clothes were baggier than from when I woke up. I guess a few apples a day and a fish a week isn’t enough for someone like me to live. But I pushed the thoughts of bedding and food aside, and looked to the cave. I thought that on the first night, I saw something glinting in there. Iron ore. Just as I thought. A few nuggets sprouted here and there from the stone’s surface, but the wall was weak and I could crack it with a few solid kicks. There was a huge iron ball in front of me after the stone crumbled. That iron could be extremely helpful for tools, and need be, weapons But I would need high heat to refine and shape that metal in front of me. Something more than the little fire in the pit I have outside my shack. A forge of some sort was needed, an anvil as well. The list kept getting longer and longer. Heaving a sigh, I went back to my shack for some time to think about what I needed to do. Because there was a lot of that. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 months later   I closed the door behind me and locked it in an attempt to keep out the raging cold. The weather was doing everything it could to kill me via hypothermia. I walked into the center room of my house and tended to the fire. I hugged my woolen and fur coats close to my chest and tried to conserve my warmth. The cold was seeping in through every crevice of my home. The snow threatened to come inside to bury me and the ice was hoping to destroy my home. But despite the cold’s unforgiving grasp, it was beautiful. Whenever the storm ceased or lightened, I would walk outside, looking at the blank canvas of the world. The valley I now call home had frozen over and the river had stopped flowing. The trees had a blanket on top of them during their rest; the cave was freezing on the inside where gigantic icicles hung down. But my home had held up against winters’ harsh storms and stood proudly amongst the blank world. A fire in the middle of the house kept all of it warm, and the door was able to block all of the snow that piled up against it. The food I had stocked up on was still keeping me full. My bed was warm at all times thanks to the herd of sheep I had found a few months back. My new coat was also responsible for my current warmth and why I wasn’t a chunk of solid ice right now. I was pretty good at this surviving thing, even if I had to do it alone. I melted a large chunk of that iron ore into moldable, refined iron. Except that I have a pile of useless scrap metal from when I first tried to melt and refine it. I made a dependable pickaxe that cut through stone easily; a hatchet that cut pelts and branches with ease. And a full-size axe that I could chop a tree down with. The furnace I used for the iron wasn’t at my house; I had carved it into the cave because I didn’t have any stone or space for something that large. The furnace worked by having the raw iron placed in little alcoves where excess coal was stored and lit. When the iron was good and heated up, it was put into a stone bowl and placed into a huge pit of fire and charcoal. After the iron had become a bright orange or white, I grabbed some with crude stone pliers and brought it to a little bench. I then worked and experimented until I could refine and reshape a chunk of iron within a few hours. I was doing alright. --------------------------------------------------------------------- As the day drew to a close, I added a log to the fire for the night and walked to my bed. The large woolen blankets were a welcome sight after a day’s work at the forge and mining some extra iron. The bed itself I had made with a cowskin and some dried grass. The blankets were amazingly warm at night even if the fire went out. I easily fell asleep before I hit the covers. I dreamt again. This time of a warm summer night, clearer than crystal. A full moon hung above me, watching over my house with its bright gaze. The stars were glimmering and a breeze shuffled through my hair. I walked forward on a packed dirt path through the valley. Where am I going? I walked to the river, and sat down by the edge, careful not to disturb the blanketing silence of the night. The river babbled on, the moonlight glittering off the surface. I looked back at my house, light streaming out from the doorframe. The breeze was still going through my hair, and I looked up to the sky. So peaceful at night, without the labor that the sun brings. And then, I was once again jolted from sleep by a slam. The slam of my door shutting.