Far From Vanilla: Modded Game Reincarnation

I rolled up my sweater to make it into a makeshift bag. I didn’t want to put the sharp shards into the inside in fear of puncturing and damaging the thick fabric. So far the only blessing I've ever received in my six hours of today was this jacket.

With it I expanded my storage to about four more handfuls, if I was generous with the estimation. Originally I only had four places to hold storage, both my hands and pockets. I should’ve worn cargo pants on the day that I died.

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about that now.”

I looked at the stream that I had been following and felt somewhat better. It was fresh-water free of algae and many obvious bacteria, still I should probably think about how I’m going to purify it.

“That’s for later, right now I need shelter.”

My ill-fortune seemed to be turning. The answers of my problems were getting solved one by one, and at the moment, the rate in which I'm solving is greater than the amount of piling troubles. 

“An abandoned tower in the middle of a cleared area. The fresh-water stream is even near the entrance.”

As I had described, just half kilometer ahead of me was a crumbling tower made of stone bricks. Vine and other flora had already overgrown the structure and at this distance, the spring season allowed the flowers growing from it to bloom. 

It was the perfect place for refuge. I’d make a painting of it if I were artistic.

I would’ve run to it as fast as I could to it. But I was already disillusioned about the difficulty of this world. It was not the miracle I was looking for, but a mysterious structure whose contents would either pose fruitful to my endeavors or fatal to my life. 

It was a poisoned apple. But I have no choice but to take a bite out of it. It’s the only option I have at the moment and I really don’t have any other choice. I’d have to survive the poison or face death the moment the moon rose up.

“Hiding in the trees is basically asking me to die, so fuck it.”

But I won’t just enter it without preparations.

Chink!

I hit one of the large pieces of flint onto a fist-sized rock. It was the largest piece I had collected and it was about the size of both my hands. Of course I was wise enough to think ahead and had placed my sweater underneath the rock to shield the pieces from breaking any smaller.

“Nice. This turned out better than I imagined.”

The triangular piece of flint fractured in just the right spot. 

The large piece was big enough to fashion into an efficient hatchet of considerable size even after sharpening it; and the smaller piece was enough to fashion into a blade about the size of a six-inch pocket knife. 

Good thing fist-sized stones were abundant here on the ground.

Chip! Chip! Chip! Chip!

Of course even the fragments were also useful. I was so poor that I couldn’t afford to even waste anything. Ah, the pains of the early game.

“I could use this piece to score something made of iron to light a fire.” I took two sticks of fitting lengths from the tree right next to me and wedged the knife blade into the shortest of the sticks and used my thumb to hold it into place. 

Since my pinky and ring fingers were compromised, I had to make do with only my middle finger holding the handle while my other two fingers pinched the blade in place.

 I didn't need to use too much pressure as it only took a little bit of strength to cut the tallest grasses at the base and three of the longest blades were enough for me to upgrade my flint-knife. 

On their own the grass blades were very weak, but when twisted and woven together into a braid, they were sturdy enough to secure the blade in place of my two fingers.

Swish! Swish!

The upgrade allowed me to take even more grass in a single swing. It is a good thing that you only need three fingers on both hands to braid twisted grass together, or else this process is going to take even longer.

Chip! Chip!

The speed of the process allowed me to be generous with what I did with the other tool. 

I used the thickest and longest braids of twisted grass to secure the hatchet head to the handle. By creating four notches, it secured the flint hatchet head in place onto a stick about the length of my forearm.

I made a sharp flint axe!

But as successful as it was, I wasn’t stupid.

There was no way in hell that I’d be able to cut down a tree with a single-handled hatchet. I need both my hands now more than ever so having a near-disabled right hand was depressing.

 If it made me feel better, I created two of the most useful tools with only one piece of flint. 

Still, I won’t waste the durability of my tools trying to cut down an entire tree, it would be better to cut a weakened tree that was already dry for wood. Cutting down a branch of the same dead tree I got my sticks from was the best thing to do now.

I looked at that tree and my axe, "Please don't break." 

It was a small, but worthwhile prayer.