*Morning*
Well, it
wasn’t that urgent of a meeting. Hannah, a leader in this tree village, wanted
to see everyone in charge of our group. In meeting her, all I did was say
hello. I don’t say this too often, but she was a fine looking lady, worthy of
praise in beauty alone (concerning other areas of expertise, perhaps I’ll find
out). I sat back and let Mike do the talking. Long story short; we get to stay
on their land if we behave and are useful.
Afterward,
everyone went to sleep except for those on patrol and guard duty. I read
chapter 7 of The Art of War by the dim light of tiny campfire. I couldn’t very
well continue sharpening and wake everyone up. I must have fallen asleep at
some point.
I had a
bizarre dream. I dreamed I had woken up on the side of a hill whose top overlooked
the tree houses. When I had opened my eyes, I noticed a bright light coming
from over the top of the hill, along with a looming figure that stood at the
top, projecting a shadow over me. I joined them and saw the tree house forest
aflame. There were no screams of terror or people trying to do something about
it. Only the roaring crackling of fire. The figure turned to me, saying, “Isn’t
it just beautiful? The fire performs for us while disposing of unwanted
nuisances. Nothing has really changed in that regard. In a world of ruin, opportunity
like this awaits the powerful, don’t you agree?”
It was, of
course, Ann though she looked different. Parts of her face had rotted or were
ripped away, leaving holes of exposed flesh and bone surrounded by normal human
flesh. I was woken up by Mike before I could react. Though the dream lasted
only a few moments, my waking was much later than usual.
For today’s
tasks, I am to lead a hunting party. Mike made it clear he doesn’t want us to
make a lot of noise and for us to play it safe. He even handed out
walkie-talkies to the group leaders. This should be interesting.
*Afternoon*
I suppose
you could say this was a successful “hunting” trip. When it comes to hunting, I
believe there are only three ways of doing it: wait for the animals to come to
you, set traps, or go out and find them. The trouble is the “going out and
finding them” has some drawbacks to those unskilled in proper hunting; you’ll
probably find animals, but unless you know how to step, where to stand, and how
to go about getting closer, the animals will detect your presence and run,
sometimes before you even notice them yourselves. Sure, at times you’ll get
lucky and shoot an animal when it goes to run if the area’s clear enough and if
you’re a good enough shot, but this leaves too much up to chance and I don’t
like gambling when it comes to survival.
This
situation happened to be the case with my group; as we were going out, none of
them could go 10 seconds without stepping on a twig or whispering to each
other. I told them to be more careful, but the warning didn’t completely stop
the noises so I came up with a plan to compensate for this. I told half of the
group to go back the way we came, follow the outline of the forest from where
we started and then find their way back here (I gave each group of two their
own direction and amount of steps to walk along the outline before coming back
in). I told the others to spread out and climb the trees. My plan was this:
those on the ground would scare the animals inward toward us and while sitting
still in the tree, we would take them out once they wandered into our area. A
few of the men had rifles with my silencers on them and I made sure that they
joined me in the trees to ensure we wouldn’t immediately undo the herding the
others did with a loud shot. It would’ve been easier to just gather plants to
eat, but it would’ve taken too long to instruct them what was edible and what
wasn’t, not to mention we had no bags to carry the plants so we wouldn’t be
able to take many back with us. It was best to stick with the large game for
now.
Oh, you
should’ve been there. It was like a carnival game, but with live targets! All
together, both herders and the ones sitting in trees, we ended up getting 4
deer (one a large buck), 6 rabbits, 2 groundhogs, 2 wild boars, a hawk, and a
rattlesnake of some kind (the last two were definitively mine. They were in my
sight and I was bored) before I got the call from Mike to head back.
*Night*
Seems the
leaders of this forest outpost were impressed with our work. Later, when I
asked Hannah if I could speak with whomever was in charge of food gathering
and/or food management, she pointed me to a guy who was leaning against a tree
with his arms around two others, giggling like an idiot. I’ll wait until
tomorrow to talk with him. With all the supplies I brought with me, I still had
the seeds so I’d figure I’d talk to someone about planting them here, perhaps
underneath the tree houses. With this, those who lived in those tree houses
would take care of the crops under their own trees. Of course, I wouldn’t
“give” them the seeds completely for free as I’d like some supplies in
exchange. Looks like I’ll have to wait until he sobers up.
Right now,
everyone’s celebrating. I’ve just made several copies of a list of edible
plants, descriptions and what is edible on them like fireweed and clover and
I’ll continue to make a few more. Afterward, I’m going to try and develop a
trap. Sadly, it was one of the few things I didn’t learn a whole lot about at The Hill. I am vaguely familiar with a simple snare trap, but that’s about it.
If someone will let me borrow a large deep barrel or pot, I could bury it deep
enough to where the lid was equal with the ground and could trap small animals
in it. After I’m done with these copies, I’ll start working on more designs.
I’m just
not the partying kind, not when there is so much work to do and enemies, some
that you never met, preparing to take from you what they wish. Pleasure is the
last thing on my mind.
- Jack’s Diary
One of the tree houses.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Share your piece of mind.