19th June 2020 - Holly Springs National Park, Mississippi, United States

  “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” -Leon C. Megginson speaking on Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species -1963 A.D

  Erik still rubbing his cheek sat down again and drank his water.

  “You make a good point.” He said after his ears stopped ringing.

  “Can you tell me who you are?” he asked.

  “As I said before, I am a messenger and warrior, and servant of the all-father, ruler of realm of Asgard and lord of the Aesir.”

  Erik, thought about it then just blurted it out, because there was just no way to beat around the bush on this.

  “You serve the Norse gods? This Odin, is God? And that makes you what? An angel?” he asked in a careful voice.

  “Indeed he is a god, If you are referring to if Odin is ‘the’ God, the source of the divine and creator of all things, I do not know, nor would I wager does my lord, I am a Valkyrie and although the word you used ‘Angel’ refers to the servants and warriors of the God of Abraham, though our respective duties are not dissimilar, I would never claim to be an Angel, their lord and my own are not of the same station.”

  Erik blew out a breath that he did not even know he was holding, so still and intently was he listening.

  “How can you say there is more than one God, that doesn't make sense.” Erik argued.

  “Tsk” Kára said, “I forget how frustrating it is to deal with mortals, just as you cannot teach a child your Einstein and Newton’s teachings, I can not explain this to you, both because I do not know the answer that explains all, and you lack the prerequisite, knowledge and wisdom to understand the concepts that I would use to try and explain what I believe I understand. But I will try anyway.”

  She walked over to where he was sitting a quickly pulled a hair from his head.

  “Is this you?” She asked, twirling the stray strand of short dark hair in the sunlight.

  “It is and is not, how can you exist in two places at once?”

  "Does this piece of you contain all that you are, all your dreams hopes faults and desires. Are you made lesser by being seperated from yourself?"

  Silence and contemplation was the only answer he gave.

  “We are all pieces of the divine, Erik blind and ignorant trying to understand our place in this very large universe.”

  “I can not prove that what I say is the truth, I do not know the true truth is? That is why people have faith and I can not give you the answer, because maybe part of the answer is discovering it for yourself.”

  She huffed, walked away and then sat cross legged her back to a boulder, her spear across her knees.

  I got up, still pondering her words and began to walk the stream bed. Picking up rocks and looking at them briefly, and then discarding them for one reason or another, perhaps I was now the god, passing judgment on these stones. Some of the river stones were smoothed over and rounded by countless years of water action.

  The water was cold, colder than it should have been in a sub-tropical climate, so I suspected some of the newer rocks to have been broken up by a glacier in the past, and rolled down stream by flood waters, it was surprising how much you had to learn about geology to work in the Engineering corps. Though the tall treetops made it impossible to see if I could examine the horizon I'm sure there would be a mountain range nearby and the stream is from snow melt. There were also fish in the shallow pools, not that I could catch any with my bare hands, I held my stomach listening to it growling every time I caught a glint of the tell tale flash of silver scales in the water.

  I was looking for rocks high in silica like flint, quartzite, jasper, and obsidian, after inspecting, a couple of dozen rocks, I received a new notification.

  Surprised I, looked at the rock in my hands and focused, I felt the slightest give of something and…

  Well this seemed an utterly useless skill. It basically told him what he already knew. I dismissed the window and kept searching while finding many small pieces of flint none were large enough but after a few minutes more spent searching I was surprised again.

  This was even better and just the right size, Although there was no hidden attribute revealed? Banging the obsidian against another large rock successfully broke it into two hand sized pieces which he took back to where Kára was patiently waiting.

  I sat down and picking up a large rounded hammer stone and one of the obsidian cores, I began to knapp at it with careful controlled soft strikes, so the stone would flake away in a predictable manner. One of his neighbors on base was an amateur archaeologist, and he used to practice the art, Josh and he used to watch for hours and he eventually taught him the basics.

  “So the old medicine man in the forest who took care of me, who is he?” I asked

  “That was the god Cernunnos, he is lord of the forest of nature, and the wild things who live in it.”

  Erick grunted, another god.

  “He said, he owed a debt, and so he saved my life” I queried?

  “I am not permitted to speak on that?” She answered in a monotone voice.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was lord Cernunnos command and I act now in his service, you heard us speak just a handful of sentences, but I am a messenger and well versed in speaking to all manner of beings. His words were spoken, they were also the rustle of leaves in the wind, and the cry of wild things in the forest, if you could understand all he said you would know that he spoke at length and was very explicit and detailed in his instruction to me. You heard only what he wished me to translate.”

  “Uh… okay.” I said not really understanding.

  “So he seemed sort of hostile, and said I need to be out of his lands before what was that? a lunar something? Can you tell me why, and when that is?”

  “I could tell you why, but it is not a topic I would wish to speak of in his hearing, I do not wish to give further offense, and he said his protection would wane at the first light of Lughnasadh halfway between the summer solstice and autumn equinox, about 18 days from now.”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “So I figured thats why I didn't get eaten by a giant snake or anything so far.”

  “Indeed, this close to the heart of his domain, even I would not be confident in battling some of the creatures here, he has asked the nearby creatures to leave us alone, unless provoked.”

  It had taken nearly an hour, but I had managed to get the outer layer of the core flaked off, revealing a lumpy teardrop shaped stone, I dropped the hammer stone and swapped it for piece of heavy antler I had found, using the thicker base of the antler piece this softer hammer would be more precise and flake off smaller pieces, as I continued to refine the sharp teardrop shaped piece of stone.

  “How long would it take me to walk out of his lands?” I asked.

  “If you keep moving west at your best speed, about 10 days, but I advise against it, move west for 7 days then turn north-west for a further 5, theres a pack of nasty shadow wolves whose territory you will want to avoid, you are not capable of dealing with them as you are.”

  I nodded, thinking for a time.

  “I stay will stay here to prepare, I need weapons to defend myself, water, food and shelter, in that order.”

  “I have the stream a source of clean water, there are fish if I can catch them, but more importantly there are resources I can use, I said hefting the piece of obsidian.”

  “If I set out at my best speed now, a twisted ankle will kill me, slow and steady wins the race, and hopefully wielding something more dangerous than a stick. I can worry about the gods and whats happened to the world once I'm in position to do something about it.”

  Kára nodded eyeing me sideways.

  “Very well, those are sensible priorities.”

  I spent the next hour, quietly contemplating all that had been said, knapping away at the stone, I’d made a few mistakes, and even had to give up one piece as hopelessly lost after I’d used too much force and it fractured it lengthwise, still I kept the broken pieces they could still be used for something. Finally I was successful and held a 6inch serrated blade head with a further 3 inches tapered to a long hilt, which I’d slipped into a hollowed out portion of antler, and bound with plant fibers, I wasn't too happy with the bindings, but it would last a few days maybe, just when I finally decided it would do, I received a prompt.

  Stone Shaping, well OK, thats one way to describe knapping, he noticed that he had gained in that skill level 3 times from creating the knife, and his experience reward was doubled each level!

  Eric, was really happy at the success, but annoyed at the critical description, at least his Stone Shaping skill had improved the stats of the knife from a durability of 5 to 25.

  Eric walked off into the forest, using now looking for some bamboo, it took a little time but he managed to find a small collection of stalks ranging from a few feet high to over 15 feet tall, he used his new analyze ability.

  Excitedly he tried to eat one of the leaves, but apart from the bitter taste in his mouth he couldn't feel any difference.

  Retreating frome the hateful grass, and wiping his tounge with his sleeve and spitting. He walked back with a cut piece of bamboo about 8 feet long, he sat next to Kára, and began trimming the stems off his new pole.

  “Kára, could you explain what skills are? I learned a new skill called Crafting and Stone Shaping and also have another but don't recall how I got it”

  Turning to him from her musings she answered.

  “Skills are a way of recognizing proficiency in a particular action, they can be discovered, or taught, or gifted through rare items, although you need to be at least and apprentice or higher to teach even a basic skill, and the higher you are in a skill level the more you can teach, you are limited in the amount of skills you can posses because low level and unused skills will usually disappear or degrade in time."

  "There is also Class skills which are unique skills related to your class, these can only be taught to those of a specific class, for example I know of a skill called Smell of the Sea, which allows someone with the fisherman class which is a basic class to find rich fishing grounds, this is not a skill that can be taught to anyone who does not have the fisherman class.”

  “Your herb lore skill, was gifted to you by Cernounous as part of settling his debt to you, to allow you to leave and with skill enough to survive the trip.”

  “Whats a Basic Class?”

  Kára glared at him for a moment, if you would allow me to finish, perhaps you will learn more rather than flapping your lips and listening only to your own words.

  It was Erik’s turn to glare at her, she seemed unconcerned at his ire but he learned and remained silent.

  Mollified by his silence, Kára continued.

  “A Basic class is offered at level 10, an advanced class at level 25, there are further ranks, there are further ranked classes but I would not concern yourself about them, it could take you many years of hard work to reach even a Master Class, and a prerequisite for advancement is that one of skills must reach the same ranking. If you wish to be a master class crafter you must be level 50 and must be considered a Master in one or more of your crafting skills.”

  Nodding Eric said “Thank you.” And continued carving the bamboo.

  He split one end of the now trimmed and straight pole in half, the split bamboo parting easily under the knife, and then carefully perpendicular to the first split, he cut again creating four separate pieces, he then sharpened the four wooden prongs into thin sharp wooden spearheads, and then used two small pieces of bamboo shoved down the split ends to hold the stakes open like a square sharped pitchfork, and again using plant bindings as cordage, he secured the cordage around the small stakes, that spread the four prongs apart.

  He examined his final result.

  He could see now that crafting items had ranks, his knife was considered a Simple weapon, while his bonuses from Stone Shaping gave him a chance to make above average, items, weapons or buildings, his skill in carving gave him the same bonus for crafting above poor items, weapons or buildings. So he thought that probably that these could be ranked as: Poor, Average, Simple. He knew there were probably higher ranks, and he sincerely hoped there weren't any lower ranks.

  The fucking prompts snark was back with full force, Eric thought what kind of advice was it to keep a fishing spear dry!

  Breathing deeply through his nose he dismissed the prompt.

  There was one more prompt waiting for him.