A foot nudged Michael awake. A foot that was attached to a very cranky voice.
"Get up. Sleeping out under the stars like a child. Be grateful it is still warm." Nizhoni nudged him again. "Come on. Its nearly dawn. Get up!"
Michael groaned and rolled away from the offending foot. He sat up and shook his head, trying to clear it from the fog of sleep. He looked around and saw Nizhoni standing over him, barely visible in faint light from the stars.
'Nearly dawn my ass! It's pitch black out here.'
"Come. You must bathe, and you'll want to get there before the rush. Here carry this." She unceremoniously dumped a bundle of hide and sticks in his arms, that weighed a lot more than it looked. Then she abruptly turned on her heel and started walking towards the river.
'
Man, that is one cranky grandma'
Michael lamented to himself. But he was up now, so there was little else to do but follow her down to the river.
When they got there, Nizhoni directed him on how to string up what he found out was a modesty curtain. The males would bathe on one side and the women on the other. It barely stretched ten feet or so into the water, so it wasn't exactly a perfect solution. More of a visual deterrent he guessed.
Of course to plant the curtain in the water he had to disrobe. In front of Nizhoni. When he pointed out the irony she simply retorted, "I'm too old to give a damn, and it's not like I haven't seen all you got to offer. Hell, everyone in the village has seen all you got to offer. Now quit yapping like a coyote and hang that damn curtain."
These people were so strange. Last night a dozen couples had paired off and their enthusiasm could be heard by anyone listening while the elders just smiled. But here they demanded a completely ineffective privacy screen. Either these people had some sort of radical and weird culture, or Nizhoni was just messing with him.
He glanced over at the spirit guide, and could have sworn he saw a flicker of a smile in the predawn haze, but he couldn't be sure.
With the screen up, and Michael already in the buff, he grabbed a handful of the grease they used as soap and went to town. His skin was barely recovered from the last bath he had, and after just a quick rub down had begun to redden even further. A promise of discomfort to come.
He quickly dressed and looked around for Nizhoni, but he saw her dress hanging from the curtain. He considered returning the peek, but quickly decided against it. Some things cannot be unseen.
She finished quickly and dressed before his thoughts could wander too far, and gathered him up and began marching him back towards the village. On the way back they passed the "rush" she had mentioned. Half a dozen yawning people rubbing sleep out of their eyes and stumbling their way to the river.
"What are your plans for today Michael?" Nizhoni asked as they trudged briskly back to the camp, far too awake for this ungodly hour.
"I thought, with the elders permission, I would ask some of the hunters to teach me their weapons. I left my stick back in the spiders forest."
Nizhoni slowed and studied him with an obvious air of approval. "I'm sure there are several hunters who would be glad to teach you. It's good to know that you can seek wisdom from others when it suits your purpose. Now if we could just teach you to apply that lesson to all of your life."
Michael rolled his eyes. He had really done nothing except ask for some clothes and get his ass kicked by some seriously juiced up spiders. It must be Nizhoni's personality to treat everyone as if they were a petulant child. The fact that she was not far wrong, was just an extra jab in the side.
They walked together through the village and came to the campfire. There was a large bowl suspended above the coals already simmering away with more of the soup. It appeared to be whatever was left over from last night plus some water and herbs, but it was actually really good.
Michael was grateful that this was a video game instead of real life. The development team had obviously thought that the game mechanics were grueling enough, it was probably too much to ask that players put up with shitty food.
The camp around them slowly came to life. People crawling out of tents and wandering off towards the river to perform their morning routine. Several children ran straight for the soup and were chased off by Nizhoni and several other women elders until they had washed their hands.
The hunters were a little slower to rise than the women, which surprised Michael. He asked Nizhoni, and she explained that while the hunters were usually out before dawn tracking game, feast night was an exception and the alcohol had messed everyone's schedule up.
Her speech was punctuated with a man barely old enough to hold a bow, releasing the contents of his stomach back into the wild. The elders near the campfire all chuckled at the poor boy, and nudged each other talking of times when they were that young.
"Michael, this is Chayton. He is one of our best hunters. He will be teaching you today." Nizhoni said gesturing to the tall man she had called over.
"Well met. Happy to teach what I know, but your skill is obvious" Chayton said. His eyes wandered over to the speared spider queen's head on display next to the campire. "Our hunters have been after that trophy for a decade."
Michael grasped the mans arm in their version of a hand shake. It was like grabbing a piece of driftwood. The man was built like an olympic cross country runner, and it was intimidating as hell. "I was just motivated and got lucky. I freely admit I know nothing about weapons, and am eager to learn."
Chayton's face split into a wide grin. "Then let us learn from each other!" He hefted his spear, nodded his head to Nizhoni, and led Michael away from the village. He followed the hunter into the same field where just the previous day he had walked naked to his death.
It was a little surreal.
Chayton led him to a spot on the north side of the clearing where some logs had been arranged in a circle, and several hunters were chatting. "These are some of our best hunters" he said gesturing to the gathered men.
"Peyak is the best with the bow. Nebi is great tracker, and Doshan is going to teach you clubs."
The men nodded in turn. Peyak and Nebi both shared Chayton's lithe frame and complete lack of body fat, but Doshan was half again as wide as everyone else. The man was a veritable mountain, but his handshake was surprisingly gentle and his smile seemed genuine.
"We will begin with the spear" Chayton said, handing the the five foot pole to Michael. Unlike the spears he had seen before though, these weapons had been topped with sharpened stone forming a blade of sorts. Michael rolled the spear in his hands getting used to the feel of it.
It was heavier than he expected, and the stone weight on the end shifted the balance forward. Knots dotted the shaft and while the tip was straight, the base of the shaft was curved and thicker. Using the primitive tools of the locals, this was probably the pinnacle of weapons technology, but Michael could see some serious room for improvement. He was surprised when a prompt appeared as he inspected it.
Primitive spear
A spear crudely built by the hunters of Dren. Off balance and brittle, it still better than no weapon at all. Remember, pointy end goes into the other guy.
Damage: 1-3
