Day 2 I had the strangest dream. I dreamt I was with Garreth, back on the boat. That is a strange thing because Garreth never left with me. He stood there in a dark corner of the harbour, his face covered but that stupid leather hood he as always wearing. He didn't even wave, he just stood there, his invisible eye staring at me from the darkness of his shadowed face. But in my dream he was there, right there beside me, running the tips of his slender fingers all over my skin, giving me goosebumps. I awakend at early dawn, still feeling the tickling on my skin. For a few moments I enjoyed it, before I realised that I had slept close to an anthill and was covered in the small, black pests. Sleepy faces emerged from sleeping beds and from under covers as the merchants awaked to my hysterical shrieks. Slapping away at the ants I jumped across the market and dove into a barrel with rain water to drown them. Well...at least I was wide awake now. After the very sleepy cook had handed me some warm food I packed up my things and inventarised. Sadly I came to the discovery that my casseroles were not even worth saving as they were crawling as well. I sacrificed them to the Ants. Happily my stew was savely inside is ceramic bowl and so I left Freedom Market to the West, down the mountain and through the village of Liberty. I was planning to head for the woods there that I had seen from atop the mountainside and dry my clothes by walking a lot. Liberty is a wide spread place, even bigger then Freedom Market, with several districts. I passed throug Liberty Hills, Liberty Castle and finaly Liberty Metal Works, down at the beach. But although Liberty was a rather nice place to look at, of actual Liberty was little trace to be found. Seriously, walls and fences everywhere. It seems like every tree in the facility had a little, handpainted sign attached to it that it belonged to someone. As if trees would mind. They looked kind of sad to me, locked up behind those tiny walls and fences, like animals in the circus. And I was getting frustrated from running into dead ends and locked gates and was very releaved to find that there was a road leading out of all this Liberty. I followed it to the West and passed beneath a giant statue of what I was told was 'The colossus of Halycon' and found myself in some only half tamed forest. Close to the road there stood a very friendly, old pine tree whose needles where wispering to me. I stopped and chattet a bit and it seemed to me that in his long life he had seen Liberty arise. Now he feared that the inhabitants of that town would come and put him behind walls as well. He didn't want his life to end like that. And he had always dreamed of traveling, he moaned melancholicly. But - he added - that was an impossible dream for a tree of course. After I had taken out my hatched, a shudder of releave seemed to run through his barch. And as I lifted my arms for the first swing I told him what he was going to become and all those little needles seemd to sing in joy. Someone had been here before me and had packed a piece of dirt. I used that drie, plant-free spot to build a fire and chop up my new friend. Now he would travel, parts of him already were flying over the mountain as smoke, his needles crackling in the fire. Since I would need to make some nails I laid the lump of iron into the fire to soften up and took out my saw to pass the time until it was ready to be shaped by sawing up the pinewood into planks. After I had a nice pile of them I still had enough wood left to form into a yoke that would shape nicely around my shoulders. It took me quite a few tried, working with my carving knife on the rough wood, filled with sticky resin that stuck to my tool and my hands but filled my nose with the most wonderful scent. To travel with this cart would be pure joy, simple, physical work and all that while being surrounded by the smell of pine resin. No more sneaking in dark corners, no more being afraid of guards and the hangman... I had been sitting pondering that for a while and had gotten hungry. So I ate the cold but still edible stew and washed it down with some water from a nearby well befor looking at my work and thinking about how to continue. The pinewood was all used up, except for a pile of leftovers that were good for nothing else but to keep the fire burning. The fire! I walked over to the glowing coals and fed the fire, having a look at my iron that was now red-hot. I couldn't possibly work it with my hands and i wasn't looking forward to hammer at it with a rock. So I rummaged through my leftovers and found a piece of log that I had overlooked and that was big enough for what I had in mind for it. With my knife I cut out a block of wood and fastend it with wooden pins to a shaft, creating a crude mallet. With pieces of wood I rolled the lump of iron out of the coals and with a piece of stone and my mallet I removed about a quarter of it's mass. It took me most of the afternoon to shape it with the crude tools that I had but in the end I was left with a small, primitive anvil that I left to harden in the cooling air. I still had some energy left, so I decided that my pinewood planks needed some company. Close by was a very proud cedar tree that had so far not even recogniced my presence. It wasn't to thrilled to be cut down but I didn't need it's approval for that. It would be used mainly for the supporting parts, because the cedar wood was much stronger and of better quality then my friendly, soft pinetree-friend. It was getting dark now, so I stoked up the fire and settled down, eating the last bit of stew and started by replacing the pins in my mallet with cedarwood ones, that would loosen much less quickly. I also added a cedarwood shoulderpiece to my yoke so that my clothes wouldn't get soaked in resin all the time. My tools thus improved, I cut some shafts out of the cedarwood and while the stars appeared in the sky, I put together the wheels of my cart. It took about three hours to shape the wood and put it together and I couldn't keep my eyes open for much longer so I layed some planks over the axle to create a crude shelter. The ground here is much softer than the cobblestones at the market and I checked for anthills but didn't find any so far. By the light of my fire I wrote these lines and now I will go to sleep, covered by the sweet smell of pinewood. Wether Garreth will return to me in my dreams or not, tonight I have the pride of achievement to keep me warm. I think I like that. ====== Facts: Achievements: "Deep Pockets", "Improve", "Oops, that went wrong" Skills: Carpentry 5
