Completed [Naked & Afraid Challenge] A Stranger In A Strange Land II

Tazrae finds herself a stranger in a strange land.

(This is a thread from Mizahar's fantasy role playing forums. Why don't you register today? This message is not shown when you are logged in. Come roleplay with us, it's fun!)

Encompassing a vast wilderness filled with flora and fauna of immense proportions, the Northern Reaches include all the Talderian Forest north of the Suvan and stretch into the vast permanent tundra and ice fields outside Avanthal.

[Naked & Afraid Challenge] A Stranger In A Strange Land II

Postby Tazrae on February 8th, 2021, 5:05 am

Timestamp: 50th of Winter, 520 A.V.


Day 2.

Water was next priority. It was on her mind as the lightening sky woke her the next day. She’d been a whole day without food and water. She was also no closer to her goal. Tazrae was surprised she’d slept so deeply out exposed in the wood, but the temperature wasn’t cold and it hadn’t started raining at all. She was, however, hellishly uncomfortable, dirty, and tired beyond what she could imagine even though she’d managed to doze against the now-stripped snag. As soon as the sun rose, Taz was up and walking down the bank of the stream. Here, she would find water for the day.

Since the stream traveled the same way she needed to go, Taz was able to watch the banks on either side, looking for stone and for seeps or springs feeding the water. She’d walked all day, treading carefully and looking for food as she walked. It took her more than two bells until the stream cut into a deep bank, swung south and passed a stone wall where water trickled down the bedrock, contributing to the stream.

Taz waded out into the creek to that stone wall and drank from where the water emerged from the stone. She drank as much of that water as she could before she retrieved her waterskin from her burlap survival bag and filled it to as high of capacity as she could. Once that was done, she drank again, feeling the water do her so much good, and continued down the stream.

The stream eventually widened, slowed, and reeds grew on either side of the bank. Taz ranged further away from the stream then, still staying on the edge of the riparian, but more than willing to not see the water and just follow the wet margin plants to know it was there. Huge cattails danced in the wind and Taz stopped, remembering that Randal had said cattails were a source of amazing food. She had no hop of picking the cattail reeds, but she was easily able to take out the broken short sword and hacked them down. Once cut, it was fairly easy to strip the green outer later from around the core of the plant stalk… peeling back the green until she found a nutritious white meaty core.

The food, after a full day of not eating, filled her with energy and Tazrae was able to pick half a dozen of the cattails, stowing them in her bag for later. At a light jog now, Taz drank lightly of her waterskin, and kept moving towards what she saw of as the big X on the shore of what looked like the Suvan Sea in the south.
Last edited by Tazrae on February 8th, 2021, 5:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Syka Seasonal Challenge (1)

[Naked And Afraid Challenge] A Stranger In A Strange Land II

Postby Tazrae on February 8th, 2021, 5:06 am

Tazrae kept her staff with her the whole time, using it heavily since her feet were raw and she often had to lean on the staff to take her weight off one or another of her feet when she stepped on something sharp or painful. She’d have to do something about her feet sooner or later. She’d contemplated cutting up her cloak and wrapping her feet with it, but she doubted the thin fabric would last more than a day or so of walking and in the end wouldn’t make a difference on her feet.

What she needed was to kill something with thick hide or come across something with thick hide that was already dead. But the problem was, everything here was enormous. She doubted she could actually kill anything. The deer and elk tracks she’d seen were huge. Near the water, in the mud, she’d found huge paw prints as well.

It was uncanny how large things like mushrooms were. Randal had always told her not to eat mushrooms in the wild since their identity was too hard to pinpoint to the untrained and most were deadly poison. Water really wasn’t a problem for her once she started looking for it, so the girl traveled as fast as she could following the watercourses towards where the X was.

Taz had no idea if she’d make it or not. But what she did discover after picking berries the size of her thumbs and sniffing them, that the streams held an added benefit. The berry she’d sniffed had a pale inner core – something she’d been warned against – and an acrid smell to it. Instead of eating it, Taz had tossed the berry into the water, and seen something astonishing. A crayfish the size of a lobster had darted out from its hiding spot under a stone outcropping and had snagged the berry, brought it to its mouth underparts and had spat it out again.

Food. Pure and simple. Taz knew the crayfish were edible… even if they were huge. And since she was used to dealing with lobster, she picked far more of the berries as lures and used a bit of her cordage to string them together. Then she’d tossed them into the stream again near where the crayfish was hiding and had been ready with her staff to stab the creature when it emerged to investigate.

Killing things wasn’t her forte, but killing to live made the whole thing a truly different scenario altogether. When she’d pulled her deadly four-pronged spear from the water with what equated to a freshwater lobster on the end of it, she smiled happily to herself and tossed the unlucky creature in her burlap bag. She’d make camp earlier today and she’d take a moment to thank Randal and all his training as she ate this bounty.

Taz was hungry, so as she walked, she re-tossed the berry line into various likely pools but unfortunately missed any more opportunities to spear more crayfish. That was fine… she knew it was fatigue and hunger. So as she walked she knew she’d made real progress and would hit the X the next day or even the day after if she was able to sustain the pace.
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Syka Seasonal Challenge (1)

[Naked And Afraid Challenge] A Stranger In A Strange Land II

Postby Tazrae on February 8th, 2021, 5:07 am

When she passed a prominent animal crossing and a flat meadow that came close to the stream, Taz decided to refill her waterskin on a seep one more time, drink deeply, and head a bit inland from the stream past the meadow to find a good place to make a fire and camp. She wanted to be well away from the water and game trail. Moving parallel to the stream and any potential source of food, she came to a rock outcropping with a deadfall log where the stream swung closer back into her. It was a defensible spot with a good place to make a safe fire and plenty of tinder and fuel from the deadfall. Taz took out the short sword and got busy hacking up firewood to begin to make her fire.

The young Innkeeper gathered tinder in the form of a birds nest she’d retrieved from a nearby young spruce. Then she’d added dried grasses and small dried twigs to the pile. She hacked off limbs from the fallen tree and created for herself a formidable pile of firewood. Then she carefully tucked the birds nest into a ball and gently pulled her flint and steel from the bag she was traveling with. Striking the steel with the flint, she set tiny sparks into the nest repeatedly, blowing on them until the dried aged woven debris caught fire. It smoldered as Taz blew gently on it, careful to set it down before the nest went completely up in flames and burned her bare hands. She added dried twigs to the burning nest and then larger bits of firewood as she nursed the gentle new blaze.

Never had she been so grateful for Randal’s teachings than she was at that moment when the warmth of the fire struck her and told her just exactly how cold she’d been. She arranged the setup near the rock face, giving herself room to bed down between the fire and the stone, hoping the warmth of the fire on a bare rock would keep the stone itself heated and therefore her body warm. Once the blaze was going nicely, she added more wood and then began to cut pine boughs for a true bed that she hoped she could get some rest in.

It was finally time to cook the crayfish. Taz opted for a quick meal and just skewered the thing through its useless body on a stick and held it over the fire to roast. She wanted the claws and the tail, which she knew was full of meaty goodness. The smell was incredible which caused Taz’s roaring stomach to protest having to wait for the shellfish to roast. She took sips of water while it heated over the fire, releasing steam and smelling delicious. She longed for butter and garlic to go with it but had to settle for pulling the well-steamed freshwater crustacean off the stick, breaking into its tail using the short sword, and slowly chewing the meat.

It was a small meal, but for all that she’d eaten in the past two days, it was more than she could hope for. She savored each chew and swallowed each bite, sucking out the empty shell before she opened up the claws and dug out the meat in each one.
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Syka Seasonal Challenge (1)

[Naked And Afraid Challenge] A Stranger In A Strange Land II

Postby Tazrae on February 8th, 2021, 5:09 am

That gave her an idea to forage for clams and mussels. She was more than sure that the streams and rivers around here would be full of them. Her stomach encouraged her, but first, she’d have to get through the night with her fire and get on the move again. Taz didn’t want to stay in one place. She wanted to get to the spot the X was marked on her map and then settle in. She wasn’t sure why she was here or even how she’d gotten here, but she was certain it had to be magical in nature or even divine. She couldn’t remember what she’d been doing before she’d awoken in the temperate forest, so perhaps she’d even discovered an artifact or something that moved people whole continents away.

Nibbling the last of her crayfish, Taz threw the remains of the lobster sized creature into the fire and bedded down in the pine boughs she’d gathered for a bed. She desperately wanted sleep tonight – light sleep so she could tend the fire – and thought longingly of a bath in the warm ocean or even a sun-heated shower in the one she and Duncan had just completed for the Inn. It was the second day of her unexpected and unanticipated trip and she was already covered in dirt, her feet bruised and abused, and she was bone-weary. The food and water had helped considerably though, and Taz knew the morning would bring her the ability to have the energy to hike further, getting as close to her destination as she thought she could get.

Night fell and unlike the other nights, the still air was full of insects. The first mosquito bit into her flesh and Taz swatted it with annoyance. She’d assumed the smoke from the fire would keep the bugs away, but the truth was they just seemed to ignore it. She shifted, the limbs of the boughs beneath her naked body uncomfortable to sprawl across. The thin cloak did nothing to hide her from the insects that bit straight through the fabric.

She no sooner swatted at one bite than another would bite her someplace else. Face, neck, breasts, belly, even the bottom of her feet and between her toes were not safe. She ended up adding more wood to the fire, moving half the pine boughs off her bed, then settling down on the remaining ones and pulling the excess she’d thinned from the bedding pile over her to get any relief at all.

Halfway through the night, Taz was reduced to a whimpering huddled mass. The constant whine and buzz of the mosquitos and other biting flies were driving her insane. Their constant bites were sharp pains all over her body. At one point the torture was so acute she began to weep and wondered if there was anything she could do to coat her skin. The layer of dirt she had on her didn’t seem to help. And she was almost relieved when it began to rain. That moisture put the fire out almost immediately and chilled the stones the fire had warmed so nicely.

Taz began to shiver, curling in on herself. She felt nothing but misery. The burrow she’d made of the pine boughs did nothing to keep the water off her. Teeth chattering, she found no more rest and no more sleep the rest of the evening. And she didn’t even remotely find herself warming or ending the shivering until the sun came up and started to warm the air around the camp sight. The rain passed about then as well, leaving the world a wet steaming place.
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Syka Seasonal Challenge (1)

[Naked And Afraid Challenge] A Stranger In A Strange Land II

Postby Tazrae on February 8th, 2021, 5:10 am

When she could see her skin in the morning, it was mottled with red bite marks and long red slashes across her golden skin where her nails had scratched and repeatedly scratched all through the night. The bites were so bad they felt like a rash across her entire body. She even had bites on her labia and her delicate eyelids. Insects had gotten into her ears and feasted there as well. Those bites were probably the worst, for she couldn’t easily reach them to scratch. And though she knew better, she couldn’t resist the urge to scratch which she knew would lead to infection.

Day 3

Tazrae was never so glad to get up, pack up her small bundle of supplies, and get back on the road to finding the X her now sodden map showed. She was starving when she woke, thirsty too, the shivering having burned up all the energy the Talderian Crayfish had granted her. She walked with a purpose, half-convinced she’d find a settlement or some sort of camp at the end of her trip where the X on the map showed.

Syna was her guide today in the clear skies and she grew warmer as the morning progressed. She kept her staff at her side and walked with purpose through the undergrowth. She selected pathways and byways that kept her near the water, but on easier ground than walking the bank of the stream and safer paths than squishing through the mud of the huge ungulate trails through the denser forest. Everything remained big. She passed forest floor trilliums that had blooms the size of her face and even stopped to pick a few lambs ears that felt soft and fuzzy to her touch.

Everything she found that looked to be edible went into her pack, which truthfully wasn’t much. There was mint she could tell was mint she planned to make tea out of the moment she was in a place to perhaps harden clay into some sort of water-holding mug. She found lavender with stems the size of rhubarb and picked those too, recognizing it from markets and her own mother’s soap making. She walked with purpose until she nearly stumbled over a crabapple the size of her fist. She gathered as many as she could carry, finding the fruit pithy and sour, though edible. Sour she didn’t mind so much because hunger made everything taste better.

And with this food source, Taz kept walking. She moved as quietly as she could, sinuously and fluid, trying to be one with the forest. So far, she’d been lucky, no large predators had bothered her, and nothing remotely more troublesome than a dog-sized squirrel and a bumblebee the size of a sparrow had interrupted her.

She’d seen in the distance a moose the size of an ashta grazing in a wetland on the other side of the stream, but she’d left it alone and it had done nothing more than studying her with some sort of marshy grass spilling wetly from its mouth that it grazed on. Most of the trees looked at least somewhat climbable if wolves or bears bothered her, but Taz was almost certain most of the predators that should be here could also climb. Certainly, the cougar and bears could. She’d rather confuse them by crisscrossing the stream repeatedly and keeping on the lookout for berries.

Word Count: 2727
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Syka Seasonal Challenge (1)

[Naked & Afraid Challenge] A Stranger In A Strange Land II

Postby Tazrae on May 29th, 2021, 6:11 am

Grading


Tazrae-

Wilderness Survival +5, Land Navigation +4, Observation +2, Foraging +5, Cooking +1

WS: Procuring Clean Safe Water, WS: Cattails As Food, WS: Crayfish As Food, Land Navigation: Following A Map
Image
"A mark of an open mind is being more committed to your curiosity than your conviction.
The goal of learning is not to shield old views against new facts, but to revise old views with new facts.
Ideas are possibilities to explore, not certainties to defend."


Garden Beach Syka The Protea Inn

"Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to your heart, it knows."
User avatar
Tazrae
Be savage, not average.
 
Posts: 1335
Words: 1916653
Joined roleplay: May 3rd, 2020, 2:02 pm
Location: Syka
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Journal
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Mizahar Grader (1) Overlored (1)
One Thousand Posts! (1) One Million Words! (1)
Syka Seasonal Challenge (1)


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests