The Tenth World - Valheim

Two - Greyling

Skeillr's stomach grumbled again. Now here's a real problem, he thought. My tum. A cold wind blew from the ocean, leaving goosebumps covering his skin. He needed to make a start. First things first though. Food.
Skeillr moved straight toward the bush Hugin had been by, and began stuffing his face with raspberries. They were sweeter and more delicious than he ever could have imagined. Once he'd had his fill of berries for the moment, not wanting to overdo it, he moved on. Searching for things to touch. Things to learn. He spent some time wandering the area near the standing stones, as well as the shoreline. He found mushrooms and more raspberries. Soon he had eaten his fill. Occasionally deer would come prancing into sight, but once they saw him, they scattered, running faster than he could possibly hope to himself. He picked up to examine everything he could. Rocks, sticks, leaves, feathers. Memories and knowledge came flooding into his mind, slowing down the process of exploring the area considerably. Through a small gathering of trees, on top of a hill, he saw some boar. They were huge. So were their tusks. He decided to stay away from them until he could fashion a weapon for himself.

Skeillr made his way to the shoreline, where the waves lapped peacefully. The sand was soft and pleasant. By now the sun made made its way higher into the sky, and it warmed him up considerably. He found a patch of sand by the water with several shards of flint scattered nearby, and sat. Picking up a particularly large piece of flint, he studied it closely. This would be handy. Flint was sharp, and had many uses. He could make a good number of tools and weapons using flint as the edge.

Here on the waterline, Skeillr couldn't help but let a sudden, huge grin split his face. He liked this place. It was lonely, but he felt a sense of pride and purpose in his being here. Unlike Midgard, where he couldn't recall having any greater purpose other than living a good life. Having kids. Getting old. Dying.
He leant back to lie in the sand, his eyes closed. For a while he listened to the lapping of the waves, and the breeze as it stirred the trees. He could hear the occasional honking of deer in the distance, and the cry of seagulls as they flew about, looking for food. The smell of the ocean pervaded his senses, and he was overcome by a great sense of relaxation. He was full, warm, and comfortable. It seemed a lifetime since he'd last felt this way. Maybe it had been.

Eventually, Skeillr opened his eyes. To his surprise, he noticed the sky. High above the few clouds, the giant branches of Yggdrasil reached across the sky. They were beautiful. Covered in lights of varying hues, the branches of the World Tree were vast, and gave Skeillr a sense of awe and wonder. He had never seen Yggdrasil, and remembered that you couldn't see it from Midgard. Maybe you couldn't see it from any of the eight other realms either, he wondered, as all were bound to the tree. Maybe only in Valheim, adrift from the boughs that held it to Yggdrasil, could it be seen.

Skeillr's attention diverted when he heard an unusual noise. It was like a mixture of a cough, and a chuckle, from the throat of something unnatural. He quickly stood and spun around. Off to his right, there was movement low in the bushes beneath the trees. He prepared himself, picking up the sharpest shard of flint he could see and getting a good grip on it. Suddenly the feeling he once felt before battle came back to him. It was mixture of fear, excitement, and the overwhelming need to piss.

A small, dark creature emerged from the bushes. It was unlike anything Skeillr had seen back on Midgard. No memory of it came to him, though knowledge of it did. He suddenly knew it as a greyling, a word he had never come across until now, when it appeared in his mind with that now-familiar spark. It was made of rotting wood, crumbling rock and moss, all gathered and bound together by the resentful, dark soul of something long dead. Wholly blue eyes glowed from its face. It seemed to be marching around aimlessly, it's arms swinging forward and high with each step it took. Then it noticed the human staring at it. It let out a little inhuman shriek, raised its claws toward Skeillr, and began running at him. Skeillr stood his ground. As it approached, he realized that it really was tiny. It's head only came up to about his chest height. Skeillr tossed the shard of flint around in his hand so that he was holding it by the sharper end. When the greyling reached the sandy bank, Skeillr brought his arm back over his head, and tossed the shard at it. He was more used to throwing axes and knives at people, rather than oddly shaped rocks at weird little monsters. The piece of flint would have made contact had the greyling been but a few fingerwidths taller, and Skeillr was left unarmed, annoyed, and still naked. He hadn't counted on missing. The greyling slowed. It seemed to have a hard time moving over sand. Skeillr took a couple steps back as the greyling got close, and swung a leg up and around at the side of its head. His foot made contact, sending it sprawling onto its side with a yelp. As it wriggled about, trying to get up, Skeillr grabbed a nearby stone. He approached the greyling, lifting the rock above his head, and as it tried to stand, he brought the rock down hard upon it. The greyling crumpled. He smashed the rock into the creature over and over until he was sure it was dead. As he broke through what comprised its skin, something yellow and sticky began splattering and dribbling out of the creature's corpse. Resin.
Skeillr dropped the rock to the sand, and bent to start pulling apart the greyling's body. As he began scooping out the resin, he knew it would be very flammable. Skeillr now had easy access to fire.

He decided now that he needed to be more prepared for when more greylings came. When worse came. His mind brought him back to that blue thing he saw during his descent with the Valkyrie. Skeillr wondered what it could be. What he did know for sure was that he wasn't ready for it. Whatever it might be, it was big. That he was certain of.

He left the resin in a pile of top of the greyling's corpse, and set to gathering sticks and larger bits of wood for a fire. Most of the kindling was rather wet from the rain that morning. He stacked them up near the beach, only a few meters off the sand, nice and close to the greyling. He then scooped up some of the golden resin in his hands, and dropped it on the pile of wood. It dribbled over the kindling, sticky and runny. His hands were covered in resin, so he moved to the waterline and washed them with sand. Shaking off his hands until they were completely dry, he picked up a few pieces of flint. Skeillr carried them to the pile of wood and began striking the flint together.
Eventually, he got a fire going. The resin lit well, and burned even better. It seemed to burn for a good, long time. At least he wouldn't have to go slaughter and dissect a greyling every hour just to keep warm. He sat by his fire, listened to the waves, watched the clouds as they lazily crawled across the sky, and rested. He made sure to keep an eye and an ear out for greylings or other creatures.

After some time processing his memories, Skeillr's stomach grumbled again. He'd had only berries and mushrooms so far. Do I even need to eat here? he wondered. I'm already dead, aren't I? A bit of starvation couldn't hurt. He felt the pangs of hunger, and it did hurt, so he quickly decided he needed food. All in all, he felt rested, but he'd be damned if he didn't feel weak. Skeillr blamed it on the lack of meat. 'I'll sink my teeth into a juicy boar before the day is out, damn it,' he grumbled to himself.

A cold wind blew from the ocean, leaving goosebumps on his skin. He needed to make a start on all this survival business. Being cold would quickly get tiresome. The dead man got up from his fire and, after a quick snack, set to work. Gathering wood, stone, flint, and fibers from amongst the vegetation, he left what he collected near his fire and the corpse.
Looking at the greyling's body, he noticed it had been quickly fading away. Instead of the rot that sets in to natural things, this creature was almost what Skeillr would call 'evaporating' in a strange yet wondrous purple smoke. The stuff seemed to sparkle as it drifted off on the wind. Skeillr wondered if he would see much more of it during his time in Valheim. He continued collecting materials for his camp.
The moment he was happy with his gathered materials, the dead warrior got to work making tools and weapons.
Skeillr crafted an axe made of sharpened flint.
Using wood, he made a flat hammer for building.
The last of the resin from the greyling's corpse was used to put together a torch for when the sun set. Every now and then he would throw some more wood onto the fire.

By the time he was done and satisfied with his work, tying together and sharpening tools, it was afternoon, and the sky had turned overcast. Gripping his newly-made axe, he got up, and with a smile on his face, decided to go hunting. A boar would do me nicely, he thought. A boar would do me very, very nicely.