Venture Forth!
Grab the spear, it's the only tool of survival in your possession.
Get the spear.
Unnamed Protagonist, It is suggested that you retrieve the spear and make a pair of crude undergarments out of jungle leaves.
>Unnamed Protagonist: Add Spear to your Inventory.
Gather the discarded spear and...
Waste not, want not. It would be very unwise to leave a ready-made tool lying in the dirt, when you are so woefully under prepared. You make your way over to the spear, and gently prize it out of the ground. Once it's within your grasp, you decide to take a few moments to inspect the weapon.
The blade is definitely made of flint, the shiny black stone is marbled by thin streaks of dull grey. It's length is roughly four and a half inches, the serrated edge is an iridescent orange where the stone becomes thin. The staff is barely thick enough to fit in your hand, and just barely two feet long. It's much too short to allow the weapon to be used for it's intended purpose, by anything other than the pygmy pony that threw it at you. The stone is set into the staff with some kind of black pitch, and wrapped several times with thin cord.
>Unnamed Protagonist: Equip Spear.
Really, the length of the staff is too short to be any kind of effective weapon, and too long to be properly used as a knife. You make to snap the rod to a proper length, but a thought stops you.
Since his brain is full of curiously detailed history and math (he wasn't a season champion on Jeopardy, was he? heh) I wonder if that brain doesn't also have a encyclopedic amount of lore on survival?
You remember that stone blades of this quality are incredibly hard to make, even for master flint knappers. Anyone can take a rock and break it to make an edge, it takes real time and effort to make a blade that would last for more than a few cuts.
And that's for people with hands.
That pony certainly didn't have any hands, and you're sure that it's lack of gripping appendages would make crafting a blade of this caliber very difficult and time consuming, indeed.
You decide to put off breaking such a valuable tool until you absolutely have to.
I would've suggest wait to see which direction the sun is setting and head towards the north.
Finding out which direction is which is imperative, if you don't want to get lost, but waiting around for a few hours is a waste of incredibly valuable time. Survival is a game about taking opportunities, and being as lazy as possible. Right now, you are sweating like a pig, you just vomited up your last meal, and you are completely naked.
You need to take action, and quickly.
Being naked in the forest isn't just annoying, it's painful. Tender bits getting thwacked by wayward twigs, blood sucking insects going for you there because they know how annoying that is.
Oh, and try to make some sort of clothing/covering for yourself for yourself. You're a human being, not some common animal!
And try to get something to hide my pride.
Unnamed Protagonist, It is suggested that you retrieve the spear and make a pair of crude undergarments out of jungle leaves.
First order of business, is to cover yourself. You're not going to wander around in the jungle without any protection for your skin, even if you are alone. And that's not even saying anything about the immodesty of wandering around with your "bits" hanging out. You decide to at least cover your groin, before you leave the clearing.
You make your way over to the nearest fern, which is not very far away, considering the jungle floor is covered with them. You kneel down next to it, and place the spear on the ground, so you can have both your hands to scrutinize the plant.
The leaves are quite thick, thick enough to stand up to your fingers' touch without bending. That may be a bad thing, you'd like to have the leaves not break off under duress. That would undermine the entire point of spending time and energy to make this garment. This one won't do. You pick up the spear, and move on to the next fern.
This one is not even worth touching, the leaves of the fern are segmented all the way up the stem. There would be absolutely no obscurity in wearing a skirt of this.
You move on to the next plant.
This one seems to be good, the leaves are solid, and appear to be thin enough to bend with the motion of your body. You kneel down in front of it, and test the leave's strength by grabbing one at it's very tip, and pulling hard on it.
It does not give way to you. This fern will do nicely.
You take the spear, and begin the process of cutting leaves off at the very bottom. The sharp edge slices quickly and easily through the pliable stems that attach to the fern's main body. As you work, you decide to sing a little song to yourself, to make the time pass more pleasantly.
A strange little ditty, but by the time you sing the last line, you have finished with your task. The spear's long handle made the job significantly more frustrating, but you eventually managed to gather a respectable amount of tough leaves, leaving the fern nearly completely leafless.
Once the job is complete, you decide to make your life easier, by taking the leave's stems, and tying them into loops. This task takes another couple of minutes off your hands, and your fingers are covered in a sticky, clear sap by the end.
Now that you've got the main body of your garment finished, it's time to affix it to your body.
...use it to cut off a length of any of the vines around you to use as rope...
You stand, taking the spear with you, and make your way over to the nearest tree. Once in it's shadow, you grasp one of the thinner vines creeping up it's trunk, and slice through it without effort. Now that you have a good grip on the vine, you pull it free from the tree, yanking off all it's roots, and pulling off a good twenty feet of usable cord, before the vine snaps off.
You clear the vine of leaves, and slice off about three feet to use. To save on time and resources, you wrap the remainder into a bundle, for later use. You take the cord you need, and feed it through the loops on the leaves. Once you've got all the leaves on the vine, you wrap it around your waist, and tie the vine together on your left hip with a square knot. Now that it won't fall off, you pick up the bundle of excess vine, loop it into the impromptu belt, and secure it with a figure eight knot on your right side. You're left with quite a bit of excess vine on your "belt", which you decide to leave there, for now.
Finally, you don't feel exposed, like everything is trying to get you. You know it won't last long, and that you still need a more permanent solution, but you can finally relax, even if it's only for a moment. You shade your eyes with your hand, and look up to the sky. It's only been about ten or so minutes since you woke up, so the sun hasn't made any discernible movement.
You suddenly become intimately aware of just how much moisture you've lost standing under this punishing sun, when your throat sticks painfully. You need to find a source of water, and fast. You take yet another look at the clearing you stand in, noting the slope once more. You know that water always runs downhill.
In most survival situations, the best thing to do would be to travel downhill, until you find some kind of water source. Then, you follow the water until you come across a path to follow, or a city or town. Civilization is always found near water.
Go uphill, to see if you can find some sort of vantage point in order to find a way out or a source of water, like a river.
Water does help after all, and the risk of following a pygmy pony back to what is probably its pack may be worth it if you can find some way not to be wandering a jungle blindly
Going toward the pigmy pony would only bring you trouble, considering he probably sees you as a threat. So,
>Unnamed Protagonist: Go Uphill, try to find a source of water.
...after doing that carefully head up the hill that the pony fled towards once there use your new vantage point to find anything that might get you to some thing of signifigence such as a water or food source or at least something of signifigence or direction.
But this isn't like most survival situations. The first thing you did was cross paths with a seemingly sapient being, and then scare it away. Your best bet in this situation, would be to find the home of the pygmy pony. It may be scared of you, but it would be better to find it, and try to calm it, rather than trying to survive here, alone. You might even be able to give it's spear back, as a peace offering.
If you remember correctly which you do, with the help of your incredible memory the pony ran uphill, so you need to head in that direction. You steel your nerves, and step into the shade of the trees, for the first time.
The difference is remarkable. The instant the sun's light no longer touches you, you stop feeling it's devastating heat. You had actually forgotten how good it could feel to not be hot. The feeling is incredible, and you actually sigh with relief at the little bit of respite.
As you begin your journey into the wild foliage, a random thought crosses your mind.
Now time to go stone-age and work my way up the history of mankind because I'm pretty sure I am from an advance time period.
Yes, you distinctly remember several pieces of technology that put this little flint knife to shame. Cars, televisions, microwaves, computers, and radio technology. You can even remember the two shining achievements of your race's foray into the scientific arts: smartphones, and the internet. Modern medicine had nearly removed the threat of death from the lives of everyday people. Engineering had crafted devices of convenience that almost anyone could have with little effort.
The moment your mind wandered into what your place in that world was, you get a nasty reminder of the pain you had awoken with.
As fascinating as that little peek into your history was, it didn't suggest anything as incredible as time travel. It wasn't like you had met a human who was decked out in tribal dress, you distinctly remember a pygmy pony. For all you knew, this was all some kind of product of your vivid imagination, maybe you were in a coma, somewhere, having a vivid hallucination. Maybe you had been run over by a car, or mugged in an alleyway, and someone found you, and brought you to a hospital. Or not, you could always be conscious, but in some unknown location in the Congo, where no human had ever set foot before.
Neither of those theories were very comforting.
Climbing uphill without any food or water in your system is taking a toll on your body. You are already winded, and you can still see the clearing back in the distance behind you. You find a random rock, and sit down, resting your aching body. This whole situation is not going to be easy on you.
As you wait for your heart to calm, you try to think of your past again. Maybe remembering your friends would prove to be more profitable venture.
You can't shake the feeling that you did have friends. Good friends. Just thinking of who they may be instills you with a powerful feeling of companionship. Unfortunately, trying to remember details goes the same way trying to remember anything about your personal life does: with no real gain, and you holding your head. You don't know who your friends were, but they were very close to you. It's probably for the best you can't remember their faces. That would just make you sad, and you couldn't afford to be sad right now.
With that option spent, you decide to take a look at your body.
Your skin is very pale, you obviously didn't get a lot of sun before you came here. That's a trend you want to continue, if the terrible heat from the clearing is anything to go by. Toned muscle covers your form, and there is not much fat to obscure it's appearance. To be honest, that's a bad thing, in this situation. All that means, is that you won't be able to last very long without food. You need to put more emphasis on finding a food supply.
>Unnamed Protagonist: Listen to your surroundings. What do you hear ?
Just as you start thinking about how you should go about finding food in this environment, you hear it. It's so faint, it's almost impossible to hear. Coming from your right, just at the edge of your hearing, is the sound of rushing water.
Your heart leaps, and you quickly stand off the rock. The water is very hard to pinpoint, the wind rushing through the forest is almost enough to cover the sound. Fortunately, with enough time and effort, you manage to determine the direction you need to head in to find the water.
You start walking to the source of the sound quickly, your esophagus reminding you of just how much fluid you've lost today. Every step makes the sound clearer, it's like listening to the most beautiful music you've ever heard. You round trees, and step over vines, all without much thought, the only thing you really care about right now, is quenching your burning thirst. Finally, after a short time that was far too long, in your opinion, you catch sight of the little stream that makes the noise.
The little creek is only about two feet wide, but it's enough to suit you. It's crystal clear, absolutely unblemished by foreign objects. Even dirt seems to avoid traveling in the water, for fear of spoiling it's beauty. You rush up to the liquid, joy expanding your heart, and drop to your knees on the muddy bank. You drop the spear next to you, and plunge both hands into the merrily dancing water.
It's ice cold.
With great enjoyment, you scoop out a portion of the water, and splash it over your hot, sweaty face. The shock of cold exhilarates you, and you lean in to take your first drink. The freezing liquid goes down smoother than anything you can remember feeling, and the fluid soothes your parched throat. This drink is like the life-saving drink given to a dying person, which it sort of is.
Normally, drinking directly out of a stream would be a terrible idea. There's no knowing what kinds of parasites or germs could be living and breeding in the water. But this water seems to be perfectly clean, and it's coolness suggests that it runs directly from a spring, somewhere. There's not much chance of anything dangerous being in this. Besides, without any sort of watertight container to carry or boil it in, you're kind of stuck without options.
Once you finish slaking your dry throat, you decide to give your body a rinse. You're absolutely drenched with sweat, and your hands are sticky with fern sap, and now mud from the stream. You sink your hands into the water, savoring the coolness of it, and rub them clean. Once done with that, you stand, and remove your new fern skirt, placing it down with the spear. Now that you're again nude, you kneel by the stream once more.
You start by splashing the water onto your scorched chest, the cold feels amazing against your overly hot body. You gently rub the water into your skin, scrubbing the sweat off. Finished with your chest, you move on to your arms, you just pour water onto your shoulders, and rub the grime away. Then onto your back, which is accomplished by dripping water over your shoulders, and letting it run down. Then you wash your groin and backside, and finish with a rinse of your legs. Now that you're clean(ish), you stand, gather up your meager equipment, and put everything in it's proper place.
Now that your mind is refreshed, it takes the opportunity to tell you of your senses. You are chilled from the water, but you know that it will not last long, with you hiking through this muggy forest. Under the canopy, everything is tinted green, from the chlorophyll reflecting that wavelength of light all over the place. You hadn't noticed it before, but everything smells incredibly clean. There is no stink of smoke hanging in the air, in fact, the air is permeated by the faint, sweet smell of fruit.
You decide to take a closer inspection of your surroundings, and finally notice the tiny hoof print embedded in the mud on the other bank of the stream. You hop over to the other side, and kneel down to take a closer look.
It is definitely small, smaller than your fist. It only goes about a quarter inch into the mud, so whatever made the print was incredibly light. Your thoughts immediately go to the tiny pony you scared away, the one you are currently looking for. The print is facing upstream, suggesting that the creature went that way.
You're just about to start heading after it, when a break in the jungle's pattern catches the edge of your eye. You turn to your left, facing the anomaly, and you take a better look at what caused you to stop. A long trough of the undergrowth, a good foot wide, is crushed and torn. It seems that something quite large was dragged through here. if the torn leaves are to be believed, whatever destroyed the foliage went uphill, as well.
You stand up straight, and take stock of the situation.
You are in the jungle, having just found a seemingly clean source of water. You have also found evidence of where the pygmy pony went, but something else seems to have traveled in the same direction. Something large. All you have with you, is a fern skirt, about sixteen feet of vine, an awkward to use stone knife, and your wits.
What do you do?
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Deploy wits and cautiously follow the hoof print. Grip the awkward to use stone spear/ knife a little tighter.
>Unnamed Protagonist: Equip Spear.
That, and all of those options at the top made me think of an old school resident evil game, when your going into the item select screen :).
Well, going after a large creature with makeshift weapons. In the spirit of not wanting to die, I'd saaaay; go another direction.
1. continue up the stream cautiously
2. look for more flint, or large sticks
3. search for small animals
4. think of a title you could give yourself, without stroking your own ego too much
5. consider making an abacus, so you might work finances for the pygmy ponies,profit
Cautiously follow the trail, but stay to the undergrowth to keep hidden from any nasty surprises ahead.
Move through the trees and bushes off to the side of the tracks, you have no idea what to expect and you don't wan't to be caught off guard, so be stealthy to get the upper hand if you need it.
As you follow the ponies tracks take note of the much larger tracks, maybe to can find out what is also following the pony and how best to handle it, if you even can that is.
Tie rope to spear, so you can throw then retrieve it.
Tie other end of rope to a decent sized stone, to use as a weapon/grappling hook.
Come up with name for self.
Make leaf shoes, after figuring out tracks.
Survival in jungle with large predators alone is daunting, seek pygmy, perhaps save from predator.
Come up with more random knowledge.
p.s. fun fact, The guy that ran 25 miles died upon saying that they won. if i remember correctly.
2996180
That's what legend states...
I should probably add that in. He does have an incredible memory, after all.
attach nice sized rock to rope as a kind of swinging rock thing to smash into faces, make footwraps outa something like leaves or such, create camouflage to both hide your body from other creatures eye sight and also protect you more from the sun, make a hat outa leaves, make a pouch and fill with rocks to throw nice sized rocks at things, find a nice thick stick to be a walking stick or a smacking stick, tread carefully from now on, smear mud from the river on your body to cover your scent,protect your skin from the sun and to add to camouflage.
ill try to think of some more
Follow pony tracks, but stay close to the stream. Better to fight large one with your "enemies" than alone.
Did... did I just start a thing with the Unnamed Protagonist handle?
> Unnamed Protagonist: follow the tracks while keeping as close to the river as possible, keep an eye out for more tracks to possibly elude you in on what created the large disturbance. Also consider covering self in mud to keep cool and/or act as camouflage.
2996333
I think you did.
>Unnamed Protagonist: i don't think it wise to try to find the dangerous pony place yet so soon so under prepare side what can your stick do to a predator like that right now? but i guess if your careful and not die in the process you learn more and might possibly return the spear to it owner to not appear like a monster... side explore the terrain is good thing to do.
>Unnamed Protagonist:Camouflage and covering your scent before you begin your tracking of the pony.
saving the pony will make him or her indepted to the protag and without there spear what could they do to protect themselves?
2996964
Dat Grammar...
2996670a man should not hesitate to save a life even when the odds are not in your ffavor
2996966 sorry im typing this on my ps3 very hard to see
2996973 sorry i thought the pony was fine and was tracking the creature it look like it was patrolling and thought it had a group not that far behind you don't go into a jungle all alone but i guess it would not hurt to much to check out and possibly help guess i re edit my comment again...
2996994 no need to apologies any logical man would have done what you say but morals wont allow most to let a unarmed creature die somethings prey especially if your the reason he/she is unarmed besides if the pony was in a group and you save one of there own it makes less one group of killer ponys to worry about
I just love this story! Not only is it well written but it's sort of a choose your own adventure story, which I love and have wanted to see in action on this site for a long time. (It also really excites me because I was able to get here near the begining) This deserves it's place in the feature box.
2997764
Thank you!
That really means a lot.
This story is honestly going in directions I didn't expect it to. I couldn't get it published without adding in the pygmy ponies early, so this whole thing about finding him is just as new to me as everyone else.
Follow the trail but exercise caution, also find a good branch to use as a club it should make a better weapon than your tiny spear.
Reasons:
Emotional/moral: You're kind of responsible for the pygmy being disarmed and should always try and aid your fellow sentient creatures.
Practical/logical: If you can save the pygmy it will be more likely to aid you, if you can't whatever made the drag marks will likely go for the easiest prey (the pygmy) first and seeing what kills it will provide survival information.
I think, that before moving forward, you should try and find something to carry water in, even if it means using an old log or something of the sort.
>Unnamed Protagonist: i would advise you to get your self covered in mud and then head up hill. keep your eyes open for tracks of anytype or better weapons that you can use (ps that vine you grabed can be used like a wipe like WIPTISH [lol indiana jones ref] to scare or hurt anything that would like to take a taste of you...)
>Unnamed Protagonist: also i would woah woah woah wait redstone i have something to say ok say it RANDOM DANCING *starts to thrillier* NO NO DANCING {ok maby a little dancing...:3}
>Protagonist That is Unnamed, I suggest that you untie the stone blade from the shorter spear and then retie it onto a long much more suitable stick. After doing so check the stream for and fish. If there is none follow the tracks of the large disturbance and possibly hunt down this animal.
2999332
hun' 'er down 'n flay'em, i don' care what yer havin ta do, property a don' own, break n remake it!, dats da redneck way, woooweee, amurica
2999335 um, yes
2999341
yes, very nice indeed, would you like some tea and a brisket?
2999345 he ll yeh *chugs tea down from tea pot* woooooweee dat som' good drinkin riht der. Dis biscuit shur is drier then my corn fields 'ter harvestin'. I'd rather have som nice bac'n. 'Mercia
2999357
bacon, may be good, but nothing compares to salmon, its beary good, almost, unbearably so, if you disagree a mault have to take droartic measures
2999367 haha yes salmon is quite good. I go fishing in Canada which is where we catch fresh salmon. Simply exquisite. Not only that, but we smoke our own salmon. So we get to choose how it taste.
2999379
lucky, wish i could go on to canada some time or another, its been, 5 or 6 years since last i saw it, anyways gotta go nice talkin to ya byeziez
Look for a more sturdy stick or piece of wood to mount your spearhead on, or just sharpen and use as a crud spear
Consider making a club whit a thick branch a rock and vines.
Acquire food if there's any to be found.
Follow tracks to give aid and gain trust.
Do a little dance and call forth the nearest god. After that ask him/her to send you home or wherever is safe and provides clothes. Or you could skin your skin off replace it with leaves or bandages if you find some and your are now open to being possessed by gods anytime in your life if you agree to it.
2995648
Sorry, but you got outvoted.