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00007 - Mainly on the Plain

Day 3 continued

Tyler's Portal - awakening + about 3 hours

Tyler & Guttyr pass though Tyler's portal, armed with club and spear, and find themselves in a small near-circular clearing, completely surrounded by heavy brush growth. The clearing is about 30' in diameter. Closer examination of the brush reveals a path to the north east. They take it.

The brush is not as dense as they had thought. In just 20 feet of travel the brush opens to a vast plain with a large lake approx 100 feet NW of their portal. They see herds of herbivores at the water's edge. They also notice a large cat-like animal 30 feet north of their location, stalking toward the lake. It's attention is focused on some horses at the water's edge.

Tyler motions to Guttyr to back up. They both move back through the opening in the brush into the center clearing. Without a word, they both head back to the portal.

Ariving back in Tyler's heelafaq, they report their near miss. Guttyr says that he figured the cat was upwind of its prey, so they must have been upwind of it. But if it hunts that area, we should be careful. It was enormous!

Tyler seconds that assessment. The grop spends a short period of time discussing ways to deal with a large predator. Everyone reasserts the need for tools and weapons.

Scott's Portal - awakening + about 4 hours

Scott & Frank pass through Scott's portal into a perfectly flat and featureless plain of tall grasses. No trees, shrubs, or other vegetation is visible. Herds of herbivores are visible in all directions.

They spot a group of circling birds, and note that their 'target' is not very far to the east. They decide to investigate. Approx 120 feet east of the portal they see a small pack of feral dogs? wolves? smething else? tearing into the carcass of a large bison.

They move quickly back to the area of the portal. Scott says they could use that bison. They return through the portal for assistance.

Straws are drawn, but only after both Scott and Frank 'demand' that they be included with or without straws. They both state that this is their place to explore, and they intend to see it through. After that Jody points out the Mark, endekks, Dale, and Tyler are still up for today already, so he and Guttyr should be the choices. Scott says we could use more than 4 people. There were 6 of those canines there, and we don't know how aggresive they are.

We decided to go big, leaving only one person behind. That straw was pulled by Dale, so he stayed behind.

The group had no problem running off the scavengers. There was a lot more difficlty moving the carcass back, but they eventually pused, pulled, rolled, dragged and otherwise inched their way back to the portal with the carcass. At least one person was watching at all times. The doglike creatures came back to investigate a few times, but did not give the group any trouble.

Jody noticed that the grasses here would make great kindling when dried. After they group managed to get the bison into the portal, Jody suggested that we gather a large quantity of grass around the portal. As well as becoming kindling, he thought it would be a good tactical idea to have the area around the portal less likely to harbor hidden predators, or territorial herbivores.

Scott started butchering the carcass, making a severe mess in his hallway near the heelafaq. Everyone pitched in, but allowed Scott to lead the effort. The lower organs had been eaten, as well as large chunks of the flesh near the abdomenal wound, but otherwise the carcass was fairly intact. They attempted to salvage each section individually, hide, flesh, muscle, bone, teeth, etc.

They determined that it wasn't effective for more than 5 people to work on the butchering because of their scarcity of 'tools', so Jody suggested that he and two other people help gather grasses to dry for kindling. Dale claims a spot since he missed out before. Guttyr and endekks both offer to help. Jody suggests that the three of them go. He feels that he should know more about how to do this butchering, but since he doesn't know more he prefers to stay and learn. Endekks says he's all for Jody learning about cooking! He, Dale, and Guttyr set out.

It was dirty, smelly work, but everyone came out with about 25 pounds of meat to take to their larder. Jody moaned that they could not yet make a fire, but that he wanted to give this meat to Mahrhee, so that wasn't a big loss. However, he did want to get some of thse crayfish cooked up. He was still puzzling over what to cook them in, but he figured frying was as good as boiling at this point. heck, he might just eat their tails raw! The others all admitted that they were feeling really hungry for some kind of meat.

Dale, endekks, and Guttyr made multiple trips carrying in armloads of grasses. They reported that the grasses were easily harvested and that they seemed to be new growth. They harvested and stored large piles of grass in Scott's portal corridor.

After the butchering was completed, and the meat divided and carried to each person's larder, the group re-assembled at the butchering site. They all decided to gather even more grasses, and to also start gathering more small tree branches for slightly larger kindling.

Scott said that he wanted to try to work with the long bones from the carcass to see if he could fashion sharp points. Jody said he would like to try working the fur to clean it up and fashion some clothing. The others voluntered to clean the remaining parts for possble other uses.

Endekks volunteered to stay focuses on getting kindling on the next portal run, or in the future if the next run ends up an adventure. He notes that Jody has been stressing our need for fire, and that we should all help make that happen. He says that he's going to start organizing parties of 3-4 to gather kindling and grasses from any portals are relaively safe for that purpose once we get the exploring done.

It had been a long day for most of the clothers. They all took turns going to endekks' portal and washing off the aftermaths of the butchering. It was getting into evening. Everyone retired to their individal heelafaq's for the night.

G.U.T.S.™ * M.A.R.S.™ * Hexes Nexus™ * Players * Chronicle
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