294 7.22 Set Up A Crude Camp And A Small Trading Post. (1/2)

After the 7 dwarfs had entered a mine shaft, that implies they would be working deep underground for quite some time. This would give us an opportunity to certainly find a spot suitable for us to make a camp.

There's a body of water marked on the map, and once the 7 dwarfs had entered the mineshaft for a good 10 minutes, we picked ourselves up and walked towards the stream where the 7 dwarfs had come from earlier.

We arrived there and unloaded our things on the ground first after discovering a rather shady part of the forest and set up a sanctuary to place our things underneath. The stream was surging downstream and there were noises on the surface of the water as the fishes leapt and capture the hovering insects.

”Good...! We now possess water and we have fishes too...and this stream is broad enough to have bountiful of fishes and it doesn't look excessively deep too. At most, it is up to our thighs at the deepest point. This would give me the idea that I would implement soon.”

”Oh...I've pitched a shelter to put in our stuff underneath it. Would it be useful to hang our perishables in the trees so that it would not be plagued by ants and other bugs?”

”Sure...I help you out....” I answered back and went to our bags and pulled out all the contents. I separated the cooking ware and utensils aside and I took out the perishables and places them aside first. The 2 smoked chicken was then strung high on a low branch and all the vegetables were laid out agreeably on the shawl that I had been using.

”Prepare a fire Matilda, I'm going to cook 10 of these eggs so it would last longer and prevent any unexpected breakages. We could simmer some water and make some tea later.”

She bobbed her head and began with the task at hand. We require a table to organise our stuff and I set off a short distance away to split some trees down. I've earned a few logs and I haul one into my Realm of Mind and break it down into 4 planks with the fusion chamber and logged off from my meditative state and returned to the real world.

I then grabbed another log and yanked into the realm of mind and threw it into the fusion chamber and select to make stools and I managed to get 3 stools about the height of my knee. Out of 1 stool, I split it into 4 pieces to make a stand for the low table. At least it's a start if something, rather than nothing at all.

.....

”How's the fire going, Matilda? You may boil some water first and prepare some tea while I create a table for us first.” I asked as I returned to the shelter with the planks and 4 legs. I took a few nails and used the back of my axe to hammer those nails into a stick to hold two planks jointly to make a wider table. 3 sticks were being nailed across to construct it sturdier and I overturned it and drove the nails on the other side directly into the table's legs.

The table looked a bit precarious and I used some sticks and fastened it diagonally across the legs and now it's perfect...! I positioned the table aside and positions all the other garnishing onto it. Next, I carried the two tree trunks that were prepared into stools and plops it on the ground.

”Waaahhhh...you're more productive than my Guide Master...you could set up a table in minutes.”

”This is nothing, really, as long as you don't sit on it would be just fine. It is just a temporary place for us to park the foodstuff and eat. Furthermore, I wondered if those 7 dwarf miners would be willing to trade with us or not, but it would be worth a try.”

”The water for the tea and eggs had been boiled. Do you want the eggs to be boiled for 5 or 8 minutes?”

”Boil them for 5 and let it stand in the pot until the eggs cooled off. What would you be readying for dinner? We yet have daylight and we could mine some iron and coal.”

”Our camp looks tidy enough. I haven't think of preparing what for dinner. There's a plank here, could I nail it on the tree and make a kind of holder to hang the pots and pans as well as a stand to put our bowls and utensils?”

”It's a great idea... it is better than leaving them lying around. Our 2 smoked chicken is hanging just above us in a nice, sealed sack so no flies would be hovering and the smoked fish are being kept inside one of the pots here.”

I helped Matilda to nail a plank across the tree trunk where our table was and used some nails as hooks for our pots and pans and also used nails as stands to place our utensils on it. The whole setup is very crude, but it serves the purpose very well.

.....

”These protruding mines looked the same to me except for some minerals deposit on it's top here. Other than that, it would be a normal stone mine, right?”

”Yeah...that's right...” I replied as I began to swing my pickaxe on a stone mine to retrieve some flints. I left the rocks aside as I do not seem to have any use for it. After a while, I discovered that the stone mines failed to respawn if the resources were not collected and I asked Matilda to collect them...which she gleefully did.

”This girl is so naive...she would just collect any resources without thinking of its uses at all.” I thought to myself as I picked at some stone mines and collected just the flints. As for Matilda, she just picked at any mines and collected all the resources since she had a better storage bag than mine.