“Oh!” Brynn said. “I’ve heard of them. One of my friends who plays the game found one. She’ll grow up to be a huge protector.”
“Yeah, but for now, she’s a kitten. I’ll need to hunt down some bigger game. She’s going to have quite an appetite,” I said. “Later on, she’ll be able to hunt for herself, but until then, she’s another mouth to feed. Do they only eat meat?”
Liesel nodded. “They’re obligate carnivores, just like most cats.” She motioned for Reggie and Ray to bring the cleaned and filleted fish inside. “Come on, the batter’s ready. Fried fish will be a nice addition to dinner. I sliced up some potatoes and will make fries with them. By the way, tomorrow we have a bunch of produce from my root cellar at the other house to move up here.”
“I’ll go out hunting again,” I said. Turning to Geoff, I asked, “Do you want to come with me? I’m hoping to find a deer or some sort of bigger game.”
“Sounds good,” he said.
“We’ll move the produce,” Thornhold said, motioning to Brynn, who nodded.
“And we can start building a real smoker. We’ll need it for fish and bigger hauls of meat.” Ray sighed, leaning back against the wall. “We also need better furniture. Did anything else survive the fire?”
Liesel shook her head. “Not much. If we want a sofa or mattresses, we’re either going to have to find an abandoned house to raid, or make them. We could buy them at Dusmaria, but I don’t trust anything with upholstery not to have bedbugs or fleas. We could also ask the neighbors near the trailhead leading into the forest. I know one’s a seamstress, but I’m not certain about furniture.”
I sat by the fire, staring into the flames. The key was still heavy around my neck and—while hunting and finding the Frazzle cat had distracted me—now it flooded back that I was a walking bullseye for a necromancer I’d never met.
The Frazzle cat woke and came over to me, rubbing against my legs. I lifted her onto my lap, grunting at her weight. She leaned in against my chest and let out a squeak. As she did, I knew immediately she was hungry. I scratched her behind the ears and she let out a gushing purr, along with a little slobber.
“Liesel, is there any meat I can feed her?”
“Of course. I’ll fry a couple of these fish for her, though I won’t use breading or too much oil. But she should like it.” Liesel plopped a couple of the fish into a separate skillet and added some water to poach them. “Another thing we’re going to need is a goat or a cow, and a male counterpart, if we want milkand cheese. We can trade for it, but the more self-sufficient we are, the better.”
“Where do we find them? Can we buy them from somebody?” Thornhold asked, sitting beside me. He cautiously reached out a hand for the Frazzle cat, and she sniffed him. After a careful look at him, she blinked and licked his fingers.
“We could, but they’re pricey. There are a few wild goats running around the woods. If you can catch one and bring it back, we can start a flock. Well, catch two—male and female. Cows are harder to find. Goat’s milk makes great cheese though.”
“What about butter?” Brynn asked.
“Much better to have a cow for that, although the game devs developed a hybrid goat whose milk is much better suited for both butter and cream. Trouble is, their kids may turn out to be hybrid in nature, or they might revert to the original stock. They were working on perfecting them, but now that’s shot to hell.” Liesel, shrugged. “I have a stock of butter and oil, but those will go fast. We’ll have to render fat…which means it would be good if we could catch some of the wild boar and tame them.”
I sighed. “This is beginning to sound like a lot of work. I never expected to be turned into a homesteader as well as an adventurer.”
“I don’t think anybody did,” Ray said. “So, while you two hunt for meat tomorrow, Reggie and I can try to corral a couple wild boars. We can build a quick pen for them, and then maybe get them to chase us, leading them back to captivity.”
I blinked. “That sounds dangerous. Those things have tusks.”
“Yeah, but we need them, so we might as well try to trap them,” he said. “After all, we’ve now fought werespiders, zombies, and ghosts or spirits or whatever those things were. We took down a Trogger, and we’ve fought ogres.”
“Well, let’s do it,” I said. I accepted the bowl of fish and fish broth from Liesel and set it down for the cat. “I have to give her a name,” I said. “I think I’ll call her…Star. Because we need a star to guide us by as we settle into life here.”
“That’s a good name,” Liesel said. As she finished up making dinner, Thornhold and I talked in low tones by the fireplace. Brynn and Reggie found an old checkers board and set up a game. Geoff went outside to bring in a load of wood, and Ray tried to commune with his god in the game.
“After all,” he said. “We have no idea how much it might help us if we made contact.”
When Liesel called us to dinner, it suddenly hit me, just how much we now had to depend on each other. And how much trust that involved.
CHAPTER 21: TIME TO MOVE ON
We spentthe next week trying to build the farm. It felt odd, the rhythm of the days. I tried to remind myself that, on the outside, we were still supposed to be on vacation. Time was passing, but if everything were normal, we’d still be in here. Only we’d be on the road, adventuring, instead of trying to establish a home in a strange land.
Reggie and Ray built a smokehouse, while Brynn and Thornhold managed to catch three of the wild boar alive, one of them a male. They tricked them into chasing them back to the house, where they raced into a pen Ray built. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to tame them, but the game had programmed that possibility into the Syms and so, we were doing our best to capitalize on it.
Seeing they were the most talented with woodwork, Liesel asked Reggie and Ray to build the smokehouse, while Brynn and Thornhold went after goats. We needed to build a herd for milk and cheese. Through some cautious planning, and a little bit of luck, we now had four nanny goats and a buck whom they named Bill E.
Meanwhile, Geoff and I had taken over the hunting duties, and we left every morning—early, and returned before darkcould fall. We’d brought in several more turkeys, before tackling a hunt for venison. There was a massive elk who we’d seen, and we tracked him deep into the woods. Together, we brought him down, and—using a cart that Liesel had mended—we carted him home, where Liesel taught us how to butcher the beast.
The meat was hanging in the smoke house and we were gathered in the kitchen for dinner.
