Merek's Ascendance by Andrew Lashway Page B

immediately being submerged over his head. He lost his grip on his staff in a desperate bid to grab something solid, but nothing touched his fingertips. For the second time in as many weeks, Merek was sure he was going to drown.
    Then his feet hit the bottom of the stream.
    Gathering what energy he could, he vaulted back towards the surface. His hands found stone, and he was able to pull himself up to air. He looked around quickly, grabbing his staff before it floated too far down stream.
    “Well, I almost made it,” he said with a sad chuckle.
    However, he did make the return jump with inches to spare. All it took was a simple correction of how hard he jumped.
    “Not a complete loss,” Merek commented, practicing the jump a few more times just to be sure he was not terrible at it. He still miscalculated twice more of his six or seven tries, but he managed not to die.
    The next day, Merek found he was incredibly hungry again. He had long lost the stream that held fish in it, and every other fish was too small to make it worth catching. His fish catching trap wasn’t really holding up, as if the fish were getting too smart for him. So in light of no other idea, Merek sat down and started weaving grass together to make a rope. Maybe he could attach the rope to his staff and then attach a net of some kind to the rope.
    He deliberated it for an hour before actually beginning, wondering if it was far too much work to be worthwhile. But having a rope and having a net sounded like useful things to have, and besides, he had nothing but time on his hands.
    So Merek spent the next few days gathering grass and leaves and anything that he thought would make an effective rope, lashing it all together. He had several first attempts go awry, either being too weak or too stiff to be a rope. But eventually, he made a passable imitation of a rope that he could use.
    The net, however, was a whole different problem. Weaving the grass to make a rope was a long, tiring process, but the net… that was just plain maddening. Making the cross sections and then making it fit together but still be sturdy… Merek spent the better part of a week trying to make one, with no success. Of course, in that time he also gathered his own forest worth of wood to make fires, and he was soon able to light a fire on the first try almost half the time.
    “At least I can do something not terribly wrong,” Merek said to the fire one night.
    The next day, Merek decided he should broaden his eating interests. There were rabbits and foxes in the forest, though killing and eating them kind of made him feel bad. But in the face of starving (the berries just weren’t enough), he was willing to make some sacrifices. At first he tried chasing them down, but they were far faster than he was and he recognized his folly immediately.
    So instead, he came up with another plan.
    He formed a better tie with the leaves he used, securing the sharp stones to his staff . Then he climbed into a tree, and waited. After a few minutes, the animals seemed to forget his existence and wandered around.
    Then his staff became a spear again, and he hurled it at unsuspecting animals. Again, he felt a little bad, but he was starting to literally starve.
    His aim was shoddy at best, and he missed far more than he hit. First he just plain missed the target. Then when he hit what he was aiming for, his attack was aimed incorrectly and the rock didn’t pierce flesh. Some of the animals still fell due to the force of the blow, but that wasn’t nearly as humane as Merek was trying to be.
    But with practice came better aim, and more edible food. Well, mostly. But Merek found out catching the animals wasn’t even half of the problem.
    Gettin g the furs off was.
    On the first day he actually managed to peg a target, he tried cutting its fur off with the stone. It smelled terribly, first of all, and it was a very messy job. His stone wasn’t really sharp enough to smoothly cut through the flesh,