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Re: Rauko
Early morning Rauko takes his leave and journeys further inland and climbs to high ground... ice is beginning to creep from shore. The herd of reindeer beckons to him. Dropping everything except bow and knife, the hunt begins as Rauko moves stealthily across a mire until the deer are seen. A lucky shot hits the deer's lower leg and the rest is a simple chase. 
April 17, 2018, 02:37:17 PM |
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Re: Rauko
With all the gear and the canoe he's been hauling around, there is no way he can carry all the meat the deer will provide, so he makes a shelter and plans to tan the hide and carry the meat back to the village to trade most of it. On second thought, he grabs some cords and hopes the villagers will let him smoke the meat in return for a portion of it. April 18, 2018, 01:29:31 PM |
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Re: Rauko
The villagers are happy to let him smoke the meat in exchange for 1 of every 5 pieces. Rauko sleeps in the common building and returns to his camp in the morning. He spends the day making & setting some loop snares, and making fibres from elk tendons he's been carrying since the early part of his journey to the sea. These will be useful for making arrows. He also makes a nice club and finishes tanning the deer fur, but he is not happy with the result. Rauko's dreams have not plagued him for a couple of nights and he wonders if being among the villagers has anything to do with this. He's exhausted and hopeful for a good sleep.  Waking refreshed from dreamless sleep, he thanks the spirits. What would his father do now? With only 7 roasted meat cuts, the answer is obvious... HUNT. He gathers his bow and arrows, then stops in the middle of eating because a reindeer wanders near his snare trap, grazing.  Apparently the spirits have brought the hunt to Rauko! April 20, 2018, 03:13:15 AM |
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Re: Rauko
More deer show themselves. Knowing a bit about the habits of reindeer, Rauko waits rather than jumping at the first one. Soon a doe is targeted and hit in the chest, and she bolts in fear. Rauko runs as the herd flees to the west. The herd runs west again and he chases... they stop, and Rauko sees the first missed arrow near them. The wounded doe is sheltered behind two others. "The spirits' wrath falls on the careless hunter," his father once told him... "when you wound an animal, finish it, don't go after another and let the first suffer a slow death."  So the chase begins again without a shot. The herd runs fast, but the wounded one slows quicker, is separated from her fellows, and becomes doomed by exhaustion and the original arrow wound. A strong kick to the stomach knocks her down, and Rauko knifes the vein in her neck and she bleeds out. 
April 20, 2018, 10:51:06 PM |
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Re: Rauko
Returning to his camp with the meat and hide, he begins tanning. Roasting most of the meat, he keeps some raw because he plans to find another village and trade for a dog. The dog would probably eat the raw meat; otherwise he could roast it tomorrow. Heading east, it's evening when he finds a village and meets two woodsmen there. They have dogs and Rauko likes the look of one, which Eero says should hunt well. He trades a handaxe, 8 arrows, and about 7 dozens of roasted deer cuts for the dog, which reminds him of one his parents had. It's late and he tells Jeremiah he will return tomorrow to help gather the stones for his fireplace. In the morning he feeds the dog some raw meat. While checking snare traps he sees an ermine running out of a heather patch. Rauko commands the anxious dog to attack and she bolts after it for a while then stops and looks back, panting. He repeats the command and another chase ends with the ermine escaping into spruces. The dog barks and Rauko catches up to find she has killed the animal already. 
April 21, 2018, 05:23:02 PM |
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Re: Rauko
The rest of the day is resetting snare traps, making bone arrowheads, cooking the ermine and a few of the remaining deer cuts, and finishing tanning the reindeer fur (which turns out poorly). It's afternoon and Rauko is too tired to gather stones for the village woodsman. By late evening, only one of more than a dozen arrowheads is what he would call average. Exhausted, he falls asleep in the shelter. Morning comes and he heads back toward the "new" east village looking for stones and gives them to Jeremiah, then returns "home" to gather goods for trading. It's a very warm day for late fall and the sun is shining beautifully, so the long walk with his new dog is a joy. For a while he forgets the loss of his father and mother. Traveling back to the village, they tell him of other settlements to the north-east. He finds nothing to trade in the northern one and heads back to the shelter.  On the way they find a squirrel and Rauko tests the dog's skill at chasing it up a tree. After a while she calms down and they continue on, leaving the squirrel chittering on a high branch. April 22, 2018, 12:46:44 PM |
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Re: Rauko
After another peaceful sleep, in the morning he is again impressed by the dog because she is awake but did not eat from the pile of deer meat until Rauko told her to eat. It's time to pack up and move to another camp, closer to the other villages in the north-east. He's never carried such a heavy load, so he straps some items on the dog's back. They walk east, find a small lake, and build a shelter on the shore. Rauko sets 5 snare traps and makes some more bone arrowheads. 
April 26, 2018, 02:04:27 PM |
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Re: Rauko
"You need a name, but I don't know what to call you yet," Rauko says to the dog as he shares some roasted deer meat with her. He ties her to a tree so he can do some fishing without her disturbing the water. "Launching the canoe into the water backwards is said to give a fisherman good luck," an old man once told him.  There must be some truth to that, because by evening 2 fish are caught. After setting the dog loose, Rauko sacrifices the trout to the spirit of the lake in thanks, and gives the roach to the dog but she must not be hungry yet. Then it's time for sleep even though it's not very late. April 27, 2018, 03:28:18 AM |
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Re: Getting fatigued while... walking?
I don't know about the rest of you, but IRL carrying 50 or 100 or 200 pounds has always fatigued me when I walk around, whether at age 16 or 26 or 36, whether on dry ground or waist-deep snow. Maybe it was different in the Iron Age, who knows?
April 28, 2018, 10:11:43 AM |
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Re: Rauko
In the small hours, Rauko wakens with an uneasy feeling. The lake spirit should be happy after his sacrifice the night before, but then he wonders if perhaps leaving the grouse in the snare was not the right thing to do. Should he set it free or go ahead and kill it? After giving the roach to the dog again, he decides to kill the grouse and sacrifice half of it's meat after he starts tanning the leather. The uneasy feeling doesn't go away and he is starting to feel a bit afraid of what might be going on at this lake. Is the spirit of the lake being protective of the fish? Or is there a spirit of the woods angry about the grouse? Early morning comes and Rauko decides he will stay there one more day and night, but not do anymore fishing until things improve. Gathering goods for trade, he sets off with the dog toward the 2 villages nearby that he has not visited yet. Neither village has any armor available. A craftsman tells him there is a village to the north-east.  After walking all the way to the river's mouth, Rauko finds there is no village! April 30, 2018, 02:20:39 AM |
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