Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Training Gains?

Chapter 8: Training Gains?

 

Once Buckle was convinced that my big grey hands might be able to stitch two pieces of leather together on a good day, he noted that my eyelids kept drooping and told me to get some shuteye. He did help take a few skins from the pile and the corner, as well as point out some cushions that would work as pillows.

Buckle added a bit more wood to the fire and said his goodnight. I spent about 30 seconds watching the light flicker in the room before I was sound asleep.

 

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The dreams didn’t feel normal to me. Much as I knew I was lacking memories, there was a strong feeling that these dreams didn’t feel… correct. They also somehow felt familiar, so it was perhaps two sides of the same coin?

In those dreams, I was simply reliving vignettes of the day. One was walking in the woods, here I was talking with Buckle at the stream, over there I was swinging an axe down on some defenseless wood. Maybe it was less like vignettes and more like a montage.

A montage of everything I’d actively done during the day, rather than just experienced. Puzzling out what to ask the System, and the basics of how to use it. Trying out both axes and figuring out which one worked better for me. Fumbling with the ties, stacking the leather in the tannery building, and trying to sew in a straight line with even stitches.

The dreams also had more of a tangible immediacy to them than I would have expected from a brain figment, feeling my shoulders warm from the efforts of splitting and carrying wood, or the burning in my eyes as I lost control trying to puzzle out what I had done to myself and what to do next, and a splash of serenity as I dreamed of the distortions in Buckle’s hand as he conjured water magically.

How long the dreams lasted, I really couldn’t say, sleeping through the night and waking when I heard Buckle stirring in the other room.

Opening my eyes however, led to a reminder of yesterday when I woke in the woods. A simple window floating in my vision with “Training Gains for March 31st, 2262” written on it. Focusing on the window as I'd learned to do with my status, the window enlarged with the following information

 

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