16 How Did Things Go Wrong Already

[Morgan Pov]

The day is almost over, and it is dinner time for the tribe. To be honest, I wasn't expecting to get any food. I am a self-sufficient and independent young lad. I can take care of myself perfectly fine.

~Yeah, and look how that turned out for you. Nothing ever went wrong when you were living out on your own.~

I don't need your sass at this moment, maybe later when I'm bored. They gave me a large bowl of wolf soup with onions and some greens I can't identify. I wonder how this tastes? I am getting tired of eating well-done and slightly burnt pork.

Either this is really great food, or it seems delicious because I destroyed my taste buds with my atrocious cooking. I want more, too bad my tiny body is full and can't fit any more food in it. I don't want to be a freeloader, I should give them some of the wolf carcasses I have.

Who is the one cooking this wonderful delicacy? Oh, it's Madelyn, what a wonderful coincidence that it is someone who knows I exist. The carcasses are still fresh, I'll go and ask her if she can use them for anything.

"You're that boy Hassar brought back. Do you want some more food?"

"Hello again, and I'm fine thank you for asking. I brought a wolf carcass with me to see if you can use it later."

"This looks fresh, did you get attacked by a wolf in here? Are you hurt? Was anyone else in danger?"

"I'm okay, I was attacked by this wolf a long time ago."

"Stop lying, this carcass is obviously fresh. Answer the questions, where were you attacked, and did anyone else get hurt?"

"I'm not lying, and look, I am not hurt at all. I pulled this carcass out of my magic room, look at this."

She looked shocked at first at seeing my hand disappear into the void, but seeing me pull the wolf carcass from nowhere made her speechless. It's going to take some time before the shock wears off. It's okay, I am a patient child, I'll wait as long as I need to.

"How did you do that? And why is the carcass still fresh?"

"It's magic, I put things I don't want to carry in my magic room. I don't know why, but the things I put in there don't change when I leave them there. If I put freshly cooked food in there, even if I wait a month to take it out, the food is still fresh."

"I have seen and met many mages, but none of them could do anything like that. I never even heard of rumors of spells that can store things away. Much less a spell that keeps food fresh for a month. Who taught you how to do that?"

~Good, you are following my plan. Show them how useful you can be to them, they can't abandon you if you can help them. Show them how irreplaceable you are.~

"My master used this spell all the time, and he was the one who taught me how to use this spell. I thought every mage could do this because it was so easy to learn and use. Can you use this? I have a lot of these carcasses in my magic room, I want to get rid of them."

"Go talk to the man near that tent, his name is Delger. He is the one in charge of divvying up the provisions for today. He will tell you what parts we can use, and what parts are too damaged."

"Thank you for the help madam."

She looked visibly dispirited when I called her madam, didn't mean to that. I wonder why she is so shaken up? Did I drag up any unpleasant memories? Got to remember not to call her that in the future, I don't want to step on that landmine again.

Alright, time for round 2 of social interaction. Now I know that my inventory spell is a very unusual spell, so that's a plus. I thought such a useful spell would have been invented by other mages, I guess my master is a man ahead of his time.

-----------------A Few Hours Later

That took a lot longer than expected, but it was worth it. I freed up a lot of space from my inventory and I paid rent on my first day here. I also have that absolute unit of a boar in my inventory. If there is a food shortage in the winter, I have this card in my back pocket. Wait, where did everyone go?

Where am I supposed to go now? Is this another test, do they want to see how I survived the nights alone? Well, I don't want to disappoint them. I take out the shovel I made a long time ago, and the ghillie hood I made after I killed that one guy.

Creating the ghillie hat was the best idea Clara ever had. It was a very time-consuming endeavor, but it was worth it. I had to create a sewing needle out of bone and then I had to create my own fishing net out of his clothes. I sewed the fishnet onto the hat.

Thank god the guy I killed already had a hat and I didn't have to create that. I then had to wrap some of the foliage onto the net. I usually keep some fresh foliage in my inventory to make sure my hat is always effective.

Making the hat has only improved my strategy of surviving the night. Before I met Hassar I would bury myself underground, and the only body part exposed was my face. I then had to learn how to maintain a shrouding spell while I was asleep.

After I made the hat, I would just put the hat over my face and go to sleep. I would replace the vegetation I dug out either with an illusion or the leftover foliage I stored away earlier. I am now completely camouflaged. I understand my strategy is unconventional, but it has served me well.

It's not so bad sleeping underground, you get used to it after a while. Time to get to digging, the faster I finish the more sleep I can get. A child like me needs his sleep to grow big and strong. Now that I think about it, I also need more calcium in my diet. Does eating bones help?

——————

[Hassar Pov]

After getting chewed out by my wife, I finally received some necessary healing from my dear daughter. It would have been a good way to end my day, but things can't be simple. Clara decided to visit me in my dreams and demanded that the tribe should accept Morgan.

The voice the skull chose was very similar to my wife's voice, but it was noticeably different. It was a sweet voice to hear, almost comforting to hear. I knew it was the skull talking to me when she started talking about Morgan.

I would have taken her threats seriously if she wasn't so bad at making them. It is just like Morgan said, if you ignore her long enough she starts to panic. Once she showed me her powers, I started to take her seriously.

Morgan never talked about her having these powers, and what I experienced was very bizarre. I lived out my day as normal, it was very lifelike and didn't feel like a dream. When I finally ended my day and closed my eyes to go to sleep, I woke up from my dream.

My morning played out exactly like the dream I had, I thought it was a weird coincidence. And things continued to play out exactly like the dream. I don't remember who brought it up, but someone talked about living through this day in a dream.

All of us started to share what we experienced and shockingly all of us had a similar dream. All of us heard a woman make a demand concerning Morgan. When we denied her request, we experienced this day as a show of her power.

The strange thing is, only the men in the tribe had this dream, none of the women or children experienced this dream. What can she do to us if we deny her request? There is only one person who can answer this question. That brings us to our current issue.

"So who has seen Morgan today? Corbin, have you seen him."

"I thought he was with you, he seemed attached to you."

"He wasn't with any of the other children at target practice. From the looks of it, the kids aren't aware he is here. I don't think he is joining them anytime soon, so we can rule that general area out."

"Emeel that was very useful, that is one location where he can't be. Does anyone else have a lead we can follow, it can be anything."

"I think I was the last person to see him yesterday. He brought me a lot of wolf carcasses, I had to spend a lot of time skinning and butchering them. After watching me do it for a while, the kid started to help me out. He did a lot better than I expected, his work was rough and a bit shoddy.

But it was getting late, and I needed the extra hands to finish in time for the night. I mean the work was still usable, and he was the one who hunted the animals. So it was not much of a problem if he wasted some of the meat. After we were done, he left and I went to bed."

"Okay, that's very helpful. So did anyone see him leave? Now that I think about it, I didn't see him at all in my dream either. Did any of you see him yesterday, or even in your dreams?"

We look at each other, each of us trying to see if anyone else has the answer to the one question on our minds. Where did that little boy go? This is great, this is just great. The first day here we made him fight, and we lost him at the beginning of the first day.

"Please tell me, anyone of you guys, please tell me you saw him. This is his second day here. Please don't tell me WE LOST HIM ALREADY!"

"To be fair, I am pretty sure all of us here thought Morgan was with you."

"Don't put all of the blame on me, Dorian."

"You're the chief here and you were the one who brought him here. Shouldn't you be the one to find him a place to sleep or at the very least know where he is?"

Stop making sense. I admit it, it's my fault for forgetting to find a place for the little guy to sleep. I just got caught up in trying to get some space from him, I needed to clear my mind. Throughout the journey back I felt like I heard the skull talking out loud and sometimes to me.

I thought I was going insane, but now that everyone else heard the skull, I can't be too sure. Even if Morgan knows magic, I doubt he has the power to affect that many dreams. So what exactly is the true aim of that skull? No, my priority should be finding Morgan.

"Chief, do we tell the rest of the tribe. It should make the search easier."

"Yeah that's a good idea, let's tell everyone. Let me call our wives and tell them, that in a tribe filled with experienced hunters and trackers, that we lost a kid. That will go over well, after the last thing we did with Morgan.

And that was making him fight after doubting his claims of surviving alone in the wilderness. That will go over well with the young mothers. I don't want to make anyone panic for now, but ask around, just try not to hint that we lost him."