10 Settling down

Spending night under the boat on the muddy ground wasn't pleasant at all. Not only that I had limited space but also I was wet to the bone.

I couldn't sleep. Even though I used blanked which I in my backpack. Luckily the backpack was waterproof so all my things survived the rain.

In the morning I was exhausted but others seemed much better. I little bit envied them.

Once everyone woke up I asked scouts to get something to eat. I also stressed out that they must be careful because of unknown creatures lurking in the swamp. They nodded and left.

While they were in search of food I took a careful look around because I hadn't had much time yesterday and at that time my vision was limited by rain and darkness. Others just flipped boats back to normal and sat down and talked.

We were on the shore of an island. Everywhere around us was thin fog which limited my vision to 100 meters. All around us were very big trees. My guess was that they were over 30 meters high. Their branches weren't only on top of the trees but also everywhere on the trunk aside from the lowest part where gigantic roots were going up and down from the ground. The branches were quite thick and long. Their roots were also covered by various types of ivy plants.

As I looked on the ground I saw growing many bushes but no grass. It was maybe due to the type of the that only plants with deep roots could grow in there.

The ground on its own was covered by decaying leaves, small puddles and branches.

"Eh, we have to stay in this?" I said disgustedly. Some people may have said that it was a really exotic place but I hated the moisture in the air. Everything was wet.

As I was complaining about the environment one scout returned. He was holding some fish and after he distributed them among other yuzzem he came to me.

Bowed and said "Boss we have found something interesting. It may be the best place for us to stay in. It is not far but we have to cross a water canal so we would need to use a boat."

"Ok, we will wait for others to come back and then we will look at it," I said and also sat down on one of the boats.

As the other scouts started to return they brought back mostly fish because fish were the easiest source of food. One of the yuzzem also brought back news of good place to encamp but after some debate, it turned out that he found the same place as the first one.

He also brought back some new big berry. It looked like watermelon but in size and shape of a beach ball. It had actually pretty soft surface. The scout said that it is edible because he found this thing growing in water and saw many of those berries laying on land and there were eaten from a big part.

I looked on him little suspiciously because I knew that many things which can animals eat cannot be eaten by a human. "Are you sure it isn't poisonous? Have you tried?"

His answer surprised me "No boss. I have tested it and it isn't poisonous."

"How could he be so reckless and immediately try some unknown plant to eat just because some animals do so?" flashed through my mind.

"Good job but don't repeat that. Next time you might not have the same amount of luck as now." I lightly scorched him.

"Now show me that berry," I said impatiently because I haven't eaten till now.

It turned out that the berry was actually very sweet and had the constitution of a cherry. Soft tissue and in the center of it was located the hard

stone. (stone - not meant as a rock but as part of the plant) I really liked it.

I gave a big piece of it to others and they said that it is good but they like meat more.

As we finished the berry I decided that if there is a food source, we should move to it.

We boarded the ships and followed the scout instructions and went the way he pointed out.

We circled the island on which we spent the night and chose the canal between the islands and went deeper into the swamp.

According to scout, it wasn't far but the canal was narrow so only one boat could go at a time.

During the way I was listening so I could hear clearly any animal. My aim was to gather information about local fauna so we could use it in the future.

I have heard often cries of something which sounded like a small dinosaur. After some time I found the owner of that voice. It was a small wyvern. I would say it was in size of a chicken.* It behaved the way normal birds does. My opinion was that it would be very tasty if cooked.

On the way we encountered various types of small lizards and frogs laying or moving on the shore. They usually avoided us.

But one thing concerned me. At one time we saw probably the ultimate predator species of this swamp. It was a big crocodile with long and sturdy legs like a lion or a bear but covered with scales. He was about 8 meters long and was lazily laying on the shore.

I was nervous as we passed him because if he attacked we would have losses. We couldn't just fight this thing.

Finally, the scout directed us towards the shore of the opposite island on which we landed.

We pulled the boats out of water one by one. The yuzzem leading us said that we can leave them here because we won't need them because it is really close to our position.

We had to walk through this forest/swamp for about 10 minutes and then we arrived at the place which scouts described.

As we arrived I noticed that the temperature of the air was higher than in other places.

Place on which we arrived was a big pond but it wasn't a normal one. Its water was dark blue and in the middle of it was part which was boiling. The surface of this pond was often covered with tips of big pointy rocks laying on its bottom. Among these rocks, I could see those green berries which I had for breakfast floating on the surface and around them plants from which they originated. They looked like big water lilies. Lake seemed to be full of life as many fish were swimming around. This surprised me because I did not know where did the fish find enough food to keep this population.

After I asked on this the yuzzem and scouts came with the explanation that there was an underground passage which connected this place with the lake.

Around the lake stood the same trees which we saw all the way here but these were even bigger.

"Ok, everyone please pay attention to me!" I shouted and gathered the yuzzem. "This place has shown itself to be the best place to stay so far so I assume that we will settle here for some time. Concerning the type of building, we going to use we would go for tree houses. Initially, I wanted to make wooden platforms on the ground but that crocodile convinced me to get out of his reach. Any complains or ideas on how to solve this problem in a more effective way? No? Fine, let's get to work."

I directed craftsman to do this task since they were best at it. Warriors were half deployed in helping with building and gathering materials and a half in guarding our group. Scouts were also divided into 2 groups. One was responsible for mapping the surroundings and the other for looking for new edible plants and scouting for areas where big predators hunted so we would avoid them in the future.

As the day passed I could finally see the skeleton of a first hut.

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*For those who don't know, I would like to stress out the difference between wyvern and dragon because of the whole picture of the scene. Wyvern has 2 wings and 2 legs, the dragon has 2 wings and 4 legs (in western mythology). Wyvern was always shown as an animal but the dragon is often associated with high intelligence. Thanks for reading my small comment.

Btw Bethesda got it wrong in ES5 Skyrim LUL