15 15—First meal

[[—IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM AUTHOR—]]

The reason this novel was unceremoniously dropped was because I had lost about 200,000 words of written manuscript for this fic. In total about 50 ready to go chapters and the massive majority of the rest were somewhat detailed skeleton chapters just in need of an edit were lost. I lost the backup in the cloud to add insult to injury.

The following chapter I now add was just one of the chapters that had managed to survive. Please, let me know if you want me to pick this up again and perhaps even rewrite the start since I have gotten better since then.

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Wading through the tall grass, leaving a flattened path in his wake, he walked over to the wild deer peacefully grazing.

The deer had seen him a long time ago but they made no attempt to make off into the trees.

Getting out the dagger he got over to one of the deer currently grazing without a care in the world it really made for a peaceful scene until Merel cut its throat a large hole.

Blood gushing from the wound the deer showed signs of suffering but running away was something it didn't or couldn't think to do.

After some time it finally collapsed from blood loss falling on its side into the grass with a slight thump.

Merel had no idea how to dismantle and prepare meat but he used his common sense to cut out the useless parts removing the entrails and cutting out edible looking parts, to a hunter his work may put them into a rage.

After thoroughly washing the meat in the stream he made a note to use runes to learn a list of basic survival skills.

He went back to the cabin to store the meat and went back to collect any dry wood to start a fire taking the opportunity to drink from the clean stream on his way.

The trek back up the hill didn't leave him struggling for breath but it did leave his feet sore from all the walking.

After finding some suitable firewood he threw them into the hearth of the oven-like stone construct that lead up to a chimney.

He sat down with tome and inscriptor to write a rune to start a smokeless fire.

Spending some time creating the image in his mind he got to work inscribing it and upon successfully doing it enchanted it on the firewood he noticed an instant ignition of the firewood which quickly became a large fire.

No smoke at all issued from the fire as Merel thought he would get unwanted attention if an abandoned cabin starting showing signs of life again.

He had nothing to season the meat with but he didn't really care that much how it tasted as he was hungry as could be.

Putting the meat to slowly roast in the oven he knew it would take a while to cook so he used this vacant time to practice his swordsmanship.

When the meat looked like it was properly cooked he got some cutlery from the crate and took the first bite after cutting out a small chunk.

The taste was really bland and it was slightly burnt but he didn't care so long as it satisfied his hunger.

Putting out the fire in the oven after finishing the meat he decided to learn some new runes using the tome again.

He decided to use runes to learn how to dismantle and prepare meat through the night.

Before that though Merel brought out the map on the tome and took some time to plan out his next steps he feared staying here too long would cause him to live a farmville lifestyle.

He wanted to get out of velen as soon as possible and make his way to the free city of Novigrad which was actually located in Redania and also highly influenced by said country.

He knew there was a blockade on the crossings of the river Pontar that gave access to Redania by King Radovid V to the effect of stopping the train of refugees heading north.

In the game you would get a letter of safe conduct from Philip Strenger, also known as the bloody baron, to grant you safe passage through the military checkpoints.

Merel was certain he could slip past the blockade without it easy and failing that he could always get a fake transit pass from the shady merchant that he remembered from the game.

Novigrad also had another thing Merel was interested in. Magic. Most magically inclined individuals druids, soothsayers, mages, sorcerer's etc. had all escaped to Novigrad expecting sanctuary not knowing they jumped from the boiling pot into the fire.

Merel didn't know what sort of magic the runes would give him but he was interested in learning this world's magic in particular, he didn't fear the consequences as he was sure the runes could hide his activities from any witch hunter.

The magic in this world was dangerous yet irresistibly powerful Merel imagined combining both the arts of runes and magic to great effect.

He would need someone to teach him but sorcerer's and sorceresses only chose magically gifted children to teach the first part was simple enough he could simply remove the age rune to return to being a child and he would need to somehow increase his talent in magic.

It was Merel's great advantage that he knew where one of the fourteen was.