Making a House a Home

As it took most of the day to carve out the cave and create all the rooms, it was now nearly dark.

"We will need some tinder such as small dry twigs, dry grass, or dry leaves. Then we will need some sticks one inch thick for kindling. Finally, we will need some larger pieces of firewood to keep the fire going. An inch is about this much."

Iris held her fingers an inch apart to demonstrate. She also had Caspian carve out some of the leftover stone from creating the room into a stone wood oven and place it in the kitchen. It had a lower area for the fire to be built and an upper area that was semi-enclosed. It would be perfect for baking and roasting.

She then had Caspian also build a second cooking area. This one had a stone stove, but, instead of being enclosed, it was flat on top with a hole in the middle. In the middle was placed a stone carved pot. While not as good as modern stoves, it could work well enough for soups and pan frying.

Once the cooking area was built, Caspian brought Iris to the witch doctor's home to stay while he went out to hunt.

"Hi, Oliver! Do you have time to show me your herbs now?"

Oliver's cave consisted of three rooms and had animal skin draped over not only the entrance but also between rooms. The first room appeared to be for visitors. The room Oliver led Iris to was a storage room for herbs and medicine, so Iris could only assume the third room was a bedroom.

Iris waited patiently in the middle of the small storage room as Oliver pulled various herbs out. There were many animal hide bags full of herbs in the room as well as a few rocks that were likely used for crushing the herbs into powder.

Once Oliver finished collecting a bit of everything, he set them down on a piece of animal hide on the floor for Iris to look at. Many of the plants did not look or even smell familiar. Some even looked particularly strange and were likely plants unique to this beast world.

Still, there were quite a few useful herbs among the bunch. There were peppercorns, ginger, garlic, mustard, chili, rosemary, thyme, basil, chamomile, mint, lavender, and dandelions! All of these were useful things to Iris as she could season food or make herbal teas with them.

"I'd like to buy as much as you can spare of these herbs, Oliver."

Looking at all the herbs Iris had picked out; Oliver was unsure what to make of it all. Some things were used for inducing sleep, others to warm up one's insides and ease coughs. He had to wonder what use the little female had for the herbs but, as they were all relatively harmless herbs, he was willing to sell them to her.

"Alright, when Caspian comes back from hunting, I'll discuss payment with him. Until then I'll go ahead and get these wrapped up in a beast hide bag for you."

Iris was grateful for Oliver's willingness to part with the herbs. As most were already dried, they'd likely last through the cold season and, after that, she'd be able to gather some for herself.

As it took a few hours for Caspian to hunt, Iris was left with little to do. Thus, she decided to ask Oliver many questions about the tribe and beast world.

"Are there many females in this tribe? I heard females are rare. Are there only Arctic wolf females here?"

Oliver looked at Iris strangely but answered her questions all the same.

"There are about three sets of ten tens of males but only ten and five females, counting you. Females make decisions for their family and their mates usually just follow them wherever they go. So, while we have a few females of other types here, it is mostly Arctic wolves as they see this as their home."

With only fifteen females to three-hundred males that was a ratio of one to twenty. Iris hoped she wasn't expected to accept so many mates. While she could try to adapt to the idea of having a few mates, she did not want so many that she could not even appreciate their relationship anymore.

What was even stranger to Iris was the way Oliver had said the number. Perhaps, with how primitive this world was, they couldn't count beyond ten? Iris shrugged this odd news off, hoping to not seem suspicious for finding it strange.

"Do females usually have a lot of mates?"

Oliver chuckled as he explained.

"Some of the more beautiful females may have a couple tens of mates but others prefer to only have a handful of mates. Many of the beastmen remain bachelors for life as they are too weak or they remain picky about the type of female they are interested in."

Iris asked a few more questions in the time she was waiting but she mostly spent the time thinking to herself. Soon enough Caspian was back with a large prey over his shoulder and various sized sticks tied into a bundle with vines in another.

Caspian paid Oliver with an uncolored crystal for the herbs. Iris was immediately met with a system notification.

[Beginner Quest complete! Redeem rewards?]

Iris chose to wait until she returned home to redeem the rewards so that she wouldn't have as many people to witness items appearing out of thin air.

Iris quietly followed Caspian back to their home where they began to prepare dinner. Caspian had caught a wild boar for dinner and immediately began to skin it and clean it.

Meanwhile, Iris grabbed the bundle of wood and opened it so she could sort out its contents. She first brought some tinder to the stone stove and piled it up. She then placed the kindling around it. The next step would normally be to start the fire, but Iris did not have any matches.

She then remembered she had quest rewards to redeem. She finally tried replying to the system in her head

'Redeem rewards.'

Thankfully she did not have to talk out loud and look like a crazy person. The system immediately replied

[Quest rewards loading]

Suddenly an animal hide bag appeared in front of her. Iris immediately went to check its contents. Inside was an animal hide book called "Beastworld Flora & Fauna", a set of flint & steel, and a primitive sewing kit of fish bone needles and a wooden spool with a few yards of sinew.

It was everything Iris could have hoped for and from such an easy quest too! Iris immediately got to work starting the cooking fire. She carefully watched it, occasionally adding firewood as she waited for Caspian to finish preparing the meat.

Soon Caspian came in with a clean hide and a large piece of boar meat. He looked at the fire nervously.

"You'll have to cut the meat a lot smaller than that for me to cook it. I'm thinking we could make some nicely seasoned steaks with it."

Iris quickly demonstrated the appropriate size to cut the meat and Caspian easily did as he was told. Iris then had Caspian shape some stone into a mortar and pestle. She then ground a few peppercorns and had Caspian cut the wild onion and garlic for her.

After thoroughly rubbing seasonings into the boar steaks she put them to cook in the stone pot. As she did not have oil, she had to take fatty meat and cook it in the pot first. She used a stick to move the fat around in the pan and to flip the boar steaks as they cooked.

Iris couldn't help but feel it was a real pity that she did not have time to gather wood and create furniture and cooking utensils today. Not long after the system issued a new quest

[System 316: New quest available! Winter is coming! Host, please obtain proper shelter to avoid the cold weather. It is necessary that you not only have a roof over your head but also the proper living conditions.]

[It is required that the house be at least 1,000 square feet as well as be equipped with at least one set of furniture including a bed, a table and chairs, and a kitchen.]

Iris was surprised by how delayed the quest appeared to be. As the house was already of sufficient size and had a cooking area, it was already half complete!