Hearts pounding and lungs burning, we reached the shelter just as the mother deer thundered behind us like a runaway locomotive. "NOW!" I roared. Eliz and I, clutching the struggling fawns in our arms, dove into the open pen Barun had constructed. We dropped the fawns onto the soft earth and scrambled out through a narrow gap in the pickets.
Without a second thought, the mother deer charged into the enclosure after her young. The moment she cleared the threshold, Eliz and I slammed the heavy timber gate shut, securing the latch. The doe slammed into the fence at first, snorting in fury, but once she huddled with her fawns and realized they were safe, her panic began to subside. We now had three deer: two fawns and a mother capable of providing milk.
"We did it," Eliz panted, wiping the sweat from her brow. "But my stomach is screaming."
Eliz grabbed her silver bow and headed deep into the forest to hunt for two rabbits for dinner. Meanwhile, I scavenged the damp areas near the stream, gathering edible wild herbs, fresh roots, and aromatic greens. By the time I returned to the shelter, I was already at work. Using the fierce heat of the Red Slime, I boiled the water and prepared a dense, nutrient-rich stew with the greens. When Eliz returned with the rabbits, our feast was ready. We set aside a portion for Barun to eat whenever he woke.
After the meal, my eyes landed on the leftover sharpened logs Barun had prepared. "Eliz," I said, a plan forming in my mind. "Instead of just killing and eating the rabbits, could you bring them back injured? If we can domesticate them, we'll have a constant supply of fresh meat and fur."
Eliz, with her sharp wit, grasped the plan instantly. Less than half an hour later, she returned with three injured rabbits she had stunned by blunting the tips of her arrows. We placed them in a small, cage-like compartment I had fashioned from the spare wood. Essence (the Green Slime) immediately hopped onto the wounded animals, sealing their injuries within seconds with its glowing, medicinal secretion. The rabbits were terrified at first, but the green slime's touch calmed them, and they quickly settled into their new "coop."
As night began to fall, Barun emerged from his stone hut with a gargantuan yawn. When he saw the deer pen and the rabbit coop, his eyes went wide. "Livestock, eh?" he said with a booming laugh. "Whoa! You're living like barons in the middle of the woods. Next thing you know, you'll be building a palace here!"
Barun finished the cold stew we had left him in a single gulp, then swung his pickaxe over his shoulder and stood guard in front of the shelter. "Go on, get to your palace bed. I'm staying out here tonight. I'll keep an eye on the deer," he said with a wink.
Eliz and I entered the main building—the one Barun had built with his "single-bed" joke. We both paused for a long moment in front of the massive bed.
"I'll take the right side," Eliz said, her voice icy, though her cheeks were flushed pink. "Fine, I'll take the left... but don't go kicking me, Eliz. You don't have your bow, but your feet look dangerous enough," I joked. "Try me and find out," Eliz replied, huddling at the very edge of the bed as if there were an invisible wall between us.
Despite how large the bed was, we were both clinging to the edges to avoid falling toward the middle. Outside, the rhythmic sound of Barun's pickaxe and his occasional cheerful whistling filled the air. In the midst of this strange and comedic silence, we drifted off to sleep. The forest was wild outside, but our shelter was beginning to smell more like a "home" every day.
ESSENCE HAVEN
KINGDOM POPULATION: 3 (+6 Animals)