Marcella, Blood Tight

Chapter 3

After that excitement she decided to fit out the cave. She went out to find hay that she could use to make her bedding, and flax leaves for her to weave together for blankets. She found a chopped chunk of trunk not attached to the ground to use as a table.

In one alcove of the cave there was a shelf. She decided that she would use for her herb collection. In her walk in the meadow she had collected some medicinal herbs and even some herbs to cook with.

Also, on her walk, she found kindling and firewood so that she can cook food and keep warm. She piled firewood up on the inside of the door. She had been lucky enough to find a limestone quarry. While walking around the quarry she found a cave that she would have to explore at some time in the future and she acquired quite a large supply flint. With the steel she had in her satchel she could light a fire. She got some left over dead grass to place under the kindling. Soon she had a warm fire blazing.

While she is weaving her flax blanket she looks over where she has settled and admires her view. She sees the lumbos heading back to the village so she decided to go find some food. She finds mushrooms, Daucus Carota (wild carrots) and wild potatoes to make a vegetable stew. She also went hunting and scored quite a large Rabbit.

As the first big sun started to go down, she sits down beside the blazing fire, in an attempt to try to stay warm, keeps an eye on her dinner cooking. She looked out over the village, the plain and the forest to try to relax before she ate her dinner. Later she had to go to bed and rest. She saw the stars come out and start to twinkle at her like fireflies. She looked up into the sky to see the second sun shining from beyond the dark blue sky. The village had lit its lights and was like a beacon among the dark blue horizon with orange and reds.

She decided to walk over to her satchel and get out a leather bound object before returning to her previous seat beside the fire. As she unwrapped it she saw her orb glimmer from within the folds and start exploring with the orb.

Her mind cast back through the haze of years, she remembered when she was five sitting in her dads lap. She always felt so safe there is his lap. He would take out the orb, put it in her hands and show her the shapes she could touch, shapes she could manipulate. It was fun moving the shapes around. If she was very good and sat very still he would even show her some of the puzzles that he explored. Even so often she would get the answer before he did. He marveled at her. She was bright, intelligent about puzzles.

Long since that time she had learned that there were levels and that there were a number of puzzles that you needed to solve before you moved to the next level. She learned there were three areas on the orb: Intelligence, Nature and Defense. The brain power puzzles were easy to her, sometimes they were a bit too easy. Herb knowledge, well she knew what some of the plants in the pictures were, but the words would not written in a language that she understood. The Defense positions she could understand most of them, but the rest was a mystery to her. She wished her dad had not been taken away from her so soon. There was still a lot that he could teach her. Sigh.

She returns her thoughts to the present day, and starts to caress the orb with her soft fingers. She sees the colours run a muck over the orb. Swirling yellow, gold, green and nearly all of the colours of the rainbow and a few extra that she could see only when her eyes were golden. She looks up towards the hologram to see a strange picture reflected. She sighs. Not this puzzle again. She knew that she had to finish this puzzle that she was on before she could go on with the next one. It was the same one she was on for the last four days and there was a specific block that she could not work out how to maneuver it so that it would fit into the puzzle. It seemed so easy when she first looked it.

Out of pure frustration she flicks the block she is having trouble with while thinking if only you would disappear and it disappears and everything else falls into place. That was the first time she made a block disappear. She picks up the orb, re-wraps it in its leather material to allow it to fade out and decides to go to bed, trying to figure out why it took so long todo this specific puzzle.