A new morning a new problem to solve.
He crawled out of the lean-to, joints popping, and stood in the clearing with the pole already in his hand. The cabin walls waited across the open ground, four logs high and looking more real in the morning light than they had any right to. But his throat was dry again, that scratchy feeling that came from breathing through his mouth all night, and his stomach felt hollow despite the berries he'd eaten yesterday.
Water. He needed water. Clean water. Water that wouldn't turn his intestines into a biohazard.
Which meant he needed containers. Not just one—he needed several. Something to boil water in, yeah, but also something to store it in once it cooled. And if he was going to survive here long-term, he'd need vessels for other things too. Food storage. Collecting rainwater. Whatever else he hadn't thought of yet that would become critical in a week or a month.
Clay. The word surfaced with the same certainty the pole had given him about building techniques. Rivers had clay. Riverbanks, specifically—that thick, smooth sediment that accumulated in slow-moving sections. He'd seen it in videos, that gray-brown mud that people shaped into pots and bowls.
Ian grabbed a handful of berries on his way to the river, chewing them mechanically as he walked. The tartness made his jaw ache but his stomach stopped complaining quite so loudly. The pole was solid in his other hand, warming to his grip like it always did.
The river looked the same as yesterday—clear water moving at that lazy pace, sunlight breaking through the clouds just enough to make the surface sparkle. Ian walked along the bank, looking for sections where the current slowed, where sediment would settle instead of being swept downstream.
He found it about fifty yards from his clearing, where the river widened and shallowed around a curve. The bank here was different—darker, smoother, the earth having that slick quality that suggested clay content. Ian knelt and dug his fingers into the mud. It was cold, dense, clinging to his skin in a way that regular dirt didn't. When he squeezed it, the material held its shape instead of crumbling.
This would work. Had to work. The alternative was continuing to drink straight from the river and hoping parasites were taking the day off.
He scooped up a double handful of the clay and carried it back to the clearing, setting it down near the cabin's half-built walls. The material glistened wetly in the gray light, already starting to dry at the edges where it was exposed to air. Ian stared at it, then at the pole in his hand.
"Show me how to make a pot," he said to the empty clearing. His voice sounded rough, unpracticed. How long had it been since he'd spoken to another person? Two days? Three? Time was getting slippery.
The green light erupted up the pole's length. It washed over the clay, over his hands, and suddenly his head was full of information he definitely hadn't possessed ten seconds ago. Wedging—working the clay to remove air bubbles. Coiling—rolling it into long snakes and stacking them in spirals. Smoothing—blending the coils together until they formed seamless walls. Drying. Firing. The temperature needed, the time required, how to tell when it was done.
The light faded. Ian's hands were already moving, guided by knowledge that sat in his skull like he'd been making pottery his entire life instead of microwaving ramen in a shoebox apartment.
He needed more clay. A lot more. The pole shifted in his hand, becoming a flat-bladed shovel perfect for digging into the riverbank. Ian returned to the clay deposit and started excavating, each scoop coming up heavy and wet.
The pole made the work effortless, just like felling trees. His shovel sliced through the riverbank as if the clay were butter, each scoop coming away clean and perfect. He felt no strain, no fatigue—only the satisfaction of watching the pile grow with supernatural speed.
When he had enough—his newly acquired knowledge told him precisely how much a pot required—he carried it back in a single trip, the clay somehow weightless in his arms despite its volume. Only after he set it down near the cabin walls did he notice how easily his breath came, how his muscles felt refreshed rather than taxed.
He sat down in the grass and pulled off a chunk of clay about the size of his head. The wedging process was meditative in a way that surprised him—slamming the clay down onto a flat stone, folding it over, slamming it again. The rhythm was steady, repetitive, and each impact drove out tiny air pockets that would explode during firing. His hands knew exactly how to work the material, how much pressure to apply, when it was ready.
The clay transformed under his palms from a rough lump into something smooth and plastic, ready to be shaped. Ian rolled it between his hands, forming a long coil about as thick as his thumb. Then another. Then another. The pile of coils grew, each one uniform in thickness, slightly tapered at the ends.
He started the base—a flat spiral, each coil pressed firmly against the previous one until he had a disk about six inches across. Then he built upward, stacking coil on top of coil, the walls rising in a slow spiral. His fingers smoothed the inner surface as he went, blending the coils together so they'd form a solid wall instead of separating during drying.
The shape emerged from his hands like it had always been there, just waiting for him to reveal it. The walls curved gently outward, then back in at the rim. His thumbs shaped the lip, making it smooth and even, wide enough to pour from without spilling.
The first pot took maybe an hour. Ian set it aside carefully on a flat stone to begin drying and immediately started on another. His hands moved with that same unsettling confidence, rolling coils, stacking them, smoothing the joins. The second pot came together faster than the first. The third faster still.
By midday he had five vessels sitting in a neat row, each one slightly different in size and shape but all fundamentally sound. The largest was big enough to boil water for drinking. Two medium ones for storage. The smaller pair could hold food—berries, or whatever else he managed to scavenge.
Ian wiped his clay-covered hands on his jeans and studied his work. The pots were crude, their surfaces showing the marks of his fingers, but they'd function. That was what mattered. Function over form. Survival over aesthetics.
But they needed to dry before firing, and the knowledge the pole had given him was specific about that—too much moisture left in the clay and they'd crack or explode when exposed to heat. At least a full day, maybe two depending on humidity and temperature. Which meant more waiting. More drinking straight from the river and hoping his luck held.
His stomach cramped, reminding him that berries weren't a complete diet. The sweetness had started to turn nauseating, and his body was craving something with substance. Protein. Fat. Something that would actually sustain him instead of just taking the edge off.
Fish. The river had fish—he'd seen them that first day when he'd been drinking, small silver things darting between rocks. Could the pole help him catch them? Show him how to make a trap, or a spear, or whatever primitive humans had used before fishing rods and tackle shops?
Ian picked up the pole from where it rested against the cabin wall. The metal warmed immediately to his touch, that familiar sensation of recognition. He thought about catching fish, about needing protein, about wanting something other than fucking berries for once.
The green light blazed up the shaft.
This time it didn't just show him techniques—it painted a complete picture in his mind. A fish trap, woven from flexible branches, designed to funnel fish into a narrow chamber they couldn't escape from. The pole highlighted specific willow saplings growing near the river's edge, showed him how to strip them, how to weave them into the pattern that would work.
The knowledge settled into his head alongside everything else the pole had taught him. Ian was starting to understand the pattern now—the pole didn't just transform itself, it also transferred information directly into his brain. Skills he shouldn't have. Techniques he'd never learned. All of it sitting there ready to be accessed, feeling as natural as breathing.
It should have terrified him more than it did. Instead, he just felt grateful. And maybe a little numb to the impossibility of it all.
The pole became a knife as he approached the willows, thin-bladed and wickedly sharp. The saplings were young and flexible, perfect for weaving. He cut a dozen of them, each one falling with a clean slice, then carried them back to the clearing where he could work in better light.
His hands moved through the weaving process with mechanical precision. Over, under, around. The willows bent without breaking, their green bark smooth under his fingers. The trap took shape—a cone with a wide mouth that narrowed to a small opening, designed so fish could swim in easily but couldn't figure out how to swim back out.
Ian finished it in less than an hour. The trap was about two feet long, tight enough that nothing larger than his hand could slip through the weave. He carried it to the river and waded in until the water reached his thighs, the cold making his breath catch.
The pole had shown him where to place it—in a shallow section where the current would push fish toward the trap's mouth, near rocks that would provide cover and make the structure look natural. Ian wedged it between two boulders, adjusting the angle until it sat exactly how the knowledge in his head said it should.
Then he waded back to shore and waited.
The sun climbed higher, burning through the cloud cover enough to make him squint. Ian sat on the riverbank and watched the trap, looking for any sign of movement. His wet jeans clung to his legs, cold and uncomfortable, but he barely noticed. His entire focus was on that woven cone sitting in the current, waiting to prove whether the pole's knowledge was as reliable for fishing as it had been for building.
Time crawled. His stomach complained. The clay pots continued their slow drying process back at the clearing. And the trap sat in the river, doing nothing.
Maybe he'd placed it wrong. Maybe there weren't any fish in this section. Maybe—
Something flashed silver inside the cone.
Ian was on his feet before he consciously registered the movement. He splashed into the river, water spraying around his legs, and reached the trap in seconds. Through the woven willows he could see it—a fish, maybe six inches long, trapped in the narrow end. Its scales caught the light as it thrashed, trying to find an exit that didn't exist.
His hands shook slightly as he lifted the trap clear of the water. The fish continued struggling, its movements growing more frantic as it realized it was out of its element. Ian carried the trap to shore, his chest tight with something that might have been relief or triumph or just desperate hunger.
He'd done it. Actually caught something. Food that wasn't berries, that would give him protein and fat and whatever else his body was screaming for.
Now he just needed to kill it, clean it, and cook it. The pole hummed warm in his other hand, already anticipating his needs.
The pole shifted in his hand before he could even articulate what he needed. The metal flowed, forming a short, narrow blade—almost needle-like at the tip. The knowledge flooded in with the transformation: where to pierce, how deep, the angle that would sever the brain stem instantly.
Ian held the fish against the flat river stone he'd carried to shore. Its gills flared, mouth opening and closing in desperate rhythm. He positioned the blade behind its head, where skull met spine, and pushed down in one quick motion.
The fish went still immediately. No thrashing, no prolonged suffering. Just a twitch and then nothing. Ian's stomach twisted despite the clean kill. He'd never done this before—never been responsible for ending something's life, even something as small as a fish. The weight of it sat strange in his chest.
But his hands were already moving, guided by the pole's transferred knowledge. The blade shifted, becoming wider, curved slightly for precision work. He made the first cut behind the gills, slicing down to the spine. Then along the backbone, the blade separating flesh from bone with surgical precision. The fillet came away clean, translucent pink meat glistening in the filtered sunlight.
He flipped the fish and repeated the process on the other side. Two perfect fillets, the skeleton left nearly clean between them. The guts came out next—a careful cut along the belly, his fingers scooping out the organs and tossing them back into the river where they'd feed something else.
The entire process took maybe five minutes. Ian rinsed the fillets in the current, washing away blood and scales, then carried them back to the clearing. His hands were slick with fish slime and river water, but the meat was clean, ready to cook.
Which meant he needed fire.
The thought had barely formed before the pole was warming in his grip again. The green light erupted, painting the clearing in that now-familiar phosphorescence. It highlighted specific materials—dry twigs from under the oak tree where his lean-to sat, strips of birch bark from a fallen log, larger branches that would sustain a flame once started.
And then the knowledge poured in, more complex than anything the pole had shown him yet. Fire-starting techniques. Tinder bundles. The friction method using a bow drill—a curved branch with cordage, a spindle, a fireboard with a notch carved to catch the ember. The physics of it, the pressure needed, the speed of rotation. All of it crystallizing in his mind like he'd been making fire his entire life instead of flicking a lighter or turning a stove dial.
The light faded. Ian gathered materials with hands that knew exactly what to look for. The birch bark peeled away in papery strips that would catch a spark easily. The oak had dropped enough dry twigs that he could collect a double handful without searching. Larger branches for fuel lay scattered near the forest edge, seasoned and ready.
The pole transformed as he worked. A knife for shaving fine curls of wood into tinder. A drill when he needed to bore a straight hole through a piece of driftwood he'd found near the river. A saw to cut the curved branch that would become his bow.
He used a strand of willow bark—stripped thin and twisted—as cordage for the bow. The setup came together with that same unsettling efficiency: fireboard flat on the ground with a notch carved to catch the ember, spindle positioned in the depression he'd drilled, bow wrapped around the spindle once, the whole apparatus ready to generate friction.
Ian knelt and began working the bow back and forth. The spindle rotated against the fireboard, the friction immediate. Smoke rose almost instantly, thin and acrid. His hands kept the rhythm steady—not too fast or the spindle would slip, not too slow or the friction wouldn't build enough heat. The knowledge guided every movement, every adjustment of pressure and angle.
The smoke thickened. A smell like burning wood filled his nose, sharp and primitive. He kept working the bow, kept the spindle spinning, and suddenly a tiny coal appeared in the notch—glowing red-orange, fragile as spider silk.
Ian set the bow aside with trembling hands and carefully tipped the coal into his waiting tinder bundle. He lifted the bundle and blew on it gently, feeding oxygen to the ember. The smoke increased. The glow spread. And then—
Flames.
It caught in the birch bark first, yellow-orange and hungry. Ian set the burning bundle into the small fire pit he'd prepared—just a circle of stones to contain it—and began feeding it twigs. The fire grew, crackling as it consumed the dry wood, heat washing across his face.
He'd made fire. Actually made it, from scratch, without matches or lighters or any of the conveniences he'd taken for granted his entire life. The achievement felt disproportionately massive, like he'd just split the atom instead of spinning a stick fast enough to create an ember.
The pole rested against his knee, returned to its original form. Ian stared at it for a long moment before turning his attention back to the fire. The flames were strong enough now to cook on. He needed something to hold the fish fillets—couldn't just drop them directly into the fire or they'd burn on the outside while staying raw inside.
Flat stones. The knowledge was already there, waiting. He found several near the river, each one broad and relatively smooth. He positioned them at the fire's edge where they'd heat gradually, then settled back to wait for them to reach the right temperature.
His stomach cramped with anticipation. The fish fillets sat on a clean piece of bark, pink and pristine, and the smell of woodsmoke filled the clearing. Real food. Actual protein. His mouth watered so intensely it almost hurt.
When the stones were hot enough—he tested them with a drop of river water that sizzled and evaporated instantly—Ian laid the fillets across their surface. The sizzle was immediate and deeply satisfying.
The fish cooked quickly, the flesh turning from translucent pink to opaque white, the edges crisping where they made contact with the hot stone. The smell hit him before it was even fully done—rich and savory, nothing like the berries that had been his only sustenance. His stomach twisted with anticipation so sharp it bordered on pain.
When the flesh flaked easily under the pressure of a thin stick he'd grabbed to test it, Ian pulled the fillets off the stone and onto the piece of bark he'd been using as a makeshift plate. The fish was too hot to touch, steam rising from it in visible waves, but he couldn't wait. He picked up a piece with his fingers, hissing at the heat, and shoved it into his mouth.
The flavor exploded across his tongue. It was simple—just fish and smoke, no seasoning, no butter, nothing but the natural taste of the meat and the char from the stone. But after days of nothing but berries, it tasted like the best thing he'd ever eaten. The texture was perfect, flaky and tender, the fat rendering out and coating his mouth with richness his body was desperately craving.
He ate the first fillet in seconds, barely chewing, his hands reaching for the second before he'd fully swallowed. This one he forced himself to slow down on, actually tasting it instead of just shoveling it in. The crispy bits at the edges had a satisfying crunch. The center was moist and delicate. His stomach finally stopped its incessant cramping, the protein hitting his system like a drug.
When both fillets were gone, Ian sat back on his heels and stared at the fire. His fingers were greasy, his mouth felt oily, and his stomach was actually, genuinely satisfied for the first time since waking up in this place. The fish had been small—maybe half a pound of meat total—but it felt like a feast.
He licked his fingers clean and thought about the day. The clay pots drying in a neat row. The cabin walls rising four logs high. The fish trap sitting in the river, ready to catch more. Fire crackling in front of him, heat pushing back the morning chill. He'd accomplished things today. Real things. Survival things. The pole had made it all possible, but his hands had done the work.
The smell of cooked fish lingered in the clearing, mixing with woodsmoke. A thought drifted through his satisfied haze—would that attract anything? Predators drawn by the scent of an easy meal? Whatever had been making those sounds his first night out here?
His hand moved toward the pole, then stopped. He was overthinking it. The fire would keep most animals away. That was basic knowledge, wasn't it? Even without the pole's guidance, he knew predators avoided fire. And the smell would dissipate soon enough, carried away by the breeze that rustled through the clearing.
Besides, worrying about every possible threat would drive him insane. He'd deal with problems when they appeared, not waste energy imagining them.
Ian's gaze drifted to the fish trap still sitting in the river. One fish had been good, but it wouldn't last. He needed to check it regularly, build up a surplus if possible. And fish weren't the only option—the forest had to have other game. Rabbits, maybe. Squirrels. Deer if he got lucky.
Hunting. The word sat in his mind with weight. Could the pole show him how to trap animals? Make snares or deadfalls or whatever primitive hunters used? The pelts would be useful. More than useful—necessary. He looked down at his jeans, at the frayed cuffs and the knees that were starting to wear thin. The fabric was already showing signs of abuse from crawling around on the ground, catching on branches, getting soaked in the river. His t-shirt wasn't much better—stained with clay and fish guts and berry juice, the collar stretched out from sleeping in it.
These clothes wouldn't last. A few more weeks of this, maybe a month if he was careful, and they'd be rags. Then what? Walk around naked and hope for the best? The thought was absurd, but also not entirely unrealistic given his situation.
If he could hunt—actually hunt, not just trap fish—he could get pelts. Leather. Raw materials to make something that would hold up better than synthetic fabrics that were already falling apart. The pole could probably show him how to tan hides, how to cut and sew them into something functional. Just another skill to add to the growing list of things he shouldn't know how to do but apparently could.
The fire crackled, drawing his attention back. The flames were still strong, the wood he'd gathered burning steadily. He should probably let it die down soon—no point wasting fuel when he wasn't actively using it. But the warmth was nice, and watching the flames had a hypnotic quality that made his exhausted brain finally start to relax.
He finished the last bits of fish stuck to his fingers and stood, his legs protesting the movement. The cabin walls waited across the clearing, four logs high and solid. The sight of them—of something he'd built, something permanent—sent a strange feeling through his chest. Pride, maybe. Or just relief that he wasn't completely helpless out here.
But four logs high wasn't enough. The walls needed to go higher before he could even think about a roof. And the roof itself would be a whole new challenge—he'd need to figure out rafters and support beams and how to make the whole thing weatherproof. The knowledge the pole had given him covered the basics but actually executing it would take time. Days, probably. Maybe longer.
The sun was past its zenith now, starting the slow descent toward evening. He had hours of daylight left. Enough to add more logs to the walls, get them up to maybe shoulder height if he pushed himself. The foundation was solid. The notching technique was clear in his head. He knew what he needed to do as he waked towards the building.
Back to work!