Ch-2-Shipwreck and Shelter (First Edit)
When I start to come too again, I hear the sound of crashing waves, creaking wood, and seagulls overhead. As the rest of my senses start to come online I can smell the overwhelming scent of salt water as well as the faint lingering smell of decay that rapidly fades away.
Before I open my eyes, I can feel sand beneath me, dried onto my skin, and the fluffy thing lying between my legs. The sand is also trying to get past the fluff in my ears, which reminds me of my current situation.
Finally, opening my eyes, I see the fading first lights of dawn as the atmosphere finishes turning into a light shade of blue. Off in the distance, I begin to hear the rustling of leaves as the sounds near me get stronger, while my sense of touch seems to be getting more refined by the second.
My eyesight was far sharper than what it was before my untimely meeting with the goddess Elinaria allowing me to see much farther with greater detail than I should have been able to in my past life.
Breaking free from the state that I found myself in, I get up and look around. Behind and to the left side of me is the wreckage of an old-time age of sail ship that looks to have been recently destroyed. However, the bodies of the crew are nothing but skeletons, baring the captain leaning up against the haul of his ship.
When I focus on him, I am able to hear the faint arrhythmic beat of his heart as it soon stops before his body rapidly decays into a skeleton. Resulting in a burst of the same decay smell that nearly knocks me off my feet with its intensity.
After re-orienting myself I notice that the captain's clothes and other items remain alongside a faint blue marble in his chest. Curious, I walk over to him.
When I make it halfway there, the marble flashes with light, and a ghostly version of the captain is left standing next to his corpse.
The captain looks around until he sees me. Then he points at me and begins to shout," You! You are the one who did this to me! You are the one who did this to my crew and ship! Now face heaven's wrath and- "Whatever he was going to say next went unheard as thunder cracked overhead and lightning struck him, leaving nothing in its wake.
After the lightning incident, the captain's skeleton fell apart, collapsing into a pile of bones. Most of his clothes dissolved as well, leaving behind a white linen shirt, brown linen pants, and his tricorn that had a large feather in it.
Seeing the clothes reminded me that there were none in the character creator, but now that I was paying attention, I could feel that I was wearing something, so I looked down.
What I saw was that I was wearing a white one-piece dress with thin shoulder straps and no sleeves. There are no shoes either, but there is a complete set of undergarments beneath the dress.
While this dress might look good on me, I am not entirely comfortable wearing one, so I took the old captain's clothes and attempted to wear them.
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It took me a while to figure out the best way to change my clothes, but in the end, I am now wearing a pair of brown pants with the hems rolled up, a white shirt with the sleeves cut short, and a piece of rope as a belt. For some reason, I thought that the standard height from Earth would be the same here. Oh well, on the bright side, I now know how my retractable claws work.
Exiting my little moment of reverie, I look at the captain's skeleton once more and decide to take the hat and blue marble that remain. Stuffing the marble in my new pockets and the tricorn on my head, which muffles the sounds of the world even though it is still clearer than what I could hear as a human, I go and search the wreckage for supplies.
After about twenty minutes to half an hour, I find my way onto an exposed deck of what appears to be the front third or so of the ship. The light in this section is very poor because of the lack of light sources and the surprising lack of holes in the ship.
This did not affect me much because one of the small unmentioned benefits of my race is enhanced lowlight vision, which allowed me to move about without losing my footing on the severely slanted floors of the crashed part of the ship.
Walking in, I angle my feet to give myself more support in the ship and begin to explore. The deck that I am on seems to be the crew quarters, with various personal belongings and hammocks strung about the place. It is only when I reach a door that I find anything that looks to be of value.
A large backpack with various straps on the sides leans against the wall next to the door, seemingly waiting for me to take it, which I, of course, oblige.
Now equipped with a backpack to store any new things I may find, I open the door to find a store room on the other side. In this room appears to be many weapons, tools, and, most importantly, food!
Rushing in, I stock up on some dried rations, a polished metal pick, a polished metal flat-headed axe, and a sturdy-looking five-inch-long fixed-blade survival knife.
Looking around for anything else that seems necessary, I find nothing of importance and decide to leave the room, heading up the wall that the door was on until I encounter the stairway that heads deeper into the ship.
Going down the stairs on a whim, I find out why this part of the ship survived to reach the shore.
Piled in a haphazard manner, in the bow of the ship is a large amount of metal, exposing a large and intricate circle in the middle of the floor made out of small finely carved runes.
There was nothing else down here besides these two things, so I put a bookmark on this for later, then went back upstairs and opened a new door. There, I found a floor-to-celling hole in the side of the ship spanning the entire room and exposing the top deck.
Everything in the room seems to have been ripped out, so I climb onto the top deck and survey everything.
The top deck has a large burned area where it looks like something impacted, a couple of tied-down crates, and the fallen mast, but nothing else. From my vantage point, the sun can be seen reaching its peak and ready to begin its descent.
Seeing that time is starting to run out, I begin my journey back out of the ship to the ground, taking one of the hammocks along the way.
Once outside the ship, I begin to salvage for pieces of the haul or deck that I can repurpose for shelter or for firewood. I ended up finding a few pieces of metal I could use for the shelter as well.
After I found everything I needed, I hauled it back to the broken part of the ship the captain was leaning on. Moving the skeleton of the captain, I started to build my temporary shelter by hoisting up a part of the haul at a ninety-degree angle to the part of the ship that was already standing upright.
After I got the section of haul in place, I grabbed one of the pieces of metal and placed it to support the two new shelter walls. Then, grabbing my new flat-headed axe begin hammering it into place.
I repeat this same set of actions with a piece of the deck placed parallel to the section haul I had just erected. Next, I spread a portion of the sail over the top of the structure and nail it in place with a few random pieces of metal.
Walking inside the new structure, I strung up my hammock and tested it to ensure it could hold my weight.
Then, taking a few random planks of wood I have found, I attempt to start a fire by striking the side of my axe with what I hope to be a flint rock I acquired in the ship. After attempting a couple dozen times, I got lucky, and the fire lit up in a blaze quicker than I thought possible before it settled down into a quiet campfire.
Looking toward the sky, I found that the sun was just finishing its arc across the sky and setting on the horizon. Taking that as my queue I walked into my little shanty shack and began to eat a portion of the rations that I found while preparing myself to check the system for the first time.