Ashwin sat between those two oversized monster molars staring down at where he had last seen the Death Gigas trudge off, before another growl soon gained his attention.
He clutched both hands to his stomach and rolled over on his side giving a pained exhale.
“Gaah..I’m SO hungry…and thirsty.”
The more he thought about his situation the worse it got.
The Death Gigas had run him off from his original camp and now he would have to start over from scratch.
Ashwin sighed and laid in a fetal position for moment longer before hauling himself to his feet.
He walked to the edge of the jawbone but not quite out from between the two fossilized molars, as thirsty as he was the first act of business would be getting a drink.
With a quick glance he scanned the horizon for a body of water using just his normal senses.
To his relief and salvation there was a lake not far off from the massive jawbone and in the opposite direction the Gigas had took.
“Don’t get your hopes up just yet,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Everybody gets thirsty.
Water holes are where the drink is…
and where the hunters wait.”
The sound of his own voice settled his racing thoughts.
Silence had a way of making Beast Vein feel far too large.
Ashwin had to talk to himself out loud, coach himself.
It was the only thing keeping him sane out here.
With a word of encouragement he cheered himself on “Okay, let’s do this champ.”
Ashwin made his descent down the prodigious jawbone of the Camelparadalis, carefully surveying the landscape below for any movement.
As soon as Ashwin touched the ground he crouched and ran over to the head of the mantis beast, he wanted to investigate the remains.
The mantis beasts head was roughly the size of a boulder.
As Ashwin approached in his crouched run toward it, he could see hundreds of reflections of himself in the creatures’ individual hexagonal lenses.
Ashwin slowed his approach in reverential awe.
His bare feet came to a gentle halt.
He looked up at the clear mantis eyes; the two black pins of the mantis beast eyes tracked him even in death.
Ashwin rested one hand against the mantis’ enormous head.
“You weren’t weak.”
His fingers traced one of the deep claw wounds carved into the translucent shell.
“You just met something stronger.”
For a long moment, he simply looked at the creature, then his gaze drifted up higher,
Ashwin wasn’t after the eyes; he was interested in the ultra-fine and extremely long antennae.
Just then Ashwin realized that he had lost his simple knapped stone knife, he would have to quickly Knapp up another stone knife, without it he had no way to cut off the bugs antennae.
He searched for a reasonable stone among the fossilized boneyard, all the while, being mindful of his surroundings.
He stayed low for one.
Ashwin never stood up totally straight, he stayed hunched, trying to make himself as small a target as possible.
After a little search Ashwin found a chunk of obsidian!
He could have shouted for joy, but he caught himself in time.
“Quite man, keep your good news on the low down.” He whispered to himself.
But he had a new problem.
He needed something to Knapp the obsidian chunk with.
He could use a granite stone to hammer away excess material from the obsidian he intended to Knapp to give it a rough outline of the basic shape of the blade.
But he would need a finer tool to apply extreme pressure to the edges in order Knapp the cutting edge of the obsidian blade.
He looked around, “An antler would be great right about now.”
A reflection from something in the ground caught Ashwin’s attention.
He knelt down and picked it up.
It was a chunk of translucent chitin that came to a fine point.
Ashwin squinted.
“This might work.”
Ashwin Gathered a few more choice granite stones and got to work.
First, he took off his simple hide shirt and laid it over his knee, picking up the obsidian chunk, he let it rest on his covered knee.
Next, he used the nice smooth round granite stone he found to hammer away excess material, he did this by carefully aiming at the edge of the chunk and delivering measured blows.
The obsidian came off in sheets from the core chunk and crashed into each other on the ground.
It sounded like someone breaking pottery.
Ashwin paused and looked around, “Shit.”
Then his other voice kicked in, his second opinion.
“It’s going to be loud.
So just do it fast and move, you’re wasting time!”
Ashwin hunched lower and focused, he gave himself a little bit of extra material to work with incase a crack happened and jeopardized the blade.
The blade he pictured in his mind was full tang; both the handle and blade would have a slight curve to it and be one piece., the lower edge of the blade would hook over the hand as a guard and also be serrated.
Ashwin felt a wave of joy.
This obsidian clever would be a brutal work of art.
It was now time to see if his pointy chunk of chitin was hard enough to Knapp a serration into the edge of his obsidian clever.
Ashwin gripped the clever between his knees cutting edge up and carefully placed the chitin point near the tip.
Gradually, he applied more and more pressure to the edge of the blade until he heard a pop.
“It worked,” Ashwin had just put in his first serration grove.