Alaric was now fully moved into his new house.
It was cramped with supplies, and was dirty, but it would do. Alaric wasn't particularly big on useless things. He would be able to muster with the house for now.
He would now return to fishing tomorrow. It was late in the day, and it wouldn't be a good idea to be out at night.
The monkeys and wolves were no joke. Alaric wanted to keep the lowest profile that he could. For now, having them not know that he exists would be the best.
Humans were low on the food chain. They are definitely large enough for beasts to want to eat them.
Death by beast was the most common source of death besides inflictions from other humans.
Surprisingly, sickness wasn't a major issue. Any mage that had any sort of attainment over healing was able to get rid of sickness relatively quickly.
There were a couple ways that Alaric could die out here.
First of all, he could be killed by wolves. Alaric made sure to lock and barricade the door for the night, but depending on how powerful the wolves were it wouldn't be entirely effective. They would be dangerous during the day, but less than the night.
They were primarily nocturnal, but that didn't mean they were safe to deal with in the day.
"If I ever have to go into the woods during the day, I have to make sure I know where I am and how to go out. Going too deep into the woods would be asking for my guts to be in the stomach of a wolf." Alaric said out loud to nobody.
Alaric wouldn't need to go into the woods often, but it may come up eventually. Whether he was bored, or needs some firewood, he would eventually go into the woods.
The monkeys were more of a strange issue. They were much smarter than wolves, so they posed separate issues. They had basic settlements and tool knowledge. Their intellect however didn't come with compassion.
Alaric knew somewhat of what the monkeys were like. They had a "artistic culture" where they would turn their food into complex fleshy art. This of course, would include Alaric if he were to mess with them.
They were out during the day, so going into the woods on that during the day would spell his doom. The good thing about them are that they tend to group up and stay in the same area, so if Alaric eventually figured out where large amounts of them were, he would be able to plan around them.
Alaric now shifted away from death. He now needed to focus on his life and his soul. And his soul was yearning for fishing in the ocean.
Thinking about his issue before, he would need a place to keep his fish. Other fish may be alright to keep dead, but the alcohol fish needed to ferment. It needed to age to create the optimally expensive beverage.
But first he slept. His mind was tired from thinking and traveling, and his body was tired from steering the ship and transporting goods everywhere.
Alaric tried to sleep for his first night in the house.
Hooooooowl
AAAAAAAAAAARG
During the night, Alaric could hear the howl of the wolves and the screaming of the monkeys.
Alaric barely got any sleep, but that was to be expected. He was sleeping on the cold floor wrapped up in blankets. The rat was similarly bundled up on the floor. They were true companions at this point.
Awake
Alaric woke up and decided to make some food.
He had some eggs and bread for breakfast, and gave some meat trimmings to the rat. Alaric had figured out that he could get some meat for dirt cheap at the butcher if he asked for the trimmings. It cost almost nothing, and it was perfect for feeding the rat. Even if it was a little expired , the rat would be able to handle it.
Alaric had a plan for keeping the fish.
He would dig out a little lake.
He didn't need a huge amount of space, just enough to keep a couple drunkard fishes. Alaric after doing his morning stretches and washing off in the river got the shovel out.
He started digging adjacently to the river. He would for a little lake beside the river for a water supply. He would keep the pond as deep as possible. From what he remembered about the drunkard fish, it couldn't swim up vertically. They were so full of alcohol that they had to rot on the bottom of the ocean in their own drink.
This at least made it easy to keep them. Alaric could just have a deep hole with water flowing into it and it would work just fine. This fish was quite practical for keeping in deep pits.
Now Alaric needed to make the deep pit. He started to get to work. It would be difficult to use in water, so he refrained from connecting it to the river for the time being. For the entire first half of the day, he dug the hole by himself. The rat was unable to assist in digging the hole. In the meantime, it scattered around the house and took laps outside. It was building up its rat stamina.
Alaric then took a quick lunch and rest break before getting back to the hole.
By mid afternoon, it was ready to connect to the river.
It was about six feet deep, a sizable hole. It didn't have a very large diameter, but that didn't matter.
Alaric now decided to connect it to the river.
He dug up a small stream, and now waited for it to fill up. It would likely not take that long, but it would still take a second.
Now, Alaric would need to go out fishing in order to get the fish for it.
For the rest of the day however, he decided that he would explore the surroundings a little more.