ISLE
Book One
Stranded on a lush, uninhabited island, astronaut Marlowe Halcott must learn to survive.
As Marlowe forages, builds, and adapts to the alien land, something watches from orbit—slowly revealing a legacy of hope meant to give humanity a second chance. Experience cozy LitRPG mechanics as you follow Marlowe in the building of a new world.
Short Excerpt
ISLE
Chapter 3
The afternoon clouded over and everything went still. The tide died down to a slow, gentle lapping against the beach. Further out in the water, the waves had all but disappeared. Everything felt still. Even the breeze had stopped. It was as if someone had hit pause on the entire world.
A part of me wanted to explore more. There was potential to find things that could help with the process of rebuilding my shelter. Maybe I could even find an existing cave or something. But, I also didn’t want to risk sleeping in the cramped lean-to again, in case I came up short. I needed to have a home-base before I started wandering into uncharted territory.
So, I went to work pulling apart last night’s shelter. I felt a hint of sadness as I did. It had kept me dry, but if another storm like that rolled in tonight, I wanted something more durable. And more comfortable.
Before this point, I’d never had to build shelters in the woods. So, I had to rely on my intuition. I’d seen a few survival movies, played a few survival games. I was sure I could figure something out. The first thing I wanted to do was expand my work area. I finished disassembling the old shelter and piling up all the fronds off to one side. Then, I used my axe, which was in pretty rough shape, to clear an area between four large palm trees. I hacked at bushes, tall grass, and yuca plants. The yuca I saved, its fibrous leaves should work just as the strips of palm frond did for making twine. Clearing the area took time, and my axe was down to its last sliver of durability by the time I finished.
I used some of the yuca to fashion new twine and re-tie my axe. It seemed strong, but wasn’t as easy to work with. Maybe there was a way to soften it, I’d look into that later. The durability meter of my axe inched upward as I worked. I then scraped the axe-head against a large, nearby rock in an attempt to sharpen it. The durability meter didn’t reach as high as it had been when I’d first made the axe, but it had extended a little further with the sharpening.
+5XP Crafting
Nice. I used another lashing, another much longer stick, and another (mostly) flat rock to craft a tool that sort of resembled a hoe, or a really crummy rake. I used the same X technique to wedge the wide stone into one end, and secured it with the lashing. It was sketchy, but I could refine it later.
+10xp Crafting