A Trickle of Knowledge

[Ashka]

30 Summer 511

The boats grounded on on the empty beach, and the youngsters piled out onto the sand, followed by a handful of adults. Ashka scrambled out onto the sand with the rest of them and balanced herself on flexed knees until her legs adapted from sea to land. The oldest of the adults, Tasi, divided the youngsters between the adults, finishing, "Ashka, you're with me."

Ashka nodded and trailed after Tasi as the older woman strode briskly across the beach toward the treeline. No one else came with them, and Ashka's gaze dropped numbly to the sand she crossed at this new evidence of being singled out for something no one else had to deal with. What kind of prank was going to be played on her now?

Tasi eyed her as they paused on the edge between beach and jungle. "You do know why you're here, don't you?"
"They said it was for survival training, in case we wash overboard in a storm and wind up on a beach?" Ashka heard the not quite belief in her own voice and winced.
"They said correctly," Tasi told her, "and since you're going to need slightly different training from the others-"
"What?" Ashka interrupted, "because I'm a half breed?"
"No, because you don't have the mark," Tasi snapped back. "Those of us with the mark can drink sea water safely, but since doing that would make you sick, you're going to need to learn to find fresh water to survive. And since I didn't get my mark until I was older than you are now, I'm the best candidate for doing that. Now will you listen?"
Ashka felt her cheeks reddening, but her mind latched onto the important thing in the speech. "Older than me?"
"Yes, now listen." Tasi bent and picked up a coconut. "Tell me what this is."
"It's a coconut. We had some in the galley the other day."
"And?"
"You crack it open and scoop out the meat inside?"
"And?"
"Empty the water? Oh! You can drink the water!"
"Yes," Tasi agreed, "but you shouldn't just drink from coconuts, because if you have too much of it, it goes straight through you and out the other end dragging all the goodness with it."


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Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka nodded, taking it in. "You could find a stream to add to the coconuts?"

"You could. You'd probably have to follow it up to the tree line to make sure there wasn't salt water flowing upstream and tainting it, and doing that risks being caught by predators that lurk around streams. You can, of course, catch rainwater when it rains or gather snow if it snows. Half a coconut shell makes a good bowl to catch it in, or a large shell. If you tie cloth around your ankles and walk through wet grass, the cloth will soak up water that you can then wring out into a bowl." Tasi paused and looked to Ashka to see how well the young girl was taking in this flood of information.

Ashka lifted her head, her mane of curls bouncing off her shoulders and met that look as best she could. "Coconuts," she said, ticking the options off on her fingers, frowning in concentration. "Streams. Rain. Wet grass. Got it. What else?"

"Water reimancers can pull water out of other things, but that isn't an option for you at present. The other options require more equipment than you'd probably have, but there's no harm in covering them." Tasi stopped and looked around. "The most important tools for survival are your mind and your will. Those you are guaranteed to have. If you also have something waterproof and flexible - a good coat or cloak, or a tarp, or a length of waxed leather - you have more options. You can dig a hollow, line it with the cloth and you have a much bigger 'bowl' for rainwater, for example."

Ashka nodded quickly. "You'd have something like a rock pool, only you made it yourself and it's fresh not salt. Can you carry water in the cloth too?"

Tasi grimaced. "You can try if you really have to, but it's difficult, especially alone. There are better ways to use it - you can use it to pull water out of the ground if you know how."

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

"You can?" Ashka's curiousity pulled her in closer. "How? Can you pull it out of the sea too?"

"Not really, the sea is too big to cover." Tasi took a seat on a fallen tree, picked up a thin stick and began to draw in a patch of dirt. "Look, this is what you need to do. You dig or find a hollow slightly smaller than your cloth. You put an empty bowl in the middle, raised up a bit on sticks or stones. Then you cover the whole set up with the tarp, weight down the edges so that they stay put, then you drop a small stone into the middle of the tarp so that it dips down right over your bowl." She looked sideways at Ashka and grinned. "Then you just walk away and do other things for bells, or for a day and when you come back, your bowl has water in."

Ashka climbed up beside Tasi and sat astride the tree, gripping with her knees and calves the way her father had taught her to grip a horse. "That's way too much like magic! It can't be real... can it? You're pulling my leg like everyone else."

"Oh, it's true enough." Tasi gave Ashka a sharp look. "Are the other youngsters picking on you again?"

Ashka shrugged. They'd never really stopped teasing her. "So how does the magically appearing water work then?"

"Well, you see, the goddess of the earth is Semele, and she breathes. Your breath has a little water in, that's why it looks like a cloud on cold days. Her breath has water in too. It rises out of the pit, hits the tarp and runs down the inside of the slope to the dip. Then it drips off into the bowl - that's why you need to make sure that the dip for the drip is over the bowl. All those little drips add up. For more drips, you can throw green leaves from trees into the bottom of the pit and catch the breath-water of those too."

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka frowned, trying to take it all in, trailing her fingers absent mindedly along the bark ridges of the tree. "Ok, is that all the things I need to know?"

Tasi shook her head. "Once you have found your water, you need to make it clean and fit to drink. It may be muddy, it may have all kinds of things in, and drinking bad water will kill you just as surely as drinking sea water. Understand?"

A glum expression took over Ashka's young face and she sighed and nodded, and pulled her legs up to where she could hug her knees. "I'm listening."

"Good," Tasi said, and went on with her list and lecture. "You start with the biggest things and work down to the smallest. Begin by picking out any obvious leaves or twigs or stones, or any other stuff floating in your water. That's the first stage of cleaning. Second stage is to filter it to take out any mud and disolved filth. You can pour it through tightly woven cloth - that works well - or you can find a piece of hollow bamboo or other wood and pack it with layers of dried moss and charcoal from your fire. Pour the water in one end and let it soak through the layers. It will take some time to come through, so you must be patient, and wait. If you don't have a fire and you can find sand away from the beach, you can use that instead. Don't use beach sand for a filter, because it will only make your water salty, and then you can't drink it at all and you will have wasted your effort.

"Cloth or charcoal or sand that isn't salty..." Ashka echoed. "But aren't beaches the only places with sand?"

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

"No, they are not." Tasi's voice sharpened in exasperation, and Ashka hunched further in on herself at the sound. "Just because you have to work harder to keep up is no excuse for not thinking things through. You can find sand in some streams and rivers, and even patches of it in the soil occasionally." She looked over at Ashka's unhappy huddle and sighed. Her voice softened again, but she offered no comfort, only went on.

"Once you have all the obvious bits out of the water, and you've filtered it, the next step is to boil it. Boiling water for at least three chimes kills the part of the dirt that make you sick. It does not do anything to get rid of salt though, so don't try it. There's an additive you can buy to do the same thing, but it's expensive and you aren't likely to have any if you're shipwrecked, so boiling it is.

"Get your fire lit and if you have the time and the fuel, let it burn down to cooking coals. It isn't quite as pretty or showy as open flames, but it is just as hot, or hotter, and the heat it gives is steadier and more even. You also wind up with charcoal for your water filter that way. Take your container, whatever you have managed to gather and hold your water in. If you can prop it directly over the fire, that's the best, but don't run the risk of it falling and spilling your water. If it's metal or pottery and can take the direct heat, you can just set it down in the middle of your cooking coals. Otherwise, put it by the edge of the fire, and turn it every so often so that it all gets the heat."

Tasi looked over at Ashka, and patted her on the shoulder. "That's all for now. You'll get other lessons - fire and food - but you can take those with the other children. They need to learn too!"

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Gossamer]

Ashka

Experience: Wilderness Survival +5, Interrogation +5, Observation +4, Socialization +3

Lores: Coconuts contain water to drink and meat to eat, WS: Coconut shells can be used to hold water, WS: Follow streams upstream to get to purer fresher water untainted by the sea, WS: Tying cloth around your ankles and walking through wet grass to soak up rain, WS: Most important tool for your survival is your mind, WS: Finding water through evaporation, WS: Making Water Safe to drink, WS: Filtering Water, WS: Boiling Water To Make It Drinkable

Note: Very nice little quick concise thread. I loved it. It would be a great example for a WS thread for others.