Tatehan felt his heart leap with joy at his discovery.
YESSS!
He knew there was something wrong with these boulders. It wasn’t just a coincidence that one saw a line of boulders on both sides of the place. It seemed like some sort of ritual arrangement.
And now, looking at this hammer, he was certain he was right to have some doubt.
What was a hammer doing here? The only right answer was that some group of creatures had left it there.
Maybe a bruteneck coming to sleep, a thought he wanted to let go of immediately.
He picked up the hammer, held it in his hands, and rolled it from side to side, wondering what it was for.
He squinted his eyes and scanned it unconsciously:
[Object: Carving hammer]
[Mainly for carving rocks and stones but excellent in battle too.]
Carving hammer?
That was well... surprising. For carving rocks and stones?
That meant a creature was doing this. A sensible creature. Or was it a human?
And for the hammer to be excellent in battle too, that seemed to confirm it.
It belonged to a sensible being. Very sensible, even, to have a tool that multitasked. For his system to show it was excellent in battle meant that it truly was.
Tatehan thought now, if he took this hammer with him, he could actually add it to his inventory, and it would be of great help...
Wait. Even though it carved stuff, which was like building, it couldn’t actually help repair tech-related things like the spaceship.
So while it might be the most useful tool in the world to its owner, to him it was pretty useless.
What would he be doing with something like this?
He decided he was going to leave it here, but not for the sake of leaving it.
He was leaving it here as a test, and he would only see the result if he survived the night.
He wanted to know if someone had left it here.
Tatehan would keep the hammer as he had found it, and the following morning, if he was to still see it the same way, he would know it had been abandoned.
But if he kept it as he had found it and didn’t see the hammer again, he would know there was either a sensible being living around here or worse...
Or WORSE!
...a human!
A human like him!
With that, Tatehan returned the hammer to where it was and sauntered back to the left where the boulders formed a circle.
He lay in the middle and fell asleep much faster than he had expected. He still had the backpack on, though, a detail he was slowly starting to forget with this armor.
He had half a loaf of bread with jam before going to sleep, taking his time to eat it. He was very hungry, and thirsty too. The thirst superseding the hunger.
He drank half a bottle of water, noting that he was slowly running low on food supplies when he wasn’t even halfway through his journey.
The canyon network would be the halfway point of his journey, though, and soon he would reach it if he survived this night.
He had expected to waste some time before he went to sleep, but the moment he closed his eyes, he was opening them quickly, very quickly, like a flash of lightning, to morning.
Morning came like a heart attack: quick, brisk, and SHARP!
So sharp it startled Tatehan.
Wait, it was morning already?
How fast could that be?
You know, sleep was the reason Tatehan had hope that time travel had to exist. I mean, it was already existing, but we wouldn’t call it time travel.
The ability to close your eyes, and thoom!, they were back open and it was morning. Meaning you had just time-traveled nine to twelve hours.
Incredible.
Tatehan shook his head sideways as he sat up, shaking the thought off his mind.
He looked around him, and all he could see were the boulders and, up ahead, possibilities of different things.
Seems there weren’t any creatures here to have killed him in the night. He unsummoned the armor (the visor also) and gritted his teeth, slowly turning the expression into a grin.
If he had known, he would have just slept like that without having to wear heavy armor or cover his face with a visor.
What surprised him about the visor was that he could breathe properly in it. There seemed to be no place letting air into it, which made Tatehan wonder how it was possible that he could breathe normally while wearing it.
But then the visor was designed with some kind of internal filtration system, microscopic vents too small to see but large enough to cycle air. It pulled oxygen from outside and regulated it, keeping the air fresh without needing visible openings. Almost like the armor was breathing for him.
He was tempted to go check if the hammer was still on the ground, but he sent the thought off his mind as fast as it had come in the first place.
He was weak. Having had to sleep in armor had made him tired upon waking. He had half the remaining bread from the previous night with jam and half a bottle of water (the remaining from the previous night).
He decided he would skip lunch and eat little at night so his food supply would last him.
Now he stood up and decided to check if the hammer was still where he had left it.