Man, all this work with Magic had made him hungry! He decided to take a break for a little while since he had to let the sap dry, anyways, and go find some food. He made sure to get up carefully so he wouldn’t scatter any of his materials or knock over the partly-finished bag. Then he scaled the tree he was sitting beside and, halfway up, he stopped and began to work at it with his teeth and claws. It took some time, but he eventually got the sap in the tree flowing, and he lapped at it hungrily, enjoying the sweet, tangy flavor. Yum!

Words: 107

After he’d had his fill of sap, though, he was still fairly hungry. Pygmy Marmosets also ate fruit and insects to supplement their diet of tree gum, and, although Tuck knew this instinctively, he had to admit that he’d never eaten an insect before. He climbed higher up the tree until he was on a branch overlooking the little flat spot that he’d chosen to build his bag. He looked down at it for a moment to double-check that no one was down there and messing with his stuff, and then he focused on finding some kind of insect.

Now, he did end up finding one — a small one that was crawling slowly across the branch he was on, but the moment he made a move towards it, it hopped away and ended up at the far end of the branch. He cursed under his breath, a habit that was sure to settle in the older he got, and decided to try and go after it again…

A few seconds later, he hopped after it, jumping about five feet forward, and just manage to snatch it up! Greedily, he chewed, enjoying the crunch that he didn't normally get with his food.

Words: 160+

After enjoying his relatively small meal — small meal for a small marmoset — he decided to make himself comfortable and take a bit of a nap. He had nothing better to do since he still had to wait for the sap to harden before he could continue work on his bag. The forest seemed pretty calm right now, and after one last check that nothing below him was being disturbed, he drifted off into a nap… Hopefully by the time he woke up, he’d be able to continue his work on it. He just hoped this would end up being worth it in the end…

Words: 104

Tuck woke up some time later and quickly scaled down the tree he’d been sleeping in back to the ground to check on his things. They’d all been left untouched, which was good news. And when he checked to see if the parts of his backpack had stuck together successively, he was pleased to see that the tree sap had hardened and strengthened. With that settled, he began work again.

He decided then that he would put the other three pieces of the pack together at that point, rubbing a layer of sticky sap onto each side of the roughly square-ish bottom piece and then pressing a side piece against the bottom for a few minutes until he was sure each piece could stay up on its own to dry. In about ten minutes, he had the rough shape of a bark container. Now he once again just had to let the sap glue dry. So far, this was coming along nicely, aside from his stupid Magic not working properly earlier.

Words: 172

After waiting a little while longer to let the sap dry again — grooming himself to pass the time, and happily munching on any fleas or other bugs he found — he tested the strength of the seal again. It held, and Tuck couldn’t help but grin. Man, this was cool! He was building his own little bag! He was about to start on the next section of it, when he suddenly realized that if he didn’t Preserve the bark pieces, they would lose all their moisture over time and would become brittle and crumbly. And he couldn’t let that happen if he planned to use this thing for the foreseeable future! He concentrated on his Magic, asking it to wrap around the small bark container and shield it from aging and keeping it supple and relatively flexible-ish.

And this time, his Magic actually decided to work for him! Good. He tested the bark after casting the spell. It was still hard the way bark should be, but it wasn’t brittle, and it bent a little bit if he applied pressure. Hopefully this would keep it from splitting or breaking if he accidentally dropped it at some point — although he wasn’t done yet! He needed to add another layer of protection over the bark to soften the blow if he ever did drop it. That was the next step.

Words: 228

Tuck looked over at one of two particularly long vines he had bitten off the sides of a tree. As he looked at one of them, it inch-wormed its way over to him as he used Plantcharm on it. Then it slowly wrapped itself around the bark container horizontally, like a snake ensnaring its prey. It didn’t wrap around so tightly that it broke the bark pieces, just tight enough to offer a layer of protection should he ever drop the bag. It had layered itself well so that the bark was hardly visible through the vine. It wiggled the end of itself underneath a different layer so that it wouldn’t come unraveled and Tuck used a bit of sap to glue the end to the rest of the bag just in case.

Words: 134

To give himself another break from casting, he decided to work on the inside of the container now. Before he’d used the bark, he’d made sure to strip away any rough pieces, so that the inside had a relatively smooth finish. Still, though, he might end up putting delicate things inside the bag, and he needed a way to ensure that they wouldn’t be scratched against the sides of the container while he was moving around with the backpack on. So, he began to work on grabbing handfuls of moss and pushing them down into the bag, pressing the moss up against the sides and on the bottom, to create a kind of carpet on the inside. This would act as a layer of protection for whatever was inside the bag.

Words: 131

After packing the soft moss into the container, Tuck decided to try it on in its almost-finished stage to see how it felt. It was a little bulkier than he imagined it would be, but it was still fairly light all things considered. He’d have to get used to the feeling of having it on, so he walked around with it a little bit, jumping up and down every now and then to test it. It wobbled a bit from side to side on his back and threw him a little off balance, but it was nonetheless stable. He’d just have to compensate for it when he was wearing it. Overall, he was pleased with what he’d managed to make and gave a grin of pride to no one in particular.

Words: 132

Tuck set the backpack down again, and turned with the decision to Preserve the moss on the inside of the container, but at the last second, he decided against doing that. He was running low on Magic right now, and the moss could be easily replaced anytime he needed to do so. He was only Preserving the other pieces of the bag so that he wouldn’t have to make a new bag every time he came back from whatever adventure he returned from when he came back to Eridanus. But the moss was not holding the bag together, unlike the other components, and if worse came to shove he could always use Host to grow more moss to resupply it. So, no. He would let the moss wither and die naturally, and then just replace it each time he needed to.

Words: 141

Tuck still had a lot of Preserving to do even if he’d decided not to do so on the moss. And, unfortunately, his Magic was running pretty low even when he let it replenish itself for a while. And, being still only a cycle old, all this Magic usage was a bit overwhelming. He was developing a killer headache, and when he cast Preserve on one of the shoulder straps he’d made, the headache only intensified. Maybe he’d have to finish Preserving all of this later… Right now, he honestly wasn’t feeling too hot, and he’d only recently gotten over his poison ivy rash. Maybe he just needed to quit for now.

Words: 112