Year 8, Day 195

The landscapes and shorelines are very different on this northern side of the tideless sea. Not only is the ocean bottom so jumbled it produces a maze of inlets and islands, the land mass to the west is cut into a similar form, with peninsulas and water surrounding a mountainous interior. Farther west, the coast again trends northward and west.

wild boar

Wild Boar (photo credit)

The animals differ, as well. There are creatures like zebras, but only faintly striped and making quite different sounds. Others vaguely resemble buffalo, while still others look rather like antelope with branched horns, or warthogs without the warts.

The trees are similar to those I’ve been seeing since well north of the salt lake, including two varieties with large seeds which are now turning from green to brown and dropping to the forest floor. The warthogs-without-warts were gobbling them up with great enthusiasm, so I put samples of both types in my collecting bag. Given their tusks, I was glad of the warnoff.

It was close to evening and I was resting with my back against a tree when one of the hogs came staggering into the clearing where I sat, straight towards me. Blood was dripping from its mouth, and while I was not sure whether it was its own or if it had used those formidable tusks on another, I stopped its heart in self-defense. Warnoffs don’t always work on an animal already in a blood-lust.

What to do with the carcass? Warthogs can be good eating if they have been feeding on seeds and fruit, though if they have been eating carrion or fish – well, I prefer my fish first hand. If this one had been eating the large seeds, however ….

I decided to see what Rainbow could do with it, and teleported the hog, which turned out to be a fairly young sow, to her.