Thread by @games_shell, You wake alone in a dark forest. Beside you are a backpack, [...]

You wake alone in a dark forest. Beside you are a backpack, a sword, and fire about to die out. As soon as you are fully awake, you immediately:

You toss a handful of twigs onto the dying embers, prop the scattered remains of logs close around them, and blow. As the flames crackle to life, the light glints off a pair of eyes, low in the nearby brush, as -something- slowly retreats. You:

The backpack is worn but sturdy. Inside it you find a book bound in blank leather, a pouch full of gold coins, some bitter-smelling strips of what look like dried meat, and a map. None of these items are familiar to you. As you have no use for the coins at present, you:

Since feeding an unknown animal coins or paper seems unlikely to succeed, you take the bitter-smelling strips out of the backpack. Hmmm. What to do with them, exactly?

After a time the eyes appear again in the underbrush. You hear deep, wet, snuffling sounds, then a low growl. A huge, shaggy, hunchbacked wild canid appears. It devours the strips with razor-sharp teeth and then, no longer afraid of the fire, stalks toward you. You:

"Good booyyy," you say to the huge, hungry, unafraid wild carnivore, showing it your empty hands. Inexplicably, it lunges for your jugular. The last thing you notice is the odd bitter smell on its breath.

Would you like to try again?

You wake alone in a dark forest. Beside you are a backpack, a sword, and fire about to die out. As soon as you are fully awake, you immediately:

You toss a handful of twigs onto the dying embers, prop the scattered remains of logs close around them, and blow. As the flames crackle to life, the light glints off a pair of eyes, low in the nearby brush, as -something- slowly retreats. You:

The backpack is worn but sturdy. Inside it you find a book bound in blank leather, a pouch full of gold coins, some bitter-smelling strips of what look like dried meat, and a map. None of these items are familiar to you. As you have no use for the coins at present, you:

It's a journal, about one-fifth filled with unfamiliar handwriting. The latest entry reads, "Five miles south of Yearning. Found a human, unconscious. Made them comfortable, made a fire, but they won't wake, and I'm worried about shadow wolves. Going to try poisoned bait."

The map is professionally drawn & scaled, titled WEST GLOOMWEALD. 5 miles S of a dot labeled YEARNING someone has scrawled an X. From the journal, you assume this is your camp. To the SE of the X is a river, and to the W, mountains. To the E, oddly, someone has scrawled "SW."

It belongs to "Magara of the Boarblood
Clan," in training to become a "Dreadknight." The entries are terse and dull, mostly logs of workouts and combat practice. There is mention of Eye-Piercer, a beloved longbow, and someone they care about named Yulg in the town of Yearning.

You shore up the fire a bit and settle down, using the backpack as a pillow. It's a bit chilly, but the fire keeps you warm enough to relax and doze a bit until the impenetrable darkness around you turns gray with the dawn.

YOU HAVE REACHED A SAVE POINT! To be continued...

By the dawn's light you get a better look at the dense wooded area: a sort of jungle, from the look of it. Your fire smolders low, and your head rests on the backpack. You're thirsty and a little peckish. Visibility isn't bad, aside from the tangled foliage. You:

You're feeling a bit hungry, and decide to deal with that first. There are bitter-smelling strips of dried meat in Magara's backpack, and you can now see well enough to explore the immediate area for other possibilities.

You explore near camp, keeping the dying fire in sight. You startle a large gray rodent that was gorging on berry-laden brambles, and take your cue from its gluttony. The berries are bland and seedy, but edible. Feeling a bit more energetic, you plot your next move.

From the map and journal, you know the town is 5 miles north of the campsite. You have never heard of YEARNING or WEST GLOOMWEALD and are pretty sure they're nowhere near where you're from. All you see from here are trees, ferns, underbrush, vines, and more trees.

You plant a stick vertically in a spot where it will cast a shadow, and with two stones, mark two different endpoints of the shadow as it moves. You use the stones to plot a straight line, then turn 90 degrees counterclockwise from its direction. That should be close enough.

Is there anything else you'd like to do before you leave the camp?

You shoulder the backpack and start heading in the direction you've determined to be north. The sun climbs slowly, the morning mist clears, and you begin to notice occasional signs of logging or trapping, but no town yet. You're very thirsty.

You're not sure how long it's been since you had water, but don't want to take chances with your survival. You decide the best way to find a water source would be to:

The slope of the land here is subtle and view distance limited by trees, but after bringing your attention to it and walking around a bit you determine that you've been walking slightly uphill since you left camp.

After another hour or so of walking through thinning forest you find yourself skirting the edge of a tilled field, green with some unripe crop you do not recognize under an azure sky. Beyond it you glimpse the roofs of a town, but you see no chimney smoke or signs of activity.

Scanning the journal for mentions of the town, you find this, which seems relevant:

"REMINDER: DO NOT ENTER or nock at any bilding in Yearning besides inn before sundown. Elves cranky when wokened, almost had to kill farmer in self defence."

Armed with this information, you:

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