Brokirus's Scavenging Escapade: A Reluctant Necessity

Ahh, sweet sweet sunlight, thinks Brokirus as he lays atop his floating iceberg home. Currently, he is partaking in his favorite pastime: sunbathing. Oh, and sleeping; he loves sleeping too. Brokirus grumbles as he rolls over to the opposite side, scratching his belly with a flipper. Before long he drifts back into his slumber, lulled to sleep by the gulls flying overhead and the seals in the distance. About an hour passes before he wakes up again, somewhat confused by his current ambiance. Gulls and birds are somewhat normal, but seals...seals normally tend to avoid his iceberg. Broki eats seals, one of his favorite foods. Why does he hear seals then?

Broki rolls over again, grumbling as he does so. He drifts off into sleep again, too lazy to investigate the potential food source. But wait, if he can hear seals… and they’re not on his ‘berg…that must mean there’s another ice shelf nearby, or a beach. That means potential resources he might need. Since he has made his home on a drifting iceberg, resources can be hard to come by sometimes so he must collect when he can. Even if he much prefers to laze around and nap and sunbathe.

Broki grumbles once more, actually waking up this time. He lets out a big sigh, opening his eyes to take in his surroundings. In the distance, slowly getting further away, he can make out… a beach. Sighing again, he rolls over onto his belly and makes his way to the water. He swims down into the opening he created in the iceberg, following the tunnel into a room inside the iceberg to inspect his stores of resources. He is running low. Not low enough to constitute an emergency, but low nevertheless. 

Hmph, I suppose some scavenging wouldn’t hurt. He slowly makes his way out and towards the beach. As he gets closer, he looks for any pieces of driftwood along the seafloor but finds nothing. Some small pieces, very small pieces, nothing inherently useful. No shells either, so onto the beach he must go. Broki sighs, releasing superheated bubbles from his nostrils. He was really hoping he could avoid the beach and exert the least amount of energy possible.

Brokirus flops onto the beach, the seals give him a wide berth getting away from him as he goes higher up the beach.

I guess I’ll start up here and work my way down. At first, he begins looking for any feathers or bones in the upper parts of the beach. There doesn’t seem to be any wood up here, beach seeming to run into a large grassland with very little, if any, trees in sight. Not even any animal carcasses up here, so the beach doesn’t seem to be patrolled by any terrestrial predators. Not at first glance at least. Broki does eventually find some nice looking shells, however therein lies a problem…he forgot basket or container of any sort. With that in mind, he can’t really collect any of the smaller resources. He ponders going back to the ‘berg and getting a container, but decides to stay to look for anything larger to bring back first. He could try to shoot down birds with a blast of steam in order to collect feathers, but that had better wait until he gets back in the water. Easier to aim than on land. 

Looks like it’s just going to be driftwood for now, at least until I can get a container. He thinks. Broki returns to combing the beach, looking for any larger pieces of driftwood. 

Cool shells, a few feathers, I think I might’ve seen a shark tooth earlier, but nothing else. Only smaller pieces of driftwood. I woke up from my nap for this? I should’ve kept sunbathing. He grumbles, I guess I’ll bundle up some of the smaller pieces of driftwood and head back for a basket. With that, Broki begins gathering up the smaller pieces of driftwood to take back to the ‘berg. He collects what he can from the pile with his maw, and begins the trek back to the water and his home. Some sticks do fall out on his way to the water, but not enough to grumble about. He grumbles anyway. Broki reaches the water, and swims back to the iceberg. He deposits the sticks on top of the ‘berg, and grabs a basket from down below. Once he reaches the surface of the water, he looks into the sky to discern the time of day. To his great dismay, it is late afternoon/evening, no more sunbathing today. Grumbling, he makes his way back to the beach. Determined to return with more useful resources.