Traebus jerked awake with a sharp inhale, his body tensing instinctively as if expecting an ambush. His heart pounded in his chest, his mind scrambling to recall what had happened. Had he fallen asleep? That wasn’t part of the plan.


    Blinking against the soft golden light of dawn, he pushed himself upright and took in his surroundings. The fire he had built had long since burned down to a pile of cold ash, a thin wisp of smoke still curling weakly into the air. Around him was the evidence of his exhausted, unconscious handiwork—a neatly stacked pile of crocodile steaks, cleaned bones, and sections of thick, leathery hide.


    He stared at the collection for a long moment before rubbing his face with both hands. "So, I passed out in the middle of butchering a prehistoric monster, and my sleep-deprived body decided to keep working. Great. That''s not alarming at all."


    He groaned and stretched, wincing at the stiffness in his shoulders. At least he hadn''t woken up to something trying to eat him. Small victories.


    His stomach let out a loud, undignified growl, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten anything that wasn’t vaguely plant-based in far too long. He eyed the pile of crocodile steaks, then the dead fire pit, and sighed. "Alright, prehistoric fine dining it is."


    Gathering what little dry wood he could find, he rebuilt the fire, carefully coaxing a spark from his gauntlet without setting himself—or the entire island—on fire. Within minutes, the flames crackled to life, and he skewered a thick slab of meat on a sharpened bone before holding it over the heat.


    The smell hit him first. Rich, smoky, and just greasy enough to make his mouth water. As the edges crisped and juices sizzled into the fire, he let out a dramatic sigh. "I swear, if I ever get back to civilization, I’m opening a restaurant. ‘Traebus’ House of Exotic Meats.’ Magelin stars be damned, I deserve recognition for this."


    When the steak was finally cooked to something resembling a proper meal—charred at the edges, sizzling with its own juices, and smelling far better than anything he had eaten in days—he took a cautious bite. The first chew was slow, testing for any unpleasant surprises, but as the rich, smoky flavor coated his tongue, hesitation gave way to hunger. He took another bite. Then another, faster, until he was devouring the meat with an urgency that bordered on desperation.


    His eyes widened. "Oh. Oh, this is good."


    The smoky, slightly gamey flavor coated his tongue, and for the first time since waking up in this prehistoric nightmare, he actually enjoyed something. He groaned in delight, reclining against the rock. "Alright, maybe getting stranded in a death jungle has some perks."


    He took another massive bite and grinned. "Suck it, fancy chefs. I am the undisputed master of accidental survival cuisine."


    After finishing another steak, Traebus leaned back against the rock, licking the grease from his fingers. His hunger satisfied, for now, his attention shifted to the pile of bones beside him. With a full stomach and a clearer head, it was time to get back to work.


    Sorting through the remains, he picked up one of the longer bones, turning it in his hands. The thick ones would be good for weapons—reinforced spear tips, maybe even a club if he could shape it right. But what he really needed were the smaller, thinner ones. The ones he could carve into proper tools.


    Digging through the pile, he found a few promising candidates. Short, sturdy, and relatively smooth, these could be refined into makeshift picks, prying tools, and even tiny needles to help repair the intricate wiring of his gauntlet and goggles. He let out a breath, rolling one between his fingers. "Well, guess I’m officially a prehistoric engineer now. Just me, a pile of bones, and a desperate need to not die via technological failure."


    With that, he set to work, carefully testing the edges of the bones, figuring out which ones would be easiest to shape. If he was lucky, he’d have at least one usable tool by nightfall.


    The rest of the day was spent hunched over the bones, using the obsidian shard to carefully chip away at their edges. He shaped the smaller ones into fine-tipped tools, carving out makeshift awls, prying picks, and even a crude needle. It was slow, meticulous work, but every small success brought him closer to fixing his gauntlet. His fingers ached, his shoulders stiffened, but he refused to stop until he had something usable.


    By the time he looked up, the sun had dipped below the horizon, casting long, dark shadows across the island. He yawned, rubbing his eyes, exhaustion weighing down on him. With his tools lined up neatly beside him, he finally let himself rest, stretching out near the remains of his fire and closing his eyes. The last thought that flickered through his mind before sleep took him was the image of his gauntlet finally working as it should.


    Morning arrived with the soft glow of dawn creeping over the horizon. Traebus woke with a start, groaning as he pushed himself upright. His body protested every movement, stiff from the awkward sleeping position. He rubbed his face and blinked at the tools beside him, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Alright, time to see if prehistoric craftsmanship can fix advanced magitech. This should be fun."


    Rolling his shoulders, he picked up his tools and turned his attention to the gauntlet. Time to take the damn thing apart and see what could be salvaged.


    He set the gauntlet on a flat rock in front of him, exhaling slowly as he examined its battered exterior. The once-sleek magitech device was now a mess of scrapes, dried mud, and burn marks from his earlier magical mishaps. The mana gem embedded in its center still glowed faintly, a dull red instead of the crisp white it had once been. That alone told him the device was barely holding together.


    With careful precision, he selected a thin bone pick and slid it into the first of several small seam lines along the gauntlet’s plating. He gave it a gentle twist, prying the metal apart just enough to wedge his fingers inside and lift the panel free. The moment it came loose, a cluster of fine, singed wires sprang out like overcooked noodles.


    "Yep. That’s a problem," he muttered, plucking at the frayed mess. Several mana conduits had cracked, their once-smooth cores rough and splintered. The stabilizing runes etched into the plating were scorched, half of them barely legible. The more he examined, the worse it got—tiny gears and arcane circuit pathways were misaligned, some looking like they had been fused together by a magical overload.


    "Honestly, I''m surprised this thing didn’t just explode the last time I tried to use it." He ran a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply. "Alright, let’s see if I can turn this from ‘flammable death trap’ back into ‘mostly functional survival tool.''"


    He rolled his sleeves up, grabbed another prying tool, and carefully began disconnecting the damaged components, his fingers working with slow, deliberate precision. Every removed piece was placed in a neat row beside him, categorized between ‘possibly useful,’ ‘definitely broken,’ and ‘why is this even in here?’


    The inner mechanisms were even more complex than he remembered. Tiny gears, once seamlessly meshed together, were now fused into misshapen lumps of metal. A delicate filament of etched silver, meant to channel refined mana, had been scorched black, its surface fractured like glass. He traced his thumb over the delicate arcane circuitry on the inner plating, grimacing at the charred remnants of stabilizing runes barely clinging to their original form.


    Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.


    Buried deeper in the assembly, several wire-thin conduits, originally designed to regulate mana flow, had either snapped or melted outright, leaving jagged ends curled inward like burnt parchment. Even the power relay—the crucial link between the mana gem and the gauntlet’s functions—had been warped beyond recognition, likely during his last magical mishap.


    Traebus sighed, shaking his head. "I swear, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this thing was actively trying to sabotage me." He pulled another broken wire free and tossed it onto the ‘definitely broken’ pile. "Alright, let’s see if I can turn this disaster into something that doesn’t explode the next time I try to use it."


    Traebus stared at the scattered components for a long moment before running a hand down his face. The more he examined the mess, the clearer it became—this wasn’t a simple repair job. He needed specific parts, high-quality magitech components that weren’t going to just materialize out of thin air. The crude tools he had fashioned would only get him so far, and with the gauntlet in its current state, every attempt to use it was like rolling the dice with his own limbs.


    With a defeated sigh, he set the gauntlet’s casing aside and leaned back against the rock. "Alright. Calling it. You’re officially beyond my ability to jury-rig without making things significantly worse. I may be stupid, but I’m not ‘accidentally turn my own arm into a fireball’ stupid. Again."


    He needed a real solution. Either he’d have to scavenge parts from somewhere—or something—that had technology remotely close to his own, or he’d have to figure out a way to work with the raw materials of this world in a way that wouldn’t end in catastrophic failure. Neither option sounded easy, but at this point, easy had stopped being an expectation the moment he woke up here.


    As he stared at the disassembled gauntlet, a thought struck him. He had been so focused on repairing the device as a whole that he hadn''t considered salvaging individual components. His gaze flicked to the mana conduits and the scorched circuit pathways—most of them were useless in their current state, but a few still held potential.


    Focus rings.


    They were an old-school solution, inefficient and difficult to use compared to a properly working gauntlet, but they would allow him to channel magic manually without risking another explosive failure. If he could repurpose some of the surviving conduits and etch basic stabilization runes into them, he might be able to craft a set of rings that could at least handle simple spells. Nothing fancy—just enough to cast controlled bursts of energy without setting himself on fire again.


    He picked up a relatively intact mana conduit and turned it over in his hands, already considering how to shape it. "Well, it’s not perfect, but considering my other option is ‘die magic-less in a giant lizard-infested wasteland,’ I’ll take it."


    Setting the conduit aside, Traebus returned his attention to the rest of the disassembled gauntlet. He pulled out what remained of the plating—twisted hunks of metal and scorched runic etchings—and arranged them with the other pieces, trying to see if anything else could be repurposed. A few battered cogs, some half-melted coils—every single component had once been part of a finely tuned magitech marvel, but now it looked like a junkyard.


    His gaze fell to the warped casing that had held the mana gem, once a sleek cradle of polished brass and silver filigree. The impact of his last magical mishap had cratered it like a stomped tin can, leaving only scraps of the original craftsmanship intact.


    "Okay," he muttered, running his thumb over a patch of blackened runes. "Note to self: find a better metal source if I ever want to rebuild this. Or, y’know, an entire magical workshop and a lifetime supply of prayers."


    He shook his head. Even if he found some miraculous magitech resource in this land of toothy nightmares, the knowledge alone to rebuild the gauntlet would take months, maybe years, of trial and error. Which he definitely didn’t have.


    Sighing, he picked up one of the small, intact conduits—a thin, translucent tube with residual arcane flow flickering through its length. "Focus rings it is," he said under his breath. "If I can’t rely on a fancy gauntlet, I’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way—one finger at a time.


    From that realization sprang a plan. Gathering up the intact conduits and the burnt scraps of rune-etched plating, he sorted through each piece with meticulous care. He selected four narrower conduit rings, each capable of being shaped to fit around a finger. When linked together with fine wire—salvaged from the less-charred sections of the gauntlet—they could, in theory, form a rudimentary mana channel.


    He got to work, chipping away at the plating with his obsidian shard, carefully shaving off enough material to mold into small loops that would fasten around the conduits. Each ring would need a basic stabilizing engraving, a tiny rune sequence that would keep the wild mana from overloading the fragile conduit. Nothing fancy—just a basic script to say “please don’t explode in my face.”


    By mid-morning, he had the rough shapes of four rings laid out on the rock, each sporting thin lines where he planned to etch runes once he was certain they wouldn’t snap under pressure. The biggest chore was linking them together in a way that would allow mana to flow between all four. He used the least-damaged wires for that, winding the coppery threads through a series of small holes he’d drilled with a bone awl.


    It was painstaking, nerve-wracking work, and more than once he had to stop and remind himself why he was doing this. One slip, one fracture in the conduit, and he might be right back to square one. But the prospect of wielding even a fraction of his usual magic—without risking another gauntlet-scale meltdown—pushed him onward.


    When it was done, the set of four rings looked crude and haphazard, a tangle of scuffed metal, mismatched wire, and scuffed crystals. But it was his best shot at controlling any kind of spell. He held one up, squinting at it in the daylight. "Alright, you old-school workaround, please, please don’t make me regret this."


    Taking a steadying breath, he slipped the rings onto his fingers—one for each digit, plus a connecting wire that hugged the back of his hand. The crude assembly felt awkward at best, like wearing stiff metal bandages, but he tried to focus on the faint hum of mana coursing through the conduits.


    "Let’s see if you can at least help me move a rock without blowing up," he muttered, setting his gaze on a fist-sized stone nearby. Slowly, he extended his hand toward it, reaching inward for the primal magic of this strange world. The gem’s dull red glow flickered through the wire, responding to his will.


    For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a soft crackle, the stone trembled. Traebus’ heart thudded in his chest as he coaxed more mana through the makeshift rings. The stone rose, ever so slightly, wobbling unsteadily in midair.


    He let out a laugh—short, disbelieving, and triumphant all at once. "I’ll be damned. It’s—"


    The stone jerked sideways, nearly slamming into his shin before he yelped and cut the flow of mana. It clattered to the ground, rolling a few feet before coming to rest.


    "Well, it’s something," he gasped, flexing his sore fingers. "Better than nothing, right? Now, to work on that whole ‘precision’ thing..."


    He set the stone aside, wiping sweat from his brow before letting his gaze wander over the expanse of rugged terrain around him. The massive stone spires, jagged and imposing, jutted upward like the ribs of some ancient beast, creating natural corridors through which the wind howled softly. He noticed a particularly narrow gap between two of the taller formations, just wide enough to walk through if he turned sideways. Beyond it, the rocky ground rose steeply, forming a sort of barricade against the rest of the island.


    Traebus narrowed his eyes, mind already working through possibilities. If he could fortify those gaps—or at least funnel any potential threats into a single approach—he might turn this precarious island into something resembling a fortress. Sure, it was no castle, but one solid choke point could mean the difference between survival and getting chomped in the night.


    He stood, absently fidgeting with the makeshift rings on his fingers. "A single entrance... maybe two if I’m feeling generous. Nothing says ''stay out'' like a very large rock wall and a half-functional wizard."


    In his imagination, he pictured cobbled-together barriers made from fallen logs and thick vines, maybe sharpened stakes around the perimeter. Perhaps even a small watch platform perched atop one of the more stable outcroppings. Granted, the actual implementation of that plan was going to be… well, a lot of sweat and swearing, but at least it was an idea.


    With a renewed sense of purpose, he glanced back at the stone he’d levitated. "Step one, figure out how not to fling rocks randomly. Step two, build a place that might keep me safe long enough to see this all through." He snorted, giving the ring assembly a gentle tap.


    "Then again, first I should make sure these rings don’t kill me in my sleep."