Food, water & digestion

Eat steadily, not all at once

About half of a meal or a drink reaches your body right away – the bar rises as you swallow. The rest goes into your stomach and digests within about a minute. A few gulps at a well, pump or lake take you from thirsty to well hydrated. Eat too much at once and you feel stuffed; keep going and you vomit and lose what is still in your stomach.

• Hungry or thirsty: your blood recovers more slowly.
• Starving or dehydrated: you start losing health. Both at once is twice as bad.

Choose a safe water source

Wells give clean water. Pond and lake water can give you cholera – purify or boil it first. A bottle you find is often only partly full; refill it at the next well.

What uses up energy and water

Everything you do uses energy and water – sprinting the most. A new character starts half fed and half watered; on the move you need a meal and a drink every hour or two. Water runs out a little faster than energy. Cold makes you burn more energy, heat makes you lose more water, and illness adds to both.

Fruit trees

Apple, pear and plum trees grow in gardens and orchards. Stand under the crown, face the trunk and search the tree: you find up to three fruits – usually fresh, sometimes dried or rotten. Rotten fruit makes you sick. A tree you picked clean bears fruit again after a while; a bare tree has nothing to give.

Cans and cooked food

Open cans with a can opener – other tools spill part of the contents. Cooked meat and fish are far more filling than raw. See fire & cooking.