I wake up to the sound of birds chirping outside my window. I sit up slowly, rubbing my eyes. Once up, I stretch and yawn – getting ready for a day that I just know will be a good one. I must not be fully awake yet because the first two steps I make, I trip over my rucksack, stubbing my toe on the blunt end of the axe. Whew... at least I didn't get the sharp end. But that still really hurt, I think to myself and I stoop over and rub my big toe. I never noticed before how heavy these tools are... why did I not notice this yesterday when I carried them on my back during the hike over here? I guess I had more strength yesterday or was excited to get over here or something. But now that I'm here... it doesn't seem as grand as I thought. I shake my head. I have got to get these thoughts out of my head. I like the farm, I really do. I guess I just feel kind of lonely.. I've always been around somebody. I lift my head. Yeah! All I have to do is go and meet people and I'm sure I'll be fine! In my little moment of glory, I pick up my rucksack, struggling to lift it and work it on my back, and head for the door. I fling the door open wide and stand there with my hands resting on my hips. Taking in a deep breath, I step triumphantly out the doorway. To my complete and utter surprise, there stands a man, right beside me. My reaction being a very quick jump away and making a very strange noise that even I didn't know I could make. The man had darker skin and short dark hair. He is kind of old, but it seems like he still gets around pretty well. I know he means no harm, but he should really know from now on not to startle me. I try to start a conversation because he had an odd look on his face, as if he had no idea what to do now.

"Hi, I'm Jill. I just moved in the farm right here." I try to give him a cheery smile, still shaken up about the incident.

"I'm Takakura." he replied, holding out a hand for me to shake.

He's an old man like I have never seen before. He wears a tank top and he has a couple tattoos on his upper arm. He still has quite a bit of muscle too. I wonder if he runs a ranch around here too!

"Hey, it's very nice to meet you. Do you live around here?" I avoided saying his name, because I knew I would not get it right. I'd have to hear it a few more times before I get it right.

"Yes I do live around here. Very close actually. You see, I live at that house right there." he replies as he points to the house I was about to inquire Claire about the day before. Oh! So HE'S the one who lives there! Wow, two surprises for me in one morning. Lucky me.

"Oh cool, I was actually wondering who lived there, if anybody... but now I know." I smile at him.

"Well, I guess I'll let you go on your way. I was just coming over here to introduce myself, but I must have scared the living daylights out of you. I'm sorry." With that he begins to walk away. That whole time, his face didn't show any emotion whatsoever, but his words sounded sincere. His voice was kind of husky so it was a little hard to understand a few words he said.

I start to go towards town again, after I saw that Takakura went back inside his house. I pass by it, admiring the way it is built. ...why is it different than the tool shed and.. the other building? My house is built the same way as his but not the other two. Oh yeah, the other building, I might as well go and see what's inside it. I open the door and peer inside carefully, not even sure this building belongs to me. It looks farm-ish so it must be mine. I walk the rest of the way in and am not exactly sure what I'm looking at. There is a basket and a cooler thing. I open them and they're both empty.

"What's this for?" I ask myself. "There's nothing here! What good is this? I could store stuff in it at least..." I begin to realize how lonely I am starting to get if I talk to myself.

I leave the tiny building and exit the farm, wondering where to start. I decide to go across the bridge that we came on the way over here. I hear bickering, but don't really want to get involved in it. If I do, they'd make me pick sides and that would not be a very good start to getting people to like me here, so I just continue walking. They were two girls' voices. Their voices get louder and louder until I hear one scream some nonsense phrase, and then the voices stopped. I finally look to the left – where the voices were coming from – and see a girl with long wavy pale blond hair holding a broomstick. The girl seems panicked and rushes over to me.

"Umm.. hey.. person. Have you seen a girl with really long green hair pass through here, by chance?" Broomsticks? Green hair? What kind of town have I moved into?

"No... I haven't.." I replied to her, giving her a weird look, I'm sure.

"Oh.. okay." She starts to fly away on her little broomstick thing. I want to seem nice to the people here, and that means everybody, so I try to help.

"Hey, wait! Can I help you look for her?"

She turns around quickly "Oh that would be great! You see..." She looks down "I think I might have... possibly.... maybe sent her off to another dimension."

I stand there with my mouth gaping open.

"...not only her, but also her little people, too. All like, hundred of them. ...and it would be very much appreciated if you would help me find them."

"How do I do that?" I asked.

"Well... you kinda have to find them by doing different things... and once you have some, you can get the Harvest Goddess back."

These little people don't sound important, but a Harvest Goddess? She does... I could try to save her I guess. I wouldn't have to find too many of these people, right?

"How many do I need to find, exactly, to get the Harvest Goddess back?"

"..sixty." She looks away.

"Sixty!?" Okay. Don't freak out. I can do this.

"So... will you help?" She asked with a little helplessness in her voice.

I nod. "Yeah. I'll try." What have I just gotten myself into?

"The thing is... this has actually happened before. The farmer who owned the ranch before you was also put into your situation. I think that's why he left."

Well this news sure is comforting. Why didn't Takakura say anything about this? "R-really? Well, I'm not going to give up. I will save her." I smile "By the way, who are you?"

"Me? Why, I am none other than the Witch Princess." She gives a cunning smile as she mysteriously vanishes into thin air. I plop on the ground as I try to discern whether all this is real or not. When I hit the ground, I hear a tiny yelp. Did I just sit on a dog? I look behind me to find... I don't really know what. He kind of looked like a little wizard, cape and all. Hey, could this be one of those little people that the Witch Princess was talking about?

"Oh I'm sorry! Did I sit on you?" I don't know why I'm talking to it, I'm not even sure if it can talk.

"Oh yes, I'm fine." He answered, his hands scanning the ground for something. "Could you help me find my glasses? I seem to have lost them." I look over next to my foot and see miniature glasses, with lenses about the size of bottlecaps. They have a strange swirly design on them, however. I pick them up and hand them to this very small person. He squints and stretches out his tiny little arms as far as they can go to retrieve them. I, honestly, don't know how he can see through those things, but whatever works for him. He stands up and dusts himself off. "Honestly, that Witch Princess, did she really have to go and send us off again? All of us haven't even made it back yet from last time! I swear, one day..."

I get quite amused at hearing this little person go on, but I decide to interrupt him, "So, you must be one of the little people that got sent to another dimension!"

He chuckles, having gotten used to being called all sorts of names, "We are called Harvest Sprites, and yes I am indeed one of those 'little people' you are referring to."

"Oh, I'm sorry, the Witch Princess just called you that so... that's just what I thought you were called."

He laughs. "It's okay, I am just very grateful to you for having found me. Tell you what. When you find more of us Harvest Sprites, we'll appear at the big tree over there." He points down a path, and I just nod, acting like I know what's down there. "You can stop by anytime, and we'll help you with your farm work if you'd like."

"Thank you very much!"

"Well, I guess I'll be going now." He started to poof away but stopped. "Oh I'm Guts. It's been nice meeting you, Jill." He starts to fade again and stops again. "Oh one last thing, you're the only one who can see us Harvest Sprites, so the job of saving the Harvest Goddess lies completely on your shoulders." He smiles. "No pressure or anything." He disappears this time for good. How did he know my name? I don't remember ever telling HIM my name...

Down the path I see a strange tent, so I walk towards it. It sits in front of a cliff and next to a river with a beautiful waterfall descending down the cliff. On the side of the wall I see an entrance to something that looks like a cave. And in front of it I see a tarp thing with stairs that go down. There is digging equipment outside so I'm guessing that's some kind of dig site. Well this place looks cool. Wonder who lives here. My question is immediately answered by two people exiting the tent. One of them is a girl with wavy blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. She wears glasses and is covered in dirt. The other is a somewhat large man with black hair and quite a bit of facial hair. He also has glasses, but his are very small. He goes as far as the digging equipment before he sees me, and he stabs his shovel in the ground and rests an arm on the handle. "Hey! You must be the new farmer we've all been hearing about"

Wow, am I really that popular? "Y-yes I am. I'm Jill." I almost held out my hand to shake his, but I kept it back for fear of what all would be on his hands because he, too, had dirt all over him.

"I'm Carter. It's nice to meet you!" He holds out his hand anyways. I shake his hands and he has a very firm handshake. Now normally I like firm handshakes but this time I'd rather it wasn't so I wouldn't get the dirt ground in my hand. The girl heads towards the dig site. I know she saw me, but she must not be fond of new people, I'm guessing.

"Flora! Come here and introduce yourself to Jill! She's the new farmer!" Carter yells towards the girl. She comes over and introduces herself.

"Hi.. I'm Flora~" She has a very soft voice. It wasn't what I was expecting for this tough-looking girl.

"Hey, I'm Jill." I give her a smile. I'm just glad to find that that Takak.-whatever-his-name-is isn't the only normal person here. Flora starts to walk to the dig site again and Carter, trying to find something to say, looks at me.

"I think Flora wants to show you to the dig site!" He said, louder than he should seeing as I'm standing right next to him. He probably just wanted to get Flora's attention. She stops dead in her tracks and turns around slowly, looking like she doesn't want to do this, but does anyways.

"Umm.. sure..." She waits for me to get right behind her then she continues down the stairs. The inside is quite a bit cooler than the outside. She immediately walks over towards a wall, stoops down, and begins to dig. The inside is bigger than what I was expecting and there are a few scattered lanterns to light up the site. Not knowing what to do, seeing as I don't have a shovel, I just awkwardly stand in the middle of the dig spots.

"So.... do you come down here a lot" I ask, trying to spark a conversation.

"Yeah, either here or the cave." She answers abruptly and as if she doesn't even care. Finally she turns around, "Okay sorry if I seem to be rude, but I'm just kind of in a rush to get some things dug and sold. This is our income and we haven't been digging or mining for a few days and we desperately need this, so.. I guess I'm a bit stressed is all." She smiles. "I'm not normally this bad, I promise. And Carter normally helps me, but I don't know what he's doing right now. He needs to get his butt down here and help if he wants to keep getting meals from me every day. ...ugh, could you please go up and see what he is doing?"

"Sure" I answer, leaving to go up the stairs. My mouth drops and my head tilts to the side, not expecting to see what he's doing. Automatically turn and go back down the stairs. Flora turns around and asks, "So? What was he doing?"

"..I'm really not sure. He was standing by the river near the waterfall with his eyes closed and his arms up in the air. Was he meditating or something?" I start to think out loud.

She sighs. "Yeah.. he does that. I don't even know why. Well could you tell him to get down here and help?"

"Umm... I don't really want to disturb anything..."

"Okay, I'll do it." She walks to the base of the steps. "CARTER! GET YOUR LAZY BUTT DOWN HERE!" She yells and the lanterns shake.

We hear a faint yell back. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" Soon, he enters the site too. "Do you want to help, Jill? You'll get to keep whatever you find?" Flora gives him an aggravated look.

"Sure?" I take the small hand shovel that he hands me.

A few hours later, I am satisfied with what all I found. I found some coins, a few strange statue things, and a weird tablet thing that looks really cool. I'll look at it closer when I get home. Right before I leave, I hand Carter back my shovel and he asks to see what I found before I leave. I show him everything and he lets me keep everything... except for the cool tablet. Bummer.

I step outside and the sun isn't setting yet, but it looks like it's about to. I make my way to the bridge, remembering my encounter with the Harvest Sprite. They haven't all been found yet, huh? OH! I wonder... I begin to go to the passage towards Mineral Town where I heard a strange noise coming from a tree before. Once there, I look up in the suspected tree and find a harvest sprite! It hops down.

"Thank you for finding me! My name's Jackie. I'll go back to the tree to tell everybody that I'm found, but I think I'll stay here, I really like this spot." With that, he poofed. The sun really starts to set now and it is just beautiful. Looking back on my day.. I really didn't do much at all. I should probably go home now and get to bed early so I can do a lot more tomorrow. I pass the farm place, and decide that is the first place that I will go tomorrow. Other than the farm and Carter and Flora's place, it looks like I've introduced myself to everybody on this side of the river. Before entering my house and going to the bed, I go to the... small building that has the baskets. I really need to name that building... I need to name it something strange so that I can remember it. I back away from it and stare at it a good while, trying to come up with a name. It's skinniness makes it look really tall and tower-like. I smile. I should call it my Eiffel Tower. Just thinking about that name makes me laugh. Yep, that name's stuck. So, then I enter my Eiffel Tower and put my dig finds into the basket that I figured out is for shipping. I yawn and stretch and go to my house. Before changing into my pj's I look at the pictures on my dresser and remember how much I miss my parents. While still thinking about them, I go lay down and drift to sleep, dreaming about them. Dreaming about my dad being alive and us all living together in my first house in my hometown.