I spent the next two to three hours cutting down and replanting trees, then taking my haul back to the safehouse and loading up the furnaces, till I had them all full. I then had a brainwave and broke down a few cars for the metal and set up an extra furnace to smelt chunks of steel in. A few hours later of that and I grinned at my shiny new steel hoppers.

I was hoping that since I was able to use steel as a substitute for a bucket, the same would work for hoppers, and it turns out I was right. I set them up around the extra furnace along with some chests to act as input for fuel, items, and output for the finished product. I showed it to Julian, who gave it a test run, and we found out that with him using the chests rather than manually inputting the items into the furnace itself, it bypassed his need to use a torch to light the furnace to make it work.

That wasn't the only thing I ended up doing though. During the time while I was waiting for the steel to smelt in the furnace, along with cutting down trees to fill up the other furnaces for charcoal production, I quickly grew frustrated at the rate of regrowth for the saplings. Namely, like the furnaces, they're much slower than normal Minecraft, so while I've replanted plenty, it's been faster to just go farther afield to cut down more trees.

I caught myself wishing for a source of bonemeal at that point and realized I really need a mob farm. I'm not about to make a tower style right now though, not out of wood anyway, so I ended up going for one of the smaller designs, a simple U shaped enclosed hallway with the inner part of the U partly open with slabs, allowing for a crack along the bottom to see into, but not enough to let light in to stop the spawning from happening.

Keeping in mind that I don't know what the maximum range is that will stop mobs from spawning, and that wood is my only renewable resource right now, I made it out of wood and put it in a parking lot a good distance away from the safehouse, but still within sight of it.

After showing Julian the new furnace setup and pointing out the mob farm to him and letting him know what it is, he looked at the building with a bit of worry then muttered, "I think I'll steer clear of the place if it's not too much trouble."

"That's fine." I replied, "How are the kilns coming along?"

"They're done," Julian answered, gesturing to the two sitting out in the sun. "Just a day or two for them to dry and set and we can test them out."

I nodded. "In that case, since we have time to kill, I'm going to do what I can with the blocks I have available and expand the safehouse a bit."

"I thought you were waiting for stone?" Julian asked, confused.

"Well, I figured that, since my main worry is lightning striking the place and setting it on fire, all I really need to do is make the roof out of stone. The rest can be made out of wood, at least until we do have stone to work with." I responded.

Julian seemed to think about that for a moment, then nodded. "That seems reasonable. Most houses are made the same way anyway, I think. Though with roofing tile rather than stone. Do you have a plan for what you're going to build?"

"For now, I'm looking to just make a set of rooms that'll be useful for us. I figure the first room off the entrance will be a sitting room with chairs and the like, with a set of stairs leading up to a living room with the couch and TV, a kitchen/dining room built off of that, two bedrooms, a bathroom, then another set of stairs up to a workshop with the furnaces, item storage, and a lookout. The roof'll have an open space for projects that need room, plus a small garden of vegetables and other crops that we haven't set up fields for. I figure that'll do to start with." I explained.

Julian nodded along thoughtfully. "You've certainly given this some thought. That all sounds fine to me as well. My only concern is if we can't raise the safehouse a bit higher, enough so that if any of those Creepers blow up, they can't take out the floor beneath us. That, and finding a way to stop the spiders from getting up here…"

"I can take care of the former fairly easily. Just raise it up to ten, maybe fifteen meters off the ground, and we should be safe, though if we somehow fall off, it'll be pretty bad. Plus it'll be really obvious that the house is floating, which if I recall correctly, nearly sent you running the moment you saw that." I pointed out, which Julian agreed with a nod, while I thought aloud. "Suppose I built up the walls around the place to hide the fact… so long as they're spaced far enough, it should stop any spiders from jumping from the wall to the house and make it less obvious to anyone looking there's a floating house inside…"

"Could work," Julian agreed.

"As for the spiders…" I trailed off, grimacing. "I'm not sure what to do to make the house spider proof to be honest. Normally in Minecraft I'd just make a lip on the wall and that would be enough since they can't climb past it thanks to being incapable of clinging upside down, but I've already seen these things climb up from the underside of the alcove where the furnaces currently are, so that's out. They can turn sideways so we can't just rely on single meter wide entrances to keep them out. Aside from that… I'm not sure."

"Well, if Minecraft doesn't have an answer, perhaps some normal pest control methods will work?" Julian offered.

"It actually might be doable if I had some redstone to set up traps, like a pressure plate or button on the wall triggered by the spider that would trigger a piston, launching it off the wall and to its death down below…" I replied.

"We don't have redstone though," Julian pointed out.

"Currently, yes, that's true," I admitted, shrugging. "What other options are you thinking of?"

"Aside from spikes or barbed wire?" Julian asked rhetorically, "My first thought is to use something slippery that would prevent the spider from climbing up it."

I hummed thoughtfully. "That has potential. Slime blocks could do it maybe, but getting access to slime is another of those things that I'm not really sure about, apart from digging deep enough or hiking through the swamps, hoping for one to appear."

"What about water?" Julian asked.

"That…" I started to refute before trailing off. "…May or may not work."

"Why's that?" Julian asked.

"In game, Minecraft was limited in identifying what configuration water is actually in. Default is to simply be able to swim up water as it's most likely part of a river, lake, or ocean. Problem is that also applies to waterfalls. So while washing away a spider with a spray of water would normally work, in this case it might just make an easy way for mobs to 'climb' up and get into the house."

Julian stared at me, nonplussed. After a few moments, he asked, "Do you mean to tell me that if you set your mind to it, you could swim up a waterfall?"

I nodded. "Most everything in Minecraft can."

Julian opened and closed his mouth a few times, then shut it and shook his head. "I don't know why I even seem surprised at this point… between potentially annihilating matter and casually breaking the laws of thermodynamics, bending physics over your knee should be par for the course at this point."

I snorted and shrugged. "Well we already figured out that not all of my knowledge from the game is accurate. Perhaps this is one of the things I can't do, and it'd be safe to attempt washing spiders and other mobs off the walls."

"Speaking of…" Julian brought up, then hesitated.

"What?" I asked curiously.

"Well it's just that the other day, you said you sensed through your powers that you wouldn't be able to do anything with water flow when you were first explaining it to me, then a few days after that you were scooping it up with a bucket. If you sensed that you couldn't do anything with it directly and that proved false…" Julian said, his tone confused and slightly uncomfortable, "…I wasn't going to say anything, but it's been bugging me for a while…"

I sighed and shrugged. "I told you what I thought was correct at the time based off of what I knew. Turns out I was wrong. Thing is… I know exactly how water behaves in Minecraft, and while I call it water source and water flow, the game doesn't actually differentiate the two. To the game, it's just water. To my senses, it's just water, and I didn't expect anything different. But this is real life, and I'm not only flying blind, but I'm running the risk that anything I know of from the game might actually be wrong or misunderstood."

"And that's what happened here?" Julian asked.

"Pretty much," I said, shrugging again. "I thought it had some of the same properties as water flow and didn't realize it till you pointed it out. I already know I shouldn't assume anything, but in this case I didn't even think about it."

"So what do we know about water here then?" Julian asked, "Is there anything else different about it?"

"All I know is that, based on what I've observed up to this point, water can be scooped up by a bucket and once it's placed it acts as a regular placed block of Minecraft water, which I call water source. That water source outputs water. Just plain old water. I can scoop it up into a bucket even if its less than a kiloliter of water, until I get a sum total of a kiloliter in that bucket, and since it's just water, if I get a kiloliter of it and place it in world, it will act as a new water source." I answered. "Anything else I know about it is conjecture based off the way I think it'll work and what I know from the game, which may be wrong."

"Do you think you could get a water source if you tried to place less than a full bucket of water in the world?" Julian asked.

"That's assuming I even CAN place less than a bucket of water into the world," I replied, dubious.

"Well, only one way to find out," Julian pointed out.

I nodded and quickly made a rectangular reservoir of space to hold some water. I then grabbed a bucket of water from the main reservoir and dumped it into the new one. It then quickly filled up the other block of space with water.

Realizing that ruins the point of attempting to get less water than a kiloliter for this test, I quickly removed the water source, but paused when the other filled block of water quickly dropped by half as it rushed to fill the suddenly empty space.

"Well, confirmation that the water output by water source isn't just more water source is nice." I muttered. I then looked back to the main reservoir. "What if that's really just two water source and regular water along side it? It looks the same, but that doesn't really confirm that it's all water source…"

"Something to test next after this one?" Julian questioned, to which I nodded.

Dumping the water in the bucket back into the main reservoir, I then scooped up half a kiloliter of water out of the new test reservoir. Once again the water halved to fill the space. I quickly placed then broke blocks to get rid of what water was in there, then attempted to place what was in my bucket into one side of the now empty reservoir.

Interestingly, and to my surprise, the water did actually place properly. What wasn't a surprise was when the water repeated what happened before and dropped by half to fill the space.

"Well, I suppose that settles that. No water sources from buckets that are less than a kiloliter in size." I commented.

"That's too bad. There goes my idea of ever full water bottles then," Julian responded with a sigh.

I blinked as I followed his logic, then frowned at the lost opportunity myself. "That would've been handy…"

"…Can you drink from a bucket?" Julian asked.

I looked at the small representation of the full sized bucket in my hand dubiously, then shrugged. "For science!" I declared, then tipped the lip to my mouth and took a sip.

"Well?" Julian asked.

"No go," I replied, "The bucket is less full than it was before I drank some of the water out of it, so it's not going to act as an ever full source of water either."

"Damn," Julian muttered.

"To be fair, that doesn't really stop it from being at least a semi-portable infinite source of water," I pointed out.

"For you it is," Julian responded, "I can't place blocks, remember?"

"Ah yeah… Well, we still have an infinite source of potable water. That's got to count for something, right?" I asked, looking on the bright side.

"That's true," Julian replied, perking up. "So how were you going to test if the main reservoir is all infinite water source?"

"By removing one of the original infinite water source," I replied, emptying my bucket of the water currently in it, then moving to put action to words, only to pause, chagrined.

"…What?" Julian asked, after a few moments of my inaction.

"…I… don't actually remember which blocks in here were the original water source…" I muttered.

Julian got a funny look on his face, like he was holding in a laugh, and shook his head. "You could just expand the test reservoir…"

"Ah yeah, good point," I said, doing just that. I then grabbed a single water source block out of the main reservoir and placed it in the test one, then grabbed a second one and placed it in the opposite corner. I then removed one of the source blocks, only for the water to quickly fill in the empty space.

"…Well, that was pointless…" I replied, dejected.

"What do you mean? That told us exactly what you said it would be, four water source blocks." Julian replied, before continuing, "Actually you could get the same result from the main reservoir now that I think about it…"

"I don't get it. What'd I miss?" I asked, when he trailed off.

"Pull another block of water source out of the reservoir and watch the two adjacent water blocks closely," Julian instructed.

Curious, I did as he said, emptying the bucket into the main reservoir and scooping out a new block of water from where I'd originally placed a source block. Once again, the water quickly filled in to replace the water I'd just removed.

"See? In the previous tests, the water that wasn't water source behaved the way you'd expect regular water to, dropping in level to flow into the empty space nearby." Julian explained. "Water source doesn't do that. Water just seems to pour out of it without any noticeable drop in its water level."

I blinked, then emptied the bucket again and picked up the block of water once more. "Hey, you're right! The two adjacent blocks of water aren't dropping at all! Just pouring water straight into the empty space!"

Julian nodded. "Which means they're water source blocks. So your infinite water source exploit from the game works here."

"Good to know," I said with a small relieved sigh. "At least some of my in-game knowledge is accurate…"

"I'd say more than just some," Julian replied, "but the devil's in the details I suppose."

"Any other tests you can think of?" I asked, curious.

"Plenty, but none we can accurately do at the moment," Julian replied with a sigh.

"Such as?" I prompted.

"Well, temperature is the easiest." Julian commented, "Does water source retain the temperature it had when it became water source?"

"You mean like, if we boil a kiloliter of water, so it's hot, then scoop it out and place it with a bucket as a new water source, will it stay hot?" I clarified.

Julian nodded. "That's the easiest. The one I'm most concerned with is contamination. If you throw dirt into water source, does it slough off with the water, or will the water produced by that water source be forever contaminated? Testing that will be important in case we have to worry about water source getting dirty over time."

I made a face. "Yeah, that's part of why I've been enclosing the main reservoir when not in use." I replied, immediately placing blocks to seal away the main reservoir again.

"Unfortunately that would only slow the contamination rather than stop it." Julian pointed out. "I won't really feel safe about it until we have a water source block in a sealed container with a nozzle that only lets water flow out of it. Though having a water source that's perpetually boiling would be a help."

"Well, there's not much to be done about boiling water at the moment, though having an infinite source of hot water sounds great for our future hygiene, but for a sealed container with a nozzle…" I responded, going over to a storage chest against the wall and fetching an item out. "I did grab this nozzle from our last run at Walmart. If we can affix it to something we could use it as the face of a sealed container for a water source block."

"That sounds good, but I don't actually know how to do that. Do you?" Julian asked.

"Ah… No…" I replied, chagrined, "It's at this point I'd look it up on Google in the hopes of finding a how-to video or something…"

We were both silent for a moment as we contemplated the issue.

"…I almost think boiling water might be easier… Especially if you can just scoop it into that bucket and have it retain its temperature…" Julian said.

"It might not though," I replied back. "I have no idea how temperature will behave when it comes to water source. Though we can still boil what we use to stay on the safe side. I'd have done that regardless if we had used water from the river, if not just straight up distill it."

"You know how to distill water?" Julian asked, surprised.

I nodded. "Yeah, it's actually pretty easy. All it is is steam that's been caught in a receptacle where it condensates and slides down at an angle into a new container. Since the steam doesn't carry any of the impurities from the original source of water, as long as the object catching the steam and the new container is clean, it'll be, for the most part, just pure H2O, barring any airborne particles or bacteria that go along for the ride anyway, but if that's a concern, we've got bigger problems than just contaminated water."

"And that's all there is to it?" Julian asked.

I nodded. "Pretty much, yeah."

"We only ever bought distilled water," Julian explained, "I never actually knew what making it involved and thought there was some fancy chemical process to cleaning it..."

"I thought the same too before I found out how it was actually done," I replied.

"Another Google search leading to a how-to video?" Julian asked.

"Another game actually," I replied. "In it, you have to survive on a raft in a world where global warming flooded everything, so the ocean's covered in what's left of humanity. Trash. In order to get clean water, you have to make a water purifier that's just a cup of water tied to a frame and set over a fire, with a palm leaf over it that's tied to the frame and curved so that it angles down into another cup. Later on you can make a better one that uses just an angled plate of glass to heat the water with the sun and catch the condensation. After sussing out how they worked, I looked it up and found out that that's really all there is to it."

"Interesting. You played a lot of these survival crafting type games then? What was this one? Watercraft?" Julian asked.

"No, it was just called Raft," I answered, amused.

"Ah, of course. Why didn't I think of that?" Julian replied, which made me chuckle.

"Anyway," I said, "We've got a few hours left in the day. Want to set up a fire pit and boil some water?"

Julian nodded, then made a face and commented, "You know, if you told me a month ago I'd be looking forward to boiling water as something to do to fill my time, I'd have called you mad."

"Heh, well, different priorities now," I responded, walking outside and passing a bundle of sticks to Julian after picking an area to clear within the wall and starting to dig up and replace the grass with dirt.

"Too right. I never thought I'd be using my minor in geology quite like this. It was just something I was interested in." Julian offered, before sobering. "Speaking of different priorities, what are we going to do about protein? The only food we have going so far are various fruits, vegetables, and grains."

"Well, putting aside potentially growing beans, lentils, or whatever it is that's used to make tofu," I said, causing Julian to snort, "in Minecraft, your protein generally came from livestock like cows, pigs, chicken, and sheep. And rabbits." I added as an after thought. "Considering we don't have any of that though, the easiest source we do have access to is fish."

"Minecraft had fishing?" Julian asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, though the base game only had four fish available to catch that way, one of which was poisonous."

"Which ones?" Julian asked.

"Salmon, cod, clownfish, and pufferfish," I answered.

"Well at least the first two are good. I take it the pufferfish is the poisonous one?" Julian asked to which I nodded. "Why clownfish though? They're tiny! Who would want to eat a clownfish?"

"I think Mojang added them in more as a joke/reference. If I recall correctly, if you catch one, it unlocks an achievement titled, 'Found Nemo'." I replied, grinning.

Julian laughed and rolled his eyes. "Good movie that."

I nodded as I started pulling logs and placing them around the teepee fire Julian was forming with the sticks, arranging them to lay over the sticks in teepee form as well, which caused Julian to do a double take. "Where did you get those?"

"Any log I have came from normal trees. So long as it fits the definition of 'log' from the same type of tree I got it from, I can make it take any shape of log I want. Even smaller ones like these." I explained. "They just default to looking like blocks until I place them."

"Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen you place wooden logs before," Julian commented. "Just use them for fuel or convert them into charcoal or make wooden planks."

I nodded as we finished up and started looking around for dead leaves and such to use for kindling. We weren't having much luck until I remembered the 'fabric' item I got from the cars and went inside and pulled some out, stuffing it into the base of the stick teepee with some twigs. That's when I realized…

"Wait, I don't have a way to light the fire."

Julian let out a laugh then fished a lighter out of his pocket. "I've got it covered. Incidentally, how do you light a fire in Minecraft?"

"Flint and steel," I responded, eyeing the lighter as Julian bent down to light up the tinder. "You smoke?"

"Not anymore." Julian responded. "Been clean for two years and three months. Never lost the habit of carrying a lighter around though. It's surprising how useful having one on you can be."

I nodded thoughtfully, thinking of my own lighter back at home and making a mental note to go grab it later.

Watching as the fire caught and spread, I frowned. "How are we going to boil water over this?"

"Cinderblocks and wire mesh, a stand to hang a pot from, or we could wait till the fire burns down a bit so we can just set the pot on the coals," Julian responded.

I nodded, thinking about that, before realizing something and facepalming.

"What?" Julian asked, slightly alarmed.

"Just… I'll be right back. I forgot something…" I said, then turned around and walked back into the safe house and used the crafting table, before coming right back out and plopping down… a campfire. Which lit automatically the moment I placed it.

Julian stared at it, then looked up at me, deadpan.

"…Modded minecraft tended to focus around version 1.12 of vanilla Minecraft. Campfires weren't added to Minecraft until later. By Minecraft 1.7, I was playing modded Minecraft almost exclusively, so anything added after 1.12 in vanilla Minecraft I'm not very familiar with." I said defensively.

Julian snorted but didn't comment, instead looking at the fire. "…What does it use for fuel?"

"There's a piece of charcoal in the recipe, along with sticks and logs. I don't know if that's an excuse for it or not, but technically it doesn't use fuel. It'll burn forever." I replied.

Julian somehow looked even more deadpan at that, and held out his hand cautiously over the fire, before pulling back. "It's hot."

I nodded. "It's exclusively used for cooking. And smoke signals. You can't smelt on it though, but seeing as we no longer require using charcoal, or any fuel really, to cook our food, I see it as an acceptable trade off."

Julian snorted and shook his head, mouthing to himself 'acceptable tradeoff.' Aloud, he said, "Can we boil water in a pot on it?"

"No idea," I replied. "Should be easy though considering it's a nice square shape. Big enough pot should set on it nicely."

"I have a couple pots I could grab from my old apartment, or we could probably get something bigger and better from Walmart." I offered.

Julian nodded. "I'll head to Walmart, that way you can stay here, keep an eye on the fire, and work on expanding the safehouse like you said."

"...I agree, but… I'm hesitant to split up," I said, worried.

Julian shook his head. "I'll be fine. It was a bit rough, but I did figure out how to sneak through and around those mobs out there. And I should only be an hour."

I nodded. "Any longer, and I'll start looking for you, alright?"

Julian nodded. "Appreciated."

After passing him my duffel and backpack, I watched Julian head off from the top of the wall. Since Florida is nice and flat and he's just going down the street, I could actually watch him go all the way to Walmart from here if I wanted, but he had a point about starting on getting the safehouse upgraded. At the very least we need something better than a designated hole a ways behind the wall to piss in.

First things first, I mined up every bit of asphalt I'd used that wasn't tied up in the wall or roof. After that, I built up the stairs to be ten blocks high, which actually started to give me a bit of vertigo. I actually wanted to go higher despite that, but quickly ran into a size constraint. Namely the wall wouldn't let me build higher unless I wanted to extend the stairs past it onto the sidewalk. Call me weird, but I kinda wanted to at least try and obey the property line rather than extend the build into the road, or whats left of it anyway.

I still have plenty of space to expand towards the back technically, but the wheat field is in the way in that direction, and I don't want to do something weird with the stairs like make a square corkscrew or something. A straight shot like this gives us clear line of sight to shoot mobs on the stairs off or at least see them coming, and expanding to the left or right puts me closer to the buildings on either side.

To the west is a road dividing my previously empty lot from the nearby hospital which my wall goes right up to the edge of so no way to expand that way again, and to the right is a pharmacy building of some sort, at least according to the fallen sign in front of it. I don't fancy building closer to that either as a skeleton on the roof of that can already cause problems if it starts taking potshots from the roof. In hindsight, I'm thinking I should've picked a better spot to build...

Well, no reason I can't. Once I have a source of stone, maybe I'll try for a field or something on campus. Or some other nearby wide open area. I picked this spot mainly because it was there, I was pressed for time, and I wanted to build just off the road. Now that I'm a bit more concerned about defensibility and space, I can see that I didn't make a very good choice to build here.

For now, I'll just work with what I have. I'd rather not add too many floors while I'm currently stuck with just stairs, so I'll stick to three with roof access. To start with, I added a new floor to match the height of the stairs, keeping it two blocks away with trapdoors for a drawbridge. I'd much prefer something longer, like a real drawbridge…

Actually, this isn't Minecraft so I could actually do that. It wouldn't be anywhere near as sturdy unless I could somehow use my Minecraft powers on it. I'm not sure how that would work, but it can't hurt to try. For something like that I'd need… chain. Two chains probably, bolts and a long wooden platform sturdy enough to walk across, plus a winch with a turn handle. Maybe I could use redstone to automate it somehow? Something for later.

Or not actually. I just recalled the gear box and mechanical power from a mod, though the name escapes me just now, but that could easily be converted into a powered winch and turnstile for a drawbridge, if I could figure out how to make it in real life and then convert it to a Minecraft object by putting it into my inventory. It shouldn't even be that hard since gear boxes actually exist in real life. I'll need to make a wooden one first though, which means I'll need carving tools…

While I planned, I continued to put in the floor, breaking the original floor underneath it and moving the contents of the chests into new ones before breaking those. It wasn't hard since we don't even have enough stuff to fill up one double chest yet, though with the extra now we have two empties on top of that, which is handy.

After some thought, I decided to have the room be two and a half blocks tall, but only two blocks tall around the edges of the room. It's not perfect, but hopefully it would at least provide some protection if an Enderman warps in here.

I paused for a moment to look at the chests stacked on top of each other. For me that's fine, but I just recalled Julian has to actually open them up to see inside in order to manipulate their contents. Grimacing, I put the three double chests next to each other, cheating by giving each alternating chest a different build grid so they wouldn't connect to the adjacent chest.

I then went back outside and finished cleaning up the now superfluous former first floor. That done, I went back inside and went upstairs and moved my couch down to our new sitting room. I then grabbed everything out of the second floor, skipping the outside balcony with the smelters for now, and kept it in my inventory for now, and started tearing it down to make way for a new second floor.

Here I could be a bit more free with room size and extend the floor past the bounds of the first floor, as there would be multiple rooms up here. I started by extending the floor out slightly over the wheatfield for the kitchen/dining room. I then extended it out a bit further for a bathroom. Then I put flooring on either side of the bathroom for two bedrooms, then after a thought, added two more that would be to the left and right of the kitchen/dining room in case we pick up more survivors before we move.

The end result is that the second floor drapes all the way past the walls outside by a small amount. I contemplated the idea of extending the walls up to just be the outside wall of a bigger building, before discarding the idea as the point is to keep the spiders from getting in or onto the roof.

With the second floor established, I finished tearing down the rest of the former second floor and started building up the walls. It'll all be wood until the roof which will be stone and have a lip. Having built the walls, set up the torches for light, then put the stone roof back into place, I made a staircase up to the roof and set up covered torches up here. It should be noted that the divide between each floor is actually two blocks thick, a design I'd gotten into the habit of using both as a kind of armor, and a way to allow for walls, floor, and ceiling to be decorated for individual rooms and not mess with the décor of the other rooms or the outside walls.

I nearly ran out of wood by the time I made the final staircase up to the roof, a stone pad over a wooden ceiling. I may or may not alter my build style since I can take advantage of wallpaper now. I'll think about it.

Turns out I didn't actually have enough stone for the roof though. Having a black asphalt roof means the roof looks like a street and it's scorching from baking in the sun, but the extra rooms and extension of the second floor means I need more asphalt, so I had to go down the road to mine up even more of it.

Making my way back, I glanced at the sun and after climbing back up to the roof, took a look down the road to see if I could spot Julian. I don't see him, but it's only been a little past half an hour I think, and I can't see much past the hospital anyway, which is several floors taller than my two story safe house, even if it is floating ten meters off the ground. I'm glad there's a road and a parking lot between the buildings, otherwise I'd be far more concerned.

Returning to my work, I finished up the roof by lighting it up with more torches which I covered with the last of my stone blocks to protect them from the elements. I then went down to the balcony and tore it down and moved the smelters and kilns I'd set there temporarily up on the roof. I would wait for access to stone to add another floor. I then made a small raised platform to set the kilns on and deemed my work finished.

Turning back to the road, I frowned. It's been about 40 to 50 minutes. There's maybe an hour or two of sunlight left. I really wish we could use cell phones or something to keep in contact.

That's when I had a sudden thought. What about walkie talkies? Would there be any at Walmart? Or maybe Target? We haven't cleared Target yet though. I'm tempted to try the university mall south of the Walmart, but that would be even worse to clear out. Walmart or braving one of the houses to check what loot might have been squirreled away are my only options.

As it is now, I decide I can kill two birds with one stone and check Walmart. I did say I would look for Julian if I didn't see him in an hour. Well even if he started back now, he wouldn't be back before an hour. That's close enough right?

Decision made, I checked my inventory to see if I needed to bring anything. I have my tools, but with supplies so low I've run low on wood and stone both. So I'll have to replenish my supply a bit on the way.

Going out on the road, I started my way west towards Walmart. I had to travel a ways before I reached the stretch of road that we hadn't mined up yet. Working quickly, I got about half a stack of asphalt and hoped that would be enough.

Continuing my way, I'd just reached the intersection when I spotted Julian stepping past the tree line on the border of Walmart and onto the sidewalk and sighed in relief.

When we were close enough, he called out, "Trouble?"

"Nah, just finished and got a bit worried," I admitted.

Julian looked a bit exasperated. "I said I'd be back in an hour didn't I?"

I shrugged. "You were cutting it close and I don't want to test how long my sanity would last if I were forced to go it alone. Plus it occurred to me while I was working that it'd be great if we had a way to keep in contact and I thought of walkie talkies, so I decided to check If Walmart had them. Plus I want to see if there are any wood carving tools around."

Julian nodded. "Well, you're in luck then. Most of the place is looted, but hardware and electronics seem to be the least badly hit, though that's not saying much. I'm not even sure if Walmart carried walkie talkies anymore before this mess started, since everyone uses- used, smartphones…"

"Can't hurt to check. Maybe I'll get lucky?" I half stated as I considered the problem.

Julian nodded, then thought for a moment, then turned back around to follow me back. I considered him for a moment, then nodded in thanks. "Here, hand me the duffle. I can carry it and its contents in my inventory so it'll be easier."

Julian nodded and I grunted as he passed it over. "Grabbed a lot huh?"

"I picked over the whole place for every scrap of food left, plus a few things I thought might be useful." Julian explained. "I'd wanted to take a garbage can along with a few other things that would be good to have in the safehouse, but it's not like I could fit that into a backpack. A car would be dead useful…"

I thought for a moment then nodded. "I might be able to work something out with that later, depending on a few things. In the meantime, we could just borrow a shopping cart."

Julian shook his head. "No good, most retailers have smart lock wheels that automatically trigger if you try to move them off the lot."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that," I said, humming as I considered the problem. "Back before my roommate moved in and helped me get groceries with his car, I had gotten a mesh wagon that I used instead of a shopping cart that would allow me to take the groceries back home. I didn't do it often since it's far too hot hear to be lugging cold groceries down the road under the baking sun though, but I do still have the cart. If it survived the break in that night, it could come in handy."

"Want to take a detour and grab it then?" Julian asked.

I hummed then looked at the sky and shook my head. "If we had more time maybe, but I'd like to get home before dark… Need to remember to grab a watch from the jewelry section…"

Coming back to the entrance, I paused at the gaping opening and frowned. I then pulled out some asphalt and started walling the front of the entrance again, but for a small opening I left near the original entrance.

"What are you doing?" Julian asked.

"It'd be a waste to do all that work and still have to deal with mobs that wandered in during the night." I explained.

Julian 'ahh'ed in comprehension and I made a small wall around the entrance, then made a staircase two blocks away from the top of the wall and dropped some trap doors to cross over on. I then did the same for the interior.

"There. No mobs aside from spiders should be able to get through that." I said decisively.

Julian agreed and we went inside and headed towards the electronics section, pausing by the jewelry and picking up one of the few watches left. It was a digital/analog combo. Not my favorite, but beggars can't be choosers after an apocalypse. I grabbed a spare just in case while Julian grabbed one for himself.

Once we reached the electronics section, I could see what Julian meant. Most everything had been cleared from the shelves in the food sections, especially after Julian had picked through it, but while the electronics section had still had most of its stuff taken, there were still a few things here and there. Most of it was useless though. Printers for example. Not a single laptop or handheld device remained though. If there were walkie talkies here, it's a moot point now.

Sighing, I moved on to sporting goods in the vain hope there'd be something there. Most everything useful was gone from there too though, with only a few balls having made it through. I grabbed one anyway and found a waste paper basket which I grabbed too since it was better than nothing. Not much left was of any use though. Stationary supplies, random odds and ends… Nevermind the failed freezers and refrigeration units. We avoided those areas since they were starting to get pretty rank.

"Looks like we're going to start hitting the houses and seeing what people stockpiled if we want anything useful," Julian observed.

"Yeah," I agreed, disappointed. Well at least I got a watch.

Speaking of said watch, it's ten till six and sundown should be soon. "We better head back."

Julian agreed and we left Walmart behind. The extra food would help until the crops were finished at least.

On the way, I made a quick detour to check the mob farm. Inside I found two zombies, a skeleton, and a creeper. Swiping at their ankles with my sword, I cut them down to size, only to swear as the dropped zombie started crawling towards me and went under the opening into the spawning room I'd just been using to cut it with.

Backpedaling, I sighed as it caught fire, blocking my nose as the stench became more putrid until it burnt away to a crisp. Would the same thing happen with the skeleton? Or worse, the Creeper? Heaven help me if I knock that thing down and it seems me and decides to blow up right there.

Julian, who was watching from a distance, seemed to be of the same mind and suggested we just leave. I hesitated then said I wanted to at least try and get the skeleton, as bone meal is too useful to ignore. Going forward once more, I took a swipe at the skeleton's shin bones, avoiding the Creeper and second zombie.

It's legs soon broke and caused it to collapse. Unlike the zombie though, it didn't take the fall well and ended up breaking a few more bones from it.

That didn't stop it from creeping me the hell out when its dark empty holes for eyes fixated on me and I could swear that I felt an inhuman amount of hatred directed at my person. Swiping my sword against its skull put paid to that before it finally shattered completely, turning to dust and a few bones, leaving its bow behind.

Shivering, I felt for the loot and grabbed it with my power so I didn't have to reach my hand in and the items shot at me at rapid speed before disappearing and reappearing straight in my inventory. Leaving the rest, I turned back towards Julian and we set off back to the safehouse once again.

Pausing at the sight of it, it took a moment before Julian started moving again, commenting, "I know your powers are impressive, but it's still hard to get used to."

"I know what you mean," I replied. "I'm only sort of able to run with it since I'm used to the power set from the game and been playing it for nearly ten years."

Julian hummed and nodded while we climbed the stairs and went over the wall, then climbed the much taller stairs to get into the safehouse proper.

"Need to make the walls taller," I commented.

"Well hopefully the kilns should be done either tomorrow or the day after." Julian stated.

I nodded and followed along after dropping most of my inventory into the chest. Julian explored the new rooms, identifying which was mine and his, then went to the roof and looked about, doing a quick check of the kilns before nodding and returning downstairs to sit on the couch.

"I assume that large space upstairs is for a kitchen and table?" Julian asked.

I nodded. "I figure a few chairs could go up there too so we wouldn't have to come down to the first floor if we just wanted to sit. I'll probably add a few more sturdy chairs to the roof as well."

Julian hummed in agreement, then asked, "What were those two extra rooms for?"

"Just in case more survivors show up, so they'll be available." I explained. "At least that'll do for now. In the next few days, I'm going to do some scouting for a good open area to build in. With the tall hospital and pharmacy building next door, there's no room to expand much except for towards the back, which is already mostly covered by a wheat field. Plus having such a large building next door is making me paranoid."

"So we'll be moving soon then?" Julian asked.

I nodded. "Once I find a spot and we have stone production, yeah."

Julian nodded. "Alright then. Well it's been a pretty long day. I'm going to eat, sort through some of the stuff I brought, then turn in."

I nodded and we both got dinner from out of the chest. It turns out Julian had gotten a pot, so with the use of the campfire we soon had boiling water which then became a pot of mac n' cheese, which Julian had only found a single box of in the back of the store. Still, it was enough to share along with a few other items to eat, including a can of beans. I didn't eat much more since I'd topped my hunger bar, and we eventually went our separate ways, him to the chests, and me to see if I could boil some more water on the campfire. Seems the fire outside would go unused, and I eventually went outside just before dark to scrap it for charcoal and a few sticks.

After that, Julian went to his new room and I eventually did the same to get some sleep, enjoying the peace and quiet of having my own room once again, even if the lack of windows and airflow made the room fairly stuffy. I made a mental note to add windows later before I drifted off.