The next few days were spent at home fixing up my tunnel and out in the field hunting for more food. I dug further back into the hill and added another room next to mine for storage. The same size as my room, three blocks wide by four blocks deep, the new addition held multiple chests for organization. They allowed me to keep my inventory pretty clear and still be able to find the things I needed when I needed them. I even used one of my leftover oak doors to seal off the room.

Sigrid and I explored the fields every day, hunting for whatever we could find. The crops were slow to grow and weren't supplying enough food to replace the need to hunt. I considered making more pens for the other animals, but they weren't as interested in seeds as the chickens were. Luring them into the corrals would be next to impossible and without something to feed them, and even then I wouldn't be able to convince them to breed. Until I figured out what each animal wanted for food, I'd stick to hunting them.

Meanwhile, the chickens were doing well, they laid the occasional egg and showed no signs of hating their coop, which I would make into an official coop eventually, once I figured out what I wanted it to look like.

Frustratingly, I couldn't come up with anything. It drove me nuts. I wanted to build things, but I had no idea where to start or what materials to use. Building didn't feel as easy for me as crafting did. When I held a material in my hand, I just knew what I could make out of it if a sat in front of a crafting table. That three by three grid felt so easy to understand and grasp. Meanwhile, the near-endless possibilities of building rendered me catatonic. I could build anything I wanted, but any time I tried, I came up with constructions that felt utterly basic.

I tried to beautify my crafting area by placing my crafting table and furnace next to each other in an alcove near the front of my tunnel. Then I cooked up some cobblestone and then cooked the stone again to get smooth stone. I placed those as the floor in front of my workstation from one side of the tunnel to the other. The blocks had a nice light color and their tile-like appearance did help make that area of the tunnel feel more like a home and less like a tunnel carved out of rock, but I didn't know if I liked it enough to do the whole floor like that. What if I did the whole thing and then decided I didn't care for the look?

I hated it, so I avoided large projects and stuck to simple ones, like pens, stairs, tunnels, and box rooms. Those I could handle, even if they didn't look great. At least they worked.

The pumpkin seeds grew into vines and once they did that, they occasionally sprouted a full pumpkin next to them. I harvested the pumpkins whenever they showed up. I kept some stashed away in storage in case I ever found sugar to make pies. The others, I turned into jack-o'-lanterns which were then placed around my hill to help keep everything lit. With each passing night, less and less monsters roamed near my home, making me feel a whole lot safer than I had that first, terrifying night.

The grass seeds sprouted into shoots of, unsurprisingly, grass, that grew taller each day. I was disappointed with them until they turned into a calm, golden color. I assumed this meant that they were ready to harvest, and happily discovered that they were wheat seeds, and I now had several bushels of wheat. At the moment, I could just make bread, but I could also make cookies and a cake with the right ingredients. I could also make bales of hay, though I saw no reason for that. The food seemed infinitely more important.

With each passing day, the urge to explore grew more and more. Each time I went out, I wandered a litter further away. After a few days of staying close to home, I'd explored every block of the field around my home. Despite what happened in Morkmun, I couldn't help but feel like going on another adventure. However, this time I would stay above ground and bring plenty of food, just in case Sigrid or I got hurt. After a stray arrow managed to hit her one night, I learned that feeding her helped her heal just like it did me and that she used her tail to tell me how hurt she was. The higher the tail, the healthier. She only seemed to like meat. That was the only food group that got her attention. What came as a big, disgusting surprise, was that she even liked the rotten flesh dropped by the zombies. Her head always cocked sideways whenever she saw the stuff in my hands. I gave it to her once out of curiosity, and she scarfed it down without any signs of discomfort or revulsion.

Honestly, her eating the stuff grossed me out more than it did her.

So, with plenty of food in my pack, we set off to the north where the plains met the desert. Once while hunting, I noticed a small structure on the side of one of the sandy mountains. I wanted to find out what it was. Up until this point, I hadn't really set foot in the desert. The few times I had, the sand shifted and gave way beneath my feet, so I tended to just stay away from it, preferring the more solid footing that the grass provided.

I took my first gentle steps into this part of the world. The sand moved beneath my feet but didn't give way completely. It was just very unstable. Walking across it took some getting used to, but it wasn't that bad. The worst part about the desert was the heat. The air quickly dried and warmed up after leaving the grass behind. Objects in the distance shimmered through the heat. Sigrid very quickly lost her adventuring spirit. She slowed down and started sticking closer to me, panting the whole time.

Don't worry, girl. We're not going too far.

The structure wasn't far into the desert at all, just up the nearest hill. The thing was small, only a few blocks tall and wide, with an opening in the center. Its beige coloring helped it blend into the sand around it, making it difficult to see, which was why I took so long to notice it. I must've walked along the desert border a dozen times at this point and had only just spotted it the other day.

We climbed the mountain, and the sand got everywhere. It slipped beneath my clothes and collected in my boots. It burned and rubbed wherever it touched. I really didn't like it, but I kept going. So far, this was going better than my trip into Morkmun. After all, I hadn't been blown up or shot at. I considered this a win despite the sticky sweat and irritating sand.

The short climb brought us to a well made from sandstone. A single block of cool blue water rested in its center, where Sigrid began to lap at it. I couldn't blame her. I moved around her, knelt down, and washed the perspiration from my face. After that, I rubbed the back of my neck with a wet hand and felt the heat's grip on me weaken. While this was a very nice well, I'd been hoping for something more exciting. Something that warranted wandering out into the desert like this.

I stood and took in my surroundings from the higher vantage. To the south, I could still see home. To the east, the desert stretched off to the horizon. The west simply led further up the mountain. To the north, I had to do a double-take. The desert continued on until it climbed a hill to meet the sky. There, I couldn't be sure due to how the air rippled and wavered, but it looked like there were buildings.

Is that a mirage?

They couldn't be real, could they? I'd been alone for almost two weeks and hadn't seen anyone else other than animals and monsters. I'd just assumed I was alone. But maybe I wasn't.

Sigrid, do you see the buildings too?