Day 25
It's been quite some time since my last entry. Been very busy with days flowing by almost literally; so much so that I'd have completely lost track of time without the "Days survived" command. Well, today is Day 25 – 3rd week, and quite a lot's been happening since I last opened my diary. Might as well briefly touch down on it.
First – the farm's just about finished. Brings me about a couple of stacks of vegetables and wheat every time it's harvestable. Right now, unless something were to happen to it, I can safely say I'm not going to go hungry ever again (especially since the food doesn't seem to go bad).
In addition, I started up another small plantation – in a smaller pond, right under my new house. Planted some pumpkin seeds – in the same formation as a regular farm, at first. It'd taken me a few days to realize my mistake – when the pumpkin stems had reached their maturity and some of them seemed to rapidly grow actual pumpkin plants…dropping them right in the way of other stems' growth, or on them outright. A bit of headache and brainstorming and now I have a layout that works: a dirt rectangle in the middle of the pond, stems plants at its edges, ready to drop the fruits right into the center (something is preventing them from throwing grown pumpkins straight into water). I'm quite amazed with how little maintenance this place needs – once the stem is fully grown, it seems like it can regrow pumpkins rapidly and for a very long time, so long as it's hydrated and not broken; I can just come in, cut it at the edge, end up with a comically oversized pumpkin in my hands and then simply wait for another one. A good distance away, preferably – the damn things seem to straight up burst out of the stems, drop to the ground a grow to full size in a matter of seconds; I had one suddenly appear and boom down straight onto my feet. Wasn't fun.
The village folks sure didn't seem to mind though. After going around and selling my crops to both villages (as well as giving back some of the things I took - felt pretty bad about just carelessly taking their stuff), their respective farmers seemed to "expand" their stock, sort of. Both offered to buy pumpkins, should I have any – who was I to refuse such an offer? A short trek back to my base later, and I was a few emeralds richer (along with a few fresh honest-to-Gods apples – they're especially juicy here!). The other farmer (from the sort-of-ruined village) had a much better deal, however – pumpkin pies.
I never was a big fan of pumpkins – had eaten them once in a while, but never really was that impressed. Mediocrity at best.
But this pie?
Easily rivaled Mom's baking. Chocolate pie, apple pie, pie with Secret Arc Recipe I will not mention even here – this one trumped all of them. Maybe I'm a little biased, sure, but it's not like I'm gonna get a chance to taste dear Mom's cooking again, so no harm in settling for the next best thing.
The guy was kind enough to share a recipe too – which turned out to be deceivingly simple – a sliced pumpkin, some sugar, an egg and a bit of magic hand work and I can practically craft it with my own hands and nothing else (though if not baked it's not quite as good. Still very much worth the effort.)
Speaking of eggs, I've started (and almost finished) a few animal corrals. Cobblestone base, wooden fences acting as both a wall and support for what is planned to be a wooden roof. A handful of work for something the animals probably care little about – they do roam in the wild without any care, after all – but it's something I've decided to do for myself as much as them; might as well make their future home a bit nicer and safer than usual to make it easier on my conscience when it's time to say goodbye.
Eventually I managed to fill up the enclosures with enough animals to start breeding them. And, well…they just kind of make out for a few moments and a few minutes later a baby appears? I didn't stick around long enough to see the process in its entirety. Regardless of my personal thoughts on the matter, eventually the enclosures were filled up with both babies and adults.
Except the pig pen. That one (along with most of the baby pigs) had been blown up by the damned green bastard who'd caught me off guard. I probably should have known better, trying to act on the chance that he might not see me. Didn't work out that well – lesson learned.
That lesson? Building a wall around the entirety of my compound.
And it's absolutely the most daunting task I've faced so far.
First of all, the terrain surrounding the territory I planned to claim is really uneven. What that means is that I either have to account for it by making the wall higher in that specific area, or dig the extra ground layers out, lest I want to end up with creeps shooting and climbing over it.
Second, the material. I don't need to be an architect to understand that wooden walls (fences) weren't going to cut it – sure, some villages back on Remnant could get away with wooden fortifications, but they've always been a gamble, from what I'd heard; plus, I don't think there've been any sighting of exploding suicidal Grimm – else the wooden walls would have been barely any better than no walls at all. Dirt or gravel? Maybe as a very temporary solution, but nothing more. Cobblestone was a much better option than everything else involved, but I decided not to – as strong as it might've looked, at its core it's just a fractured piece of stone, almost just a collection of pebbles held together by some mud, really; decent for some fortifications, not so much when building the last (or in my case, the only) line of defense against the outside world. Granite was out of the question, since I'd run out a fairly long time ago.
That left me with one and only option available to me at that moment – taking actual stone and turning it into something to work with.
That had brought up even more complications. The sheer size of the territory I'd planned to claim for myself meant a lot of digging; though if it was just digging I would probably be fine – it is much easier for me to do so than for an average miner, I imagine. No, the real problem was the fact that no matter how I tried mining stone, it would inevitably crack and I'd end with a pile of ruined cobbles. Frustrating to no end, that's what it was. "System" finally decided to help me out – out of pity, or maybe finally having laughed at my shenanigans long enough – with a small tip: "Some non-ore materials can be smelted in furnaces to various degrees and with varying results".
A small tip, but more than enough.
Surely enough, it worked. A few moments in a furnace, and that pile of rocks I'd mined out earlier (arranged in a cube shape, just in case) fused/melted/whatever back into a block of genuine stone. No defects of any kind, no cracks, nothing – perfect for a little bit of masonry.
(Or, rather, a very huge bit, seeing how much raw stone I need to smelt in order to accomplish what I intended – that much smelting would put a huge strain on my coal fuel resources - despite how much I'd mined out. So I went with the next best option – charcoal. It was an off-hand comment from the butcher-boy after one of our "transactions" – he said that tree stems make for rather efficient fuel if you dry them out completely of any moisture in a furnace. Tried it – ended up with a single charred lump about the size of my fist, the rest flying straight into my face as soot and ashes. My first impression was that I did something wrong, but, as I used that first piece to smelt cobblestone, the second impression was that I actually got it very right – the thing burned as long and as hot as your average piece of coal, without the added requirement of going cave-crawling to look for it. After that, I may have caused a bit of a deforestation event in the surrounding area – but with a few saplings I'd picked up I am sure I can rectify it – once I figure out how to plant and nurture them properly, of course)
Then there was the issue of actually working with stone: crafting table tools, while versatile, were really ill-suited for the sheer amount of work I had to do. Carving and cutting stone into the bricks like that was not only very tiring and complicated, but also ended up resulting in a net loss of material.
Luckily, I found a better solution. There were schematics for a stonecutting saw in the crafting table that I'd overlooked earlier. Having something like that at my disposal would really take the burden off my shoulders (as it did). What caught me off surprise a little bit was the requirement to use a small amount of Redstone.
(I was given a Redstone tutorial popup shortly after putting the stonecutter together. From what I gathered, in this world it is both a power source (like Lightning Dust electricity) and as a conduit, and can be used to "power a variety of things". Surprisingly enough, the power from this Redstone Dust either depletes very slowly, or does not do so at all – the stonecutter saw ended up running non-stop for literal days without any problems. If this turns out to be some sort of a perpetual motion engine thing…I don't dare imagine how much good this would do back home. The only tiny issue I've seen so far is "activating" the Dust – there are only a handful of things mentioned in the tutorial: Redstone infused levers, buttons, pressure plates and compressed Redstone Blocks. Never was that good at Electricity Physics but I bet I can create some cool things with it later on.)
Either way, the saw turned out to be quite a Godsend: what would previously require a lot of meticulous effort to chip and cut could be done in a matter of seconds with pretty much the same degree of accuracy (the stonecutter, much like the crafting table, has a display full of walk-throughs on how to correctly cut materials into things like bricks, stairs, slabs and so on). With it, cutting stone into the bricks I needed turned into a complete cakewalk. It's a shame the thing doesn't interact with wood very well – I'd have loved a wooden roof for my house.
(Oh, right – took those small granite walls I'd built that long time ago and turned them into sort of proper walls, then placed some spruce planks for the floor and finally some stair-shaped stone brick leftovers for the roof. Granite house – not very practical, but pretty cool in my opinion and I don't have to be afraid of rain soaking my bed anymore. I do need something else other than torches to light the place up – they start stinking pretty bad unless I open the doors, and that's not exactly an option at night.)
The wall is coming along splendidly: already I have fenced off land to the and south of the house. It's not high enough yet to prevent skeletons from potentially shooting over it, and I don't expect it to stop spiders (who have a very annoying and jumpscarish tendency to climb just about every surface), but then again, common spiders are about the least of my problems. Due to how short the days are, I decided to spend a certain amount of time working at night as well. Of course this led to some unfortunate conflicts with the local non-human population.
One such encounter didn't end so well. I'd been minding my own business, digging the dirt to even the terrain a little, when I heard a really strange sound; it sounded like a laugh, I believe? It was coming from that dark part of a cave I used as a sort of stone quarry. Decided to investigate – and promptly very much regretted it. The only thing I'd spotted was a vaguely human-looking outline before something hit me in my face – a glass bottle, I believe it was.
I was in agony a second later. Same fucking symptoms as with the green spider venom; except this time, I'd gotten a mouthful of it. Rushed back to my house as soon as I could, dumped dirt to block off all the exits while I was still able to think.
And then I just suffered. The damn thing would not leave my system, not matter how much I ate and then puked (the smell still persists, albeit weak). Several times it'd gotten to the point where I thought I wouldn't open my eyes anymore if I were to close them; a breeze would probably have enough force to knock over and kill me.
But I'm still here, despite yet another near-death experience. At some point I'd blacked out on my bed, having lost all my strength fighting off the death within. In hindsight it's really a miracle I survived: I'd been so weak all over it should have taken but a moment for the poison to finish me off – yet it somehow failed to do so.
Me almost dying wasn't the worst thing I encountered, as strange as it may be. The worst thing?
Two words: baby zombies.
They're smaller, faster, somehow manage to hit just as hard despite their size. And they're just kids. Rotting, bloodthirsty zombie kids. Gods, I felt as bad as the first time I killed a full-sized zombie. Adults, I can handle, more or less. But the fucking kids?
Ever since first seeing children running around in that village, I'd hoped, secretly, that, should the worst happen, the little ones would be spared of all this horror. Well, I guess that's too bad, Jaune Arc. I couldn't tell if they were actually village kids – too decomposed, with barely shreds of clothing. Thankfully, when I rushed to check on both villages next morning, it seemed like there were no casualties among either of them. Still, where'd they come from?
Where do all these bastards come from? Gods.
(On the topic of zombies, I saw one wearing some sort of yellow armor. I'd say gold but that's a bit too absurd. What really caught my attention was the chestplate – it was shining, shimmering with pink-purple color. Some sort of magical forcefield, perhaps (that's not Aura). The armor crumbled and broke into unsalvageable pieces as soon as I killed the zombie, so I had no way to check. I'll have to note this for the future.)
Not to say it's just been nonstop misery; there have been some upsides. I can hear one of those barking outside right now.
A dog! A wolfdog, actually, but with emphasis on the dog! Had one hell of an introduction too; saw him chase a skeleton through the plains and right next to my wall. It'll be a blue moon when I call a skeleton "poor thing" again but at that moment?
"Poor thing" was sprinting for its life. Skedaddling away the best it could, with wolf right behind him. A sight so utterly ridiculous compared to how much of an ass pain the freaks are, it'd given me my first genuine laugh in weeks! A great stress relief.
Too bad it didn't last longer – Bones stumbled and slipped on some dirt, and then…ow. Wolf pounced straight on and just chewed him apart in a matter of seconds. I should have probably been terrified at the sheer ferocity, but eh. Laughing inertia probably.
Doggy'd left some Bones' bones on the ground and started hobbling off, so I'd decided to give him my thanks – for putting on a great show, even if unintentional. Went inside and grabbed a few bones of my own – not my own, but the ones I own – and give the boy a treat before he walked off too far. It (actually a he – I saw the distinction) wasn't actually that much affected by my arrival – simply sniffed at me from a distance, barked and started walking away. The instant I pulled a few bones from my inventory, he charged back - threw a bone on the ground and ran off myself, watching him chomping on it from a distance. Second try went better – he wasn't as aggressive and I wasn't as skittish; slowly walked up, dropped a bone, slowly backed off.
Third time's the charm – cliché, maybe, but it's not like anything is really cliché when it's happening to you. After the third bone, Wolf's disposition changed almost radically – he wasn't aiming to walk away anymore, he was just staring at me. When I made a move to leave, he actually followed! Didn't follow me all the way to my compound, stopped just outside the walls. Found him next morning outside on the same place, nabbing on a piece of rotten flesh, charred zombie corpse nearby. If I have to guess, the zombie had started burning some time during sunrise, walked too close to the Wolfy and well – the rest is history. I'd probably be pretty pissed too if some rotting bastard decided to wake me up by near-burning me and stinking the area around.
(It's a good thing they decompose very quickly and without a trace after dying…again. Otherwise – if their bodies behaved normally - just from the sheer number I kill (again!) per night the whole area would have been riddled with stinky carcasses – and I don't think I could stomach burying them more than once.)
Back on topic, Wolf was eating rotten flesh, of all things. I could maybe, very, VERY faintly understand him – it was very, VERY faintly meat after all, and he didn't seem to be at all ill. And yet still, I couldn't let that just stand, so I went and grabbed a slice of raw mutton. Animals may not be able to speak, but his eyes, as he was eyeing me (and mostly the slab of meat) were filled with so much hope that I had no need for words.
I've been puppy-eyed by the thing furthest away from a puppy.
That must run in the dog genes. And to think I considered myself immune to puppy-eyes after the little Grimmspawn that was my little sister Violette.
But with how ravenously he'd devoured a several-day/week old cut (not that it really matters here), I figured those puppy eyes were there for a very good reason.
As soon as the Wolf was done wolfing the treat down, though?
He walked up to me and started licking me. I pet his head and he let me do it. A few belly rubs later and he was completely whipped.
And I? I think I gained a great friend. Man's best, in fact. I remember talking to a senile hunter (not a huntsman - he hunted game, not mosnters) in my village, a lifetime ago. He said there's a reason trained dogs (and very occasionally wolfdogs) are so valued: if you're hunting, they can help you track and chase your prey; they can alert you to the Grimm, as Grimm don't mind animals; they can help out in a fight, they can lift your spirits in a way humans (and Faunus) can't; and, he said, most of all - treat them right and they will never stab you in the back.
I'm beginning to understand and experience what he meant firsthand. While I'm not exactly trained in the art of dog training, I don't have to be - my friend took to the "sit" and "stay" commands like a natural, and for now it is more than enough. He's already pulling his weight, guarding my house and me while I'm building - saw him tear apart a few zombies without my help.
As soon as I'm done erecting the walls, boy's going to get a hearty steak treat; that, I promise.
Though I'll need to figure out a way to train him out of chasing skeletons every opportunity - he'd nearly fallen into that ravine nearby. Can't say I have a slightest idea on how to do it properly - maybe the villagers can help, or some of those "encrypted" books?
(Speaking of books, STILL haven't figured out a way to make a suitable lectern - no crafting guide and System's been quiet in this regard. I'll have to ask that librarian guy for help next time I come by).
That about covers it. Wolfy (I think I'll just call him that from now on) is barking at a couple of our new "guests": yet another new type of monsters, flying harpies about he size of a juvenile Nevermore, without the bird-shooting thing but with a nasty bite nonetheless. Straight up appeared above me while I was working with an ear-killing screech. That's kind of been my problem back at Beacon too: without a ranged weapon I'd been pretty helpless against such targets, and, while I have one now, I'm still not confident enough in my skills to potentially waste my very limited arrow supply. Thankfully, they can't chew through the roof, so right now I'm going to go to bed and hope that when I wake up these assholes will have burned in sunlight.
Didn't mean to take so long with releasing this chapter, but, at the very least, this delay's given me a chance to come up with some new ideas for eventually going to the Nether.
EDIT 2020-08-09: Edited some eye-grating mistakes I found while re-reading.
