Day 32

It's been over a month since my arrival here. Whew. Kind of hard to believe that. I don't actually know anything about time measurement here – if anything, hope this is one question local folks can actually answer.

Anyhow, sun is shining extra bright, it's warm (I could use a change of clothes, really – patching up Pumpkin Pete and my jeans with raw wool can only be done so many times) and I've been thinking of exploring land to the south – just beyond this hill-mountain. Never know what can be there.


Climbed the hill to get a better look around. I was right to call it a ridge – this hill I'm standing is the edge of it. I can see it stretching all the way to the east and south-east.

It's beautiful, truly breath-taking. The scenery is something I can see people paying top Lien to experience – without any threat of Grimm, too! And the air! Fresh and chilly in just the right way.

I'd keep going along there, but unfortunately I can see more than a fair share of leg-breaking drops and cliffs; even without those, the terrain is not very travel-friendly, so I'm going to descend into the plains and follow the ridge line south, wherever it may take me.


Excuse me, but why in the Hell are local bees the size of my fist? I thought one was some sort of a weird mistake, but then there was a hive with three of them the same size!

I don't know what is it makes a bee a bee, but these local ones fail in at least two: they are fucking huge and slow. I've seen bees at work before: they're constantly in motion, buzzing from flower to flower, back and forth, always flying about. Compared to them, local ones act like those endangered Mistralean vegetarian bears (whose names I have completely forgotten): it's looks less like work and more like a lazy stroll in the park.

If the stingers are anything like their size, though, I'm not getting close: a single sting might unironically be enough to kill me.

Though I do got to say, the size really brings the fluffiness out. They're cute, that's all.


By the Brothers. The giant mushrooms ARE real.

Followed the ridgeline to the southwest and came across another forest expanse. A different one this time: just a myriad of very solid-looking trees (identified as Dark Oak) growing almost quite literally on top of each other; foliage so dense it feels like an unlit cave – in the middle of the day. Basically, exactly a place for a traveler or two to go missing.

The giant brown mushroom growing among the trees (very aggressively too – I could see a fair bit of broken sticks and leaves from all around them) only added to the magically-creepy atmosphere this forest has. Giant is not an exaggeration – stem as wide as me and as tall as the trees around, and the cap large enough to cover at least a dozen people under it.

I will admit: I know nothing about mushrooms other than "some are tasty, some will kill you" and that they're supposed to be considered a different type of life, along with plants/animals and Humans/Faunus. And, well, I don't think I'm at fault for being scared (I want to say "surprised", but more than that I wish to stay honest) when a part of the stem I tried breaking off simply fell apart in a shower of rather disgusting-looking slimy thread things.

(And of course the giant mushroom tree didn't see fit to obey gravity and fall down once its' base was gone.)

Climbing up to the top was a bit of a hassle, but it paid off: turns out, it's made out of smaller mushrooms as well, stems and caps growing together almost seamlessly in block sections (obviously), all inter-connected and leading back to the main stem. Tried breaking those too, with varying results: most of the time, stems and caps just turned into unsalvageable mush that I would only touch for a guarantee to go home; however, occasionally they could be broken off in a much cleaner fashion, thus leaving me with several decently-sized smaller mushrooms – perfectly fit for turning into food. Despite how often I failed to separate mushrooms from the main body properly, I still ended up with about 20 from the whole thing.

Didn't take me too long to find the red counterpart either – this one's cap was less of a "cap" and more a "hat", with the mushroom body hanging close enough to the ground that I didn't need to tower up. Some of these mushroom blocks were even growing sideways, which, while weird at first, ultimately made their collection easier.

Once I'm back, I'll definitely look into a way to grow more of these (both small and big, if possible).

Bottom line is, I see now that the trader's stories might have not been "embellished", after all.


Horses exist in this place too – saw a whole gang of them grazjng down in the plains further south. Seven, along with a single donkey minding his own business a distance away. Again, they were not nearly as skittish as I imagined wild animals would be.

I don't know what exactly compelled me to try and climb one of them; maybe it was the knowledge that horses are still a popular mode of transportation among certain frontier villages (where vehicles can easily get stuck in the dirt and turn into a death trap), or maybe it was me envisioning myself on a horseback like a true Knight. Either way, my butt and my back paid dearly for it, and I was lucky not to get a faceful of the horse's hind legs afterwards.

"Jaune Arc does an oops once again". Maybe some other time, though – it's not like I won't benefit from knowing how to ride.

That's a hint for you, my good friend System.


Noticed a few patches of cobblestone on an otherwise stone cliff wall. There was a lot of bone grinding coming from behind it. Digging it out, I came across some sort of a pitch-black room with walls made entirely of cobble, some of it mossed over. What caught my attention was the small cubical cage with a tiny spinning skeleton figurine inside of it right in the center. Took me a second to recognize it as the same one that created venomous spiders back in the mineshaft.

Of course, as soon as I came to that realization, two skeletons poofed into existence right next to me. And of course I'd have an arrow sticking out of my gut, were it not for my armor. Thankfully, with a bit of footwork I managed to make them shoot eachother, observed their (un)deathmatch, finished the victor off and lit the place all around the cage up.

(I believe this means that these skeletons are not someone's remains brought to life, but some sort of an artificial construct, considering how every single one of them has a bow, and how these two appeared with their bows already In hand.)

Being done with that I checked two chests that were in this room. First one had nothing interesting – just some bones, a few strings and a pile of Redstone Dust. Second chest, thought, was a lot more remarkable: another Music Disk (this time titled "Siforaityn -13"), and a BOOK!

Got a whole lot of new recipes for it, including a lectern (finally!). To think, all I needed was to borrow a book from the librarian.

Oh, and this book can be barely called one too - it's barely ten pages long, and almost completely blank, save for an occasional scribble here and there. What a rip-off.


I'm back in this stupid cage room. Just about the only shelter I could find in the darkness.

All because I managed to get lost. Somehow.

Unbelievable. Just walk back, right. Nope! Must have taken a fucking turn somewhere, because all I did come across was unknown territory. The only reason why I'm able to write/complain right now was because the torchlight from within the room can be easily seen at night.

Found a huge swampy expanse further down south and decided to call it a day of exploring. Funny enough, the Nature seemed to think the same, cause it started to get dark pretty quickly, so I turned back.

Just follow the ridgeline back. Easy, right? Yet now I am here, stuck in this cobble tomb, hoping that nothing breaks through my barricade and I don't suffocate with all these torches around, because I just know that as soon as the light's gone a skeleton is going to suddenly appear and send an arrow right in-between my eyes.

My orientation skills leave a lot to be desired. Where had I gone off-track? Think, Jaune.


Well, I made it back. The torches inside the dungeon (it really did feel like a dungeon) eventually forced me to dismantle my barricade and let some fresh air in. Of course, as per my usual Arc Luck, that air came with a veritable horde of baby zombies, who somehow managed to crawl through the hole I made, so I had to jump ship and make a mad dash for what I hoped was the direction of my base. Thankfully, I chose right: spotted the same group of horses grazing on the plains, so finding my way back became easy.

I wish actually making my way back was just as easy. But what's done is done. Bedtime now, don't have much strength or desire to be doing anything else.


This is the first chapter completely written and uploaded from my new tablet (which is both more AND less convenient for writing than my laptop at the same time). Do tell me if there's a drop in the quality and whatnot.

Also bumped the rating up to T, just to be safe.