Day 37

what is going on? why have I suddenly become so bad at sleeping? I had turned in my bed for literal hours before sort of slumping away and woke up way past noon. Maybe this whole enchantment hype was keeping me up. I wanted to see what the three-lapis enchantment looks like. Oh, and I'd like to check what happens if I "offer" different items but don't enchant them straight away – I came up with this while trying to sleep last night.

Yeah, it was probably the excitement keeping me up.


Okay, so the table seems to "remember" what enchantments it chose to offer for that particular item; I tested this with my iron helm and my other new diamond pickaxe – the options stayed the same. With barely any sleep last night, it was a real slog, trying to understand this stinking language, but in the end I went ahead and picked the only unique 3-lapis option there was this time – something called "Aqua Affinity" for helmet, so something to do with water.

With three hours downtime, figure I could go for a jog to the village. Would wake me up nicely, and

Well, now that I think about it, I still have that special enchanted book and a shiny new very valuable pickaxe. One of the craftsmen (one of them, speicifically) ought to know how to do join them together and not have it end in a disaster.


A reminder for myself to build a bridge over the damned river – it sucks having to take the long way around! I dont understand how I was so calm and nonchalant about having to take a huge detour every single time. Is it the insomnia thats making me cranky?

I kind of understand why Weiss occasionally used to be so bitchy towards the sisters and their apparent inability to let her have a good nights rest at the start of the school year.

At least on the bright side, I saw a fox. Looked red and puffy, and sounded like gibberish laughing and screeching at the same time, so it must be a fox.

Can I befriend a fox? "Strangers are just friends" after all, and Wolfy could use a friend.


Got to the village before the sunset (I did wake up really late today). Since I'd gone off in a bit of a hurry, I did not bring anything to trade – went right to the smithy instead to ask for help. Guy looked to be in great mood, so he skipped the usual "grumpy cat" routine we have - straight to talking.

Skipping over all the unnecessary details, this is what I've been told: an enchanted book, some lapis lazuli, whatever it is that needs to be enchanted, an engraving pin and an anvil – all of those are required. First, put all those items on the anvil; what's important is that a piece of lapis lies inbetween the book and the item. Then, take the engraving tool out, and engrave the exact same symbols used to enchant the book somewhere on the tool. Once done, he book should burn away, lapis should lay untouched and the item should be successfully enchanted.

There is a caveat: I was warned that applying a high-quality enchantment usually means that the code phrase is more complicated and will be much harder to engrave properly; on top of that, while it is possible to get extra enchantments on an already enchanted item, it gets progressively more difficult and costly each time, to the point where you need to use crushed lapis trail (like during the creation of ench. table), maybe even along with using several pieces at once, just for a chance to engrave one extra property onto the tool (of course, there is a possibility of messing that up too and wasting all of the time and resources). Eventually, after enough attempts, putting an enchantment on the item becomes downright impossible – apparently, no amount of lapis will suffice and the enchantment will not apply, no matter what; this happens faster with higher-tier magic, so, in smith's words, it's best to enchant everything in as few attempts as possible. He called it "enchantment penalty", and said that eapplied to anything enchanted – books included.

(I'm guessing the librarian knows more about combining books with books)

Most of that was regarding combining books with items. Other items with items should work the same, except with more pronounced enchantment penalties from both sides. As an upside, I was told, when the item gets disenchanted that way, it doesn't just disappear and can be used for repairs instead.

Since the "core" of the enchantment is contained within those magically-imbued engravings, removing enchantments (without transfer to another tool) is as easy as grinding the engravings out on a grindstone. Obviously doing this too many times will damage the tool, but it is possible to re-enchant one item several times without much trouble, provided the grinding is done cleanly and carefully.

That was all the weaponsmith had told me, inbetween the many interruptions from the villagefolk and lamenting the fact that the village does not have anybody with enchanted books. Because it was already getting late, I said all my goodbyes in a hurry and rushed back. To save time, instead of just going around decided to cut by swim through the river.

That was where the trouble found me. At the river bank, I could already see the (un)welcoming party on the other side, so I committed myself to a serious fight as I jumped in.

I did not expect for something to hook onto my poor, tortured jeans and start dragging me down to the bottom. I panicked, not going to lie, since before that bodies of water (especially this river) were something of a safe haven. I managed to find the culprit – a fishing hook stuck to my pants, of all things, ripped the wire off with my shield, then swam back, trying to cough out the water I'd gulped in my panic.

The gurgling sound from the river forced me to turn around. I wish I hadn't.

It was a zombie, slowly crawling out of water. No, calling that thing a zombie is an INSULT to zombies everywhere. It was greenish-blue bloated mess, with barely any shreds of clothing and a huge foam trail from what used to be the face; there was nothing recognizable left but the mouth and two dark holes amidst the bloat that I think passed for eyes. And the sounds! Gods, it sounded like someone trying to talk with their lungs full of water!

Fucking Drowned. Even now that I recall everything I feel like pulling a Vomitboy.

I did not lose my lunch, despite being more than "encouraged" to. No, I took a deep breath, ran back, took out my bow and shot at it until it died.

Then I lost my lunch.

(At least it can't get any worse than this, hopefully.)

After getting my bearings, I took a second to check if there were any more drowning victims unable to stay fucking dead, then swam back across as fast as I could, only to get a welcoming committee of Creepers, Skeletons and other scumspawn. I was shaken and wasn't thinking straight, so I just went to "work" with whatever I'd grabbed first, which was my aaxe

(In hindsight, I had gotten quite rusty with using it - if you can even get rusty with very little skill -, using my diamond sword most of the time instead. It's not like that's a bad thing, choosing to wield a weapon you're more proficient with, but how much I've been forced to fight, the wear on the blade is starting to show, so I ought to substitute it with some chopping action. Plus, as Miss Goodwitch used to say, "one-trick fighters are 100% vulnerable; two-trick fighters only 50%". I think that's the closest she has ever gotten to making a joke, even if it was kind of solid advice. Back at Beacon I never thought of using any other kind of weapon.)

Of course, as Arc Luck would have it, there was yet another enchanted bow skeleton raining ridiculously damaging arrows at me. Thankfully, I had a whole crowd moving after me to shield me from the shots I couldn't avoid; soon enough, his "accurate" fire had attracted the wrong kind of attention from his fellow bone brother (+ zombie cousins), and I became witness to the world's most awkward archery fight, which gave me a great opportunity to run in and axe everyone down. Would be great if I could get the bow too, but no, it feels like almost every single piece has that vanishing curse or whatever it's called.

What I did get though, was another music disk - ran into a creeper just outside my gates, knocked him back with a solid axe hit, and he got shot midair by some skeleton aiming for me from behind a hill. Once might be a coincidence, twice is probably a pattern. If there's a third time like this, then it's all but confirmed. This disk has pitch-black center and is named "Siforaityn – stal". Whoever this guy is, I bet he's a "bombing" artist; too bad I can't freaking listen to anything.

Even if all of that was not enough, I had freaking flying harpy Phantom things suddenly appear once again? This time I took the fight to them, and it was surprisingly easy. They appeared way scarier than they actually were.

I have had enough for today. Going to make some additions to my "bestiary" page, maybe make one round across the base to see how my animals are doing, then go to bed and sincerely hope I have a good night's rest.

P.S: lying in bed I realized I don't even know anybody's name! Butcher-boy, Farmer Lady, the Librarian – those are all freaking nicknames, and I haven't even gotten around to asking their real names!

Man I'm one lousy friend; sure, I'm trying to survive and help everyone out occasionally, but that is barely an excuse


I did actually update the "Bestiary" chapter, hehe.