Instances of bad spelling/punctuation are intentional.
Also, a fairly important AN at the end. Read it, would you kindly.
Day 48
Woke up today to furious woofs of Wolfy – there was a freaking Enderman inside my base walking around as if he'd owned the place. That is, until he stumbled straight into a really prickly berry bush and jumped back straight into my pond. Instantly teleported on top of my farmland...only to then walk into the water again; after that, he was gone for good. Great show in the morning to wake me up; not so great that the dude trampled my vegetables, but I'll get on it later; for now, I need to check on Northside, and finish up my enchanting room.
Northside is still intact, thankfully. Brought a whole lot of cobblestone and wood to continue working on the walls (the rest's smelting at home into stone).
A band of kids showed up while I was messing with the crafting bench, and they kind of forced me to build a tiny little playground for them; how could I say no? They reminded me of Violette and how she used to beg me to help her build sand castles whenever we'd gone to that one beach on Patch.
Man, Patch was such a cool little island.
It's break time. Pretty interesting little story to scribe down while I rest.
One of the kids – the kinda Blake-ish (aka quiet, mind-your-own-business away from everyone else) came up to me when I was working on a section of the wall. I've been building the wall up 3-5 blocks here and there, so obviously I had to climb up and down constantly. So, this kid came up to me and started asking what was I building the wall for. I told him "to defend the village better from scary monsters until big Golem comes back". Maybe very cheesy, sure, but, in my defense, it's better to be cheesy with kids.
This boy was an exception though, because I saw him adopt the very same expression Blake used to wear whenever Yang made a pun (that was at least 5 times per day); then, but he started talking back in a really strange way; like, he couldn't speak too well, because little kid, but the way he spoke wasn't how your typical little kid would speak. The boy straight up asked me if my preferred method of climbing up the wall – staircasing with a bunch of plank blocks – was any good. Now, I will admit, I liked the staircasing a lot, because, with enough effort and blocks, it is technically possible build up to anywhere. Ladders, once I figured out how to make them, were a good plan B, but they always took too long to dismount from whereever I stuck them to, so not really a replacement for this staircasing; that was the way to go for me.
So, get this – the kid told me to jump and "do the appearing block thing" below myself. I told nim that's impossible. He pulled of the very same Blake expression, even the same freaking deadpan tone of voice she had, and asked me if I even tried it. So I did – and nothing. He told me to try gagain. At this point I would have ignored him and went back to constructing the wall, but the rest of the kids had pulled up, swarmed around us both and urged me to keep trying it. So, I was peer-pressured by a gang of children to essentially hop in place, trying to jump and figure out how to dump a freaking block underneath me; all the while looking like an idiot. Nothing new, in short.
That came to an end when I got finally tired of this stuff (I thought the boy just played me for laughs), so I made an effort to jump as high as I could for the last time, and freaking hell, it finally worked – the damn thing got placed and I landed on a block of planks right under me, and almost fell off, because I was bracing for a much longer air time. Some in the crowd of children cheered me, others looked a bit put off – probably expected me to fall for laughs. The kid that pushed me to try this just gave me a thumbs up; I took a moment to break the planks, and by the time I was done he was walking off.
He really acted way too maturely for his age. So, again, kind of like Blake – she always seemed to have that aura of…maturity, compared to, say, me or Ruby, or even Weiss. For Gods' sake, the boy even gave me a thumbs up! I never gave thumbs up when I was a kid, I never knew that there was such a thing as a thumbs up as a kid!
Anyway, after that, I kept jumping and trying to figure out what exactly made the "place-block-under-self" thing work. I came to the conclusion that I have to jump higher than the block itself – basically, higher than about 1m in to the air. That…was going to be pretty hard; until I figured out I can just bend my legs in mid-air to get the desired "1m off the ground" result; it even makes for a much smoother landing. Yay!
I think the kid told me about this, so that I'd stop constantly building and destroying block staircases, and started jumping and placing blocks underneath myself, kind of like, towering, instead of staircasing. Less time, less blocks used, but also pretty freaking scary, because I'll have only a 1x1 space to move around in – and if I screw up, it's pain time. Not to mention, it is pretty exhausting to be constantly jumping so high up in the air like that. Never should have skipped leg days, Jaune
Still, big thanks to the kid, I have a new option to work with.
The wall looks really nice and solid now, but there's still ways to go. I'll head back home after a lunch break.
Heard some bones rattling from inside the stone wall in my underground enchanting room. Turns out, there was a skeleton stuck in a tiny little air pocket amidst solid stone. As if I needed more fuel for paranoia - they can appear literally anywhere, so long as it's dark enough. Damn it, now I have to do a sweep of my territory and make sure that every single bit of land is lit up, just to be sure.
Besides that, the room is finished. Looks pretty nice, and the environment should be just good enough for books to be safe. Maybe I'll decorate the walls with all the leftover granite or something, but that's for the future. For right now, I plan to start setting up the bookshelves around the place. I am not quite sure how they're supposed to be, but I'll figure it out.
Ok, so the bookshelves turned out to be a major source of pain, because you can't just push them around – courtesy of this world – and breaking them breaks them literally, and sends the books flying everywhere. I used my unenchanted iron boots as a sort of benchmark to see if my enchantment offers were changing with every new position, so it took a while to find one where something did change.
Exactly one block horizontally away from the table.
The one bookcase I managed to install in proper position started giving off this weird effect, I guess you can call it – something like small, barely perceptible white specks coming off it, heading straight into Enchanting Table's book in a steady stream. Before that, the only real offer I got for my boots was "Protection I", but with this single bookcase, already I could see something that loosely translated to "Unbreaking I". Really obvious progress.
After wasting even more wood on new bookcases, I set them up according to that rule, and wow. This entire place is shining. Not too bright to not warrant using a lantern, but those white specks (totally not dust, or Dust – I had to try) glow really nicely in the dark as they're moving all around. It's almost like stargazing somewhere in the countryside.
I'm going to try enchanting now. Or maybe not now, cause I want to enjoy the show a little more.
Enchanted my previously-empty iron boots. The amount of bookshelves – 5 – boosted the table's power high enough for me to get see some new stuff. "Fire Protection II" it's called. I'll figure out what it does later – if it's bad like "Thorns", I can just grind the enchantment off and try again. Hopefully, by the time I visit both Westside and Eastside the table's cooldown is out.
Over at Westside now. Traded a whole lot of iron with Thuur the weaponsmith – he said that, if things went well, he'd have some "really sweet stuff" in a few days. I'm looking forward to it.
Right now I'm waiting on the farmer lady to do whatever it was she wanted to show me. Accidentally ran into her at ths village's square and almost knocked her down. Helped her up, apologizing the while; however, she just rebuffed me calling her "ma'am" (because she is kind of older than me) and just introduced herself as Freyja.
I was flabbergasted, to say the least, but she explained that, because of my Golem Trust thing yesterday, the entire village had seen that I'm a trustworthy guy and made their own conclusions or something; the only reason why I'm not drowning in their attention is because the folk respect my private space.
Sweet!
Lady Freyja told me she also had a surprise for me, and asked to wait while she "fetched it from her home". So here I am, sitting in the middle of the village with the Golem eyeing me. All the iron I sold today should keep the big guy very healthy for a long time.
Can't say my iron reserves are quite as healthy though, damn. Might need to go mining soon, and this stupid leather jacket isn't going to help if I get in a bind. I'm slowly considering just saying F it and patching Pumpkin Pete with crappy leather as it is right now, just to make sure I get to wear something more durable than this oversized sweater.
Okay. I don't know how to exactly put this, so I will just say it as it is.
I just ate gold and was better for it. No, seriously.
Farmerlady Freyja offered me a golden carrot to try out. That was her offer, a golden carrot. I know I said I was "super inclined" to try her new stuff out, but eating metal was honestly pushing the limits of what I considered appropriate. I voiced those concerns, and was told that it was okay to feel "apprehensive" for the first time. That made me think: Freyja hadn't done me any wrong up until this point; as a matter of fact, her life-saving stew recipe had done me nothing but right.
Besides, considering the mind-bending reality that was this world, with levitating stuff, weird water laws and so on, was edible gold that improbable?
Eventually, I decided to bite the bullet, and bit into the gold. Wasn't a fan of the taste right off the bat – tasted like an overboiled carrot, except with big hints of metal (I thought I'd started bleeding in my mouth initially, but no, that was just what gold tasted like).
This stuff's biggest strength clearly lied in its after-effects. It felt like an energy boost – not as much as Dandeliom Stew, but in a different way, like few cans of energy drink. For a few minutes or so, I felt stronger, faster, more perceptive; those effects gradually decreased until I was just plain old Jaune Arc.
In short: for about a couple of minutes, I was simply better in every single way, and it felt amazing. But, as always, all things amazing have to have something to draw them back: after witnessing my little energy trip, Freyja said that these carrots were "taxing on the body", and advised not to overuse them.
Still, I had to ask for recipe. Not overly complicated – sticking about 8 gold nuggets into the carrot and boiling it in super-hot water to "melt" them all over the surface (beats me how that works), but the nuggets have to be just the right size – Freyja didn't specify why, but I guess it's something to do with gold's properties, so too little won't do me much good, and too big might kill me. Instead, she had her own carrot offer – three emeralds for three pieces. I bought them; wanted to buy more, but she refused to sell any beyond those 3, because "she'd have to make more first". Fair.
Looks like I found my replacement for coffee – maybe not for every say, but for especially miserable mornings.
I'm over in Eastside now. Brought some leftover paper from base to the librarian, asked him if he could write some books specifically for boosting Enchantment Table's power. Had to go asking round the village, see if anybody had any bits of leather for me to use ofr the books. Butcher boy helped me out – had a freshly-slain cow and sold me some bits for just 2 emeralds. It's raw, but it should be fine nonethless. The librarian did make a deal – three 10-page books filled for 1 emerald. A fair price, though this time I asked to only get the filled paper – I'd rather make the books on my own at home than wait for the guy to do it, then scramble back through waves of monsters. Got nothing else to do, so I guess I'll just check around the village.
Asked the folk why they don't have a Golem - question's been nagging me for a whole. Turns out, the trees are too thick in the area, so their last Golem got stuck somewhere and slaughtered; plus the holes all over the place aren't exactly Golem-friendly either, so they decided not to bother with creating another one.
Well, I have my work here cut out for me now.
Came back, gave the animals some hay – not that they really need it, fed Wolfy. Now I'm going to work on sewing these books, so that they may actually be considered as such. Maybe I'll even have some time to enchant something else before bed.
9 books in total, so thats 3 bookshelves. The table is really lit up now, its genuinely like a star-filled sky when it's in the dark but not too noticeable in the light. I ate another carrot to put all of this together in time and I feel frking spent now. guess the carrot is less like coffee and more like an energy drink. that sucks, the coffee dream is over.
Now I gotta make a choice between enchanting my diamond pick or my sword. Way too tired for this.
Went with the pickaxe, got unbreaking III. Kind of meh. diamonds are supposed to be tough anyway, right so unbreaking, whtever it does is probably redundant.
THEN AGAIN, with the way I crafted the pickaxe back then, maybe it wont be redundant I dont know.
all I know is I'm sleeping in tomorrow.
So here's the deal, people: I've been thinking about this story a bit, more specifically certain chapters (which from here on I'll call auxiliary, because it's a cool fucking word.)
The auxiliary chapters in question, as of right now are Bestiary and Coordinates, with more to follow in the future.
Why auxiliary? Because they don't exactly move the story forward, but instead offer a better look into the world I'm trying to create - or so I hope they do.
Why I've been thinking about them? Well, while they might work into the whole diary aesthetic very well (I'm going for that vibe), from purely story's perspective they might turn out to be malicious, because, eventually, once the story has progressed far enough, they might contain spoilers for future events in it, which might be off-putting for new viewers.
So herein lies the question: what am I to do with these auxiliary chapters? And the answer is up to you, gents.
That's why I'm creating a poll on my profile with three main options I thought of; I'll pick the most voted one obviously. The options are:
a) Leave everything as is, update old auxiliary chapters and create new ones whenever story progression demands it.
b) Create a separate story as an addendum to this one, move the existing auxiliary chapters there, update them and create new ones there whenever this story's progression demands it. That way, new viewers won't be accidentally spoiling themselves on possible future events, unless they don't really care.
c) Create a separate story as an addendum to this one, with all of the planned auxiliary chapters present and filled out, but only after I finish this story. Remove present auxiliary chapters for the time being and do not create any new ones.
I am personally leaning towards option b, but I'll leave the final choice up to you.
In the meantime, if you've already voted, or you can't/don't want to, you can head straight to the reviews and tell me why exactly you like this story - IF you do, of course.
