Prep Work II

One Week, Three Days

Once breakfast had been eaten, the dev had decided to clean all the pups. Both Ash and Luna were now clean, sitting and watching the spectacle as Selene chased Blue around trying to get him into the bathtub. Each time she got him in, he struggled and found some way to escape. "Get back here you little… I need you prim and proper when we go into that village, otherwise you're staying here!" she snapped at him as he tried to hide. For him, that was the better option. For her, she would like for him to tag along with the rest of the group. Even Luna was going to be coming with them, riding along on top of the new leather backpack she was crafting in her inventory. It was using the remainder of her old, and cleaned now, hide clothing.

God damn it, cue the Benny Hill Music! How do I stop you from running!

"Blue! Listen to your alpha! I need you clean!" Blue barked and ran around the fort with the woman in hot pursuit. After what seemed like forever trying to catch him, she was hunched over panting. He was too, but he wasn't tired, instead happy with the outcome. "Blue… please… the bath water is getting cold… please don't make me waste that wood… the whole thing will take maybe five minutes… I promise…"

Ash barked at Blue along with Luna adding in. The black male flopped onto the floor and groaned, as his whole body went limp. If she wanted to give him a bath, she'd need to carry him. "Fine, if that's how it is, I'll do it." As her arms went around his body to lift him up, she struggled a little bit. Had he gained weight? Ash wasn't as large as he was now, and they'd been with her for less than a week. How old were each of them? Since she had been feeding them well and having them help her hunt, they were coming into their own as adults now it seemed. They were still considered adolescents, but their size was starting to show they'd be almost on par with their parents, maybe a little larger. Luna had gotten a little bigger as well, now that she was being fed and taken care of. She was still a playful little pup, but something seemed to tell the dev she wasn't exactly a runt, she couldn't quite place it. It was possible her growth was just temporarily stunted due to being sick and not being fed well. Third World countries tended to have smaller citizens due to less high-quality food. The little white wolf was still adorable, now fluffed up a bit without any greasy or dirty fur.

"Oof, Blue, maybe I should watch how I feed you. Or maybe I shouldn't, I don't know. Cut me some slack here buddy, just do this one thing for me" she grumbled out as she took a few steps awkwardly towards the bath, finally getting him in and putting his head on the lip. A huff came out of his mouth as she got to work and cleaned him up with some soap. Within five minutes, it was done. "There. That wasn't so bad was it?" he leapt out of the water, splashing her in the process and ran over to the others, shaking to get any water out of his fur. "Fine, but just you wait, this is going to be a regular thing each month!" Selene took a linen towel and dried herself off.

Just as she was dry, the research station finished with the stone tablet and allowed her the next step. As she opened the inventory and checked on it, the provided upgrade was as she expected, papyrus.

Thank god, at least I don't have to go running off to find some obscure material to make it now. I don't want to go near that alligator again unless I have some much better gear.

Once the reeds were cut up and the papyrus was finished being made, the sheets were placed in the research station and told to do its thing. Another twenty-four hours. "Ugh… I'm never getting to Early Middle Ages." Despite telling herself that she was patient, Selene really wanted to get a move on. As she sat down on her log chair up on the catwalk for the East South East Wall, her eyes kept looking towards the village.

"Maybe… maybe I could scout it out right now, before we actually go there… I just have to be stealthy and careful no one sees me. If it's human, then great; if it's goblin, then I'm not losing out on anything and can head home." It wasn't noon just yet, she had maybe an hour. Given the time it would take to get there, she would probably make it back by nightfall. If she could just get a peek on what was there, it would assuage her curiosity somewhat. Once she was geared up, she told the pups to stay in the fort while she went for a quick scout of the village. Ash and Luna were lying on the cave entrance ramp sunning themselves. Blue was on the North East catwalk with his belly aimed up at the sun doing the same.

As she headed for the village, her eyes kept roaming the rolling hills for anything predatory or for new plants. Potatoes and carrots would be difficult to spot but hops or barley she hoped might crop up somehow. Unfortunately, there was no luck this time, but she got a good lay of the land nearby. Once she was close enough to prove if there were humans or goblins in the homes, Selene went prone and lay on top of a hill just barely overlooking the dwellings further away. Smoke was coming from multiple chimneys, with sounds of chickens and a few dogs.

Dogs. Do goblins domesticate dogs?

Her eyes wandered each dwelling, searching for something that would tell who lived there. Finally, after a few minutes, she saw one. It was a woman wearing a brown dress with a blouse underneath, with a green work veil holding up her hair. She was carrying what seemed to be a hoe. Two children ran by an alley she could barely see. There was her proof, she had all she needed. There was what she thought might be a blacksmith with an open front, a very small inn, what she thought might be a general store but could be wrong, as well as some sort of stall stationed in front of a house. There also seemed to be some weird podium towards the front with a clearing near it, but for what reason she couldn't tell. The whole village had fencing around it, but no walls. That might mean it wasn't that difficult to live in the area, with few threats. Selene backed off and headed towards the fort, barely arriving as the last rays of light left the area. She lit some torches and settled into her routine of cooking dinner and checking on the sheep. Now that she knew there were humans there, this meant she might be able to trade.

There was almost no need for anything crafted there, no weapons or storage, if they made any of course. This was a small village it seemed, with maybe enough homes for just under one hundred people? What she might want to buy was any animals for sale, ingredients for food she didn't have or seeds, or potentially any tools she didn't have for blacksmithing. There was also the issue of not quite knowing where she was at any time, and just following land marks she remembered. That meant she might want to see if they could give her a map. The last thing she might get was maybe food as there would be no time to hunt, and while the garden was coming along nicely, it would be a while before she could pull anything from the vegetable garden. The herb garden was allowing bits and pieces, including the newly found Sorrel. There was a possibility of hunting well the day before the trip, but there was no telling how well they would fair.

"Let's see, cattails if I remember correctly from one job in Florida bloom mid-summer to early Fall… so I'm just at the start of fall? I might want to insulate the cabin a bit more later. That could also affect what I might be able to buy at the village." The thought occurred to her that she'd need to dry or salt food in the future to hold her until past winter. There might be spices she needed to investigate, maybe the village had some available for sale. Spices tended to be expensive though in the old days. Pepper or chili powder were especially difficult to get unless you were rich. If she did have to save up for the winter, it could stop any tech ups for a long time due to the resources disappearing. That could leave her and the wolves starving during the winter.

Stop worrying about what to do! I'm fidgeting right now due to impatience! Just get everything under control here, I still have three tech tiers to go through before I can even think of waltzing into that place!

As she got ready for bed with the wolves jumping onto the blanket to sleep at her feet and head, her eyes just stared up at the ceiling of the cabin, as she was going to bed at an earlier time to get up for foraging. She needed more patience. Was that a stat she could put points into?

Ha ha, very funny about the patience Selene… but seriously, do I have a patience stat?

One Week, Four Days

The dev heard a thump and woke up bleary eyed to look around the dark cabin. Blue had fallen off the bed and woke up on the ground. "You ok?" she asked him. He just looked around, wondering what happened. Her eyes tried to find the torch in the room, slowly feeling her way around as she finally lit it and placed the handle into the sconce. Ash looked up at her and met eyes. "Is it morning yet? Do you guys know, or did I just wake up too early?" Luna stretched and hopped off the bed after yawning, with Blue pushing the door open. Ash whined a little as she got up and followed. "I guess not. Time to start." This would be her first time to hunt just before dawn, but with Ash and Blue next to her, it wasn't going to be any real issue. Once they were outside, they slowly made their way through bushes and trees, with Selene mostly following the wolves to figure out where she was going. It was very dark, but that meant dawn was just on the horizon. Ash caught a vole almost immediately, with Blue finding a snake that was hissing. Both of them took it out due to Selene's accuracy significantly taking a hit due to not being able to see the danger noodle well.

As they continued further and further away, their direction was meandering North to North West, heading towards the mountain range. They stopped as they saw a moving mound behind some bushes. Ash and Blue didn't go forward, waiting on her go. As she peeked through the bushes, hoping to find a boar, what she found was definitely not a wild pig.

It'sabearIt'sabearIt'sabearIt'sabear…

It looked to be a brown bear of some sort, pretty large, but it was still dark outside. The first rays of dawn were starting to come in, allowing a slightly better view of the size. She stepped on a twig which broke, and the bear looked in her direction. She didn't make a move as it just watched for a second, then ignored it. As she moved to a better position, he turned around and looked right at her.

Fuck! Um… yell at it and try and make yourself look big!

"Growl! Grrr! Uh… Gao!" she tried to scare it away, but then the dawn sunlight showed a little more. The bear stood up on its hind legs and stared at her.

IT'S A GRIZZLY!

Selene very nearly lost bladder control. She backed off carefully, not running as it dropped to all fours and grumbled. It wasn't roaring at her or being aggressive, so it might mean it wasn't going to go after her. Once they were a sufficient distance away and saw it turn around to go further into the forest, she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "That grizzly has more sense than I do."

The three continued on a wider birth from that area, trying to find the rabbit warren that Ash and Blue had found before. As they caught a few, a fourth one started running. Before Blue could even start chasing, an owl dropped from a tree majestically with no sound and grabbed it. It carried the small rabbit up into the tree, away from all of them. She was surprised it was still awake and not hiding due to dawn peeking over. Once they collected a slow-moving lizard and caught a fat mouse, they headed back towards the fort.

"Ok, I have to admit, that was pretty awesome." Her mind kept going back to seeing the owl come swooping in with no sound, no movement of dirt due to how the wings and feathers worked for it. The owl she just saw was a silent predator and knew exactly what to do for a meal. The grizzly was extremely intimidating too. They checked the lake traps on their way back, found two fish in six traps, then went to eat breakfast. Luna, astonishingly, had something in her mouth when they got back. It was another mouse. There was a new hole that happened to be hiding just to the left of the gate entrance, just before the stone runner. As she sealed the hole with more stone, she kept glancing over at the white pup.

"You are officially a little hunter now huh? Glad to see it, welcome to the team. Soon you'll be taking out lions and tigers and bears, maybe an alligator, right?" Luna barked in accomplishment, trying to look proud and regal. Once breakfast was done, Selene checked her research station. Almost complete. She was sitting on a tech up this entire time, she needed to use it soon as there was no information on whether spare actions were "saved" or just lost. She decided to do some clean up of the fort, changing out the hay for the sheep who didn't seem to mind her being in their pen anymore as they were getting constant food with a perfectly protected enclosure. The woman had to make a shovel to get rid of their feces and had to move them into the second set of stalls just to wash down any urine. The fort had gotten to a decent size, at least in her eyes. For a normal fort, it would probably be a bit bigger to house more utility features that she hadn't built in yet. There was no barracks for extra soldiers, no blacksmith or other utility buildings, no defensive emplacements or artillery siege systems, but it did protect both caves with decent log walls, the ability to look outside without going through the gate, a cabin and…

"I need a filtration spot for water." There was actually an ancient way to create a watering hole that flowed into an old filtration system to create clean water. The fort already encompassed some spots she had removed tree trunks. Her Molecular Reformation ability kicked in on some dirt close to the cabin and dug out a dry pile and finally mud. Dirty water was seen on the bottom, but she kept going further until it was just a good ten feet below the water line. Once that was complete, she crafted a water well above it with a bucket on a hemp rope. The water well was sealed with quick dry mortar she created from the alchemy station. There was regular mortar that could be crafted, but it wouldn't have worked under water. Next to the well she built a water filter with brick, with a two-tier box system on top of each other and a water drain that rose up to the well. Inside the top box there was charcoal covered in gravel and sand followed by dirt ash and large stones to keep all of it from being displaced, along with a spout to drain clean water into the second bottom box. When she poured water from the well into the top, it would filter through all of that into the bottom box that was water sealed with a sap glaze. There was enough space in the design below the bottom to put wood under to create a fire to boil the water, with a slant two-fold roof over the bottom box for steam to collect and drop back down.

Within one hour, she had clean water pouring out. Within another half hour, the clean water was boiled.

Just as she was finished getting her new water source made, and found the taste to her liking, the research station completed. Paper was ready to be used. "Finally!" Her character sheet flipped open instantly and the tech up was started. Ancient History completed… with actions left over. She gawked for a few seconds before a smile crept up. "So, it carries over and doesn't waste… so technically, I could sit around at tier one for weeks or months, then teched up all at once. That would be a huge waste of resources and materials, but still… also, who the hell would want to live like a caveman for that amount of time…"

She was a quarter of the way to tier eleven right now, Classical Era, which meant if she gathered what she needed for paper, ink, and some quills, she could test the magical scrolls right now… if she made a second research station. The woman figured that as soon as she put paper in the first one, it would give a timer of twenty-four hours yet again. Sure enough, once she had mulched a tree and pulped some up in a pulp box, then created low quality paper, it provided that very time. She brought her hand up to her forehead in a facepalm.

The second station she put paper in, regular inks, special inks, perk ink, a quill from some feathers she found near a tree just outside the North wall and checked the recipe list. It grew into a huge list… all of which required an alchemy station connected to it. It took some effort as she headed out to gather more materials to build the second alchemy station, the tools, the spare resources it was asking, and picked some herbs from the garden, to get the second alchemy bench up and running and "plugged in" to the second research station. She wasn't going to lose access to potions while this thing did its job.

"Extremely Minor Teleport, that sounds useful… Spark Finger, maybe for starting fires… Extremely Minor Lightning Bolt, what, like static shock?... Extremely Minor Fire Bolt, light someone's pants on fire… sheesh there's a lot… Extremely Minor Light Orb, so, a magic candle or Taper?" The list was massive now, providing a very diverse number of spells she could research. All of them followed the same quality tier as potions it seemed, which meant they could be upgraded. This probably meant if she researched one, put it on a scroll, researched that, she'd get the next better version. The problem was, she had no idea how long it took.

"Well the X Minor Teleport sounds like a good idea to get right now… wonder what its timer is gonna be…" as she started it, twelve hours. That wasn't bad at all in her eyes, that meant if she woke up in the middle of the night and started a new one, she could get two spells per day. Yggdrasil had over seven thousand spells to its list, but this seemed to follow "Arcanic's Wizardry" spell school with Divine Apocalypse's tier list. The work involved, including some of the spell names, seemed to match. Also, she could change the names of the spells to whatever she wanted just for her. The research of a magical scroll into a real spell took "General Essence Gem." That meant she needed to use her enchanting essence for both enchanting and learning new spells. Definitely Arcanic's Wizardry.

Arcanic's Wizardry was a game almost entirely about magic, with almost no regular fighting beyond players goofing around and swinging their staffs around in lightsaber duels or jumping around with the staff between their legs acting like it was a giant phallus under their robes. She couldn't believe there was an emote for that. The list of spells in it easily dwarfed Yggdrasil for a good reason. It had well over ninety thousand different spells, with overcharged versions of those as well. There was no way anyone could learn all of them, though some tried. The scary fact was that anyone could try to learn all of them, with no restrictions to how many the avatar had available. The question was how many the player would remember they had to use. Some players had scrolling hot bars added to the sides of their Hud with a combo bar that rotated through a spell list to the bottom. Huge macros were made just to get anywhere with chain casts. Divine Apocalypse and Yggdrasil might have been great games, but the spell slinging in Arcanic's Wizardry looked like World War III for a basic battle. That wasn't even bringing out the big guns. Quite a few fights took place in other dimensions or pocket realms just to make sure they didn't wipe out the landscape in the main realm. Nukes? Those were pop guns compared to what some players could use.

One spell was called "Collapse." It didn't crash down a building, that was for sure. Pocket Dimensions could be collapsed on themselves if someone was trapped inside. She remembered one other dev comparing the end result to "Gorey Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches flattened to a molecule thick." The power of all their spells came from the fact that they didn't follow a tier list for their spells. Yggdrasil used up to tenth tier with super tier just above it as special abilities. It encompassed categories of Arcane, Divine, Spiritual and Alternative, with further break down. Arcanic's Wizardry simply built the list by dimensions of reality, starting at first and ending at… well, scientists are still trying to figure out where that ends, so the developers kept making new dimensions. The players of that game were nowhere near as low as children's stories like Harry Potter. They wanted to win. To gain the prestige title of Battlemage meant you were one of the elites, with no one wanting to fight you on the field. Planetary destruction would be considered mid to low tier damage. Armies and minions, no matter how powerful, were cannon fodder to delay the opposing force.

The problem was getting to some of those really powerful spells. There were a lot of them, but she needed to first research the lower tiers up to that strength. Also, of note, in a separate list, were physical crafting items beyond magical scrolls. One caught her interest, Research Notes.

"If that is what I think it is, this could be faster." She requested the crafting of it immediately. Another twelve hours. If it worked like she thought it would, this meant it was a tool to use to increase research speed. The next tier beyond paper might be a tome then instead of a computer. Getting a research tome made afterwards would be nice.

Once she had both paper researching and research notes being crafted in both stations, she set the spare alchemy bench to create more mortar for later. Her forges were now separate stations from true smelteries, with the forges now used in concert with the Equipment Bench. It sped up the creation process by leaps and bounds. She had no idea that the forge could in fact be used as a "tool" for another station but considering the alchemy station was attached to the research table, it might mean they could be interconnected to allow different lists. It would be like an addon building to a space sim or RTS game, with the main building doing the standard stuff, but the addons allowing extra features you didn't normally have. Those addon buildings would probably be on wheels, tracks, rails, hydraulics or winch arms to move another addon to that airlock. The thought was mind boggling, as there might be combinations she hasn't tried yet with recipe and crafting lists she doesn't know about. It could be she just has to wait for one of the stations to request to be connected.

Her problem now was feeding those smelteries. As Selene headed to her mine and started to dig down, she was maybe five hundred meters in and two hundred meters down through the twists she made… before the floor collapsed under her. She tried to jump back but still lost her footing, falling with the stone. She landed, luckily, without any broken bones, but she was in pain from how high she fell which was a good fifteen or twenty feet. As she looked around where she fell, she noticed that she had fallen into an enclosed cave with stalagmites and stalactites everywhere. There were multiple pools of water, with fluorescent mushrooms sitting around providing decent light with almost no shadows. There seemed to be a cave network connected to this area.

Fuck, this is where giant spiders come around and eat me, isn't it?

There didn't seem to be anything else besides some aquatic life and mushrooms in the cave or moving in the tunnels further ahead. Selene slowly got up and winced due to the fall, her eyes looking up at the hole she had come from. She immediately crafted a stone ramp to get back up, then lit a torch. The walls were covered in ore veins, with what looked to be some salt deposits near the pools. Algae seemed abundant too, with some glowing fish living in the pools. Nothing looked hostile at all. Her curiosity got the better of her as her feet started to move towards the tunnels. She built stone sconces on the walls and lit a torch at each one to find her way back. Each tunnel was like the cave she fell in, with plenty of ore lining the walls and lots of mushrooms

Don't eat those. If they glow that much, they'll probably kill me.

Three Hours Later

As Selene came back to the ramp and exited her new-found super mine, she realized it was nightfall already. She had wandered the cave tunnels trying to find other entrances to the place that would allow mushroom spores to fly in. She never found a single one. The whole place was an enclosed ecosystem that probably sealed itself off after unknown centuries and tectonic shifts. For all she knew, the mushrooms were producing more oxygen from the salt deposits that were sitting nearby them somehow, or the mushrooms ate metal ore. The resultant waste residue that they produced might be what allows the algae, which feeds the fish. There were no spiders or weird cave dwelling creatures that weren't aquatic, just a sealed off biome no one knew existed. Even the fish came to look at her fingers when she poked them into the pools, which seemed to show there were no predators that they feared. It also wasn't musty at all, even smelled quite nice given how dank it should have been. There might have been small openings in the pools for more water to flow in or fish to swim about, but no underwater opening large enough for a basketball to even fit.

"Guess I have an abundance of metal now, provided I can get the time to mine it. Plus, salt. Thank you thank you thank you." Luna was whining for food, and Blue was looking down the ramp to the underground cave. "No eating those fish or mushrooms! I don't want to see you getting poisoned! Glowing is bad! I'll know if you ate one when you grow a fifth leg!" He turned around and looked at her, then took one more glance down the ramp and followed her out.

The remainder of the night went by without complaint, even having some entertainment when a meteor shower was seen in the night sky. "Once the tome is done, tech eleven and Classical. Roman period? Marble pillars, maybe new stuff… plumbing… ooh, plumbing!" as she went through the motions and spoke to herself about her plan, she quickly perked up as soon as she realized she'd get plumbing soon. An outhouse would be fantastic with some sort of septic tank or waterflow to get rid of the waste. As she got slowly up and winced due to the fall from before, hobbling like an old woman, she walked carefully to the gate and made sure it was locked carefully before heading to the cabin. Once she was in bed, her thoughts kept switching to the village. She almost couldn't take it anymore. Maybe she could make it there at tier twelve, Post-Classical? Fall of the Roman Empire, start of The Dark Ages. She'd be close enough to their tech level, at least to trade and not make a fool out of herself.

One Week, Five Days

She almost couldn't wait for it. There were twelve minutes left on the timer for paper to allow tomes to be made. Ten. Eight. She had spent that morning working her ass off in her mine cutting around veins of ore to gather some useless stone. She found out after reaching tier ten tech that the amount of actions taken had gone up to two hundred now. Six.

Don't you dare say you have lag!

Four. Three. Two. One. Ding! The Tech tree was open almost immediately, followed by the tech up. All resources disappeared, but she had picked out two oak trees just for certain occasions. Plumbing had been gained, she was now going to connect her fast built new outhouse with intricate stone piping to… the lake. The affectionately nicknamed "Big Bastard" was going to be seeing some interesting submersibles launching his way very soon. It wasn't the exact revenge she had planned for him, but this would do.

Eat shit and die Big Bastard.

The second tree was pulped up and used to make a research tome among other things, including a lawn chair near the lake and a kitchen table for the campfire. Her new quest she set for herself? Find marble if possible or granite. Also hops. She really wanted to at least try to make ale, at least just as a hobby.

The Classical Era had begun. Soon, it would fall to The Dark Ages. The village was waiting.