You're Not Alone I
The Seventh Day
Selene woke up to the first rays of light well rested after everything had happened the past two days before. She had a full schedule to work with, and the pups would be able to finally help with parts of it. The dev was going to build four more forges to keep going inside inventory number two, as well as improve her stats a little bit as an experiment. She was also going to prioritize for the whole day crafting tools to assist with all daily tasks. For all she knew, she might be able to have a portable herb garden in her inventory, maybe a vegetable garden as well? It might be a nice thing to have. She'd make a second one of each and leave the originals, as they added something to her boring little fort. Since the forge was sitting in the second inventory, there was now even more space for her to put something else there. She'd just have to figure out what. Also, there was no stopping her from expanding in the future, producing more walls and stronger gates.
"Ok, breakfast first, then other stuff. But…" she trailed off as she looked at the target dummy. Time to test those points out. As her character sheet opened, she also noticed her skills list had a separate point listing which seemed to be double that of the stat points. That seemed to make sense. She had eleven perk points to spend as well, but she didn't have any created. She didn't even know how to make them.
Writing?... if you wrote some sort of perk acknowledgement… magic? Ooh! You need to make a desk and paper, with ink and a quill! Then you could write up some sort of perk contract for yourself. If it somehow got enchanted, like if you somehow found out how to make magical scrolls, then that would work!
Technically, she already knew how to read and write, but there might be some unknown magical language that allowed her to craft those. She just had to reach whatever tech tier allowed it. The next tech tier, Protohistory, allowed basic writing. That might be where she can at least create X minor scrolls, probably even perks. They might not be that powerful, and she had a limited number of the points, so until she had a decent quality level, it might be best to hold off for a few days. She wondered if paper was considered a material when she teched up. It was crafted from wood, so crafted items shouldn't disappear. Potions and poultices as well. The ink should also stay as it was crafted from charcoal and ash. The problem with that was ingots disappeared, so did cooked food.
"Glass. I'll need glass bottles, and a quill… birds. Wow, sooooo much stuff I'm going to have to get… hang on Selene, don't get ahead of yourself, you haven't reached that tier yet" she said to herself. She needed to focus on the task at hand. The woman put five points into the skill Ranged Weapons to see just how much of an effect it had. As she notched an arrow into her trash tier short bow, it felt easier to handle, quicker to bring up as well. It wasn't a huge boost, but it felt like she knew where to grip, she couldn't quite place it. The accuracy still hadn't changed much, which was a shame, but this could mean she could get more arrows out faster without whatever enemy getting too close before she had to switch to melee or running away.
"Alright, lets see some accuracy then." She put five points of her precious stats into Accuracy and tested again. She was a little better, still not great. The problem was, she didn't have a huge pool of them sitting around. Although she had now one hundred points remaining, they were supposed to work in coordination with armor, weapons, buffs, potions and skills, among other things; she wasn't even considering training to have a factor in this, which it would if she just kept practicing. She just didn't have the time right now. To shove everything into one stat would be foolish just to get those high benefits.
She pushed another five more points into accuracy, just to make it so that she'd hit a bit more, and five more skill points into Ranged Weapons. This would increase her ranged "speed" to get an arrow aimed on target by ten percent, which did not include the basic stat of attack speed with all the other stats and attributes. It might at least allow her a second chance and fire off another arrow if she was hunting with the pups. That could mean the difference between food and going hungry.
Selene then put another ten points into Molecular Reformation control and ten into power, then another ten into its "crafting time" that was separate from regular crafting speed. The normal crafting speed stat was probably for things like how quickly she can get an ingot made compared to how quickly she could combine all materials in her inventory with her MR power. This would help if she had to build anything anymore around her fort, or repair stuff. Thirty-five stat points spent, she now had sixty Attribute points left over. Those would sit around a bit longer. There was a stat that interested her, stature, but that would wait until she got a decent boost to what she needed. It might influence her height, even make her more intimidating.
"That's right! The hole!" She bonked herself on the head. She had forgotten yet again. The dev started to search around the log walls for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. Ash noticed this, and followed, then barked. Her head turned and saw the wolf sniffing at a certain spot. "Good girl." That was the opening she needed to fill. The best way to make sure nothing else tries to dig through would be to build a stone runner under each wall. It would be like a smaller wall below it. This could potentially be upgraded into a more solid foundation in the future if she didn't want to keep the outside floor as dirt and grass.
As she tested out the new speed of the ability, she noticed it hadn't had a huge effect on time to extract any materials but combined with power and control it was easier to pull stone from the mountain and get it where it needed to be without sitting there trying to force a headache on herself. This could make it feasible to upgrade the log walls to stone, or potentially far in the future, when she had more materials, metal. If she did upgrade to stone, she'd have to add some extra reinforcement, as it might not be as strong as anyone would expect. If there was a goblin party that showed up, for all she knew they could bring siege weaponry. The stone would just crumble unless there were additives.
"The crafting improvements, I'll have to wait on those until I've got better equipment." All the sewing, the sharpening, the modifications to weapons and gear would have to wait. The hole was fixed, and stone was below it, so now they had to get breakfast. Ash and Blue followed her out with Luna barking at them from the middle of the fort.
"Ok you guys, let's get this pack fed." They headed out further away from the fort than she normally would go, but now she had two wolves watching her back. They were still adolescents, but they had already proven they could hold their own at least against goblins. That might not matter much if they found a bear, but then all of them would just run if that happened. They scouted the surrounding area on the other side of the lake, watching and listening. Ash seemed to be better at tracking than Blue, but he was a lot faster when it came to taking something down. Within the hour, they had caught three weevils, two mice, a squirrel, and a deer foal with the mother running away. The thought crossed her mind that it was wrong to kill the young animal… for about a second. This was survival, and while her morals hadn't changed much, food was food. Hide was hide.
Blue wanted to chase after the mother, but Selene stopped him. "It's ok. It's ok, you did good. We'll have another chance later, don't worry." He looked up at her and gave a light woof, then glanced in the direction where the doe had run. All three headed back to camp to eat. Once they were fed and officially ready for the day, she headed to the second cave and stared at it, with a newly crafted wood torch.
"I know there has to be more in here, I couldn't have just drained the damn thing dry in five days. Most mines go on for years before they dry up." She concentrated on the difficult task at hand and worked to tear through the rock and stone, looking for any minerals she could use. She could see very light specks here and there, but nothing that could be a vein, at least she thought. "I might want to just pick what I can and grab at least a small amount. It might not be much per stone, but if I could get a huge amount, it might work." She continued to concentrate carefully on where she was seeing any Malachite, Zinc, Tin or Lead. She had collected the swords from the goblins the day before, which were rusted iron. Those could be melted down for a few more tools, which would help.
Just as she was about to turn around after breaking off a chunk of what she thought might have some Lead in it and towards another location in the new "mine", she noticed a brown spot just below it. As she moved the torch nearby, she recognized what it was. She started to tear the stone away with her power and saw it was a full iron vein, and a pretty big one too. Intertwined with it… was Cuprite. It had a much higher copper percentage than the Malachite she had been looking for. Her mouth grew into a big grin. There wasn't a great amount of it, but what she found would be useful. What she noticed was the vein was growing downwards. She rolled her eyes.
Yeah, stop digging forward into the mountain and dig downwards too. You might have missed some deposits.
She started to tear out the ground from underneath herself and dropped to her knees in astonishment. The iron vein curved under and turned into seven more larger veins just below her feet. There was a tiny bit of lead mixed in, a large chunk of tin, but it was mostly iron and Cuprite surrounding it like pilot fish following a shark in an ocean. This was a good spot to mine. Once she gathered it up and placed it in her inventory, she made sure the iron was in her first bag due to stopping any rust with the stasis effect, and then started building four more forges. She'd need more ingot casts, and she'd need more crucibles, but this was going to be fantastic.
Once she built one crucible and more were on the way in her inventory, she poured her first iron ingot after melting it in the first forge. It had taken an hour, but what she made afterwards she hoped would help her out. The crucible tongs increased ingot speed by ten percent for each. She no longer had to use two branches, and it was more effective. The second ingot that came out of each helped craft half of a pedal pusher for the bellows, acting as a modification to it. Once she had a third ingot, and a second pedal made, that increased the ingot creation speed by another twenty percent due to the faster heating. Despite it looking somewhat modern, all it did was allow two pipes to push air into the forges instead of one, with a split of the bellows into two pieces. Iron ingots, and for that matter copper and bronze ingots, were no longer taking almost an hour and instead cut down to forty minutes each. She also expanded each forge to be able to carry three crucibles, expanding how much raw material she could melt down at any given time. It burned through charcoal quicker, but that was easy enough to get now with five charcoal huts in her inventory as well. She had a constant flow of ingots that were now in her inventory, at least while she had ore, and while the ingots were still considered materials if she teched up, she could always go digging in her official mine.
She investigated her skills list and checked on Metallurgy. She hadn't put anything into it, but what she had also noticed was prospecting just below it. That could be used for anything so that she could find more resources. There was also tracking she could improve for finding animals and gathering which she already knew was there to increase yields of just about everything. She still had two hundred ten skill points to spend… Selene decided. Twenty points into Prospecting to help her find more mining materials, twenty points into tracking to help find game, twenty points to gathering to increase how much she would get from anything she collected, twenty points into Metallurgy so that she got more ingots from the materials she melted down. She finally put another fifteen points into Ranged Weapons and twenty points into Farming. There were ninety-five skill points left until she leveled up again. This use of points now would increase the amount of resources she was going to gain by twenty percent, and crafted materials by as much as forty percent. That was a huge boost to what she would have available. The dev thought about even using another twenty points for cooking to help feed all of them with less. She'd have to wait and see if they got more meat and other edibles from the land before she spent any more. She had felt a little odd when she put the extra points into Ranged Weapons, improving handling and control of the bow most likely.
Alright, you have a decent supply of ingots right now, not a huge amount, but decent. Now might be a good idea to upgrade your equipment.
She had time just before lunch hit to start making new armor and weapons, and finish crafting all the mods and tools to help speed things up. A blacksmith hammer was immediately created to drop the crafting time of her trash gear. She then crafted an iron sewing kit, and a pair of ancient pliers. The woman finally crafted an equipment bench to get all this working together. The combined drop in crafting time was almost forty percent. It normally took one hour per piece of equipment, as she plainly remembered from crafting plant fiber clothing. Granted, that was with her MR power with no improvements. Now, it might be thirty-five, maybe thirty-six minutes, which was almost half the time it previously took if she used the Equipment Station and available tools. If she could eventually make better tools, then this would make it go even faster, both with quality and tech tier improvement. The blacksmith hammer was itself considered trash tier, but that would change soon once she made a good hundred pieces and used those to research Shoddy. The way it worked was the one hundred trash tier pieces would be "sacrificed" to learn what went wrong in the crafting process, allowing the quality tier to go up. She had no idea what the length of time it would take yet, as not all one hundred pieces had been finished, but hopefully it wouldn't take too long.
Selene figured she could leave everything in her inventory until after lunch; meanwhile, she needed to check on her gardens. They were watered well and didn't need much care, with no chance of animals coming in to chew them up. There were very tiny sprouting plants coming out of the ground, with little stems of green appearing. She realized some of these would turn into bushes, which might crowd the garden. The dev would have to transplant them afterwards to their own plot. The restorative herb seeds she had found were growing as well. Now she would have lemon grass and lavender to finally get some soap. She was almost craving it now to clean her body. They just had to find a boar. She would also need to eventually build an aqueduct or piping from the lake. Maybe rain storage?
She whistled to get the adolescent's attention, with both wolves looking at her and trotting over.
"Interested in one more hunt? I think we can get a lot if we find a boar and bring it down. If it is the same one as I saw, there will be a piglet too. As much as that sounds mean, we could use all of that. Come on, let's go." The wolves followed her panting happily as she tried to track down where she last saw the boar near the lake. Her new equipment was crafting, so she wasn't going to get a chance to use any of it, but it shouldn't be that bad with a few arrows and two fine hunters with strong teeth. She found the prints early, but they were old. They followed them haphazardly as she only had tracking at twenty percent. Ash picked up a scent quickly on the other side of the lake, almost half a day away from the fort. It was past afternoon, so they needed to be careful to get home before dark.
Once Ash stopped, Selene leaned past her head and tried to follow her sight direction. There were more than two boars now, looked like four adults and ten piglets. That was a lot of meat and animal fat. The tusks looked to be useful as well, with very little chipping.
"There's no way we can take on four adults though… unless…" she needed to think tactically instead of direct fighting. She hadn't made any traps yet, she just didn't understand what to do until now. Now, she was going to make sure they couldn't get away. She slipped as quietly as she could to a position much further back from the pups as she pulled grass from the ground to turn it into strong rope, and then continued combining that with even more rope made to create a large net with stones on the ends. She'd maneuver the net with her Molecular Reformation over the spot where the boar sounder was settling down and basking in the sun. Technically to her, it was building a trap, which meant placement of the pieces.
Once the net was set up and slowly hanging between multiple trees, with the boars not noticing at all, she got ready to drop it on them. The boars had no natural predators that came from the skies, at least she hoped they didn't in this world or she'd be in big trouble. Ash and Blue were wondering what their job was, and she smirked.
"Take out the piglets first if possible, but back away if the parents rush in to defend. They'll be stuck there and easy pickings" she whispered to them as quietly as she could. The sounder was unevenly placed, and she wasn't certain that she could get all of them into the net. Boars were, despite being a pig, very fast and had great reaction time. If they sensed anything bad happening, they'd split. Selene would never be able to catch them, even with Blue being a black blur, he'd have to contend with some adults.
The woman waited for a second just for an adult to settle down on the ground before pulling the trap. The net came down… but didn't catch all of them. Two adults shot off quick as a bullet and escaped, and six piglets, despite being caught, were meandering near the edge and somehow wiggled their way out. That left two adults and four piglets stuck unable to move well. Ash and Blue shot forth and started taking out the piglets while Selene fired some arrows at the two adults. It took at least fifteen arrows to drop one of them, meanwhile the second adult was pushing under the net to try and protect the piglets. Ash backed off first, then Blue as they tried to tag team and keep the second adult under control. Once the first adult was down, she focused on the second. The piglets were almost all down as well, but Ash and Blue were having a hard time getting any bites in with how it was wiggling around and throwing hooves everywhere. Ash finally got a hold of the neck and did what she could to keep the adult from moving, and Blue went for the throat. It wasn't going to stop the boar though, as it continued to do whatever it could to break away from the two predators.
The final piglet caused her bow string to break with the last arrow, so she resorted to pulling out her spear and diving in, slamming the spear tip through the side just under the front hoof, near the armpit. The action caused the boar to try and kick out, knocking her legs out from under her, but the boar quickly stopped moving from that action. Selene got up and rubbed her back, happy at least with the results. They had meat for the next two days it seemed, and animal fat for some soap. She also didn't really get hurt, as the padded armor she still had helped with the fall.
This is a lot of stuff, and it seems I can reach tier 9, Protohistory now. If I tech, this all goes away. I don't think I need to rush this, we could use a day off from running around trying to survive.
All the improvements so far allowed her to hold off for a while longer, so she could rest for once. She now had a decent number of ingots that she was using to craft equipment, she now had some tools to help with any activities back at the fort, there was plenty of food for the next two days it seemed, and she had some supplies for soap. That meant one thing.
"I need a bathtub. I'm going to have a wood fire bath. This is going to be so awesome!" she was giddy as the piglets were being carved up by her MR power. It must have seemed a little warped, but by now she was used to the event and didn't even bat an eye at the gruesome action. Once the boars were cleared up, she packed the net into her inventory and looked off towards the fort's direction. Right now, it was just past lunchtime, but Selene figured she needed to explore a little more.
"Hey, let's head around the other side of the lake, I just want to have a walk. You two with me?" Ash gave a little a woof while Blue remained silent. As they headed through the wrapping forest, she noticed some medium sized feathers she could collect compared to the smaller ones she had been using on her arrows from bird's nests she found and decided to pick them up. If she collected them now, she'd have to find some way to use them before she teched up. They continued on, enjoying not running everywhere and even spotting some colorful birds flying in a synchronized group. It was an interesting display of coordination and a welcome deviation from what she had been doing. Her eyes dropped to the ground and she stopped mid step. Further up ahead, just barely past the edge of the middle of the forest, was a decent plain clearing. There were two hills, and one of them had something sticking up from the ground that looked familiar.
"That couldn't be… could it?" She wondered as she broke into a jog and headed for the hill. She nearly ran into a large spider web that had been abandoned, but she finally got to see what the plant was. Teosinte was growing wild out on the hill, at least three stalks. It was wild corn. Surrounding all three was a decent amount of Flax growing tall.
"Underwear and clothing." She looked down at herself, at the hide clothing she had been wearing. It was somewhat comfortable with the fur, but it did get a little hot at times. She also hadn't changed her clothes for the past few days, so this was probably a good time to get another pair, so she could do her laundry. The bathtub could help with that once she made one. However, lady luck would smile on her again so soon after. Ash was listening carefully to the surroundings, and her ears were picking up sounds from some nearby animals. The wolf started to stalk past the Flax with Selene noticing and slowly following.
As they made their way through the large plants, she saw what Ash was tracking. Four wild sheep with full wool coats. It wasn't very cold outside, but she was wearing hide clothing. She wondered if she was in a colder climate area. A thought crossed into her head immediately after.
What if I showed up during the summer? Or maybe fall? I don't see any leaves dropping yet, but then it might not have really started. It could be spring too for all I know, but I doubt its winter yet. I need to find out what season it is around here. It could help me figure out what to plan for.
She heard the baas from the sheep as they grazed. Ash looked to her for orders. "No Ash, we aren't killing those. I think I know what I can use those for." Ash whined a little bit. They had plenty of food, she might just be thinking her alpha wanted to go after everything. There was a time and a place for hunting, and this wasn't it. She needed that wool, and a supply of it after. They'd come back tomorrow and pick them up, as there were no trees to string up the net. Selene had a great idea for the poisonous berries that were still near the fort. Until then, she grabbed some bushels of Flax from the first hill, some Teosinte and made sure there were seeds.
A Few Hours Later
Selene had crafted two new work stations to use what she had now and what she was going to use for tomorrow. She had made a clay bathtub that was enameled now with a melted tree sap glaze, allowing it to hold lots of water without any issue. The bathtub was thicker to make sure she didn't get burnt from the fire heating up any water. The dev had also created a loom that she stuffed into her second inventory with a very old-fashioned shuttle. This would help craft some linen clothing for her. The second new piece of equipment was a basic alchemist table. That was where she was now making a very light neurotoxin from the berries so that she could poison some darts to shoot from a blowpipe. The poison was light enough to not harm anything permanently, but it would knock out the sheep once she headed back out tomorrow. Once they were asleep, she'd bring them back to the fort and try to domesticate them for their wool. She just needed to make sure there was a small pen. That seemed to be a bit of a problem with the size of the fort right now, as once she built it where the forge used to be with an overhang, the area got a little crowded.
"I'm gonna have to expand soon or I won't be able to move around well." Now that she had better tools and knowledge of her stats, it would be far quicker and easier to make new walls, preferably extending to beyond the mining cave. She already had an idea of changing the three walls into five, half of a decagon. She'd also reinforce the gate so that it was harder for anything to get in. She didn't want any other predators to take out the soon to be her property sheep… or Luna. The little one was stuck there until she got bigger. It afforded some special privileges though, as she got a prime spot curled up next to "momma" and a lot of attention. The white wolf always greeted her once she entered the fort too.
"Ok. Linen clothes are being made, ingots are finished, soap is…" she trailed off as she checked the second campfire she made just to cook the fat. Once it was done, she'd add the lye that was sitting in a pot, and some lavender. She'd have to stir it for a while until it thickened up; once it was starting to change color, she'd put it in some tin bowls she made with leftover metals. There was no chance at having a relaxing bath today, but it would be possible tomorrow. She couldn't wait, as she wasn't just looking forward to it, she stunk. The hide clothing, all the sweating for the past week, had made her probably pretty ripe. The hair on her legs was starting to grow, as was her armpits and her privates. That reminded her. At the equipment bench she made an old-fashioned single edge bronze razor. Selene didn't want to use that until she had soap, or potentially was able to put it in her inventory and "use" it to remove hair on her body. If it worked, she wouldn't have to do a thing as she was trimmed, almost like getting professionally waxed. She just didn't want to attempt it until she had some soap and water ready, as it might hurt regardless of how she did it, and in her inventory, she wouldn't be able to stop it she believed.
One final thing she had crafted with one tree felled was a bed frame, and it had a basic linen mattress filled with hay, dried plant fiber. She would have liked to have some straw, and dreamt of a memory foam mattress, but this would do. There was also hay dropped into the pen for the sheep tomorrow, which she again wished she had some straw. Maybe she'd find some wheat in the future, and start growing that. Two troughs were set up with the pens as well.
The ingots she had crafted were being used to make trash tier blacksmith hammers, as the original hammer would eventually break down. She had a good one hundred of them made and kept them organized for the "sacrifice". She had reached shoddy by the time she finished setting up the hay mattress and put a torch sconce on the wall, which surprised her as it only took an hour for the research to complete. Granted, the creation of the hammers took the whole day. She had more animal fat than just the stuff boiling on the campfire, which she was going to use to make tallow and candles. This would lighten the place up in her little cabin now, and she could finally move from the cave to a better sleeping spot with her wolf kids. There were even night tables placed on both sides of the bed. By the time she would upgrade to tech tier 9, Protohistory, she would use up all her resources so that the fort would be even more self-sustaining.