Gold Pine Village I

The preparations were being started, at least partially. Selene had decided to try and craft some X minor stamina potions, and by that it means two. One for the trip there, and one for the trip back so she could run a little ways. This could speed the who thing up and make sure she got there earlier and come back without it being nightfall. She had also made a second X Minor Healing Potion and an X Minor Anti-Fatigue Potion. The Stamina potions would regenerate her stamina a bit, while the fatigue would take the edge off while she's carrying anything heavy in the backpack.

There was no Post-Classical Era yet, but the dev had at least reached level sixteen, sweet sixteen. That afforded her some extra Attribute Points and Skill Points, with three more perk points as well. Given she wasn't crafting any perks just yet until at least the tomes were ready to be made, it could take some time. Fifteen hours were left for the research to be done. During the remainder of the day, she had sent Ash and Blue on their own this time to go hunting for small game, in which they had gathered six voles and two weevils. There was even a snake in the mix. Meanwhile, Selene had spent time gathering a little more ore from the mine and tried to get some salt from the large formations. She also spent some time expanding the fort a tiny bit more, with a full size of four hectares. She was going by the sizing of Roman forts now to standardize her layout, except she really liked having a half decagon wall setup. This provided her with more space to move the sheep pens near the mine entrance with a spare set next to them, as well as doubling up on the gardens and sliding them over near the log cabin. She also dug a loop into the mine with the original cave, finding some iron ore and some lead along the way.

Now that she had "organized" her updated home, she found that there was quite a bit more area to put things in. She just didn't know what to place. Her log walls were now spaced evenly and far more streamlined, with no spaces to peek through and slat paneling with no spacing on the outside for something, or someone, to climb up. The catwalks had reinforced stilts as well. The outhouse was less of an outside toilet now that she moved it to the side of the cabin with a door to it from inside and sealed a bit more with some mortar to keep any "smells" from emitting into the cabin despite the water flow, the plumbing being realigned after. It was starting to look like a proper fort. There just weren't any defenses set up. She didn't yet feel there was a need to build anything, as the goblins seemed to have up and disappeared outside. It's possible they were just a scouting force to figure out the lay of the land. Until then, crafting an onager or catapult or any other defensive emplacement wasn't required, unless she just wanted to sling some rocks. Perhaps in the future she would maybe build a Scorpio or a light ballista if things actually came to attack, but until then there didn't seem to be a need.

She had reached the point where she could make a primitive crossbow, but it might make her look threatening if she walked in geared for war for the village, despite it being for protection. Selene decided to keep using her trusty recurve bow, which was pretty decent for hunting. Since all her equipment was now Petty tier, it looked a little pathetic compared to Worn. If she didn't know any better, she might come off as a bandit to the people there with the mish mash of materials in her armor and clothes. She'd definitely need to upgrade to Worn tier. She'd look like she got hand me downs from a seasoned soldier, but at least it was better than looking like a miscreant trying to steal stuff with hidden pockets.

Her attempts to find granite by creating branching tunnels in the mine resulted in nothing to be found. Selene would obviously have to get a quarry set up to get any headway in that department, for marble as well. She did find enormous amounts of algae though for the fish and growing on the ceilings of her special ecosystem, as well as limestone which she figured could be used as a special mortar paste in the future. She had received the unlock for Roman Cement, which was materially different from modern cement.

By the time the pups were back with another two small animals, it was night time. As she cooked up dinner for everyone, her mind kept nagging her about the lack of exotic resources she had available.

I need to explore a bit more in this area. What am I going to do once I reach Common? Uncommon is probably going to require special materials, there could be unlocks in the future that will require things I just don't have or can't mine here.

The remainder of the night had her grinding up wheat she hadn't planted to get some grains to mix with water and make old fashioned bread. It wasn't that bad given she salted it a little and made a mix of cut up cooked roots and some peas with the meat, it was just flat bread. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. She'd finish the research on a book/tome, finally speeding up research even more. The research notes were finished now, which sped everything up by twenty percent. The tome would be finished by early tomorrow morning, probably before she woke up… if she didn't set an alarm for it. There would be a warning informing her the work was done.

She now had an X Minor Teleport scroll in her inventory, along with an X Minor Light Orb scroll… at least she had them until she made an enchanting gem and learned both as normal spells. She had now learned, it turns out, if she just "disenchanted" some stuff for enchanting essence, then drained her whole green bar on something new that she doesn't have an unlock for or not in her tech tiers, it destroys it… and makes her learn everything about it. She found this out when she did this on an ore piece she had mined, giving her the total metal content via an impurity analysis she could read in her character sheet. Her enchanting essence was like a learning tool in a way, giving a tooltip where no tooltip existed. She made a mental note not to do that to anything that didn't belong to her. At least now, however, she had access to two very basic spells for use around the fort or when she didn't want to walk too far. The X Minor Teleport was like a "blink" spell right now, allowing her to appear anywhere she could see within one kilometer. While that wouldn't shave off much travel time heading to and from the village, it might help if she got in a fight she couldn't win.

The X Minor Light Orb was just as she figured, a magic candle orb that gave off enough light to read a letter or book, but that was about it. It did make a nice night light right now however, without any harsh brightness emanating from it. If she could get it upgraded to Very Minor, it might be able to light a whole room. The Very Minor Teleport she hoped would allow her to teleport anywhere within ten kilometers if possible. For all she knew it might be stronger than that like one hundred or one thousand kilometers given the power behind Arcanic's Wizardry Spells, but right now that was the minimum she needed for the next tier. That would definitely help getting back to the fort.

Right now, Selene had one hundred mana points available to use, with the spells using one mana point each time. She regenerated one mana point per minute, which was quite a bit faster than Yggdrasil's way of doing it. Most games wanted you to play more and having to wait around for mana to regenerate was a great way of turning hardcore gamers away. Also, not having mana potions can affect how people play magic casters. She never understood why they took that out, despite she and one other dev had created them from a recolored healing potion. The files were just not added to the final product, as that was the way the company wanted it to be played. It wasn't her problem, she got paid for her work, and now she had access to mana potions, so it wasn't a big deal right now.

As she got ready for bed, giddy due to knowing the research would be done early, she checked her character sheet one last time. Level sixteen, with sixty points available. While it would be beneficial to throw points in different areas, she wanted to hold off even more now that she learned things can unlock if she reached new levels, tech tiers or achievements. If she spent everything right now, then leveled more, and found a new ability that would be really handy upgraded, then she'd be stuck beating herself over the head.

One Week, Six Days

Four in the morning, the alarm went off. Her eyes bolted open as she looked up and focused on her inventory. As she rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath to wake up, her vision focused on the research station. Tome completed, now available for crafting. She had also reached just barely the tech up for Post-Classical Era. Selene knew if she just made the tome, shoved it into the research station and made a Research Tome, things would go even faster. She'd have to craft it after the tech up, as if she did it during, the tome would disappear and there would be lost time.

Once the upgrade was complete, all resources were gone. She looked over at Ash who was still asleep, along with the rest of her pack. "Come on, time to get up and get some food to cook." Ash woke up and looked at her. Blue tried to curl up a little bit until she gave his head a pat. They knew what they needed to do. Once they got back, they could lounge around and have all the puppy naps they could want while she worked on getting to Worn tier equipment and got ready for the trip. They would probably not go today, as all the final preparations would take some time. She wanted to make sure there were things she could trade. One of those things could be gold.

Selene had found a small gold vein in the special cave down one of the branching tunnels via her Prospecting skill giving her the "gut feeling." There might be more, even silver, but this seemed like enough for right now. The whole vein looked to be able to give a few ingots, not many. The woman wondered if it was worth it to disenchant some gold ore, so she could see how pure it was. It wouldn't matter much in the smelters, but it might tell her how much she was really going to get. Being able to analyze each ore would be helpful, but not needed.

Oh look! That ore vein will give me this many ingots. So? I'm still mining it and melting it down. I'll know how many ingots I got when all of it gets casted anyways.

She hadn't mined any of it, as there was no guarantee anyone would buy it off her. Then it would be somewhat wasted. She could try and craft some jewelry right now, but she didn't have any gems yet so it would be basic, she'd need to craft a jewelry bench which she didn't want to do right now, as well as the fact she didn't know how much of the precious metal she'd use before she'd need to tech up again, which meant wasted resources that she really didn't have a lot of. The other problem was enchanting or adding stats to them, which might be given via gem stones that there were none of in her inventory or that she knew where to get, again wasting the metal on a low-quality tier. For all she knew, there might be four, maybe five gold veins near her. That might sound like a lot to some people, but if she was going to make anything that required it, that was a problem. In her head, the dev was already working on ideas to open up new mines where there might be specialty metals and materials, small quarries for granite or other prized stones.

Right now, her immediate concern was getting up, getting dressed, equipping her gear and heading out with the wolves to get some breakfast.

Later That Day

Worn had been achieved. As Selene disenchanted all her old equipment and made a General Essence Gem, or GSG now in her eyes, she kept reviewing what she had made so far for the trip tomorrow. She had a long bow now that she enjoyed quite a bit instead of a recurve bow, with a short steel sword now in her new scabbard, a steel reinforced wooden shield to cut down on weight, leather armor and a cloak made of linen and wool. What was interesting to her was the quality of the linen and wool influenced how soft or scratchy the clothing was, with no armor rating obviously given. Both her underwear and clothes were comfortable before, but now they were actually pretty nice. They were nowhere near new mass-produced Levi's or specialty store items, but she felt she could even sleep in the wool clothes without itching all over now. If she found cotton though, it was all about that. Polyester could be a material in the future as well.

The items she was bringing with her were two X minor stamina potions and two X Minor Anti-Fatigue potions, two X minor healing potions, two X minor poultices, five tier zero bandages, some soap she had made in both lemongrass and lavender smells, five bronze ingots due to the lower cost of copper to mix together and afraid it would be considered too close to copper coins if they used those, five iron ingots if the blacksmith is willing to buy, five wrought iron ingots. She really, really wanted to make some steel later, but that was going to slow down her tech ups, specifically… Damascus Steel. It was going to take a week at least to get enough of the Wootz Steel made to craft and refine into a Damascus sword. The only way she was going to get that down was to drop a lot of points into Crafting Time and dump all tools on one smelter she had, focusing all her effort on Molecular Reformation or using some new furnace. It was possible to upgrade her smelters into that new furnace probably.

Considering she now had access to blast furnaces, this might be achievable earlier than a week if she could get her hands on some better-quality plant material for the carbon, maybe from the reeds at the swamp. She'd have to contend with the alligator again, or many alligators, which made her wonder if she needed to sneak in, grab all of it with her power, then bolt at a longer distance. That was a goal for another day. Right now, she just wanted to make sure what she was bringing wouldn't get her in trouble. She had some tanned leather that could be sold, but that might be better at home making some rugs for the cabin.

Finally, once she had the basic items, she added some cooked and bagged up meat for the trip, filled the three waterskins and stored all of it in a glazed pot that was stuffed at the top. There was a wool blanket wrapped around it, so it wouldn't break if any ingots touched it, but the clay was fairly thick, and it was kilned well, plus it didn't have a quality level, only how much design she wanted to paint on it. The ingots were going to be carried on outside pockets of the backpack, with extra space on top of the pot for the potions and Luna to ride in style. This would be her first time outside the fort.

Not all the ingots would be kept in the backpack, as smaller harnesses were crafted for Ash and Blue to walk along. Blue didn't exactly like wearing it, but it was necessary given there was no pack animal around. The packs were all made with brand new boar hide. They had caught another Adult and two piglets. The previous sounder had joined a new one, with a total of ten adults and thirty piglets roaming around that she knew of.

Once they left the fort tomorrow morning, she needed to make sure nothing happened to the sheep, so there were preparations to block the gate with new log posts from some cut down trees. If everything went as planned, she'd have some money to be able to buy some things she couldn't find. If it didn't, she'd have a sore back and a wasted day. Two new spells were learned, Spark Finger and X minor Sense Hostile. With Spark Finger, she was going to be able to light the campfire now without much issue. This was saving her time with cooking, so a quality of life improvement. The X Minor Sense Hostile spell allowed her to sense anyone looking to do harm to her within one hundred meters. This would help if she was hunting in the forest and could detect goblins or predators that could hurt her. It wouldn't work on deer or animals that chose flight vs fight.

As she went to bed one final time before the big day, she double checked, and triple checked her inventory for anything she might have missed. "Primitive healing potion… I'm never going to use that… I might be able to sell it…" her hand pulled it out as she got out of bed and put it with the rest of the potions in her pack. The primitive mana potion might need to go too, but that might only sell if there was a magician or wizard that lived there, and even then… that stuff is awful. Both primitives needed to disappear, and not down her throat.

Week Two, Village Trip

"Luna, stop biting at the blanket, you're going to fall further in if you move things around." Selene had closed the gates and they were on their way just as dawn was breaking. Luna seemed to be trying to make a small nest, but it was disturbing the potions and pot it was wrapped in, shifting weight around. Once she got a decent amount of blanket under her, she finally settled down as they headed out towards the village. Breakfast was quick but filling, the sheep were quickly fed and made sure their pen wasn't dirty, and the gate was sealed so no one or thing could come in before they got back.

The trip was mostly uneventful, as the four of them walked across the forest and out to the rolling hills. They stopped halfway and drank some water while eating some snack food, then continued on. Her shoulders were getting a little sore from constantly shifting, so now was the best time to use one of her anti fatigue potions. Once the cork was popped and she swallowed it, her shoulders seemed to not hurt. The flavor was similar to coconut water. Once they reached the village, they walked to the entrance and stood there, looking around.

People were moving around, doing their daily chores and airing clothing or rugs out their windows. As they started to walk into the main street, Selene's eyes darted from place to place trying to figure out the layout. The buildings were thatch roofed with what looked like dark brown wood used in the construction, but there seemed to be a slight shimmer to the wood itself. As her hand tentatively touched a wall to examine it, a woman was walking by with a small urn looked at her.

"It's called Gold Pine. It's what the village is named after." Selene's head turned around as she looked at the woman talking to her. "You must be new to the area, I'd know you're face if you lived here. By the size of your pack, and-" her voice trailed off a bit as she looked at the two wolves.

"They're trained, don't worry." Her face seemed to wash with relief. "Are you a trader? We don't really get many of them right now."

"I… am? Kind of. I'm trying to see if I can… um… well… get some coin if possible, by selling some spare materials." The woman looked her over. "Hmm, anything in particular you're trying to sell? We have a general store here, but if-"

"I have some ingots I'd like to try and offload." The woman's eyes seemed to squint, and her eyebrows furrowed. "What sort of ingots are you trying to sell?" Selene was worried this would happen. "Some bronze and iron." The woman seemed to settle as she heard that. "Ah, so that's what you need to get rid of. Well, you're in luck. My husband is the resident blacksmith here." The dev grinned a little as she shook hands. "My name is Abby. Yours?"

"Selene." "Well Selene, let's bring you over to him, he probably just finished with the forge now." Both of them walked down the street while people watched her pass. Two kids giggled as they saw Luna sticking out the top of the pack, with a few men looking at the Auburn-haired woman and smiling with perverted thoughts. They quickly changed their view as their eyes roamed down and saw the two wolves following along.

"Giles. Giles!" Abby yelled at her husband as he hammered away at a horseshoe. It took some effort, but she got him to look up. He was a squat older man, maybe in his thirties with a black short beard and short trimmed black hair, roughly about five foot nine or ten; he was definitely taller than she was given that Selene was five foot eight. There was a little rotundness noticed near his abdomen, but his arms were bristling with muscles. As he put down the hammer and walked over, he had an annoyed look on his face.

"Whaddya want?" he snapped at Selene. She cocked her head back in surprise as if she got blasted in the face by wind. "Don't be like that Giles! She's looking to trade! Go on miss, show him what you have." The dev looked between the two momentarily before slowly lowering her pack to the ground and taking Luna off her royal seat. Abby looked like she was beaming over how adorable she was. The pack opened, and multiple ingots were taken out one at a time, along with the remainder from the packs on Ash and Blue. The black wolf was especially happy to get the ingots off his back.

"Hmm… lemme see." His hands flipped one bronze ingots around, whacking it against the bench she had placed all of them on.

Hey! Watch it! Don't damage the goods!

"Are you… doing that for a reason?" she asked him, glancing back and forth between his face and the ingot. His eyes looked up at her, his face still stern. "I do that to see if anything breaks off or scratches the outside. It tells me if you're trying to lie about what your selling." She was getting annoyed now.

"Hey, this product is good. Why would I lie?"

"Because people have tried to do it before miss fancy pants. The ingot might have been a fake. I'm a respectable blacksmith, I'd say a damn good one, and I don't want my reputation marred by trying to make something with the wrong metals because I got scammed, understand?"

Calm down, you need him to trade. Don't lose your cool.

"Fine. Whatever. Is it good now?"

"Very good. Too good. Where the hell did you get any of this?"

"I made it. I worked some smelters where I live."

"Hogshit. Tell me the truth."

"You don't think a woman can work a smithy?" She tilted her head and crossed her arms over her chest.

"That's not what I'm saying! Did you steal it? From where?" He was getting annoyed as he looked right into her face, with her doing the same.

"I didn't steal it! I made all of that! Look, what the hell is with the third degree?!" Selene looked over at Abby.

"Where are you from miss?"

"Why does it matter?"

"It matters to my husband miss. Whatever answer you give would help tell how you have these."

"I live up in the West mountains, we don't have a name for our village."

"Wait, you came from the West?" Giles asked, calming down a little.

"Yeah, what of it?" Giles took a little step back and sized her up. "Mountains huh? Snow lands? How high?"

"High, and we don't like intruders. We tend to isolate ourselves, and from the looks of it, for damn good reason." She was pursing her lips and glaring at him, still irked by his aggressiveness. Giles looked at his wife, who nodded with a long blink. He calmed down, at least a little bit with his gruff personality. He sighed.

"The ingots are clean with no impurities. This is pure metal, not some scrap mashed together. There's no mottling, no dents and no holes, so they were made in decent smelters. If you are from where you say you are, you must have a damned good technique lady."

"Where else would I get this?"

"The trade city of Silvinholm for one." Selene looked at Abby again. "I have no idea where that is."

"To the East miss, you follow the main road just past the Gold Pine forest as it cuts off and turns East with both mountain ranges, the Azaltos mountains and Boramar mountains. The road comes up to Glass dale Township, then continues past to Silvinholm. You really don't know where it is?"

"Not a clue. So, you call the mountain range that I live in Boramar mountains?" Abby nodded quickly.

"We don't know anyone who has settled past us. This is a first to hear about this" Giles said gruffy.

"Giles! Don't be like that! She said she didn't know, so just let it go."

"So, Silvinholm has what, high end furnaces and smelteries?" Giles busted out laughing. "The company that owns the factories has the high-end furnaces and smelteries woman. The city is just known for the quality of its resources. Here." As Giles turned around to go looking for something, Selene was really bristling for being called "woman."

I have a name jackass. I'm not just a pair of tits or a gender.

Giles returned with a bronze ingot and dropped it on the bench. It was stamped with some symbol and name. Unfortunately, she couldn't read it, with the writing looking completely alien to her. Luckily, the blacksmith was going to answer that question.

"Gold Bloom Forges. Your ingots and theirs look almost identical." Her hand slowly moved to pick up the ingot with the stamped symbol on it, then looked at her own. They looked almost exactly the same, bar the stamp. Her inventory production was crafting top quality material, at least the common stuff. There were no exotic resources to refine yet.

"Well that's new. Do you know their refining methods?"

"Lemme ask you a few questions, just a few." Selene was getting pissed at this guy, but she wanted to sell the ingots. Of course, if things got too aggressive, she could just take her ball and go home.

"Look, if I'm going to be interrogated, I might as well just head home."

"Just a few and I'll be willing to buy them." She pursed her lips, fighting back her anger. "Fine."

"What do you use to smelt these." "A smelter or a forge. I was thinking of upgrading to a blast furnace." His eyes blinked a little in surprise. "What do you place in them to do that." Selene sighed a little. "Are you asking about the tool or the metal?" He paused for a split second, realizing he hadn't be specific. "Fine, tools." She thought for a moment. There were a few tools she had to use, but inside the forges was different from outside. "Crucible and tongs." His final question was about to be asked. "What are the ingredients needed to make bronze." She was getting frustrated with the questioning and it showed. "I think you should be asking me what the ingredients are to make steel." That shut him up quick. He looked at her carefully.

"You know how to make steel?" Abby asked.

Well shit. That was dumb of me.

"Yes, and I'm not going to share it. Look, the requirements for bronze is a trick question, as there are many mixtures you can work with." Giles looked shocked that she knew that.

"Can you name one?" She figured it was best to start from the bottom and work her way up so he didn't get any odd ideas and think they were friends yet. "Arsenic and copper, though only if you wanna poison yourself. That's the old-fashioned way. Copper, Lead and Zinc for the architectural form of that. Do you know what the hardest form of bronze is?" Giles was taken aback a little by her question. "Of course I do! You use Tin bronze!" She looked unimpressed. "Nope." He looked at her quizzically. Abby was smiling, watching both of them talk shop now. "What is it then?" The dev rotated her left shoulder and stretched a little. "Manganese Bronze. You don't have the materials to make that." He looked genuinely impressed by her answers and the fact she questioned him back. He turned to the bench the ingots were on while still looking at her, glancing down at the metal before him.

"Only certain people ever carry these to sell, and they only sell in Silvinholm. No wandering trader ever brings them out here. I was luckily enough to get one ingot before the price went up. I don't know what I'll ever make with it."

"So, you won't use these types of ingots?"

"I didn't say that. I just didn't know what would need such high quality with no impurities. Look…" he didn't know what else to say and his eyes glanced over at Abby.

"What are you asking for the price of these miss?" Selene looked between both of them and thought for a second. "How much are you willing to pay for them? I don't know what type of currency you use around here and I don't know the going rate." Giles's eyebrows raised as a slight chuckle escaped his lips.