(Until 'the site' starts to be not quite so insane and want to charge quite so much... you can view the pictures here
http://s778.photobucket.com/user/Nightwind90/library/Empire of One?sort=9&page=1 The more I do this, the more I'm making up my mind to use IMGR or something)
Steel needs to be made, and that means time. Best use of that time was to work on my base, dig it out a little larger, make up some nicer walls. Though for now I'm just going to use a bit of cobble and reinforce things and add light and concentrate on just making sure that I'll have the space I want latter.
Though, truth be told, I did not need to wait in the overworld. I could have reached the nether without even the slightest nugget of the stuff, if I was willing to risk being trapped in there and unable to return alive.
Simple enough to tease fire into providing the spark to light the portal into the realm of flames, but as I said I am taking the flint and steel with me, I shall not risk being stranded there.
In furthering this view, I am also building a small structure around the portal to protect it. I might be returning in a hurry chased by the irate natives, if I am unlucky enough. Of all the realms I have been in, I've never been comfortable here in the nether and would say it is one of my least favorites. Still, it has resources that I've need of, even if they are jealously guarded and well protected.
Thus from this small foothold, with hammer and pick I strike the earth, and I draw out new resources. Not just aradite and cobalt, but strange gems and dusts that seem to have some sort of connection to the ruby and sapphire I'd dug from the earth below my home.
I must have been lucky, making my home where I did, for I did not have to explore far before I could see the edge of the fortress and a certain dangerous island in the lava. Getting there was a simple matter of driving a tunnel through the soft stone. This also let me get that much more resources, even piles of the normally rare quartz. Soon I shall be making new tools. Quartz enough to sharpen my blade beyond the point of madness, cobalt for speed in my swings, and the hunger of aradite, all are worthy candidates.
The fortress in the flaming dark rising from the sea of lava is one of the big things I was hoping to find. A short and dangerous bridge, and then a ladder built up inside one of the pillars so that I can explore the lost ruined base. Though it will never be safe exploration, the denizens of this place are what I'm hunting, and they are likewise hunting me. Blazing fire, disdainful of life, hunting it, burning it when they find it. The withered skeletons, touched with darkness, they roam this place and hunger. This is a small fort, well defended and little in it, but enough to be what I need. Both the bones of the withered, and the souls of flames.
The final bridge to this little island in the fires, swarming with slimes. Trees made of slime and blocks of it that have collected over the years, ready to be harvested. A quick trip and it is rapidly pillaged, rather then staying a long time and trying to defend this spot, I can always grow more of them at home. I shall make sure to leave enough here that it can regrow, so that perhaps latter I will return and collect from it again. With this the last of the rare and exotic resources I need from this place are mine. I will have to return someday, to collect more of this, but perhaps by then I will be able to do it better.
With the goal of doing things better, there was enough steel made that I was able to make not just the most primitive furnace, but the improved version of the blast furnace. This runs faster and can be easily automated, resources just pored into it and steel out of it, for as long as I have iron enough. It's not the end of doing things manually, but the start of things going better. Though the next thing I need to do is to make another machine and power it by my own hands.
To crank life into each of these crystals of quartz, the pure stuff from the overworld rather then the slightly twisted nether form. To charge it so that it will accept and transform itself within the impurities that must be added to make the fluix. Sure I've little need of such materials now, but one must think ahead, just as the bees I took from the land and villages are part of that, so too is this.
Charge the crystals, make the fluix, grind all into dust and make seeds.
I expect it to be days before the seeds have grown, it might be more days then that before I need them, but if I had waited, then it would be days I would have to wait while these held me back. I must remember to charge and make more though, these might not be enough, one never knows.
So while I've got the time to wait, the base gets a bit more work. The rooms decorated with proper stone, the walls built up with more bricks, a wall around the base to protect me, mostly, from the things in the night that slither and bite. This passes the time while my machines do more work for me.
I've also had a bit of time to experiment. To make and remake picks, hammers, swords, to emboss and embed, and to make a wonderful many things. This includes an unusual toy from the crystal, it holds a charge and shocks those I strike. Not as effective as a good sword but certainly a pretty backup for those dire moments of need.
Those I've had more of then I would like to admit, the walls are not entirely secure, there is sometimes light missing, and when storms come there are pale riders that plague the land. I once killed 20 of them in a single storming night.
One of the tasks I'd left going was the smelting of stone into more fireproof bricks, and with them a better smeltery. This also gives me a chance to show off that I used some of that steel for the tool forge, that was one of the many things I was experimenting with, and although some of it didn't turn out like I thought I've ideas that I can use for the future. That is why I'm working here, to make what preparations that I can, is it not? I've work to do to make this place ready for the next ages, and then when I am there, more work to make use of those tools. Around and around, a dragon to never catch it's own tail.
Thus I do leave myself with this machine, growing outside near the shore, looking after itself and making for me a garden. It's not entirely to my taste but it does work well and gives me what I need to continue with calculator in the future. Perhaps on the morrow. May you all be well, whoever might be reading this some distant day, if this book is ever found.
