Through the portal, and I was expecting my bed. I was expecting my overworld. I shouldn't be shocked anymore when this happens, my family has always had strange luck with portals. The gods that send me here and there seem to use them to detect my existence and pull me from world to world. They must need my assistance here. I'm just glad I've not turned up in a crashed starship again. True sky and fresh air. The taste of magic but not overwhelming. It's not home, but it feels like a place that I won't mind being in.
Seems the overlords of this realm are strict. They are making me earn my right to things that I thought I would always have access to. Strict, but not unkind, at least not so far. Perhaps I am only saying this because I know they are close, these strange unknown gods, watching, because the achievements come close and fast, and the rewards, or punishments, just as fast. They seem to want to lead my footsteps here, to make this transition easy, and that is a kindness. Even if they are doing things like requiring me to make a mesh of string and sticks in order to sieve flint chunks from gravel.
That flint, I am at least familiar with enough to know how to knap it, as I've done that recently enough in that other place. From that a most basic tool. With that, a tree becomes wood for me. Two full logs are needed to make a crafting tool, a work stump. Primitive, but satisfying.
Seems that now that I've made this workbench, of sorts, that I'm being allowed to direct myself for a while, though there seem to be some suggestions. I figure I better not leave anything out, if I'm being asked to do it, there might be something I need to know about down that way. Though, sometimes it's the things I'm not told about that are the most useful, like this wooden club and it's ability to handle stone almost as well as the flint pickaxe. Slower, but rather less expensive to make.
With it I've secured myself a little space. Hammered it out of the solid stone. Given myself a totem to protect myself from the flames and lava, having used a bit of it flowing down a cliff to protect myself from the monsters outside and shine a little light into the cave.
Admittedly not the grandest of entrances, but between the lava and the ladder carved with the workblade I think I'm pretty well protected from things getting in at random. For a starter home, this is practically high tech.
Height of fashion, a chest I can open and close, and put things into. Yes, I've already managed to meet the reaper once. Got cornered before I even found this place to hide. The good news is, it's close enough to where I've chosen that I can use it as a way to point towards home, no matter where I go, or how far. Useful when you don't have a map.
Another useful thing, using the lava to start fires. Getting my first fire from lava and lighting my torches from it means not having to worry about it inside my base until I'm ready. Not that these give much light, but some light is better then none at all.
With being able to light up my cave with the torches, rather then depending on the lava to provide all of my light, I can extend my home just a bit more, though I am trying not to be too ambitious about things, yet. Each resource gained is measured against the two most important ones, time, and food, spent. Sometimes it's better to just leave something where it's growing, instead of bringing it back, when I don't have the chest to store it yet.
You may not have noticed, I may not have taken the time to properly appreciate this, but I really have landed in a beautiful world. Things may be simple, things may be harsh, but views like this are well worth it. Admittedly I keep viewing things here either as resources, or not resources. When I first saw this massive skeleton I was thinking in terms of bonemeal, though I can't yet even grind it down to use it. I just have to remember it.
Grasslands near my base seems to have most of the useful animals. Sheep for wool, cows and pigs for meat. Crops growing wild that I can just take from the ground as eat as I get hungry. I'm avoiding killing any of the local animals, but sometimes I catch one accidentilly while fighting a monster. Sometimes I eat monster jerky, sometimes carrots or potatoes. Lacking my normal coffee I've taken to eating the beans raw. It's not the best diet, but it seems to be good enough for my health.
For fruit, I've taken to picking up and moving the bushes that grow out in those grasslands. There's more then a few of the wildberry plants, but it seems a shame to have to go hunting for them when they are so easily replanted. More then anything, this is the bulk of my diet.
I do though tire of a fruit based diet, even if it is easy. I've made a few options that can cook some food for me. The firepit is nice for a fish or two, or scraps of meat that I'd culled from the herds, if by accident. The grill will quite nicely handle potatoes for me, but I'll need to work with fire to use it safely, and the kiln, well that seems to be the path towards finally taming fire.
While I was doing all this crafting, instead of doing it all just one at a time, I went and made a slight upgrade to the work stump while I was at it. Much easier to craft when I can do more then one. Low grade coal blocks to keep the kilns and grills going, and things started to progress again nicely.
Next big task has me down by the river side, picking up water a bladder at a time, using it to pack salt crusts onto hides that I'd roughed up with the workblade. It's a slow process to make leather, but just as strangely satisfying as everything else in this primitive world of mine.
Primitive, but automation is possible. The wooden hoppers quite easily take the hides from the cabinet and force them into the drying rack. When dry they fall into another hopper and get stored in a chest. Then I need only take it down to the water and rub tannin, ground from bark, into the leather with another bladder of water.
Torches don't make enough light, and while if I had some coal I could probably get them to burn brighter, how about I skip the middle man in this process? It's easy enough to make some low grade charcoal, and if I put it into the floor a bit, then it won't set other things on fire quite as easily as all that. Long as I'm careful to keep everything away from it a bit, I shouldn't have too much of a problem. Just in case I'm also going to stick a bit of wall on top to keep me from walking down into the burning pit.
There we go, one of those every few blocks, one with a set of grills over it, and another row just behind me with kilns to make more charcoal if I need it. My chests all nicely against one wall, hopefully far enough from the fire and the flames. Other side of the room has my drying racks, a compost bin (for fertilizer, or the occasional biocoal), my manual grindstone, chopping block, and the workstump MK2.
Not civilized, but what is?
