No matter how invested he got in crafting, Gem kept an eye on the sky. There were no Ostrum—flying or otherwise—that he could see, even though he didn’t know what an Ostrum looked like. The sky was a smooth, dark maroon littered with pinpricks of starlight. No creatures marred its surface, although a spot of lighter maroon to the east seemed to indicate the sun would rise soon enough.

Gem worked through the night and well into the morning. He generated stack after stack of cobblestone blocks, then turned those into stone and then cut stone. While the mossy cut stone would be an interesting block to decorate with, Gem couldn’t justify the mana expenditure just yet. Three mana for one block, when he only generated ten an hour, was just too much.

A rustling sound drew Gem out of his cycle of resource gathering and crafting. At first he thought it was perhaps Chesu mucking around with something, but the wisp was just watching him work. A second rustling sound soon followed, and Gem looked out along his island. Where his saplings once stood were now two large and almost fluffy coniferous trees. They had a multitude of branches, each coated in dark green needles. But the arrangement of branches and needles wasn’t right; it created a blocky outline, one that felt natural on Sleyn among all the other blocks.

Sticking out of the bottom of the tree was a block-shaped bit of trunk. As Gem suspected, it took up the entire width of the block.

He looked to the sky. The sun was at about halfway overhead, indicating a full day cycle had passed since he planted the saplings.

“Oh, good, trees are done.” Chesu stirred to attention and stretched his arms over his head, shaking out his wings. He yawned low and long. “Let’s get us some new saplings and then you can decide what you’re going to do with the trees.”

Gem moved his vision over to the once-saplings.

View Description

Harvest

Break

Destroy

“Nail on the head, kid. Only specifics are wrong. Harvesting a branch block will get you saplings, but harvesting a trunk block will get you bark, which is a good crafting material but it makes the rest of the wood useless. Breaking a branch block will get you sticks.”

Gem adjusted his vision to the fluffy branches.

“And if you were to prune them but leave the trunk, you’d end up with more.”

Gem said as he harvested his first branch. Two saplings fell from the tree and were automatically collected into his inventory.

He collected from the rest of the branches. The two trees had a different number of branches available, and not every branch dropped two saplings. Some were more, but more frequently there were less. In total, Gem collected a total of twelve saplings from the one tree, and then fifteen from the other.

he said when looking at his inventory. The 27 saplings all sat in a single inventory slot.

“Completely your call, but I’ll warn you about two things. The first is that pruned trees take half a cycle to repopulate branches, meaning you can get more saplings faster. Additionally, trees that are ‘alive’ for longer tend to give more saplings, branches, wood, or bark. But the second thing is you still have an active quest. Go ahead and look at it for me.”

Gem pulled up his quest menu and looked at his active quest: Would You Like Some Wood? Gather materials, including wood, stone, dirt, and other substances. Some items have been provided to you in a chest to get you started.

Wood

Stone

Dirt

Cobblestone

Water

Lava

Gem said.

Chesu shook his head. “You aren’t just given a quest for zero reason, however. Finishing it is sure to give you something.”

His trees, as they stood now, were in an inconvenient spot. It would be good to cut them down and relocate them. But he was a Forest Dungeon, and he wanted to have lots of trees in his dungeon. That would require a lot more saplings, something he could get faster if he left these trees up.

But the unknown quest reward was tempting. The last quest he completed unlocked entire aspects of his dungeon that were previously hidden.

The smart thing, of course, would be to do both. He could have access to more saplings and also finish his quest. But even smarter would be to design the island in a way where that remaining tree didn’t disturb the building he would inevitably begin.

Gem said as he inspected the layout of his island.

“As long as its within your area of influence, nothing.”

Chesu nodded, forcing Gem to ponder his options. That was less than convenient, but not impossible to work with. It would allow him to keep one of his trees without taking up too many precious blocks. Additionally, it would be a cool effect. He could have floating tree islands on either side of his entrance to make his dungeon look more ethereal.

Either tree, if left alone, would be inconvenient. He hadn’t exactly planted them with long-term dungeon planning in mind.

Regardless of his plans for the trees, Gem knew he needed to prune the branches. He focused on each one and used the Harvest option. There were five branches per tree, arranged in a spiral around the height of the trunk. Some of the branches produced nothing, just vanishing in a puff of needles. But the ones that did drop saplings produced anywhere from one to five. Only one of the ten branches he pruned dropped that many, but Gem designated that the Lucky Tree and decided it would be the one to stay.

All in all, Gem ended up with fifteen new saplings, which seemed low for his plans. But he’d be able to collect more saplings from the Lucky Tree by evening, and then as long as he planted the new saplings in good places, he’d be able to harvest them as well.

With saplings safe in his inventory, Gem accessed the menu for the tree that wasn’t lucky and selected the Break option. Immediately, one block height worth of tree snapped off from the trunk and deposited itself in his inventory. The rest of the tree above and below that block stayed right where it was.

Gem stared at the tree in abject horror.

“I told you, kid: Sleyn’s physics are bullshit. Nothing makes sense and everything is as unexpected as possible.”

Gem said before collecting the rest of the trunk. There were six pieces total—the five he stole branches from and the six that stuck out the bottom of the spruce tree.

As if in answer to his declaration, he was met with a notification.

Quest Complete: Would You Like Some Wood?. Reward: ???

No sooner were the words thought to his wisp than the air in front of him started to spark and sparkle, like embers from a fire. Gem’s first instinct was to shy away, else he would get burned, but he didn’t have a physical body to pull away. Instead, he just watched and waited, turning his gaze only once to confirm that Chesu was a healthy distance away.

The wisp was staring too.

Eventually the air stopped being on fire. A six-block-tall illusion sprang to life, the image of a kindly old man sitting with his hands folded in his lap. The man was ethereal, and for more reasons than just the fact that Gem could see through him. He was the ideal image of an old man, with a long beard, wrinkled skin, and kind eyes that likely required glasses to see properly, but were currently bare. But he was also entirely made of the color blue, just in different shades.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, the sound of furious digging filled the air. The old man frowned and waved his hand, and the sound faded away.

“Not gone,” he said, but not to any question that was asked. His mouth seemed to move out of sync with the words. “Muted. They still dig.”

Gem thought the question at the old man, but the illusion gave no indication that it heard him.

“Thank you, dungeon, for your help. I am indebted to you, but I must… adjust our timeline. Your wisp can provide you with details, if they so choose. But the Ostrum are nearly at my door. My time has run out. I can buy you around one month. Then all your efforts will be for naught.”

A pained look crossed the old man’s face and then he waved his hand in the air. The illusion shattered like glass and Gem found himself once more wishing he could flinch away.

The notification that followed punctuated the man’s words and chilled Gem’s crystalline surface:

You have been offered a limited time quest: Save The World, Get Cool Stuff. Stop the Ostrum from destroying the World Core in time. Please.