Chapter 35: Witchery

Rising early; I find myself itching to read those books. Heading to my kitchen; I prepare breakfast. Finding my pantry well-stocked I start cooking. I am making a personal favorite dish today. Omelets; large curdle American style. Beating 3 eggs with generous amounts of salt; producing a smooth egg mixture. I heat a small frying pan over a fire, adding butter and allowing it to melt; coating the whole bottom of the pan. I pour the egg mixture into the pan, allowing the bottom to set. Once the bottom has started to set, I use a spoon to break up the curdle. I repeat this a couple times.

Once that’s done, I allow it to set one more. Then I pull the mixture to one side of the pan. As the remaining uncooked egg fills the now empty space, that too begins to set. I continue to pull the cooked egg into the same size, creating a spiral as the remaining uncooked egg falls onto the pan. Eventually, when no more uncooked egg remains, all that is left is just a tasty dish, crispy outside soft perfectly cooked inside.

Flopping it onto a plat I dig in, enjoying the well-seasoned egg. I really hate only living on vegetables. Scoffing my truly fulfilling soul food I move on with my day. Heading into a spare room of the castle, I erect a study room, a library of shelves for books. One day it will be full. Not much entertainment exists in this world so books, as much as I avoided them before will be an important pastime. Especially given I have a lot of time to burn.

I made a few pillows, placing a bed I stack them up so I can rest easy on them as I read. Taking my variety of witchery books, I begin revising them. I say revise because I already know the ins and out of the mod. Yet I find my attention enraptured by the unique viewpoint; telling of the adventures and experiments of several generations of witches. All the important information is inside yet the books contain a wealth of stories and tips for discovering new things.

I will definitely give these a deep read another day; for now, I skim them looking for all the information I had forgotten. Scribbling down the forbidden spell in one of the books. They neglected to write about it; likely because of the danger. Yet I may very well be the only person alive who knows how to make the spell.

It took me a while but I nonetheless enjoyed the read. Taking this information, I forgot the serious quantities of space witchery needs. I guess I will be storing my circles far more than I used to. The largest magical circle being 13x13. I select the middle left of my island, just for witchery. Taking a 30x30 space. I create a brick circle on the floor for where I will be doing circle magic, 13x13 with a carved brick in the middle. So, I know where the center of the circle goes. Aside from that, I create an oddly-shaped circle next to it with the cauldron in the middle. Later on, I will need to draw a weirdly shaped circle around the cauldron to channel power. For things such as ‘drop of luck,’ “god I hate drop of luck.”

Creating brick columns at each corner of the designated area, I create a hanging garden, 3 blocks thick. Decorating the edge with stone bricks, creating steps up to it. Doing my best to make it look good. Filling out the top with grass I prepare to build an altar. Relatively simple ingredients so I place the altar quickly in the middle; 3x2x1 multi-block structure.

It quickly starts to generate a red cloth on tope, strangely. I wonder if the color red has some correlation to witchcraft. That’s beyond the point anyway. I quickly move my witchery garden and some of my vanilla crops. I can make it multilevel if I need more power in the future but for now, I create 2 9x9 gardens on either side on top. One for witchery crops and another for vanilla crops. I plant a large number of witchery saplings around, as well as normal saplings. I also place down glimmer weed, propagating it around.

Now I go do something reckless. Heading down into my clone room I pry open one of the constructor's doors. Exposing my clone, didn’t wake up a good sign. I can't believe I am doing this. I know it's hollow of a soul and just a body but I hesitate. It's me you know. Willing my body forward with one clean swing I decapitate the body. Grasping the skull as the rest of the body melts into a white liquid.

Stepping out with a head I allow the cloning process to produce another. Heading upstairs I go to the altar. Placing the head on the altar for an x3 power boost. I hope it was worth it, I am traumatized from doing that. I place an arthana onto it; effectively doubling the range. It's simply a gold knife encrusted with emerald. Taking one of my whiffs of magic, a diamond, and some lava I make an attuned stone. A fundamental item but for now I craft a chalice with it. Further placing that onto the altar.

The final item, I can actively place on it right now is a candelabra which also requires an attuned stone. With all this, I have the greatest quantity of power I can reasonably achieve. In the future I can add a dragon egg, 2 demon hearts, a pentacle, also I can fill the chalice with Redstone soup, I hate Redstone soup. I can also further expand the amount of greenery.

I craft some more mutandis, finding myself with the remaining witchery crops, ember moss, and Spanish moss. Other plants do exist but they are far more complex to attain. Sitting back, admiring this beautiful garden, wait this is ugly as hell! Taking some time to clean up the crop's positions and hang the Spanish moss over the lip. I make it far prettier even with a small stream running around the altar into a pond, “better.”

Appreciating my handiwork, I approach the altar. Instinctively I can feel its full of power, somewhere around 8000. Perfect for what I need; although the strongest rituals require 10000 such as breaking the curse of the wolf.

Now I need to make gypsum and tears of the goddess. Making a large quantity of attuned stone, requiring a couple trips to the nether. I get to work; making a distillery which is simply iron, cold, and attuned stone. Place lapis and breath of the goddess inside it produces tears of the goddess. I also place oak wood inside the oven making foul fumes.

While they are working, I spot a little green jiggling mass coming to investigate, fearing he would step on the ember moss; I swiftly craft a wooden bucket and pick Sling up in it. He must have split recently as he is rather small. A small population of slimes congregating within the cavern. At least they are all passive. Carrying Sling inside the wooden bucket like a handbag, I start work on gypsum. Producing fumes made a lot of wood ash. I shake it within another bucket separating a white powder, quick lime. Which when distilled with foul fumes makes gypsum.

With all ingredients in hand, I produce a rather large quantity of ritual chalk, It's required to produce all other variants of chalk so I make a lot. Combining it with gold and yellow dye produced gold chalk which makes the center glyph. Going over to my caldron I also make 3 infernal and 3 otherworldly chalk. Both taking a variety of ingredients, the primary being white chalk, blaze powder, and ender pearls. Thankfully you can brew in bulk in a cauldron.

Having already produced the materials, I have leftover stuff which includes oil of vitriol from the gypsum, when combined with diamond produces 2 diamond vapor, which I get working in the background. I will need it eventually.

I will be needing ghast tears to progress into late mid and late game witchery. It's really easy to rush witchery so I have no issues in progressing. Except for brewing it takes… extensive practice; as it should, yet it's still annoying. I will tackle it one day but not right now.

Having made extensive progress, I head into town. Setting up my same enchanting business. Finding a far larger amount of people who wanted items enchanted. I am so glad I can produce unlimited essence berries. I have a crazy amount of time stored within my bottle so I can just super-boost the bushes. Having amassed a few gold coins now, soon I will have enough to buy a house. This will make my life so much easier; I could scrap the secret base and instead build a secret basement.

While walking through the market to see if anything catches my eye, I spot that mysterious woman. The one whose house I invaded. ‘Heart panging in guilt’ she seems in a rush. I shouldn’t really invade her privacy but… eh screw it. As she walks through the market, I keep an eye on her, walking in the same general direction.

She walks into what I recently found out is the hospital, she leaves my sight. I wonder what she's doing inside. If I see her alone, I should say hello and actually introduce myself. Then maybe I will be able to help her as an apology.

Continuing on I notice more guards are keeping eyes on me than normal. It's getting late so I don’t dally, just appreciating the market. The business I sometimes miss on my lonely island. 120x120 is a lot of space, even without corners. It can feel barren sometimes. I find a stall selling some kind of roasted meat, another variety. Promptly buying one, within a single bite I realize it's very spice, “Ah hot, damnit” I can see the smile on the chef's face, I managed to slip the skewer up my helmet so I didn’t expose my face. But having just vocalized my pain it's obvious I can't handle the heat.

Still, I buy 2 more, so Chic can enjoy some outside food rather than eating my garden, the poor soul. While walking I ponder a problem I will run into soon. I need demon hearts. But to summon a demon I need to sacrifice a villager. Clearly, I cannot do that, that’s just amoral. So how can I cheat? I have to think outside the box and it sucks Ugg. I will come to the problem later, for now, I head home. As I step through the Telepad I pause, wait “Shit”. Rushing outside I find Sling still stuck in the bucket on the counter. “Oops sorry buddy, here have a skewer as an apology” Never thought id see the day but Sling… ignored the food. Running after the jiggling mass I keep trying to apologize.

Leaving the slime to its own devices I seek out the ninja on my roof, Chic. Finding them hiding inside the web on my ceiling, I think they are creating art within the web? The spider spots me, stops what it is doing, and drops down to me. Handing the gluttonous spider the skewers it quickly eats one, before running around trying to catch air in its mouth. Chortling at the spider's antics. “Sorry” Being unable to hide my laughter ‘going to take the other skewer away’ yet before I can grab it the spider steals it and runs into the web. I thought you didn’t like it?

Heading up to my room, happy with the progress in the day. I should find a new mod to play with, but first I should focus on getting myself a house. To make the whole town socializing thing easier.

sleeping easy that night, dreaming of being an awesome… witch? Or is it warlock?