Chapter 37: The resource investigator

Excerpt from the book “Basic building” By Strig

Great builders; are in massive demand; Any old chump can throw a building together. Yet a great builder is an artist, blocks the paint. They will know how to gather materials, or where to source them.

You tell them what you want and they make it a reality. A good house is a status symbol, a sign of wealth. Some builders choose to specialize, certain types of buildings require it. Often times massive builds required several builders. I ask you; do you know how to build underwater? No? exactly; I have a good old friend who specialized in just that. He knew every trick in the book to build underwater effectively, drain the water, and just build beautiful ocean monuments.

So? Do you want to be good at everything or great at 1 or 2 things? That’s a question I ask every student. Many specialized builders, build strong connections to each other; working together to make something better than the sum of the parts.

In the next following chapter, we go into detail…

Opening my eyes, I find an unfamiliar ceiling. Sitting up in panic I realize; I am in my second house. Heart attack averted, at least I am awake. Heading to my window, I look out; “odd” a lot of people are looking at my house, I wonder why?

Promptly equipping my Armor I head outside, curious at what is attracting so much attention. ‘walking up to the closest person’ “So, what's all the hubbub about?”

‘person turning towards me’ “Hubbub? What does that mean?” curiosity and confusion in equal parts.

“I mean to say what's with all the attention,” I say, mentally berating myself for using earthen terms.

“Ah, yeah this here building; it popped up overnight, craziest damn thing. Gorgeous building too, do you know who owns it?” turning to me in curiosity, must not have seen me leave the side door.

‘idly tapping my hands together’ “Well it's mine…”

‘he grasps my shoulders’ “What! No way, how much did the builder cost, wait! must have been several. Damn, your rich” speaking so fast it made my head spin.

Sitting for a moment, surprised by the sheer momentum within this person's words, I simply stutter out “Hi? I am Aeternum” ‘holding out my hand’

They grasp my hand so fast I didn’t see it coming. “Hi, yeah my name’s Jengal, nice to meet you; can I see the house? It looks so cool; sorry I know it's rude. It's just so cool, maybe, can I?”

Taken back by the way they speak I take my moment to access them, blond hair, small agile body. “Alright, alright; i'll give you a tour just slow down, I can't keep up.”

He replies a hair slower “Sorry” Clearly not meaning it.

Taking my new friend into the side door I begin to give him a house tour. I can't believe just trying to figure out what was going on resulted in me having a puppy follow me home.

“So, this is the main living room” followed by them running around and whispering words I cannot hope to keep up with. He comes back to me “I like it, what wood did you use? It looks expensive, how much was it? Wait you don’t want to say that, bad to spill financial information” They suddenly stop and start deeply pondering.

It’s jarring the difference in speech after he started loosening up. Walking towards other rooms, he followed. I slowly show him around the house, him running around like a cat with the zoomies. Honestly, it brightened my day seeing the childlike curiosity.

“And that ends the tour of what I am comfortable showing you, hope you enjoyed,” I say with an exaggerated clap.

“Yes, yes, loved it, wait; comfortable showing? But we went to every room. You have more secret rooms, so cool. I want to see it but you won't show it. Not s secret now… sorry” clearly realizing he screwed up by voicing his scarily accurate conjecture.

“sooo, breakfast?” I say, breaking him out of his funk.

“Sounds good,” He says, slowly? Whatever let's get some food, it's always better with the company.

Heading to the kitchen, a room he liked a lot because of all the rarely seen and even unknown items within. Firmly setting me as someone rich within his mind.

I choose to make one of my favourite food items, and something I am confident in. Omelettes, French this time. Preparing the eggs, simply salt, and pepper. I fry some small pieces of chicken I got from the market recently. Fried with butter, a generous amount of salt, pepper, and a slightly spicy spice I found. Setting it aside I clean the frying pan.

On a medium flame, I begin to heat the egg mixture, whisking slowly but constantly, creating very small curdles rapidly. Once a large amount of curdles have formed I take what little mixture remains and on a low flame create a shell, filling the middle with chicken I fold the edges over. Creating a stretched oval shape. Flipping it over I seal the soft gooey insides within.

Placing it onto a plate, I hand it to my wide eyes friend, before preparing my own. “Mister you’re a really good cook” he slurs out as he inhales the omelette. “Thank you” I seamlessly reply while flipping my own. Cutting into the omelette I see a lovely and soft, slightly gooey inside, perfect. Looking over I see my friend has finished his omelette, contemplation clear on his face whether he should lick the plate. Chuckling at his face, I realize I had been eating with my helmet off, he didn’t even flinch. I suppose I must not be that strange.

I prepare 2 more omelettes 1 for each of us, which were polished off nicely. He continues to dramatically act like it’s the best thing he's ever eaten. “Come on, it's not that good, the street stalls alone have tasty food”

“Yes, but I have never had that, with simple ingredients you made such an amazing dish, and so it’s the best thing ever,” he says wide-eyed.

Blushing slightly at the praise, changing the subject to distract me. “So, how did you end up outside my house?”

A slight pause to inhale a breath before the tsunami of words explaining his whole day; having gone to the market to buy food for dinner, hearing rumors about a house magically appearing, asking around and then finding said house and admiring it. I have to admit his information gathering skills are to be admired, only a few people were outside my house, most clearly just having stumbled across it. It was early morning after all.

Seeing an opportunity, I start asking questions. “Do you always go around searching for curiosities?”

Without pause “Yes, of course; the town gets boring so finding all the cool and interesting stuff is the best” he says as if it's obvious.

“How old are you anyway?” More curiosity than motive

“Just had my 19th cycle”

I quickly found out most people count age by the cycle of the 4 seasons. Every first day of the season they were born marks a new year for them. So, let's say you were born on February the 8th. You would be a winter baby and celebrate your birthday every 21st of December if they used the same months as the earth of course. This makes the first day of every season an almost holiday with lots of celebrations, very interesting.

After many questions, I find he is a rather poor and bored young man. And then I give him my offer.

“You know, I struggle to find certain hard to come by materials, would you be willing to help me search for them, if you find them, I will compensate you handsomely.” He seems smart enough and he's been around long enough to know the area.

A flicker of hesitation flies across his eyes. “You don’t have to but I can give you some things now as a welcome gift to helping me”

That flicker disappeared “Yes, I would love to” ‘I promptly hand him 5 diamonds’ watching his eyes go wide brought me a great amount of internal joy. Hopefully, that will incentivize him to help me look, because I have no hope for some things.

“The first things I want you to keep an eye out for, a bat; live ideally. And Ghast tears” In my most business-like tone.

“Whats a ghast tear,” he asks curiously.

“It’s an uncommon drop from a creature called a Ghast, it's from the nether, it's white and shaped like a teardrop” a slight pause “If it helps the creature it comes from is a large white creature that shoots fireballs, although they are easy to dodge and rather weak.”

He hesitates slightly, but with greed in his eyes “I’ll try my best, the Ghast tear as you call it might cause me some trouble but the bat is just a matter of time, I’m sure a merchant will have one as a curiosity at some point”

He bowed his head forward slightly “Thank you, for the meal, the tour; everything, it’s been the best day ever”

I quickly say “I don’t know how to share contacts with you, I won't always be home, but leave a note in the mailbox I will place at the front if you have a lead or just want to hang out”

“Will do… boss” and with that he runs out the door, doing whatever he does in the day. He is an interesting fellow, I like him. Promptly placing a mailbox in front of my door.

Lookout towards the road, not as many people are congregating but the odd person will stop and look; it's kind of nice having your work admires. If the lad does well, I might treat him to exploring my island.

Heading back home, I finally decide to do a very basic circle magic spell; sky’s wrath. It really just makes it rain, that’s its most versatile use. All it needs is wood ash and a wooden sword. Creating a small 7x7 white circle, I place the items next to the golden sigil in the middle. ‘Placing my palm onto the golden sigil’ I feel a tugging sensation in my chest, mentally pulling it and I suddenly feel a rush of energy. The energy is coming from my altar and through me.

I watch mystified as the items dissolve before clouds materialize above me, wind picking up I hear it, thunder. Caught up in the wonder of it all I forgot it calls lighting inside the circle… exactly where I am standing. ‘bang’ “son of a…” stunned from the pain I quickly dart out of the circle, muscles still spasming from the electricity. That hurt like hell, watching mesmerized as where I was just standing starts getting bombarded by lightning; as if Armageddon has descended. Scary stuff.

Realizing my Armor is now soaking wet as the rain started pouring heavily, ‘run inside,’ taking shelter from the sheer quantity of rainfall.

I watched the rain for a while, enjoying the sound of it. It made me rather sleepy, but it's only early evening, time flew by today. Before I make dinner, I say hello to my pets, check my farm; which needed new diamond hoes. Adding the diamond hoes, I craft some more Zivico to make space. I am starting to get a sizable amount, soon I will have an ultimate furnace – another day though.

I head to the kitchen, making a quick meal, just some of my old vegetable broth, it needed using up. I’ll make some bone stock soon for freezing, that will give me a massive range of sources. Should I make chicken, fish, or beef? Beef, it will make the richest and tastiest stock.

Heading upstairs to enjoy my dinner, I find a trembling spider. Poor things scared of the thunder. My food ended up getting a little cold while I comforted Chic. The spider stuck to me like glue for the rest of the day, which I burned away with a reading of my new witchcraft books. Mentally noting to buy some books for my library.

I fell asleep in that chair, book cozily between my fingers. Drifting off to comfortable slumber, the spider curled up in my lap; raining lightly hitting the glass – peaceful.