It’d been a strange few days, to say the least, but Joey hadn’t dreamt much through the nights, at least not to his memory. But this night actually had a difference, wherein he had a rather strange dream, in which he somehow equipped himself with a firearm and a full set of armour. Then began journeying into the workshop.

The first room was no different than the one in reality, and instead of stealthily creeping about, he jumped down from the rafters and met one of the golems’ red eyes with a grin, holding the loaded revolver with confidence as it charged.

As he fired the bullet, there wasn’t the slightest concern, and he just walked forward casually. The golem fell flat on its face with eyes turning a dull grey as the source of its power had been destroyed.

A simple hole pierced through its head and vanished through the other side.

He continued through the increasingly abstract rooms of the workshop from there, seeing conveyor belts and pipes carrying unknown fluids at points, or massive machines dedicated to pressing or cutting metal in specific ways. Finally, he saw a black metal gate block his path forward, but heard the whirring of gears from within.

And while he tried to raise the gate, or break in some way, nothing worked. The whirring grew louder and louder, and his heart pounded relentlessly for some reason. And then…

His eyes opened. The dream came to an end with him covered in his own sweat.

“What the fuck was that? What’s down there even? Just breathe… It should just be a dream.” He was fortunate this dream was actually rather positive, but why did he fear this place now?

He finally calmed off after a bit of thought, but none of that explained why it impacted him so much. Perhaps the stress from before hadn’t completely vanished and it came tumbling down in an anxious dream?

That was a far better explanation than something of incalculable danger residing at the workshop’s depths. Though, he remembered next to nothing about his dream beside killing a bunch of golems with some sort of revolver. Getting out of bed, he opened the door to hear the heavy splashing of raindrops for once, little light broke into the room as well.

“Perfect timing. Let me just get the skirt on and we– I’ll see if the ritual works.”

He tightened the leaf skirt around his waist and stored everything of importance. It only took a minute overall, and he rushed out the room with a cube in hand. The ritual was extraordinarily simple at least, and he memorised the process with ease. Now only the execution mattered.

The ritual site he chose was none other than near the river due to the process involving bowing into the muddy ground several times, and he refused to hold back.

But as he placed the totem down, withdrew the windchimes, and stood in the heavy rain, he couldn’t help but say, “This is so fucking stupid. Who does a ritual in the pouring rain of all things? It’s suicidal!” But that didn’t stop him.

The owl shaped totem impressed him in design, even if the cube called it ‘poor quality’ this thing at least compared to sellable pieces by someone with years of woodworking experience. The features on the owl’s wings appeared defined, even vaguely detailed with the sort of ridges as seen on feathers. Its face was not only sharp, but he almost felt it staring at him, like the eyes on a masterful painting.

Shaken out of the owl’s gaze, he took a deep breath and prepared to begin.

To put this matter to rest.

The ritual began by shaking the windchimes rhythmically, following a pattern of ‘1, 2, hold, hold’, which continued for 10 cycles. The first step of the four is easiest, and so he began the second of holding his arms out and shaking the chimes constantly, and doing so until the ‘winds dulled’ it claimed.

And after a few seconds… he felt things changed. A heavy storm still rained down on him, but the flustered winds which blew around his skirt suddenly died.

In a storm, the wind fell silent.

His face hardened in both realisation and commitment, and so began the third step, to instead shake with the pattern of ‘1, hold, 2, hold’ for 10 cycles more, before moving down to his knees and placing the chimes to the side. Looking above, the winds finally set back in and he saw lightning arc in the clouds above before the frightening clap of thunder almost made him flinch.

And as it clapped three times, so did he.

Finally, he lowered his head and prostrated. His eyes shut as he held his face into the sticky mud, and heard an endless rumbling as though the lightning above entered a turmoil.

He saw white. A blinding light covered his vision, even with closed eyes, and finally the thunder subsided. No noise accompanied that light… A bolt without thunder.

And when he gently lifted his head, there was no totem in front, merely a bit of charred wood which could easily fit in the palm of his hand. But on that wood, blackened around the edges, a single character had been engraved within.

On the edges of it, lightning bounced around chaotically, as though trapped by the letter, yet not commanded. His mind did somersaults, both joyous at the revelation, but also conflicted. Why did such magic exist?

This specific ritual, so to a point that it should be impossible to come up with something so intricate wilfully…

And yet, he only felt that spark, the same he thought he squashed moments ago, reappear once more. Too curious to hold it back, his hands shakily reached forward to grab the edge of the charred wood and felt its fragile form.

“What do you do?” Fearful of the lightning contained within, he didn’t dare brush his hand over it. At the same time, since he lost the totem he’d need a new one for every ritual. “Surely, it doesn’t want me to sacrifice it as a test?” He couldn’t help but consider the unknown branch recipes to be massive wastes unless he had several of a resource.

He looked above, and saw that a portion of dense clouds mysteriously vanished in the area around him, slowly refilled by the surroundings which equalised the distribution once more. But that didn’t mean the rain should’ve stopped unless something caused it all to disappear.

For such a simple, albeit convoluted, ritual, its effects were rather crazy.

He had hopes and suspicions that it worked, but never enough to call it more than 50% sure. But now that he knew the papers told him how to truly perform these rituals, it made sense to collect more. He remembered that the precise version of this ritual mentioned a higher form which made use of a totem of two animals. However, the information was cut off there.

Even if he chose the correct animals, there came the matter of a ritual itself. With that in mind, finding more huts became critical in the upcoming days.

Additionally, there were the tablet fragments underground. Written in a language he couldn’t read, but that didn’t mean the future was set in stone. For all he knew, a complete tablet contained some sort of magic to translate itself… Probably not in all honesty, but who knew what it could do?

Since magic wasn’t locked to extremely rare things, he could start assuming it was a reason lots of things worked. Not that it alone satisfied him.

To discover just what he can use magic for, and see how far it could take him. That sounded far, far more interesting.

The cube gently touched the side of this rune, and he first decided to head back inside and wait out the rain. Before that though, he quickly entered his inventory to find out some new information. The first of which was a name, thinking the item might have an interesting name like ‘Lightning rune’ or the like.

“Rune of the Owl. Makes sense… But damn, feels like a missed opportunity.” He didn’t complain about it too much and quickly accepted that his choice of rudimentary name was no better.

What interested him just as much was the glowing tree. Never did he expect making this rune to unlock something, but he had no clue what it could be. When he pressed it, he saw the tree appear in front but nothing about it had changed. Not that he’d have noticed anyway.

Besides that tree, he saw something green shoot up from the black floor of the void and quickly thicken. A mossy green sheath first paled to a whitish green akin to lichen, and then finally darkened until a point where its colour almost matched the first tree. However, this one still contained some spots of green all over its bark, he noticed two points of light all the way at this tree’s base, and rushed over to it.

When his body flashed away from the first tree, he realised that the space’s colour as a whole changed completely. The black void transformed into a gentle green, not enough to be put off, but also enough that its connotation made itself clear. “If this tree is for nature magic, what’s the first one for? Is it just about growing past the ancient era?”

He couldn’t wait to see if a new tree unlocked for completing that first one, but his gathered thoughts wanted to see the two new recipes below. In a flash he’d reached the place and saw them both fully, both excited and frowning at the realisation.

The first, called lightning necklace, simply required the rune of the owl in the centre, and four hemp strings in cardinal directions. In fact, he knew it could be crafted right this moment, but held off as he saw the second recipe. One called, Lens of nature, and it intrigued him so much more.

Firstly, it required a glass lens… Something already beyond his means, for now at least, as well as 2 runes of the owl. And on top of all of that, he required an assortment of 6 different plants.

A hemp stalk, flax stalk, sunflower, poppy bundle, sheaf of barley, and grass seeds.

Okay, two of them were relatively easy, the hemp he could acquire right now and he’d seen sunflowers in this plains already. But he knew nothing about the rest.

Barley and grass seeds were likely to be found in the other place, he saw some patches of taller grass there, and perhaps some of it was barley. But that left flax and poppies, two things he’d never seen.

Whatever this item did, the box didn’t want him to acquire it before sufficient growth and advancement. The lens alone showed this.

He left the cube and walked back to his home as the rain picked up once more. If he waited any longer he’d be drenched for a while. On the way, his mind bounced the ideas back and forth far longer than he admitted was reasonable. But by the time he entered the brick room, and locked it, he only needed seconds of consideration.

Four hemp string and his rune of the owl vanished in a moment, and he was left with a necklace in his hand.

Clearly the result tidied up his rune as well, since the previous charred wood had been removed and the whole piece smoothed over to create a nice-looking oval pendant with the rune on one side. Lightning still flitted about its carving, and he gently placed it over his neck.

The moment it gently rested against his chest, it glowed with a blue tinge momentarily and he blinked over and over.

Looking down at the rune for a second, he gently said, “You’re a lot more useful than you look, huh. I need to start carving.” The whole thing only held a single function, but he actually appreciated it greatly. It very clearly shared information with his mind, no different than the orbs in his inventory. Information on the weather to come.

This storm might end soon, but another passed through tomorrow. And it would be a long one… Perfect for making more runes.

Without anything better to do, Joey ended up spending most the day talking to Sal or making more statues. Unfortunately, none met the requirement for poor quality directly, but he did make 6 shoddy ones. In other words, he wouldn’t be worried about making the lens of nature anytime soon.

Now he had to find out about other rituals as well. Who knew how many runes there were, and if nature magic is a thing, what other sorts existed here?

Only time could tell.