“There’s no way this holds up in heavy rainfall… What I’d do for some concrete right now. Guess I do this the cheap and easy way.” Joey stared at the small doorless shed with crates lining the insides. He felt confident in the structure at first, but if ridiculously heavy rain dropped by every so often, what choices did he have?

At the river, he did his best to find moderately large stones. Unlike the pieces on par with his fists for stones, he stored away large rocks at least thrice the size. In the end, 10 of these seemed to be enough.

From there, he deconstructed the shed and moved the crates away, then began digging up sections of the dirt to throw the massive rocks beneath.

Once the dirt was replaced, it merged together and transformed into a large, connected mass. Hopefully, the existence of aggregate held together wet soil better, but he didn’t hold much hope about it. He finished the shed’s base by using a few rows of wood planks hammered into the ground as an additional foundation; by separating the shed from the ground he could stop water seeping into the wood flooring.

He'd probably destroy and reconstruct the shed before that became an issue.

“Well, that’s good enough. I do wish I had something better for the roof though.” He looked at the wood panels and found himself dissatisfied.

He knew he could do better. And yet, he didn’t know how.

Without tiles, thatch, plastic, or even just asphalt… He didn’t know what around here could help keep the wood protected for longer. But he forced the dissatisfaction down to focus on some other, arguably important matters.

The stalks of both hemp and wheat completely dried, and he now had enough to make that scarecrow, as well as far more hemp fibres. Given that he needed fabric once more, this timing was not in any way undesired.

The scarecrow required 4 hemp fabric, in other words taking 120 hemp fibres. So, that simply meant having to strip a bunch more stalks once more, not that the process was any faster now. It only took about 45 minutes to go through enough stalks that he ended up with 124 fibres, from there he just needed to make a rod and…

“That’s a heart of weeds, not flowers. Fine… Do I have the locations of everything? Nettles, leaves, ferns, moss, grass, and brambles should all be fine. But reeds and ivy are… reeds should be in the wetlands or swamp, maybe by the river at some place. But the ivy is a bit tougher,” he brooded in deep thought. The bigger issue was simply interacting with ivy as it might irritate his skin, but as long as he found it, then he might unlock a new, more useful recipe.

The beloved crop sticks could be made, but once more he didn’t see a need for that. And the seed crushing millstone required both components to craft, a base and running stone to be exact.

Its power source could wait.

“So what can I do now?” In boredom, he flicked through recipes available at the moment until remembering a small matter. He checked the lone recipe for nature magic, and said, “I still need grass seeds and flax stalk for the lens, that’ll do fine.”

Grass seeds took no more than 10 minutes to gather. He eventually found a patch of long grass with seed pods, then broke off the small seed casings on the whisky ends to gather a handful of them. Once his inventory contained one unit of the stuff, he stopped to search for flax. From the start, he knew that the prairie held none, its obvious purple flowers and tall stalks stood out just as much as hemp in the end. That left a few places he could check, and the obvious one was the wetlands.

About 15 minutes later, Joey walked back home.

Turns out flax, and reeds, grew very well in the wetter soil. Or perhaps it was something else about the soil which made it ideal, either way, he found quite a few small patches, enough to fulfil his needs.

He didn’t gather any at the moment as there was simply no point in doing so.

Separating more fibres, he did little more that day than aspects of physical labour which had to get done. Oh, and he also cooked some more meat around evening with the vegetables he harvested.

A slab of meat, with sage, and some vegetables cut in half then skewered before roasting. After they gained a slight char, he dropped them in the ingot cast he’d been using to cook and allowed them to soak in the fat and meat juice mixture for added flavour. Occasionally, the meat flipped to fully soak it in the gravy, and he ate a tasteful meal once more.

Food was absolutely the best way to enjoy himself in this environment.

On his own, without anyone to play games with or speak to…

“Ah right, I guess I could just narrate stuff to Sal. Guess I sorta forgot about that since I met others. I wonder…” He didn’t finish the thought, but his mind certainly ran rampant with the future possibilities of magic.

Joey slept rather early that day, excited and prepared to travel back to the village. He needed to maintain complete safety if he wished to do so, as even a single beast could kill him. Especially those Mountainbeaks if what the two elites had claimed was true. When he fell asleep to those thoughts, he only thought of one thing…

“I wonder if dragons exist. That’d be cool.” And at the same time, he thought about all the other mythical creatures which might also turn up…

It would be just as much a nightmare as it was a joy.

* * *

In the early mornings as the crisp air finally received a boisterous warmth from beams of sunlight, a man in hemp and leather walked beside a stream with cube in hand. On the way, he hummed a song, or rather a few of them, and took note to avoid any patches of sharp stones or plants which might cut into his feet.

With far less on his mind, he’d found a blackberry bush. And what appeared to just be a huge patch of thorny stems, possibly a briar patch.

He only just entered the forest, but came to a stop because a sight caught him by surprise. It was not the waterfall he’d have to descend… But a creature.

A small, jiggly creature which he’d call unmistakable.

A slime.

It hopped towards him, its body squished to the shape of an egg under its own weight and only held together by the strange membrane which formed its skin. A great temptation to go up and harvest it was brought upon him, but something about it ticked him off. With a deep red and orange colour within, he first feared that it could sprout flames or leave a horrendous napalm…

Neither of those happened though. But that didn’t dismiss the danger, why would a slime appear now, inside the boundary described by the chief?

Obviously, he’d done enough rituals to allow stronger monsters to appear!

Which meant this slime had to be stronger than the zombie in some way, and after that mistake, it wasn’t his own ignorance or assumptions which would kill him this time. In utter caution, he quickly created a wooden spear with the box and threw it towards the slime's body. He missed as the spear’s tip stabbed into the rocky dirt beside it, the creature no bigger than a common house cat in size.

And then, he saw a small flash appear inside its body.

He ducked behind a tree.

A bright light sprayed itself around him. A deafening blast shook his very body and left his ears ringing violently. A visceral rampage of heat seared his skin, a layer of black soot on his clothes and armour was ignored whilst his body shook.

His head popped out for a second, looking into the cloud of ash and smoke in its place.

And he saw it. Hopping forward… menacingly.

Running away quickly, he saw its faceless mass focus towards him at all times. This thing hopped with an intent now. Before it merely bounced around, but clearly his ‘attack’ agitated it.

How do you kill a slime which fucking explodes?

He made a new wooden spear, and threw it once more before jumping behind a tree. At first he expected it to miss, and the slime would blow up once more, but when his head peeked out, the spear definitely missed.

This time it didn’t explode though. “It’s body is darker, isn’t it? So there’s a timer or cooldown… Good to know.” For now, he watched and saw it hop forward whilst the dark red innards slowly returned to their orangey state, clearly almost primed for another blast.

To test, he ran around the thing to grab the intact, second spear, and threw it at the slime once more.

Behind a tree, he felt the blinding light and outstanding shockwave shake him. But with confidence, he left the hiding position with his copper spear, and stabbed the dark red slime. He pierced it, and saw the gelatinous sack freeze in place.

Its body turned rigid, as though no longer the soft jelly which moulded with every hop, and instead like a tough but wet clay.

Spear removed, he reached down and felt the slime in his hands, its consistency reminded him more of gelatine, albeit chilled into a firmer form. And without much option, he stored it in the cube to receive a name but was unsure of its uses.

“Nitro-gel? Is this stuff explosive? No, it wouldn’t be so dark then… I guess I can try throwing it into a fire later.” Whether or not it blew up into a massive fireball or not concerned him, but from a distance it should be safe. Probably.

After some more walking, and evading a second nitro-slime, as he decided to call them, he crossed the waterfall and patch of flowers with ease. Three more slimes bothered him, but none of them explicitly sought him out when he walked by.

“So they’re extraordinarily passive. Good to know,” his head nodded along whilst he spoke.

But more importantly, he saw the great tree with which he stream just barely passed beneath as its trunk was suspended no more than a foot in the air through the help of a dozen massive roots which dug into the ground. Supposedly throughout this whole forest as well.

“Gravel maker tree, such a simple name in the end. Well, this is the tough part now.” He stared to the opposite side of the stream, in full knowledge that the village could not be more than 10 minutes from here, but this short journey was by far more dangerous.

Whilst travelling to the village, he realised that he had no way to properly communicate his entry, or even knew if something special was required.

But those thoughts squashed themselves in place of constant fear. Any shadow, figure, or noise led him to rush forward in concern, but perhaps due to the village being so close by he simply overexaggerated the danger. No way they’d allow people to farm and move about if beasts roved about in troves. Before long, he entered the pathway into the hill and came to the large set of double doors.

Not exaggerated in any way, it was at least twice his height and wide enough for three well-built men to walk side by side with space to spare.

“The traveller Joey requests entry. I’ve brought a fair amount of fragments and require Diavolo’s presence.” Saying the best of what proved his identity, the doors eventually opened, fortunately, and allowed him to enter the bustling village once more.

Still quite early in the morning, most workers only finished setting up for the day around now. And there, sitting at the back of the hall with his finger tapping as usual, was the chief he needed to meet.

Time to do some business.