Chapter 56: The Wildwood Tree

“These things are perfect!” Aegis exclaimed excitedly as he watched the first lagnok pulling a plough through the tall grass around Rene.

Skill Learned: Taming (Beginner)

Pyri, Amlie and Lina all watched him as he led it along using the weeds given to him by Lina. While one beast was hooked up to Aegis’ plough, the others had been led into his fenced off pasture and were working through the tall grass within. Aegis doubted whether the fence would hold them if they made a real effort to break out, but for now they seemed content. Using the wooden wheeled vehicle he’d strapped to the lagnok, he was able to clear the grass and soften the dirt along a small path that passed in front of the pasture and Amlie’s farmland, traveling from his makeshift log bridge all the way to the keep ruins.

“This’ll be the main road I suppose.” He looked at it as the afternoon sun shined down on them.

“Good, you do that, I’m going back to horse hunting.” Pyri waved and headed off. Lina hesitated following her, then looked to Aegis as he turned towards the stone rubble of the keep.

“I- maybe I should help here? Pyri is pretty good with animals.” Lina suggested, causing both Aegis and Pyri to stop and look at her.

“I’ll just be cutting stones for the road, pretty boring. You sure?” Aegis asked. Lina did a quick look to see Pyri smiling at her encouragingly.

“Y-yup, I like stones…” Lina replied flustered.

“Okay, sure, that’ll make things easier.” Aegis shrugged. Lina ran to catch up to him enthusiastically as they all got back to their tasks.

It was exhausting work, pulling out the rubble and using the copper tools that Lina had acquired for them, but under Aegis’ leadership instructions, Lina was able to eventually gain the stone cutting skill herself to help out more. They worked together to cut the stones into flattened shapes that would fit together neatly, then carefully measured out the width of the road so that it’d be wide enough for two carts before they started on building the edging of the road using wooden planks Aegis had cut from Rakkan’s tree chopping.

“This is ridiculous,” Aegis groaned as he took a break to watch another guide video through his livestream viewer. “It's just a road, why are so many steps required? This is way too realistic.” Aegis complained to Lina as he interrupted her cutting a stone.

“It’s part of the game’s charm.” She shrugged shyly.

“I need to build some big heavy roller to flatten the dirt, then make it wet, then… It's just a road! At least we got these big bulky goat things now, but c’mon…” He mumbled to himself while motioning to a nearby lagnok as he paced around Lina, and she had to hold back a chuckle, as for all Aegis’ frustrated complaints, he seemed to be having fun.

“T-that’s why paved roads are good for architecture experience!” She said encouragingly.

“Yeah, yeah.” He sighed. He turned back around to face Lina and pulled out a pile of 50 Boar steaks, all between 20% and 30% quality. “Don’t let your stamina drop, we’re not resting til this is done. No time to waste. Gotta take full advantage of this dreamstate stuff.” He spoke with determination and Lina nodded back with an excited smile as she added the steaks to her inventory and ate one.

He followed the beginner instructions on building a Paved Road in the Shattered World Online exactly at first, but it wasn’t long before he started making his own improvements to the process to build up the road efficiently. The path from the river to the keep wasn’t far, less than half a kilometer, but the road being as wide as it was made the process still go rather slowly.

After crafting a large stone roller for the biggest Lagnok they had tamed, Aegis used the pairing to flatten and compress the dirt path. Next, he and Lina used crafted wooden buckets filled with water from the river to soften the dirt. The final step was to embed the cut stones he and Lina made in a neat pattern within a carefully measured stone edged path, making sure to keep the road’s width consistent to gain maximum architecture experience. Amlie joined in eventually once she’d finished plowing her field, and the three were able to gain several skill levels in Taming, Stone Cutting, and Architecture. Aegis only took breaks to harvest more of the boars that Darkshot had hunted and cooked the meat, so they could endlessly replenish their stamina and work without rest.

Aegis had been anticipating complaints by now from them, but they were all working restlessly with determination, which made him feel bad for any second he stopped working himself. It wasn’t until the sun began to set that they took their first break in light of Rakkan and Darkshot returning, walking side by side down the ramp and across Aegis’ makeshift log bridge. Darkshot was dragging with him a rope tied to a net filled with a large collection of hunted beasts, while Rakkan had strapped to his back a bunch of logs.

“Inventory is full, I brought as much as I could by hand.” Rakkan commented as he reached the others and dropped the pile of logs by the side of the partially paved road.

“Not bad, looking good already.” Darkshot commented as he looked over the farm field, pasture, and road, dumping the hunted beasts near the logs. The two continued by pulling more out of their inventory.

“I’ll have to level up my crafting skills to get us all larger and stronger bags so the inventory’s bigger. For now I guess carts will be the way to go.” Aegis commented. “You guys are probably short on stamina food right?”

“Yeah.” Rakkan nodded.

“Should be enough here for another day," He said while looking over the pile of hunted beasts. A mixture of boars, bears and wolves between levels 3 and 12. "Set up a campfire over there and I’ll start cooking, we can take a rest for now. Pyri will probably be back soon too.” Aegis motioned to an open area in the field where grass had been cleared and Lina didn’t hesitate to start setting up a fire. “So, find anything good?” He asked Darkshot.

“Yup.” Darkshot grinned. “There’s a Wildwood tree over there, surrounded by tons of flowers and herbs, just off the river. Just don’t try to chop Wildwood trees, or you’ll piss off the fairies and lower your reputation with any fairy or druid tribes in the area. Of course, you probably knew that already.” Darkshot explained to Aegis.

“Y-yeah, of course. Druids and fairies, why wouldn’t I know about that?” Aegis replied with forced confidence.

“What color flowers?” Amlie asked excitedly.

“All sorts.” Darkshot smiled.

“I’ll have to try and gather some seeds.” Aegis replied.

“Ok!” Amlie said enthusiastically.

“That aint the best part though.” Darkshot grinned as he made sure they were all looking at him. “There’s a dungeon entrance on that mountain. Level 25 Dungeon. I couldn’t check very far in before I got attacked by a big golem though.” Darkshot watched their faces glow with excitement at his words. “Not only that, I checked to see if anyone knew about it, and it’s not anywhere in the Kalmoore dungeons list. Undiscovered dungeon, waiting to be explored, at our doorstep. Caverns of Jia’nir.” Darkshot spoke as dramatically as he could. They all went silently into daydreams about what they’d find in the dungeon, save for Amlie who watched their expressions curiously.

“So you guys are going to explore it?” She asked.

“Gotta finish Rene first.” Aegis said as he hastily got to work on harvesting and cooking the beasts.

“I’ll need about 200 meals to chop the rest of the trees to Orm, there’s a lot.” Rakkan quickly ordered with excited urgency. “Less if it’s good quality stuff with high stamina recovery.”

“I’ll go hunt some more.” Darkshot joined in.

“I have a bit of stamina so I’ll cut a few more stones.” Lina said once she’d finish the campfire, and within an instant, the break had ended and they began working with more haste and enthusiasm than before. Once Aegis finished sorting out the food supplies, he set out in the dead of night with a torch-wielding Amlie towards the Wildwood tree as per Darkshot’s directions, following along the river.

They didn’t need to walk far from Rene before they spotted it, the tree stood out under the moonlight with its pale green leaves and gray gnarled branches that towered over the nearby trees on their side of the river. It was at a point where the grassy fields were slowly transitioning into a dense forest.

There was an abundance of pink fireflies flickering around the tree making it stand out even more, despite the darkness, and as they approached they found that the ground surrounding the roots of the tree were lush with colorful plant life that reflected the light of Amlie’s torch and the fireflies that were flying around them.

“So that’s a Wildwood tree?” Aegis asked Amlie and she shrugged. “That’s the wood that most people use to craft high level staves, right?”

“It’s my first time hearing about them… it’s really pretty.” Amlie looked on in awe.

“If there’s really druids or fairies and what not, maybe it’s best…” Aegis held out his hand to stop Amlie from walking any closer with her torch.

“O-oh, right.” She stopped moving forward and snapped out of her gawking daze.

“It’ll be alright if we just gather the flowers furthest away from the tree, right?” Aegis asked.

“I dunno…” She shrugged.

"Which flowers are the most useful or valuable?" He then asked.

"I dunno. You ask a lot of questions, I thought you were the leader person." Amlie whispered back.

"S-sorry. Usually Lina is here to answer - she knows everything." Aegis apologized with a nervous nod.

"Should we go back and get her?" Amlie suggested, motioning to the direction they'd come from.

"N-no, I'm trying not to rely on her so much. If I do, she'll think I suck at this game, or I'm an idiot, or something." He mumbled back nervously as he looked on at the various plants. The plants around the base of the Wildwood tree trunk didn’t look interesting just due to color variations - there were some odd jingling plants, some with petals spinning like pinwheels, and some were even moving around almost snake-like between the other plants before recoiling back into a small spring, then repeating the process.

"Maybe she likes it when you rely on her." Amlie shrugged. "You guys are married in-game, aren't you?" She asked innocently.

"Y-yeah, but that was for the experience bonus." Aegis quickly brushed off Amlie's words.

"You sure 'bout that?" Amlie smiled mischeviously.

"Of course, we barely know each other. We only started playing together a few weeks ago." Aegis replied defensively as his cheeks reddened.

"You should get to know her then." Amlie shrugged back as she watched Aegis begin circling the outskirts of the flower patch, looking for one to pick.

"I-I'm not going to bother Lina with stuff like that. She's shy, and she's just a big fan of this game and wants to play it to have fun, without being bothered by all that." Aegis brushed off the suggestion.

"Hmm... if you say so." Amlie shrugged innocently.

“Going to have to be careful about using herbalism to gather them.” He said to himself. “I’m not sure which one’s we’ll be able to grow, or how though…”

“I’ll help you figure out how to grow them.” She cheered excitedly as Aegis took out some small copper tools and walked around the edge of the overgrown flowers that surrounded the wide trunk of the Wildwood tree. Despite it being late at night he could hear beautiful bird songs echoing from the many birds sitting on the branches of the tree, mixing in with the soft wind passing through the leaves of the trees around them. It covered the sound of his footsteps as he approached but he couldn’t help feel as though they were being watched.

He finally singled out a simple yellow flower standing on its own and got the courage to harvest it, kneeling down and letting his herbalism skill get to work. He half expected something to jump out and attack, but his presence seemed to go unnoticed and he was able to collect the plant.

His confidence grew from there and he carefully gathered a few more, doing his best to get a wide variety of plants so that he’d have a flower of every type, but after his 30th flower, the birds stopped singing abruptly. He stopped harvesting to look at the tree, and from within the shadows of the branches he saw a pair of yellow eyes staring directly at him. It was too dark to make out any other details, not even able to see the name above the creature’s head.

“Okay, I think that’s enough. We don’t want any trouble, we’re just farmers.” Aegis slowly backed away as Amlie looked and spotted the eyes as well. She took a few steps back and hid the torch behind her back as best she could.

“Y-yup. The flowers were just really pretty, so we just wanted to grow more of them, that’s all.” Amlie explained as she too began to back up and the two moved to stand side by side. There was no response from the creature, but after they’d gained some distance, the eyes disappeared and the birds started singing again.

“Phew.” Aegis let out a sigh of relief.

“What was that thing?” Amlie asked him curiously.

“No idea, but I get the feeling it’s really not something we should be making angry.” Aegis shrugged. “Let’s head back and start farming.” Amlie nodded to this.

The next three days in-game went by quickly. 24 Hours in the real world had gone by since Aegis had gotten his dreamstate Simbox, but he hadn’t felt tired enough to actually fall asleep in it, only getting out to eat with his mom once and talking about the lagnoks over their dinner.

He gained a lot of experience in farming by working with Amlie to start reproducing the flowers they’d gathered, some much harder than others. He gained experience with Lina in stone cutting and architecture by finishing the paved road through his land, while using Woodworking and Woodcutting with the help of Rakkan to reinforce fences and prepare the logs for future construction. Thanks to Pyri he got a few more wild lagnok's, bringing the total up to 21, to help with food production, grazing, and pulling the land vehicles he’d manage to craft, though most of his ‘vehicles’ didn’t look anything like the guide videos he’d been following to build them.

And finally, thanks to Darkshot, he had a store of leather and managed to level up cooking and keep everyone’s stamina up so they could grind at their skills endlessly. He’d set up his own miniature shelter over their spare resources to protect them from the elements and set a few stations up for himself to cure leather from the hunted beasts.

Lina had begun utilizing daggers with Stone Cutting to get weapon experience, while Rakkan had repeatedly swapped between his weapons to take out the trees to gain experience in them. It was costing a lot of Aegis’ last bits of spare materials to keep repairing their weapons, but it was a decent source of Blacksmithing experience.

It was the the afternoon of the 4th day when Aegis, Lina and Amlie placed the final cut stones to finish off the paved main road through his land and the three sat proudly on the edge of the road looking over the river, eating more boar steak while an idle lagnok munched on grass nearby.

“Finally done. I think my skill is high enough to start working on real buildings now.” Aegis commented as Amlie fiddled into her interface to take a look at the Contract where she could view the Leader’s relevant crafting skills.

“H-holy moly! How did you level it so fast! It’s already level 19?” Amlie said in disbelief. Aegis proudly flicked through his interface to also look at his crafting skills. “Not just that…”

Leadership(Beginner): Level 3

Taming(Beginner): Level 5

Mining(Beginner): Level 13

Proficiencies: [Copper][Iron]

Woodcutting(Beginner): Level 17

Proficiencies: [Pine][Birch]

Herbalism(Beginner): Level 9

Creature Harvesting(Beginner): Level 16

Weaving(Beginner): Level 4

Sewing(Beginner): Level 7

Refining(Beginner): Level 16

Blacksmithing(Beginner): Level 17

Woodworking(Beginner): Level 18

Alchemy(Beginner): Level 5

Tanning(Beginner): Level 13

Leatherworking(Beginner): Level 9

Artistry(Beginner): Level 5

Architecture(Beginner): Level 19

Scribing(Beginner): Level 1

Cooking(Beginner): Level 16

Enchanting(Beginner): Level 23

Stone Cutting(Beginner) Level 21

Farming(Beginner): Level 6

Crafting Mastery(Beginner): Level 5

“This is really fast.” Lina said as she joined in the inspection of Aegis’ skills.

“All those experience bonuses adding up together are paying off. Since you guys are working so much too, it’s helping me level faster. I just hope it’s enough.” He stood up and dusted himself off after taking a final bite of the boar steak in his hand. “The bridge leading into Rene, it’s going to be the first thing people see, right? It’s important to get it right.”

“I could help you design it, I have the artistry skill too!” Amlie offered enthusiastically.

“Thanks for the offer but I think it’s better I do it myself, it’s the last warm up before I have to start making actual buildings.” Aegis replied. He hopped down from the side of the river and landed in it, soaking his pants and leather boots in doing so. The water was ice cold and nearly waist deep, but not moving very quickly, and he caught glimpses of a few fish scurrying around him. Looking up at his log bridge from underneath, he pulled out a copper axe and started carving marks into it now. With his level of Architecture skill he could very easily see distances visually without needing to measure, it was as if the game was using the skill to put the meters and centimeters in his head for him.

He knew that in reality, there was no way this knowledge would come to him naturally, but in the game world he felt the Architecture skill filling him with confidence - where to put the support beams and how thick they needed to be, the average weight the bridge needed to be capable of holding at any given moment, all of it just flooded in, and instead his only focus needed to be on what it would look like, and which materials would be best to use. He couldn’t help but look up at Amlie and Lina who were staring at him from the edge of the river.

“I know how to build bridges! Hah.” Aegis called out with a laugh. “This game is something else.”

“I know right? I know how to grow a Snakespring Flower. I don’t even know what it is, but I just kept messing with it until I kind of just knew!” Amlie replied with excitement to match Aegis’. They both turned to look at Lina.

“Oh, uhm…” Their expectant eyes on her. “I didn’t know how to really fight with daggers, then the game kind of told me, the more I used them. And after a long time, I didn’t need the game to tell me anymore…” Lina tried to share their experience. “W-what’s really weird, is if you log out and try to do stuff the skills let you do in-game, and you can’t anymore.” She continued.

“Did you try to use daggers in the real world?” Amlie asked her, confused.

“N-no! Not daggers, just, other stuff…” Lina replied shyly.

“Luckily I don’t think I’ll ever need to know how to pave roads or build bridges outside of this game.” Aegis shrugged. “Okay, I’ve got it. I’m gonna need a whole lotta stone, and a whole lotta boar steaks.” Aegis said as he hopped out of the river.