Beta 1.0 Test

by Harley Vex

  Candi wouldn't have told me that in such a serious tone if there wasn't something important behind it. And clay seems like a material that could make a primitive, first tier oven. Maybe everything here happens in tiers, just like with the tools and the resistance scores, and I need to make a clay oven before I can make a stone one.

  I open the Storage Crate I've made by tapping it and opening its inventory box which looks like mine, but with a lighter wood background. I eye my Unlit Peat Torches. My Common Soil. Some Pure Sand. The Wooden Pail I made while waiting out last night. Still a noob inventory. One thing is clear: I've got to get out of here and explore when the sun comes up. Until then, I'll think about my farming issue.

  I remove my Wooden Pail by tapping (three Common Planks in a V formation with a single Plant Twine on the inside) and it looks almost useless due to the holes between the boards, which are obvious even as a flat sprite.

  I have yet to add water to my farmland, but the pond where I originally got the Rocky Sand is close, so I dart out into the dusk and scoop up some water before running back into the house.

  It's heavy.

  I feel like I'm eighty years old as I drag it back to my garden, waddling side to side.

  "Well, TheWattleman's name finally checks out," I grunt.

  A flash of orange to my side makes me change course to the house instead, and I lug the pail, now heavy with water, to the storage crate. A look outside confirms a Lavaworm is bouncing towards the house, and it stops at the window, staring at me with that horrible grimace.

  "You know, that's rude," I say. "I don't want your pamphlets."

  At least I've learned that Lavaworms won't start their death sequence unless there's nothing between my eye level and the monster. So it stands there, stares some more, and bounces off into the night.

  "Stay gone," I mutter as my stomach rumbles again. So far I've been lucky, but I could stumble into a Hostility 80 area when I explore whatever is on the other side of that cliff. And my health has not recovered past that low mark. My hunger's slowly dipping below that one-quarter point.

  If I don't eat, I'll die soon. Or worse, Fatigue is tiered and I'll find out what Fatigue II feels like.

  The sun finally rises, and I select my Pail and lug it outside. Then I try to drop it to the ground, which only succeeds in water spilling all over my feet.

  "Great. I get to do that again."

  I use my Flint Shovel to dig out a hole beside the five pieces of farmland I've tilled and planted. One of the barley plants has grown a tiny bit, and as I watch, the one beside it does the same. "Fantastic. They'll be done in maybe six days instead of seven."

  I fill the Pail again. Pouring the water into the hole beside the farmland works. Buckets apparently hold one square meter's worth of water, and the pixelated blue liquid fills the hole without spreading out. Then I watch as the farmland darkens and two of the barley plants instantly morph to their next growth phase. I've probably halved the time they'll take to grow.

  Then an earthy, but rotten smell hits me. "Mike, you can't blame yourself, because you haven't even eaten," I mutter. Then I turn. "Oh. I guess that worked."

  A brownish material with small white spots now fills it. As I draw closer, I catch the stench it's giving off, like frog belches crossed with cow indigestion.

  "Salvos," I lament. "Why did you have to add this to the game? Please let me be able to mine this with my shovel. I am praying to you, Anthony Anton."

  Somewhere, he's laughing. He and Vox should get together for a drink.

  I stick my Flint Shovel in, dig, and instantly break a polygon of it off the top. The level in the bin drops. I dig out seven more. So filling the bin with like 64 Putrid Flesh gets me eight pieces of Compost. That's a lot of dead Swamp Ghouls.

  It had better be good.

  I try to drop the Compost on the farmland, but no go. Maybe I have to craft top-tier, awesome dirt with it, so I go back inside, pull a stack of Common Soil out of the Storage Crate, and put them together, side by side, in my Crafting Tab.

  "Bingo."

  One Compost and one Common Soil gets me two pieces of Fertile Soil, a black soil that doesn't look disgusting.

  And better yet, it doesn't smell disgusting, either.

  Once I have sixteen Fertile Soil, I run back outside and replace my farm. No new seeds pop up from it, so I till a few more chunks of grass and watch some pop out. Soon I'll be able to compare the types of farmland and the growth rates, but I'll do science later.

  I just need food.

  And at the rate the seeds are growing now, I might have it by nightfall.

  But I also don't want to waste daylight. I eye the farmland that forms four rows between me and my house, glad I've cracked that nut. I'll think of an auto farm later. Putting my Wooden Pail back in my inventory, I set out to take what I hope is a short walk around the massive cliff that separates me from whatever is on the other side.

  * * * * *

  It's a long walk through more Scattered Forest, and when I finally round the cliff ten thousand years later, the world opens.

  The grass here is slightly more yellow than in the biome I just left. Only a few trees stand here and there, the same common type that's surrounded me for almost my entire experience. The rest is grass and gentle hills. It's probably a builder's dream, an area where Don would build a city. And I can see for some distance. A few Ducks stand around scattered ponds and there are even a few open caves on the surface, leading down into pure darkness.

  "On task, Mike," I tell myself, pulling up my hotbar with my tools. "Daylight's running out." I tap the top of my head to check the Hostility of this place.

  Twenty-two. And this is a Flatlands biome, temperature of sixty. And I still have the Fatigue status effect, which has appeared under all the other stats.

  "Not bad." With luck I'll have a peaceful area if I have to hunker down for the night.

  If clay is anywhere, it's near water or under the dirt. Shovel ready, I approach the Ducks, who keep jumping up and down like morons between swimming in the ponds. A few Goats spawn in the distance, too, as well as a few brown hogs. Yeah. Peaceful area, unless those hogs or boars are defensive.

  Pure Sand lines the ponds here, and I spot a few blocks of it, on the bottom of the closest pond, that are a rusty orange color instead of golden.

  Clay?

  I dig it up from the edge of the pond and watch the polygon drop as several messy globs chunks of the material. The sprites look like dripping orbs. At least the water here is warm when I get in and tap each piece.

  Clay. It's clay. "I just figured out Candi's clues, because I'm really smart," I sing.

  And it's refinable, probably into bricks.

  The light level begins to lower, and I know night's about to come.

  "Out of the hot tub," I say, pulling myself back onto flat ground. Water particles dance as I dry off in seconds.

  Running back home will be suicide. So I run to the cliff, the far side, and dig myself a hole in the stone with my Flint Hammer. Once I've got a rectangular hiding spot, I block it off with one Common Dirt, leaving myself a window.

  My Calories bar drops a bit more, thanks to my use of the Hammer.

  I just might have to eat that Raw Duck. Shudder.

  The night's quiet, and I only see two regular Ghouls and a single Lavaworm in the distance. The Lavaworm seems to come from not a cave, but from an area of light some distance away. The monsters despawn by the time the sun rises, and I emerge from my hidey-hole and get to work figuring out this clay business.

  I don't waste energy talking. I can't refine the Clay Globs in my Crafting Tab, so maybe I need a brick mold. After cutting down a tree and killing a few more Ducks (they're annoying and I don't miss them) I figure out I can make a Brick Mold with Common Wood Slabs (eight arranged in a square.) By the end of the day, I have a row of them resting in the sun which I figure will only help speed up the drying process. And I can place Clay Globs in them the same way I place block
s and items on the Sifter.

  I hide again during the next night, and when I emerge the following morning, I find that all the bricks I've made have hardened and turned dark. A brick color, actually.

  I collect them by tapping, determined to finally cook all this Raw Duck I've collected.

  And then I remember that I've left my Peat at home.

  "Good job, Mike," I say. "You can't afford another trip. Soon Candi's going to pull you out of the game and give you another warning." Would that be a bad thing? I must be running out of time before she tosses me an adult diaper.

  I need a fuel, and fast.

  Wait.

  What was that glow I saw in the distance, at night?

  "Worth a check." With bricks in my inventory, I walk in that direction, unable to run more than a few paces at a time thanks to the Fatigue. The ground indents downward near where I saw the glow, and I stop, facing an orange, animated pond of not water, but lava. It seethes and heat belches from the volcanic pit.

  My heart soars.

  If that's not fuel, nothing is.

  I pull up my inventory. And see my Wooden Pail.

  Nope. Worst Idea Ever. Even a total noob should know better. Using any pail would be risky in real life, but there has to be some way to collect lava. So I rush back to my temporary hole-in-the-wall base and take my Dried Clay Bricks, arranging them in a V. Nothing. Then I take a few extra Clay Globs and do the same.

  And a bucket appears in the output. No Plant Twine needed. Clay isn't great, but a better bet than wood, so I take the Damp Clay Bucket and place it outside to dry. A bit of waiting later, I have a Dried Clay Bucket.

  As the sun sets, I run back out to the lava.

  "If this doesn't work," I said, "I don't know what to do."

  Then I remember my experience with lugging the water, and dread wells into my chest.

  Leaning down, I hold out the bucket and highlight a pentagon-shaped block of lava. I pick up the lava by shoving the Bucket at it, and it fills as heat threatens to boil my arms off. The pail is hot to touch, but not unbearable, and I trudge back to my hole with my bucketful of death.

  Lava is heavy.

  Especially with Fatigue. I walk at Landon's pace as full night falls, glad that few mobs spawn here. My arms quiver. Do not drop this. Do not drop this. "Do not drop this."

  I get back inside and gently set down the bucket with a sigh of relief. It lights my hidey-hole a bit and fills it with heat. A seething sound fills the air and sends a shudder down my spine.

  This is risky.

  I could die out here, experimenting with this stuff. And then I'll have to come all the way back. Once the sun rises, I'm taking all of this home. And then I'll do something stupid that gets me killed.

  * * * * *

  Luckily no one logs me out of the game, though I don't know how much time has passed in real life. I manage to make a Clay Oven (eight Dried Clay Bricks in a square formation) before the sun comes up, which breaks with the use of my hammer and drops as an item. And when the sun comes up, I have the joy of picking up that Clay Lava Pail and trudging around the cliff with it.

  "This had better just be the Fatigue making this so hard." I eye my house a long walk later, as the pentagon sun sinks to the horizon. I am so sick of hugging this bucket of lava and having sweat drip into my eyes that if Salvos has this as a constant feature and not just a Fatigue punishment, I'm going to kill them myself. At last, I gently put it down next to my beautiful rows of fully-grown, golden barley crops. As expected, all of those planted in the Fertile Soil are fully grown.

  "At least one thing is going right," I say. "Now, I'm ready for some food."

  I fish my Clay Oven and my five Raw Duck out of my inventory and into my hotbar. I'm drooling. After placing the Oven on the ground, which looks like a box made of bricks with two dark rectangles for slots, I tap it, bringing up a stone-rimmed box with a slot for fuel, a slot for whatever's being cooked, and an output slot. I can slide the Raw Duck from my inventory into it just fine, but I still can't put the lava in my inventory to begin with, and it turns out I have to exit the Oven's GUI and pick up the bucket of lava (again) and shove my bucket at the bottom, dark rectangle of the Oven, which highlights as I aim at it.

  To say this is a butt clench moment is an understatement.

  Weight lifts off my arms as all the lava in the bucket vanishes.

  And the Clay Oven bursts to life, with an orange glow emanating from the lower rectangle. The sounds of sizzling and the smells of meat cooking fill the air, and my stomach roars. I tap the Oven again and find two pieces of Raw Duck already done and in the output, which I tap to pull out.

  Food.

  At long last.

  And the Cooked Duck is glistening, glorious, and tastes just like the real thing. The meat is tender and the

  I devour both pieces, mouth watering, as my Calories bar rapidly fills. My Health bar ticks upward, too, and the Shaking Hand of Fatigue icon vanishes. Strength flows into my limbs as both bars climb to almost full.

  I feel great.

  Until a hiss and a seething sound builds from the Clay Oven.

  "Um." I back away from it, sensing that despite my caution, I've just committed one of the Seven Deadly Sins of Salvosera.

  The Clay Oven vanishes with another hiss, dropping as an item along with three finished Cooked Duck. And in its place sits an expanding blob of lava, which promptly rolls downhill and towards my wooden house.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Second Deadly Sin of Salvosera. Thou shall not use lava in a Clay Oven.

  Melted. Gone. I watch as my Cooked Duck and the Clay Oven drops float on top of the lava for a bit before bursting into flames and vanishing with another hiss. The lava continues to spread downhill as panic seizes me and I whirl, looking for any water source. It's already halfway to my farm. It flattens out as it spreads, but instead of flattening into oblivion, it travels as a blob. That hill is betraying me. It won't vanish until it settles, and that's going to be—

  "Against my house!"

  I estimate I have about ten seconds before the House of Mediocrity meets the reaper. And it's almost night. I'll get caught with my pants at least halfway down.

  I run past the tree farm and to the pond, equipping my pail, and fill it with water. It's not heavy at all and I can fully run now that the Fatigue is gone.

  "Noooo!"

  The lava's about to touch my farm, my beautiful barley plants. It edges my Compost Bin which catches fire. The smell of smoke fills the air and smoke blocks rise to the heavens. I up my pace, gasping for breath as I cross the grass and back into my yard. Somewhere a Dreadmoth screeches. Wait. It's straight ahead of me, fluttering over the glowing lava. They must be attracted to light.

  Fantastic.

  But apparently I'm more attractive than the lava because the fluttering wings and that green grimace dive right at me.

  I backpedal as something hisses. My house. It's gone. Toast. I run back under a nearby tree, frustration quaking my chest. I'm going to lose my house and probably die. The Dreadmoth strikes the leaves of the tree with another screech and rustle. I fumble with my hotbar, forcing myself to focus. The Flint Hammer was a disaster. I'll try the Flint Hatchet. Something light. Something that won't have too much knockback.

  I swing with the crappy weapon, damaging the Dreadmoth to the tune of more hissing sounds from the direction of my homestead. But it doesn't fly back super far, and I'm able to hack again and again. It must take me ten strikes, but at last the creature dies, dropping another Silk and two Dreadmoth Plates.

  But I couldn't care less about that, because the rest of my progress is located in my house. I dart back to my dark yard and towards my fortress.

  "What the heck?"

  Only one flat polygon of lava remains, and as it touches my farm, it hisses and goes dark. The Compost Bin is gone, but the fire is out, and nothing is giving off light. No more Dreadmoths approach and I see nothing against the stars or the light of th
e pentagon moon that's rising over the trees.

  Things are quiet.

  My house...my house...is fine.

  And amazingly, so is the garden that lava tried to destroy a few seconds ago. My barley still stands, ready for harvest.

  I blink.

  This doesn't make sense.

  But since I still have no armor and am relishing not having Fatigue and low health, I run back, grab the Dreadmoth drops, and run back inside my mysteriously intact house to wait for morning. After stashing my Dried Clay Bricks and leftover Clay Globs into the Storage Crate, all that's left to do is wait. One of my windows looks out on my farm, and as the sun rises and damages a couple of nearby Ghouls, I can sort of see what happened.

  The lava did reach my row of irrigated Fertile Soil farmland blocks.

  And when it did, it turned into a row of flat, dark pentagons of what I'm guessing is basalt.

  "Wow. That is some tough barley."

  My crops acted as a wall against the lava, forcing it to cool and dry. My Compost Bin is gone, but that's no big deal. I'll make another.

  Why the heck did my crops survive when my Compost Bin didn't?

  After exiting the House of Mediocrity, I examine the farm and the dried lava. Maybe lava dries after flowing like that for a few seconds, but I find it odd it all dried when it touched the farm. The farmland almost acted like, well, water. The Fertile Farmland row has darkened even more since I placed it, indicating it's being fed by the single block of water I've put in the farm.

  You're working on the farming, which should turn out to be a very good source of resources, and you're on your way to some mob traps.

  Okay. Experimenting is in order.

  * * * * *

  After visiting my Swamp Ghoul farm and obtaining more Putrid Flesh, I make another couple of Compost Bins and place them between my house and the cliff. Once I've got more Fertile Soil, I place it not in the ground, but in the air, by sticking it to the edge of the cliff and creating a dumb-looking platform that stretches over my head. But hey, it's in the name of science.