Beta 1.0 Test

by Harley Vex

I gulp before I register what's happening.

  Um, Mike?

  Peat. Is flammable.

  The wall holding the newly-placed torch is on fire. The dark Peat has turned an animated orange and now gives off small fire particles. The Crap Torch pops off the wall and vanishes into a puff of smoke, but the wall stays lit, and then the flames spread to the next block, and the next.

  "What?" The first torch didn't do this. It's still on the wall near the tunnel's entrance, twenty meters away, but then as I watch, it, too, sets its wall on fire. "What the heck?"

  The update.

  Peat wasn't like this before. And when I placed the second torch, the first one updated with the new mechanics and said, hey, this needs to screw up Mike Wattles's day.

  "Mike, do something!" I switch to my Shovel and dig out the burning Peat, but it drops nothing and now I've got three more burning chunks of it to deal with. No, four. And that doesn't count the burning stuff near the entrance. The air clouds as it fills with transparent, grayish blocks. The tunnel reeks of smoke. My eyes water.

  My status bars shoot up into my vision, and the one I've never used before—the one on the lower right with the air bubbles and the blue bar—begins to deplete, slowly at first, but then it drops faster and faster and approaches half.

  Oxygen.

  Get out.

  I cough as my tears flow. I stumble up the steps, instinct taking over. My vision blurs as a pair of debuffs appear in the top right of my view—the shaking hand of Fatigue and a black cloud.

  Through my blurry vision, I can see that the burning Peat has spread to parts of the ceiling and even the opposite wall. This fire spread is no joke. Hostility level of 70 or not, I've got better chances outside.

  "Good thing I didn't block this tunnel!" I run to the exit, stumbling and weak as I switch back to my Granite Hammer, the best weapon I've got against Swamp Ghouls. I emerge into the dark, breathing in clean air, though smoke globs emerge behind me and rise into the sky. The crackling stays intense but my Oxygen rises quickly as I gasp, and the debuffs blink and vanish. My vision clears and my strength comes back.

  It was a trap.

  Anton knew I would have to go back into that Peat tunnel.

  They made the area slow to update on purpose. He knew I would trigger a peat fire.

  I hold a rude hand gesture in the air as I start my run to my distant base. For all he knows, I'm flipping off the fire.

  But more Swamp Ghouls sclorc at me and I realize I'm next to my Swamp Ghoul grinder.

  And at night, the Slaughter Chute doesn't kill them.

  About a dozen leftover spawns from the daytime are alive and well, pushing through the Common Leaves. And the first five have already freed themselves, blocking the way back to my base. They lumber towards me, arms extended.

  "Uh," I mutter.

  I back off, listening to the sounds of more Ghouls behind me, splashing their way closer through the lake.

  A quick assessment tells me my chances of surviving a fight with them all is close to zero.

  Wait.

  My cave.

  My crappy first night shelter is right next to me. And I've got plenty of blocks with me to barricade myself.

  I dodge a Ghoul and dive in, pulling the chunks of Common Stone into my hotbar as the Swamp Ghoul mob closes in. At least they won't dig through that. I leave a small window so I can hack at them while I catch my breath.

  Mistakes can be made in caves.

  Peat mines are no good.

  "Mike, you're an idiot." Candi was trying to warn me about the dangers of Peat and I didn't notice.

  I can see the entrance to the Peat mine from here, and it's glowing like a tunnel to a fiery underworld. Smoke continues to billow out and rise into the sky. It's showing no signs of stopping. Every chunk of Peat must be on fire in the there by now. I barely got out in time.

  And maybe the Peat fire is spreading under the ground, too.

  Small smoke particles rise from the soild ground above the mine and even from the part of the lake the mine goes under. It's not a small fire.

  I swing at two Swamp Ghouls through the small hole I've left at the cave entrance. I kill them in five hits each, leaving my view free again. I lean out a bit. Once again, something's off.

  Are the smoke particles spreading?

  I gulp.

  Yep. The area giving them off is growing by the second, spreading through the swamp. So Peat fires don't need open air to burn. And the cave is still a blast furnace.

  Soon, the whole swamp will be on fire under the Damp Soil.

  "Unbelievable!"

  But maybe it won't be a big deal. A couple more Swamp Ghouls are walking on top of the ground, unharmed, so it seems the small smoke particles are cosmetic only. I let out a breath and a sigh of relief. So far, I've only found Peat in the Northern Swamp. The fire should stay here. Maybe it will even make my Swamp Ghoul grinder more efficient if it lights up the underground.

  "I can live with this," I mutter, watching as the smoke particles spread to the mouth of my cave and then to the very edge of the Northern Swamp biome, where my grinder is set up. The air doesn't even heat, though it smells faintly of smoke. Under my feet is a raging inferno, one I can faintly hear crackling, but so long as I've got stone and dirt between me and it, I should be good.

  I lean against the wall, watching the stars slowly rise. As I listen, the Swamp Ghoul mob slowly disperses since they can't find a way to me, probably. "Mike, that was close. Today you learned."

  And then another orange flash catches my attention from my right.

  I turn and dare to peek my head out the small opening I've left.

  A Common Tree at the edge of the biome border has caught fire at the base, and the flames spread up the tree and consume its leaves, giving off more smoke. A few seconds later, the next tree catches fire, and the next...

  I gulp.

  Peat fires spread to nearby wood.

  The Scattered Forest is catching fire.

  And I've replanted a lot of trees since starting my game. There's so much tinder, so much flammable material between me and—

  I raise my Hammer. "My base!"

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Without my base, not only will my chances of death rise by about two hundred percent, but Salvos would find a reason to get rid of me. The special conditions in the contract's missing pages must have a clause about what happens if your base gets destroyed.

  If it doesn't, why would Anton add peat fires to the game?

  Logic propels me to bash the Common Stone barrier with my Hammer. My mind works. Fires will light the area and stop most hostile mob spawns. Maybe. Once I've got a two-meter high hole in the barrier, I bolt out, Hammer still equipped, and I run for it.

  The crackling sound seems to be everywhere. Already five trees near the edge of the Northern Swamp have caught fire, and a Swamp Ghoul does the same as it stupidly wanders too close to the trees. Then it spots me, forgets that it's on fire and taking constant damage, and makes a beeline in my direction.

  Fine. I swing my hammer and strike it in the chest, throwing it back and watching it die. In the distance, faint light from my wooden house, wooden ladder, and wooden Dreadmoth Destroyer shines through the still-living trees.

  Stopping the fire from here will be impossible. Already two more trees go up, lit by the ones already on fire. And nothing's going out. Why did I have to plant so many trees around my base? Bad idea, and probably something else Anton noticed. The whole area could be burning by daybreak, which takes place in maybe twenty minutes.

  My best hope is clearing all the trees near my base. I've got to take the most dangerous run in the dark I've ever taken.

  I run.

  Hammer raised, I swing at a Common Ghoul, throwing it out of the way. I gasp for breath, breathing in the smoke that rides on the wind. Crap. The wind is blowing from the fire towards my base. The crackling gets fainter behind me as the world turns dark. More Ghouls make sclorc sounds somewhere
to the left. My sides hurt as I dodge trees. I lose sight of my base and remember that I'm near my thick tree farm, where I planted rows of trees just a three blocks apart each.

  It's gonna go up within ten minutes.

  And then it's going to leap to my base, which has another dozen trees between the farm and it.

  "Go, go, go!" Equipping my Granite Hatchet, I get to work in the dark, listening to the clunking sound of cutting wood. Sweat breaks out on my palms. My arms strain with the effort. I cut down the first tree, the second...and then the faint sound of something hopping on grass approaches from behind.

  No. Not now.

  Fire spread is out of control now...and there's a Lavaworm right behind me.

  I whirl, raising my Hatchet, and I swing at the faintly glowing, grimacing coil. I strike it right in the face as it starts to crackle, and it flies back enough to knock it off. Then I lunge forward and strike again, but the monster hits another tree that's not part of my farm and brightens as it gets ready to erupt.

  "There she blows!" I back off as it bursts into polygons of lava, ember particles, and falling flames, which ignite the grass and spread to the tree. "Please, Salvosera gods. Don't make Lavaworms that destructive."

  Light fills my tiny part of the night as the tree burns a bit, but this fire doesn't spread like the peat fire does. The first bit of fire dies and while lava spreads on the ground, sizzling, I back off. I'm alive. Undamaged. At least Lavaworm fire has some sort of cap on its duration.

  But the faint glow of the approaching peat inferno sure doesn't seem to. Through the trees, a distant orange glow slowly gets brighter. My heart races and I'm sure I'll never clear enough forest in time to stop it from reaching my base. Leaves take forever to decay and they'll go up no problem.

  "I need a Plan B," I mutter, backing towards my base, which must be in the opposite direction as the glow.

  The screech of a Dreadmoth sounds in the direction of the fire. One of the creatures is approaching, drawn by the glow of the flames.

  A horrific screech fills the air as I look up to see the outline of a giant moth against the stars. A green ball sails at me—from at least twenty blocks away—and I dodge to the side as it lands near the patch of now-drying lava. A hissing sound rises as they meet, but I don't stay to look at the end result. I clear another couple of trees and see my base, bright compared to the night. I'll never hit the Dreadmoth from here and I don't have time to fight it, especially now that they have good range.

  And I have no choice but to run for it.

  I dodge another glob of green crud, and then another, running in a zigzag formation as the Dreadmoth keeps pace. A glance back confirms it's still well above me, impossible to kill, and about to end my life.

  I dive into my house.

  The screeching sounds again, right above me, but I rush to the window and look out. I sigh in relief because I can't see the peat fire, and also because the Lavaworm fire has gone out, along with the lava, leaving only darkness. Maybe the peat fire has a duration, too, if it's treated as some kind of game event.

  If I'm lucky, it's gone out.

  "That was close," I mutter.

  And then I blink.

  Oh, great.

  The faint orange glow is back, flickering and peeking at me from between the trees, and as I watch, it brightens. Flames and rising smoke blocks appear just above the tree line. And then another tree catches fire.

  The disaster hasn't reached my tree farm yet, but it will. And when it does, it will spread rapidly. My base won't stand a chance.

  And then everything I have will burn.

  I've got to do something.

  But there's something about watching this giant fire crawling its way towards me that makes my mind go blank. Each start of an idea flies away, screaming, and all I can do is watch and listen to the Dreadmoth as it continues to screech from its post above my house.

  I'm going to lose everything.

  Everything.

  What will I tell Natalie? Even if I survive until daybreak, the fire might get me, and then what will I have to show?

  "Natalie, I'm sorry," I mutter, chest heavy.

  I let out a breath as another tree catches fire. One by one, they're going up and never going out again.

  Another Dreadmoth, a more distant one, spawns and descends towards the flames. So the fire is within a hundred blocks of me. I don't have too long.

  The Dreadmoth touches the flames, fulfilling that dumb old saying. And it catches fire, backs off, and flees towards me as it flashes red and takes damage. It's a sound like the apocalypse. Angry screeches follow as it sails over the trees, lighting the area around it, and finally dies in a puff of gray smoke. Its drops fall to the ground, some Silk and a shiny green plate.

  I widen my eyes.

  A shiny green plate.

  A Hardened Dreadmoth Plate, ready to be used for armor.

  I grasp the glass of my window and shake my head, clearing my mind. I'm Mike Wattles. I know how to exploit these games to the max. And I may have just found a very dangerous solution to a very big problem.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  If Anthony Anton wants to play with fire, I'm giving it right back to him.

  My mind races with logistics as a tingle washes over me. I eye my tree farm as a vision forms in my mind, a vision I can't wait to try out, but first I need to lure that first Dreadmoth down to where I can kill it. It's still above me. I check my chest. Crap Torches. No good. But my two Ovens sit outside and they give off light when I cook. Since the Lava Incident I've been careful to only cook during the day since that one Dreadmoth almost killed me, but now I'm breaking my unspoken rule.

  I fish three Peat Bricks out of my Storage Crate and some Granite Chunks. Anything goes. Then I dart outside and the Dreadmoth above my house screeches again, letting me know I'm spotted.

  "Don't stop," I shout at myself.

  I tap the Clay Oven, the closest one, and bring up its GUI and stuff the Peat Bricks and the Granite Chunks in. The Oven lights, casting a glow on the surrounding grass as I back off, narrowly missing the green acid ball that lands in front of the Oven and spreads.

  "Get inside, Mike!"

  I run back into the house and the Dreadmoth gives chase before turning back to the light source and hovering over it. Meanwhile, the crown of the forest fire slowly closes the distance between us. Only one tree at a time seems to be catching now rather than three or four. It seems that the bigger the fire's getting, the slower it's spreading. It's probably meant to stop the server from getting overloaded, so I've bought maybe another fifteen minutes.

  That's still not much time. And I still can't afford to wait until daybreak.

  "Go, Mike. Go!" I equip the Granite Hatchet—not much knockback there—and rush out to the monster hovering over the Clay Oven. I hack at it three times, throwing it back, and I dodge another green ball of death that lands near my feet. I rush back out and finish the job, killing the creature just as the Clay Oven finishes and goes dark.

  "Okay. Where are we?" I whirl. "Still not good!"

  Three more trees have caught fire in the distance, and one is definitely closer then the others. So fifteen extra minutes was generous.

  "Candi, I hope you're watching."

  I equip my Granite Shovel and rush to my two rows of ten trees each. And almost stupidly, I hack out the Common Soil around the farm. The Shovel's endurance bar is just about full and it breaks Common Soil blocks with a nice, zippy speed and a crunch. Sweat breaks out on my neck. I need a huge rectangle around my tree farm, two deep. I kill two Common Ghouls that drop into my pit. Take some damage, eat a Bread Loaf and heal. Dig again.

  "Mike, it's a good thing you stocked up for that cave," I mutter. "Good. So trees float." I've cleared the first layer of Soil under them and move on to the next. I need only a minute to clear that, too, since I can run and dig at the same time. No other mobs bother me.

  Phase One, complete.

  Now I need to stop the fl
ames from spreading to my base. I eye the trees that stand between me and the farm. At least a dozen of them. I stick a Ladder on the wall of the pit and climb out.

  "Uh, oh."

  Mob spawns have decreased near my pit because the approaching fire has cast so much light on the forest that no hostile mobs are spawning there. I see a few Dreadmoths way above, and some diving at the burning trees in the distance, but I ignore them for two reasons. 1.) The forest fire has crept within thirty blocks of me, and sixty blocks of my house. And 2.) with fewer spawning choices, the monsters are cramming into the area I want them the least.

  Between me and my house.

  Yeah. I should have launched Operation Save Mike's Base first. Because a good dozen monsters, a mixture of Common Ghouls, Lavaworms, and a single centipede thing meander in the dark between me and my house. As I stand there, the flames drawing closer behind me, I curse my luck. I haven't seen one of those centipedes on the surface before. That's another great part of 1.1, I'm sure.

  And then two Common Ghouls spot me and head in my direction.

  And so does the centipede, legs clicking in that manner that makes my skin crawl.

  My mind spins. What would Kevin and Val do? I'm not that much of a fighter. They wouldn't go up against a venomous monster without armor or buffs. Fighting it is suicide. But I don't have time to retreat and let it despawn.

  I've got to take another huge risk and let the game work for me.

  I turn and run towards the fire.

  The centipede thing is fast. I've got no chance at outrunning it. The orange glow of the forest fire brightens, revealing a Duck that's quacking and running around terrified. I jump over the mob, and then it squeals in pain as it dies. The clicking stops for a moment, replaced by a horrific chewing sound as the centipede consumes its prey.

  "Thanks for sacrificing yourself!" I shout, running towards the first row of burning trees. One above me catches, and the world fills with smoke. The air turns acrid. My eyes water. The Fatigue debuff appears, and my knees quake as my run slows. But at least in the open air, none of that blurriness hits.