I chopped down a tree, then went to one of the logs. I chopped that down to firewood, then grabbed one of the firewood bundles. I chopped that again, and it produced five sticks. Grabbing one of the sticks, I hit it again, and it produced two matches. With all that, my stamina was completely gone.

Perfect.

I gathered the things I needed, leaving the rest, before walking over to the firepit. I dropped the items inside one by one, and when the match was in, a roaring fire appeared in the firepit. Over the fire a pot magically appeared.

I grabbed my basket of tomatoes and tossed them in until it read 5/5 tomatoes. There was a pause, then a timer appeared over the fire. I couldn’t see any numbers, just watched as an hourglass filled up with sand and the pot stirred all by itself. If I had to guess, it was probably fifteen seconds before I heard a faint ding! sound.

A bowl of soup appeared next to the fire. I raised an eyebrow and picked it up.

Unlocked! Food storage!

The words appeared in front of me again, and I glanced at the small, rectangular building that looked like it was falling apart. Did this mean I could store this soup in there without it going bad? Because that would be nice. It was enough to test it, anyway. If I kept the plants watered, I had a feeling I would be getting ten tomatoes a day. More than enough to start experimenting with.

For now, though, I needed stamina. So in three bites, I ate the tomato soup, and my stamina filled back up to half way. That was nice, considering all the food in the house currently gave me either 1/4th or 1/8th stamina. I had five more tomatoes left, and still an hour on the firepit, so I cooked another tomato soup. It appeared after fifteen seconds, and I blew on it as I entered the covered back porch. The previously locked food storage now no longer had a lock, and I eased it open.

There were stairs going down to the long, rectangular room. Despite the calendar saying it was summertime, there was a chill to this room. There were cobwebs everywhere, and shelves lining the entire area. It was sparce, with a few items in there. I got closer to see a small bag of onions, which once I touched I knew more recipes would be unlocked on the recipe section of the clipboard. There were also a small bag of potatoes that unlocked more recipes. I wondered if I could cut up some of these potatoes and plant them in the greenhouse to grow more.

I placed the bowl of soup on one of the shelves, and it seemed to settle into place. I glanced around at all the cobwebs and seriously wondered about the sanity of a place like this before I walked back up the stairs and closed the door. Game logic. That was what I kept telling myself.

I checked the recipes. Despite unlocking some more recipes, there were still some that were only partially unlocked, with a potato or an onion unlocked and ??? covering the rest of the mysterious ingredients. A basic potato soup became unlocked, though.

Basic potato soup

0/4 potato

0/1 onion

There were so many things to explore, but I still needed to buy that chicken coop. It was time to do some experimentation with selling things in the dumpster. I had a whopping .02 total dopamine points, and I have been wanting to figure out how much the logs go for.

There was a good chance that I needed this wood for the chicken coop, but considering how much I’d been decluttering, I knew the junk in the house and the garage would take me more than a day to get to 10.00 total dopamine points. I would definitely have to dump my logs, and I might as well do some scientific experiments with it.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I quickly gathered the piles next to the dumpster. I had one match, a bundle of sticks, some firewood, and some boards. The matches gave +.50, which felt insanely high after getting used to the +.02 or even the +.04 that the junk of the house gave. I dropped the sticks, and they all gave +1.00. Considering one stick gave two matches, that meant to save my stamina, I just needed to sell sticks. That was good to know.

The same concept was for the firewood and the board. Each board gave two firewood. Each firewood gave 5.00 points, and each board gave 10.00. It was the next step that was where it stopped. Each log gave two boards, but as I lifted the log surprisingly easy for my little frame, the log still gave 10.00. So if I really wanted to farm for dopamine points, the thing to do was to whack the logs into boards, since both boards gave 10.00 points. And it saved on stamina, too.

With that little experiment, I was able to get a nice chunk of 29.50 dopamine points. And dopamine I was given. My stamina was halfway, and I might regret that, but I had a good chunk of points to buy that chicken coop.

I walked inside and bought the coop. It grayed itself out, and I heard something thump on the other side of the house.

It was barely afternoon as I walked out of the back door and around the rectangular storage area. Despite being here a few days, I hadn’t been completely around the house. I walked over to the side where I knew would be the bedroom and the entertainment room. There was a concrete block that, as I approached, said.

Base of chicken coop 0/15 logs.

I blew out a breath, causing a section of my brown hair to flutter in the air before settling back down across my face. Yeah. This was going to take a while, and probably all the food I had left.

Because of my experiment, I had the option of buying more clothes. At least three, and another one if I wanted to drop something in the dumpster. I didn’t have any logging clothes, which seemed odd, so I decided to splurge. Sure, it felt nice to have a cushion of dopamine points, but I also needed to get this stuff done.

I dropped fifteen points on getting a plaid shirt, a pair of sturdy, steal toe boots, and a hard hat. I then left my front door and headed straight for the trees. I slammed my axe against the tree, giving it only five whacks before the tree dropped.

My eyes sparkled as I saw six logs drop on the ground.

“Yes! This is the best! I-”

Some strange noise, like electricity fizzing, filled the sky. I frowned, glancing around, and then I was back inside the covered porch, holding the clipboard.

“What?” I asked. The three clothing items were back on the clipboard, and I blinked. “I… I just bought those. You can’t…”

19.50 total dopamine points. This had to be some sort of glitch. I frowned, then bought the plaid shirt again. I went to buy the steel toed boots, but it was grayed out for some reason.

Cannot purchase until you reach logging level 5.

I gasped, then my fingers tightened over the clipboard.

“Seriously!” I shouted.

This wasn’t fair. This was one of those jerk moves that would have made me throw away the game and never play it again. I saw those beautiful six logs drop to the ground, and now it was taken away from me.

“Come on! You can’t do this! It isn’t fair!” I shouted. “You can’t seriously expect me to go from possibly dropping six logs to dropping… however many I can with just one article of clothing. It’s not my fault you didn’t think about this before letting me buy three clothes at once! Give it back!”

My tone was getting sharper and sharper as things went on. I was tired. Exhausted. I wanted this one win where I got all my to-do list done well before the day was over. When I could get it done and start cleaning the house.

To answer my questions, words popped up in my vision.

Would you like to forget that you saw those logs?

Y/N

A chill raced down my spine, and my anger evaporated. There were three seconds of complete silence. Three seconds. A lot of thoughts raced through my mind in those three seconds. I had been talking to these people in the sky, thinking that maybe they were some sort of alien or overlord. I somehow gave them some sort of forgiving nature, mostly because I just wanted to imagine these captors to be kind.

The same feeling of me being nothing more than a rat in a maze returned. Despite them taking my suggestions in things, it was a stark reminder that I was not on equal ground with whoever shoved me here. The most chilling thing of all is I couldn’t tell if the question they posed was malicious or not. If they really don’t see me as an equal, then they wouldn’t have any problems erasing my memory. They clearly didn’t care before completely wiping my mind. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react to the small memory orb I was given. How was I supposed to translate this all?

I stuck with what I knew. I was in a game, with someone or something above me that sometimes took my suggestions, and sometimes saw me doing things they didn’t like and changed it so I didn’t do that anymore. They had the power to completely wipe my memory, or even partial memory.

The words still hung above me asking if I wanted another memory wipe of the logs, so I mentally chose no. It was mostly the principal of the thing. Yes, my entire memory was wiped, but I couldn’t forget this. I refused to forget that these people had the power to make me forget again.