I activate Plant Forming and select another windowed wall and start growing. Immediately I run into problems with the slush and have to order the twiglings to start clearing it. After a few minutes of furious slush throwing I have enough space to build the first wall while the twiglings go about clearing the space for the rest. Slowly it takes form, growing the the proper size and shape. Then I do the one next to it, this one having no window. Once I get around to the other side I realize a flaw with my original plan. If I do only windows, I'll have to climb in and out when I want to enter or leave the house, and that would be a pain in the ass. So I change up this one, instead growing one solid one and a second wall using the only prefab with a door in it. The door is dead center of the prefab, being three feet wide and four feet tall, so it's off center of the main wall. I'll have to duck getting in and out but that's no big deal. Finally I finish that and get to the fourth wall set, it grows with no problems thanks to the twiglings having moved all the slush already. Once it's completed I have a structure somewhat resembling a house, if only barely. Now for the million dollar question, can I put a roof on it? Im going to try and make it a simple four sided roof with a pointed top, that should keep the rain and snow out. I reach out to one of the walls and try to make it grow and change.

To my surprise it works, and slowly extensions start to grow out of the top. Well this is stupid, why am I not allowed to modify the prefabs if I can just grow and change them after they are finished. Whatever, I focus on growing out the roof, slowly it starts to the the shape I want, a slanted triangle. I make sure to grow the vines together tight to minimize the amount of water that can slip through. Once that side is done I work on another, then the third, them the final. At last I have a roof over my head and a place to call my own. My eyesight starts to get blurry, when I reach up to rub my eyes my hands come away wet, a different kind of wet from the sap. Huh, I guess it hit me harder than I thought. Building this house has forced me to confront reality. I'm alone here, I'm weak here, basically everything and everyone wants to kill me. I just sit here, taking it all in. I guess I didn't want to believe it before, but now I have to. I'm not going home, not any time soon. I still have that small hope that one day I'll see my family again, but I see now that's probably a long way off at best. I need to focus on the here and now, before I can do anything I need to atleast get strong enough that I can't be directly hunted.

I think my best bet is going to be to take this one step at a time. What was the next milestone supposed to be, level fifty right? That seems like a good point to aim for, and who knows, maybe I'll get to do some cool stuff along the way. I've already made a house by myself, and I've got some twiglings. But before I do anything else, I need a nap.

………………..

I'm awoken from my slumber by an alarm from one of the high level twiglings, it's under attack! I snap to instantly and scan the area. The twigling is being chewed on by a giant cat-like monster. The damn thing looked like an oversized black house cat with a white stripe down its back. The only other distinguishing feature was the bone blade coming out the end of its tail.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Night Stripe (Level 45)

OK calm down, it may be forty five but I can handle this, hopefully. I order the remaining three twiglings to surround the creature while I prepare branches above to strike. Unfortunately the twigling isn't going to last much longer, the night stripe has it pinned with its claws while biting its twiggy torso. I don't need to look at the stats to know it's almost dead. The other twiglings are in position and jump onto its back. It screeches in surprise and immediately starts trying to thrash about to throw them off. I turn my attention to the injured twigling, I cast heal and start trying to get it back into fighting condition. Unfortunately, the lack of ability to focus my spells with medium casting is making this painfully slow. Meanwhile the night stripe continues to thrash about, even smashing up against the walls of my new house in an attempt to knock the twiglings loose. Thankfully it is sturdy enough to take the hit and the twiglings managed to hold on despite some damage. I stop healing for a second and instead start charging a shield spell. Once it's ready, I try to cast I on the other level thirteen still on the cat but the spell fails to take. God damn it they need to be touching a plant for this to work.

The opportunity immediately presents itself as the night stripe immediately spazzes out and slams into a nearby tree, also smacking a twigling into it in the process. I cast Shield and it takes, a transparent barrier manifesting into place over the twigling with a chink sound. I order that twiging, one of the level eights, to start acting more aggressive and try to deal damage instead of just holding on, then I go back to healing the downed twigling. After a few more moments of healing it can stand up again so I cast shield on it and send it into the fray. It tries to jump onto the night stripe but is instantly knocked away by the haphazard flailing of the beast. I move the branches above into position and wait. Finally the opportunity arises when it manages to grab the shielded twigling on its back with a paw. It slams the twigling to the ground then picks it up in its mouth, where it proceeds to flip onto its side and start trying to tear the thing to pieces with its claws. The shield shatters almost instantly while I bring the branches down on my now exposed target. With all its flailing and tumbling about I only manage to land four hits, one to the neck, two to its stomach, and one hits a rib in its chest I think, doing minimal damage.

It doesn't take kindly to that, dropping the twigling and snapping the branches with an angry swing of its paw. I recast shield on the related twigling while the cat-like creature lets out a hiss towards the tree tops above it. I can see inside its mouth while it hisses. Many rows of razor sharp teeth await whatever unfortunate victim it's going to grab next. The two twiglings on the ground finally close in on the creature and start slashing away at it while the other two remain firmly clamped to its back and bum. It jumps back and lets out a surprised shriek, as if it forgot that it was fighting multiple opponents. Then it does something I didn't expect, it turns and runs. It bolts off towards the woods on the south side of my range, I try to slow it down by stabbing it as it goes, but it either masterfully dodges my strikes by seemingly weaving around them or just ignores the hit outright. It gets to the edge of my area and I order the twiglings to drop off and return to base as the creature crosses the threshold and disappears into the night. Damn it, that was some good exp lost. Ah well. At Least it didn't kill any of the twiglings. I slept so long it became night, I only wanted a quick power nap. Well, the good news is the corpse flowers have enough stock to make a few more twiglings I think. I'll heal the wounded ones up then get to working on making more.