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Settling Down

Raven has finally found a place to call home for at least a little while, his instincts telling him this is the place the need to go deeper still there but largely muffled. With nothing seeming to happen to him over night Raven is happy with his choice already to find shelter within the mountain, looking at his room he finds three tunnels, one the way he came tunnel two going deeper with a sandy floor and tunnel three seems to curl around going higher. Looking at the walls a little closer tool marks can be seen through out the area including all tunnels meaning these tunnels are all “man” made.

Deciding its time to do a little exploring Raven choses the tunnel going up, bumpy rocky ground with what appears to be worn and damaged steps in the stone, climbing the path for a solid twenty minutes Raven comes to an opening, a large cavern filled with moss ankle deep all over the floor and growing up the walls even covering the roof. The air in the room is damp the floor squishy and the sound of running water coming from the far side of the room. Walking into the room Raven can hear something near the water a skittering and clacking sound followed by a bubbly sound, looking around Raven spots several glowing blue crabs the size of cats moving along eating the moss paying him no mind. Walking to the far side of the room he finds a creek flowing out of a hole in the wall and through another. The rock around the creek seems cracked above and around there also seems to be no tool marks in this room.

Raven decides its best not to tempt fate and to leave the crabs alone for now, heading back down as there doesn’t appear to be any other tunnels up here Raven decides to head down the sandy path and see what's down there. Moving down the path Raven notices that the path is widening slowly but staying sandy after only a few minutes he comes to a cavern, within this room the ground seems to all be sand with a few large boulders strewn about. The room is roughly one hundred feet wide and three hundred feet long with six boulders within the room the roof forty feet high, Raven steps into the room and shuffles some of the sand around it appears to be fairly deep as he digs a foot into the ground and doesn’t hit stone. Walking up to one of the boulders Raven notices its not only stone but filled with iron looking closer at the sand it appears to have iron sand mixed in as well, next to one of the boulders he finds a wooden crate badly rotten and damaged sticking out of the crate is a four pick axes, strangely these pick axes are not rotten and the heads seem to have a faint blue glow to them. Picking one up he takes a practice swing at the boulder with a loud bang and some sparks he chips some of the boulder off onto the ground, with a grunt Raven tosses the pickax back into the crate “well that might be handy later, not sure how I’m going to put that to use but hey I can dream right?”

Looking around the rest of the room he spots two more tunnels from the room on the far side left and right side. Moving to the right side tunnel Raven starts down the path keeping an eye on the walls and spotting tool marks down this tunnel. After a short walk he comes to a tunnel that has a bunch of rotten wood and what appears to have once been food, the room seems to be a small storage room with no other tunnels with a shrug Raven goes to the other path.

Walking down the left path Raven comes to a slanted room the floor slanted to the far side of the room, at the far side of the room there appears to be a glowing blue fluid filling half the room appearing to be fairly deep as well Raven looks around the room, In the center of the room from the tunnel to the back of the room is a groove in the floor with a cart tied to 10 feet of metal wire and then tied to rope, the rope leading all the way to the fluid, Raven tests it out giving the rope a pull the cart comes off a catch and rolls away down the groove and into the fluid, instantly as the cart hits the fluid, the fluid begins glowing brighter and wiggling, as the fluid moves he can see bubbles coming from the cart like its sitting in carbonized water. Pulling the cart back with the rope as soon as it clears the fluid he can tell all the rust on it has been removed and is sizzling as if it was just in acid. Raven nods and says “so I’m NEVER falling into that… EVER. But at least it doesn’t seem to be able to do anything else.” Looking around the room there doesn’t appear to be any other tunnels so he decides to head back up and take a look around outside the tunnels and get some fresh air.

Stepping outside the mine Raven inhales deep, stretching his back he takes a look around. Before he was to single focused on the task of getting to the mountains he never took a look around but now that he has the time he wants to find out what resources he has at his disposal. The mountain is to his north there is a thick Jungle to his south East is plains and west is rocky hills. In the middle of the plains there is a large lake while staring at it admiring its beauty Raven sees something large jump from the water grab a bird that was flying several feet above the water eats it and splashes down in a rather large splash, the creature appeared to be an over sized shark of some type. Considering how far away he is from the lake that shark had to be almost one hundred feet long “and with that I’m never going to that lake…”

Walking to the jungle Raven works on collecting some wood for a fire and maybe to have some crafting supplies, cutting the wood it seems a lot of the trees here are soft wood and wet not great for fires but good for basic crafting. Collecting mostly dead fall for now he fills his bag and goes back to the tunnel doing a few trips filling a small corner of his water room. Going back to the acid room he tosses a stick into it to see what happens, and exactly what he thought would happen happens, the stick slowly sinks into the fluid and starts to break down the fluid moves a little and glows a little till the stick is gone. “I'm sure ill find a use for this at some point” raven says looking at the acid fluid. Raven looks to the fluid wondering if its alive and if it is that would make it a slime and from what he remembers from a few table top games and anime they can be dangerous but usually are weak but they are usually very small this thing is the size of a bus.

Headed back outside he decides he needs to find some other food those mushrooms wont last forever, Entering the jungle Raven starts looking for food of any kind bow in hand and ready to hunt and forage. A few hours in Raven finds a small stream and long the stream he finds frogs, with a groan Raven collects a few frogs and puts them in his bag still alive. Continuing to look but following this stream he finds muddy foot prints along the creek side, these prints are large at least double Ravens own feet with large spaced out claws. “Yep… that's a dinosaur track… fuck me…” Raven instantly pulls his bow knocks and arrow and gets low and to cover, eyes darting around looking for any movement Ravens heart pounding in his ears Raven starts to breath heavy as if he just ran a marathon. Deciding the frogs will have to do for now he starts back to the tunnels quietly and remaining hidden as best he can.

As he steps out of the jungle he lets out a loud sigh slumping his shoulders feeling like he could pass out right then and there from exhaustion, even through It wasn’t a long trip in the jungle the sheer terror of the thought of running into a dino scared the living hell out of him and now all he wants to do is sleep, returning to his room he does just that after starting a small fire cooking and cooking some frogs for dinner. Waking after a few hours of sleep he decides the only place he's going to find food is down at the lake or maybe through the plains he will just stay near the shore to avoid the shark.

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Gearing up and bringing his bow and arrows he heads out to the plains, walking slow and looking for tracks, walking through the plains he finds the grass is fairly high just above his knee making him think there are not many grass eaters in the area which means meat eaters birds and fish are going to have to cover his food requirement possibly tubers or edible roots. Sadly he finds no food on his way to the lake no signs of life at all so he approaches the water side looking to the lake there is a sandy beach around the lake and the lake bed appears to be mostly sand as well the water looks to be clean and fresh, tasting it to confirm there's no hint of salt to it which strikes him as odd since it was clearly a shark he saw earlier.

Pulling out his fishing rod he casts out a line with frog guts as bait waiting for something to hit the line he looks around taking in his surroundings. He can see the stream coming from the jungle leading all the way to the lake with a slow trickle of water, debating going over to the stream to try for more frogs he decides to keep fishing for now, for the lake to keep a shark like that alive there has to be tons of water life in here. Standing there for an hour or so Raven is just about to pull his line when something hits his bait, so unexpected Raven almost drops the rod but quickly rights his grip and yanks the fish from the water, a small yellow and black fish pops out of the water the size of his palm and slaps onto the sandy beach, Raven quickly dispatches it collecting what little wood he can find as well as some grass, starting a camp fire he cooks the fish and quickly eats it before packing up and leaving, no need to stay where the smell of food is that's a quick way to end up in a man sized pile of manure.

Going back to his room he sits down and starts working away making odds and ends, arrow shafts, spindles, fire wood, even going so far as attempting to build a chair and bed but lack of skill is making it hard for now a stump will work as a seat. With some time on his hands Raven decides to take a look at the Crystal in the system menu, “Crystal of power seal 5.5/7 remain would you like to place the crystal of power? Placing it will change its power to align with your own you may also select a god to devote it to, it will remain a seal for the old one but will have the added benefit of being tied to your god allowing for future bonuses. Aligning a Crystal of power to a god will help said god and as such they will be more incline to help you in return. List of Gods: The God of death the Fallen one Current god bound to Crystal, God of Life Lilia God of Commerce Drax, God of Magic Odin, God of Time Falknor, God of War Felax, God of Monsters lijkith, Father of the gods Rolland.” Raven looks at the list but with nothing really to go on he decides who else but the big daddy of all gods to owe you one. Selecting the Father of the gods as the deity to the crystal and selecting yes when the are you sure prompt pops up he feels a drain on his mana as the crystal is pulled from within him appearing in his room floating there Raven notices the color of the Crystal has changed from red to Grey and the sense of doom and evil no longer emanates from it instead a sense of nothingness cold and uncaring coming from the crystal. Raven can swear once the crystal formed he could hear a man chuckle but looking around he sees nothing and doesn’t hear anything other than a slight hum from the crystal like a power line over head.

Walking up to the crystal Raven looks it over but only sees one symbol carved into the gem this time 3 squares within one another getting half the size, glowing with white and gray light. Touching the gem a screen pops up in front of Ravens eyes “Binding stone placed 6/7 remaining. Would you like to use the Crystal of power to claim this area as your own? As long as the crystal has power it will ward off anything that may have hostile intent towards you preventing them from entering your zone of influence. Crystals power is currently at ninety percent and will lose one percent a day in powering your zone, to charge the Crystal you must offer your chosen deity something of their liking simply touch the crystal with the item and it will be absorbed. Your Chosen Deity has set magic items to his preferred sacrifice. Depending on the item the amount of power provided may differ drastically, However avoid over powering the Crystal as the extra energy will bleed off faster and offer no bonus, having a high amount of bleed off power can cause spells to randomly go off based on the mana released if to much power is added the crystal will crack releasing all stored energy and likely causing death to anyone near by. Set zone of control? Yes No” Raven selects Yes and as he does another screen appears “Zone of control has been created and a area of influence has been made anything trying to enter your area will now have an over whelming sense of boredom and lethargy when trying to enter your area as well as the urge to sleep in place.

Raven pauses looking at the screen “what the hell I thought it prevents things from coming in, instead it makes them lazy and want to sleep? The hell is that?” Looking through the rest of the message it appears to have opened a new tab in his screen “settlement settings” going to the tab Raven looks over the new tab. Within the tab there are a few settings that he can access but most of the screen is grayed out, Permissions Raven Hex, Deity Father of the gods Rolland, bonuses Lethargy field, Power ninety percent minus one percent a day Power draws Field of Lethargy, Settlement name not selected, Resources within zone Iron Sand, Iron Ore, Glow moss blue, Glow Moss Green, Water source, Blue mother slime. Looking at the list Raven tries selecting the Slime “Blue Mother Slime, often found in abandoned caves they are highly acidic and immune to physical damage and will eat anything adding to their mass including rock if given enough time. It is weak to magic and as such has an explosive reaction to damaging magic spells. Any part of it can be removed and will create a new slime and can continue to do this in tell its mass is reduced to a preset amount at which point it will become a regular slime again losing any remaining mass as it separates into even more slimes.” “Oh that last part doesn’t sound good” Raven mutters.

Choosing the name he changes the settlement name to Ravens Den, beats Ravens love shack I guess… with a shrug he continues looking over everything selecting the mosses “blue glowing moss is a bioluminescent fungus with mild magical properties” “Green glowing moss is a bioluminescent fungus with mild magical properties” selecting iron sand “black iron sand often found in river beds can be smelted to make pig iron” Selecting Iron ore “ Iron Ore can be mined and smelted into iron” well that one was obvious. “Water source is a magically occurring source of water for ever generating water and filling its boundary set within the spell when it was created, this source draws ambient mana and there for does not draw from the settlement power.” Interesting replies Raven as he looks over the screens.

And with that he is satisfied for now at least, having done everything the system will allow him to with the crystal for the time being. Deciding to sleep for a bit then go out hunting again he has a quick snooze. Waking he grabs his bow and pack and heads out to the lake once again to try and get some food instead of relying solely on his mushroom supply. Getting to the water front uneventfully Raven starts fishing using what little he has of the frogs guts, casting out and waiting. After only five minutes there's a loud splash where his line is as the line goes tight and pulls Raven from a sitting position to a standing one, His eyes go wide as something pulls hard on the line. Raven fights to pull what ever it is to the shore but he just can’t seem to be able to pull it hard enough feeling as though its stuck to the ground Raven keeps pulling and pulling when he finally feels it start to lift, as he pulls as hard as he can he can feel what ever it is release from the bottom and the line goes slack temporarily. Raven pulls again to tighten the line and with that the fish comes flying out of the water with alarming speed straight at him. Ducking down Raven just dodges it as it splats onto the sandy beach, Looking over Raven smiles as he looks over what he just caught a large Stingray, pulling his sword out he ends the fish making sure to avoid its tail. Picking the stingray up It is heavy maybe twenty pounds, Raven gets to work breaking it down for food making sure to keep the barb and guts for later tossing what's left back into the water as to not draw in predators.

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