In the game, coal was so abundant that converting logs to charcoal was only necessary in a pinch. Unless I stumbled on a mine, I doubted I would discover coal deposits left and right in my travels around Plana. Esmelda had said she would bring me some, and that was great, but now I had my own supply. There was a world full of trees out there, and trees were fuel.

A single coin converted into several pounds of dusty black nuggets, but I wasn’t interested in their natural use. Real torches were made with a cloth soaked in a combustible, like pitch. No one taped a hunk of coal to the top of a stick and hoped for the best. But the game didn’t care about realism, and hopefully, my System didn’t either.

I inserted more logs into the furnace to process, and turned to the worktable. You couldn’t play Minecraft without making a million torches, and the recipe was simple. Coal or charcoal in the center of the grid, and a stick just below it. I slipped the coins into the slots and pulled the lever.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

[Torch]

You've successfully crafted your first torch! Illuminate your world and keep those pesky mobs at bay with your newfound best friend. Torch it up and explore the depths or illuminate your shelter with these handy decorations. Brighter adventures await.

The resulting item was indeed a stick with charcoal stuck on one end. It came into existence on its side, already burning. Picking it up before it could singe the worktable, I examined the craftsmanship. The charcoal was shaved down and set in the wood like a pencil eraser, only there was no metal involved. The top of the stick had a hollow portion where the charcoal wedged into place.

If torches lasted forever, like they did in Minecraft, then I really had something here. If not, it was still cool. I tried pressing it against a wall to see if it would stick like in the game, and when that didn’t work, patted it with my other hand to see if it would convert.

The torch popped into coin form, a wooden circle with the center cut out like a Chinese penny. But it wasn’t empty, a trapped flame occupied that center. Almost stained glass, but not quite. Despite not generating any heat, it looked like a tiny section of torch fire was captured and bound in place. Solid, but shifting. It was mesmerizing to look at.

I slapped it against the wall. No sconce necessary. The resulting torch held itself in place at an angle to the dirt, an obvious smack in the face for gravity and common sense. It was as solidly in place as any material affixed via the crafting force. Putting my hands around the rod, I leaned back and pulled on it with all my strength, but it didn’t budge. It could, however, be harvested by hand.

Throwing it against the wall put the torch back up, burning merrily away. I dictated some notes for my captain’s log about how it worked and then heard something weird. A giggle came from outside. Climbing the ladders, I went from window to window, only to be confronted with zombies trying to stick their arms inside. One window, however, was empty, and I heard the giggle again. It sounded like a child, which was more than a little unnerving, but there was nothing for me to see in that direction. The field, my failed garden, illuminated by starlight. Not a single shambler.

A pointed stick thrust into the extension of the window, almost reaching my face. It startled me so badly that I fell off the ladder. My back cracked on the fence below, and I slid down, momentarily stunned. It hurt badly enough that I wondered if I had nerve damage, and I spent a few minutes recovering.

This was a problem. That had to have been Bill. I’d seen him carrying a stick before, and he had apparently gotten smart enough to mess with me. The other zombies were content to bang against the upper level of my shelter all night, but if Bill was smart enough to lure me up and try to stab me, he was smart enough to use a rock to bash through the planks.

I had to do something about him. My back was still giving me a twinge, but I returned to the worktable to make use of my leather supply. Chestplates took eight of whatever material you were making them out of, leaving only the top center slot of the crafting grid blank.

[Tainted Leather Chestplate]

Formula: Tainted Leather (8)

Armor Rating: 3

Have you ever wanted to be mistaken for a koroshai? Too bad, now you might be. This chestplate is not only inferior to other materials, it is also ugly. Enjoy.

I had to admit; it wasn’t beautiful, and it wasn’t really a chestplate either. It was a leather tunic, grayish brown and mottled with bruise green splotches. When I put it on, it reached almost to my knees. The sunburn on my shoulders made it uncomfortable to wear, but like the boots and the leggings, the leather was supple rather than stiff. It might not have been the ideal outfit for a budding hero, but it was a long way from being naked, and I had enough material left over to make myself a helmet.

[Tainted Leather Cap]

Formula: Tainted Leather (5)

Armor Rating: 1

As stylish as it is horrifying, this Halloween helmet will give your enemies something to think about, as well as grant a modest boost to your armor rating.

The cap was actually a mask right out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I didn’t have a mirror, but putting it on, I knew that I had gone full Leatherface. The smell wasn’t great either, but not as bad as it could have been. It gave me soggy cellar vibes. I wasn’t sure how armor rating translated into actual defense in combat. My status screen wasn’t partitioned into body parts, it just gave an overall rating. Did that mean all the damage I took would be reduced, no matter where it hit me? That wasn’t very realistic, but given that I had a health bar made of hearts, why not? Minecraft didn’t bother with calculating where a monster hit you. Every piece of armor you put on added to your total armor rating, and reduced the damage you took from any attack accordingly. I had to assume that it wouldn’t work exactly the same way for me. How much would boots help me if a zombie bit me in the face? Still, seven was better than zero, and it was satisfying to see the number go up.

Status

Name: William

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System Type: Survivor

Level: 12

Advancement: 44%

Attributes:

Might: F+

Speed: F+

Presence: F

Armor Rating: 7

Mining all that stone had done wonders for recovering my levels, at least until I died again. As far as equipment went, I was as ready to face Bill as I was going to be until I had some iron. I vacillated over the idea of making an opening and taking on the zombies at a chokepoint and ultimately decided against it. When Gastard came back, we could talk about taking them on together. It didn’t seem like Bill was breaking down the walls yet, and Gastard seemed to genuinely be looking forward to the chance to face down some zombies. If nothing else, I needed to make some changes to the shelter before I tried anything like that.

After sealing myself in my log coffin, I did my best to get some sleep. I’d gotten used to the moans, but the phantoms still woke me up more than once. Maybe my perpetually disturbed sleep cycles had caused them to spawn in the first place, but I couldn’t be sure until I got a full eight hours of rest and they either reappeared or didn’t. There was no telling when that might happen. At least they weren’t popping into the shelter with me.

Esmelda and Gastard wouldn’t be coming back for another day. I started the morning with a perimeter check. Nothing was lurking in the shadows, and my baskets provided me with fresh trout. I now had four of them placed at different spots along the river, and bait didn’t appear to be necessary.

With fish flanks skewered over a fire, I set about preparing a plot of land for planting. Hoeing wasn’t taxing, though it did put a little strain on my back to be bent over and tapping the ground with the heavy stone tool as I went along. The soil converted to neat rows one square foot at a time, shreds of grass flying in all directions as I went.

The final plot was twenty-foot square, and I took a quick water break before planting the seeds. My reflection in the river wasn’t clear, but I could see I was approaching what my mom would have called the Miami Vice look. It wasn’t like a stone dagger was ideal for shaving. The water was chilly, and refreshing on my face, but not something I wanted to immerse myself in early in the morning.

Esmelda had said she’d brought me wheat, cabbage, carrot, and beet seeds. I was pretty sure I knew which bag was wheat. The seeds were longer and thinner than the others, and they looked like they were the right color. I harvested everything to make sure I knew what was what, and each variety was summarily added to my System logs.

The cabbage seeds were tiny and dark, while the carrot seeds reminded me of miniature almonds, and the beet seeds were round and wrinkly and weird. She’d brought me more than enough to fill my plot. I planted all the wheat and carrots first, poking a hole in the soft soil with my finger before dropping in an individual seed and smoothing it over. It was a laborious process compared to what I was used to, so after extending the rows, I tried cheating.

A handful of seeds converted into a single coin, and when I tossed that down, something interesting happened. A single square foot of dark soil was suddenly rich with little green shoots. I’d used the beet seeds, but I only had enough to fill in a few square feet this way. The instantaneous growth was promising, but would I get more out of planting them individually than grouped en masse like this?

My tree line was progressing nicely, but that progress was uneven. Some hickories I’d planted were already several feet high, full saplings. Others were still just sprouts. In the game, there was an element of randomness to how crops grew, just like there was with spawns. Every block occupied by a plant had a chance of advancing to the next stage of its development on any given tick, which was a ridiculously tiny increment of time. A day in Minecraft lasted twenty minutes, so the equivalent ticks in real life had to be proportionately longer. Otherwise, monsters would have been spawning fast enough to make the area around my shelter look like a rock concert, and these trees would already have been growing out of control.

For the carrots, I split them up half and half, dropping two coins in the soil and planting the rest of the seeds individually so I could learn which method gave me a better result. There was nothing to do but wait. The accelerated growth rate was linked to my presence in the area, so if I went off to harvest more stone, the experiment couldn’t go forward.

My fish was overcooked, but not ruined. They were a little rubbery, but the dry, flaky layers broke apart as I chewed for a nice, smoky flavor. Seasoning or sauce would have been nice. Still, I was happy to have meat of any kind, and I got sleepy again after the meal.

Given that I had to stick around the base and planned on being up all night, a nap sounded good. Not that I wasn’t sleeping at night, I just wasn’t sleeping well. So that was my morning. By the time I was up and about again, the sun had crossed to the West, over where I assumed Erihseht would be, and my crops were showing their stuff.

The growth was inconsistent, but phenomenal nonetheless. Some of what I had planted was still underground, others were small sprouts, and a few sections had fully matured. The trees had undergone the most dramatic change. Several of the hickory trees had made it over ten feet tall, spreading their leafy branches at a rate that suggested they would soon shade my shelter.

It was almost scary. They weren’t exactly growing before my eyes, but if I sat down and watched them, I could probably see the change in action. Why hadn’t they grown this fast before?

The sunlight. Most of the time I spent at home was at night, which meant that my plants had only benefited from sped up growth during the short periods before I went off to do other things. The element of randomness was still present, part of the row was still saplings, and those that hadn’t grown the fastest were being crowded out by their more successful neighbors. I would have to spread them out farther in the future to get optimal results.

The crops I’d planted the natural way had mostly sprouted, but it was the patches that I’d seeded with coins that were the real winners. My beets were large and leafy, and when I patted them with my shovel, they produced both seed coins and full-grown vegetables. The same was true of the carrots, so I checked my notifications to see what the System had to say about it.

Journal Quests Notifications Materials Crafting

Congratulations, survivor! You've just harvested your first crop!

[Beet]

A hearty and nourishing treat. Fun for the whole family.

[Carrot]

Aside from the hours of fun to be had from chewing these orange rods of hearty plant fibers, carrots can lure friendly animals like pigs. They're not just for munching on, they're pig-approved! Keep up the fantastic farming, and may your future harvests be bountiful and full of orange goodness!

The vegetables harvested in groupings. It was three beets or carrots to a coin, and each patch yielded one or two coins' worth. Oddly, the distribution of seed drops was less consistent. Some patches had none, while others rewarded me with multiple coins. So there was some randomness to the yield and the growth rates.

Using the System to plant and harvest was obviously superior to doing it the old-fashioned way, but the growth rate of the other rows was still nothing to complain about. If I ever hung around a normal farm for a couple of days, their crops would shoot up.

All that was left was testing the product. I sat down to try a beet. It was crunchy and crisp and so bitter I wanted to spit it out. The flavor could be described as earthy, but that was putting a positive spin on it. Beets are terrible. However, food was food, and I could get used to them. Half a raw beet was more than enough to curb my appetite, as much because it was filling as because I just didn’t want to chew anymore.

Replanting the seeds took only a few moments, so I sat out in the grass and whittled while keeping an eye on them. The stone knife worked much better than the wooden one, so I tried my hand at carving a statue out of an entire log. Strips of wood fell away under the blade, and I was quickly lost in the work, looking up every few minutes to see if there was any change in the crops.

How fast did plants like these normally grow? I’d placed the garden close to the river, so they were probably benefiting from a nearby water source. Farming in Minecraft usually involved putting a water block at the center of a garden, because without nearby water, the growth rate reduced dramatically. For beets and carrots to mature in a single day, that was what, a hundred times faster than the natural rate? With a big enough farm, I could feed a village, maybe even an entire city, by myself.

My hands kept working without me giving any intentional direction to the carving. After about an hour, the new patches were already developing, and I was holding a wooden figure of a woman. The details were rough, but her dress and her broad features were clear. She looked familiar, though I couldn’t say who it was supposed to be. Not Esmelda, but someone. After a moment, it clicked. The figurine was Mizu.

There were a few modifications I wanted to make to the shelter before nightfall. I used logs and leftover stone to build an addition to the entrance. A short tunnel closed off on either end, with fence gates operated by buttons. I was running short on building materials, but it would do for the night. It was a slaughterhouse.