Chapter 9 Part B

  Within 2 days I no longer feel chronically sick as I'd gotten my health bar above 90 for the first time in over a week.

  I practiced using the flame thrower unit, with mana infusion for a few days. But by the third day I ran into trouble when it started to run out of gas in a small goblin raid of 3 goblins. Luckily I had a back up hair spray aerosol spray ready. But in switching to the other one I lost (-32 health) when I took a spear jab from a goblin's rusty spear.

  Ugh... that hurt so bad.

  By day 3 since using the flame thrower contraption I'd realized how lucky I'd been. The first few goblins come up this way had been mostly rejects. And for some reason now I've been running into stronger goblins. Some of them took over 200 or 300 health damage before they died. And when they had more health this meant that they also sometimes had to take a combination of moves in order to defeat. Initially I tried to use the flame thrower on them, but then sometimes I'd have to hit them with the axe, or even block with a shield, then I'd use the flame thrower unit to keep them back while I went around again trying to create distance.

  Damn it... this pisses me off. To find out there's stronger goblins really scared me a bit. If I hadn't created the homemade flamethrower kit I would have been pretty scared. Its pretty intimidating to find out the small fry goblins that hurt me so bad are the mongrels.

  To Be Continued in Part B

  ...

  Continued from Part A

  By the end of the fourth day this week, I no longer had to use the flame thrower contraption and had successfully created a flame barrage simple spell that had push back, to keep monsters away from me while it was torching them. This thing was also making me able to keep my health.

  There had been some error code when I made this. I suspect it was trying to censor me, but I managed to work around it and still get this spell. I think this also has to do with flame is destructive where life isn't destructive so its not really conducive to my magic element.

  I didn't really want to use the flamethrower device also long term, because I knew it was risky in that it could backfire and burn or explode me. So i'm thankful I got to this transition point of turning it into a spell.

  [Skill acquired; Minor Flame Wave]

  I clicked on the destription.

  [-10 mana cost to use; burn wave forces back enemies and causes 1-2 damage per level to target.]

  Hm... its not really great damage. But I think its meant as a starting point to work upward from.

  That bothered me that it said target instead of monster. I hadn't run into any other humans, but I didn't want to harm them. And it seems that the version I have is not very powerful. It won't let me do a more powerful version. In fact, given my element I doubt I was supposed to be allowed to have a fire spell, but I'd cheated my way through to get it; sort of.

  The minor flame wave does a horizontal flame burst in a wave like arc pushing severe heat and hot gas outwards towards the target. The arc wave size and intensity seems to be determined by the strength of the mage. So it is useful.

  So I have my first offensive skill? Nice!

  I began to work hard.

  I found that monsters were constantly trying to come up this way now. But I didn't know the reason why. Mostly nothing escaped me that came up here. So what's causing it?

  Could they smell my mana?

  Or were they fleeing other monsters also?

  Or did they have rumors of a mage up here, with goodies to steal?

  I hope they weren't smelling my wounds... it couldn't be that right? Ahh man!

  Predator and prey behavior said that the stronger monsters should be in the valley below by the lake and where the river system was, and the better hunting areas. The weaker prey would flee to more isolated parts like where I am. But predators could follow water also. I had a stream here.

  But I knew for a fact that the goblins wouldn't stop coming. And what I'd seen of them so far was mostly the low level rejects.

  This mean the truly normal goblins were much, much stronger than I'd expected so far from the current strength that I'd seen.

  I need to be ready for the next goblin wave...

  Hm...

  This meant I'd have to build a fortress of some kind, I thought. I needed to build my way out of this!

  It was odd to think that. And I'd never done something like that before.

  Build a castle? Or a house? Or some kind of defensible structure? That seems like it would make the most sense to do. I've got to work it out on paper...

  Speaking of which... I did manage to use the item creation magic to create a ream of paper and a pen. That will help with planning.

  I guess I could make a defensive structure. Well not quickly, but I could do something.

  I started to hypothesize about how to start.

  In theory, I could start just creating the blocks of stone using creation magic, and start stacking them in patterns till I had buildings and walls. It will take awhile but it has to eventually be stone because goblins know how to burn stuff. So wood isn't a good defensive strategy, at least long term.

  But its also true that the more I built that the more I'd get noticed. Sooner or later someone would start to see a half finished tower or other half finished castle parts in the valley below. I was also trying to figure out what would be good to build also. I'd never done this before so I was kind of trying to wing it, but might change what I wanted out of it as I went along.

  So I'd have to start underground?

  It seems that would be the only way. And I may even have to cover turf grass over over parts of the above ground pieces just to help hide as long as possible.

  I began working right away.

  I summoned a shovel, and a pick the same day. I began to cut through the turf of the meadow and made box like cuts. I even changed the existing pit to look more box like as I was cutting. I didn't cut everywhere but just a pit box shape that I could cover with something and then hide under. With a board over it the sod could be 'pasted' right on top of it to cover it all up as a hiding hole also.

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  And...I began to work as I dug. The exercise is good for both my arm strength and my body conditioning. So this is a good setup to get me in shape. Although I wasn't in bad shape before, I'm competing with goblin warrior body conditioning. So doing it by hand is good.

  *Sounds of a pick working in the earth*

  This turned out to be pretty good exercise also. Several hours passed as I worked.

  Before I knew it I'd also had numerous skirmishes while working to dig downward also.

  In one day I'd killed 4 giant hornets, 5 goblins (from 3 skirmishes), and 3 mutant snails. But on that same day 3 slime monsters had approached also. I'd kept everything back this time with minimal damage, after using the heal spells. I'd gotten a bit better at avoiding getting hit, but it was really bad getting hit even once. Sometimes I used the flame thrower disposable aersol cans also and those made monsters afraid; but they always ran out of juice too fast.

  The slimes were strong. And the goblins are tougher also.

  But there's nowhere to flee to also. That makes me nervous. I have no one to rely on but myself.

  I sighed as I worked.

  I'd stabilized my health now. But now the monsters were getting stronger.

  Is it because its closer to winter that more of them are coming up this way, I thought? In theory, they might be trying to store up food for a coming water later. So they might have to explore everywhere.

  It got to be hard to figure out how to build.

  I managed to 'magic create' my first big block of stone once I'd cut into the turf to a certain point. That wasn't easy by any means. It costs a good chunk of mana to make that. And its so heavy that its hard to move once I get them in a spot. But when I had a week of digging deep enough that's when I had enough space to work. I finally had created a room shaped cavity that's when I did the blocks of stone.

  My first stone block!

  And I'll do them one by one. I'll need a ton of these things to create a castle fort though...

  The stone block was too heavy to move. And it had cost me -150 mana to summon, create, whatever you call it the first one. This thing isn't even that big either. Its like maybe a 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 foot cube.

  I was breathing hard when it was created. Fortunately when I create them, it lets me choose how they are placed. If not I'd never be able to move them!

  I stopped. This is too slow.

  Shit, -150 mana for that one block?! Sure it was big enough, but I'd need hundreds of those to make a full room! And then I'd have to go upwards also. This isn't going to be as fast as I wanted it too be.

  I need to get skills first and level up some more to be able to do anything. I'm going to have to stop for a bit until I can work out the kinks. Maybe I'll need some other skills to lower the cost also, is another theory I have.

  I need to try something else first. This sin't going to work.

  ...

  A few days passed while I experimented.

  I got a few other blocks going but not that many because a lot of mana gets spent on heals and fire wave spells to defend myself.

  I ended up putting a temporary roof of cut timber over the pit, with the ends of the timber going into the earth on the sides of the pit. Some of these I cut down myself, but a few of them I 'magitek created'. It costs a lot less to item create wood logs. And I can cover those with cut turf squares that even still have earth connected to the roots, which will let me place them in a way to hide the roof and have the turf still alive!

  This is more stable for a temporary solution of housing, and to stay dry. Its great to hide in. Especially at night you feel better being hidden and covered up.

  I'm lucky there hasn't been any night predators. But mostly that's because its just too hard to find prey at night. They would if they could.

  After I had a pretty good sized covering over the pit, I then spread dirt over the top, but being careful to have a layer of wood chips over the timber cut log pieces to prevent dirt from just falling between the log cracks and creating a mess. But that took a few days by itself, as I had to summon create the wood chips.

  The stone blocks make up the corner 'posts' of the pit. Then I have them bracing logs with cement in between the blocks to glue it all together. I've actually got a decent structure! Its nice inside also and clean from using item create to make the logs anchored by the stone pillars made of the blocks.

  A week passed...

  I had a pit house finally.

  It was disguised with living meadow grass over the top. And there was enough timber to allow for some pretty thick sod to muffle sound and make it look like there was nothing there. The sod was the meadow grass from the same meadow, which I'd 'magitek created' also. I technically didn't need to magitek create that, but I did so in order to not disturb the rest of the meadow grass, and that so that other creates would be less likely to know I was here.

  I'd even gotten in some flat stones to make a good flooring inside the hidden grass covered bunker. The walls I'd used pieces of logs laid against the sides to make the walls solid and wood also. And using nails I'd nailed them into blace and braced them so they couldn't crumble down.

  This is a good shelter! I was excited about it!

  But one issue is that I had to have an uneven spot for a hidden door way with a ladder through it. This hatch was made of 'magitek created' wood, like a trap door, but with sod cut into a 2 foot by 2 foot section over the top with a hidden handle.

  I'd also been working on wood logs in the walls to push back the earth in the pit, and also make it more homely. Its working.

  If you don't know where the trap door is you can't go down into the pit house, and won't even know where its at.

  Still...

  I'm frightfully nervous now.

  In theory, the monsters should be able to smell me. At least some of them could despite the camouflage. I avoid doing fires to cook also... but you can only do that for so long. You have to cook food to eat as a human. There's no other way. I did manage to use item create to put an ice chest in the shelter. I used creation magic to create blocks of ice to put in the ice chest too. So its cheap refrigeration, and maybe once a day I change out the ice. And in that shelter I can put food inside the ice chest, that's been cooked about once every 3 days cooking for 3 days worth. That's my solution to avoiding fires that can be spotted easily...

  But even once every 3 days to cook is pushing it. There's no way to fully avoid fires.

  And I can use item create to create fruit like apples and oranges. But I can't only eat those. I have to cook fish that come from the stream, etc. And I need to try to find ways of creating food other than magic also. I can't be too dependent on any one thing.

  I can also use creation magic to create grain or rice also. But that's in an uncooked raw grain form, like it had just been harvested from the field recently. Even doing that I still have to cook it. It turned out just doing fruit from magic and smoked and dried meat jerky that was made once every 3 days was the best set up so far.

  ...

  I should hit level 6 soon.

  I've been losing track of how long I've been here.

  My back is sore from all the work. And I'm still not done. But I have a refuge. I can sleep better. And I can use this to hide in and avoid some of the monster encounters but not all.

  I was considering making a bigger underground base with other rooms linked also... but I had time to figure that out later.

  And another thing that strikes me...

  I'm pretty high up on the mountain. It has a strong view of the valley below and the surrounding terrain.

  In such views, I'd never seen any chimney smoke stacks, or other activity indicating humans. I had seen sign of goblins and several goblin camps but that's about it.

  Tomorrow also I want to see if I can do something with mana flow duplicating the water in the brook somehow. I want to turn it into a skill if I can, any way possible. Water manipulation should be something that I can do or emulate.

  But I also had failed experiments to duplicate other fire skills. It seems that my fire compatibility just isn't there, so ...karma, life, whatever isn't letting me have more fire skills. I'm lucky I even got that one to be honest. I think its the censor, and it was letting me have 1 freebie minor fire skill only. And trying to push back harder to force another skill just made the blow back worse. One of the fails even burned me, but thanks to my minor heal skill I'm better.

  I have also occasionally been able to save extra mana away stored in the form of 'minor health potions'. With my minor heal skill, this technique should have become obsolete...except for the fact that any unused mana at full max mana capacity is lost forever. But the health potions can be stored forever, which is an advantage. So whenever I'm in danger of becoming as such I've been turning surplus mana into minor heal potions.

  I began working hard like crazy.

  Where I thought I'd worked hard before, now I'm working even more hard than that!

  I tried to make a water magic skill using the brook.

  But its defective...

  All I got was a lousy [Create Water] spell skill. Its not an attack spell at all! I'd hoped for some attack spell version.

  Well even creating water with magic is useful I guess. So its still a win.

  It will be useful if I ever go to a desert, but not much else.

  I haven't been able to create an ice ability either other than just creating ice blocks. I'd hoped to make an ice attack, but how the heck would I simulate it as an attack and capture it as a spell...

  I'm getting a lot of practice with that heal spell though.