A whole new world

[aestrix]

There is a forest that likes to pretend that it's ordinary. It isn't, it's quite bizarre. Every night, in fact, zombies and other horrible monsters swarm this place, looking for people to kill. Not that they've found anyone, the forest itself is quite empty of residents. But they search anyway, during the night, shambling and groaning and occasionally leaving body parts lying around. Those disappear pretty quickly, but it still happens. Then the day comes, and they depart to who knows where, swearing (if mindless monsters could think, or in fact swear to anything in particular) that they'l be back the next night. Repeat ad nauseum.

It's currently in the day portion of this cycle of directionless attempts at violence. Maybe this day will be different from all of the others.

But then, probably not, it's a very boring island without anyone here.

Comments

[aestrix]

She can likely tell it's day when the sounds from outside have stopped.

[greatestgift]

The quiet wakes her, and she stumbles outside, rubbing her head and growling to herself. Her head isn't exactly what hurts, but it would be impractical to rub her ground.

[aestrix]

It is idyllic! As if nothing last night even happened. No mess from the zombies, no claw marks on the door. Just some scattered coins from the exploded zombies, twinkling innocently in the sunlight. A bunny hops, over there, nibbling on some dandelions. Hop, hop, hop. Nibble nibble.

[greatestgift]

"Ugh."

Sable kicks a wall. And then sighs, and goes to collect all the coins.

That day, she successfully assembles all the materials to make a bed. Her house is kind of crowded with crafting stations at that point, so she clears some more trees behind it and expands the one-room cottage into a two-room house. She discovers that wood can be crafted into thinner two-foot-square panels instead of the default two-foot-thick cubes, and exchanges her dirt floor for a thin wooden one and puts up interior walls to separate her bedroom from the crafting room.

Now she's ravenously hungry. She goes out and tries to catch one of the suspiciously tame rabbits.

[aestrix]

The suspiciously tame rabbits don't actually have the sanity to run! They are tame enough to be picked up, and will even tolerate petting. This makes it pretty easy to kill them. They explode upon death. But the pieces can be cooked just fine. Campfires, as it turns out, are just fine at cooking rabbit. It's just the environment and her that it won't burn. If she wants to cook with it, it'll work just fine.

[greatestgift]

Sable has a nice breakfast of exploded rabbit.

Ugh.

[aestrix]

Delicious, delicious exploded rabbit.

Shortly after breakfast, there's a feeling of someone has arrived.

[greatestgift]

...She opens her groundsense to its full range again. (Ugh ugh ow.) Where is someone?

[aestrix]

The someone is in the second little hut!

[greatestgift]

And, when she ventures close enough to tell for sure, the someone doesn't have a soul either.

She opens the someone's door. "Who're you?"

[aestrix]

"Sable, is it?" says - a not-person that looks like an old man with a fluffy white beard and a slightly stupid looking hat. He looks like he's already settled in. "I've heard good things, friend! I'm Gus."

[greatestgift]

"What are you for?"

She does not see any point in being polite to the horrible mindless person-things.

[aestrix]

"You want apples? You want carrots? You want pineapples? We got torches."

[greatestgift]

"I have torches too," she says. "I would love an apple. I can't live on rabbit."

[aestrix]

"Sword beats paper! Get one today."

He motions to her, and hefts a chest onto the table. He opens it, and - oh look, useful items to buy. He doesn't, actually, sell swords. Or apples. Or carrots. But he does sell various items, including:

A mining helmet

A piggy bank

An iron anvil

A bug net

A copper pickaxe and a copper axe

Torches

Two types of potions, one blue, one red

Wooden arrows and shurikens

Rope

[greatestgift]

Well, that will be useful if she loses her existing axe or pickaxe, she supposes.

"If I ask you what these things do are you going to make more inscrutable jokes about things you don't sell?"

[aestrix]

"Keep your eye on the prize, buy a lens!"

[greatestgift]

"That's a yes, then."

She contemplates the chest.

"How much do all these things cost?"

[aestrix]

He is surprisingly good at explaining how much things cost! And also he assures her that his prices are 'very reasonable.'

In short: the highest priced thing she can afford is an anvil. The mining helmet, piggy bank, and bug net are too expensive for her, and everything else she can buy a reasonable but not excessive number of.

[greatestgift]

"Okay then," says Sable.

She reaches out and closes the chest, to see how the merchant will react.

[aestrix]

"You have no idea how high dirt blocks sell for overseas."

[greatestgift]

"Is there anyone overseas to sell them to?" she wonders, drumming her fingers on the top of the chest.

[aestrix]

"Not even a Blood Moon can stop capitalism. Let's do some business."

[greatestgift]

"Nah," she says, and she grabs the chest and bolts.

[aestrix]

It turns out that, actually, a scrawny old man is not as fast as a twelve year old girl. It's really not a contest.

"My prices are very reasonable!" insists Gus, unable to keep up.