Homestead Survival

<06 August 2024, THE VALLEYS OF AR'HA'NURA , A- >
[Theo and Julia]
They walked directly away from the cave and headed towards the trees. The trees on the overlook ranged from twenty to fifty feet tall. On the Mesa, the trees ranged all the way up to two hundred feet tall. The trees in the Valleys were something that Earth had never seen before. Each Tree here was nearly fifty feet across and four to five hundred feet tall.

Due to that, they were spread out, with many much smaller trees in between them. Theo looked at one of the massive trees in the direction they were heading. "How in the hell would you cut that down?"

"I mean, my first response is you wouldn't, but I would be willing to bet that there is someone with a logging skill or something similar that would not even be challenged by it," Julia said.

"That is a little disheartening," Theo said. Then he shook his head and looked around. "Alright, we can either keep heading this way and see what comes up in the forest, or we can walk the base of the Mesa and see if we can find what we need."

Julia nodded, "Let's do the forest today, and if we need to, we will check the base of the mesa tomorrow."

"Alright", Theo said. They walked at a brisk pace, choosing a mostly open route through the trees. As they walked, they saw movement in the distance all around them. Theo interrupted their walk, "Is it just me, or has this little trip been rather peaceful?"

"You mean other than the extremely disturbing bat creatures, the two goblins last night, and the dirge that only comes after sunset?" Julia asked, "Other than that? Yeah, it's been downright cheery."

"Okay, fair enough," Theo chuckled, "but we have not been getting attacked or anything."

"Are you trying to jinx us?"

"No," Theo said, "I just..."

He trailed off as they walked into a clearing with one of the massive trees in it. Rather than being made of wood, this particular Tree was made of something else. Julia nudged him and pointed towards the right side of the Tree. "Look!"

On the right side of the Tree was a wooden scaffolding. They did not see anyone around, so they went to investigate. The closer they got to the Tree, the less they thought that it was a regular wooden tree.

"It's almost like it's absorbing the light," Julia said, looking at the dark trunk. "But somehow, it still shimmers."

Theo walked right up to the Tree, placing a hand on it and Identifying it.

"Titan trees, and they will adapt to things in their surroundings," Theo said as they walked around the Tree. They came to the scaffolding and found that it went almost fifty feet up the side of the Tree to a place where the bark had been peeled back.

"What do you think is being pulled from it?" Julia asked.

"No idea." Theo said, "It must be worthwhile, though. Because this looks like a lot of work."

Julia picked up a piece of bark, expecting it to feel at least remotely bark-like. "It feels like steel."

Theo took the piece of bark that she offered and had to agree. "I wonder what uses this has? The leaves are probably interesting, too."

Theo and Julia leaned their heads back and looked all the way up to the lowest branches that had leaves. Julia chuckled, "Well, I think that we can find that out later."

Theo thought about taking a couple of pieces of the wood that were piled at the bottom of the scaffolding, but they decided against it just in case whoever was harvesting this Tree was someone they did not want to piss off.

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After checking to see if there were any other interesting things in the area, Theo and Julia decided that it would be best to carry on. They walked for another couple of hours, noticing that most of the Titan Trees looked like normal trees, but every now and then, one would have a strange sheen to it, or a strange fruit would grow in the leaves.

"I think," Theo said, trudging along, "we might need to check a lot of these trees to see if they provide anything we need."

"I want to get a sapling," Julia said, "and plant it in a planter with as much of that summer crystal as we can find. See what happens."

"We could do that with a lot of things." Theo agreed. "If we find a sapling or a seed, we can snag it."

They talked quietly to each other as they walked. The forest gave way to a river with narrow beaches on either side. Theo smiled. "This is what we need!"

Theo scooped up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. "This should do great for mortar. We can use it for other stuff, too."

He was about to try to store a bunch of the sand when Julia grabbed his arm and pointed upstream. Theo turned his head north to where she was pointing. Roughly three hundred yards away was the beginnings of a stone bridge. And on it were short, bearded men, and short, clean-shaven women.

"Dwarves," Theo said, his inner nerd screaming out in joy. Then he noticed something else. He pointed past the dwarves at a large party of Goblins that were coming down the sand of the riverbank.

"I don't think the dwarves see them," Julia said, and they watched as the Goblins, of which there were about ten, came up and hid behind a rock. Then, one of the goblins stood and sprinted to the water, sliding into it to try and swim across.

Suddenly, one of the Dwarves called out. "WOGMORG!"

Theo and Julia were surprised when the Dwarf that called out was not pointing to the Goblin; it was instead pointing farther downstream, where a large swell of water was moving faster than it had any right to. The Goblin in the water started to panic, and the dwarves finally noticed the Goblins. The Goblins still on land looked from the dwarves, who were forming up lines with crossbows that they grabbed from the ground around them, to the Goblin in the water, and then ran.

The Dwarves laughed, and one called out. "VRAG'AH GRAZNAK HÛRM'NOR — KARNMORG!"

Then the Dwarves laughed even harder as they watched the swell of water rush to the floundering Goblin, and then the water stilled, Goblin and Water Swell gone, the only sign that anything happened, a blush of red coloring flowing downstream.

One of the laughing Dwarves turned to look at the blood and locked eyes with Theo. Theo stood up and stepped in front of Julia. The Dwarf cried out. "ZEK, UMR, WOG'NOR!"

The other Dwarves looked at the one who had cried out, and then all looked to where Theo and Julia stood. Ten crossbows were leveled at Theo at that moment.

"Julia, we are leaving," Theo said, slowly raising his hands and walking backward towards the tree line. Julia stayed behind him. It took five minutes of slow backward walking, with Julia guiding him to get to the tree line.

They waited until they had several trees between themselves and the Dwarves before they turned around and continued walking away.

They took a break next to a Titan Tree. They decided to relax and eat while they processed what had happened. Theo spoke around a bite of food. "Welp, guess this means that we have to make friends."

"Yup," Julia agreed, "I hope that they don't think we are with the Goblins or something."

"I mean, we can straighten that perception out." Theo said, "I just don't want them to feel like we are stepping on their toes if we harvest some sand. I would also bet that they are the ones messing with that Black-Stone Titan Tree."

Julia nodded but didn't say anything else. They ate quickly and decided to head back to the cave for the day. They decided to walk a little farther south so as not to cross paths with any Dwarves that may be heading to the Black-Stone Titan Tree.

As they walked, they came upon a pit. Calling it a pit was not doing it justice. Theo looked at the massive opening and whistled. "Now that's a hole."

"True," Julia said, watching the water that was seeping through the dirt from the river slowly drip out of the rock wall in the pit. "How deep do you think this is?"

Theo leaned over the edge and looked down; even in the sunlight, he could only see a couple of hundred feet down before the light faded. "Really Deep."

They walked around the edge of the hole, which was about fifty feet across at the widest point and had a slightly triangular shape. They decided that messing with the pit to who-knows-where was not on their to-do list today. So they started off, heading East towards the Mesa of Summer.

As they walked, they came across a fifty-foot tree of deadwood that had fallen over, so Theo placed the whole thing into his pouch in one of the Raw Materials slots. "Now we have firewood."

Julia nodded, and then they headed out, walking several hours back to the cave.

That night, after Theo had chopped up some of the Tree he had grabbed into usable firewood. Theo and Julia sat near the fire, chatting.

"...well, maybe he should have swum faster", Theo said.

"That is kind of fucked up," Julia replied.

"Look, if I go into the water willingly, and for seemingly nefarious reasons," Theo said, grinning, "and then a water monster eats me, well, sounds like I may have deserved it, or I should have swum faster."

Julia shrugged, "I guess. I just..."

Theo looked at Julia as she trailed off, then looked to the mouth of the cave, where she was staring. The large Goblin was back, and this time, he had brought about fifteen of his friends.

"What the..." Theo muttered under his breath. He made sure to stay calm as he spoke to Julia, "Why don't you go ahead and reinforce your Ward runes. Maybe encircle the whole tunnel mouth for good measure."

"That sounds like a good plan," Julia said, standing up with Theo, and they both walked to the front. Theo just stared at the bigger Goblin, which stared right back. The smaller goblins had a dumb look on their face, and their mouths hung open with drool coming out.

Julia finished reinforcing the Ward runes. So Theo shrugged, choosing to ignore the Goblins. It was dark out, and the hubbub of the night had started. Theo turned to Julia, "Why don't you go to sleep first, and whenever you get up, I can catch a few hours."

Julia nodded and curled up in her clothes. Theo made a mental note to try to get some bedding, sleeping fur, or something. Then he took a seat next to the fire, letting the big Goblin stare at him unblinkingly.