Homesteading in a fantasy world

When I was back on the farm, I went to see the bull. He was happy to see me, and I spent some time just scratching him. Naming was difficult, and I always ended up giving stupid names, but I guess that’s just who I am.

“So, you haven't got a name, and I think it’s long overdue for you to get one.”

He acted like he understood what I was saying and seemed eager. I started to say different names. It took a while until I said Francis that made his head turn.

“Francis, I like it and it seems that you do as well. Nice to meet you, Francis. I am Rich Dirt.”

I so wish that I could name myself something different, but maybe I’ll make my name true and be known by all as the person that makes any dirt rich.

That day was still quite young, and I wanted to replenish my meat stock, so it was time for another trapping day in the rabbit forest. I got all my trapping things ready to go and as I was moving towards the grassland, the wolf showed back up at my side.

“I’m heading out for some rabbit hunting, and I also need to give you a name.”

The same thing happened with the wolf as the bull. As I mentioned giving her a name, she looked at me exactly the same way as the bull did. I hope this is just a coincidence and naming isn't something that means a lot more than just giving a name.

“Freya” The first name I said she seemed to like. This was a lot easier than with the bull. By the evening I had caught 15 rabbits, most were now in the smoker as I did my training. I got my ability heavy training leveled up, and that helped me keep pushing myself.

Stretching was made a lot easier and I’m guessing a lot more efficient thanks to my incredible joints trait my joints are a lot more flexible, and it seemed a lot stronger.

Since the evening was so warm, I went for a swim and as I swam, I had an idea to check if I could find any of the axes or hatchets under the bridge.

It took a bit, and I got my swimming up 2 levels and I did get 1 axe and 2 hatchets for my troubles. While the meat was still smoking, I used that time to fix them up as best as I could, as well as the armor.

It took a lot of small fixes and a few patches to make it useable again, but it still has a huge weak point where it got pierced.

It will still be dirty. I didn’t want to waste the last of my soap washing it yet. I needed to put making soap into the priority list and move it to the top.

Before I went to bed and eat dinner, I also set up my gear so I could fell trees. I went and had a talk with Francis about what we will be doing tomorrow because I was going to use him to help me bring back lumber.

With my new stats, I’m guessing that I’m about half of his pulling strength. 4 legs give so much more pulling force. I think we will be doing double duty so we could bring back even more.

I am guessing that Freya will be also coming along so I will have plenty of company and when the goblins finally arrived I hope that everything will go smoothly, and I can keep peace for a minimum of a month while we study each other’s languages.

The first building that will go up will be so I can store the logs off the ground and the more specialized woods higher up so they could dry better and be protected from rain.

Morning came, and I was all set up after my chores to start cutting trees. I would need them for a lot of different needs firewood for winter. I need some good wood for tar making, of course, building and then making of bows and other wooden crafts.

I have found that I am short of places to sit, and I do not wish to bring along a chair everywhere, so I will be making some benches and chairs.

Hopefully, I can get my carpentry to tier up as well as wood carving. For that reason, I’m going to make the benches and chairs fancy with lots of carvings.

I’m hoping that one of those skills will give me an ability that will help me prepare the wood quicker so I do not have to dry them for a year so that I could make good buildings.

We set off as a team, Francis pulling the sled, me carrying all the equipment needed and Freya just tagging along.

The first day was more spent on not getting specific wood but more making tracks so we could easily pull-out lumber from the forest. This wood will also be used to make the drying buildings.

There was quite a lot of room between the bridge and my main farm buildings more towards the bridge and the river was the smoker and the gym and also where I deal with the hides.

The drying place will be about in the middle, where I will make a few more workshops later on, like the butchery making a secondary grouping of buildings there.

The sauna will go near the river a bit further away near a nice bend where to flow is slow so you could jump in and enjoy the water.

I can also add to the sauna some facilities to make washing clothing easier and thanks to it, being so close to the river water will not be a problem.

Cutting down trees now was simple. Only a few hits with the piercing cut ability and a tree will fall. This is thanks to me leveling it up so much and understanding how it works better.

The biggest hang-up was my energy. I found that going at full speed, I run out of energy before the day was done multiple times.

As I was resting towards the evening in the forest surrounded by Freya and Frances as they also waited, I figured it might be an excellent idea to use my free points and put them into energy storage.

For the start, I only put 5 stat points into it so I could test tomorrow how much it helps me cut down cutting time. When I was rested enough, I and Francis pull out the last loads of lumber. I used the evening to raise the lumber off the ground and to start stacking it up on top of each other.

They will end up sort of like a full house that will be surrounded by a simple wall on the sides and a roof to keep off most of the rain, but leave the ends open for air to move through.

Currently, the first one was only half filled, but it was still taller than me. The counterweight ability was very handy, helping me to do it quickly and efficiently and getting me a level in it.

The day finally finished. I was exhausted from the hard day of labour, but I also know I was going to be doing this for at least a few weeks. By that time, I will most likely figure out if I needed to go to war again with the goblins.

The next day went much the same as yesterday and I found out that I could do almost three times as much work with five points into energy storage, so without hesitation I dumped the rest into that stat.

This might become my dump stat, but we will see. There would be no point in getting it too big if my energy production couldn't keep up, but I guess we will see if I could figure out how to increase it.

That would be extremely useful for absolutely everything. Most of all for battle, if I have more energy to use, I can use my abilities longer and stronger, making me someone you do not want to mess with. And I got the feeling that the goblins were just the tutorial for what’s coming.

The wood that will go into making firewood I did not put into the same piles that were later going to be covered up.

There was no need because I was going to need to cut them into smaller chunks and then split them making drying them in long logs useless.

I also start 2 new log storage buildings, one for extremely good building wood that I will be using as the most important parts for supporting the buildings. The other one is for bow and crafting wood storage.

Yesterday I spent the evening sorting and stacking all the logs and I was almost done with the first log drying building. That meant I would need to make boards tomorrow and bring in some smaller diameter logs for the supports.

I found out that I made a mistake with the first one and I didn’t support the bottom logs well enough, and they started to sink in the dirt, making the bottom row useless.

But I guess it’s not the end of the world and the upper ones will still be good. Way too much weight as I kept stacking them up. I might have to sacrifice the bottom row for every building, but we will see if placing more boards underneath will help or not.