Homesteading in a fantasy world

My admiring of the sauna was interrupted by a breakout of the puppies. Now Toto broke out constantly, but it was really rare for him to be able to get the others to follow, but on two previous occasions he has managed it and now it's the third time.

Toto is quite easy to catch because he doesn't actually want to run away or hide. I think he found the most pleasure in the escape itself. When they all get out like this, they plan to hide or run as quickly or as far as they can.

Lucky is the easiest to catch because she usually gets stuck somewhere or gets hurt in the unluckiest ways possible. I’m pretty sure that I’m close to another level up in first aid thanks to her.

The most difficult to find is Comet and I actually have to use either my sight or owner's land to locate him. The first time it was quite fun but the second and now the third time it was less so, but it also wasn’t annoying, but I could see it becoming that quite easily.

When Freya and I had gotten them all back, I looked them over and perhaps it was time to start training them. In the future, they could become incredible assets if they learn properly. I just haven’t come up with a plan on how to do it yet.

After the puppy catching, I did my usual training exercises. I have been quite good with my working and training time, and I have been able to keep pace quite well without over-exhausting myself.

My longbow shooting is coming along quite well, same with my throwing, as I feel it has gotten a lot stronger. The ability charging throw adjusts the throw a bit when more energy is fed in to make it even more effective, but that also helps me fix my mistakes, allowing me to train faster.

I haven’t actually used the ability to its completion a lot. I just let it fizzle out because I don’t have the steel to waste making new javelins because I broke my current ones.

Some of the vegetables are already starting to grow fruit and in a week or so I can have my first harvest of tomatoes and cucumbers. I couldn’t wait until I get to eat fresh vegetables. My mouth started watering just thinking about it.

The next day was raining, and I was quite happy that I was able to finish building the sauna roof before it started raining. During the building of the first floor, it rained 2 times. The rain, on both occasions, destroyed my bricks that were drying on the sand.

On one of those days like today, there was lightning. Again, it only struck in that one place. As I was making the benches and other furniture for the sauna, all I could think about after every strike was why there.

I knew I couldn’t just let it go this time, and I had to go and check what was there, so if tomorrow was a clear day, I was going to go there.

Making the movable furniture for the sauna took quite some time, but I still had time to finish making the heating rooms seating as well.

This made the sauna now done with a few missing features like a few water tubs and the cauldron, but otherwise, it was in working order.

As it was getting late, I started the sauna and the only thing I wished was that there was something that I could light up the heating room with because it was quite dark in there.

Otherwise, it was excellent. I was relaxed and felt clean. Multiple times, I heated myself up and jumped into the river so I would quickly cool down. While other times I sat on a bench on the deck while still steaming.

Everything felt so perfect, and it was a great night. I’m quite glad that my first building was this beauty.

Now this will help my mental health a lot, but the question is what would be the next building I would like to make. Perhaps a root cellar big enough for everything that I will be getting, but for that, I would need a lot more stone.

I would need to make a quarry to get more. Hopefully, one of the closer hills will be the answer. I didn’t want to start messing with all the big rocks spread around the hills. For logistic purposes, I would need to make a road as well, but Francis will help with that when the time comes.

My biggest problem remains iron. Everything would be easier if I could make, for example, a stronger cart, so bringing rocks from the future quarry would be easier. But some things I can’t do without iron. Perhaps the goblins will be able to help with that.

The best place to get some would be in the village. I bet there’s a lot of iron that I could use there. For that, I need to fix my zombie problem.

During my latest visit there, I noticed how quiet the undead can be inside the village and some idiot might actually try to break in. Unfortunately, I did not know how to write in common or read it, so I thought of a better solution.

Before the gate, I mounted some zombie heads onto spikes to warn off anyone who would try to go inside. Now, this warning will help, but not against stupid. They will do what they want. I just hope that it won't get me killed.

I probably had the best sleep since I woke up in this land and I was feeling fresh and ready for whatever horror waited for me where the lightning strikes. I got everything ready and decided to take the easiest and quickest route to it.

For that, I skirted around the hills and then went through the grassland forest to get to the river. Then I followed the river downstream towards the location that I memorized, only taking a few hours to get near it.

As I got near it, I started to feel the same feeling as I did before, but now when I was ready for a fight; I had time to examine the feeling I have, and it was not bad, just weird. As I walked further, it looked like the water has cut through some of the hills causing some small cliffs.

That feeling got stronger as I rounded the bend further ahead and saw another hill that was cut in half. The soil and rock must have been swept away by the current, making quite a large cut out of the hill.

Around here all the area was forest, except a little bit more towards my land, where the forest thinned out quickly and a clearing with only one big tree remained.

As I tried to get closer, there was a pulling force that was getting stronger the closer I got. It didn't take me long to figure out that the metal I had on me was being pulled towards the tree that looked very grey, but otherwise like a big oak tree.

I was now able to figure out what the weird feeling was. It was a magnetic force. When I got closer to the tree, it started pulling everything metal towards it.

I quickly scouted around, but I found nothing else suspicious, so I left all my metal gear in a safe spot and went to examine this tree closer.

It was a magnificently big oak tree, but it was a lot greyer than it was supposed to be and, as I suspected, it was basically iron. But it still held all the wood properties, making it a weird combination.

I’m guessing that it’s magnetic because of the lightning and not because of itself. The magnetic influence on the tree was not good for it. It was never meant to handle such a thing. Even then, the structure holds up quite excellently with the foreign influence acting upon it.

The weirdest thing was that all the acorns and leaves that had dropped were pulled onto the tree weighing it down. I didn’t have the strength to pull them off, but I really wanted to examine them closer and for that reason, I thought I might try to demagnetize the tree.

One of the easiest ways to demagnetize something is to set it on fire but I didn’t know if this tree could catch fire because she is constantly hit by lightning, it must have caught fire at some point if that kept happening but there was no fire damage to be seen.

On the top branches, I could see some lightning damage, but the top branch caught the lightning similar to a lightning rod.

So, I tried the second easiest method, striking force. I did a few strikes with all my strength, but I honestly didn’t think that it would work.

But what I did next, I hope it would work. I backed off quite a long way and then took a running start, putting everything I had into it and ramming the tree as strongly as I could. This actually caused it to shake, and I think I felt the magnetic field lessen for a bit, so I did it again.

Turns out third time's the charm. I had to scramble away from everything falling down. From a safe distance, I watched everything fall down as I was massaging my sore and bruised shoulder.

This truly was an oak tree, or at least something similar to it. This wood was able to keep the best properties of both materials.

This was an incredible find, but as I examined the acorns, my dreams of an iron oak forest were crushed, as there seemed to be some limitation because of the iron.

The acorns were not fertile, they will never grow into a tree and that was quite sad on multiple levels. But there was multiple years’ worth of acorns and leaves and a few smaller branches that the lightning probably knocked off. Hopefully, I can turn them into workable iron.

Collecting and bringing them all back will take a long time. I almost wish I had a better way of transporting them.

A good way to transport them using the river came to mind as I could use a boat to connect this location and my farm using the lake and the rivers. I had to scratch that idea. It would take too long to implement, and I would be able to get everything out faster than actually completing that transport route.

But a better way to transport still existed. I could bring over some of the wood iron and hopefully, I will be able to melt it down into usable iron, then I could build a narrow hand cart that I could pull to help transport everything faster. This will still be quite a chore and I’m guessing light load will help me a lot with this problem.

As I was gearing up, I loaded my backpack as much as it could handle so I had something to test with. Before I set off, loose thoughts connecting in my mind, and I take a closer look at the trunk of the tree. I could see some long straight branches that are growing close to the big branches that go straight up.

If I was able to cut them off, they should be able to live and grow, and like that, my dream of having an entire forest full of iron oak trees was back on the table.

Unfortunately, it seems that the iron somehow interfered, or I wasn’t skilled enough to get anything from my abilities and traits to see if this would work but I also didn’t get a negative, so I took out the hatchet that I brought with me and started cutting them.

It was quite difficult to get through them, but it was possible, and I took seven of the closest ones to the ground with me. I didn’t want to start climbing and getting more if this didn’t work.

With my test subject packed up, it was time to head back. I was able to level up light load, but it was still quite a heavy walk. I also noticed how good of an exercise this was, as I was completely drenched in sweat halfway home.

I might need to think of a way to weigh down myself for runs. The light load helped with my current task even though it did take quite a lot of energy, but thanks to my reserves, I was able to make it back home without any trouble.