NOVEL NEXT [Vol-1] Ch.11 A Proper Room
The next morning, I go out to check my bucket, and although there isn't a lot in it, as long as I'm careful not to spill much, there should be enough to level the floor in my room. I carefully bring the bucket back down into the cave, and get to work on making the primitive level. I want it to be long enough to be useful, so I'll make it almost as long as I am tall. It'll start as a straight long rectangular prism, that isn't very wide, then I'll cut a very thin channel into it, making sure that the channel itself is relatively flat. I'm just eyeballing it for now though.
The next step is to pour water into the channel. Once I've got the water in the channel, I'll be using the water as my guide in forming the rest of the level, something that wouldn't be possible without either modern technology, or this stone shaping magic. Using the fact that the water will naturally "level" itself flat against gravity, I can first rest the level on my legs, and adjust my legs' height until the water is roughly parallel to the bottom of the level. Then I slowly adjust the channel, and widen the channel slightly just barely above the water level. I don't have access to glass, so I can't make a nice air bubble inside a closed water container, instead I'll have to settle with a long basin to judge against, which means it will take longer, because I'll have to wait for the water to settle each time. With my water demands filled, I carry the bucket back up to the surface before continuing.
With this system of determining level, I should be able to get to within a percent of incline in either direction, which should be small enough that it's hard to notice. So I move over to a corner of the cave, and I begin shaping the floor. Here, the wall and floor curve together, so really, this process is going to start with some redistribution of the material to make a more defined wall and floor. After the floor is ready, I set the level down on it, and begin making the minor adjustments in both cardinal directions until I'm satisfied that the floor is flat.
Between making the level, and doing a corner of the room, it took about half a day. With the size of the level, and how much of the floor I can do at a time with it, I have well over 100 sections to do. That said, a lot of the sections should go faster. The walls and corners will take a lot longer than the central bit of floor. I suspect it will take between 7 and 10 days to level the floor in this area. After all, it's a fairly large area. Plus, I'll have to move some of the stuff I've collected in here around as I do the flooring in that area. Thankfully, I do have plenty of food and wood stockpiled, so I can just focus on working on this task. Given my lower level right now, this also is about the safest place I can sit and gain levels as well. I'll just need to make sure I go the main cave to keep my campfire going periodically.
It ultimately only took 7 days to level the floor in the room. As I worked at it, I started to find a good rhythm, which let me work faster than I initially thought. On the other end though, some areas were more uneven than I initially thought, and ate up a little more time than I initially estimated for, resulting in a total of 7 days. After all that work, my level has gone up a decent amount, although not nearly as fast as it used to.
<EPIC IMP>
Level: 29
HP: 240/240
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation
Magic: Stone Shaping
With the floor being nice, in the room, it makes me want to make the walls nice too, but I don't think I have as much patience for that. Namely, the ceiling in here is much higher than my height, so I'd need some form of ladder to reach the higher areas. I can however at least make the walls close to the floor straight. That is a little easier than making a floor level. For this, I can just use a bit of the vines from before, and fashion a weight to tie to one end, and hold it to the wall. I'll have to work from an initial overhang, and slowly adjust the angle back until the weight rests against the wall, but considering I'm only going to be going a little higher than my own height, it should only take two more days, including the time to move the written stats and todo list.
Well, now I've got a somewhat proper room here with finished walls. The next step is making proper furniture. I'll start by making some shelving. Although proper shelves won't actually be useful here, because most of the things I have to store are oddly shaped and in bulk. So these shelves will be bins instead, so that I can store the roots and crystals. While I'm at it, I'll make multiple bins for crystals, to distribute them by both size and keep the empty and full ones separate.
I also want some kind of bed. Although the most I can hope for is sleeping on a pile of grass for now. So I'll make the bed such that I can later put edges in to hold the grass. Thus for now, the bed will be a little short.
It took all of yesterday to make the furniture such that I was satisfied. Sleeping on the hard bed wasn't great though, so today, I want to go out and pick grasses. Now I could sleep on wet grass, but I think I'll dry it first, and smoke it for bugs. Last thing I want is some flea like creature in my fur.
So first thing I'll make is a stone mesh object to put over the campfire. It needs to be high enough that the grass doesn't catch fire, but needs to let the smoke through. I suppose maintaining this will be a pain in itself as well. It's a bit unsightly when I finish it, so once I've made my bedding, I think I'll partially dismantle it so I can more easily use the campfire again for cooking.
Between making the smoking mesh, and gathering the grasses, I've spent pretty much the whole day, so I'll actually get to smoking and drying the grass tomorrow. For tonight, I spread the grass out so that it can air dry some while I sleep.
As I get up and eat my breakfast, I'm slightly saddened by the realization that I'm almost out of dried meat. It's only a few days worth left, and it'll run out just before the roots run out. I guess I'll have to see if I can really survive without it soon.
I spend the day carefully smoking the grasses for my bedding, and preparing my bed, then dismantling the smoking apparatus I made. Although there is still a little time left in the day, I decide to just lay down in the new bed, and relax until I can fall asleep. I check over my status as I lay and wait.
<EPIC IMP>
Level: 39
HP: 275/275
MP: 70/70
Traits: Mana Affinity, Earth Manipulation
Magic: Stone Shaping
I decide to try something a little different today when I wake up. I go over to some of the depleted crystals, and try to use stone shaping to reshape them. Sadly, I'm disappointed that it doesn't seem to have any effect on them. However, while trying to reshape it, I realized that I don't have any sort of work space, such as a table and chair. That won't do, so I make a table, and a round stone stool that I can sit on while I work on things. Of course I used the level to make sure both were properly flat as well.
This space is really starting to look like a proper room. I've got a bed, a table and chair, and some shelving. It's really coming together. I have a few things that I'd like to improve in here if I can come up with a good solution for it. First, I'd like to actually have the fire in here, if I can figure out a way to get rid of the smoke. That would require a chimney of sorts, and I frankly don't have any idea how far from the outside I am right now. It's a decent hike out of the cave to get to the surface, with a lot of twists and turns, so I don't have a good gauge of where I am. The second thing I'd like is actually a way to write things down, and a place to store it. That I technically can do, but it'll drain mana constantly to handle. Basically, I could make stone tablets, and etch information into them, and store it for later. Again though, it would be a constant drain on mana to handle, and I don't know if I want to use crystals at that rate.
I guess one thing I could do is use up my mana at the natural pace it regenerates whenever I don't have plans for making other things. Such as when I go out to get food and wood, which I'm planning on doing tomorrow. Which means today, I should probably figure out how big these tablets will be, and start making a space that can safely store them. I don't want them falling and shattering after all.
Considering I'll be writing with magic, I can actually make the tablets somewhat small, but considering that I've grown every time I prestige, I decide to oversize them slightly for my current size. I can still easily carry one, but I need to use both claws to do so. I then make a shelf for storing the tablets, designed specifically with small slots and a ledge to prevent them from falling. They have to be vertically lifted before they can be removed, which hopefully means they won't fall if I accidentally bump one while handling another.
Building the shelf and deciding on the tablet size took the whole day, so I lay down in my new bed and quickly fall asleep.