Confusion and Questions.

After waking up in the mine lobby, I just sat up and sat there for a good while, thinking.

What happened to me? What was that language I spoke in? What on earth was going on? Would it happen again? Did 'controlled me' have friend foe recognition? Was I a danger? What triggered it? Could I control it?

And how did I end up back in the mine's lobby?

I simply coped by saying "What a night... spes alii sunt bene..." I froze. I spoke in that language again, and this time, I understood it. I didn't mean to, but I for whatever reason said 'Hope the others are fine' in the other language. I only vaguely understood it, I only understood it because of what I intended to say. I then checked my inventory to see if anything was off. Other than a bit of durability damage to my armour and sword, nothing. However, in a little tab for accessing the various information on towns and races and materials and all that nonsense I don't care about, there was a new notification. And this time the notification number was glitchy and purple, instead of the standard green. I clicked on it, and it immediately brought me to a new notification.

It was 'The Black Heart Curse'.

It stated that it is an affliction some - about twenty percent - of Void Walkers experience, that makes it so that they gain some benefeits, with unknown prices however. For example, the weird event that happened to me is called 'Shadow Mind', where the body is imbued and infused with so much Void mana, that it forcibly duplicates and then splits your mind, creating an alternate version of yourself. When it is in control, you will heal fully, become twice as strong and durable, become faster, and you will become capable of feats only the strongest of creatures would think possible with ease. The downside is that until you can actively communicate with this alternate mind, you will have no control of any form over it, meaning it might attack allies. It is an incredibly logical and quick thinking mind too, making its decisions near instant. It will be affected by your knowledge of combat however, so the better you are, the better it is. It's weird.

Then, you are truly immortal. Turns out, people (Void Walkers) without the Black Heart Curse will die forever if their heart is ripped out before death, but people with the Curse aren't affected by this. People with the Curse also have better control over Void mana, but I don't even know how to use mana on purpose so I don't care about it.

As for the downsides, little is known, although I personally think having an alternate, possibly evil, side to yourself is bad enough and that that might be it.

I also noticed that I had 'unlocked' dwarves as a new resident, with a message stating 'The Dwarves have heard through their own means that you have both gained Earth mana and that you have killed an Ender, both of which are worthy deeds in their eyes, especially for an ignorant Terran.'

So, I made it so ten percent of newcomers can be Dwarves. Whoop dee fricking doo, I can't even get more than two residents at a time so whatever. Although, I did decide to expand the town so that instead of a couple barely used buildings, I have an actual town. I went up, saw the 'Dead Day' or whatever it was called was still up, but it was getting to be near night. I popped into the house again, replacing barricades behind me, and saw that Kyle and Linkon were asleep on spare beds they had apparently found in my chest. I went to sleep on my bed, hoping for a good future for me and my friends.

(BIG AN: TIME SKIP WARNING! SKIP IF YOU DON'T LIKE SKIP (lol).

what I'm saying is that I feel this is actually a good time skip point, and it's also gonna be a small one soooooooo.

Don't kill me.

message end lol)

A few months after that horrible 'Dead Day', I had made the town even better. I expanded the wall to make a large circle around the mountain we were in, I made quite a few barracks around, an East, West, and South gate, North was the one I already had, built a few more vital buildings, built farms, etc. Nobody new had come, but I was planning on building a dedicated road to that city. I did get a letter from the Head Knight, commending me for my survival of the Dead Day, which felt nice. He also expressed concern over the fact that this was the third one in two years.

Winter was almost here, Autumn was nearly over, frost was forming on the grass, crops were growing slower, with a few refusing to grow, and Kyle and Linkon were mining and forging stuff, amazed at how my items work. Some new things have been discovered about them however. First, items made by me are 'perfect', always at the perfect quality, texture, etc. Second, they don't have inventories. They can access blocks and items, but they can't carry a ton of them. At most, they can carry sixteen smaller items if they really work at it. Sad, but pretty expected. I also managed to make Steel! It was an accident.

Basically, I was experimenting with iron, and managed to make a 'Basic Dedicated Smelter', which has two smelted item and two fuel item slots. Basically, I can put more fuel or even mixed fuels, and can do stuff like smelt twice as much metal at once. I can also alloy materials. For example, I put charcoal and coal in the fuel - charcoal is made by burning logs in the item slot with a fuel in the fuel slot - and iron in the item slots. A few minutes later I had some Steel! I of course tried to make an even better smelter with this, and succeeded... Kind of. I got a 'Dedicated Smelter', which basically... is the same with a better fuel efficiency and a faster smelt rate. Yay... Although, while Steel is heavy, it's better than iron and doesn't rust, which has begun to be a problem, so that's nice.

I then went, performed science - closed my eyes and tossed random things onto the crafting table - and got a 'Steel Reinforced Door', and a key to go with it. Like the stone doors... but stronger. It was useful, and I did use them for my house and more important buildings - as well as non public buildings - and went and upgraded the gates, but other than that, Steel is stronger iron. Kyle and Linkon were impressed however, saying Steel is one of the rarest things out there and that it's incredibly valuable, with a set of Steel armour costing nearly as much as a house! Weird. It's rather easy to produce, although I don't know other places capabilities.

The most interesting thing I did was prepare to make a dedicated underground facility for the most interesting of stuffs.

Science!

I went to the top of the mountain, tall vertical hill basically, not really a mountain, dug a giant hole about thirty blocks wide and long in a circle, dug down a hundred and fifty blocks, and dug out balconies every ten blocks, and started making a fancy fancy facility, with glass balcony floors, steel railings, and armoured doors. I then started digging out a giant series of rooms and all sorts of stuff. I also places signs by the doors of some of the top floor rooms, with stuff like 'Material Experimentation' and 'Technological Development', which is nerd for 'Throw this or that together and pray it does something good'.

Surprisingly - not really - the entire thing got a glow when I finished, which took about another month, and I got a notification of 'Science base built, Scholars unlocked!'. Maybe I can get scientists now? I also went and built a big library, which weirdly enough just generated books depending on dedicated sections. I was smart and dedicated everything to education and intelligence and stuff. Not sure how it works but hey, it does.

I had no idea what to do when all of this was done, and I had wasted half a year basically, so I decided to just take a break. Oh man did I take a break, I literally spent the last month of winter and a few weeks into spring just doing nothing but lounging around and maintaining the buildings, exploring to nearby points of interest. I found sugarcane, which is bamboo that is made into sugar in my eyes, I figured out how to grow it, I eventually started a small ranch with a group of cows, sheep, chickens, and even a couple pigs. I figured out how to milk cows, got eggs from the chickens, eventually figured out cake - I celebrated a lot when this happened - ate nothing but cake for a day, got sick, barfed, did it again, barfed some more, started eating healthy again... It was fun. I also built a little bit of the road, making a large 'well traveled' path from the North gate to the main road of the other city I had found, eventually paving it and making it a proper road.

When I had decided I was getting too bored not working, I went and also made a small path from the West gate to the Wood Elf village. I got a notification saying 'Northern trade route established!', which was fancy speak for 'Capitalists are gonna come pounding on my door'. Lovely. I also got a notification saying 'Proper town established! You may now receive colonists and normal citizens as town inhabitants!' I, of course, checked that last one out. Turns out, Kyle and Linkon, and the guy with them, were immigrants, and that basically meant they could join my town no matter what. Other people that aren't immigrants need a proper town to join in order for them to come, which explained a lot.

All in all, an interesting seven ish months.

(BIG AN AGAIN: What am I doing with my life XD)