Gear

As pleased as he was with how the fight had gone Daniel was really feeling the ache from his leg; now that he had slowed down and before anything else could happen he checked his HP.

HP: 86/120

"I only took one hit that whole fight and I lost that much health? I can't believe I didn't notice it was a caster"

As he got closer during the fight it became obvious the caster was not the same as the others, the staff he had from a distance seen as a spear was one thing but it also had some ill-fitting cloth which could be favourably seen as a robe, a strange blockish hat and some hanging bone strings attached to it in various areas like jewellery.

Quickly gathering the dropped loot and wolf corpse before the surrounding slimes could start their work on them Daniel headed back into the dome to inspect his prizes.

The biggest surprise was the weapons, as crude as they were, that were left over when the clothes and other accessories seemed to have been melted into mana as though part of the creatures themselves. Not worrying about the logic of it any more he entered what he had into the storage panel to sort through later.

Bones x 2

Wolf pelt x 1

Wolf claw x 2

Goblin spear x 2

Goblin shaman staff x 1

Primitive dagger x 1

Rough parchment x 1

Stone hammer x 1

Excited by the pelt he immediately withdrew it to add to his bedding, he would actually be fully covered tonight, the dagger was barely sharp and very crude but it was still a dagger and he could try to improve it with care.

The hammer was a loot drop rather than the goblins own equipment but it was quite poor, he wasn't sure what he'd use it for yet but thought it was worth having, as for the parchment.

"I've been waiting for this, I can use some of my charcoal and make a map, I need to get a good sense of everything's location before I bring Melissa over here, especially given how disorienting that fog area was"

The last item was the goblin staff, taking it out and looking at it closely he could see it was worn smooth by hands and clearly cared for more than anything else he'd seen of the goblins, a tiny green gem was set in to the top in such a way as sunlight could pass through it.

"It's a slime gem? They've used it to make a magic tool, I wonder what the effect is"

Lifting the little staff he concentrated with outstretched palm and tried to will a mossy rock to shoot out towards the open air.

After a few such attempts he got nothing, focusing on the staff yielded some information however, having previously tried this with other weapons and items with no result he hadn't expected anything.

[Primitive nature staff – pathetic]

[Can add nature infused mana to any nature based magic cast slightly increasing its effect, additional mana pool for nature based skills]

[MP 0/3]

"No wonder I can't do it, I don't have such a spell. This is surprisingly strong though, if they made this with a slime gem imagine what something ranked above pathetic could do!"

Looking at the sky again and thinking about how little time he had left today he decided to store the staff and everything else for now and head off to the river with his now empty water skin, cup and bowl.

At a steady jog in spite of his thirst he managed to make it there within an hour, drink his fill, fill his containers and then add them to his storage space, after a few experimental jumps and shakes he then withdrew them to see if they spilt in there and was relieved to find they didn't.

By the time he got back to base the sun was close to setting, he'd spent some time hunting slimes on the way back hoping to get enough gems to top up his coin for another water skin.

Taking what he needed from the storage and getting his shack prepared for the night he took one final look on the horizon for more goblin hunting parties and closed the door.

Building a nicely sized fire and lighting it lazily with a burst of magical fire he prepared his new skewers, the repurposed goblin spears.

Scoring duck breasts with the goblin dagger and seasoning both the duck and the boar meat he was cooking tonight with the travellers' salt he found himself once again praising the storage panel's apparently flawless sterilising capabilities.

"If it weren't for the beachhead those spears would have been straight in the fire, as it stands they're perfect to add to my cookware collection"

As he carefully cooked he wondered how hard it would be to make jerky and decided one of the first things he brought back would be some survival cooking guides.

"Or maybe I could just buy a smoker or something through the Colony construction. For now I'll just cook enough for breakfast and lunch too, cold boar meat can't be a bad thing, though maybe not the ideal breakfast food"

Periodically checking his HP and watching it rise slowly over time he wanted to estimate if it regenerated quicker after eating or if he could eat to get chunks of HP back, starting on the duck breast he didn't see any real difference and decided to move on.

Taking the dagger he tried to pry the tiny green gem from the head of the staff, it was tightly embedded almost as though the wood had grown around the gem itself. He had with him one of the red slime gems and wanted to make himself a fire staff, he figured it was worth knowing if this was all there was to it but it became clear there was no way to remove the gem without damaging the staff.

"Well, I at least need to know if I can make it more practical"

Not having much experience fighting he wanted to fall back on one of the few things he knew in preparation, most things didn't like being stabbed.

He used the chisel and dagger to sharpen the bottom of the staff to a point and basically made a stake.

"At least I won't be effectively empty handed when I use magic this way, and if it turns out this damages it and stops it from working it doesn't matter because I can't use this staff anyway"

After sharpening the staff to a satisfactory point he checked the item information again and found it unchanged. He was feeling confident he could make use of this little staff in the future.

"Wait, Crafting! I never even looked at the crafting panel! Maybe I can switch it in there"

Heading over to the panel he found there were plenty of crafting options to look through unlike the last time he'd opened it and found nothing.

Bone knife - (Bones x 2) – 30 copper

Bone club – (Bones x 4) – 60 copper

Boar tusk dagger - (Boar tusk x 1) – 80 copper

Wolf claw axe – (Wolf claw x 2, Branch x 1) – 1 silver

Dice – (Giant rat tooth x 2) – 20 copper

Fishing hook – (Wolf claw x 1 / Giant rat tooth x 1 / Bone x 1) – 20 copper

Inferior flame spell – (Rough parchment x 1, pathetic red gem x 1) – 2 silver

Primitive fire staff (pathetic) – (Pathetic red gem, branch x 2) – 5 silver

"Wow, pricey, I'm pretty sure I could make most of these myself, the magic stuff is interesting though. I wonder why it's only fire magic, I have all the other gems, is it because I know fire magic? Either way it's too expensive, it looks like the staff would be the same as the goblins one but would cost 5 silver to produce, I'd rather have the water butt."

As interested as he was in the fire scroll he already had plans for the parchment, he needed a map to discuss plans with Melissa when she arrived.

"Wait, when did I decide on Melissa? Why would she even want to come here? There's not even a shower. This place would be heaven to Tom, he's the right choice for my first colonist"

Putting who it was out of his mind Daniel headed back into the shack and grabbed some charcoal he'd left to cool. The rough outline of his local area and the dangers and resources he found in each was produced. Content with his progress he prepared the boar meat and headed to his now fully kitted out bed.

It was a warmer night and in spite of everything he was comfortable, he'd even realised by putting his rough clothes into the storage and taking them out again he could effectively instantly dry clean them, he made a habit of this and used the same method of cleaning his plates etc.

"It seems the only way to progress is levelling up and getting silver. The goblins appear to be less of a threat than I thought but the obvious choice for this is those zombies, I'd rather try farming them than something which might realise my patterns and weaknesses"

Resolving to grind the day away tomorrow and get the silver needed for a box sauna he went to sleep and was dead to the world.

Waking to his phone alarm and being entirely disoriented by the strange bed he was in he couldn't help but laugh at the stupidity of the situation. With cold boar meat and water for breakfast he prepared himself to spend the day hunting hordes of the undead for coin.