Bleakbane... Farms...? 21 [Stardew Valley]

Part 21: Miner Incidents

Been a little quiet this week, but this is simply because of various day-trips or otherwise being-out-ness and the short evenings before chewing into my playing time...

Friday, Autumn Day 27, Year Two

Illy finds that her Rare Seeds have sprouted into Sweet Gem berries. After some debate, she elects to sell one silver berry, save the gold one and place the last into the seed maker - which gives her two to plant again.

Illy seriously considers the mine - getting as far as loading up all her healing items - but decides instead it might be better to go to the witch's cave. she might need the items there, after all!

With all the shilly-shally-ing it's half-past four before she gets there, and holds out her dark talisman to the runestone.

Huh. That... Was not the reaction Illy expected.

Teleportation circle?

Teleportation circle.

Illy is getting tired of that. On the other hand, the goblin probably doesn’t know any better...

Okay, what? Would the goblin like a blackberry...?

Clearly not.

Goblin doesn't want fired eggs or a cherry bomb... Can't hit him with her sword...?

Okay, Illy is kind of stumped.

She heads back home and out to Rassy's picking up five gold bars (maybe she can pay the goblin off...?) to see if he has any ideas.

On the way, she sees the caravan lady - she's selling a coffee bean. Coffee! That's new! Something for the greenhouse, Illy thinks, when next the beets are done (but she only planted some today...!)

Rassy just looks blank. I6t might be a bit late to make another attempt at the cave today, so Illy heads to the secret forest.

She makes it back home just after midnight.

Autumn Day 27, Year Two

The pumpkins are grown! Illy sells the gold ones, keeps the silver and tries putting the ordinary ones in the crafting zone kegs to see what happens.

As the Spirit's Eve festival is being prepared, there's not a lot she can usefully do today, so she heads to clear portions of the farm she knows still have some hardwood in them.

So, what's in this building?

Nothing, apparently... Huh.

Illy spends most of the day just killing time clearing the dense forested bit of her land, before it is finally time for the festival.

Trust Illy, Jas, if it is anything like last year, there will be actual monsters in it...

Reasonably productive in terms of farming, very much so in - Illy glances sidelong at Jas - re-productive terms, if Marnie knows what Illy means!

It's magic, Sebastian. Seriously, Pelican Town has one resident wizard and magical paladin-devil-girl, a nearby witch, magical monsters, an adventurer's guild and lots of spirits, how is magic surprising?!

Illy does, but she has a feeling Abby will LOVE them, if Emily knows what Illy is saying.

Shoulder!Alluria winks suggestively. Emily giggles at her. Illy is now becoming more deeply disturbed...

Shoulder!Alluria would like to fill Leah's mouth with- There is a short, sharp slapping sound. Leah looks confused and squints at Illy's shoulder, then shakes her head. Illy backs away, plastering her brightest (and not at all strained) smile on. She is most definitely not breaking out into a cold sweat.

YES, KENT, YES IT IS! NOTHING IS WRONG AT ALL! Kent gives Illy a slightly mystified and worried glance, and backs away slowly

Illy knows all too well, Linus...

...

Hi, Pumpkin King!

SEBBY! Come here! Illy has something to show you!

Wow, they might have thought to try something a bit different this year, seriously!

Illy deftly gets past the monster to the other chest. This year, it's just three pumpkin pies, a rarecrow and treasure chest.

Alex-short-for-Alexander is just as dumb this year. apparently he didn't learn that one was fake last year. Muppet.

After securing the girlfriends from the maze, Illy and her girlfriends have a slap-up feast and then Illy heads home.

Autumn Day 28, Year Two

The Queen of Sauce on the telly teaches Illy how to make fiddlehead risotto. Uhuh, Illy will have to have another cooking session soon...

Whelp, that's Illy's plan for the day, then!

The starfruit wine is done on the greenhouse kegs, so a full twenty eight bottles go for sale (Olivia, here's Illy's Best!) the ancient fruit have come in, so that is another load of fruit for seeds. That gives her an excellent ten more seeds to plant! She is slowly filling in the plants now!

Illy checks and finds she has... 149 hardwood.

Of COURSE she has. And, by the time she has collected a bit more from deep in the farm... Robin has closed up shop for the day.

Darn it!

Illy heads to the secret forest. She's a couple of hours early. So because she is a thoughtful girlfriend and this is Emily, not Abby, Illy spends the time clearing out all the slimes before Emily arrives.

It is!

Spooky, but harmless. Mostly harmless, at least for today anyway.

There is a very loud rumbling sort of sound. Illy tries to pass it off as an accidently bit of wind.

Emily is humouring her, but she is clearly spooked. Illy is, to be honest, a little worried herself, as that sounded BIG.

Well, Illy reflects, there ARE certain advantages to Emily being a bit unsettled and-

-WHY DOES EVERYTHING HATE ILLY?!

Emily flees into the tent. Illy follows to make sure she is protected. And not at all because SEX INTERRUPTING BEAR scared several centuries of life out of her jumping out like that.

Oh no, what a tragedy, well, it can't be helped. Shoulder!Alluria is wiggling her eyebrows now, and Emily definitely is watching her do it. Illy suspects this may be undermining her performance a little.

No, Emily should definitely stay in here.

Goodness, Emily, what a suggestion, Illy will have to think about it, why aren't you in Illy's sleeping bag yet?

(The tent shakes, once twice... Pause... thrice. Fade to black, money earned today screen...! Pahahahahahahahahaha! Oh yeah, that is again entirely not suggestive at ALL, it is it!)

That is a LOT of money. But quality of fruit doesn't seem to matter?

Winter Day 1, Year Two

Illy does some research.

OHH, you are supposed to be putting wine, and cheese and beer and stuff in casks to AGE to increase their quality! Stupid, stupid Illy! Right, sounds like she needs to make a bucket-load more casks and to start again stuff for more cash!

Boom, Illy scores again!

Illy sees why Abby likes autumn!

Oh. Darn. Illy can't MAKE casks yet, she was thinking of preserves jars.

Right, then... One job today needs to be to see Robin and get on the house upgrade. And plant her winter seeds carefully stored from last year.

Illy plants her seeds nice and fast and does her other chores. To her annoyance, she is four wood short of being able to make a machine...

Off to Robin's!

Pam looks miffed...

Calm down, calm down, calm down!

Illy privately thinks "lately?" but she doesn’t voice it...

Want to share with Illy, Pam? she's a good listener.

Pam has never been Illy's age, but Illy doesn’t interrupt. (Unless Pam is STUPENDOUSLY well-preserved.)

Huh.

Pam trembles, or perhaps shakes with anger at herself, Illy isn't sure.

Look Pam, that, at least, you can change.

Illy thinks this sounds very like Pam is having a mid-life crisis. Illy points out that the UCDR has not age limitation on joining (nor do any of the many paladin or clerical orders). Heck, Pam is younger than General Haelariel, and she's one of the most decorated war-heroes of the entire UCDR. (Okay, Illy privately admits, she does have a lot of angel-blood in her, but who - apart from Illy and Alluria - kind of doesn't in this little bit of the galaxy?) Illy would love to just meet her. Illy bets if Pam applies, with some dedication - and maybe a little help from Illy, Pam can become a space-pilot!

Well, not with that attitude it won't! Pam needs to be positive! Look, Illy was a freaking DEVIL, and look where she's gotten! Yes, Illy had help... But Illy is also willing TO help. Pam doesn't have to do this alone.

Pssh, she's gonna crack eventually! No-one can resist Illy’s ineffable cheer! You'd have to be some sort of super-morose icky necromancer with a mind like a miserable robot or something!

Magic Robin, make Illy's house grow! (Please!)

...

Why... WHY would Illy ever want to do that? Why would Pierre give Abby clay in the first place? Illy can't imagine anyone would particular want clay! Yes, Abby likes eating quartz, but even so!

Clint wants to inspect some ores, and, thanks to Celestia, Illy makes it inside the blacksmith's JUST before he closes! Huzzah!

Illy stops by the adventurer’s guild to see if she can get any information out of Marlon or Gil. Neither have anything to say... Darn, maybe Illy should have asked Gunther in the museum...?

Well, Illy is passing Haley and Emily's -

- fingering the rabbit's foot in her pocket...

Oh! Everyone is here! Woohoo!

Illy has no comment.

Shoulder!Alluria points out that SHE never promised anything to Mayor Linkara and is quite happy to spill the beans. Illy, with a strained smile, tries to surreptitiously muffle her.

Emily tells Illy to stop it, that's not very nice. Shoulder!Alluria sticks her tongue out at Illy and... Flies over to Emily's shoulder. The other girls follow the line of her flight.

Haley turns back to Illy and asks if there is anything Illy wants to tell them.

Illy, trying not to look anyone in the eye, hesitantly explains that Shoulder!Alluria is a metaphysical manifestation of Illy's... Uh... Urges... Which takes the form of her dear, dear it's-so-hard-to-put-into-words-what-the-relationship-is Alluria.

Leah says that would seem to explain a lot. And also that it is nice to put a face to this Alluria Illy's talked about so much.

Penny mutters under her breath - not quite quietly enough - something about how it is nice to put an everything else as well and then blushes fiercely.

Abby opines that she can see how Illy got redeemed now, because day-am.

The other girls look askance at Abby. Abby points out the other girls were all thinking that too.

There is a general muttering of slightly embarrassedly assent. Penny blushes harder.

(In their defence, Alluria IS a succubus.)

Illy has no freaking clue why the girls can see Shoulder!Alluria and she is frankly, mildly terrified about the whole thing.

Maru suggests that as Illy is telepathic, and the girls have such a close bond to Illy, it is likely Illy is subconsciously projecting an image of Alluria to all of them, probably rooted in Illy deeply missing her best-whatever-you-want-to-label-it-person-in-the-world after so long away from her and her subconscious is filling in the gap.

This is because Maru is very smart.

Illy says Alluria is very busy at the moment, but she has said she would very much like to meet the girls properly at some point. They all agree they would love to meet her too.

Maru thinks Shoulder!Alluria will probably fade away once Illy sees Alluria again on a regular basis (such as at magical paladin school), or possibly when Illy has far less repressed urges. So maybe they should work on making sure Illy doesn't have so many repressed urges.

"Short." Sure...

Illy heads home and finds a little more hardwood on the farm as she heads down to the mushroom cave. She gets back just as it hits midnight!

Winter Day 2, Year Two

Illy is feeling stupidly brave today, so she's going to head to Skull Caverns and see if she can find some iridium ore...

Illy kills quite a lot of mummies and other things, but she finds no iridium ore at all, and chomps through a lot of her healing items.

Secret note #2...

She heads back out at half-past eleven, with a full inventory, and does a little bit of last-minute chores, though this takes her to half-past one...

Winter Day 3, Year Two

After chores, Illy goes to get the geodes she found yesterday opened. See gets three iridium ores (yay!) and baryte, which means she only has one more mineral to find!

Illy wants to drop by the adventurer’s guild to sell the club she found. She stops by the beach on the way and finds a huge amount of forage.

She then heads off to spend the rest of the day in the farm quarry. She finds another eight iridium ore, and load more geodes, which will be tomorrow's major job!

Winter Day 4, Year Two

Woo! Bigger house!

Hmm, she needs to do a little bit of internal moving around, though...

It takes two trips to Clint's to clear the geodes. Illy's greatest (and only useful) find is one geode with eleven iridium ore in it.

Illy takes a trip to the east quarry, and with bombs on her mind after yesterday, she decides to try some explosive mining. She quickly clears the quarry. Heading home, she makes some more bombs, with the intention of having a go at the rest of the farm quarry! Bigger bombs mean she does it quicker!

It is a somewhat unsuccessful experiment, unfortunately. On the one hand, she completely clears the farm quarry as well... But apparently bombs destroy the geodes. Oops. Well, Illy has at least learned something, though it was only after her maniacal explosion-mining spate that she realised she hadn't got any.

Bombs also don't seem to work on trees. Oh well.

Is... the Kitchen bigger now too...? Those chests were in the corner before, so...?

Illy calls it a night.

Winter Day 5, Year Two

Aw. that's nice!

Darn it Rassy, you're killing Illy here!

Fine...!

Some of the starfruit and the beets and rhubarb are in, Illy harvests them and planets her coffee bean, but doesn't replant anything else yet.

As she heads out to Rassy's she sees the caravan lady has a pufferfish for sale, which she buys for Demetrius (whose request is still sitting around after goodness knows how long...!)

Well, Rassy did pay five grand for the bar, so there's that...!

Illy sighs and elects she'll sell one of her hard-won iridium bars. She'll have to do so want some point anyway, and once it's done, she can stop whittling about it.

She might go to the mines tomorrow, so she has a look at her supplies. She had tons and tons of mushrooms, so she makes more than a score of life elixirs, which should keep her going through quite a few mine or cavern trips!

Then she figures she might as well take Demetrius his fish.

She stops for a talk with Robin.

Ohhhhhh! That's where you get casks!

Well, Illy does have the cash, and it doesn't require any resources, so oh hells yes, Robin! That was a good call coming her for Illy today!

Demetrius gets his fish, and then Illy heads into the upper levels of the mines, trying to find a load of dusties to kill. She manages to find a load on her first level, then none after that. She heads home and takes an earl night before eleven.

Winter Day 6, Year Two

The starfruit wine is done. Illy holds off selling it for the moment - she'll see how much she can put into her new cellar soon!

She makes a short sprint to town to check the calendar. Oops, she missed Krobus and Linus' birthdays, but Caroline's is tomorrow. Haley wants a crocus, so Illy stops by to drop on off before heading to the deeper reaches of the mine - maybe she'll find some iridium there...?

(First trip, I got nearly to the bottom from level 110 and then suddenly died - I hadn't even thought anything had hit me.)

Illy's mine trip is unsuccessful, aside from killing more monsters. She heads home and does the chores she neglected earlier, before taking a late bed.

And there we shall leave her, at the start of the rather uneventful winter following her so very eventful autumn...