Bleakbane... Farms...? 22 [Stardew Valley]

Part 22: Iridium Ore Bust

The end-point creeps ever closer...

Sunday, Winter Day 7, Year Two

Illy learns how to cook poppyseed muffins off the telly.

The last large batch of starfruit has grown. Illy harvests it. She won't replace them at the moment because - as Illy has neatly timed, all her ancient seeds have sprouted. All fourteen go into the seed maker, and give her twenty-eight more.

She should get another load and hopefully even more next week (they come every seven days), which should allow her to cover even more space. (How much more she will determine from how many casks she can have.)

Illy drops by the farm quarry - fortunately the quarry refills quite fast, and harvests all the geodes (she's not short of nay ore aside from iridium!)

She considers doing some fishing, and decides to use a beach totem to get there, as it is now ten to seven.

She manages to catch a couple of albacore before she heads home among other things, so she goes back via the bar to give one to Gus, who has been after one for simply AGES.

It's just past midnight before she gets to bed.

Winter Day 8, Year Two

It's the ice festival today, so Illy won't get that much done.

She harvests her winter seeds and...

They are all iridium quality?

Wait, so her iridium forage applies to anything grown from wild seeds?!

WOW, that's fantastic!

OH!

Illy wanders into her own cellar by accident, assuming Robin wasn't there because it was a festival day! Wow, then!

Okay, so she'll start with some of the starfruit wine. DARN, the rows are only eleven long! Nevermind, though, Illy can make casks now!

Casks take twenty wood and one hardwood. Illy make three (to take the rows to an even dozen - she puts one more wine in to make twelve too) and while she remembers, makes a worm bin to place to make bait.

She might make some more later, though she recons on making another dozen casks first, once she has the additional hardwood.

Illy considers, though, the fact that casks take a long time to age wine, after doing some research - two months.

(It occurred to me that, at the point I am, I'm not going to be playing this playthrough for hundreds more hours, so the amount of time invested verses profit is probably not going to come in.)

Illy scraps the idea of having a rolling stream of aging wine in her casks - while it would be plausible to set up, the time it would take... Well, she'll be in magical paladin school before then! So she will either start by using cheese or beer or ale in her casks. She'll load up the casks with starfruit wine as she gets it, but the coming ancient fruit wine will be sold directly.

She puts the last dozen starfruit wine in and then heads to the festival (it's half-past one at this point).

She does try scarfing some dish 'o the seas before heading in - so she should do better on that ice fishing this time!

Good for you Kent. Illy is having flashbacks to last years' disastrous fishing competition...

Illy thinks Maru should probably use more SCIENCE! in her snowmen.

Hmm... try something new this year, Penny!

(Aliens are close to starships, which Penny didn't like the suggestion of last year! Illy wins!)

Illy chats with everyone, and then it is time for the ice-fishing. (Ha! And Illy is still buffed to level 11 on fishing thanks to the dish o' the sea! It's totally not cheating, she just ate some fish before coming, that's how that works.)

It stills takes Illy twenty seconds to get the distance right to actually get her rod in the water. But with her boosted skill, she catches six fish - three of them perfect catches... But will it be enough...?

BOOM! Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Fear Illy's awesome fishing might!

And the prize is...

...Underwhelming. A hat and three different sorts of fishing tackle. Woot.

Ah well.

Celestia can have the hat!

Bedtime!

Winter Day 9, Year Two

Chores, and then to Clint's to break the geodes Illy got the other day. This gives her six more iridium ore and some neptunite! The last of the minerals! Hurrah!

Huh. Illy might have thought she'd have got some reward for that...

Actually, while she's here... Illy has a good go through the library once more to see if she can find out what goblins like...

-And she does! Huzzah!

(Yay, something else I didn't have to look up but I'm really bad at stuff...!)

Void mayo! Easy enough to get for Illy!

Okay, Illy thinks that the lower mine levels and the magma geodes seem to be one of the most reliable sources of iridium ore...

Her research has suggested that Skull caverns can have tons, but only if you can reach deep, deep down (which means taking loads of stone to make staircases).

Her trip is not hugely successful - she only finds four magma geodes...

Nevermind, her research has suggested to some other thing to try tomorrow in the desert.

Stuff that, to be fair, I'd never have gotten...!)

Goblin first, though!

Winter Day 10, Year Two

The Queen of Sauce shows Illy how to make coleslaw.

Illy lingers around until her void mayonnaise is completed.

First she goes to Clint's - the geodes yield nothing.

Then to the train station and thence to the witch's cave.

Goblin wanna void mayo?

Hah!

Well, that doesn't look intimidating AT ALL, does it?

Well, that was easy!

Okay...

Right...

... Why would Illy want monsters on her farm at night?!

Heavens, NO!

The teleportation in the corner takes Illy deeper in...

Wait... Is this RASSY'S basement?! Illy heard him talk about it and say she was allowed in, but she could never work out how to get to it.

Huh.

That's... Interesting. But Illy loves the way she is!

Up the ladder to...

OH! That's where the trap door is! Illy so stupid!

...

Could she have teleported to the witch's hideout without all that fuss?

(Seems unlikely...)

What?

Nope, place was empty.

Do goblin minions count?

Okay!

Oh, pretty!

Summoning... what? Being a devil, Illy is a little leery of possible summoning things...

Summon... BUILDINGS?

That's so badass!

Heavens, yeah!

No problems, Rassy!

Illy looks at the summoning book!

Okay. Hmm, depending what "around" means, that might be useful, come spring.

Illy goes home for the next stage of her day - a trip to the desert!

She gives Sandy an iridium sunflower and then buys 24 starfruit seeds - and since they're there, splashes out on five omni-geodes for a thousand a piece.

Next job - Sand Dragon's last meal - a solar essence!

Huzzah!

Huh, Illy was sure that would work. After several tries from different angles, nothing continues to happen. Okay, home then- She steps onto the little pit in the ground as she starts to leave...

Ooohhhh! There we go!

So 60-80 damage and +4 speed, as opposed to 55-64, +3 defence, +254 crit power and +3 weight.

Well, worth a try, right?

Illy goes back to the farm and slips down to the farm quarry to search for more geodes. She even finds some more iridium ore, enough to make another bar! Finally, she will be able to upgrade something in the morning!

Winter Day 11, Year Two

Illy plants the starfruit and then heads to Clint's to break open all the geodes. It is largely a bust. She gets two iridium ore from one omni-geode, and the single most expensive piece of stone ever from another, and nothing of note from anything else. She hands her pickaxe over (which WILL slow her down on the iridium gathering front, but oh well.)

Fishing, then? Might as well use some of those beach totems...

Illy finally catches a squid! AND a treasure chest... Which contains two weapons and a strange doll!

Having caught a total of eighteen fish and three seaweed - this must be a record! Illy heads home to bed.

Winter Day 12, Year Two

The next two dozen star fruit are done in the kegs. Illy doesn't restock them yet, though - two more days and the next crop of ancient fruit will be in and she wants to start on those. She will add more starfruit then, once they are neatly synchronised.

Illy wanders around town, distributing iridium crocuses. She gives one to Krobus, and sees he has an iridium sprinkler for sale at ten thousand. It's pricy, but Illy has more money than iridium at the moment (but not enough for that sceptre...!)

Sod it, while she's there, she'll buy the recipe for crystal paths and wicked statues because why not?

Come to think of it, Gus has recipes, too. Illy drops back to the bar (she'd given Gus a flower earlier) and buys the recipes for omelette, maki rolls and bread.

She heads to the adventurer's guild (the main reason she's been faffing around in town) and sells the spare weapons.

Illy heads home and spends the rest of the day hacking trees down, and finally makes it to bed at one o'clock.

Winter Day 13, Year Two

Illy remembers to check her wood pile...

Yay...?

Woohoo!

Double woohoo!

The heavens is a lingcod?

Illy has enough oak resin to make another dozen kegs (and have some spare). She also has a dozen gold cheese, which now will go in the casks in the cellar.

Now to Clint's to pick up her new iridium pickaxe!

Illy gives Willy his squid and does a bit of mining at both quarries.

She's clearly going to have to be brave shortly. The chances of iridium ore go up the deeper she goes into Skull Caverns (but you have to start from the top every time), so using staircases is kind of a must. So Illy will spend a load of money buying up enough stacks of stone from Robin (collecting them will take too long). She spends the rest of the day making bombs, cooking sushi (for another nice big stack of food) and making bombs. She makes a lot of bombs.

Winter Day 14, Year Two

Today is ancient fruit and wine day!

Illy learns to cook lobster bisque from the Queen of Sauce.

Illy gets twenty-two ancient fruit. Twelve go into the kegs - along with twenty four starfruit - the rest are turned into more ancient fruit seeds.

As she potters about, she notices she's nearly out of iron ore. So that's another job.

But hmm, the night market is on the next three days, so her chances of getting down to skull caverns are a bit low...

Illy spends the rest of the day cooking, and at half-past nine, having exhausted all she has ingredients for, slips down to the farm mine to mine out all the iron ore, which gives her a good fifty more. She slip back to bed just before midnight!

Winter Day 15, Year Two

Illy elects to make a second worm bin. he one is just not QUITE making enough to be self-sufficient, but she should be fine with two.

First job - see Robin about a frack-ton of stone!

COMMUNITY upgrade? What's that when it's at home?

OH! Oh, wow! That's something Illy can do? Okay, Illy can't do that remotely close now, but she'll file that away for when she's very rich! Illy's friends (and her girlfriend's mothers) deserve to have nice houses!

OUCH. Stone is 100 a go... So a single stack of ten stair's worth (990) is 99K! Gah. That's not going to get Illy very far, is it?

Okay, Illy will have to shelve that one for the moment.

She has a good look through the rest of Robin’s stuff. She facepalms - she could have bought a calendar for herself months ago, and that might have help her remember stuff! She buys one now... And a Dark Throne, while she's at it, because Abby would LOVE it!

Home - calendar by the bed, Dark Throne near the table!

Illy three-quarters considers trying to make a slime hutch - getting as far as betting the material out - which would eventually allow her to maybe get purple slimes which drop iridium... But the emphasis would appear to be on "eventually."

(Also, she needs to kill about 700 more slimes before she can get a ring from the adventurer's guild making her immune to slimes.)

Scratch plan B...

Okay, Clint's with the geodes she's acquired... No, just minerals. Illy did find a rusty spur yesterday while mining, so she hands that over to Gunther in the museum.

Quarry?

Well, the is one mystic stone which yields a couple of iridium ore - but not even much stone there!

Oh well, it's nearly time for the night market.

It is sort of cool, but wait until you see Illy's house...!

Illy buys some jazz seeds, as she can't remember if she bought any before.

Right, secret note #15 - mermaid show 1-5-4-2-3. Let's see what Illy can do with that, after the show.

Aha! The shells!

A pearl! Aha!

Well... That can probably go into the special gift chest, since Illy doesn't think she is going to sell it...

Tomorrow, she ought to try some fishing in the submarine maybe - but tonight she'll just get lots and lots of coffee!

Illy calls it a day at eleven and has the shadow dude teleport her home.

It is as well she did, since when she goes to put away her jazz seeds in the greenhouse (she didn't have any, so that was good), she finds that her coffee bean has sprouted, so she plants the four beans!

So it is nearly one o'clock before she gets to bed.

Winter Day 16, Year Two

Willy has sent Illy the recipe for chowder, which is nice.

Illy whips down to the farm quarry and gets more geodes.

Clint, however, is not in today, darn it!

Illy has a short trip into the cold part of the mines, looking for more dust spirits. She calls it at about five, heads to the night market, teleports home to empty her full inventory and the beach-totems back to make as much time for submarine fishing as she can.

She catches - with a little difficulty, as she forgot to pick up dish o' the sea and only has trout soup on her - spook fish, super cucumber, blobfish, midnight squid and regular seas cucumbers and seaweed before knocking it off at eleven, doing a bit of shopping and going home.

A suit of armour next to the skeleton (Abby again) and a nice picture of the future to go on the other wall.

Definitely time for bed!

Winter Day 17, Year Two

Today, Illy plans to go see Rassy (it's his birthday) and stop by the secret woods to kill slimes and get some more hardwood.

Illy takes another look at Rassy's summoning book;; in addition to the Junimos hut, there is a pair of obelisks which would teleport her to the mountains and beach respectively - but they require a million gold (!) a piece - plus 10 iridium bars for the mountain one. (The ten coral and ten clams wouldn't be hard for Illy to find for the sea one.) Finally, there is a gold clock, which prevents debris from appearing (is that useful, though?) and stops fences decaying (Illy's hardwood fences have stayed up...) and costs... TEN MILLION GOLD?!

Coming as all this stuff does in the middle of winter when Illy is in the middle of filling her pipeline of kegs and casks, it all seems a little ridiculous...

Illy heads home via the witch's cave (mostly just to see if the teleport circle does work that way!)

She decides to have a bit of a clear out of her gems - she's been stockpiling them, but aside from their use as gifts (and now she's so high, it's not worth keeping millions), there's not much crafting use for them, so she sells all but ten of the jade, ruby, emerald, topaz, all but 25 amethyst (Abby likes them) and some of her diamonds, since she has, like fifty and they trickle in every so often from her crystalarum. She also dumps the 109 common mushrooms she has (she has 40 iridium ones, and they aren't used particularly as aside from a bit of cooking). That ought to spike her earnings a bit tomorrow!

Illy then heads to the farm quarry and mines all the gem nodes to further sell. she starts hacking through ore nodes as well, thinking she has sufficient copper and gold ore she can just sell that, too.

She almost forgets the night market and only gets there by eight. She spends the evening drinking coffee with George and Evelyn and then heads home to bed (and sells all her excess coffee!)

Four thousand from the mushrooms, about the same from the coffee and forty-five from the gems! Quite a profitable day...! But still not enough! Still, with the night market done, Illy can try some more mine trips.

We shall leave her there for today!