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Post by Leigha on Jul 1, 2018 20:13:02 GMT
| Backstory | I grew up a city girl from another kingdom. It was a large city on the side of the ocean. My father was a sailor for the military. He brought home many coins which allowed my mother and I to live a relaxed lifestyle. I helped my mom with what I could, but my favorite hobby was reading. We had a library that had all the books I bought from our local library. The shelves lined two of the walls, filled with adventurous books. My favorite was the one of the servant who fell in love with her bear master, they worked through their differences and fell happily in love forever and ever.
Father would take me out on his boat every few months. At one point, when I was sixteen, I had just finished a book about a ship and a whale. I asked him if he would take me out on his boat (so I could imagine what happened, but he didn't have to know that). He took me out a few weeks later. But nobody knew what would happen next.
The day was sunny at home. He asked me if I still wanted to join him. Of course I did. It was just me and him out on that boat. The waves were a bit rocker that normal, but it was great in those few hours. Later, I noticed the horizon getting darker. I tried to tell him, but he said the wind would blow it the other way. I believed him at first but the darkness kept growing, the wind picked up, and the waves started to grow, crashing against the boat. By the time he realized the weather was coming, it was already too late. Father tried to turn his boat around, but the waves crashing against the boat and the wind wouldn't allow it. He yelled out to me to move the sails. I stood there frozen, terrified. I didn't know what to do, I had never driven his boat - or any boat. When the rain came, the wind grew stronger and the waves taller, eventually trampling our boat. I fell over board, watching my dad with his hand out to catch me, but failed. I lost my breath trying to figure out which was was up or down. I drowned. |
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Post by Leigha on Jul 1, 2018 20:21:14 GMT
| Start | The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the shore of a large island. Not my island. I wandered through the forest and came across a settlement. Wonderland, Octavia called it. She was getting ready to pack everything up and move closer to the capital and could use some help. I politely informed her I had no experience outside of reading books. She told me she would help with what I needed to know as she had the knowledge to give. She needed Clothes for the upcoming winter but was too busy to make them herself so she taught me. I made some for the village, the three of us.
Antoon kept to himself, to start, building the boat. He soon got friendly and helped me learn how to build small things.
Octavia mostly kept to herself other than when I asked for help, which was a lot.
I quickly learned how to get on my feet and tried my best at bringing money into the settlement, though my doubts were high. Soon it was time to find the new place. We packed everything onto the boat and sailed. I was very anxious about it after what had happened. Luckily the only thing that happened was the boat getting stuck in a sandbar. So we all had to hop off and push the boat free.
We made it. A small plot of land off the end of a mountain. Octavia seemed hopeful and eventually bought more land beside it. A mine was created on-deed and an area for the garden was being worked on. Things were looking good. |
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Post by Leigha on Jul 1, 2018 20:30:35 GMT
| End of Year 1 | Things had grown to a quick halt. Octavia had been called out on an adventure, to which she only returned for a few days once a season. Nothing had been built and I still hadn't learned how to build anything. Even if I did, Octavia didn't have a draft wrote up about what she wanted to build or where she wanted to build it. We had a cave of which we lived out of when the weather got too bad. We had a garden that always needed tending because weeds kept coming up.
A new friend showed up, Fredrickson. Antoon felt the need to help this new person. He eventually left to start their own adventure together. I haven't seen them since.
I'm stuck on this settlement trying to figure out how to do things on my own, trying to fight off the creatures who think the land has become unoccupied. I can't do anything because Octavia is never around anymore when things need to start getting done. This past winter was extremely harsh. I had to sit by the forge the whole time, waking up in the middle of the night just to keep it lit.
I've started to think, maybe I should abandon this settlement. Take my things and find my own way like I'm already doing, but at least I wouldn't have to wait for permission from someone who's never around anymore. |
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Post by Leigha on Jul 22, 2018 19:41:03 GMT
| Year 2 | I decided I wanted to start working with leather now that I knew how to work with cloth. I asked Octavia on one of her times back home, she told me when she had more time she would get me started on it. I was slightly bummed out that I had to wait until who knows when. I started praying to the gods above, specifically Fo and Magranon, to bring me some leather hoping they could help somehow. I guess they didn’t listen to me or had some prejudice against the fact that I’m not very religious and hardly talked to them before because I didn’t get my leather.
I was starting to go stir crazy with only making sure the area was kept up. I was never the kind to be social with strangers, I stayed inside most of my time back home and only talked to father’s friends when he would invite them over. However, I met a few people who traveled through Wonderland in search of adventure or camp. Cutty said he was a contractor. He asked if I needed any help. I wish I could have told him needed help, but unfortunately I was the one who was supposed to be helping but that person wasn’t even around anymore for me to help. Instead we went on an adventure looking for a pet for him. I’ve never had the experience of taming animals. All of the animals at Wonderland had already been domesticated by Octavia and the rest who happened to walk through were aggressive and I had to hunt them down for food. Our first outing wasn’t great. Word must have gotten around the creature world that I’m mean and I got attacked left and right. I asked to be dropped off at home as I was very hurt.
But then the gods answered my prayers.
Months after I quit praying day after day for leather, cows showed up out of nowhere, venturing from the forest. They made a home on Wonderland. It eventually totaled thirty cows. I heard from a bird that we had gained a new neighbor. Perhaps they lived there and this person had driven them from their land? Or perhaps the gods decided they had enough of my punishment from not praying often enough and brought me my cows for leather. I decided to take them in and build them a suitable stable, though my crafting skills were still very low. I friended them, groomed them, milked them, crafted cheese from their utters. I did my best, but it still wasn’t enough. The cows became sick with claustrophobia. I had to do what was needed and kill off the oldest for leather until there was enough room for them. It hurt, but was much needed for the sake of the rest of the cows. However, I was able to justify it by taking the longest lived. I started working with the leather like I had the cloth, soon creating a water skin for when I’m on the other side of the area and a saddle as well as some more clothes.
Wyntria came by once and must have noticed my job on the stables because she asked if I could build more and I told her I would try. She then requested as many support beams for her mine a possible. I wasn’t able to make much, but I did what I could.
Octavia came home shortly after and showed me how to line the future garden with cobblestone. Amarintha, our new neighbor, would ride his horse through the forest every once in a while. He was quite nice, I enjoyed his passing through. It was something to look forward to. He commented toward me one day about how hard it was seeing through the forest to get to Keldor. It sparked a bit of interest in me that there needed to be a path between our place. I took Octavia’s teachings and decided to apply them to the forest. I began building a road between our places.
There was a ton of dirt from the road, so I decided I would use it to create a second field for Octavia. She wanted 10x10 fields with enough space for a cobblestone liner. I worked on that as best a I could, but it turned out I didn’t have enough dirt, but I had plenty of space. I began to level off the section that wasn’t needed so I could build more stables for Octavia’s horses that had been cooped up in the mine.
It was almost autumn once I flattened the area, almost ready to start building the new stables. Octavia came home again; she wasn’t happy with what I had done with the place. She didn’t approve of the second field or the road I had built or the land I flattened for the new stables. She didn’t like any of it. She became overwhelmed with all the change I had made while she was gone. I became upset that she could possibly leave me here to do nothing and tell me nothing to do, as though it was my fault I went to find work. Eventually she became so flustered she tried giving me the deed to Wonderland. I refused as I couldn’t make the money to keep up with a place that big.
It was the end of summer, beginning of fall when I packed up everything I could and left. I was done sitting around doing nothing or accused of doing something wrong when I was given nothing to do in the first place. I sold everything I could to make the money to buy a new deed small enough to handle. Wyntria was in town while I was selling to buy new land. She told me she was a great fighter and helped me venture out. The forest was confusing, especially for two people. I’d only been that way a couple of times and this time I had someone following me. We ended up getting separated, but I made it to where I wanted to be.
I found a meadow like place with a bunch of fruit trees around that had just ripened. I decided to settle there. It was about double the distance from Keldor as Wonderland, but on the other side. I called it Moonlight Gardens, after my father’s boat – and gardens because I planned to grow everything I could get my hands on.
The first day was the hardest. All of the creatures that were used to traveling though my area continued to. I either had to scare them off or kill them. Amarintha helped much by bringing me a sickle to replant the cherry trees I had to cut down. Unfortunately though, he brought a troll with him. We were able to fend him off, but I got hurt quite a bit. He patched me up and went on his way.
I knew I had a short time before winter and I did not want another repeat of last winter so I quickly raised my stable up and then began to work on the house.
The trek between Keldor and Moonlight Gardens’ is crazy dangerous. I try to find more than one reason to go to Keldor before making the trek. There are spiders of all kinds out there, including mutants. There are a bunch of trolls and wolves, and the worst part is the dirt that my cart keeps getting stuck in while I’m trying to run away from it all. I keep telling myself I’m going to need to work on a road to make the trip less dangerous. Maybe I will try to get that done next year.
Another large order of support beams have been asked for. Anastasia was happy to help out with the ribbons, the hardest part of last time. This had made me realized how well I’ve gotten at carpentry. Maybe I should be a carpenter? I could be a tailor on the side. We’ll see how much more it’s needed.
Winter went by in a blur as I as stood in my newly built house and crafted wooden beams. I wasn’t even able to make a Larder before the snow was all melted and spring came. We shall wait to see what the new year brings forth. |
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Post by Leigha on Sept 6, 2018 21:08:33 GMT
| Year 3 | This year I had run sick for quite some time and found it very hard to even get out of bed to feed my animals. A few ended up dying and rotting away as I took to the bed. I feel awful about them, but I couldn't find the strength. I had quite a bit of food left from last year's harvest, but toward the end came very close to empty.
By the time I had gotten better, it was already winter. The good thing, however, is winter wasn't at all as bad as it had been the past couple of years. I fixed up my broken stable and searched for animals to feed. I must somehow find the money to pay for the land from the year I was in bed...
I rode to Keldor to find the job postings were empty. People were complimenting someone by the name of Ninjai when I asked around. He had come and built all of the buildings there over the past year while I was on bed rest. A tinge of jealousy swept across my mind. Everything I tried to do, someone else did better. I wanted to be a tailor, Wyntria was great at it. I wanted to work with leather, Felswrath was better. I wanted to work in the smithy, Anastasia held that position. I wanted to be a carpenter and build things for people, Ninjai finished all the jobs. What was I supposed to do at this point?
As I sulked my way home, I came across an idea. Perhaps I will create a small town with the land that I own? Maybe I could have people work for me and gain silver that way? When I got home, I made myself a sketch book and started to draw up a future plan of my little garden. Yes, that is what I will attempt this time. A few buildings to start with, just the necessities, then when need it I can expand from there. Now I must work on my skill to build all those buildings and then find the charisma to talk to people to join my settlement - that will be the hardest part. |
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