You would think by now I'd have had the mine built. After all, it was the whole reason I even built where I did. As it would turn out, I kept having issues cropping up. Including the winter that was just about here.
The mine was one of those things I just kept putting off. I suspected I could get some kind of ore from it. Along with things like rocks and stones. The process of even being able to smelt ores was going to require a few buildings to pull off and workers.
There, however, came a point where I had deployed many of the local areas of rock in general. The village had quite an appetite for it for building structures. The larger-sized rocks were also quite a pain to haul back.
So, I ended up building the mine. The cool part is you can just walk right inside it. The downside was that I lacked proper lighting to do much down there. Also, making torches was a bit of a pain. So, it was a task I gave some of my crafters. Thus, a task that was not getting done anytime soon.
It did not take long before the thought of exploring the mine was at the back of my mind again. I needed more blood shards to summon villagers. We were having housing issues. The food we had farmed during the warmer months was long eaten. Having time to spend more than 30 seconds in that mine suddenly became a dream again. At least the entryway into it was now built.
I needed it quite badly to get a cottage up. I also took a massive risk. I did not want to build outside of the fence or spend another day expanding it. So, I did the unthinkable right before winter was about to hit. I destroyed the shelters I had up to make room for the cottage.
This also meant that anything else was no longer a priority. While not all of my village was homeless, we had to make room for the cottage. It would be quite a blow to our population if this ended up not going well.
Naturally, that very night it got a little too cold. The kind of cold you fully expect to come when it’s wintertime. Sure enough, I had tried to build right as winter was about to start. At least now was not the coldest part of winter.
So, I pulled yet another all-nighter. I thankfully had spent the time to ensure I had some clothing for winter. I quickly surveyed around, checking that all those who were now homeless also had some kind of clothing to at least make it through the night. I also ensured our village fire was properly fueled.
Even after getting the cottage built, the issue was not fully resolved. It only comes with two beds. So, I had another six that needed to be built. I at least moved quickly to start assigning people beds inside it.
I’m freezing just looking at the ice and snow. A huge upgrade over these from the shelters they were living in is having a fire inside. That would keep them nice and warm. While not everyone got to live in here. It ended up making a huge difference. It also became clear I needed to build a second one.
Since I already learned my people could at least survive a night. Before it got too cold. I ended up destroying even more shelters and setting up space to build a second cottage.
At least this time around, we have one cottage already built. I had a place to put most of the now-displaced villagers. Only one would end up being left out in the cold while we worked on getting a second cottage up. That person had cold resistance as a perk, so it seems they did not mind as much.
It seemed like the entire village understood the task. The second one went up quite quickly. I’m not even sure how we managed to do it so fast. Perhaps many were just thrilled to be able to live in a cottage now, over our starter shelters. Either way, it allowed me to get back to more important matters.
Naturally, I'm talking about getting into the mine. A couple of days later, I was back inside with torches this time. I ended up placing a torch on a wall so I could see the tunnel I needed to clear.
There was a series of walls I ended up destroying to get into a chamber that I found in the mine. These cave walls ended up having some weak points where I could land some massive blows.
As each one fell, so too did some stone and ore. While there would be ore veins to mine as well. Those required a higher-tier pickaxe than I had. So far, I was left just mining cave walls, hoping for some iron.
While getting some ore was nice. I was quite far away from being able to use it. I’d need to get coal to smelt the ore. I’d need a building for the smelting. I’d then need a metal workshop to craft with the ore. I’d also need someone working the mine full-time as well.
Basically, I needed a lot more villagers. I also needed a few more buildings. All of which were not going to be cheap to build. So, while it felt like I was making some kind of progress, it would be a while to see it. At least I had another way to get lots of stone again.
After I broke down a few cave walls, I found myself looking into a chamber. A chamber filled with eggs and eyes looking right back at me. There were some creatures inside I had to fight off. This first chamber was not that bad. As the mine went deeper, there would be more challenges ahead.
I ended up staying down there in that mine so long that I was almost freezing to death by the time I came out. I ended up filling up some storage bins at the entry point to the mine. While it’s not a long run to the village, it’s not exactly ten steps either. At some point, I'd need to build a road, but the stones were needed elsewhere for the time being.
Next up, I started the process of getting some of the needed buildings placed down. One of them was the coal maker. It would end up using firewood. I had let so much firewood go to waste, as I had nowhere to store it.
Naturally, now that it was winter, we needed every scrap of firewood we could find. The only good thing is that, despite how annoyed it made me. I left quite a lot of tree trunks standing after cutting down trees. As the tree trunks yield firewood. It seemed like I'd be needing easy access to a bunch of it one day, and it turns out I was right sooner than I thought I'd be.
The amount of time I'd be able to spend on getting ore reprocessing up and running would end up getting put on hold for many reasons. That night alone, there was another blood moon. By this point, the nights were getting so cold that I had to be careful. It seems like I just had bad timing for wanting to do things!
While winter could not have come at a worse possible time. We at least managed to make some risks pay off. It was also about time I got to enjoy some mining in the sole thing that made me build in this area in the first place.
Screenshots were taken, and content was written by @Enjar about ASKA.
Disclosure: A review copy of the game was received for free.
Disclosure: This content was written during early access.
