With all the moss and leaves on the ground, and the dirt being as hard as it is, it really isn't very easy to track footprints. I haven't seen... hehe, literally, I guess, hide nor hair of the scalewolves. I knew they were out here somewhere, but I don't know where. I had my children break off into groups of two and three, in hopes of finding them faster.

After more than half a day, we still didn't find anything. However, looking through each of their own perspectives, I was able to better learn the shape of the forest. It was odd- it was almost like the landscape outside the forest matched up with each other, but the forest itself didn't fit anything... Think of say, a house. Cut the house in half. Now open up the world by fifty miles and put in a desert. It was that sort of idea- but that couldn't happen, could it? Then again, this was a world of magic and monsters, so maybe it was.

Did that mean that the forest I spawned in was just part of my own spawning, and wasn't there before? It would explain that clay doorway in the tunnel. Before my thoughts could get distracted again, Shore found something and called my attention mentally. Good boy!

It was a book. A book was laying under a bush... but though I didn't know the jumi written language, if they even had one, I doubted it belonged to them. Especially not if I was right on my current thought! After I got up to him, I picked up the book and it felt... wrong. It was too light, but made a sound. I opened it.

What? This was one of those fake books that looked like a book but it was really a box with a secret compartment! Inside were little green seed-lookin' things. A couple were brown. The brown ones were hard. I'm sure I recognized them... so I picked out a hard brown seed and smashed it against a tree with a rock after putting the book down.

I smelled it. It was coffee! I knew it! I knew I recognized these! Okay, fat bespectacled office lady. If this was a present, then thank you! I wonder if that +1 seed pod was from her too. Maybe none of this stuff was? Not like I'd find out. I hadn't seen or talked to her in quite awhile now, and doubted I would again.

If the book only just spawned as we found it, or it was here to begin with, I don't know. If it was here anyway, then there probably wouldn't be much time to get these seeds properly prepared to grow stuff, but then the other seed pod probably had the same traits? We were working on an expansion at this exact moment, so I guess it's fine. I would need to maybe design an airtight stone egg-carton-like thing to label and store seeds though. I'll do that later.

Cletus found something. This time it was a small amount of fur on a particularly stabby-looking white-barked bush. That must be from a scalewolf! I mean, right? Nothing else was out here besides insects, I think. Come to think of it, if the forest just spawned, then what does that mean of the origin of scalewolves? I'll have to ask the jumi.

Lyre was actually the one to spot the wolves themselves, but they weren't anywhere near that somewhat familiar-looking bush. They were asleep. It was getting dark, so I guess it was about that time... but then that meant on the way back, scaries would wake up and start attacking. Dang, I should have paid more attention to what time it was. Then again, if we only were out for a few hours a day, we probably wouldn't get to learn anything at all.

I started over her direction, but it would be a few hours until I got there. I called everyone else to go to her too.

...

I remembered how dangerous these things were. I wondered if my children would be able to see my memories of my fight if I remembered it hard enough, but I wasn't sure if it would work. After trying for awhile, they just looked confused. I'm not sure whether that meant it worked or not.

We had them surrounded. If they weren't so aggressive, and also asleep, then this would all be a really bad, and probably immoral idea. But we also needed food, and these things were made of it. We could always eat the jumi, or deforest the place and let the Yuck convert the wood into food, but it wasn't just about not starving to death without the ability to feel hunger. It was about defending my children and whatever visitors we might have. We couldn't let our home get overrun with monsters while we were out completing quests for the jumi villagers I had yet to meet.

I started to sneak up to the creatures, hoping for a good sneak attack to something's head, but it didn't work. Their senses were too good; though I guess I should already know that. As it woke up, the ears of the others began to perk. There was no time to waste! I rushed at the one I picked out, and started swinging wildly. I'm not a talented swordsman. Well, I didn't have a sword. I had a dirty stick. Stickman? No, that's a trope.

Luckily the other drider picked up on what I was doing, and started to attack as well. I'm just glad we were able to surround them- there were a good twenty something of them, but we were wider. In a fight, or at least one like this, it only really meant that we were able to be attacked that much more, but we could counter each other's sizes with our own weaponry and agility. Everyone knew how fast spiders could be. But we also had human intelligence, weapons, poison, and teamwork. The wolves had teamwork too, but...

The details of the fighting didn't matter. We were able to win, but almost everyone was injured. Almost everyone, because Malas didn't get attacked at all. Well, he did get attacked, but the scalewolves jumping at him just passed through his body like he wasn't there. I'm going to have a serious talk with him! Something like that happened against the tax collector, too.

I don't know exactly what I did to unlock it, but I heard a ding when I was hitting a wolf when there were already little dustclouds around it. I called up the ding, and it said: