Yawning and stretching from snout to tail causes some quite satisfying popping sounds. That feels wonderful~ Waking up is surprisingly easy now, I don't have to untangle myself from the blankets or find where my pillows are hiding! All I have to do is climb out of bed and~

*Wumpth*

Shake the dust off! Watching the dust settle I walk to the entrance to look at the rain. Hopefully it stops soon because it's starting to feel like I'm living in gloom.

Rhymed again~!

Yep, still drizzling... I may as well get used to it at this point. Walking over and drinking out of my now overflowing basin something catches my attention out of my peripheral.

The sock of filth is gone.

From off the top of my layer of alarms...

Slowly and calmly I walk back into my lair before turning around looking around the entrance for anything I could have missed. Nothing has changed since I threw it onto my alarm pile except for the rocks it was resting on...

If there is something sneaky enough to get across my alarms without a sound I could potentially die in my sleep.

Let's hope it was a bird.

Now that my cheerful morning mood is dead and buried I should get back to walking towards the mountains and leave this nightmare inducing lair behind. Goodbye lair three! You won't be missed.

Thoroughly unnerved I can't help but keep watching my surroundings for movement... I really do hope that it was just a bird.

What else could it be!? I mean... maybe a snake? I haven't seen any but they should be able to survive around here... maybe? Let's just hope it was a very quiet bird...

My next lair will definitely have a door otherwise I'm probably not going to be able to sleep tonight... How am I even supposed to make a door? Stone panels? That could work if I can layer them together...

If I'm going to be carving stuff everyday I'll just spend an hour or two after I'm set up for the night sharpening my claws, I'm just crushing and grinding with my claws currently. My tail needs to be sharpened too! It's just been used as a club and for crushing gravel! You sharpen by grinding the edge against a wet stone right? It can't be that difficult to do.

Well... Guess it's time for more walking in the rain. Yay!

I think I might nearly be there? So it would have been dark before I got to the forests edge because it's been at least five hours since I left the nightmare lair... Hopefully I don't have much further to walk because the hills have stopped showing up as frequently...

Wait... Until now I've been making lairs in hills by digging into them...

Where will I find a hill in a pine forest?

I really didn't think this through did I? Maybe I can just dig a burrow or den like rabbits and wolves?

Nope. Not happening.

I will make a lair and put those pale imitations to shame! Vive le lair! I shall have cavernous rooms that have been carved to perfection! Awe will be impressed upon any who witness my stone working talents! They will see the home I have carved for myself and see all other underground spaces as inferior to my works of art! I will create a monument that will be known as a wonder of the world! All will come to bear witness to its splendour!

On second thoughts I'll just make it hidden and enjoy my own creation...

At least now I have a plan for how to proceed. To craft a large underground room you require three important things. Ventilation, structural support and meticulous planning. Luckily I happen to be highly skilled when it comes to meticulous plans...

I was so lost in thought that I almost walked into a pine tree that makes a redwood envious... I need to stop walking while making plans because one day it's going to cause a problem that will likely be terminal...

These trees are freaking ginormous! How long have they been growing to get this big? Walking around the trees trunk almost makes me want to give up on my lair. I'm pretty sure I could dig into this thing and live as a squirrel!

One nervous glance at the branches later and I'm even more sure of my plan.

Looking for a good spot to dig down all I can find is forest scrub, shrubbery and VERY large needles.

Pretty sure pine needles are edible.

Pretty sure.

I've had them in tea before at least?

Now that I think about it, there are lots of edible plants I can try and forage for! Flowers and mushrooms should be easy enough to grow too! If I can get some meat I will have a fairly balanced diet!

Hopefully I can find something that works as a coffee substitute. Eventually I'm going to start craving it and that always ends well.

There doesn't seem to be any problem with digging down right now apart from potentially hitting tree roots but I can work around that. Aka push them out of the way of my tunnel.

Starting to dig immediately causes me to find roots.

Pushing the roots aside I restart my attempt.

Promptly finding more roots.

Pushing those roots aside leads to a fascinating discovery...

More roots.

I'm detecting a pattern here...

Can I cut them? Clenching my claws into the root starts to grind into the twisted fibres and the... bark? What is the skin of a root called? Anyway, the stuff is rather durable and will take too long to just grind through with my current claws.

I guess I'm going to need to sharpen my claws now...

Making the finger clicking gesture and repeatedly attempting to click causes the material my claws are made of to practically slide apart into fine slivers... Picking one up and looking at its edge causes some surprise as I can't exactly see the edge... it's basically invisible! Well whatever, back to sharpening my claws! Rapidly making the finger snap motions with each individual claw causes a small pile of the claw layers to build up at my feet. Let's see how sharp the edge is! Attempting to grab a root causes me to pull my claw back leaving neatly sliced chunks of root behind...

Maybe I over did it? Oh well. Digging into the rich forest loam causes me to pull up dirt and root chunks instead of the roots stopping me like my previous attempts. This stuff is going to be amazing when I start a garden because it's essentially a plants equivalent to gold, plants can't get enough of the stuff! All I need is fertilizer and I'm...

Ah. I think I have that covered...

Well that can wait until I have my garden set up. I'm getting quite deep now and there is still a ton of roots holding everything together. It's almost like concrete reinforcement! Actually... do I always need to make a lair in stone? I mean this is a rather sturdy material to make a temporary lair in right? It feels wrong but so what! I'm just going to move deeper into the pines in the morning anyways!

I will just set a bedroom up and get a bed made before crafting a door. Since these trees are so large they probably wouldn't mind me borrowing some bark to use as a door and some bowls! Pretty sure the bark might be edible too now that I think about it... If I can't find anything else I guess I'll have bark for lunch.

It took me a while to notice but the rain isn't getting through the canopy very well. There's the occasional large drop but it's mostly traveling down the tree trunks or coming down heavily through the breaks in the branch layers. Having the rain blocked from coming straight down the lairs entrance is rather nice!

Now that the bedroom is dug out and the bed has been hollowed I need to collect some pine needles and bark. The pine needles should work as a suitable replacement for stone dust and I can make a door and some bowls for whatever I can find to eat using the pine bark. If I can't find anything I might just eat the bed and the bowls!

*Gao*

WHAT THE FUCK!?

The instant I poked my head out the entrance I had something hard smack across my head. If it's squirrels I freaking called it!

I can't see anything... there's so many overlapping branches it's impossible to see anything up there. What even hit me?

*Thunk*

Looking down was a mistake.

Looking back at the branches I feel around with a claw and toss the offending objects into my lair while backing inside slowly. Seems whatever it is won't attack while I'm looking.

Inspecting the projectiles immediately throws me for a loop since they look like scaly eggs. But cutting one open quickly proves that wrong since a small flow of dry seeds poured out. The seeds of the trees maybe? Pretty sure pine seeds are also edible? I'm getting the feeling that the sight and smell of pine will make me feel nauseous soon...

*Thwack*

SERIOUSLY!? WHAT KIND OF ANGLE WAS THAT!?

Ok, time to get a door!

Running out of my lair to rip off some bark immediately gets me pelted with tree nuts.

Trying to rip the bark off isn't working as it just comes away in shreds. Let's just shave it off!

Digging my claw in sideways I start to work a large section of bark off the tree causing the smell of pine resin to fill the air. Incidentally the amount of nuts hitting me has increased.

Dragging my newly freed section of bark over my head I stumble back into my lair kicking more than a few nuts in through the process.

Now that the entrance is blocked by the bark it sounds just like heavy rain...

I HATE rain!

Let's just wait for it to stop before leaving...

Finally, It was starting to seem like the sounds would never end. My head is killing me! That could just be from eating the seeds actually... Not that I'm going to stop eating them! These things are like chewy cereals!

Well it's time to get some of those pine needles if I want a somewhat comfy bed tonight.

Pushing against my impromptu door causes a small tide of seed pods to pour down the ramp to my lair. How many got thrown at me!? Hopefully I'm not being watched anymore...

I really shouldn't bother looking up because I never see anything up there.

After collecting fallen pine boughs and needles for my bed which has now reached adequate comfort levels I'm kind of thirsty... Guess it's time to get some wood.

Heading towards the tree that I peeled the bark off, I can see a thick layer of pine resin coating the inner bark. Hopefully this stuff isn't as sticky as some of the pines from earth... I wonder what this place is even called? It's probably translated into "the ground" or "dirt" anyway.

Digging into the tree to get some good carving wood causes the smell of pine to fill the air once again. It's a nice smell until you get used to it.

*Crack*

Oh fuck.

*Boom*

Jumping to my left and tossing my wood chunk towards the lair I narrowly avoided getting crushed by a large bough that looks like it's been chewed off the tree.

Yeah... nope.

Sprinting towards my lair and kicking the wood hunk in the correct direction, I dive inside and drag my new project with me pulling my bark door overhead. Immediately after the bark was back in place the rain started again with occasional thunder.

Aka chewed off branches...

What the hell lives up there!?