294 7.22 Set Up A Crude Camp And A Small Trading Post.

After the 7 dwarfs had entered a mine shaft, that implies they would be working deep underground for quite some time. This would give us an opportunity to certainly find a spot suitable for us to make a camp.

There's a body of water marked on the map, and once the 7 dwarfs had entered the mineshaft for a good 10 minutes, we picked ourselves up and walked towards the stream where the 7 dwarfs had come from earlier.

We arrived there and unloaded our things on the ground first after discovering a rather shady part of the forest and set up a sanctuary to place our things underneath. The stream was surging downstream and there were noises on the surface of the water as the fishes leapt and capture the hovering insects.

"Good...! We now possess water and we have fishes too...and this stream is broad enough to have bountiful of fishes and it doesn't look excessively deep too. At most, it is up to our thighs at the deepest point. This would give me the idea that I would implement soon."

"Oh...I've pitched a shelter to put in our stuff underneath it. Would it be useful to hang our perishables in the trees so that it would not be plagued by ants and other bugs?"

"Sure...I help you out...." I answered back and went to our bags and pulled out all the contents. I separated the cooking ware and utensils aside and I took out the perishables and places them aside first. The 2 smoked chicken was then strung high on a low branch and all the vegetables were laid out agreeably on the shawl that I had been using.

"Prepare a fire Matilda, I'm going to cook 10 of these eggs so it would last longer and prevent any unexpected breakages. We could simmer some water and make some tea later."

She bobbed her head and began with the task at hand. We require a table to organise our stuff and I set off a short distance away to split some trees down. I've earned a few logs and I haul one into my Realm of Mind and break it down into 4 planks with the fusion chamber and logged off from my meditative state and returned to the real world.

I then grabbed another log and yanked into the realm of mind and threw it into the fusion chamber and select to make stools and I managed to get 3 stools about the height of my knee. Out of 1 stool, I split it into 4 pieces to make a stand for the low table. At least it's a start if something, rather than nothing at all.

.....

"How's the fire going, Matilda? You may boil some water first and prepare some tea while I create a table for us first." I asked as I returned to the shelter with the planks and 4 legs. I took a few nails and used the back of my axe to hammer those nails into a stick to hold two planks jointly to make a wider table. 3 sticks were being nailed across to construct it sturdier and I overturned it and drove the nails on the other side directly into the table's legs.

The table looked a bit precarious and I used some sticks and fastened it diagonally across the legs and now it's perfect...! I positioned the table aside and positions all the other garnishing onto it. Next, I carried the two tree trunks that were prepared into stools and plops it on the ground.

"Waaahhhh...you're more productive than my Guide Master...you could set up a table in minutes."

"This is nothing, really, as long as you don't sit on it would be just fine. It is just a temporary place for us to park the foodstuff and eat. Furthermore, I wondered if those 7 dwarf miners would be willing to trade with us or not, but it would be worth a try."

"The water for the tea and eggs had been boiled. Do you want the eggs to be boiled for 5 or 8 minutes?"

"Boil them for 5 and let it stand in the pot until the eggs cooled off. What would you be readying for dinner? We yet have daylight and we could mine some iron and coal."

"Our camp looks tidy enough. I haven't think of preparing what for dinner. There's a plank here, could I nail it on the tree and make a kind of holder to hang the pots and pans as well as a stand to put our bowls and utensils?"

"It's a great idea... it is better than leaving them lying around. Our 2 smoked chicken is hanging just above us in a nice, sealed sack so no flies would be hovering and the smoked fish are being kept inside one of the pots here."

I helped Matilda to nail a plank across the tree trunk where our table was and used some nails as hooks for our pots and pans and also used nails as stands to place our utensils on it. The whole setup is very crude, but it serves the purpose very well.

.....

"These protruding mines looked the same to me except for some minerals deposit on it's top here. Other than that, it would be a normal stone mine, right?"

"Yeah...that's right..." I replied as I began to swing my pickaxe on a stone mine to retrieve some flints. I left the rocks aside as I do not seem to have any use for it. After a while, I discovered that the stone mines failed to respawn if the resources were not collected and I asked Matilda to collect them...which she gleefully did.

"This girl is so naive...she would just collect any resources without thinking of its uses at all." I thought to myself as I picked at some stone mines and collected just the flints. As for Matilda, she just picked at any mines and collected all the resources since she had a better storage bag than mine.

Actually mining these stone mines is one way to keep her mouth shut and keep her occupied. Or else she would neither make a conversation or simply continuously munching...!! I wonder if excessive snacking would turn up in places like her hips and bum. Definitely, I won't want to have a wife to be with a fat rounded bum and wider hips. Hahahaha.

I soon realised that mining also would boost one's experience level and not only based solely on the equipment that we used. Same goes to chopping trees down, for instance. Not bad...at least from an Unknown skill level, it should be increased to Basic or Intermediate soon...!

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After mining the area for quite some time and discovering that there were no iron deposits to be found, we moved to another spot further away from our encampment and we discovered just 4 iron mines and choose 2 each for ourselves and waited for it to respawn after 2 minutes. Unlike stone mines, it would respawn almost immediately. We got iron nuggets and occasional coal, stones and flint alternately.

My storage bag was almost filled up with iron nuggets, coal and flints and I decided to slow down as I decide to dispose of all these items in the Realm of Mind later on. I would need to visualise some storage crates to store all these pieces together as well as Matilda's.

"Hey...how much space have you got on your storage bag? I myself have a few spaces left and don't think I would be able to continue if I don't do anything about it soon."

"I still got a long way to go. I have used up 2 slots full of stones and the rest are coal, flint and some iron nuggets which are about 25% full. Let me know if you want to stop. It seems I could use a single stroke to break the stone mines and 5 times to hit the iron ones. Earlier it was 8 times."

"Ah yeah..you seemed to have improved on your gathering resources. It means you had sort of level up. It would soon be like a single strike to gather resources from iron mines."

"Waahhh...is that even possible to level up from mining? That's pretty cool...I could go on for hours on these mines. If you want to take a break, just go ahead. Don't mind me at all. I'm enjoying every minute of it...!" she giggled happily as she continues to swing her pick at the iron mines as she gathered every piece of known resources available.

"Doesn't this girl ever gets tired at all...?" I gawked at her and discovers that she didn't even grab a break after mining the stones and began to mine the iron ones subsequently.

.....

We were sipping tea back at our encampment when we heard the merry singing of the 7 dwarf miners earlier, echoing from the depths of the mine shaft. "Damn...! That mine shaft is sure deep and dark and filled with crawly insects and bugs...Ewwww...dont expect me to be in that creepy place, Robin...!"

I looked at her and chuckled. She would easily slash the BOSS's throat and pierce the underside of the chin with her sword and she's afraid of hairy worms and creeping insects. Hahahahahaha... she's really unbecoming an adventurer in this way. Hahahaha...!

"Look...here's the plan..." I whispered to her of what we are going to do when the 7 dwarf miners arrive at our location, en route to where they would be heading back.

.....

The 7 dwarf miners slowed down when they reached our encampment and saw that somehow it was not present during the day when they had come passed down the path. I was missing behind a tree while Matilda was tasked to boil some more water to simmer some tea.

"Oh...hello there, strangers...would you join me for a freshly brewed cup of tea? My...you looked awfully tired and would deserve a cup to warm yourselves and quench your thirst." Matilda gestures to the dwarfs as she set a kettle aside after dumping a tablespoon of tea leaves and several heaps of sugar.

"Don't mind if we do, Missy...how long have you been here and are you mining as well?" one of the dwarfs with a pair of glasses on his nose asked as he eyed a pickaxe lying nearby.

"There's nothing but stones and some iron mines here. There are some tin and copper mines up on the mountainside about an hour's hike from here." said one of the dwarfs as he took a bronze mug from underneath his clothes and he had a dopey look on his face.

"So what are you mining here for? Any luck on discovering new mines out here?" asked another with a rather grumpy face and a fairly large nose too big for his face.

From my position, I immediately recognised these fictional characters and if I'm not wrong, they had a few brushes with the law (the Queen, I reckon) as well. These dwarfs could venture deep inside a Mineshaft with little or no light and with little oxygen too. I watched as Matilda had poured the tea for them and were settling around her at the fireplace.

I sneaked slowly and showed myself in front of them and remarked, "Well...well...well...what we do we have here? 7 dwarfs and without their princess around..."