Wake to a New Day

by Gardenkeeper

Summary:

Stardew Valley is an eldritch place, but in a good way. A happy way. You’ll never want to leave. You’ll never leave, but you’ll never grow old, never grow ill, only spend long days farming in the sun, in the valley that takes care of all of your needs, often before you know you need them. Trust the manual. Believe in the Journal. Don’t ask about Abigail’s teeth. You’re moving to the valley…..

Chapter 1: The Last Day

And you wake in a new mood. Fey and wild and uncertain. Still depressed, of course. That never goes. But now: something else, too.

Outside, the Joja Oaks Bedroom Community bustles in the dawn air. Bodies move in lit windows. No one can afford to be late. You want to lie here, to savour the mood, to wonder what is different. The fluorescent light on the white walls, the Joja wall-light bright in the kitchenette, the blue poster on the back of your door, proclaiming SMILE! You’re with JOJA! None of this is different. Your plant under the windowsill – not allowed, of course, not according to regulation, but if you keep it out of the Morrises’ sight, you’re alright – spiking up hungrily toward where the sun would come in. None of this is different.

Your JojaAlarm goes off again.

You rise, hit it, stand. You go to the bathroom, then stand before the mirror. Something. Something different.

Joja! Happy Grits! in the microwave, and then in your mouth, crunchy and bland as usual. Your Joja uniform where it was delivered through the doorslot, clean and starched so stiff it presses the back of your neck. Who uses starch on a polo shirt? Already, outside, footsteps clang by on the metal grille walkway beside your door.

You stop by the bathroom once more, look into the mirror. Finger your hair. Then you turn and go out the door.

 ~:~

Into the cubes, to sit down at your desk. The green WORK light blinks bright before you, the fluorescents a hundred cold suns. The Morrises observing through the great glass panes. The floor tiles, bizarrely, just a little bit off-kilter from the mathematical precision of everygoddamnthing else. On the cadmium-grey wall: Life’s Better With Joja.

You sit. The camera above your cube watches you. You turn on your computer. The camera above your cube watches you. You wait for Jojaccounts to load. The camera above your cube watches you.

Jojaccounts is loaded. You can’t bring yourself to open it.

You sit.

The camera above your cube watches you.

You want to reach out. But the mouse is too far away, and that’s too much work.

You try to summon the day’s data entry to mind. Where you left off. What you have to get done.

Who cares, anymore?

Who cares about any of this? Joja’s going to turn a profit either way. If you don’t do this, someone else is going to. If you don’t move soon, one of the Morrises will announce your name into the mics, or send you a message, something to Make Sure You’re Not Slacking!. You can’t not do anything.

You can’t not… do … anything.

If you did nothing, what would that be? Just more of this.

You think back to that wild, fey mood. What if you did something terrifying? You could. You could kill yourself. You could kill a Morris. You could kill Lickin’ Woody, who won’t stop licking his goddamn lips two cubes back.

None of that’s right. None of that is what this mood wants. Violence fits fine with Joja. They’ll just give you pills. JojaMeds. Then send you to a JojaCare Facility. Life’s Better With Joja. A Morris would, eventually, send you a get well card. Joja would be with you always, he would remind you. Joja cares for you. SMILE! You’re with Joja!

You could leave Joja.

The camera above your cube watches you.

You remember the letter.

 ~:~

As you stand, one of the Morris’ voices comes on the PA: “Worker X2300, the bathroom break is not for another twelve minutes. You need to stop crying and sit back down. Your daily productivity has already suffered. Consider this your first warning.”

You almost do. You almost do.

“Worker X2300, if you’re experiencing an emergency you need to submit Emergency Leave Form I149, easily located in the Forms folder on your desktop. As we have not received this form, you will not be considered to be experiencing an emergency, and you will be docked pay dating back to the beginning of your loss of productivity this morning. Consider this your second warning.”

You grip the letter. Freedom is here in your hand.

“Worker X2300, this is your final warning. If you leave this room, you will not receive this month’s paycheck, and your retirement payout will be pushed back a further year.”

After the door clicks behind you, you wipe your eyes with your shoulder, which is like wiping your eyes on absorbant cardboard. You turn toward the door, not sure how to begin. The problem, however, is solved for you: a wall-panel slides back, and a Morris steps out.

“Worker X2300, we need to discuss your insubordination. Come with me.”

You tell him you quit.

“You can’t be serious. Come with me.”

You hold the letter in both hands. You quit.

The Morris looks at you. “Ah, I see. You’re really going to make this rash, impulsive decision, aren’t you?”

You are.

The Morris considers what would be the best way to interact with you. He doesn’t seem to have programming for this situation. “Hm. It sounds like you’re stressed. Go back to your bedroom. We’ll send along some JojaMeds for stress soon.” He checks something. “It seems like you’ve also been suffering from lack of appetite and insomnia as well. We’ll send along JojaMeds for each of these ailments. We’re sorry you’ve been feeling this way. No one should ever feel bad. But we’ll take care of you. You’re part of the Joja Family, where we take care of everyone!”

He says nothing else, just watches you, waiting for you to leave.

 ~:~

You read the letter over as you walk. You read the letter over and over again. This is it. This is your way out.

Here as you walk – here’s a JojaMart Mini. You swing in.

The same anodyne walls and floor and cold suns of any Joja facility. Every Joja facility has the same things. Thus: you know exactly where to go.

You select one object from the shelf, bring it to the checkout, and request a withdrawal. The exhausted clerk asks how much.

All of it.

The clerk widens her eyes, excited at the novelty. “All – like wait, all your money?”

Yes. And convert it to Ferngill gold.

This is some juicy tea. The clerk knows what this means. She starts punching buttons. “All – oh man, all of it! That’s crazy. You gotta fill out MU45-6, if you can–”

You do.

“And sign-”

You do that too.

“And – and it says there’s a six-day waiting session – ah, wait, no, it looks like you’ve been here for twelve years? Oh my god, I’m so sorry. No waiting session. Nope. An – oh, shit. Shit, it looks like JojaCred tanked, in relation to Ferngill gold. Yo- oh fuck. Miss …. Miss Sophie?”

She looks up at you. You, amazed at hearing your name out of the mouth of someone not related to you, stare back.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It looks like you only have a thousand gold withdraw limit. And they just put a freeze on your –”

You swallow.

“I think you need to go. I think you need to go, now.”

 ~:~

You do. You don’t even stop at your bedroom. There’s nothing there for you. All you’ve got is all you have with you: a thousand gold, the letter, and the deed to your grandfather’s farm. Your fingers are sweating, lines marked on the paper, but you can’t let it go.

The Joja Megacomplex is huge, but you’ve been here twelve years, and you know the fastest ways between buildings. Your JojaCrocs scuff quietly on the cement walks; everything around you is burning white and blue and grey in the beating sun. It’s barely the beginning of spring, but it’s so hot here! You’re running with sweat, you’re walking fast, turning corner and corner in these endless workhouses –

- and here. An exit. Morrises guarding it.

You walk toward it.

The Morrises come stand before you. Not blocking the exit – the drive-guard is down, but there’s plenty of room.

You walk toward it, waiting for anything. Anything could happen. They could call security. Spikes could come up from the road. Those great doors could slide closed, leaving you in here.

“Worker X2300. It seems like you’re trying to leave us. Why would you do that?”

You stop. They stop before you.

“You know Life’s Better With Joja. Why are you leaving?”

“She took out all her JojaCred. That’s the mark of someone desperate.”

“She was insubordinate, ignoring orders and making a scene with her crying. That’s the mark of someone dangerous.”

“She’s refusing to listen. She’s adding years to her work time.”

“She’s refusing to take her meds. Does she want to be crazy?”

“She does, it looks like. Here we have a mentally ill worker. She needs rest, and care, if you ask me.”

“I think she does. Worker X2300, why don’t you turn around? You can rest here. We’ll care for you.”

“We’ll make sure you get everything you need.”

“Food.”

“Shelter.”

“Money.”

“Why don’t you just turn around?”

Why don’t you? Here’s the letter. You’ve read it over. They look down at it.

“Oh, she thinks she’ll be able to make it out there.”

“She thinks she’ll be able to work on grandpa’s farm.”

They’d read the letter?! Of course they had. It’s been in the desk drawer, all these years.

“She’s delusional.”

“She’s an idiot.”

“She’s a city girl, soft and unsuited for farm work.”

“She’s unstable. She’s running away at the first sign of difficulty.”

“She’s not going to be able to do it.”

“She’s worthless.”

“But here at Joja…”

“Yes, here at Joja, even the most useless can be made use of.”

“Even idiots can type.”

“Even unstable, incapable girls can make a pretty penny, if they stay their allotted time and retire when they’re allowed.”

“And that is a pretty penny. Think of all the things you can buy once you’re retired.”

Once you’re sixty-five – and that’s with good behavior! Joja: You’re here for life! You start walking again.

They close on you, not fast, but walking closer, nearing as you near the exit.

“She’s still going. What a waste.”

“She could’ve been something, here.”

“Not willing to put in the work.”

“She’s just going to fail out there, then come crying back to us.”

“And will we take her?”

“Of course we will. Joja can find work for anyone.”

“No one else would want her.”

“No one else would.”

You’re passing the drive-guard. They still haven’t laid a hand on you.

“Or should we? If she’s so determined to leave us…”

“Yes, with no money, and going to some Yobaforsaken boondocks…”

“Just watch. She’ll come back begging.”

“We’ll have to think about if she’s worth letting in, after that.”

“Oh, but she’ll know. She’ll know we’re the only ones who’ll take her.”

“Let her go, then. Let her make her mistakes.”

“That’s the only way they’ll learn.”

“She’ll figure it out, after all.”

“Yes: Life’s better with Joja.”

You’re past. You’re through. You’re out.

 ~:~

You follow the street. This is the megacorp sector of Zuzu City, and all around you are tall white walls, barbed wire, slogans.

VIKE: JUST DOES IT!

MCDUNNALS: YOU LIKE IT

BADONKDONK DONKNUTS: FERNGILL RUNS ON DONK DONK

You don’t have money for donknuts. You have just enough money for one thing. You head to the bus depot.

The place has hidden its buses underground: a maze of hallways, dark cement corridors, wide open turns so huge you get lost among the lines on the floor. People rushing to and fro. You find a kiosk, find a seller, ask for one ticket – the cheapest they have – to Stardew Valley.

It takes 500 of your gold.

And you have an hour to wait. That’s alright. You find the bus. It’s waiting there, a few people on it already. You walk past it and go into a bathroom.

Here, out of your pocket, you pull the battered box of hair dye. If you’re going to start a new life, you want to be a new self. You fill the sink with water, read the directions, follow them. It’s messy, and by the end of it, your Joja uniform is marked and spotted, your collar is flat and wet against your neck, and you’ve got a small crowd of women watching, livestreaming what you’re doing. One of them has lent you a pair of scissors. Another has given you a comb. All of them seem to understand. Various corporate uniforms in the crowd. You finish, and grab paper towels, and wash your hands – which gets rid of the smell, but leaves your hands as colored as they were – and unplug the sink, and stand straight up.

You look at that person in the mirror. Yes – this is who you want to be.

 ~:~

You get off the bus, walking past another one that seems to just be sitting, broken-down, in the road. The clear valley air so bright and alive in your lungs that you feel drunk, like you’re breathing too deeply. The mountains bright and clear above you, sun setting behind them, sky bright and clear with the last light of the day.

Before you, a sweet-faced woman, a little older than you. She introduces herself, gives you the basics, and brings you to the farm.

The place opens out before you, a weed-ridden, tree-filled area – clearly a former clearing, but scrub trees and weeds as tall as your ribs have taken over. You can see water sparkling in the middle distance; a broken-down building off behind those shrubs. Here, a farmhouse, the smell of fresh wood in the air.

It’s … yours.

It’s all yours. This mess of a garden, this open wide space. These weeds - they’re yours. These trees too. This house! This house is your own!

Robin can see you’re overwhelmed, but not why. “What’s the matter?” she grins. “Sure, it’s a bit overgrown, but there’s some good soil underneath that mess!” She says some more reassuring things, and you have no way to tell her.

She brings you to the farmhouse, still introducing things, but you can tell she’s itching to ask – and, with perfect timing, the Mayor appears. He and Robin banter - it’s clearly a game, they’re both such cheerful people – how are you going to fit into a place like this? You, with five hundred gold to your name, who can’t manage to talk to people because it’s emotionally exhausting, who’s never been out to a farm before, who forgot her own plant in her Joja bedroom, so that some Morris could take it away and destroy it!

“Anyway,” Mayor Lewis says, oblivious to your actual emotions, “You must be tired from the long journey. You should get some rest.” Robin looks at you, but you compose yourself long enough for the mayor to give you a few more instructions, then excuse himself. “Well, good luck!” he tells you cheerfully, and wanders off, not looking back.

Robin starts to follow. She hesitates. “You know, we live up here, just around the backwoods there.” She points to a hole in the trees you wouldn’t’ve noticed. “You’re always welcome to visit us, you know. It can get pretty lonely up here in the mountains.”

You pause. She might listen. She looks like she might. But – you can’t.

You nod, and thank her, and wave her off. You take one last look at your farm – your farm! – and go into the house. It’s one room. No bathroom, no kitchen, no laundry, not even a dresser for clothes, but you’ve got a TV. Country life is incomprehensible.

The pale sky shines through the two windows – one in front, one in back - but you’re more tired than you’ve ever been in your life. Is the depression there? You probe at your feelings like you would a sore tooth. Are you there? Are you alright?

You’re not sure. But you’re free, and you’re here.

You don’t even take your clothes off, but fall into bed, and fall asleep.

 ~:~

And wake to a new day.

Chapter 2: The First Day: In Which You Begin to Learn The Work of Keeping a Farm

And you wake to a new day.

You wake feeling more refreshed than you’ve ever felt in your life. You’ve never had this much energy before. Or maybe you have, in some long, distant past, when you played outside with your cousins among the trees and groves of Fair Crossings, the Zuzu Suburb, laughing and running and swimming in the creek … but not recently, not since you’ve grown up. Not since you started working at Joja.

It’s like you can feel the strength of your limbs crying out to be used. You want to run, and jump, and dance, and play, and do things! Today is a new day! You tumble out of bed, ready!

And the spell is broken.

It’s not that you’re unhappy, now, rather that there’s a clarity. You’re awake, but not magically awake. You’re just … up.

Well, time to do things.

There’s precious little in the cabin. Table, chair, fireplace, rug, plant. A tiny picture of a tiny tree. A little bowl and … what are these, chopsticks? These are really short chopsticks. Both made of ceramic, but the chopsticks have wooden ends. A TV, on a TV stand – but it’s one of those old TVs, like from twenty-thirty years ago. You find it cute – all the Joja TVs were top-of-the-line, the most modern possible thing.

And a box.

It’s a largish box, maybe up to your knee, brown cardboard crossed with duct tape. A little note written on the cardboard:

Here’s a little something to get you started.
- Mayor Lewis

It looks like he wrapped it up like he was going to mail it. Maybe he didn’t get to the post office and just decided to hand-deliver it? Was this even here yesterday? You don’t remember, but whatever. You pick at the duct tape, which takes a surprising amount of fingernail power, until you get the thing open.

Inside, the large box is completely empty.

You peer in. No, wait, here, in one corner. A little folded packet. You reach in and grab it, and have an immediate compulsion to hold the packet over your head. The box, meanwhile, melts into the ground.

Wait, what the fuck was that?

The wood where the box was is clean and unmarked. You lower the packet in your hand and look at it. A hand-drawn picture of a parsnip. That is the fattest parsnip you have ever seen. You only know it’s a parsnip because it has “p a r s n i p” scrawled laboriously across the back, in letters like someone right-handed using their left hand to write.

You shake the packet. Rattle rattle. Look inside. Seeds! Parsnip seeds!

Still doesn’t explain the melting box, but oh well. Go outside and plant? You glance through the window. Probably a good idea to grab some tools, right? Also, where’s that music coming from?

TV’s off. Is it entirely off? You go over and inspect it. Push the button. Oh – that turned it on, and it looks like there’s three channels. Yoba, that is so rural. Joja Oaks had at least seven. Alright, let’s see – KOZU 5 seems to be the weather channel, nothing remarkable there. Cute weather guy. Fortune teller? These country people.

Ah… I sense a new viewer has joined us. A young lady from… Stardew Valley? Welcome, welcome!

…she was definitely showing off. She couldn’t know about you. It’s just mathematical probability at play: pick “lady,” “man,” or “person,” and you have a one in three – well, actually, “person” covers both so a ….. whatever, point is this was your usual horoscope stuff, with vague wordings and a hope you wouldn’t notice the man behind the curtain. Definitely that.

The spirits are in good humour, whatever that means, but you notice the oracle holds the little floating pyramid over her head. Maybe that’s a thing here.

Last one, Livin’ Off The Land, just seems to be a country life sort of channel. It just happens to be giving advice to greenhorns right now, which is nice – chop wood and search for wild forage, probably useful – but then adds,

And look under your TV for a special manual! No, not the TV Manual, silly! This one should help you get started!

Then starts listing crop prices in the Greater Southern Coast Area. Looks like it doesn’t have any more advice for newbies, which is a shame, but at least that’s something to get you started.

You turn off the TV – music’s still going, somewhere, kind of catchy – and lean down to the bottom drawer of the TV stand. There’s the manual alright. Big hefty thing, like a phonebook. You lug it out, then go over to the table to sit and read.

GETTING STARTED

Welcome to Stardew Valley, New Farmer! Welcome to this place of peace and plenty, this sanctuary of Ferngill, this idyllic new home-away-from-home that is your new home! We’re hoping you’ll love it here – you’ll find it hard to leave, so why not make the best of it? (It’s only hard to leave because the bus is broken down! Haha! That was not a threat.)

Now, if you’re from anywhere else, you might notice pretty soon that Stardew Valley is … different. Some things happen here because of, as I am told, a very high concentration of arcane properties imbued with etc etc, I’m not sure what that’s about, but there’s magic and stuff. But only selective magic. There’s also thing that aren’t magic, but they’re pretty weird. You’ll notice that you have to hold things over your head a lot. Don’t fight it. It’s just one of the things that keeps our little valley running. We have to do it too.

Anyway, where was I! Oh, yes. You’re getting started here. Well, here’s a few things I should explain before anything else:

1. TAKE THIS MANUAL WITH YOU EVERYWHERE AT ALL TIMES. This is not optional. We all have one. All of our manuals are … different. This is yours.
2. At the back of this manual is a Journal, which will tell you what you must do. You may have come to Stardew Valley expecting that you can do whatever you want, or perhaps lost and uncertain, not knowing what you can do. Don’t worry. Set your worries aside. You’re safe here. The Journal will guide you. The Journal will remind you. The Journal will also pay you, sometimes. This is why we don’t mind the Journal.
3. Your tools are in your pockets.
4. Your bed is a wonderful place. In short, it is, and I am transcribing here, ‘a multifunctional piece of furniture imbued with mystic properties intended to regenerate health and energy at a rate unknown in the physical world.’ What this means is your bed is a magical charging station. DO NOT SPEND ALL DAY IN BED. This is not because it’s dangerous or anything. It’s just a waste of time.
5. Thus, addendum to above, only eat when you’re hungry. Your bed will provide you with all the nutrients you need as you sleep on a nightly basis, but when you’re away from your bed, you’ll expend energy and get hungry. How, you may ask, does your bed provide you with all the nutrients you need? I wouldn’t know. Ask the Wizard.
6. 6) Don’t ask about Abigail’s teeth.

Now, I think we’ve covered enough ground rules. Below are some of the common types of trees and weeds you’ll find in your farm…

You skim through the next section. It looks very useful. The Basics Section even has pictures of trees labeled “this is an oak,” “this is a maple,” “this is a pine,” and so on. You know a couple different kinds of trees, but flip forward into the Oak Details section – it looks like this area’s home to white oaks, red oaks, pin oaks, blackjack oaks, willow oaks, chestnut oaks …. You didn’t even know there were that many types of oaks! Too much, for right now. You take the manual and head outside.

Ah, fresh air! Bright spring morning! You hum along to the music – you’ve already got the tune stuck in your head – and look around cheerfully! Tall weeds with little white and blue and purple flowers, short weeds with long stems and little vines, big broken branches and long sticks, chunks of rock sticking out of the earth; scrub trees and full-grown trees with their leaves rustling in the wind and the sunshine!

It’s perfect. It’s perfect, and you love everything. You are so happy here.

Alright, time to plant these seeds! You reach into your pocket, and yes, there’s something in there…. A wooden handle? You pull. Something comes out. It’s huge. It’s a long, curved stick with a big curve of metal attached at the end. A scythe! You put the scythe down and go into your pockets again to look what else is there. Another handle. Grasp it, pull it out – pickaxe this time! Next is a regular axe, the type you chop wood with. Then a – this kind of straightened shovel thing. Finally, a good-size watering can.

How did all of these fit in your pockets? You try to consider the matter, but are distracted by the music stopping. Why did it stop? Oh well. Now you can hear the birds singing in the background; the gentle rush of wind through stems and leaves; in the middle distance, water lapping.

You don’t know how to use any of these tools.

You turn to the manual, flip through the contents. Tool Use For Beginners. Perfect. Take up the scythe, and follow the instructions:

1. adjust blade and nibs according to preference
2. standing straight, grasp the scythe by the upper and lower handles (or by the lower handle and the upper end of the shaft)
3. drawing your body back, sweep the scythe in an arc through the weeds, grass, or crops you wish to scythe

Simple enough. You grasp the upper handle – or nib - in your left hand, the lower in your right. You brace yourself, rear back – and cut nothing at all, stumbling forward and very nearly tripping over the sharpened blade.

It takes reading the Scything: Details page and angling your body like the pictures to get it right. No huge dramatic movements. No overbearing grasp. It’s a gentle movement, like sweeping but with more resistance. You scythe your way through the long weeds before your farm, and the weeds part cleanly from their stems, their bases thick where the roots meet the ground.

The hay looks untidy, not like the neat rows in the illustration. You gather a handful up, prickling your hands, and test something. Does this fit in your pocket? It does! All the weeds that you just cut just … fall into your pocket. You go back along the path you cut, picking up clumps of weeds and just sticking them in your pockets. It makes about as much sense as anything else. The music has started up again, and it’s nice. You’re so happy here.

Alright, time to plant those seeds! For real this time. You take out the packet, and the OCD need to hold it up hits again. Just doesn’t feel right unless you do. You hold it over your head for a sec, then lower it again and check the manual.

Planting Parsnips

Preparing Your Planting Ground

- Parsnips prefer full sun. It’s recommended to cut any trees too close to your planting ground.
- Soil must be turned 6-12in deep; all lumps and rocks removed. This is so that roots do not fork.
- Note: use a hoe to prepare your ground. (see: Using A Hoe.)

Planting

- Stardew Valley soil is extremely fertile; thus, plant without the intent to thin.
- This means you may plant your seeds directly in the earth, 3-4in apart, in rows 1.5-2ft apart.
- Parsnips will be ready to harvest in four days. Yes, four (4) days. I told you the soil was fertile. No pests, either. You’re going to love it here.

Preparing the ground, eh? Your mom always told you you’d end up with a hoe. Or as a hoe. You’re kind of vague on which – you left home and started at Joja right as soon as high school was done, so it’s been a few.

You read up on using a hoe – hot – and prepare a long patch of ground. The soil is dry and dusty, breaking easily under the hoe blade; weed roots cutting cleanly through and sweeping out of the way with the blade. These don’t look useful. You don’t put them in your pockets.

You follow the parsnip instructions, very carefully shaking out each individual seed into your palm and planting it with care, the exact depth and distance the book recommends. Just one long row with fifteen parsnip seeds in it. Everywhere else there’s rocks and branches and weeds and mess, but here – right here! – you’ve dug out a home these little plants are going to grow up in! You’re bursting with pride! You need to water these guys! You put the rest of your tools into your pockets, grab your watering can, and head toward the sound of water.

~:~

The pond is small and round, with the stumps of long-ago cut trees surrounding it; shoots rise up in rings around those stumps, showing the old dead trees not to be quite dead after all. Reeds rise up around the muddy edges of the water; you hear a frog go brrt, and, up in one of the spring shoots, a black bird with a bright red and yellow shoulder warbles and sings.

You stoop and dunk your watering can. It glunks satisfyingly, and you look into the pond. Old newspaper floats like seaweed; fish swim in and out of a rusting can. Long froths of algae, too, waving gently in the moving water.

It’s peaceful here, and quiet.

You sit on your heels for a bit, listening, watching, peace all around you.

Eventually you stand again, hefting your now-heavy watering can. Time to water those seeds.

Notes:

A/N: Ending that chapter here. It’s getting long. The First Day will be continued in the next chapter, In Which You Meet The Fine People Of Stardew Valley, and Immediately Decide to Romance All Of Them.

Chapter 3: The First Day (cont’d): In Which You Meet The Fine People Of Stardew Valley and Try Very Hard Not to Make Them Anxious

Notes:

You'll notice I've changed the title from what I thought it might be last chapter. I've done a lot of thinking about what direction I want this to go, and it is not where I previously thought. But that isn't a problem! Onwards :D

Parsnips watered, tired and hungry, you look at the time. Midday. Your JojaWatch has been altered, somehow without you noticing - the logo has been filed off, but there’s really scraggly writing at the top that says w a t c h , and the display cycles between a super cute little interface of the weather, the time, the date, and a little summary of what the Journal wants you to do. Right, the Journal! You open the manual to the back, but it only says on paper the same thing your watch tells you:

It would be a nice gesture to introduce yourself around town. Some people might be anxious to meet the new farmer.

     → 2/28 people greeted

Anxious to meet the new farmer? That’s a new one. You’ve never caused anxiety before. Usually anxiety gets caused on you. But then: would these anxious people want to meet you? Wouldn’t meeting you make them more anxious? You don’t want to stress people out. Maybe you should stay here. But … if it’d be a nice gesture…?

You decide on a middle ground: you’ll go into town, meet people, and try to be really nice around anyone who looks particularly anxious. That’s good. How many anxious people could there be in town? 28?

You put the manual in a pocket and turn down the track to town.

~:~

The music changes as you get into town, the one tune you’ve enjoyed so much it seems like it’s a part of you fading off, and a strummy, cheerful, banjo-backed tune starting up. Maybe they have little speakers hidden in the corners of the buildings. It was like that in the JojaTown™s that you visited, back on the mandatory Funded Individual Employee-Led Drives (FIELD) trips they used to hold at headquarters. They’d pack everyone onto a bus and drive four hours out to some ass end of Ferngill where, incongruously, a JojaTown™’s bright blue and white tiled pre-fabs stood in neat rows: one main street, one bus stop, one JojaMart, one warehouse to work in, done. Muzak’d be piped in all day as you spent your credit on the same greasy hotdogs you could purchase at any JojaMart and were shepherded through yet another tour of a warehouse that did what all warehouses did, only right here instead of a hundred miles off.

Nothing could be further from that than this place: every building a different color and shape, little gardens and yards – some fenced, some not - a ramshackle Hairsteam trailer in the middle distance, a river running past it. Flowers. Tall trees. Life!

People! These could be the anxious people. Better step carefully. You slow down as you come into town, still looking around. A solidly built middle-aged woman crosses the square ahead of you – she looks friendly and approachable. You could talk to her. You start forward.

“Oh!” Somewhere to your right, a frumpy young man emerges from the yard he was in. “How do you do? You must be the new farmer. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Harvey, the local doctor.”

You pause to say hi to Harvey. This is definitely one of the anxious people. His mustache looks like he chews on it. His coat is too big, and his glasses bottleglass-thick.

As un-anxiety-producingly as you can, you tell him it’s good to meet him too.

It seems to work. He smiles. “I perform regular checkups and medical procedures for all the residents of Pelican Town. It’s rewarding work. I hope you’ll find your own work equally rewarding, in time.”

You assure him you already find it rewarding. He smiles again, glances at his watch, and turns back around.

Alright! One down, twenty-seven to go! Twenty-five, actually. Whatever.

You look for the other lady – she hasn’t gone far – and trot a little to keep up with her. You excuse yourself a couple times. She finally notices you.

“Ah, Mayor Lewis told me you just arrived. I’m Marnie! I sell livestock and animal care products at my ranch. You should swing by some time.”

Marnie’s mid-forties, maybe, a little older than Robin. She’s stocky, with hair in a bouffant braid over a shoulder, and dressed practically for animal work. You tell her you definitely will.

“Good! I’m just south of you, if you can find your way through the hedge at the bottom end of your fields. Looks pretty over-grown right now. If you’d like I can rent you some goats to clean up the weeds?”

You assure her you can handle it, and note that you’re not quite sure what you’d do with goats anyway. You’ll have to do some reading in the Manual.

Marnie’s face changes at that. She’s blushing. “Oh – that – you’re new here. We don’t talk about the Manual, honey. Oh. Oh dear. Well, I’d better go. It was nice meeting you.”

She walks off, a bit faster than earlier. You watch her go, uncertain. We don’t talk about the Manual?

~:~

You walk around town, greeting people as you see them and taking a look at the houses. Most of the doors are open, and you can see people walking around inside. You meet Jodi – a slightly overwhelmed-looking mother who wouldn’t look out of place with a Bucksbucks coffee in one hand and driving a large car full of small children (anxious) – and Caroline – an uneventful lady with green hair who points out her husband’s shop and talks about her daughter (not anxious). You stop by a very sweet little old lady who comes up to about your shoulder – Granny Evelyn, with her insisting that you call her “Granny” (not anxious) – and say hi to a sporty young boy throwing his gridball around (never been anxious a day in his life). You wave to a nice young lady (definitely, definitely anxious, and the poor dear’s awkward about it), who smiles quickly, uncertainly at you, but goes back to reading, and admire the kickflips of another boy (teenage anxiety, at most). Smile at a couple kids (kids are never anxious, right?). Pop into Pierre’s (only anxious about selling things, but very anxious to do that). And, with town explored, you figure why not head to the pub?

Different music, in here. Someone’s playing the piano. You look around. There’s no piano. But there’s a jukebox! Whewh, that’s solved.

The pub owner, a larger, mustachioed man named Gus, introduces himself as you slide into a barstool, and slides a menu over to you. You glance at the first item and very quickly decide to buy exactly nothing. Holy Yoba, 400 for a beer! That would leave you with barely anything! Gus hovers a bit, but you don’t really know how to explain that you’ve got almost no appetite and definitely no money, so you slide the menu back, smile weakly, and let him know you just wanted to stop in and say hi to people.

Gus looks around. There’s no one there but you two. You look around too. You get up to go.

Gus taps on a counter a couple times. “Hey, you know what, Sophie? Sit back down. Just sit back down. Let’s see what we can get you.”

But you have no – well, almost no money.

“Hey,” Gus says, “don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house.”

As it turns out, faced with a heaping plate of spaghetti, you’re hungrier than you thought. Gus watches you eat, satisfied, then grabs a glass and a towel and starts shining. Bartenders are always doing that. “So. You’re new here.”

You nod into your spaghetti.

“How’re you finding it in your grandpa’s old place, huh? Looks like that place could use a bit of a touch-up, if you know what I mean, haha.” You don’t. “Ah, you should go talk to Robin, you should. She lives up on the mountain, she and her husband and kids. You know, that’s her second husband. He’s a bit of an eccentric. I mean, the whole family is, put it that way, not that that’s a bad thing, mind, but you know, it takes all types.”

You’re not sure what to say to this. Gus, however, needs no input.

“And while you’re at it, go take a look around town. We’ve got a great little community here, we do, one you’re sure to love. Yeah, I know a lot about the people living here. That’s one of the benefits of being a bartender. Sometimes I hear too much. But if you ever wanna know something, you can always come my way. I can introduce you to anyone in here. They all know me, and if they know you’re a friend to me, then, well, that’s all the better, right? Anyway what’ve you seen so far? You just arrived yesterday, right?”

Well, maybe a little input. You submit the required input.

“Ah, from Zuzu City! You’re lucky, usually the bus doesn’t stop here at all. Or well, we used to have our own bus service, all the way until the bus broke down, right smack dab in the middle of the road there, don’t you know. My friend Pam, she lives out by the river there, her and her sweet girl Penny, well Pam, she used to drive that bus. Straight out to Zuzu City she’d drive it, or out to Calico Desert, or anywhere in the Southern Coastal Area at all. She’s a good friend of mine, Pam is. Used to be a truck driver, once, then she drove the bus, and now she doesn’t do anything at all except come here. Oh, well. I try to keep her company. You’ll see her any evening you stop by. Ah, Emily, hello!”

You turn on the stool. Behind you, a cheerful young lady with bright blue hair comes in. Crystals swing from her earlobes. Something clinks when she walks.

“Evening, Gus! Ooh!” She stops, staring at you as though transfixed. “So you’re the one from my dream! I dreamed I was engulfed in vast and echoing energies, and that a voice was telling me a new person would step into my life! It must be you!” She grins brightly, clinkety-clinking up to take your hands. “Don’t tell me, I already know - I can read it on your face! You’re going to love it here in Pelican Town!”

You think you will, but – who is this?

“Oh! I’m sorry, I forgot to mention – I’m Emily! I live with my sister Haley just down on Willow Lane. Have you met Jodi and Sam and Vincent? We’re just next to their house. Our parents are traveling the world right now, so it’s just the two of us. You should stop by sometime! Or come here anytime you’re looking for something to do in the evenings. This is where I work! Ohh, your energy looks conflicted. I’ll let you finish your food. Good evening, Gus!”

She lets your hands go, waves to Gus, and disappears through the swinging doors into the kitchen. You can hear her steps clinking around the kitchen. Gus turns to you, chuckling. “And that’s our Emily. She’s a real sweetheart. You’ll learn to love all the mui-wah stuff, haha. She’s a real sweet soul, our Emily is.”

Hmm. Maybe she’d be a good person to ask about the Manual. Or maybe Gus here? You test this: who else is there in town? You’ve been told to meet people, and –

Gus smiles broadly. “Oh, there’s really not that many people in town, you’ll see. Maybe twenty? Twenty-five?”

You read it was twenty-eight.

“Twenty-eight, sure! Give or take, I suppose – I’ll count ‘em up for you! Hmm, let’s see – there’s me, Emily, Clint, Pam, Shane – that’s five, you’ve met me and Emily, of course, but you’ll have to meet Pam, she’s a real sweetheart–”

It’s like pulling teeth. Yeah, you agree, you do have to meet people. The Journal told you so.

Gus just skips right over that. It’s like he can’t even hear you. He’s polishing the glass a bit harder, though, hand tight in the towel. “- she and Shane and Clint, they’re my regulars, you see – not that that’s healthy, mind you, Clint just drinks moderately, fairly moderately, anyway, but Pam, she makes up for it alright, you know I’d probably go out of business if they stopped coming, so make sure you don’t drive them away, haha! Then there’s Leah, Marnie, the Mayor, oh, who else?”

Yeah, you agree. Robin and the Mayor were the first two people you met, when you first arrived. The Journal said you were at two out of twenty-eight people. The Journal at the back of the Manual?

Gus is definitely talking over you on purpose this time. That glass is going to be crystal-clear at this rate. “- AND THEN THERE’S SAM AND SEBASTIAN AND ABIGAIL, HAHA, THEY COME IN HERE TO PLAY POOL SOMETIMES, HAHA, ISN’T THAT GREAT,” and there’s a look of desperation on his face.

Yes, you’ve heard about Abigail. The Manual says not to ask about her teeth?

“OH LOOK, PAM, HOW NICE TO MEET YOU!!!” Gus practically roars in your face.

You turn. A very worn-out looking woman in a tracksuit, dyed blonde and smelling immediately of cigarettes, is just coming through the door. Her very-makeup’d face switches to concern. “Hiya, Gus, what’s all the hubbub?”

“OH NOTHING AT all, have you met our new farmer? I was just talking about introducing her around, haha, this’s her first day, and wouldn’t you know she starts on Spring 1? That’s very lucky of her, you know I heard Welwick this morning and she said the spirits are in good humor, you know that’s got to be why, haha, great day to get a new start. Oh! Excuse me, I need to go help Emily, just a moment, Pam, I’ll be right with you…” And, putting the glass down and using the towel to wipe sweat from his forehead, Gus disappears through the swinging door.

Leaving you with Pam. Pam grins at you. “Hey, kid, the name’s Pam. Don’t be a jerk and we’ll get along just fine.” She looks over the counter. “What’d you say to get him in such a tizzy?”

Is this the best idea? Only one way to find out. You tell her you were asking about the Manual.

Pam glares at you, a real serious glare. “You been asking personal questions, kid. Don’t you be snooping into people’s business like that! I’ll allow you’re new, but you oughta learn better’n that!” She turns and stalks off to the end of the bar, sits aggressively down on a stool, and shouts at Gus for a beer. Gus responds, indistinctly, from the kitchen.

Well, it sure feels like you’ve worn out your welcome. You get up and turn to the door, just as someone else comes through it. If the first guy you met was frumpy, this guy’s just a sweaty trashcan – unshaved chin, pouchy neck, ripped, stained Joja hoodie over a ripped, stained gridball jersey. Basketball shorts, of course. He slouches in, not holding the door, walking right past you. You try to say hi.

He stops, glaring at you. “I don’t know you. Why are you talking to me?”

And that’s already enough of that. You exit the pub and head home.

~:~

There’s still enough light in the sky that you figure you can explore your farm a bit before going to bed. Maybe see if you can find that south entrance through the hedge Marnie was talking about. You pull your scythe out of your pocket and – wait, which way is South?

After a quick consult of the Manual (South is the direction your house faces; the sun, you may or may not need reminding, rises in the East and sets in the West, and South is the direction a window should face if you’d like to maximise sunlight inside a room), you turn south-ish and start trying to find a path through the weeds, bracken, fallen branches, and stone hunks sticking out of the earth. The weeds are uneven, some sticking up high, some only to your ankles. You look in the Manual a few times, curious what’s growing here, but after learning about dock and bindweed and hogweed and mullein, you quickly become overwhelmed and decide to just scythe your way through, not even stopping to pick up fallen weeds or anything like that. And as you scythe, you fall into a rhythm, thinking.

What a day! Nobody likes talking about the Manual. Why does nobody like talking about the Manual? If everybody has one, then wouldn’t people not have a problem talking about it? The people you’ve met all seemed reasonable, cheerful people, but all freaked out at the mention of the Manual. You hope you haven’t damaged your relations with them. You want to get along with them. And if you’re going to get along in a town – a village - of twenty-eight people, you need to not make waves. You’re already making waves, just by being a new person. All the people you met today. You don’t remember half their names. Pam, and Marnie, and Gus, and Emily, and … who else? You’re never going to remember all of them. You stop, check your Manual. 17/28. Eleven more people to go. These people were so anxious to meet you. And you’re just making them anxious instead. Is it even worth talking to people? Maybe you should just stay on your farm. Maybe you should just not bother talking to them again. If you made them angry the first day – well, that’s it, isn’t it? First impressions. You’ve made a shitty first impression. You’re a shitty person. Not good at anything, just like the Morrises always said. Not worth spending time on. All you do is fuck up…

You get to a part of your farm where the fallen branches are too tall to step over. You switch to your axe, and nearly chop your foot off trying to swing it. There, see? Complete fuck-up. Why even try? You try to get out your Manual to read how to use an axe (you Yoba-damn idiot) but it’s getting dark. Too dark. You have to pull the pages close to your eyes to see anything. Hands wide when it’s over your head, then as you swing forward, top hand slides down to the bottom. But that’s for breaking stumps into firewood? How do you chop regular branches? You can’t see the writing anymore. Fuck it.

Fuck it, you’re supposed to be happy here! You attack the branches with renewed vigour. For once in your life, you’re glad your JoJeans are so thick – there’s definitely sticks and pokey bits flying as you blunt-force your way through these woodpiles. You’re not even sure which end of the axe you’re striking with – the sharp side or the blunt side – and you decide to switch back to scythe -– only to trip over a gigantic rock. Dammit! You grab your pickaxe out. Perfect target! You let all your frustration out at the rock. Then at the next rock in your rapidly darkening vision. Then at the next, always moving south, toward the black and woody line that marks the end of your farm.

You reach it, and stop, panting. Swallow, but your throat is dry as bone. You’re exhausted. You didn’t even realize how exhausted you are. All that energy you got from a big ole pile of noodles – gone. You’re at the end of your rope. Pull up your wrist, with an effort, and check the time. Midnight! It’s midnight already!

It’s midnight, but Yoba damn you if you’re not going to break through that hedge. You look around. Sometime in the last couple hours, the moon rose. It’s waning gibbous – you know this because one of your friends at the warehouse, before the data center, used to be totally into woo-woo, and when the full moon was always on the 27th/28th night, then by the 1st, it was always starting to wane. Anyhow. Yes. Enough light to see by. Lots of light. Really … really pretty light, you think, panting. Really nice.

You allow the scene in the moonlight to calm you. Everything’s bleached and bright. Dry, tall grasses and weeds throw stark, dark shadows against the smaller grasses and the ground. The shadows under trees look like someone cut them with a razor. The hedge, and the woods behind the hedge, loom up beside you, and in them you can hear all kinds of sounds – rustling of leaves, small wind, bugs? Something crashing a few steps and then stilling. An owl, hooting.

You’re going to make it through that south entrance. You follow the hedge right – East, you remember, East, where the moon rose. Does the moon rise in the same place the sun does? You’re loopy with tiredness. Tall weeds rise up before you. You try to hit them with your pickaxe before remembering that’s not going to help at all, then put your pickaxe into your pocket, grab your regular axe, put your regular axe away, grab your watering can, put your watering can away, grab your scythe, put your scythe away, remember it’s your scythe you want, pull your scythe back out, and scythe away the weeds. A scattering of seeds. You look at them dully, decide they’re way too hard to try to deal with right now, and continue along the hedge.

You have to scythe a couple more patches of weeds before you see the entrance. Perfect, right there. Right past … this pile of wood. Great. You put your scythe away, pull out your hoe, scream in frustration, put your hoe away, pull out your axe, and attack the wood. Chop! Chop! Chop! It’s a massacre! Chips flying everywhere! Your arms too tired to lift the axe anymore! You stumble through the wood and out the entrance.

Into a wide field, bright with moonlight. In your exhaustion, it looks like a photo negative: the moon stark on the unmoving leaves and limbs of trees; grasses even and still like they’d never met wind; the sky brilliant with stars paling around the glow of the moon.

You stand there and stare for a while.

Water! You hear water, first, then see it – a glint of moon-glitter in the distance. You stumble towards it, needing a drink. Straight forward. One step at a time. Your feet scuff in the grass. How are you going to get home? Don’t think about that. One step at a time. You walk. You walk. You hit the water’s edge. Kneeling, you cup your hands and take a drink. A deep one. Drinking til you can’t hold your breath anymore.

Then you gasp, drop the water from your hands, and sit back on your heels.

Because here, not forty feet from you up the bank, a woman is getting out of the water, and she is like no one you have ever seen before. Long, lithe limbs shining wetly in the moonlight as she pulls herself up onto shore. Hair in a single braid she squeezes out hand over hand. Her eyes catch the light. They’re luminous.

You’ve never seen such a magnificent person in your life.

She doesn’t look around. She stands up as gracefully as a deer, leans down with perfect efficiency to grab her roll of clothing, and, toweling off, walks away from you.

Is this one of the 28 people you’re supposed to meet? This forest goddess? This dryad? This creature of the woods and stream? Yoba above, what could you ever say to her? How could you dare share her company?

She walks to a cabin you didn’t see before – busy as you were being totally captivated by those moonpainted shoulders, the stretch of her back, the glisten of her long braid – unlatches the door, and goes inside.

The click of the locks breaks the spell. You shake yourself. This. This is one of the people who lives here. And you’re supposed to – no. No, you can’t. You can’t fuck up with her like you did with the people today. Yoba, the very thought of embarrassing yourself like that in front of her!

No. No, you’ll just …. have to avoid her. Yes. That’s – that’s the best course of action. The only possible course of action. Yoba’s shield, you’re a wreck. You can hardly get to your feet. Where’s your axe? Wasn’t it your axe you were carrying? Did you put that away already? Which way – where are you? Where’s your farm, again?

You take a tentative few steps in the direction your farm should be. Your feet are too heavy to lift. You sink to a crouch, lean onto your knees, and close your eyes.

~:~

And wake to a new day.

Chapter 4: The Second Day: In Which You Try to Find a Bathroom and Instead Find Other Things

And you wake to a new day.

Looks like it’ll be a beautiful one, too. You turn over in bed. Bright blue sky out the windows, birds singing, music starting – different music than yesterday, but no less peppy and happy. You’re more tired than when you awoke yesterday – looks like that magic bed didn’t do its-

-wait a minute.

You’re in bed.

Why are you in bed? Didn’t you pass out yesterday in some …field? Meadow? Right, by the river, after seeing – yes, after seeing the Forest Goddess. You don’t even remember hitting the ground.

And yet you woke up here??

Did someone bring you here? A thought jolts you awake. Did the Forest Goddess bring you here? Sweet Yoba, you’d about die of embarrassment. Just hanging out outside your hut, yes, ma’am, super cute place you got here, mind if I look through the window? and now I’m gonna just take a little snoozle right here, great place, soft leaves, figured I’d wake up when you got up for your morning swim. Oh, my name? It’s I’m a Useless Creepass Bastard, how about yourself?

Guh.

You sit up and hold your head. Kind of a headache, and everything is tired. All your limbs are tired. You’re a little hungry, ish. And – you can’t remember the last time you went to the bathroom. You always pee when you get up in the morning. Not yesterday. You don’t even know where the bathroom is. …did you really not pee at all yesterday? What the fuck?

Given that, you’re feeling remarkably not-terrible. Maybe there’s an outhouse? That’s a farmy thing to have, an outhouse. Board with a hole in it over a pit, spiders in the roof, a Farmer’s Almanac or some old manual with pages ripped out hanging by a string on the door. The Manual! The Manual should tell you.

You pull it out of your pocket, and flip through the glossary. Bathroom, bathroom … nothing. Restroom? Restroom … nothing. Latrine? Outhouse? Water closet? Nothing.

OK, fair, it’s pretty silly to expect a bathroom to be in a Manual. No one needs to read about how to use a bathroom. Obviously it wouldn’t be there. OK, you’ll just look around for one. Bound to be one in the back of the farm somewhere, probably far enough not to smell from the house. Just have to find it.

You get out of bed and go outside. Bright, fresh morning. You look out at your line of parsnips, and are gratified to see a line of seedlings poking up from the bare earth. This ground really is fertile! Cool. You have a vague idea that this is a lot faster than plants usually grow, but hey, you’re not complaining.

You look around your farm, but see nothing. Circle around your house here – nope, nothing round the back. Just empty dust behind your house. Little stone patio area, pretty cute, and there’s a pet’s water dish hidden under a bunch of weeds overhanging the fence, on top of an area of faded brick washed over by silt. Looks like Grandpa used to have some kind of animal. You also find a strange little – what, shrine? It’s a statue of a mouse doing meditation on top of a pillar with a bright green stone which, upon further inspection, sparkles in the sunlight. Two bushes that used to be clipped and are now going wild encircle it. Quaint! Eccentric! But no outhouse.

You go further. Here’s an exit to the north – you have to scythe some tall weeds to get to it. Didn’t Robin say she lived on the mountain? Go see her later. You keep on. Low trees, high weeds, jumbles of stone and wood heaps. It looks like someone just gathered up random fallen wood and piled it up in bunches – not even right next to trees, sometimes. There’s saplings, too, and acorns and maple tags everywhere.

You come upon a ruined building. Couple stories tall, staves tumbled down into the center of it. Broken glass glitters in the grass beneath your feet and scrapes against your shoes; large sections of glass crossed with thin metal supports lie sprawled against standing beams. Some of them are cracked, reflecting back a fractured blue sky, clouds doubled and redoubled in layer after layer of reflection, under a thin film of mold. What happened here? You walk into the house, looking around. The floor is cement, and the foundation isn’t cracked, but stone lies heaped and pebbles scattered across the floor.

You can’t even tell what used to be here, other than maybe – maybe a greenhouse? But there’s no plants, and the place looks like a multiple choice between

a) Disaster
b) Bad planning
c) Unpaid construction workers, and
d) A return to nature.

Given what you see here, you’d probably go with E, All of the above.

You wonder what it’d take to get this place running again. Stout support beams, for one. A shitload of glass. Electric wiring, so you get lights and heat. Heating, definitely, if it’s going to be a greenhouse. Fans, for air circulation. Do greenhouses have humidifiers? Water, running water. Shelving. Sun-spectrum lights for winter? A good locking door.

No wonder no one bothered fixing it up. The costs of renovation alone must be huge.

You wander out of there, now just curious how far your property goes. You follow along the cliffs – not real cliffs, really, just very steeply rising ground - trees at their tops wave their small spring leaves in the wind, blocking out half the sky from here. There’s a little cave – really just a crevice that opens out inside, doesn’t even go down into the ground, opening just an overhang with trees growing on top of it. Barely as big as your house. More cliffs, more cliffs – a shrine? You whack at weeds til you get over to it to inspect.

Yeah, some kind of shrine. Chunky little stone like an opened book put down. Above it, a stone listing the names of all of the past owners of the farm. You recognize Grandpa’s name, but then above that – well, Mom and Dad didn’t really talk about family history. You suspect they didn’t really care. Hell, Grandpa could probably have told you – he gave you the letter in person, after all, that time you visited. You remember, very dimly, looking at pictures with Grandpa when you were little enough to sit on his lap and he was still well enough to sit up – old pictures, sienna and dull, but holding the promise of past adventures. You used to play with the little figurines at Grandpa’s, when Mom and Dad left you there in the summer when school was out, putting the old, crackling photographs up as background and playing out dramas in front of them, using the places, the buildings as scenery, the people in the photos as characters. You used to narrate the stories aloud to Grandpa, educating him on what actually happened in these old-timey pictures.

No wonder Grandpa left you the farm.

You recall yourself- you’re here, on the farm itself. This place of the thousand stories you told. It’s yours. This place is yours.

There’s a piece of paper, yellowed, stuck with many rains, to the top of the shrine. You peel it off, wishing you had some kind of cloth to wipe the shrine clean, then turn it over.

Wait for my return at the dawn of the 3rd year.

Your heart jolts. Grandpa? Alive? But – you went to the funeral!

No, it couldn’t be. This note has been here a long time. Maybe it’s from before he passed.

That’s got to be it. You don’t know. You use your forearm to try to clean things off, but it really needs a scrub-up. You’ll come back here. Find something to clean it off with. Something.

~:~

You return to your house and realize the mailbox tag is sticking up. Does mail still get delivered in a tiny place like this? You check it – two letters, both of them just folded, handwritten pieces of paper, and one ad page.

The first one’s from some guy called Linus, written in very round, even cursive.

You’re lucky I found you last night! You were unconscious, and someone was searching through your pockets. I have no idea how much money they took… they ran away as soon as I approached. Be more careful!

Your money! You check your wallet quickly – shit, what?! You had five bills, and one of them is missing, but your whole wallet is crunchy with small change – so many 1G pieces that they spill out and tumble all over the ground. You kneel down frantically, gathering them up. You count. You count again. Fifty G. Someone – someone stole from you and left change.

Shit shit shit, what is even going on? Someone stole your money but left change? You think over the people you met yesterday, but it’s all a blur – you don’t remember most of them. Marnie. Gus. Granny something? Emily? She was the crystal queen I-can-see-your-aura one with blue hair, but you don’t remember anyone else clearly. One of those people you met yesterday – could they have been the thief? Why in Yoba’s sweet name did they leave all this small change???

You open your wallet again, and notice it’s been scrawled in. In the same scraggly crayon-writing as your w a t c h now has, there’s a flap that says m o n y and has a little up-arrow above it, pointing to the flap. You open the lip of the flap, and it’s like looking into an endless void. The money at your feet shivers, then begins to hum, then, in a sudden motion, gets sucked into the wallet-void, which then snaps shut.

You put down your wallet. You look at it. You pick up your wallet, unsnap the void flap, and look in.

Money, in a single tall stack, perfectly balanced.

You snap the flap shut and close your wallet.

You need to think about this. You can’t really think about this. The music swells. You look at the letter again, realizing you really want a distraction.

Well. This Linus. He found you last night. He’s one of the eleven people left. You’re sure to meet him.

Wait, did this Linus guy bring you back here to your house, too? Some random guy you don’t know picking up a random unconscious woman he doesn’t know, carrying her onto her own private property, going into her house and … what, tucking her in bed?? Wasn’t that just … like … skeevy as all getout? Who even was this Linus guy?

Disturbed, you bring the other letter to the front.

Hello there,
Just got back from a fishing trip. You should come down to the beach some time.
I’ve got something for ya.
- Willy

Is it a fish? Why would someone you don’t know give you a fish? Who the hell is Willy? You dig out the ad page. It’s bright and flashy, home-printed on cheap glossy paper.

ADVERTISEMENT:
“I keep finding cool stuff, but my backpack is full!”

Does this sound like you?

Stop by Pierre’s General Store TODAY and check out our affordable size 24 backpack!
See you soon!

Judging from the quality of the ad, it looks like Pierre created it himself, probably in Macrohard Paint. A badly-cropped picture of a guy shouting a cartoon bubble mournfully. Another guy thumbs-uping, beaming at a backpack with a WOW! sticker stuck on it. The font is Comic Sans.

You fold that one in half, and put all three letters in your back pocket. You went into Pierre’s yesterday, didn’t you? It feels like a year ago. Your old life feels like a year ago. I’m sorry for not updating in a year. It’s been a long pandemic. You shake your head. Back to the present.

Alright, what are you even supposed to do? The sun’s high in the sky, and around you, the birds are singing and the grass is waving in the wind. You still haven’t found a bathroom. Your pockets are full of grass and tools, your wallet is an endless void of tiny money, a random man carried you unconscious to your house last night, someone wants to give you a fish, and you passed out last night watching the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen go skinny-dipping.

Welcome to Stardew Valley.