What's Your Humorous Story?

[Rainbow Fresh]

So, Locusts. Those swanky little crawly buggers that you come across freeloading in a cave somewhere every now and then. In my earlier days on this Vintage World I found one or another nest of them in a cave. Obviously, when you are running around in tattered starting clothes just trying your poking your head into one or another cave opening, just to see if there might be anything there, when suddenly the bottom of the drop ahead of you starts glowing ominously due to the locusts awakening - you turn the hell around, mark the spot with a red skull icon on the map and decide "That is a future me problem". Pass the months and I got into a fight with just a small hand full of locusts (for context, I play with the Better Ruins mod that has big surface ruins with locust spawners in them) and learned that A: you better target them spawners fast and B: actually, locusts are pushovers. Damage: negligible. Killable: 1-2 flint spear pokes (for context, I also play with Combat Oberhaul balancing). Thus one winter day, with nothing better to do and need for scrap metal to make black dye for black leather for swanky clothing/equipment, I ventured raiding those locust nests I marked before.

So here I was, in your typical everyday cave entrace that is actually just a single pitfall straight to hell. To make things worse, there was water pouring down so traversing was a difficult task and seeing as I only had torches I needed to be extra careful to not accidentally extinguish my entire stack in hand (as I did several times before). Getting closer to the nest, the locusts became active - and so did the spawners. I say "spawners" as in plural, unbeknownst to me at that point in time. Carefully hugging single-block ledges at the cave's wall I inch ever closer to where the spawners hang, of course, from the cave's ceiling, while being questionably save from the horrors below. For some reason, the locusts did not seem to remember that they are supposed to be able to climb as they were just sitting there... menacingly... waiting for me at the bottom to make a single misstep and fall. But I didn't, I reached the cave spawner and spent what felt like a good minute punching it until it broke. Good, now - wait, why are there still more locusts spawning? in waves of 2-3, about every 10 seconds without stopping. Abotu where I just destroyed the spawner. Is that a weird quirk where the spawning code finishes it's alloted amount even if the spawner ceases to exist? Another two waves spawn as I get incresingly more concerned. Maybe there is another spawner hidden behind this block. So I dig, finding nothing. What I failed to realize, for atleast another 5 waves of spawning, is that there was another spawner hanging right next to where I just destroyed the first one (granted, it did blend in suspiciously well with the rock wall). Finally, the spawning stops.

Not that that mattered, though. The damage was already done. The cave pit leading to hell was no coated with an additional layer of living, murderous locusts. There genuinely must have been around 30-40 of them. The loot from the destroyed spawners down amongst them, despawn timer ticking down. And I only really went here for the floor spikes additionally turning the pit into a minefield, as I was after scrap metal for black dye. So, I had two options. I could be a smart, sane person and admit defeat, turn around, climb my way back out of the cave (which would take a significant amount of effort to begin with) and go home. Durability and time wasted, loot abandoned, no progress made and precious winter satiety lost... Ooooor I could embrace the little loot goblin I am, someone who'd rather throw away all their half-broken flint flint tools just to carry more useless junk home, and go get that stuff. It's just Locusts, right? They aren't scary or dangerous. Apocalyptic Rift Activity evening with dozens of drifters trained me to herd hordes of enemies and the ability to hit multiple target in a single swing/poke help greatly in dispersing the crowd!

So I jumped down and fought. And fought. And fought some more. At the end I came out victorious, even if barely. Locusts aren't scary or dangerous, after all.
...the Tier 3 drifter who spawned in the pitch black parts of the cave behind me, though, was. And that was the end of this advenure after all.

[ifoz]

This is a short one, yet remains a tale of doom, despair, and why too much of a good thing can sometimes end up being bad.

In the multiple years I have been playing VS for at this point, I have never seen this happen... Until today.
"I heard you liked ruins, and I heard you liked translocators, so I put your translocator right in the path of a ruin entrance, and it got deleted".

Edited May 3 by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

43 minutes ago, ifoz said:

"I heard you liked ruins, and I heard you liked translocators, so I put your translocator right in the path of a ruin entrance, and it got deleted".

The translocator you're looking for is in another ruin.

[Maelstrom]

On 5/3/2026 at 8:21 AM, LadyWYT said:

The translocator you're looking for is in another ruin.

In another dimension.

[Fawkesian]

Funny, horrifying, maybe a bit of both? It is Vintage Story after all...

I just went on a mining trip to get some gold and silver in a deep pit that I'd marked a while ago. That mission was very successful, actually! Got plenty of the rare metals and a bit of sulfur as an unexpected bonus. I was about to pillar up and leave, but I noticed something odd in the darker depths of the cave that I hadn't bothered to check.

Something glowing. Little pinpricks of light, like stars in the sky. It was beautiful. I thought, what could that be? Are there bioluminescent cave mushrooms that I don't know about?

Went closer... yeah, no, those are horrible mechanical spiders. Lots of them. Here's your PSA to always have an escape route planned...

[Bumber]

On 5/4/2026 at 12:35 PM, Maelstrom said:

In another dimension.

And we're fresh out of hyper-querns.

[Maelstrom]

Those Should Come with Warning Labels!

As I've mentioned before, I started playing this most wonderful game on the 1.14.10 release a number of years ago.   Back then you'd throw clay items into a fire pit and out came fired clay products.   Then 1.15 came with the unannounced change to drifter spawning and the fun of the upcoming rifts.  But this story isn't about that.   No it's about pit kilns and the fiercely fiery mayhem they can cause.

So after I upgraded my world to the spiffy shiny brand new 1.15 version, I threw some clay items in the firepit like I always had and nothing happened except fuel burning away wastefully.   Uhhhh...  wha' happen?  Check change notes and discover pit kilns.   Ohhhhh...  That.   "How do I use these things?" I asked myself and replied, "How the heck should I know??? Look it up brainiac!"   "OK!  I will!" and trundled off to the land of Utoob in the empire of the Interwebs.

Having completed my edumacations on successful operations of pit kilns, I dug a modest 5 pit kiln area opposite my cobble above ground "cellar" in a space between my domicile and workshop that was enclosed by wooden fences to keep out that pesky, persistent and pervasive caterwauling choir called drifters.  Before the creation of rifts drifters would spawn in trios like TOBG, but thems stories for other times.  Please pardon my digression.  so where was I again?

Oh yeah, pit kilns, cobble walls and wooden fences...  So I makes me some pit kilns and fire them up to create some shingles for my as yet, unroofed workshop.  Let them fire away, wander off on some adventure, probably to dig some ores outa the ground, maybe visit that one trader that managed to wedge his cart in a grotto.  I've got no clue how he managed to stick it such a small space.   Probably the first time I saw that one wizard trader that floated his cart over that one murder hole, but I digress.   

again.   So where was I?

Oh yeah, fiery pit kilns and wooden fences... So I come back from whatever adventure I was on (maybe olivine? or was it bauxite?  I forget/doesn't matter) to discover my fencing is gone.   Just *POOF* not there.   "Huh?  I know I had fences there! where'd they go?  Maybe a bug?"  So I make some new fences, pick up my shingles and go about my chores.  A bit later I fire up some more shingles and stand too close to one of the pit kilns I had just successfully lit and start complaining about some new pain.   "NOW WHAT?!" and "Just WHAT in tarnation is going on to hurt me???"  drifters?   Nope, broad daylight.   Starving?  Noooope, I'm half full.  Then I catch a wiff of smoke in my peripheral vision, figure that I'm on fire (which I am) and run around the corner, through the courtyard, into and through the house to the kitchen where I have some water for making dough to dowse myself from burning to death.

Next day I remember to collect my shingles and look most bewildered at the missing fences once again.  This time I KNOW I had put fences there.  Second time isn't a glitch, gotta start trouble shooting for a bug report.   In the meantime I put those five fences and two gates back really quick, collect my shingles, form some more (dang that roof takes a lot of shingles!) and set them to burning, and once again set myself to burning too.  I guess walking over a lit pit kiln is not advisable.   Good to know / TIL.  I put myself out to stop my smoking habit, again! then go about some chores.  As I go sailing past my pit kilns to fire up some more coke in my coke ovens...  YIPE!  My fences are on FIRE?!??  WOT?!??  How???  Oooohhhh!  the pit kilns...   So I proceed to knock down the burning fence to keep the fire from wiping out the rest of previously destroyed fence line.  Thankfully I kept a nicely trimmed lawn so no long grass caught fire to spread to my farm, my workshop, bee field and animal pens.

While I've managed to set almost everything else on fire with pit kilns, I have managed to not set my home on fire; thanks to those early, *ahem* painful lessons.

Edited May 20 by Maelstrom

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

While I've managed to set almost everything else on fire with pit kilns, I have managed to not set my home on fire; thanks to those early, *ahem* painful lessons.

Meanwhile in a different block game, a friend of mine was losing his mind from his enchanting table bookshelves disappearing. It happened at least twice. I blamed his son, a known prankster. His son blamed me, a known prankster. Friend blamed the server, which was known to exhibit odd behavior on occasion. It finally turned out to be the lava under the glass under the enchanting table that was causing the bookshelves to "vanish". Just so happened that it burned the books when no one was looking. Whoops!

[hstone32]

Here's one from my first world:

Winter was coming. It would be my first. My weary nerves were beginning to fail at keeping panic at bay. What's worse, November was only a few days off, and already I had eaten through most of my "winter stockpile." What can I say? I didn't know back then you could fit multiple crop cycles over the course of a single summer.

At any rate, it seems Providence was merciful to me, for I had at once discovered the land had become overrun with bunnies; likely the last time any animals would spawn until next spring. The meat would keep me alive... If I had the means to preserve it. Beeswax was out of the question. There wasn't enough time to go frolicking through the already frosting woods in search of a wild beehive. Salt? Don't make me laugh. Thus I needed animal fat.

There was a bog to the northwest, its muddy depths littered with bones. My bones, for the place had a bit of a wolf problem. Today however, the wolf problem had become a wolf solution. With bunnies dropping hardly any fat, the wolves would be my source. Of course, I was no fool. The pages-long chat log chronicling my many lupine encounters was sufficiently effective at dispelling any fanciful daydream of tearing the beasts limb from limb with my bare hands, like some kind of Roman gladiator. No, I had at this time at last come to terms with the frailty of my clockmaker body. Were I to succeed, I would need to be clever.

"Clever," in my case, turns out to be digging a number of holes around the area, whacking a wolf on the noggin, and running for my life as I lure them to fall into one of the holes. A cowards plan, sure, but who's keeping track? To get them to chase me at the right angle though, I would need to get close before they aggro. Dealing a small amount of damage would also help ensure they chase me instead of run away as they sometimes do.

Squelching along the bog's muddy banks, I found her before long. There she was, a rather beautiful white wolf napping under the canopy, her fur shimmering in the dim October sun. Ever so careful, I inched closer. Closer, closer.....

I stopped short as a good deal of black suddenly filled my vision. It took a moment of staring to realize what I was looking at. A big black wolf had just walked into my view. From the angle of his approach, he could have only come from directly behind me. I stood still as a tree, but the black wolf didn't react. He lumbered in the direction of the sleeping white wolf. Did... Did it not notice me? Was I some kind of stealth prodigy? Or else, did he not suppose this wimpy little clockmaker posed any real danger to him and his mate?

Methinks the latter was the case, for after reaching the white wolf, he ever so casually sat down, and looked directly at me. His yellow eyes challenging my nerve to make a move.

As it turns out, I don't possess the nerve. I bolted out of that rotten bog and never turned back.
 

Winter was rough that year.

[Maelstrom]

On 5/19/2026 at 6:05 PM, hstone32 said:

 A cowards plan, sure, but who's keeping track?

Nope.   Work smarter not harder I say.  Smarter to isolate dangerous lethal laden prey in a pit and at your leisure dispatch said mangy morsel from a safe vantage point.   

I should take some time and do the same to my ursine laden forests.  The bear armor I had is in dire need of repair.

[runnybabbit]

Today I died to a fox... as a blackguard. With full health, nutrition, and iron gear.

 

Just waiting until the inevitable day I throw hands with a racoon and get thrashed. 

[Grummsh]

18 hours ago, runnybabbit said:

Today I died to a fox... as a blackguard. With full health, nutrition, and iron gear.

 

Just waiting until the inevitable day I throw hands with a racoon and get thrashed. 

Can i just ask HOW?!

[LadyWYT]

19 hours ago, runnybabbit said:

Today I died to a fox... as a blackguard. With full health, nutrition, and iron gear.

 

Just waiting until the inevitable day I throw hands with a racoon and get thrashed. 

I'm really curious as to the "how" as well. The only thing I can think of is that the fox managed to shove you off a very tall cliff or into a very deep hole.

[runnybabbit]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm really curious as to the "how" as well. The only thing I can think of is that the fox managed to shove you off a very tall cliff or into a very deep hole.

Much sadder than that.

I wiffed every single swing, but since it was only a fox I refused to back down. I often rely on a shield to give myself some breathing room but the fox also kept running through my legs to deal death by ankle nibbles from behind... At first I thought it was some new clever AI behavior but I haven't seen it since so maybe it was just pathfinding jank. 

Anyway, I ran back to my death point with a spare blackguard shortsword we had lying around and downed Fantastic Mr Fox with the first blow.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, runnybabbit said:

Anyway, I ran back to my death point with a spare blackguard shortsword we had lying around and downed Fantastic Mr Fox with the first blow.

Did you at least turn the pelt into a nice hat afterward? 

[runnybabbit]

On 6/7/2026 at 3:09 PM, LadyWYT said:

Did you at least turn the pelt into a nice hat afterward? 

Great idea! I'll see if I still got the pelt.