Ol' Slitherlegs

Ol' Slitherlegs

Type	Book
Location	Bookseller
Sell Price	1000g

Ol' Slitherlegs deals with the drag rather than the speed. Walking through long grass or a planted field slows a farmer noticeably, and one reading of this book cuts roughly two thirds of that penalty away for good. On a mature farm, where most of the ground is either crops or pasture, it changes the feel of an ordinary watering round more than a flat speed bonus does. The Bookseller is the only one who carries it, and he asks a high price, so it usually arrives once the farm is already large enough to make the saving obvious. Every later copy read hands over a little experience in each skill, which keeps duplicates worth picking up.

The in-game description reads: You will now run a lot faster through grass and crops.

Overview

The penalty it softens is easy to miss until it is gone. Tall grass grown for animals, a field of Ancient Fruit, the wild growth around Cindersap Forest and the overgrown corners of the farm all slow a farmer down tile by tile, and a watering round across two hundred crops spends a surprising share of the morning on that single effect. After the book has been read the drag is still there, but it is a fraction of what it was, and walking a crop row feels close to walking a path.

Because it works on the penalty and not on the base figure, the book does nothing on paths, floorboards, cave floors or sand. That makes it a poor first purchase for a farmer who spends the day in Skull Cavern and an excellent one for a farmer who spends it among the crops. The two Way Of The Wind volumes do the opposite, raising speed everywhere, and Horse: The Book applies only in the saddle, so the four powers cover four separate problems and all of them can be held at once.

Only the travelling bookseller stocks it. He appears for a single day twice each season on the open ground reached by the stairway above JojaMart, and the titles on his table are rolled again for each visit, so a specific book is a matter of patience as much as money. The calendar outside Pierre's General Store shows his days ahead of time, and a message on the morning itself confirms he has arrived.

Reading consumes the book and the power then shows on the Special Items and Powers tab. Later copies carry a thumbs-up on the stall so the same power is never bought twice by accident, but there is a reason to read a spare anyway: each one tops up every skill by a small amount, and once all five have been maxed and the Mastery Cave has opened it pays in Mastery points instead. A farmer deep into a perfection run often ends up buying these books purely as experience.

Notes

The reduced drag is the reader's alone, so on a farm shared by several players each one needs their own copy before crop rows stop slowing them.

Penny treasures the gift above everyone else, Elliott is glad of it, and Alex would rather have almost anything else. The book doubles as a green colourant: it reads green both in the dye pots at Emily and Haley's house on 2 Willow Lane and through the spool of the Sewing Machine with a dyeable garment in the feed. One reading also covers its place on the list the Well-Read achievement checks.

All Books

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Image	Price
Animal Catalogue		2000g
Bait And Bobber		500g
Book Of Stars		2500g
Book of Mysteries		3000g
Combat Quarterly		500g
Dwarvish Safety Manual		1000g
Friendship 101		3000g
Horse: The Book		1000g
Jack Be Nimble, Jack Be Thick		500g
Jewels Of The Sea		800g
Mapping Cave Systems		4000g
Mining Monthly		500g
Monster Compendium		2000g
Ol' Slitherlegs		1000g
Price Catalogue		1000g
Queen Of Sauce Cookbook		10000g
Raccoon Journal		1000g
Stardew Valley Almanac		500g
The Alleyway Buffet		3000g
The Art O' Crabbing		1000g
The Diamond Hunter		1000g
Treasure Appraisal Guide		500g
Way Of The Wind pt. 1		5000g
Way Of The Wind pt. 2		10000g
Woodcutter's Weekly		500g
Woody's Secret		500g