Category: One Among the Dead

Day 767

Okay, the road is across the river and around the lava death traps and almost but not quite met up with the southeasternmost corner of my last map. In other words, I have a really good idea of what’s in this area (quadrant? range? thingie?) of this place.

And let me tell you, these mountains are really messing with my safety.

All the cliffs mean that if I can get up the side of one of these steep steep hills, I can’t necessarily get back down safely. And all the sand I need for glass is on the other sides of the mountains. Plus, lava, etc.

So I’m actually seriously considering “landscaping” the mountains back down to some kind of manageable shape.

Or maybe converting them into a giant castle. I haven’t ruled that out yet.

I mean now that I’ve been here over two years and nobody’s shown up yet I’m thinking that whole “hide evidence I’m here” thing can go straight out the metaphorical port hole and I can build something impressive one of these days.

But not today, I’m exhausted. I’m sleeping far from my bathtub and I could really use a hot bath today. It’ll have to wait.

Day 766:

I spent all day carving the hole in the mountain still. I’m bone tired from hauling stone up and down steps.

Tomorrow I should be able to finish this carving exercise and cross the river. Oh hey, did I forget to mention yesterday that the sheer cliff dumped out at a river? Why yes I did! I also forgot to mention that I’ve found not one but two lava falls coming out the side of the mountain?

At least the lava’s going into the river which I guess is a plus. Hard to tell what’s good these days.

Day 765

One of the big risks of working near mountains is that you lay road up one side of the mountain only to discover that the other side of the mountain is a cliff. Then, instead of a leisurely trip laying road down the side of the mountain, you end up rappelling down a cliff and coming up with a new plan.

Most people would probably build a switchback or something like that, but I am a miner on a deserted rock in the middle of some deserted arm of the galaxy, so instead of doing that, I’m just carving a straight line up the mountain.  I mean, look, I need markers on where my maps end to be accurate, otherwise I can’t really tell where I am. Switchbacks just aren’t the same as borders.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that it’s actually faster to carve a hole in a mountain than build a switchback, and once it’s properly carved it’s faster to use too.

The bad news is I was so busy in the middle of a mountain that I forgot it was getting dark, and I had to run back to my easternmost camp under starlight. If you can call it running when you’re really trying to make your way around mountains and sheer cliffs.

Day 764:

My grandfather used to tell me stories of back in the day before nanites kept a house repaired, that when you wanted to paint the walls, you’d spend three times as much time prepping the surface and the room as you did the actual painting.

That’s how today felt.

I’m still trying to map the area to the east, but to do it efficiently (that is to say, without dying) I’ve had to move a bed and a whole bunch of wood out to my easternmost room. And then I’ve had to bring other supplies, like food and mine carts and the like out this way too.

I did almost no mapping today, but I did get my supplies set up for tomorrow. Which I guess is progress? It doesn’t feel like progress. It feels like a lot of work that hopefully allows for a lot more work.

Day 763:

It was a bit cloudy today, and my head was much more tolerant of sound and sun than yesterday, so I went fishing all day.

Beautiful weather, not too warm, not too cold that getting wet would be a health hazard. No monsters close enough to be a threat.

I spent a lot of my time just watching the fish, to be honest. They rose up to the surface, then dove back down together, swam in between the squid, then rose to the surface again.

Sometimes, even in this “idyllic” setting, I forget to slow down and relax. Doing so because I’d been blown off the side of a mountain wasn’t my plan, but it turned out to be a good way to spend the day anyway.

And if you’re curious, no boots today.  A few wooden bowls.

I now have 19 wooden bowls. I sand them with rough stone, then oil them with the fat rendered from the cows and pigs, and they’re usable again. Don’t know what I’m going to do with 19 of them, but it’s not like I don’t have the storage space in this giant cavern I’ve dug. And maybe they’ll be meaningful to some archaeologist somewhere.