Category: One Among the Dead

Day 169:

While digging out one of the biggest caverns I’ve dug out so far, I’ve discovered that a whole nest of different caves come together just outside what I’m building as the bracing walls for this cavern.

I discovered it because zombies have been falling into that area all day.

They make a weird groaning squish sound when they fall off a cliff. And it makes them a bit easier to kill, although I feel a little more guilty slaughtering zombies with broken legs. Not that I think they’d hesitate to kill me if I got within reach. They’ve made it clear they would.

Anyway, it’s interesting not only because I can see vast layers of different kinds of ore and stone and geologic history on these caves, but also because it implies that there’s a way in or out somewhere above. (I mean, unless the zombies are breeding within the caverns, but I’m not sure I want to know what they’re eating if they are.)

And most of them appear to head toward the big mountain.

So when I’m done this massive cavern I’m framing out, I will be digging up for the first time in a while.

Day 168:

Sometimes when you get sucked into something, you get sucked in all the way.

I’ve been digging toward the mountain, but I’ve found so much ore lately that I’ve been at the depth of the planet. Below is only bedrock, pretty much useless to try to dig through. Above is a whole lot of nothing, as I’m at the bottom of that long chasm I found ages ago.

So there’s a lot of dark, and cold, and damp.

It’s not so cold that I need to make a jacket, and in fact I’m pretty good at judging when I’m near a pocket of lava just by the change in temperature in the space. (The popping noises don’t hurt either.) I’ll admit I’ve been known to stand in one of the hot spaces longer than is probably healthy just to warm up and dry off occasionally. So far I haven’t succumbed to any poisonous gasses.

The sky is so far away that sometimes I forget what the sun looks like, which is why days like yesterday when I harvested sand instead are so important.

I’m back down in the dark today, missing the sun. Wondering if this ore is so important. Wondering if I shouldn’t just get to that mountain and build myself a nice castle and settle down to ducken farming for the rest of my life.

Day 166:

At least when the giraffe corgi monsters explode behind me while I’m digging up sand, they blow most of the sand onto the beach where it’s easier for me to pick up later.

You know, later, after I’ve regained consciousness.

Been a rough day, is what I’m saying.

Day 165:

I’ve been cleaning a lot of the brush and doing a bit of rounding out the hills nearby. It seems spurious work, since it doesn’t put ducken on the table or gold in my pocket, but it’s more of a safety thing. I prefer to be able to see the exploding giraffe-corgis before they get to me.

Plus, the dirt’s a handy thing to have around if I need to protect myself from a significant amount of flooding or something like that. Dirt is surprisingly hard to get underground. Rock? No problem. Gravel? By the shipful. Dirt? HA!

Day 164:

I went back to my main cave today after spending the morning out in the river gathering sand. I was bored while waiting for the sand to cook down into glass, so I started clearing one of the chambers I’ve been ignoring in my efforts to get to the big mountain.

It was filled with granite, of course.

I’m going to spend tomorrow in the cavern on the way to the big mountain, because that’s my ultimate goal, but it was pretty awesome to find out that there’s something of value still close to home.