Category: One Among the Dead

Day 797:

Still doing a lot of work outside during the day, and a lot of work in the caves at night. I should probably sleep more, but

1. even after two plus years I haven’t figured out how to adjust my sleep schedule to meet this planet’s extremely fast days and
2. I’m pretty sure i have some kind of anxiety problem because there are a lot of times I try to lay down to sleep and it just doesn’t happen.

Now, that could be because I’m sleeping on a bed I made myself out of ducken feathers and ducken skin leather. It could be because the temperature’s always too hot or too cold or too dry or too damp when you sleep in a cave that’s heated with a coal stove. Or it could be because I don’t have any open windows ever because of the monsters, so the air can get pretty stale.

Fortunately it’s still beautiful outside, not much rain lately, so even when I feel exhausted, being outside doing things is beautiful and relaxing. Well, when nothing’s trying to kill you, anyway, which admittedly only really happens from sunset to sunrise as long as I stay out of the woods.

Here’s a fun picture I took today. I think one of the land squid that carry around blocks of sod  — for fun? because they eat it? because they like redecorating? — stuck one on top of a tree.

Day 796:

Went back out to work on taking down the mountains today. I feel like I’m really making progress, although it makes the environment look really wonky right now. The cliffs were steep before, but now they’re sheer, until you reach the base where they slope gently to the river. Which, I mean, I’m trying to slope them gently to the river, but in the meantime it can be pretty nerve-wracking being at the top of those cliffs.

Speaking of nerve-wracking, that horse I spotted yesterday is going to give me a heart attack. It’s too skittish to go near me, but has zero fear about climbing right to the edge of the tallest cliffs. I’m sure any minute I’m going to hear a horrible noise and find splattered horse all over the base of the mountains.

Day 795:

I spent the day mining the mountain. Most of the time I climb to a high point and dig down until I’ve cleared enough of the hill that it’s sloping gently down instead of deadly sheep-dropping cliff face.

I lost track of time at the end of the day and happened to find myself at the peak of the mountain just in time to take a picture of moonrise when I was photobombed by a non-skeletal horse.

It’s been a long time since I saw an actual horse here, so it was both surprising and a bit pleasing.

This one was definitely not tame and stayed far away from me.

A small part of me wonders if when skeleton horses die they come back as normal horses, and this was my horse coming back to say goodbye.

…

Not my lizard brain though; it says OH GOOD SKELETON HORSE GONE.

Day 794:

On the way out this morning I cut through the woods because it was faster, and an exploding giraffe-corgi blew up behind my horse.

One moment I was on a horse, the next, no horse to be found. Vaporized skeleton horse. Gone.

Also, more holes in my road.

The armor on my back protected me from most of the blast but I’m still pretty bruised and I’m not sure all my hearing is back.

Plus it brought every skeleton and zombie in the woods out to check on the problem so I had a heck of a fight on my hands and had to clear that mess up before I could do anything.

Then I spent the rest of the day clearing fallen tree branches and repairing the road and generally being extremely angry at the world.

It feels weird to mourn something that I was hailing as an abomination less than two weeks ago. It feels weird to mourn the undead.

Maybe I’m just better off thinking of myself as “friends with” animals here instead of “owner of”…

…but maybe that would hurt worse.

Anyway,  no pictures, because what would I show you? Lack of horse?

 

Day 793:

Spent the morning chipping away at the mountain again.

For fun (and to remember what I was up against) I climbed up to the peak and looked around again.

The mountain is more like a plateau up that high, which is good, because it means the hill will slope that much father and I might still have something that qualifies as a “mountain” when I get up there.

Also, a sheep fell off a cliff and clipped me with a fast-moving hoof before splattering all over the hill.

It was gross. But I did save the wool because wool is not easy to get.

And some of the less-mangled meat. This sounds horrible but I figure it’s already tenderized so it shouldn’t be wasted.

ANYWAY, back to lighter fare: here’s a picture looking north from the mountain peak. If the next northernmost mountain wasn’t in the way I might be able to see the village I will eventually get to up there.