Category: One Among the Dead

Day 275:

Spent the day updating my maps and I have to say this is getting to be a ridiculous part of my life. There’s an entire room dedicated to paper and paper-making equipment, and since the caverns are always a bit on the dank side, trying to get anything to dry involves fire and chimneys and soot.

On the other hand, getting permanently lost isn’t so great either, so I end up drawing the maps, memorizing them in the process, and hoping I don’t remember them wrong when I go digging. Because it’s not like I can carry an entire book of maps with me either.

What I’d give for an info tablet or a computer of any type!

Day 274: I finally reinforced this chamber all the way back to where I started, so I took a few hours to harvest the cane by the water near my primary entrance.

I think maybe I can turn it into sugar? It seems kind of starchy and sugary and sweet. And so far nothing here has poisoned me. (Then again, I haven’t tried the puffer fish.)

To find out, I think I’m going to need to forge a pot.

I wish I knew how to make a sand cast.

Day 273:

The only thing wrong with reinforcing tunnels is it’s super super boring.

Like, it’s prepping-to-paint boring. Or worse, it’s peeling-off-all-the-tape-after-painting boring.

I would rather be doing almost anything else. There’s nothing to find, nothing to bring home… it’s mostly just open space and timbers and walls and torches.

It makes me tired.

I’ve run out of songs I can remember from back on the ship, so I’m starting to sing old folk songs and stuff.

That boring.

Day 272: I dug into a cavern I’d dug out before, so now I’m heading back the way I came to actually polish it into a properly shaped and structured cavern.

I don’t have to, I guess, but it’s safer and easier to have a structure you can count on than it is to leave stalactites and fractions of walls all over the place.

And if I’ve dug into a place twice already, not only does that mean that it’s a place that is near valuable things, it also means that I’ve already damaged its natural stability twice as well.

So best to reinforce it, even if it means working backwards to a certain extent.

Day 271:

A few days ago I swore I was going to stop digging down from the place  where I’m at, because it wasn’t getting me any closer to my goals.

Yeah, I was lousy at that.

I got some digging back toward the sheep done, and then I got distracted by a beautiful vein of granite, and now I’m back deep into this mine shaft again.

Well, at least I’m consistent, even if it’s going to get me killed.