Day 206: spit

Day 206:

Lava pools spit.

This is important to know, because humans are not made of glass and will burn up in the lava.

  • Fortunately, my armor is quite thick.
  • Unfortunately, it now has a hole three quarters of the way through it thanks to a flaming pyrotechnic rock.
  • Fortunately, I have enough iron to make an anvil to fix my armor.
  • Unfortunately, that’s a lot of work.
  • Fortunately I have a river of lava here to do the heating and reheating of the metal.
  • Unfortunately, the lava spits.

This planet shouldn’t be named Serendipity. It should be named Circular Argument.

Day 205: that’s a lot of glass

Day 205: I may have miscalculated how much glass is required to wall in a river of lava. Spent the day armpits-deep out in the bay harvesting all the sand I could.

Sand is heavy when wet and I am dog tired.

Also, the cave house stinks of coal fumes. What I’d give for a pocket-sized fusion reactor right now.

Day 204: Lava river

Day 204:

I’ve found a long snaking river of lava in a cave I was digging to get to the big mountain.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the lava here seems to be thicker than molasses (whatever that is) and — this is the weird part — yes weirder than usual — it doesn’t melt glass.

I have absolutely zero explanation of that and I’m hoping sometime in my lifetime whoever bails me off this rock will bring a physicist or maybe one of those material scientist types who could explain why the laws of thermodynamics aren’t applying here. I mean, the lava’s a hell of a lot hotter than the coal I’m burning to make the glass in the first place.

Anyway, this means I can, with enough glass, wall in the lava so it’s safe to travel around.

Day 203: Emeralds

Day 203:

Found a very small cache of emeralds, from which I was able to extract two fairly large green stones. They’re so easy to manufacture back on the rocky planets that they’re pretty much worthless — heck somebody figured out how to scoop up space junk and make them a few decades ago — but they’re better than rock rats, so I’m counting it as a win.

If this was the kind of job where jewelry wasn’t more health risk than anything else, I’d make jewelry out of them. Maybe some day, when I get off this rock, I’ll do something nice with them.

Day 202: Rock rats

Day 202:

Hit a rock with a sledgehammer and a bunch of silvery grey things the size of rats poured out and started biting my ankles.

I would tell you more about how they look — spiky? angry — but I was so busy killing them I didn’t get a good look, and like most of the hostile critters on this planet as soon as they were dead they turned into dust.

That gets kind of old when trying to write up descriptions of things.

Anyway, I did learn that they squeak and squeal much like rats because there was another rock making similar noises that I chose *not* to crack open.

So that was today’s adventure. Let’s hope tomorrow is rat-free.