Day 127: More gold, but not the useful kind

Day 127:

An attacking skeleton dropped both a gold helmet and a pair of gold boots during our battle. I don’t know why the skeletons and zombies have taken to wearing armor lately but I’m taking it as a compliment.

On one hand I want to melt this stuff down to use for supplies, and on the other hand I could be destroying someone’s cultural heritage. What if this helmet is from the same people who made the boots I’ve been fishing out of the river? I could be destroying the only history of an entire race.

Or I could have enough gold to make a damned clock. It’s a conundrum.

a gold helmet resembling a hood in that it's round and reaches to the shoulders. it has a darker gold decorated trim along the edges.
It’s like the chainmail hood, only solid. Definitely looks like the same people made it.

Day 126: Pinchy

Day 126:

Outside the east entrance, I killed a zombie that jumped me.

He was wearing a chainmail helmet (for lack of a better word), so I took it.

Here’s what I can tell you about it compared to the iron helmet I was wearing:

  1. Seems to provide roughly as much protection because while it’s harder for an arrow to pierce, it’s easier for someone to hit me over the head and do serious damage.
  2. these rings catch on my hair constantly and pinch and pull and yank. I have a massive headache all the time.
line sketch of the author's head wearing a chainmail hood, that leaves her face uncovered but everything down to her shoulders covered.  She is just slightly frowning.
I refuse to shave my hair for this dump. Especially if there are no bugs to infest it. But this chainmail is not very forgiving.

Day 125: Outside the East Entrance

Day 125:

I’ve found two surface-level supplies of quality andesite and granite jutting out of the surface in the area of the East Entrance.

As much as I believe that I should leave my location as secretly as possible, mining out these veins means doing some light landscaping work so that the ground doesn’t have giant ditches in it.

Between zombie attacks, anyway. They hide under the trees where it’s dark.

Line sketch of a map of the area. To the bottom right, the stairs that lead to the author's caves. Above, stretching across the frame, a forested area labeled as containing ore. Behind that a valley, and an arrow pointing to where the east entrance that comes out in the ravine is.
Everything is much bigger than it appears.

 

Day 124: getting back into the swing of the pickaxe

Day 124:

I’m finally starting to feel good enough to mine again, but the walk from the east entrance and back with all that stone is still pretty intense.

I’m mining a ravine nearby instead. It’s a little dangerous because the ravine runs between the ocean and the lake, and one wrong strike against a wall could bring the waters together, and me stuck in a cave below them.

Even if I wasn’t facing imminent death, it’s a major breach of mining ethics to dump an ocean into a lake. That’s how you wreck an ecosystem, right there.

Anyway, I’m hauling a lot of fill stone and gravel into the ravine to strengthen it. In some small ways I’m probably wrecking a caving system in the process, but compared to the damage that ocean could do to that lake’s freshwater fish population, I’ll take my chances.

water color map of a lake on the left, an ocean on the right, and a dark grey section in the narrowest area between the two bodies of water representing the ravine. all else is green grass.
takes a lot of gravel to fill a ravine this deep. fortunately, spare gravel is something i have plenty of.

Happy New Year!

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup!
and surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin’ auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin’ auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
and gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my jo,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.