Author: kirabug

Day 506:

I’ve gotten a lot of material out of these walls and that means wearing through a lot of tools – axes, shovels, torches — that require wood. (It’s a good idea to use wood handles when you don’t have vibration-activated inertial-dampening fiberglass. Wood’s the next best thing for dampening the vibrations from the rock. Plus, not nearly as conductive as, say, iron, which gets kind of warm if you hit a hot rock, and gets kind of sparky if you hit the red rock.)

So I’m heading back to home base for more wood as soon as I haul this haul topside. And maybe some pancakes. My current harvest of wheat should be just about ready, so some flour, eggs, and milk later I might actually have something nice as a treat.

Or more dried fish, I mean that’s always an option.

No, I think I’m going for the pancakes.

Day 505:

Turns out there’s also a waterfall pouring out of the wall next to the lava lake.

That seems to happen a lot here, which is really weird. I would think that water would

• evaporate
• turn into a giant gas ball and explode

both of which should keep it far away from the lava lake.

But apparently I am wrong.

Either way, it’s  bad idea to get caught up in a wave of water that leads to a lava lake, so I’m keeping my distance.

Day 504:

My mining today was punctuated with angry spiders and more of those rock rats. The rock rats appear to live in tiny fissures in the rock, but the pony-sized spiders certainly do not. I have no idea how they keep getting in, especially when I’ve had my main corridor blocked all day and, hey, this wasn’t even a cave until I dug it. Some days I could swear they just magically appear.

My best theory so far is that I’m not seeing their eggs but I’m somehow uncovering them. I’d think this far-fetched at best if I hadn’t personally witnessed a cow pop into existence from a calf 3 days after its birth. This place is weird, yo.

But seriously, I could do without pony spiders in my caverns.

Day 503:
Still mining away. Found some more emerald but not more diamond. Also almost fell into an underground lava lake. Those are inconvenient at best.

I’m almost done this particular area, I think, but it’s always hard to tell how often I’ve doubled up on myself or left something outstanding. I’ve started marking the paths I’m finished with a torch in the middle to signify it’s done.  Because it’s easy to get lost down here.

When I look up, all I see are walls I’ve already mined, with twists and turns and juts and oddities. It’s both impressive and scary, as I hope I’ve buttressed everything appropriately that it doesn’t come crashing down on my head.

Day 502:

Decided I needed a break from all this aboveground stuff to go do some mining below ground.

It’s a relief to be out of the sun and away from the duckens, smacking rocks apart and finding valuable bits.

Plus I found some diamond, and that always makes me happy. I’m getting ever closer to my dream of wool socks, especially now that I know how to make a rail system to get me there.