Category: One Among the Dead

Day 807:

I’m really glad I have this magic picture rock because no one is  going to believe this one otherwise.

Remember the cliff face that the water was pouring out of?

Wait, that’s too vague.

Remember the one that the mountain stream started gushing out of, after the busted pond but before the other two ponds?

I have managed to reshape the area into a nice pond (because ponds! They’re a theme!) and I was just putting the smoothing touches on an area that was just sopping wet previously when a zombie ran out of the trees to attack me.

He was wearing a jack-o-lantern on his head.

I am not kidding. I am very freaked out. I’m amazed I even thought to take the picture.

He died like a normal zombie — disintegrated — and didn’t leave any pumpkin behind. Which is good because rotting zombie is the only smell worse than rotting pumpkin. I know because my dog rolled in one once when I was a kid.

So he’s gone, but what in the wide universe caused that? I’m not sure I want to know.

Day 806:

I was at the top of a cliff, eroding away its surface with very sharp tools, when it started to rain.

Normally that’s my cue to head in, but from where I was standing it was clear that nothing too extremely menacing was in the area, so I decided I’d keep going a little longer.

That’s when I noticed it was snowing, sort of. The rain/snow line here was… crisp. Like visibly crisp. One section was clearly snow and next to it was clearly rain, as if it was falling in organized columns.

Except for the fact that literally nothing here is organized unless I organize it, I’d believe it was falling that way on purpose.

Things got cold and wet pretty quickly, so the rest of my day was spent in front of a warm fire wishing for cocoa plants (or the patience to learn how to brew whiskey).

Day 805:

Found another pond, under an overhang at the foot of a mountain.

At least this one I can work around without having to go into or through it.

I really should take a day off soon so I don’t lose my mind when I see water. I vaguely remember a time when I thought fresh water here might be an issue. That time is gone.

Day 804:

There’s another group of murderers skulking around.

I was all the way at the top of the local mountain to the south, ankle-deep in snow, when I heard one of them call out to the others. I looked down, and sure enough, there he was a little below me on the mountain aiming a cross bow at me.

I got a picture thingie of him, because some days the things I write in this journal feel unreal to me and I’m sure that if and when someone else reads them they won’t believe a word of it.

Anyway, he shot crossbow bolts at me and missed, I shot hand-made arrows at him and hit, and he’s not a problem anymore.  His crossbow was crap, so it wasn’t even worth saving. And his partners in murder ran off before I could find out if they wanted more of the same.

Day 803:

As I mentioned before, during the day I’m trying to tame the mountains. During the night, I’m mining toward the mountains, trying to get critical supplies like coal and iron ore, and diamonds…. and of course collecting a whole bunch of granite and the like while I’m at it.

(My dreams of cornering the interplanetary granite market are growing dimmer and dimmer every day I’m out here on this rock.)

Last night, I discovered a magma chamber. Unfortunately, I discovered it from below, not above. Fortunately, I was carrying glass with me just in case this kind of thing happened.

I still have zero understanding of why the lava doesn’t melt the glass, but as it is saving my life, I’m not arguing with it either.

So since I have this fancy picture-creator thingie now, I took a picture of what it looks like to be working from underneath a magma chamber. Mostly it consists of digging, then wedging a piece of glass in place very quickly, then digging. And if  I mess up at all, running and throwing a bucket of water over my head get involved.