Category: One Among the Dead

Day 323:

I slept most of the day and spent the rest of it moving cobblestone from one of my older chambers to closer to my smelting chambers so I can smelt things more easily.

I’m working on an idea for a rock carrier…

Ages ago (at least it seems like ages ago) one of the miners (I think it was Larry?)  told me about a thing that people used to haul bricks before we had levitating sleds. He said it was called something like a “hob” and it was essentially three sides of a box with a stick out of the bottom. Because the stick was really long, you could balance it against your shoulder to haul the bricks. Kind of like a really big shovel or scoop.

I’ve been sketching all day to see if I can design something like it. Humans invented it once, so I’ve got a decent shot.

It’s got to be easier than hauling backs of cobblestone back and forth, anyway.

Day 322:

Took the day off from mining to get some rest.

Failed.

Turns out you can’t make wheels out of cobblestone.

Day 321:

I went past a set of steps and an adult zombie came up and tried to kill me.

When he failed, three kids came pouring out of the stairway like it was some kind of holding pen for preteen monsters.

They were followed by another adult zombie.

I’ve occasionally wondered if zombies were gendered but have given up trying to ask questions about this place.

(Today at least.)

But either way — and yes, this is my own culture talking — it’s some cruddy parenting sending kids up the steps to face an armed miner when the adults can’t handle me.

Day 320:

Wheel experimentation delayed by attack from a zombie horde during mining today.

I know we’re all supposed to respect other cultures, but it can be hard to shake off our own beliefs. Like, for example, when two zombies attack you and you dispatch one (“dispatch” is a much nicer word than “murder” don’t you think?) with your sword, and then the other one picks up some of the rotting flesh from the first and tries to beat you with it.

WHO DOES THAT?

Maybe in a society where your fellow man literally turns to dust in the moment of their death, there is no sacredness to the remains of a fellow creature?

Not that I’m even sure these zombies are sentient. They’re capable of crying out in pain, yes, and they’re capable of finding and achieving a goal (at least they are when the goal is “murder me”). They all wear the same clothes (assuming those are clothes and not the strangest skin every) which indicates some kind of culture (or serious lack of imagination). And they’re clearly tool users or they wouldn’t know to beat me with the dead body in the first place.

But ugh, I get grossed out every time they do it.

Day 319:

Most of the things here have very sharp edges to them, as if they all want to grow to be squares or rhombuses instead of ovals or fractals the way they were where I grew up.

Now I sound like an old interstellar miner. “Back in my day, plants knew to grow round so they got the most sun”. But that was on a planet where the tilt of the axis meant the sun changed location in the sky regularly. Here there’s no tilt, and no seasons, so maybe it makes sense for things to grow more flat.

Anyway, that makes creating wheels harder because when you’re growing almost-perfectly round trees, you cut a slice out of the middle and you’ve got almost-perfectly round wheels.

I’ve tried to cut the corners off the plants here but the wood tends to fracture and split along the grain both lengthwise and width-wise. It makes it easier to cut playing dice but not so great for wheels.