word mining central
Day 305:
It occurs to me that this path can’t be 100% straight and smooth because, well, nature. So I’m going to have to do some work to make things still navigable, which means stairs.
But at least stairs are easy to make with bricks. Not as much with cobblestones.
I’m going to go soak my poor hands in a bath now. And the rest of my aching body, but especially my hands.
Day 304:
You’d think after all the work I do mining I’d find bricks to be a piece of cake.
Not so much.
When I mine, I generally scoop the ore that I dig up into bags, and then use essentially back pack straps to haul the stuff from one place to another.
This is on account of the fact that I have yet to successfully make wheels, although I’m getting a lot closer. So far everything wheel-like I’ve made has split (wood) or been fragile enough to constantly break (iron), but I think I know a way to keep the bubbles from getting in the iron which will make me stronger wheels.
That’s the theory.
Anyway, bricks. When I make bricks they end up weighing, well, let’s call it five pounds a piece. And they don’t slide into a bag very well and they’re really uncomfortable if they’re digging into your back because no matter what they’re all sharp angles and corners.
So right now I’m dragging bricks from place to place on a sledge, and then picking them up individually to lay them in place on my road.
I have pinched my fingers more times than I can count.
But they do look nice, so I have that going for me.
Day 303:
Remember how I said that when I’d dug up through the roof however long ago that was I’d turned out to be within eyesight of my front door?
Well, I decided to put a door into that other chamber too, because why not?
And remember how, when I first got dropped here, I spent all that time trying to hide the fact that I’m here, in case someone discovers I’ve been breaking The Company’s rules about changing the countryside of the space I’m mining (because so many of our mining operations are quasi-legal at best).
Well that’s about to go away too, because the area where I’m building gets swampy and gross… and if I’m going to build a door there and a door here I’m sure as heck also going to put down some proper roads.
I’ve got all these bricks lying around from that clay I’ve been harvesting. I’m thinking a nice brick road will help me keep my feet dry. World knows the weather isn’t helping.
Day 302:
Finished another chamber. I know that sounds fast, but it really wasn’t. The one I finished today I started weeks ago, but when I discovered that there was ore above it, I dug up there and put work into it instead. So the chamber I finished yesterday allowed me to come back down and finish the one I built today.
Sometimes things have to go in a certain order, is what I’m saying.
Like tonight, I determined that the right order to make a ducken and boiled egg sandwich is ducken-egg-ducken-egg-ducken. The ducken meat does a better job of gripping both the egg and the bread. If you go egg first, then even if the egg holds on to the bread, the ducken just slides right off it. Either way the middle can be a major slip zone, but I think I’ve got it down now. But the order is important.
I wish I knew how to make mayonnaise. I think it involves olive oil and I haven’t seen an olive in this place yet.
Day 301:
When you’re busy processing trauma, sometimes it helps to have something to do with your hands. Which is how I finished another chamber toward the sheep mountain. Soon I’ll have sheep and wool and warm socks and mittens, and I’ll be able to climb the big mountain to the west.
Maybe I’ll be able to see wreckage from there.
Either way, something I did is finished, and other things are still in progress. My story isn’t over, but another chapter, no matter how mundane, feels like it reached closure.
Wish I felt that way about the ship.