kirabug's idea files

Day 207:

Well more than half of the lava river is walled in and I should be able to get around it to reach the gold ore I can see sticking out of the wall behind it.

I should, but there’s a waterfall in the way.

See, I knocked a piece of rock out of the ceiling so that I could put down a piece of glass and lo and behold there was a waterfall behind it.

I couldn’t hear the waterfall over the loud popping sounds the lava makes when it spits (though I have to admit those are getting softer as I wall it in).

So now I have to finish walling in the lava *and then* wall in the waterfall so that I can get the gold.

Wish gold was useful or something here. I feel like an alternating-hot-sweaty-stinky-cold-shivering-wrinkly fool down in that pit.

Day 206:

Lava pools spit.

This is important to know, because humans are not made of glass and will burn up in the lava.

• Fortunately, my armor is quite thick.
• Unfortunately, it now has a hole three quarters of the way through it thanks to a flaming pyrotechnic rock.
• Fortunately, I have enough iron to make an anvil to fix my armor.
• Unfortunately, that’s a lot of work.
• Fortunately I have a river of lava here to do the heating and reheating of the metal.
• Unfortunately, the lava spits.

This planet shouldn’t be named Serendipity. It should be named Circular Argument.

Day 205: I may have miscalculated how much glass is required to wall in a river of lava. Spent the day armpits-deep out in the bay harvesting all the sand I could.

Sand is heavy when wet and I am dog tired.

Also, the cave house stinks of coal fumes. What I’d give for a pocket-sized fusion reactor right now.

Day 204:

I’ve found a long snaking river of lava in a cave I was digging to get to the big mountain.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the lava here seems to be thicker than molasses (whatever that is) and — this is the weird part — yes weirder than usual — it doesn’t melt glass.

I have absolutely zero explanation of that and I’m hoping sometime in my lifetime whoever bails me off this rock will bring a physicist or maybe one of those material scientist types who could explain why the laws of thermodynamics aren’t applying here. I mean, the lava’s a hell of a lot hotter than the coal I’m burning to make the glass in the first place.

Anyway, this means I can, with enough glass, wall in the lava so it’s safe to travel around.

Day 203:

Found a very small cache of emeralds, from which I was able to extract two fairly large green stones. They’re so easy to manufacture back on the rocky planets that they’re pretty much worthless — heck somebody figured out how to scoop up space junk and make them a few decades ago — but they’re better than rock rats, so I’m counting it as a win.

If this was the kind of job where jewelry wasn’t more health risk than anything else, I’d make jewelry out of them. Maybe some day, when I get off this rock, I’ll do something nice with them.