kirabug's idea files

Day 96:

Took a day off from digging to do some fishing and smelt some iron ore. (I prefer to be home when setting super-hot fires under molten rock. It’s a thing I do.)

So to recap, I decided a while ago that I wanted to be able to identify potentially hazardous pockets of air in my caverns, but this planet lacks canaries.

I took about 50 eggs down into the caves and hatched duckens, so that they could act as canaries.

They’ve been doing what duckens do, which on this planet means multiplying at almost exponential rates.

I stood outside one of the far caverns today and fished from the river… not where I normally fish, but it was deeper so I thought I might get some bigger fish. (I did, too, so we’ll be doing that some more!)

While standing on the shore, I could hear muffled clucking.

Underground, below my feet.

In the caverns, the duckens cluck.

How many duckens are down there now?

A few.

Day 95:

Sheep. I’m digging and thinking about sheep.

Sheep are bigger than I pictured. And they smell. Badly. They don’t smell like clean socks or a wool suit, either. They smell like sheep shit. I guess that’s pretty obvious, but these aren’t things I had to think about back on the ship.

Do I want sheep? I could use the wool for better clothes, and the meat for eating, and the skin for leather… in that way, sheep are pretty handy things to have. They eat what’s already here, so I don’t have to find them food. And they seem friendly enough, compared to exploding giraffe corgis and horror land squid.

I want sheep.

But do I want sheep badly enough to lure them over a mountain and over a river?

That part I’m still thinking on, while I dig.

At the top of the mountain, I learned a few things.

First, I learned that it’s possible to have a pool of bubbling lava in an otherwise-normal looking field. This is good information to have because it means this area’s seismically active. (It also means I won’t be swimming over there any time soon.) All the more reason to build solid stone walls for my cave walls wherever possible.

Second, I learned that there are no towns or cities or other signs of life anywhere in my immediately-viewable area unless they’re also underground. I certainly wouldn’t blame anyone for going underground here, but it means to find other people I have to either hope this is just an abandoned area, or hope that I’ll dig into the sides of their houses.

I’m sure they’ll be totally understanding when I do that.

Third, I learned there’s a much bigger mountain to the east of my current position — but it’s far enough away that I can’t see it unless I’m on the current mountain. So digging to the next one the same way that I dug to this one is probably my safest best.  Because digging holes to reach bigger piles of dirt is a thing here.

Finally, I learned there are sheep on the other side of the mountain. Do I go capture some? I haven’t decided yet. Sheep would be a good thing to have though. I could make clothes somehow, and mutton. That would be good.

Anyway, that was today’s adventure set.

Day 93:

Well, I’ve already discovered that the mountain is not what I was hoping for.

I climbed a third of the way up the face, found a cave full of valuable stone, and that cave…. well that cave had two openings that were only a few dozen meters apart.

So instead of having a massive mountain to climb, it appears I have a thin mountain. It’s like if someone put a piece of toast on edge.

I’m now actually a bit afraid I’m going to cut right through the middle instead of getting to the top. That could make looking for a town or a city a bit more difficult.

Day 92:

It’s hard to tell the time when I’m against the side of the mountain, because my view of the sun is blocked by the mountain and the trees on it.

So I stayed out too late and got treed by a bunch of zombies.

Good news is for some reason zombies can’t climb trees.

More interesting news is that all the zombies appear to wear the same “outfit” for lack of a better word. It’s almost like they have a set uniform. It’s clearly not skin – it has a fabric-like texture and having sliced through it more than a few times with my sword I can confidently say the skin beneath is the same green as their faces.

Why would these animals wear clothes in the first place? Are they humanoid animals (like some of the more advanced primates), or are they actual humanoids who have been stripped of their higher reasoning skills?

I have no beef with uniforms, but I’m suspicious of those who wear them, when they’re out to kill me.