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Day 73: Maps!

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 73:

I’m finding that I’m digging into a lot of my own support beams, because I haven’t been drawing maps.

I’m out of practice – it was something the laser mining tools did automatically as they harvested.

I’m also worried that I’ll run out of paper. This notebook’s a reasonable size, but I’m already 73 pages in. Plus, it’s hard enough to figure out how to map something on a fullscreen monitor – doing it on these dinky sheets of notebook paper is going to be painful.

I could try making my own paper, or hide.

I guess it’s time to consider doing that.

Line and watercolor of a notebook similar to a large Moleskine or other hardbound log, labeled "Mine log" on the cover, with a black band around it to keep it closed.
It’s a log for a mine, not a log for a person bad with pronouns.
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Day 72: Zombie night

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 72:

Being the idiot that I am, I decided to try that whole “capture a zombie” thing I mentioned in yesterday’s entry.

I waited outside for them to swarm, and sure enough a bit after sunset six of them approached from the woods behind the cow yard. I started picking them off one shot at a time with my bow and arrow, and that went well until two skeletons similarly armed decided to travel south from the mountain area across the fields.

One of the skeletons shot one of the zombies, which then turned into a zombie-skeleton fight. Apparently they don’t work together well, especially when they’re shooting each other in the back.

But the end result was everyone was dead (or deader than they already were?) before I could try to tame one.

Spent the day chopping down that forest behind the yard so I can see better who’s coming and from where.

Line sketch, very loose. To the left, six circles coming from the trees representing zombies. To the right, two skull shapes representing skeletons. In the lower center, the protagonist. Labeled "bad plan"
This is never a good tactical position.
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Day 71: still digging

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 71:

I haven’t  found the zombie in the wall yet but I did find a whole lot of gravel, most of it falling down from an insecure ceiling. I’m not sure if I want to dig up from there to find out if I’m under the lake. Thinking no.

I’m also thinking I’m going to go out spider hunting in the mornings a lot more. There’s nothing that passes for vines or rope here except for the spider webs that the giant pony spiders leave behind. I tried weaving out of the wheat-like grass that’s here, but other than getting a ton of tiny paper cuts from the leaf blades I achieved nothing.

Ugh! If there was even, like, one other person here with me, so many things would be easier! There’s no one to hold the other end of a thing, or lift the other end of a thing, so I’m constantly trying to come up with ways to do things just by myself. And I have to be like four times as cautious as I would be if I wasn’t alone, because there’s no one to help me if I get seriously injured.

I’m starting to wonder if I should try to befriend — or at least capture and train — a zombie. That’s pretty desperate.

line sketch, very loose, of a giant spiderweb between two trees. labeled "pony-sized spiders spin big webs."

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Day 70: Drill bits

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 70:

Realized this morning that I’m going to need to make drill bits if I’m going to make a bridge. It’ll be my biggest piece of woodworking and I don’t trust it to the rough joints I’ve been using for other things.

That means I’m looking for more iron ore, which means I’m digging deeper again.

Also, you know how all those old books used to talk about people who could hear mice in their walls, back on Earth? I think I have a zombie in one of my walls. Every time I’m near it, it groans or growls. It’s either that or a really really big mouse.

Ink and watercolor sketch. Top left, a standard wood drill bit, labeled "what people expect drill bits to look like". Bottom right, a piece of metal with wedges cut out of it as if it is a crown or a top set of triangular teeth (more like a saw) with a wooden dowel hollow in the center behind it. Labeled "what mining bits actually look like"
The center of the wood dowel is hollow so the stone or whatever has somewhere to go. Probably not as good for a wood bridge, but I can make a mining bit here. Twisty drill bits are too hard to make.
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Day 69: lazy

One Among the Dead

Sometimes you need a project that’s just for, y’know, goofing around. This is the ongoing saga of my Minecraft character. For lack of a better title, we’re going with “One Among the Dead”. 

Day 69:

Today I took care of the animals then took a nap. Didn’t work on anything. Sometimes you need those days, especially when your blisters have blisters.

Watercolor depicting a beachfront, very loose and impressionist. Top: blue sky. Middle, darker blue water. From middle of page to the bottom is sand, with dots representing umbrellas in red, yellow, and blue. A white lifeguard chair with an orange umbrella is just left of center.
I miss the beach