kirabug's idea files

Day 804:

There’s another group of murderers skulking around.

I was all the way at the top of the local mountain to the south, ankle-deep in snow, when I heard one of them call out to the others. I looked down, and sure enough, there he was a little below me on the mountain aiming a cross bow at me.

I got a picture thingie of him, because some days the things I write in this journal feel unreal to me and I’m sure that if and when someone else reads them they won’t believe a word of it.

Anyway, he shot crossbow bolts at me and missed, I shot hand-made arrows at him and hit, and he’s not a problem anymore.  His crossbow was crap, so it wasn’t even worth saving. And his partners in murder ran off before I could find out if they wanted more of the same.

Day 803:

As I mentioned before, during the day I’m trying to tame the mountains. During the night, I’m mining toward the mountains, trying to get critical supplies like coal and iron ore, and diamonds…. and of course collecting a whole bunch of granite and the like while I’m at it.

(My dreams of cornering the interplanetary granite market are growing dimmer and dimmer every day I’m out here on this rock.)

Last night, I discovered a magma chamber. Unfortunately, I discovered it from below, not above. Fortunately, I was carrying glass with me just in case this kind of thing happened.

I still have zero understanding of why the lava doesn’t melt the glass, but as it is saving my life, I’m not arguing with it either.

So since I have this fancy picture-creator thingie now, I took a picture of what it looks like to be working from underneath a magma chamber. Mostly it consists of digging, then wedging a piece of glass in place very quickly, then digging. And if  I mess up at all, running and throwing a bucket of water over my head get involved.

Day 802:

Yesterday I didn’t mention that I chopped down a large dark oak south of my mountain entrance. I didn’t mention it because it shouldn’t have mattered.

But apparently, the leaves and branches of that oak were blocking a mountain spring I didn’t notice when I chopped down the tree, and now there’s water gushing out of this cliff face too.

I’m really starting to worry that this whole planetesimal is going to decompress like a balloon whose water has all leaked out.

Day 801:

Back on the northern edge of the mountains, just north of my mountain exit, and found another pond, lake, whatever.

Seriously, I did a horrible job of scoping this area out when I was out here the first time because I really thought most of this area was dry. In fact, I thought it was a great big grass plateau and was thinking of moving sheep up here.

(Sheep have, by the way, moved themselves up here, but those aren’t my sheep.)

Now if I brought sheep up here I’d have to make a bunch of sheep swimmies for them first.

Day 800:

Remember ages ago when I climbed all the way out into the mountains to see what I could find, and I spotted a village?

And remember how I was like “Oh I will dig that way until I hit the village?” and then I missed by a huge amount to the south, but I still dug a long distance both east and up, so I kept the entrance and planned this mess I’m in now to tame the mountains?

Well, I can honestly say I’ve tamed them to the point that I’ve found my mountain entrance, buried in the hill.

It even still has the granite “x” I placed on top so that I could spot it from the mountaintop. (That failed, by the way, because trees.)

I’m both proud of myself and somewhat disappointed. I’m proud because months ago this felt like it was so so far away from home and I finally made it. I’m disappointed because, well, it doesn’t seem like it was really all that far away anymore.

It’s well-known that even miners have trouble judging lengths and distances from underground because of the totally different types of landmarks. Can’t measure your distance by either the trees or the horizon in a place that has no trees and no horizon. But now that I have both, I sometimes wonder whether this was the big deal I thought it was.

Then again, it could be like gaining strength. When 5 kilos is heavy, it seems amazing that you can pick it up. But then you get used to 5 kilos and 10 kilos seems heavy… etc. etc. until eventually you wonder at the fact that 5 kilos was ever a problem.

Anyway, reaching this location, whether underground or overground, is no longer a problem. I should put down the rest of the brick path though.