kirabug's idea files

Day 795:

I spent the day mining the mountain. Most of the time I climb to a high point and dig down until I’ve cleared enough of the hill that it’s sloping gently down instead of deadly sheep-dropping cliff face.

I lost track of time at the end of the day and happened to find myself at the peak of the mountain just in time to take a picture of moonrise when I was photobombed by a non-skeletal horse.

It’s been a long time since I saw an actual horse here, so it was both surprising and a bit pleasing.

This one was definitely not tame and stayed far away from me.

A small part of me wonders if when skeleton horses die they come back as normal horses, and this was my horse coming back to say goodbye.

…

Not my lizard brain though; it says OH GOOD SKELETON HORSE GONE.

Day 794:

On the way out this morning I cut through the woods because it was faster, and an exploding giraffe-corgi blew up behind my horse.

One moment I was on a horse, the next, no horse to be found. Vaporized skeleton horse. Gone.

Also, more holes in my road.

The armor on my back protected me from most of the blast but I’m still pretty bruised and I’m not sure all my hearing is back.

Plus it brought every skeleton and zombie in the woods out to check on the problem so I had a heck of a fight on my hands and had to clear that mess up before I could do anything.

Then I spent the rest of the day clearing fallen tree branches and repairing the road and generally being extremely angry at the world.

It feels weird to mourn something that I was hailing as an abomination less than two weeks ago. It feels weird to mourn the undead.

Maybe I’m just better off thinking of myself as “friends with” animals here instead of “owner of”…

…but maybe that would hurt worse.

Anyway,  no pictures, because what would I show you? Lack of horse?

 

Day 793:

Spent the morning chipping away at the mountain again.

For fun (and to remember what I was up against) I climbed up to the peak and looked around again.

The mountain is more like a plateau up that high, which is good, because it means the hill will slope that much father and I might still have something that qualifies as a “mountain” when I get up there.

Also, a sheep fell off a cliff and clipped me with a fast-moving hoof before splattering all over the hill.

It was gross. But I did save the wool because wool is not easy to get.

And some of the less-mangled meat. This sounds horrible but I figure it’s already tenderized so it shouldn’t be wasted.

ANYWAY, back to lighter fare: here’s a picture looking north from the mountain peak. If the next northernmost mountain wasn’t in the way I might be able to see the village I will eventually get to up there.

Day 792:

I have settled into skeleton horse ownership although I admit my brain stem is still jibbering with fear every time I mount it.

I suspect that’s normal. Or as normal as anything else here.

Mined more mountain today, and hit a good pocket of coal, so I’m set for fuel for a while. Or at least, burnable fuel. My food stocks are starting to get low again so at some point I’m going to have to expand my garden and grow more vegetables… or decide to rotate them a bit more when I eat them. The problem is that once one isn’t forced to eat pumpkin every day in a row, one doesn’t really want to do it… it’s a good thing to mix in carrots and potatoes and wheat grains.

I really wish this place had peas. I miss peas. And maybe corn. Not as much as peas.

Can’t say I miss the brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, etc.) at all….

Anyway, here’s a picture of my horse tethered to a horse post. The horse doesn’t have a name yet because I’m still stinging from having named Bob the Ducken ages ago and then promptly losing him. This place is hard on life.

Day 791:

I can confirm that there are at least two skeleton horses, because I had one to my left when I came out the eastern entrance this morning and one to my right. No picture because the weird crystal is not a panoramic weird crystal.

The one that was to my right was friendly, had a saddle, and may or may not have been the one that the skeleton was riding yesterday. Anyway, I mounted it and it very nicely took me over to the mountain. That by itself saved me like fifteen minutes so hey, horse “ownership” pays off immediately!

I let it wander while I mined. It didn’t mind all the hammering and banging and just grazed on the grass. (I guess skeleton horses eat? I haven’t seen any of the other monsters eat.)

(Or maybe they were once regular horses and habits are hard to break?)

(Yes, the grass falls right through the throat.)

At the end of the day I rode the skeleton horse back to the ranch area where I keep all my other animals. And the zombie pigs with the swords at the bottom of the pond. (Do they count as animals or monsters?) The skeleton horses got along fine with everyone else, so I left them there and headed inside for dinner and bed.

Tomorrow I’m going to put up a hitching post near the east entrance so I can get to my horse more easily.

I think this makes me a horse person!