kirabug's idea files

Day 531:

Some days I feel like writing a lot at night when I get back to my cave.

Some days I’m barely able to hold the pen I’m so tired.

And then there are days like today where nothing seems notable even though I know it is. I connected two chambers today and that extended me toward the east (safely underground) significantly.

But meh. It doesn’t feel exciting. It feels like two chambers with a lot of dirt in them because I didn’t clean them up yet so they’re not really done, they’re just connected.

Part of the reason I write every day is so I don’t forget how to use the language.

Part of the reason is so that if something does happen to me, and there’s a pretty good chance on a ny given day that I could be killed, there’s a chance someone will remember me and tell others what happened to me.

And part of me writes because I need to remind myself that it’s not all for nought; I’m creating things, I’m saving my own life, I’m leaving something behind.

This is one of those days.

Day 530:

Trying to finish up unfinished caverns so that I can run mine carts down the middle of them. It’s hard work and I’m tired and I’m actually having to haul stone to the mine site which is still a weird feeling.

But it beats trying to run mine carts up and down ridiculous hills and valleys. Straight lines are fastest, etc. etc.

Day 529:

I spent some time fishing today. It was partly because I wanted to have more stock in food than just carrots (although with all the beef I have in stock right now you’d think I wasn’t worried) and partly because I needed a day to think.

So think I did.

And the thing I thought about the most is how, now, even my hobbies are utilitarian. Like, there’s no sitting around and watching sitcoms on the vid screen until 2 in the morning anymore. I’m either building something (work), mining something (also work) or fishing or gardening (technically work but so much easier than the first two that it feels like a treat).

There’s no story here unless I write it. No podcast unless it’s me talking to myself. No vidscreen at all. No video games because there’s no screen. The closest I come to a first person shooter is actually shooting things, and to be vomitously honest, I hate every minute of it. I’d much rather shoot electrons than actual things, even if the things are consistently trying to kill me.

And I don’t have time to write fiction, though to be honest I do a lot of telling myself stories. They’ll likely be lost to the ages. It’s not like I have time to write them down. I’m way more interested in making sure there’s food and shelter and the occasional mattress.

I guess, if anything, the mattresses are the place where I really stretch out my creativity. I get fancy with the stitches sometimes or make sure that there’s a ducken outline in the ducken skins I’m stitching together. The birds deserve to be remembered; they deserve to be something fancy.

I might work on dye. There are plenty of flowers around here. It might be nice to have some red thread and some yellow thread in addition to the ducken-gut-colored thread I’m using now.

Day 528:

It turns out that way back when, whenever it was that I last worked my way east at the upper levels, I left a bunch of chambers half-dug and half-developed and thus off my map.

(I refuse to map something that doesn’t have solid borders yet because that way lies madness and many map updates and it’s not like I’ve got a computer here, this is all being done in charcoal and the occasional squid ink.)

So I’m both further ahead than I thought and further behind because the places that I need to connect together so that I can run my new rail system are not connected, but the places below them are connected, so there’s hope.

That was a long way to say I’ve already made more progress than I thought and also I’m tired and my back hurts from hauling rock all day.

Day 527:

I’ve made some new armor out of the diamonds, as one does. I wasn’t comfortable with how quickly my last chest plate fell to pieces so I’ve made a bunch of those… and I’ve also made some better leg protection, some boots (or rather, diamond things that slide over the boots because purely diamond boots wouldn’t bend and that’s not how human feet work, and an extra helmet.

And I had enough left over to make a couple of shovels.

I actually have a lot more diamond, enough to make some pickaxes and maybe even an axe, but the thing is that I’m running low on storage. So I’m trying to use up some of the older armor that’s mostly damaged in my crate.

I mean, if all I’m going to be doing is fighting the occasional skeleton that raids my garden, I don’t really need the good stuff for that… and if the good stuff breaks near home, that’s not exactly a bad thing either.

It’s weird, the pull between not wanting to throw anything out and wanting things to wear out so badly that I can’t fix them.