you know the deal about the screwed up writing already

Day 59

The smooth stone slabs stopped the rain successfully for the rest of the night. Score plus one for building an attic – I am just not sure how to go about it yet. I guess at the very least it'll stop the leaking by, well, taking most of it instead. I don't know what else to do and I am really not in the mood to be rebuilding the entire roof. Moisture isn't that big of a deal, thankfully, but I still wish there was some sort of something?

I don't know. Something that would keep the place dry and not start any fires. Not a clue as of yet.

Found yet another "friendly" spider crawling through my territory. Had a perfect view of him climbing over my hard-built walls and leaving. That's one major drawback – I don't have the slightest clue know to prevent them from climbing over. That's a flaw the walls in Eastside and Northside share, but at least they have golems to kick ass, and I have Wolfy.

Still, something needs to be done about the freaking spiders. Not soon, but I'll need to think of something.

Bad news – the donkey's gone. I left the base with some fresh vegetables for him as usual, but I couldn't find him where he'd been eating grass yesterday. I looked all over the area – it's as if he simply vanished.

It's probably the heavy rain from the last night that's driven the guy out of the plains and maybe somewhere into the lush forests nearby. Then again, the bodies in here decompose so quickly there's not even a trace in a few hours at most. I don't know what happened, but I'm hoping for the best.

Damn it. Guess it's time to go back to mining.

I'm down in the cave again. Because I got some real crappy sleep last night, I don't think me digging straight into the rock again is going to be very productive or last long at all.

Mineshaft it is again, then. The first of those spider-spawning cages I see, I'm dumping as much lava over it as physically possible.

Okay, I'm not sure how to put this the best way, but Fortune is turning out to be a huge freaking deal.

I've been going through the mineshaft again, trying to find spots where I haven't been last time. Stumbled across a coal vein I hadn't mined out before, so obviously I used my Fortune pickaxe and…

Darn, I'm not even sure how to explain it. Like…

I don't know. The thing is, it was a cluster of 4 ore blocks clumped together; and before, from mining those four, I would have gotten four solid good lumps of coal. I always did before. 1 ore block = 1 piece of ore.

This time, with Fortune III, I got 11. Out of 4. And I can't for the life of me figure out why.

Here's the plan: I'm going to quickly scrap together a stone pickaxe, then look for another coal vein and do a direct comparison.

I'll figure out what exactly is different and how I suddenly got more coal than I know what to do with.

Okay, I figured it out. This enchantment really is a huge, and I mean huge, deal.

So I looked around the mineshaft again, found some more coal (and some iron too, but that's another thing), and, first, used my freshly put-together stone pickaxe on a single coal ore, with predictable results – a single piece of coal. Then I did the same with the Fortune pick and tried spotting any differences.

I figured it out.

The thing is, some of these ores aren't the most sound in terms of…how "tough" they are? I think that fancy term is "somethingsomething integrity", so I'll roll with just "integrity". So, with these ores, when you break them normally, the large amount of material within gets smashed to bits as well; so, stuff like coal, and I assume lapis and even freaking diamonds (I'm not sure how, considering how tough they are) get broken to unusable scrap and tiny debris, But! There's always at least one piece that survives and is the one I can take into my inventory.

I'd written it off before, thinking it as another wacky local rule. Which it probably is.

The Fortune seems to, I don't know, "break" that rule. How, I'm not sure – it doesn't feel different in any way to be mining with it. However, when mining these "weak" ores, it looks like the amount of "smashed" ore material is much lower. Again, not a clue how yet – I'm digging as usual, and it just…works better. I hope I find some diamonds and see if the rule gets broken for them as well, because if it does…wow. I'm already getting excited.

But it's not that Fortune breaks all the rules – not for every kind of ore it seems. There are also iron and gold ores, and they are, in a word, "strong", because breaking them doesn't destroy the stone mass and doesn't expose the ore inside; the whole block gets "dropped", so my only option to get anything from it is to smelt it later. It had been that way when I mined normally, and it stayed that way when I mined with Fortune. I think I'll keep this stone pickaxe and use it for iron, until I get out at least.

So, in a sense, Fortune is a rule-breaker, but not a game-breaker. Don't know if this would make sense for anyone else, but it does for me.

Just found a 4 ore vein lapis in one of the areas of mineshaft I hadn't been in before. Used my Fortune pick.

I got a stack of lapis. Out of 4 (four!) ores I got a stack. 64. That's at least 16 per ore.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Fortune is a bit of a game-breaker after all.

Found a Golden Apple in one of the chests. It's been a long time since I had seen one of these, and I don't want to remember the last time.

Should I keep it on my belt?

Yeah, I'm keeping it on my belt. I mean, not directly on the belt – the items would still be hanging tight in mid-air if I was naked, but that is a mouthful. So, belt.

I have to say, this mineshaft is much larger than I'd imagined. I thought I had explored most of it back in the day, but apparently not. No more of these stupid spiders or the spawning things, so that's good at least, but I have already been forced to recycle the wood here into torches, cause mine ran out a long time ago trying go light everything up.

At least I still remember the way back. I think.

Holy crap, this place is massive. This mineshaft is connected to yet another cave system – and it looks huge! What the hell?

Found a spider spawning room. Not the poisonous type – the normal one. I heard a lot of hissing through the stone walls while exploring this giant freaking cave, and it was a good distance away from my original mineshaft, so I thought it could have been a completely different one.

After a whole lot of digging blindly I found it. A veritable horde of spiders had already appeared inside, so these "normal" spiders are about as "normal" as their tiny and obnoxiously deadly little cousins. I'd have been in trouble if that horde could attack me, but thankully they spideys were too big to fit into the little tunnel I dug out.

But I had just enough space and range to work with.

There were two chests inside. One had nothing remarkable - just junk and a free bucket. The other, though? Found a Name Tag in it. Never seen one of those before. That suddenly woke the System up (and gave me an instant headache).

"Name Tags are special items used for tagging and naming creatures, both friendly and hostile. A Name Tag must first be given a proper tagging name through the use of an Anvil and 1 piece of Lapis Lazuli. Sticking the activated Name Tag to a creature will permanently destroy the Name Tag and permanently assign the creature that given name."

That's...cool, I think? Not sure what kind of tagging to expect though, given the fact that it uses lapis. I'd tag Wolfy, but better safe than sorry: I'll use it on some other thing once I get out first. Pretty sure this isn't a one-of-a-kind thing.

There's a huge mound of gravel blocking the only other exit out of this dungeon room. I'd try to dig out, see where else it leads (seriously, how much bigger could this place be?), but I hear footsteps on the other side - and no other "noises" to accompany them. I know exactly what that means, so I'll pass.

Don't know how long it's been, but I finally found a diamond vein. Covered it in water and dug out a huge chunk of stone so that any lava would get deleted fast - it's going to be my standard course of action with after finding diamonds from now on. Turned out to be a pack of 6 ore chunks clumped together - a very solid find.

Normally, from this cluster I would get exactly 6 diamonds - that's the way it had been before. Not anymore. Took the Fortune pick for the job. I got 11 out of 6.

ELEVEN.

Fortune is officially best thing ever. Total game-breaker. Should have put it on a long time ago. It can't get any better than this. Now it's really time to get out, cause this cave-crawling is starting to get under my skin.

P.s: I have to note that a considerable amount of that diamond material encased within the stone was still getting broken along with it, even with the enchantment. Looks like whether or not I walk away with more diamonds than one realky does depend on fortune.

heh

Stumbled across some new kind of rock while digging out iron on my way back. Looks somewhat like regular stone, except more dark-gray with really sharp black lines all over. This thing is tough, and I mean tough - bonked with with the Diamond Fortune pick for half a minute - not even a dent. I had to do a double-check - go to a lava lake I found, cool it with water, then dig the obsidian out - just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.

I could very well be: looks like I crawled very deep underground - it's super dark here, even with torch light, kind of tight on air (the torches themselves don't help either), and there are these weird black-ish particles flying around, which I'm sure aren't exactly great for me, coming off of this strange new rock block. Then again, I'm writing just fine, so maybe it's just this weird stone being super-tough to crack. A riddle for another day.

fucking hell its like the FIRST TIME ALL OVER.

i must h_av e taken a wrong turn somwhere cus i ended up' walking intoaravine, didnt even get t_o check it out - CREEPER FA/LLS FROM above and xplods right nxt to me.

not as

bad as the first time - no direct injuries on b0dy but i still feel busted - le_ft eat wnt stop ringing, ches/t hurts bad (i think might b somthin bleeding and or broken inside_), may be even a concushion caus i hit m'y head pretty hard.

I should live, but i ate tha t goldenapple i f0und earlier. prety sure its supposed to feel ama-zing, but my injuries take th'e fun out of it. ill be fine. i ll be fine just got stay awake_

okay, i feel better now. Still hurts to breathe but i'll be fine my regeneration should handle it.

yet again i find a golden apple, yet again my sorry ass gets busted and yet again the apple saves me. Im starting to think theyre cursed with bad luck or something.

ow gods damn im sore all over now. My ears still ringing - hope its not an injury that stats.

i need to get the fuck out of these caves. really feels like i overstayed my wel_come that wasnt even a welcome to begin with

or maybe it was because of that stupid fortune pun. Ow.

Stay out of ravines.

STAY OUT OF RAVINES.