1 year anniversary long gone and I hadn't even rolled out an update to commemorate it. Sad!
Not as sad as this little chapter written by me to get back into the thick of things.
Day ? ? ?. Again.
(Day 61, as it turned out)
Ten hours.
I have been stuck in this freaking cave for ten freaking hours. Or even more I really can't tell.
I got lost. I can't believe I got lost. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Screw it all!
I have been throughout this entire place; I lit up every single bit of it so well that I've had nothing to kill in the past, what? 2 to 3 hours?
But no, the cave isn't the problem – I know it inside and out already. It's the fucking mineshaft.
The mineshaft's blocking my escape. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out a fucking way back to the surface, because it lies through it. And it's so damn confusing to navigate. Corners upon corners, dead ends and round-abouts - all with multiple layers and levels, too!
I even ended up going into the new sections of the mine! Like that zombie dungeon room I'd found about an hour ago, wandering around this stupid place, completely off-track. I couldn't even bother to cut the mobs down with my sword, so I just dumped a bucket of lava inside and watched them all die. And to add insult to injury, there wasn't even anything even remotely valuable in the room. So I went back. Back to the cave. Again.
This place is driving me mad. I miss the fresh air outside.
You'd think I would be able to find my way out easily anyways – I still have the compass on me, pointing towards my home; still have the coordinates written down and still have the "coordinates" command on demand. And I have tried using it. It worked perfectly – until I realized that in this veritable maze, going by the coordinates - in a straight line - doesn't work.
Unless I mine straight through that is. That, or just dig straight up. I've thought about it, really; but not only is it a difficult task to do (I haven't been able to rest very well, mostly because of this stale air – it makes me feel tired, but I've tried sleeping already and I didn't feel all that refreshed), I know that I run the risk of digging up into another, completely unlit part of the cave, where a certain green-skinned ambush's probably already waiting for me. And I'm not looking for another encounter so soon after the last one.
I haven't gotten this far by being careless. Wait, nevermind, I have. Arc Luck's been saving me, but it'll run out eventually. And I don't want to be dependent on it when it does.
At least this lit-up cave is safe.
But then again, maybe the safe option isn't the best one? The prospect of just digging straight out sounds more appealing by the minute.
I'll head back to the mineshaft one last time, take a look around. No exit? I'll just pick a spot and start mining up them.
Tired of this place - figuratively and literally.
Haven't found my way yet. But I did find a zombie deep inside the mine toting a full set of gold armor, some of it enchanted.
I couldn't even be bothered to cut him down normally – drowned him in lava for a bit, then beat on the uglie with the full bucket as it burned, until I killed it. The bucket is pretty heavy when it's full, so not really a surprise here. I really should have switched to my sword and cut the zombie from further away when it started burning, but
but damn I guess I'm not thinking straight.
Oh whatever, at least bonking it so hard it flew into a stone wall several times in a row was more fun that I'd had in the last Gods-know how many hours (the heat from the burning notwithstanding).
And I almost completely forgot that there was a bigger reason for me to be writing this than beating something to death with a bucket. I got a drop. An enchanted golden chestplate drop. It's really beat up, and I am sure that little lava swim its' last owner did didn't do it any favors, but hey: Unbreaking III and something titled "Projectile Protection IV".
That's level 4 , so really strong – that's the highest level of an enchantment I've seen so far, in fact. I wonder what it considers as projectiles? Besides arrows. Arrows are surely projectiles.
Thank Oum!
Thank Oum.
I made it out. Finally made it out. Don't even remember how, my thoughts are so muddy, I can't remember which way it was, but it doesn't matter, because I am never setting foot in a freaking mineshaft again. Never.
Taking a breath of fresh air on the surface, after all this time, had to have been one of the best experiences in my entire life. Especially because it was raining. Perfect end to such a crappy journey, I say.
Not only that, it's also perfect because I found the donkey again, hiding under a tree some distance away from my walls! I think I was right in guessing he'd just gone deep into the forest to hide from that horrible downpour a few days ago, and he's come back here to pasture. Or more likely because I was feeding him so much. Heh.
Well, whatever it was, I'm relieved he's fine. I dropped all of the ores I'd fou d either to smelt overnight or straight into storage. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to keep " befriending" the donkey. I also need to do something about the blasted leaking roof; the bed's fine, thank the Gods (I would have been very upset if I came back only to have to sleep in a sodden, stinking one), but that just gives me more incentive to do something about it so that the rest of the house is the same.
At least Wolfy was happy to see me. Especially after I fed him some pork. Typical.
P.S: Apparently it's Day 61 now? And since it's soon night-time, Day 62 pretty soon? What the hell, have I really been down there for so long? No, that can't be right. Something's busted, I can't have been down there for almost two entire days.
How?
P.P.S: Almost forgot another detail: when I had finally climbed out of the cave system and was enjoying a moment together with Fresh Air, I was pretty suddenly and rudely interrupted by something bonking me on my leg. What it turned out to be was a tiny green blocky blob of…well I wasn't sure what it was until I killed it, but I kicked it away and watched as this semi-transparent thing started jumping back towards me.
I'm not even surprised it did so without any brain, or without any limbs – probably just out of pure spite towards me. Like everything else around here. I kicked the blob again when it got too close – that's when it "died", losing it's form and turning into an inanimate ball of slime. Yes, sticky, goopy, disgusting slime that got all over my palms and belt as I went to pick it up. I dropped the fucking thing right there and then, and made sure to very thoroughly wash myself in the waterfall nearby. Disgusting.
I was going to write an entry on this new thing in the Bestiary, but apparently I already had an entry there - for Slimes - from the survival book I read a while back, and it fit the description perfectly already, so I just updated it a little bit instead. Just to tell about the slime balls. Disgusting slime balls.
Damn it, I can't get that out of my head now.
The Addendum story (Chapter: Bestiary, Slime entry) has been updated as well alongside this chapter. Go read that if you want to, but it's only a couple of sentences this time, so it's up to you. This kind of message will appear every time I deem it necessary to update that story, so you can find the new bits much easier and faster.
So...over one year later, and I'm still only a quarter, maybe a third into my planned storyline. Might have to pick up the pace. But then again, if I do, there's a chance I end up overestimating the importance of quality versus quantity. Chapters might become rushed. Mundane. Soulless.
I don't want that.
But I also want to finish this story before getting sucked into the life's patented Sudden Whirlpool of Responsibilities (tm), so it's going to be a tough line to walk.
