Welcome to "The Diary of a Miner"; a blog detailing the adventures and mysteries that I, Syeonyx, embark upon in my quest to further my mining and survival skills! It'll be tough, there will be good times and bad times, but I'll always be alive to post my adventures... probably...

Tedious inevitabilities...

     A while later, we made it back to the base, stopping momentarily to either collect more samples, or to watch groups of pig-men wandering around. Or just to take a few photos that might prove useful. In the end, we managed to have loads of images of different areas around us, including possible glowing stone sights, pig-men groups - most of which were armed - and lava pools and streams. On the we back, we had begun to talk about the pig-men, wondering what was the deal behind them. How had they come about, and why were a lot of them armed with rustic weapons, and yet they never attacked anything or anyone...

"Maybe... Maybe groups of pig-men attack each other... You know, on a territorial basis... They craft weapons from whatever materials they manage to find, and use it to defend themselves from other pig-men groups..."

"Well, how do you tell one group apart from another? They all seem to merge together... And why do they all look as though they're practically dead! Most of them have huge chunks of their body missing, and yet they still seem to wander around aimlessly with no pain at all!"

Maybe it was the Nether itself. The atmosphere, or something they ate caused this rapid decay of live flesh... Either that, or the pig-men were already dead... That would account for the lack of pain despite broken bones and missing flesh. In any case, I wanted to limit the amount of time I spent here, just in case there was something that could do that to me... We made it back to the base in good time, following the trail of torches that UOPETA had placed along the way, and immediately COLUS began asking us about what we had discovered! I gave him every image I had taken with the camera, and THEROS passed the mushroom samples to OROTHO. We then went into how we had come across a few groups of seemingly harmless pig-men, all armed with makeshift swords.

"Swords? Are you sure?"

"100%. We couldn't believe it either, but a lot of them were carrying sword-like weapons constructed from various materials, and of various construction. You'll also notice their condition from the images. They all seem to be in a state of decay. Almost as if the flesh is dying whilst they continue to grow!"

"Could they be... Shedding maybe... You know, like snakes."

"I doubt it. But if they are, I don't want to see them after all of the flesh has dropped off!"

COLUS looked at a few of the images with keen interest. He handed half of the stack to Amie, who also flicked through them, whilst OROTHO sat in the corner, studying the mushroom samples that THEROS had given him. I went with UOPETA to have a sit down, before we were inevitably called back out to search for more sites with glowing stone...

     We've stayed at the base for some time now, allowing OROTHO, Amie and COLUS to examine the images and samples we collected. OROTHO seems to think that the mushrooms that THEROS collected are the same as the ones found regularly in Minecraftia, but he's taking them back with him to perform a direct comparison. THEROS has been padding out his map with a little more detail using the telescope to look far into the distance, and COLUS has been trying to determine the next course of action. The glowing stone we found was by far the closest and easiest to get to out of all of the other deposits we had seen. But it would require building a basic framework ladder to reach it! Not only that, but we would have to keep a close eye on the pig-men groups that seemed to inhabit this area. Since we had gone, additional security had been added to the exit as a few pig-men had become curious and attempted to gain entry.

"Well, as it stands... We have two options. Either a few of us return to Minecraftia and collect some timber to build this framework, lug it all the way back and out to that area and build it on site. Or, we search around again, and look for another deposit of glowing stone that is more easily accessible."

THEROS spoke up now, pointing out the problem to that idea:

"The area we searched was the most accessible from what I can see. We cannot go to the right as there is no safe way down. We would need to head way out to the left, past our glowing stone point, and attempt to head down. But from the reports, the further we head away from the upper walls, the harder it will be to find the stuff. It must be the nature of its formation."

"Well in that case... It would mean having to bring additional resources back in through the portal. Are you three fine with that?"

As far as I was concerned, it was an excuse to get out of the Nether for awhile! I was fine with that! UOPETA nodded, along with THEROS. It seemed they were as glad to have a break from the Nether as much as me!

"That's settled then. I'll let you go in your own time. We'll continue with the study down here whilst you recover the timber from back through the portal."

We all stood up and began to head back towards the portal, all carrying blowpipes in hands to be ready for anything!

     Despite the unnerving experience of travelling back through the portal, it felt good to be back in the right dimension! We quickly made our way to the surface, just to get away from it, but we're now taking our time in retrieving wood. We've collected a small amount of lumber which is still manageable for us to carry, but UOPETA is insistent that we need more. I'm not too bothered as it means we spend less time in the Nether. However, when I was taking a beather, I thought it a little weird that it was still light. In fact, the sun was still quite high in the sky, and we had easily been in the Nether a good few hours. I still hadn't mentioned the possibility of a temporal effect to OROTHO yet, but seeing the sun still climbing the sky made me think that I might as well ask. Maybe he had seen it too, or one of the others.

"Come on now UOPETA. That's enough wood to make the ladder. Let's head back."

UOPETA turned around, sighed, and picked up the slightly larger bundle of lumber and walked towards us. We slowly made our way back down the stairs, around the winding tunnel and back into the chamber, before the portal once more.

"After you..."

Syeonyx signing off

No comments:

Post a Comment