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...

Cartographer's apprentices

     We reached the shack in good time, so we would have some time before SERVERE was likely to turn up. Although we didn't know how fast he was able to travel; obviously he wasn't restricted by guard patrols or being seen by any other HoN Co. employee, but he never specified how far exactly he would have to travel. For all we knew, he could be here already, just waiting for us, or he could take days. I preferred the latter as it allowed me to spend more time with Amie, and after a short discussion, I volunteered to go with THEROS and Amie to help map out the area. Initially I was under the assumption that that reason she had given to COLUS to go with us was a lie, but it turns out to be a rather useful way to spend time waiting for SERVERE. On the upside, we might even find something else that might peak our interest. UOPETA would remain in the wooden shack to wait for SERVERE, as he was likely to head through there first before getting to us. Putting all of our bags and equipment down, we rested a short while. We had quite a task ahead of us, THEROS especially. It did begin to make me wonder how exactly we could be of use to him. He was a trained and very efficient cartographer with years of experience and a condition that allowed him to remember vivid detail after leaving an area. I knew some basic map-drawing skills, but nowhere near as good as THEROS.

"It's quite simple; I take one floor and map it out, whilst you and Amie take any floor above or below mine. It might be good to mark certain staircases with something to indicate that floor having been mapped out. A bit of chalk or a pencilled outline of something..."

"Yeah, I think we've got some white chalk. If we just leave a circle with a cross through it, it'll show that that floor has been marked. Best to put one at the base and top of each flight of stairs."

"Well I better let you guys get going then. If SERVERE comes down I'll call you back up and we can sort things out from there."

THEROS, Amie and myself got up and went through the bags placed around our feet on the floor. Taking out a few sheets of course paper and a few pencils, THEROS handed over a few of each to me and Amie, before following him out of the passage into the tunnel. We took the long journey back to the Enderman building through the tunnel filled with lava up to the repaired obsidian bridge. I took the rear when we had to pass single file through the obsidian tunnel, playing the gentleman and protecting Amie from behind. We continued like this up until we entered the building, whereupon she took my hand again. THEROS was already beginning to map out the area of the tunnel, although that seemed relatively simplistic as there was only one direction to go in.

"Right... I'll take this floor whilst you two take the one below. There should be a set of steps leading down to your left after this initial room. I'll give you a few tips: map out the boundary walls first as it will give you an enclosed area to work within. Think of it like a jigsaw puzzle. Once the frame's done, the rest is just filling in the blanks. Good luck!"

Still holding hands, we headed forwards and off to the left, and true to his word, a set of steps led down into the unknown. I don't think we had taken this route to get to the portal, so it's likely we'll get lost at some point. Good job we were making the maps then! Amie scrawled a circle onto the wall at the top of steps.

"We'll put the cross in when we're done."

Seemed logical to me...

     I had initially thought that mapping the tunnels, rooms and chambers of this place would be incredibly boring, but I was actually having a lot of fun! It may have something to do with spending a lot of alone time with Amie, and she certainly seemed to be having a whale of a time too! In all seriousness though we were making decent headway as well, so we couldn't really be scolded for having fun at the same time. We were both documenting the same layout at the same time on separate pieces of paper to ensure we captured as much detail as possible. It's likely that THEROS would redraw these at a later date, so if he has two copies to work from, it might be easier to work to a scale with added details. It seemed though that Amie was better at this than me; I was being simplistic by using single lines as the boundary walls, but she had used double lines, and even included a legend! So far she had utilised a series of different symbols within it to display certain elements. Mine just had walls... When she looked at mine, she tried to mask her amusement, but failed miserably, resulting in a drawn out snigger. I pretended to go in a huff and began to walk off slightly ahead, hoping maybe I could get ahead of her in mapping the place out.

"Syeonyx, I'm sorry... It's really very nice..."

I turned around and she was still trying to conceal her sniggering, but doing a better job of it. I stopped and waited for her to catch up before continuing on. This place was larger than it looked; after descending the steps, the large bulky rooms made out that the floor plan was quite small, broken up into smaller units. But the boundary walls were often hard to find, meaning we had to explore further into certain rooms before we could determine whether they were or not. After exiting one room, we went across to the other side of the passage into another, only to find it was actually another staircase leading up. We looked at each other, and then back at the steps wondering where it would lead.

"Well it's going back up, so it should lead back up to the same floor as THEROS... Shouldn't it...?"

I shrugged... I didn't have a clue, but there was only one way to find out.

Cautiously heading up the steps, I was carefully not to make any noise in case it was a level we hadn't been on before, but instead of it opening out into a large chamber, or a series of enclosed rooms, we were instead presented with a long tunnel, lit with torches. There was nothing of interest along the entire stretch of it besides a few cracked bricks and the occasional piece of lichen growing over the surface. Reaching the end, we expected to either see a series of rooms like before, or a continuation of the tunnel itself. Instead we were met with something completely unexpected. Before us was a large open chamber with a strange central pillar in the centre. It was hollowed out, with the supporting sections on each corner, and had a waterfall streaming down through the centre. Amie approached it, looking first up into the pool where the water was likely to be coming from and then down to where it was flowing. She shrugged and came back to me.

"A little odd, but still nothing of interest. The water doesn't lead to any place I can see further into, and it doesn't seemed to be flowing from anywhere above we can get to... But it's definitely not on the same floor as THEROS. I think we would have recognised that if it was..."

We circled the central section, looking for anything that indicate a purpose to it, but could find nothing. There was only one other exit as well which led off to the right from the tunnel. Heading over to it, we noticed it was another set of stairs that led up and then around to the left. We were blatantly on pure exploration mode now; neither of us had been drawing anything for the past few minutes, so we would have to backtrack at some point and catch up with ourselves. Heading around to the left, we found the stairs continue back around on itself still heading up, and a small tunnel led straight from it to another chamber ahead of us. The chamber was exactly the same in construction to the one below us; a central column, hollowed out with a flow of water passing down through the ceiling. Only this time there were a series of chests placed around the column. The room didn't seem to possess any other entrance of exits so at least this was the end of our exploration. We moved into the room, eyes drawn to the chests that surrounded the centre, wondering what could possibly be contained within them... They seemed old, really old; the wood looked like it was beginning to petrify, and the hinges attached to the lid had seen better days too. Amie went up to one, and with a single deep breath, she swiftly opened it and stepped back!

Rushing forwards, I was under the assumption that she had seen something or triggered something that had made her leap back, but instead she had done it for safety reasons.

"Everyone knows you don't just stand there whilst slowly opening an obscure container. That's just asking for trouble!"

That was true, and it reminded me of the time I found those two chests close to my house; I had reacted in the exact same way, and I was even fully geared up with iron armour to protect myself! Better to be safe than sorry. We both stepped forward and peered into the chest expecting to find something of value; books, an Eye or Ender, anything that might help us, but there was nothing. The bottom of the chest was the only thing that met us. Feeling slightly defeated, I began to feel around the bottom of the chest hoping to find something hidden or maybe a secret layer to the chest, but there was nothing at all. That was really odd... Pulling my head out, I looked at the rest of the chest, wondering whether there were any other clues. Trying to lift it, I admitted defeat pretty quickly as it soon became apparent they weren't going anywhere... Then I noticed something... It was so small and almost imperceptible that I wasn't surprised I hadn't seen it initially, and even when I had it took a few moments to realise what it was. A think piece of filament wire ran the length of the side of the chest lid, down the inside past the hinge and down into the main floor of the chest. What could that be linked to...? It was almost as though it was designed to trigger something when opened... A trap! I grabbed Amie and threw her to one side before jumping on top of her, protecting her from the expected explosion. But there was nothing... Even more odd...

Syeonyx signing off

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