I got up rather early for some unknown reason... I was tired but after I had awoken I couldn't get back to sleep! I still had a billion and one questions I wanted answers to, but they were unlikely to be answered... I got up and decided that now would be a good time to check the outside of the wall. I know something had come up through the mine and out of the surface entrance, but what if something had got in another way? The wall was huge and there were bound to be spots which these creatures could exploit! My only disadvantage was being alone; the wall did a good job of keeping out the unwanted, but I could patrol every section of it! Before I started, I went to check on the ship; from the outside it looked like nothing had changed, but what of the inside? I climbed onboard, and checked each room with a quick glance, not noticing anything unusual or out of place. I then went up the ladder to the antennae, butfound nothing but a chicken who seemed to have made it's home there! The ship had remained unchanged, despite being open to the elements! This didn't bother me because of the construction of the ship, so I left and continued around the outside of the wall.
I spent a good hour checking the entire perimeter of the outside of the wall but I could find no breach of sign or forced entry! Whoever had attacked the forge had done so by entering into the walled area via the mineshaft surface entrance! This put my mind at ease, knowing that the one and only weakness to the security of the area was now sealed, although the wooden barricade at the bottom of the shaft now seemed inadequate; if they could blast away large amounts of stone and rock, what chance did wood have? I pushed it from my mind and set off towards the forge... It needed repairing, and the lava leak needed seeing to immediately! My only hope was that the small reserves of cobblestone I had used to make the forge was still there. When I got there, I realised that the damaged wasn't actually that bad; part of the wall had collapsed into small craters either side of the door, which left the entrance perfectly intact! All of the windows had been shattered as well, so I would need to make more glass panes too. This whole job wouldn't take long, especially as i knew what I was doing. The first job was completed in a few minutes by diverting the flow of lava using dense stone blocks. I then filled in the hole with cement and stone, and removed the diversion. The exterior wall was easier than I though too, however I first had to fill the holes that had been made. Luckily, there was a ton of dirt, sand and gravel nearby from the open-cast mine which I hadn't incinerated yet, and I put it to more effective use by filling the holes in! Within two hours or so, the whole forge was back up to working condition; the craters had been filled in, the lava pit repaired, the wall rebuilt and the glass panes replaced. I had to replace a few glass panes around the corner too where presumably the shockwave had caused stress fractures... It was good as new!
Remembering the creatures down near the temple, and their dislike of light, I put out torches all along the ground to ensure that not a single patch was left dark! Even if anything could get in, it wouldn't want to because of the light! I was tempted to replant the forest, but I had better things to do at the time, especially as I had a ton of wood stored anyway! I returned to the house to sift through the books and see if there was anything interesting to read, or learn, until HoN Co. got back to me.
I've found quite a few fascinating books about the indignous species in Minecraftia, and they're not all that different to what would be found in built-up areas near cities and the countryside! Obviously I've seen cows, sheep, goats, chickens and wolves, but there were insects and birds of great and imaginative varieties. I was incredibly engrossed in the book until I stumbled upon one particular page that caught my interest; it was a page about different species of spiders that could be found in this region. One stuck out like a sore thumb! Umbra invisibilium! Roughly translated, it meant the "invisible shadow" and was a species of spider renowned for using stealth to kill it's prey. It's appearance was that of a normal spider, but it possessed a body so black that it almost seemed to draw in light from outside the book! Not only that, but the spider also possessed another defining feature: 8 glowing red eyes! The passage said that they rarely grow any bigger than a few inches longer... tell that to the same spider that was a few metres long and attacked me back in a temple! Maybe there were variations of this species, each with different physical traits based on geographical isolation... I flicked through, hoping to find something about Creepers, but it wasn't documented at all... Whoever had made this book hadn't done a very thorough job to leave out the most volatile creature around!
That's very odd; in every book I've gone through so far, the seventh page has been ripped out... from every one! Well, the seventh and eighth... it doesn't make any sense. As far as I can tell, none of those pages contained anything of value, and even if they did, what is the chance of it being present in 7 separate books on the same page! The books span a few subjects from animal species, to cooking recipes... they definately can't be linked! Maybe it was just coincdence... maybe the crew ran out of toilet paper...? Nah, it can't be that... there must be a link somewhere... I've looked through the bag of stuff I took back in case they got snagged on something, and I;ve checked the other 3 books to see if the pages are tucked away but nothing! They've gone... Not a particularly interesting mystery, but a mystery nonetheless. It's not important at the moment, so for now, I'll think I'll make this rather nice looking meal for me and Chiron! We deserve it!
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