Restless, Desperate, and Committed

Thoreau has discovered more villagers,
who sadly have been converted to the status of A.C.M.

Boredom gnaws at me. I know, I know, with as much work as I've to do, who could possibly become bored?

Yet so it is. All my work is in accruing resources, and so this I have done for weeks upon weeks, months upon... how much time has elapsed? There are no weekdays, no weekends, no holidays here, and so the days bleed into each other. When I'm mining dozens of meters down, closer and closer to the impenetrable bedrock, several days might slip by without my awareness. I occupy my imagination with the slaying of fell beasties, the relentless defense against Explodicons and A.C.M.s as I plunder the earth for precious resources. "Precious," I say, though I amass scores of gold bars without a single assayer to quote me a price in American dollars. What worth are these to me, then?

The only evidence of the passage of time is when I emerge, at last, to discover every last seedling in my garden has long reached the fullness of adulthood.

Omnia Mutantur

Armed to the teeth! Alarmed as all hell!

Things are crazy... things are crazy!

I don't know if... I can describe...

It's been so long. I was so good, and then I got caught up in other work... and then I got lost. I've died several times! This doesn't undo my actual progress, but if I have not established a bed in a new realm, I resurrect at my last point of origin, no matter how many miles or islands—or continents!—away. Much more than annoying, this has been a nightmare.

And yet so many things have changed! When did they change? It's impossible to say. Some changes, you may understand, creep up on you, or perhaps there are changes to standards of land and life that you are, of yet, largely ignorant. How can you know what you don't know? All these changes are going on without your wherewithal, so that when you do finally encounter them, you can't know the new conditions from whatever or however they presented in earlier iterations.

I hope this is obvious. It should not bear explaining.

The Story in the Stones

The nightmare legion assembles outside the desert temple.

To my dismay, the pyramid temple was surrounded by fell beasties, milling about as though expecting an event to erupt and coalesce them into an organized platoon—or even a company, so numerous were they. I ground my molars as my eyes adjusted to take them all in, to differentiate the Explodicons from the cacti, to pick out the tall and slender humanoids as black as the night itself, for there were a few of these about as well.

All of my senses were on high alert. Agasado, to his extensive credit, held perfectly still while I took the lay of the land. Now, I have very little skill with the base function of chivalry, that is, fighting from horseback (Old French chevaler, "knight"; Latin caballarius, "pack-horse"). I certainly had no desire to abuse Agasado's patience with grazing cuts with a sword or nasty cracks about the skull with my bow, during my preliminary learning phase, so I rode him out a certain distance to a clearing, then crept around the largest group of these predatory nasties.

The Dapple Gray and the Demesne

Now it's time for Thoreau to know the dappled stallion.

There is nothing else to do today but explore my environment. I'm now living in a desert, which heretofore has been absent in my direct experience, and as there are no other pressing concerns (save the protracted, long-term ones I've plotted), I will avail myself of the leisure.

I'm thinking of what to do with the horse. There is no hay here to feed him currently, yet he (the horse is very apparently male, before anyone chide me for crass assumptions) does not appear emaciated. Once my own garden is underway I should be able to provide for him, at any rate.

As I said, he is calm around me and does not mind the scent of human, apparently. He is outfitted with tack and harness, and his coat is a healthy mottled gray with few blemishes or scrapes. Whether he originates from here or was selected and brought hither from that wild herd I discovered so long ago, there is no way for me to tell. All I could do was assess his flanks and rub his velvety nose while trying to come up with a name for him.

My Decision Is Made For Me

Thoreau is cultivating his pigs, to prepare a large to-go lunch.

Diligent Reader, may I address you casually, do you recall the last time I fled a place? Do you remember what was going on when I finally decided it was time to pack up and leave? Let me remind you.

I had been on Ellery Island, you will no doubt remember, when I had been tergiversating over this exact same situation. I was growing weary of the one location and needed to expand and challenge myself, so better to invigorate my faculty with new air and revitalized blood. While I entertained these discussions, the monsters on that patch of land began manifesting an alarming new strategy, taking me completely unawares and nearly terminating my existence once again. (When will be the last time, I wonder?)

The obvious conclusion to be drawn, thus, is that the monsters are somehow attuned to my thoughts. Just as the critters and small birds of Concord had sensed my good nature and befriended me in displays of unity and support to guests, so too do these aberrations of nightmare sniff the changed breeze when my thoughts drift and shift. For no sooner had I merely begun to entertain the possibility of leaving the villagers' cabin than they stepped up their offense. This morning I spotted no fewer than three witches milling about behind my quarters. I pounced upon them easily enough, only to be flanked by Explodicons that emerged from I know not where. While I could knock these back to a safer, more manageable distance, abruptly my vision began to jar and rattle, as a gale of arrows lodged violently into my armor. For as I had descended into the depression behind my cabin to wrangle the Explodicons, no less than a squad of archer-skeletons crested the ridge to pepper me with their volleys.

Thoreau's Crazy Train

The fanning method of mining.

Many days have been spent on the back-breaking labor of digging the underground railway. While the activity itself is entirely uninteresting, affording me a liberal week of neglecting my journal (for what is there to update? Pontificating upon the blisters of my hands? The unchanging scenery of a one-meter-by-two-meter corridor in stone?), there are in fact a few aspects and discoveries I would like to record here for my own benefit.

Mind you, this is intensely boring work. To create a railway, I carve out just enough room to run a minecart down, plus headroom for myself. This has been a trial-and-error process: I stand two meters tall in this realm, and when I sit in the minecart, I still require two meters height and one meter in width. This is the barest necessity for a gangway. While digging this out, of course, it is advantageous to start "fanning", that is, mining large side passages as far as I may reach in all directions, at intervals of two meters, to advance my odds of finding mineral deposits. While this triples my work time, it is essential for personal development and acquisition of resources, so for the present time I see no alternate route about this.

Learning the Language

The homestead, as the author has come to consider it. For now.

I find this village pleasant... well, it is inaccurate to call this a village, as it really is only one solitary house on a hillock, standing above an atoll. One cabin and its garden: I'm sure I don't know what could be as pleasant.

Except, of course, for another couple of houses somewhere nearish. I must wonder what has happened to the other houses, if others there were. What is it about the area that retains these two villagers to this house? Are they the keepers of a disappeared tradition? Are they defenseless to travel across great stretches of land, just the two of them? Are they waiting for the others to return?

I cannot answer any of these, but the truth is that I have picked up a few words in their tongue. I am not fluent, but it was a stroke of that particular genius/obviousness that we seemed to hit upon recently, which compelled us to share the names we have for various objects. Promptly we traded our words for, of course, the crops: wheat, carrots, potatoes, and then water and then soil. When we established the pattern of education, that is, isolating an object and then naming it, we were able to properly introduce ourselves. They know me as "Henry"; they are Selidon and Voessi. While they appear identical, they nonetheless manifest subtle traits that distinguish them from each other, not the least of these being their occupations. Selidon is a shepherd (we have amassed many other words through drawings and rather superior pantomime on my part) and Voessi is a fisherman. As soon as we established this, they wanted to begin trading.

Storming the Village

The witch spotted me when I drew within a few meters of her: an inopportune bolt of lightning illuminated my craft and caught her eye. As soon as I was detected, I leapt from the boat and scrambled for stable footing on shore. She knocked back a potion and lights began to swirl around her person, the effect of whatever she had used to empower herself, I know not what. Her hand darted under her robes and withdrew another potion; I nocked an arrow and envisioned a golden line from my bow to her core, despite rivulets of the storm blurring my vision. When she drew back to hurl her vessel, I released the arrow, and it flew true to bury itself into her throat. Her eyes rolled in their sockets, she dropped the bottle and clawed at her throat, sinking to her knees. With a second arrow loaded I cautiously approached her. Her lips pulled back in a terrifying sneer and her jaw worked, but then the life drained from her face and she collapsed upon the sand.

The A.C.M.s groaned and pounded at the cabin's door.

I released the breath I was not aware I'd been holding. Some savage instinct within me overrode my faculties: I searched the wretched body for useful items, then planted my boot to her shoulder and rolled her into the ocean, her purple robes swiftly vanishing within the depths of the Sewall Sea. I am surprised at myself for the callousness of my behavior, it is not something I would have imagined myself capable of. And yet this is the fact of it, as I record it without waiver or apology.

This accomplished, I turned my attention toward the large stone house, only to witness two A.C.M.s battering at the oak door. I sprang into action: two arrows pierced the back of one animated corpse, and it collapsed. The other seemed not to notice, so I carefully lined up two more shots and dispatched it as well.

The Journey Worsens

Vast stretch of desert, entirely unfamiliar to the author.

It should surprise no one that I have found the great continent which was my destination. I cannot determine what was my intent to deceive the reader of this journal, in pretending that I was abandoning Ellery island with no specific designs to land. I suppose it was more romantic to sound as though I'd trundled up my essentials into a small wooden tub and flung myself once more into the vagaries of the Great Sewall. No reader can be more disappointed by the mundanity of my itinerary than I am by my flimsy deceit; I think that I do not mistake in this.

That behind us, I have found the southern coast to the lands I knew full well to exist. Where I have gone awry, to the reader's delight, is that I recognize nothing of these lands. According to my map, I should have found enormous, savage snow-capped mountains, down which fearsome rivers of lava ran to most dramatic effect. Spruce carpeted the sides and caves enticed the adventuresome eye, both for ready-made shelter and allure of what prizes they contained.

Nope, couldn't find a shred of this. No mountains, no lava, no spruce. Just a vast desert covered in sand and more sand, with traces of cactus and sugar canes, plus a low and miserly scrub-brush about which there seems no magnificent promise. I skirted the coast, scanning for anything remotely familiar, as disappointment filled up my vessel before catalyzing into dread: if I couldn't recognize the land I expected, flying due north across Sewall Sea, what were my odds of turning southward and drifting to the familiar lands?

Last Ditch of the Horrors

It is no matter to build a new boat. I've nurtured a thriving grove of trees on Ellery Island, and I have deconstructed and repurposed the trestles in nearly every rail gangway within my ambit. Nonetheless, I admit to being perturbed at the mindless monsters that shouldered my little craft out of its specially designed safe-hold and on into the waves. Voiceless my rage, still did I hustle downstairs and take out a mob of them in my controlled monster-generator. I came out loathing myself but, I confess with savage pride, a little sated.

This is true and I need admit it to myself. If I cannot be absolutely honest on these pages, to myself, then there is no point to staining this book with my thoughts. There is no point. If I cannot frankly address the world, if I refuse to stare into my own depths and honestly chronicle all that I find, but instead attempt to deceive and mislead the true authority... there is no point to continuing this journal. I will not contrive a sottisier as my only remaining testimony.

The Stifling Complacency

Baah-baah, they say. Cluck-cluck. They bide their time.

Oh, what do I do with myself now... I have a system in place, that serves me well. It's called "playing it safe": there still are random factors beyond my control, this is well, but on the main I'm able to mitigate the worst disasters due to having managed my property with discipline. On the surface of Ellery Island, my sheep and chicken mingle well, produce eggs and wool, and when they are numerous I render them to meat-stuffs. Between them and my well-tended plots of carrots, potatoes and wheat, I will never go hungry. As Heraclitus saith...

...nope, that's still gone. I've lost all my Classics. This saddens me deeply.

The Last Gasp

Well, that didn't go very well. But, spoiler alert: I survived. Sorry if my handwriting gives that away.

This is going to be a long one. Fetch yourself a beer or suitable potation, avail yourself of the Honest Jakes, then come back and get comfortable.

In salvaging gangway trestles, Thoreau had to sacrifice other items
like this fireproof leather armor. You know.

As you know, I had a very solid plan established by which to safeguard my continued survival. In my skylarking about the facilities, I happened upon a large room with a broad patch of natural soil. This saved me the work of stumbling through mineshafts in a vain attempt to recall where I'd seen deposits of loam, collect these, and haul them back to my grounds. The dirt was already there, and most of the lighting by which plants photosynthesize their sustenance was present, in the form of a hotly glowing spill of lava. All I had to do was plant my carrots (there were three in my pocket) near the light and grind my skeleton bones into meal to hasten their progression.

But it wouldn't do to have lava spilling all over my crops, would it? So I constructed a fence from the salvaged trestles supporting the circuitous gangways. This promptly caught fire and spread more rapidly than I would have supposed. A third of the fence was lost before I could put the fire out—flames are startlingly susceptible to stone axes—but the carrots were safe. I tilled the soil, planted my roots, and dug a trench for the water.

Now: to find water.

Underground Accommodations

What archaic people laid these tracks? It is a mystery to all.

Now I'm in a bit of a bind. The good news is that my mining on the second island (I really should name these, now that there's more than one) has not only been fruitful in production, but has led to other, mysterious caverns as well! Some of these are merely large cavities in which a bat has become trapped, but in one case I uncovered an underground pool. With some cunning pick-work, I styled it into a handsome little sauna, I think.

I have also disclosed an alarming and wholly unexpected discovery: that of a network of railways and trestles. All this, a few dozen meters below the surface of the second island, one of only two in my worldly awareness. I can scare believe it, but the fact of train tracks, coal cars, wooden load-bearing struts throughout a seemingly endless labyrinth of gangways is incontrovertible. It would be easier to stand in a field of marigolds at high noon, attempting to dissuade your company of the fact of the great spread of grass, the bright, beaming flowers or the sun that beats upon your heads. And yet I struggle to reconcile with this, for it means that there are—were—other people here. How long ago, I cannot say: they have abandoned their devices and their mining is incomplete, leaving me to exhume as much iron ore, lapis lazuli, gold and diamonds as my frame may bear.

The bad news is that I have become expertly lost.

Large Goals and Small Victories

Spoiler: Thoreau gained a carrot.

I've been remiss in journaling. Let me express no little regret for this, for the past few days have shewn great works of wonder, but of these two are most paramount and they are too important to "save until the end"... Ugh, that puts me in mind of those entertainment-hunds who slaver endlessly for the next chapbook or penny dreadful, and their drive to endlessly inform you of how many they've read consumes the whole of their being. But God save you, should you hint at the events at the end of each publication! Oh, heaven forfend! Woe betide them who are not suitably precious about the endings of these tawdry melodramas...

I apologize for carrying on. It is an emotionally laden topic. I care not for the preservation of these petty distractions, but I have suffered the hammers and the tongs of those for whom little else matters.

So let me ruin the grand surprise of this entry and announce my two greatest revelations: I now have a second island and a carrot. The carrot did not come with the island. I was flanked...

The Pocket-Dimension

First things first, I suppose. As I said, I woke up on an entirely bereft island, a dot amid a great sea stretching to every horizon. The sun blazed overhead and a cool breeze carried the scent of kelp and brackish waters.

Thoreau regards his modest garden.

There wasn't another human soul around, though this small and amorphous island was populated by convenient pairs of cows, pigs, chickens and sheep. Convenient, I say, as breeding these would supply a third of my diet (the remaining sectors being those of fish and such plants as could be scraped from the soil). Moreover, I anticipated the cows should provide milk; the sheep, a goodly measure of wool; and the pigs... well, should I craft or otherwise come upon a saddle, I should say a stout pig might provide a few hours of perambulatory adventure.

But to breed any of these, I needed wheat, and as I'd said, this proved profoundly reluctant to produce. Now, as everyone knows, pigs require carrots for sustenance, yet none was to be had on my little island. I wasn't sure what I could do to secure a varied diet, if anything were to be done.