Knowledge Increases

A girl's best friend, it's said,
yet there are no women in this world.

Work is going well enough, I should think. This is one of the happiest sights one can see, very far below the earth. Diamonds are a rare commodity indeed, but when you find a small lode of them, it almost makes all the effort worthwhile.

Emeralds are even rarer, with only one or maybe two being embedded in any area, and those nearly as far down as one may mine. They haven't much use except for trading with villagers, and villagers do have many useful items... but one must find a concerned villager in the first place. There are none in the desert.

That is to say, someone surely built the temple in which I now dwell. Surely several someones quarried the sandstone, following the directions of other someones who laid out the plans and assessed the territory, and several more someones financed the entire venture (or at least paid the cruel taskmasters who abused a couple dozen more someones into compliance). And perhaps they all died generations before I sailed up to this section of the continent, leaving only their suspicious temple with the carvings of Explodicons, this epicenter to attract horrific monsters.

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.

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 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.

Solitude

Thoreau kicks off from shore and drifts leisurely from harm.

After that hair-raising adventure, I have permitted myself to relax and recuperate for a day or two. Too much rest is rust, I know, but in this case I think no one could blame me for wanting to stretch out in my bed, behind the security of meter-thick polished granite walls and a stout oak door, watching the sun crawl across the sky.

Not that day, you understand. I didn't even wait for my clothes to dry before I clambered into another makeshift boat and set sail. Night had fallen and the A.C.M.s were out: they had emerged into being within the livestock pen, however, and they find the simple wooden fences more than their match. They can manage staircases but not ladders; I have heard the fiercer of these mindless revenants pound at my door, but I haven't seen them make a try for the fence posts. Adios to these odious hosts, it's the ocean life for me.

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 Ambulatory Corpses of Men

Night of the living Ambulatory Corpses of Men.

Conflict comes to us in many forms. Some say that life is nothing but conflict, internal and external, intentional and entirely outside of consciousness or sentience. What does this mean? There's the conflict of a newly born baby struggling to learn the bizarre and illogical language into which it is born, without a base language for point of reference. There's the conflict of that baby requiring so many things, the requests for which it cannot put words, like "I'm tired" or "I'm hungry" or "a snake has bitten me. Extricate it and fetch the physician as swiftly as possible."

There's the conflict of living beings that struggle against the elements to survive, enduring mudslides, hurricanes, several feet of snow, the brutal and unforgiving sun, just to see one more day of scraping for food. There's the conflict of living beings in pursuit of this, while simultaneously avoiding being attacked and preyed upon by other entities who necessarily share their goals. Much higher up on the philosophical infrastructure is the concern of sentient beings who riddle themselves into intractable corners: what is my purpose here? For what do I toil so hard to survive? What right have I to take the lives of others, merely to prolong my own pointless existence? How can any person anticipate any potential reward in the Afterworld, having ramped up his own success and survival upon an immeasurable heap of corpses and carcasses? What is the nature of such an Afterworld as would reward these heinous acts? Where did I get the idea such acts are abhorrent; from what other world did I come that informed me any differently?

I could really use that cup of tea, right about now.

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.