The Gazing Pool

"Nature, in return for his love, seems
to adopt him as her especial child."

What became of the explosion-cultists?

Were they hoisted on their own petard?

Surely this place could not have been erected by the monsters themselves. Surely not.

With the pyramid temple secured, I returned to Agasado (starting to have second thoughts about this moniker). He had patiently waited for me, milling about in a mildly restive state entirely appropriate to a high-spirited and healthy stallion. I admired his discipline and wondered at his trainer. Myself, I have an affinity with animals, one well documented if I may be completely honest with myself. Documented by no less august a personage than Nathaniel Hawthorne himself, most kindly. But thus it is with the small critters, the chipmunks and little brown birds; to bond with and manage a large creature like a horse, wild and willful, that is an achievement I must respect with some awe. Like I said, I get along with Agasado just fine, but I admire the hand that steadied his nerves and gave him to trust.

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.

Far Away, So Close

It wasn't until the second day on the sea that I realized how much I miss sailing. I hadn't done much of it back in Massachusetts, truth be told, but the opportunity presented itself fairly regularly in this unlikely world. I've sailed out of desperation, for survival and exploration, and I've sailed strictly for the leisure of it.

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.

The Roads Not Taken

Thoreau is engaged in lots and lots of this.
Most of the time it yields nothing, yet still he persists.

Not much new to add in this department. I'm back to mining, sorry to say. I'm no longer carving out a complete railway to my island of origin; I am, however, hewing through stone several meters above that track, fanning at exactly the same intervals until I've created parallel rills of perilously deep free-falls in the rock. Should I misstep and tumble down these, there would only be smooth granite and andesite for me to grasp at, and as my tender fingernails are not up to biting into volcanic mineral, my fleshy corpore would accelerate until it struck bedrock, which as I've stated before is wholly indestructible.

So I'll watch my step, and I'll continue to mine away in search of minerals. I did find a few veins of iron and gold, a little more ante for my furnace's pot. Not that I was ever a card-fancier, I merely know these terms. Lately I find myself scraping the recesses of my musty skull for all the old axioms and... what's the word... colloquialisms which spiced the dialogue of my former community. As I lack any suitable company for conversation, I can only practice my faculty of speech by reading aloud these journal entries, and then only less than half of each day, as the sun rapidly streaks across the sky and plunges the terrain into darkness, when my sonorous voice should attract the usual variety of malefic supernatural entities.

"Listen Very Carefully to Me."

He makes himself right at home.

I was very startled to see another person, after Selidon and Voessi slipped away under cover of night so long ago. That is, I assume they fled. They could easily have been devoured by night creatures, but that would have had to have been a very thorough job, as I've been over this territory dozens of times and haven't found so much as a blood stain or a fingertip left behind.

The stranger walked right into my little house, and immediately I had a flashback of days gone by. Back in Massachusetts, that is: it was known among my acquaintances that they had but to walk right through my door and make themselves at home. If I were not in, they would leave a little note saying they'd missed me, or would entwine a small grass ring they'd crafted while waiting for me. It saddened me to recall these suddenly, for at the time I acted very haughty and cool about it, though inwardly I was rather delighted and charmed by their thoughtfulness. Now, of course, I'm exceedingly famished for friendly social discourse and I miss those past interactions with a keen longing.

The Corruption of Society

The author's writing desk, replete with hovering journal and quill.

All right, I want it known that I don't wholly reject technology. I hope I made that clear last time, but just in case there is any room for misunderstanding... I wish to record, in my own hand, that there are allowances to be made. I don't like the concept of energy-slaves, which is essentially what these devices are that we contrive to do our labor for us, but inasmuch as these mechanisms (trains, printing press, Morse's telegraph, &c.) do not exploit sentient beings or animals—who possess their own sentience, I quite assure you, but this is grist for another entry—I suppose I can overlook them to a degree.

I maintain that we should endeavor to enjoy these while maintaining a balance with the natural world: just because we have this miraculous, lightning-fast telegraph, let us not forget how to settle down with our neighbors and share some ripping yarns over a few beers (especially if someone else is paying: beer, like information, wishes to be free). Yes, we may avail ourselves of the "steel-horse" upon its gleaming rails, but let us not lose the appreciation of a restorative autumn's walk from house to neighbor's house, listening to the birds and watching the musquash scamper across the banks of-...