Day 2
Bernard ***8220;the blind***8221; Schmidt, navigator, reporting
Finally. I***8217;ve reached the shore. I thought I***8217;d drift around on that piece of debris forever. Wonder if any of the others made it. I just have to find them. Won***8217;t be a problem, I***8217;m a navigator after all.
:six hours later:
So I have found this valley between two hills, and inset in the hillside is this shelter.
The crew is so happy to see me, they volunteer me to go gather coal in the cave across the river with a wooden pick they***8217;ve fashioned. I feel honoured.
I wonder why there is so much blood here. Smells really weird, too. Doesn***8217;t matter, there***8217;s so many animals just strolling about, this place is obviously safe. Time to get to work.
Venturing inside the cave, I see it continues inward quite a way. There***8217;s light up there. Does it lead through the mountain?
Nope. There***8217;s a crack in the wall here and a tiny opening to the surface.
Then it just continues inward.
No way I***8217;m going deeper. This is creepy. There could be trolls or goblins or giant spiders here. I go back to the opening and mine out as much coal as I can carry. It takes time, and it is sunrise when I emerge. We use the coal to make torches that we lodge into cracks in the walls. I see most of the men have made it, but the atmosphere is gloomy. I ask them if anyone***8217;s seen the skipper.
They just look at each other.
Eventually, night falls.
Except it doesn***8217;t, really. It doesn***8217;t get properly dark here. We***8217;re in the Atlantic, in November. It***8217;s supposed to be pitch black out there. But it isn***8217;t. It's like springtime in Scandinavia. Has some kind of calamity taken place? Has there been a volcanic eruption or something nearby that is causing nights to be brighter than usual? None of us know.
It scares the hell out of all of us.
Day 3
Bernard "the Blind" Schmidth, coal miner, reporting
We emerge outside the cave, which smells of the sweat and damp clothing of nearly fourty men living in cramped quarters. We take a closer look at the cows, and decide they must be wild. They***8217;re simply too scruffy to be anything else. We haven***8217;t eaten properly for three days, and so we slaughter two of them, and take their meat and hides.
Then, it happens. From the bottom of one of the small holes in the terrain, a skeleton shoots at us with a bow and arrow. I swear it. The others in my group saw it too. Having saved no weapons from the u-boat, we run. Now the others tell me of giant spiders the size of small dogs. What kind of place
is this?
The day passes in a kind of daze. We just go about our business, not saying much. We slaughter some sheep and take their wool.
As if things aren***8217;t bad enough, it starts raining heavily. We stay inside for the rest of the day. We take stones we***8217;ve collected and turn them into an oven of sorts. We fuel it with coal and use it to cook our newly gathered meat. We craft bedding out of the wool and most of our remaining wood. We turn the remaining stone into tools, a pickaxe and a sword. I am entrusted with the sword and night-time guard duty. I enjoy climbing the ranks like this. Things are looking up.
Day 4
Bernard "the blind" Schmidt, watchman, reporting
After some heated debate, we decide we want to make a signal fire. We don***8217;t know where we are, but there could be ships. There could be people. The ship that sunk us may still be about. Heck, friendly u-boats could be about. We want to be seen and rescued. So we scale the big mountain across our hideout with rocks and wood. We lay down a stone base and heap up wood on top of it. We still haven***8217;t decided if we want it lit, though.
You see, things just keep getting more and more terrifying. From atop the mountain, we saw a big rock, apparently floating in thin air. At first we were sure that we had seen wrong, but two guys went down there and confirmed that yet, it***8217;s a big chunk of rock levitating a short distance over the ground. In its immediate vicinity was a desert, complete with cacti.
Then, out of nowhere, a hideous green creature on four stubby legs came silently out of nowhere and made straight for our group. We threw ourselves out of its way and it exploded, leaving a crater in the ground and giving several of us burns. That got our minds made up. We do not want to light a fire and alert any more creatures of our presence. The base and wood remains, but for the moment, it remains unlit.
We retreated into our shelter and barricaded the door. Although we are grateful to have a place to hide, most of us figure we***8217;re probably best off leaving soon. See, this is what turned up in a fissure just below our house just a few minutes ago.
Yes, that's a river of lava down there. With what could be a volcanic eruption waiting to happen right under our feet, We may be off to look for a better places to live tomorrow. Given the bizarre creatures we***8217;ve run into latelly, weapons and proper walls of stone are high on our wish lists.
-
--
--
--
--
I have laid the foundation
. We have a shelter, some basic tools and supplies, and an excellent and highly exciting and terrifying starting site. We have all types of the ***8220;temperate animals***8221;, surface coal and iron, caves, and magma right at our doorstep. This will be good. Lots of Dwarf Fortress-style Fun to be had.
Also, given that you can***8217;t really get much stuff done in four days, I***8217;m considering extending each turn to one week. Though I expect most updates will be less wordy than this one
. We can try going four days on the next few updates, though, and see how it goes.
The world is saved. Awaiting signups
.
Tech support:if you have a modded Minecraft version, which I suppose 99% of you do, I believe you ***8220;unmod***8221; it easily by moving ***8220;bin***8221; elsewhere for then to force an update. Someone correct me if I***8217;m wrong, I don***8217;t want to ruin anyone***8217;s install :p .
Challenges/goals:
***8226; Goal 1: we currently live in a small cave. Either build a stone house/fort or move into a bigger cave, with stone walls covering the entrance and possibly other defenses, such as a moat, magma or whatever. An iron door with some fancy opening/closing mechanism would come in handy, too.
***8226; Goal 2: if you decide to light the fire to try to signal for help, your goal is to acquire iron, make a flint and steel and light the signal fire, which is to consist of four wooden planks upon the stone base, every night, for at least a week or two.