Welcome to "The Diary of a Miner"; a blog detailing the adventures and mysteries that I, Syeonyx, embark upon in my quest to further my mining and survival skills! It'll be tough, there will be good times and bad times, but I'll always be alive to post my adventures... probably...

Glowing stone sighted!

     After half an hour or so, THEROS had mapped out a considerable portion of the area around us from a few moments peering through the telescope! It was pretty staggering, especially his attention to detail. This was made more astonishing by the fact that he hadn't looked back up from the paper since he began sketching! Passing it to me, I could make out where each major landmark was from the map, and compare it to our surroundings. Even the scaling was immensely accurate!

"This is only a few hundreds metres in either direction, but it should be enough to help us get around. I've marked the location of the base back here in the centre. I don't know how the directions work in this dimension, but a compass could help."

UOPETA went back to the base to retrieve a compass that we had brought along. It would be helpful in guiding our way back, because as far as I could tell, there was no way of determining the direction of anything. There was no sun or moving light source present to aid us. A few minutes later, UOPETA returned, compass in his hand, but with a bemused expression on his face.

"Erm... I don't know how to tell you this, but... The compass doesn't seem to work..."

He walked up to me, and handed the compass over. He was right; holding it out flat in the palm of my hand, I watched as the needle span erratically about its pivot, not pointing in a single direction for any longer than a second! Was it broken?

"I doubt it. The compass doesn't work, and I can only think of two reasons that would cause that to happen, both of which are rather worrying. Either there is a very strong, but erratic magnetic field which is confusing the needle, a little like when placing a compass too close to a radio... Or there is no magnetic field in this dimension... In either case, this is as about as useful as a paper weight at the moment..."

Great. So we had a map, but no real accurate way of determining direction. I suggested that we leave a trail back to the base to whichever direction we went. UOPETA liked this idea and went to take the compass back. In exchange, he had taken a large bundle of torches back with him, stating that an illuminated trail would be better for us to follow. This whole dimension, despite the abundant lava streams, and random fires, was surprisingly dark... Well, with the torches and map ready, we set off, down a roughly stepped hill, down to the flat plain we had spotted earlier. From there, UOPETA decided to follow the logical path, and head to the left first... Hmmm, yes. I had a feeling the lack of a compass and directions would prove troublesome...

     As we continued to the left, UOPETA left a trail of lit torches leading back up the small hill, and back to the base. We had initially thought that maybe utilising the lit fires could help ration the torches a little longer, but they were so frequent and random, it would end up very confusing to follow. Following the map though, we came to the base of a large hill, and we found a few pig-men, wandering around with as much sense of direction as cows! They also seemed to be carrying something, but it wasn't only them that caught our eye. At the base of the hill, were some strange, red and white clumps, which on closer inspection, we realised were actually mushrooms!

"Mushrooms? What the... I thought the reports said this material was totally infertile? Maybe we should take some back with us..."

THEROS bent down and plucked a mushroom from it's stem, and carefully placed it into the bag.

We climbed the hill to the top, to give us a better view of our surroundings. But due to the proximity of the the pig-men to our intended destination, we took it slow. The last thing we wanted to do was to provoke something we didn't know anything about. They seemed very passive, and they had already seen us. In fact, even by attempting to avoid them, they seemed keen to approach us, intrigued almost by our presence! Hal way up the hill, we stopped close to a small group of pig-men, who had all turned to watch us. They looked just like the images in the report; they literally were the hybrid of man and pig! It was odd though as almost all of them seemed to show varying states of decay. Some had large chunks of flesh missing from their body, exposing muscle and bone beneath. This was most common on the skull and chest, and some of them had obviously broken limbs, but continued as though it was of no concern to them! As they approached tentatively towards us, we observed that many of them were carrying large, pointed objects. Still a little apprehensive, I approached one, as it approached me, and I noticed it was actually carrying a very rustic sword! There was a definite handle and blade, with a guard just above the clenched human fist. How did it come to have a sword? Did it find it? Did it... Make it? Were we actually in the presence of a semi-intuitive species? I stopped a few feet away, and it seemed to mimic me by doing the same. It grunted and oinked a few times, in what I took to be confusion or intrigue, but I couldn't detect any hint of aggression in its stance or behaviour.

"OROTHO must have been right. They're passive. Don't provoke any of them. According to the report, they exhibit a pack mentality and will defend any of their group from any attacker or antagonist."

I backed off slightly, still facing it, until I was back with UOPETA and THEROS.

"Come on. Let's see what's over the top of this hill..."

     As we got to the top of the hill, a pool of lava came into view, casting an eerie light across the ground ahead of us. However, it wasn't the only light source around. Up in the ceiling was a small collection of glowing stones! The ceiling above us was actually much closer now that we were higher up, and judging from the other glowing stone deposits, this was likely to be the closest and easiest one to get to. UOPETA rammed another torch into the ground, and lit it. The torch throwing light across the small area around it.

"Judging from the available landmarks... And the scaling from the base... We are... Here!"

THEROS pointed to a small location on the map, very close to the edge of the main sketch. He had indicated a hill being here which was surprisingly accurate, and he circled it on the map.

"Right. Now we know where to come, when we have the right equipment to tackle the job. We can either go back to the base and inform the others about what we've found, or continue on a little more and survey the area for anything that might be a little easier to get to."

"We should head back for now. With the geographical structures of this place being incredibly chaotic, I have a feeling this is the best we're going to get! Syeonyx, take a few photos of this area, showing the proximity to the ground, and then we can head back."

Taking my camera out, I took five photos, showing the ground, the distance the ceiling was to it, and of a few pig-men wandering around beneath it.

Before we began to head back, THEROS collected a few more samples of the mushrooms that seemed to be everywhere! The more the better I suppose. I just hope they didn't turn out to be poisonous or something... Hopefully though, we could come back to this place, take a small amount of the glowing stone, and return to Minecraftia... This place was beginning to give me the creeps...

Syeonyx signing off

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