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...

Bad 'ol days...

     Looking back at UOPETA, he had a legitimate expression of terror painted across his face, which did very little to put my mind at ease! UOPETA was a strong, independent brother of the Lone 7 and was definitely not scared easily, so to see him in such a state only increased the intensity of the chill that currently ran the length of my spine! We stood silent and motionless for what seemed like an eternity; neither of us doing anything in case we heard the horrifying sound once more. I tried to kick my mind back into gear by going through all of the possible causes of the noise. But instead, a small portion of my mind had retreated into a corner, sitting there awkwardly plying the element of fear into my conscious by repeating to little words: "what if?"... What if it wasn't an animal that had become trapped so deep underground? What if it wasn't falling rocks or gushing water up ahead? What if it was alive but didn't take a human or animal form that we knew of? I had read many stories in my youth of people being petrified by shrieks and howls in the night, which were found to belong to timid foxes and nocturnal badgers... What if this was the same? What if the terrain around us was merely amplifying and distorting the sound to make it sound worse than what it was? But what if it wasn't? What if it actually belonged to something we should be afraid of? Curse you my malevolent subconscious!

"I think we should go back to the shack and tell the others. We'd be stronger with the four of us together..."

That was true, but now all of the what-if's had taken my conscious and rational mind captive, and now plied an intriguing sense of curiosity... I actually wanted to go further into the cave and find the source of that noise! I turned to UOPETA and told him that it was our over-active imaginations playing tricks with us which was making things seem worse than they were likely to be. That noise was probably just some rocks scraping together, or a mini collapse...

"Imaginations? Playing tricks? Need I remind you what we all know exists in the form of four-legged, green sticks of dynamite! We can't be sure of anything this deep!"

The mention of the Creeper brought it all back home to me, and the what-if monster released its captives, only to return to its corner, throwing more images of terror at the forefront of my mind! I took a few moments to try and quell the fear that I could feel welling up inside of me, and with a lot of effort, I managed it. Banishing the little what-if gremlin to a safe haven in my head, I tried another attempt at convincing UOPETA. I even went to the extreme of testing his masculinity by suggesting he was scared, but unfortunately it didn't work...

"Look, I want to know more about this place as much as you. SERVERE gave us a task to find something, but I think it would be much much safer with THEROS and AMPHIS with us. Four is stronger than two, and we'd put up more of a fight against whatever could be down there together..."

My resolve disintegrated, and I eventually decided that it was likely to be a good idea to go and get AMPHIS and THEROS. With four of us, we could definitely remain stronger together. Then again... The more people involved only magnified the intensity of the terror if one of us became scared by something... We headed back to the shack to get the other two...

     After heading back for THEROS and AMPHIS, we came back to where we had been before; right at the end of the tunnel I had been shelling out, and back up and over the top to follow the cavern around to a lava fall. UOPETA hadn't told the other two about what we had experienced, so they seemed to be under the impression that we had found something rather substantial. Quite the opposite in fact. We hadn't found a thing, but we just didn't want to continue on alone... We headed up to the point we had initially reached and then continued past it. Unlike before however, the cavern now descended alongside a small lava flow which merged with a massive water fall that had pooled around below us. It was oddly beautiful, if not slightly disturbing.

We eventually found a safe passage around the water that didn't lead us to inevitably end up being washed further into the cave into almost certain doom. There were probably thousands of gallons of water all around us, and it was a little worrying to be so close to it for a number of reasons. One of the major ones was the noise. If anything were to be stalking us then we would have no chance in hearing it over the sound of rushing water. UOPETA had dealt out a handful of torches to each of us, and every now and then, whenever we discovered a new tunnel or passage, one of us would go off and explore it, returning if there was nothing or calling us forward if there was, whilst the rest of us remained where we were. We couldn't afford to lose anyone. Not down here. It would be far too easy to lose your way. It seemed though that a lot of the passages and tunnels had led to dead ends, causing the explorer to return allowing us to continue. We had gone on for some distance following the twists and turns of the cave but finding nothing more than out of reach coal and iron deposits, waterfalls and isolated pools of lava. It made me think about the geology of this area, as we had found mass amounts of lava close by. What if HoN Co. had set up another obsidian plant here? It was definitely plentiful in supply with the right resources... Back to the hidden place what-if gremlin!

"What are we hoping to find down here...?"

"If SERVERE is right then apparently an abandoned building that belonged to an ancient civilisation of Endermen... But he never really specified a direction other than the one the current tunnel was already facing. We may be massively off course... But..."

UOPETA stopped again as we all physically recoiled at what sounded like a pig grunting... We all looked at each other oddly, before cautiously continuing on, none of us talking any more. After making our way slowly past another lava puddle, we found ourselves standing above a largish chamber that seemed as though it had been hollowed out by tools... Looking down into it, UOPETA lit a torch and threw it to the floor below. It wasn't that far, and after a small inspection that there was a safe way down and there wasn't something waiting for us, we headed down into it. At first we saw nothing unusual until we turned around to look back up the way we had come; underneath the lip we had stood on was a tunnel. A long, dark, misty tunnel that seemed to go on forever, with a tiny pinprick of light at the end...

"You first..."

With a few torches in my hand, I set off down the tunnel, lighting them every now and again to allow us to see further forward. I was constantly worried however at what might happen at either end of the tunnel. It wouldn't be hard for it to be trapped, and we could be concealed or even buried like rats! But as I got closer and closer to the end, I was able to breath easier and easier. After emerging from the tunnel, I exhaled sharply, before sucking in a lungful of air that was thick with heat and dust. Looking over to my left, I was able to see a small lava flow that was producing the light that I could see from the far end, and was obviously producing the dust and heat that was thick in the air. The other three finally joined me out of the tunnel, visibly relieved to have reached the end without incident. After finding a way up, I was able to stand dangerously close to the edge of the lava pool and look out across it. In the distance I could another waterfall, and... Strange purple particles... Was there a portal nearby? As I squinted into the distance through the heat haze and was able to see a few trailing purple particles on the far side. Then I saw movement! What I thought were parts of a portal wall shifted and disappeared, with the purple particles disappearing with them! I was able to get my camera up into position just in time, but it did little to inform me of what I had captured... Was that a portal or...? For the third time today, a chill ran down my spine, and I began to physically sweat...

Syeonyx signing off

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