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( had a random bit of inspiration and thought I'd write up some of the adventures I'd already had in skyblock as a bit of fiction in the old pulp style. )
Journal Entry: Day 1
When one wakes up, there's certain things one expects. A bed and blankets are nice, but when traveling, it's not uncommon to wake up, cheek pressed into the sand on some random shore, wherever you happened to find someplace out of the open to pass out for the night. One opens ones eyes, peers across the landscape, sees the sun rising over the horizon.
Yes, *horizons*, that's what was missing this morning when I woke up. The sun rising without the majority of it being blocked. That and the landscape - or total lack of. I rolled over to get five more minutes and very nearly fell off the cliff - if you can call it a cliff when it's only three meters tall and has nothing at the bottom. Literally nothing. A vast, empty expanse. After a heart-fluttering terror and a scramble backwards - fortunately, not too far backwards - I found that I was on a tiny plot of land in the middle of a great blue void. Large enough for one tree, one chest, and me, and even then it was feeling rather claustrophobic. Can one be feeling claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time? Because this tiny island in the sky was doing a fairly good job of it for me.
I am proud to say that I did not fall into an irrational panic. My panic at the moment was quite rational, I assure you, unknown reader of this journal. Probably me. Hello, Future Me. Good to know I survived. I have no memory of how I had reached this impossible bit of landscape, and I hope you've dredged up more than that. When my justified bout of flailing and screaming into the abyss was over, I took inventory of the resources available to me - a depressingly quick affair.
More hearteningly, the inventory turned up a full set of simple stone tools, a bucket of lava, and a couple of ice blocks. Now, I would have much preferred the full workshop back home, but Father always did make certain that I would never blame the tools when it came to my work. I was not allowed to work with the good tools until I could make them myself. Father always felt that would make certain that I properly appreciated them and would take care of them, when I knew how much effort went into putting them together from scratch. And to his credit, he was right. I remember how terribly upset I got over every scratch and ding on that first set of tools I'd made.
First things first, Mother had always stressed the importance of having a home to come back to. I delved into the teleportation magic that Mother had taught me, and set a home beacon that I might be able to quickly blink back here, if I found myself somewhere that was somehow worse. Whatever had brought me to this place had destroyed my previous beacon, or I would already have been quit of this place.
I carved a couple of logs from the tree, leaving the rest floating. It was always a curiosity to me why some creatures, sand, and apples might fall, but almost nothing else does. Philosophers have discussed it for centuries. Newton got a particular reputation for getting drunk after yet another spectacular failure to come up with an explanation, ever since that apple fell on his head one sunny afternoon. He would go on and on about 'gravity' and how it was out to get him, but could never explain its particular selectivity in effect, though I understand from people whose math are better than mine that he advanced some quite elegant propositions in mathematical terms.
I'm much more practical in my approach, however. I didn't care about the mathematics, I just knew I didn't want to lose any saplings from that tree into the void, and if I cut down the rest, I knew it unlikely I would be able to capture any. With the logs I pulled I built a crude workbench, then set down with my stone shovel to dig out a pair of trenches, carefully preserving each bit of dirt I could. One trench opened over the side of the island, the other led into the first at a right angle. Easy enough. I put the ice into the end of the first trench and let it melt, until the flowing water made a waterfall down into infinity. With that first half ready, I poured out the lava into the end of the second trench. There was a great hissing noise as the two came together, and the lava cooled swiftly into rough cobblestone.
Ahhh, Father's lessons about making something from nothing were paying off. And I'd actually gotten it right on the first time, this time! I felt quite confident about my success - every previous attempt at a cobblestone generator had always taken four or five tries before I got it right. I sat down with a stone pick to gather up the cobblestone as soon as the water cooled it, readying myself for a long, meditative effort, knowing in advance that I would lose quite a bit into the lava birthing it, but without any real concern about the basics of survival. In retrospect, that smug confidence was probably why everything started going so very wrong afterwards. If I'd just stayed alert...
(Next time: Everything goes so very wrong)
Journal Entry: Day 1
When one wakes up, there's certain things one expects. A bed and blankets are nice, but when traveling, it's not uncommon to wake up, cheek pressed into the sand on some random shore, wherever you happened to find someplace out of the open to pass out for the night. One opens ones eyes, peers across the landscape, sees the sun rising over the horizon.
Yes, *horizons*, that's what was missing this morning when I woke up. The sun rising without the majority of it being blocked. That and the landscape - or total lack of. I rolled over to get five more minutes and very nearly fell off the cliff - if you can call it a cliff when it's only three meters tall and has nothing at the bottom. Literally nothing. A vast, empty expanse. After a heart-fluttering terror and a scramble backwards - fortunately, not too far backwards - I found that I was on a tiny plot of land in the middle of a great blue void. Large enough for one tree, one chest, and me, and even then it was feeling rather claustrophobic. Can one be feeling claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time? Because this tiny island in the sky was doing a fairly good job of it for me.
I am proud to say that I did not fall into an irrational panic. My panic at the moment was quite rational, I assure you, unknown reader of this journal. Probably me. Hello, Future Me. Good to know I survived. I have no memory of how I had reached this impossible bit of landscape, and I hope you've dredged up more than that. When my justified bout of flailing and screaming into the abyss was over, I took inventory of the resources available to me - a depressingly quick affair.
More hearteningly, the inventory turned up a full set of simple stone tools, a bucket of lava, and a couple of ice blocks. Now, I would have much preferred the full workshop back home, but Father always did make certain that I would never blame the tools when it came to my work. I was not allowed to work with the good tools until I could make them myself. Father always felt that would make certain that I properly appreciated them and would take care of them, when I knew how much effort went into putting them together from scratch. And to his credit, he was right. I remember how terribly upset I got over every scratch and ding on that first set of tools I'd made.
First things first, Mother had always stressed the importance of having a home to come back to. I delved into the teleportation magic that Mother had taught me, and set a home beacon that I might be able to quickly blink back here, if I found myself somewhere that was somehow worse. Whatever had brought me to this place had destroyed my previous beacon, or I would already have been quit of this place.
I carved a couple of logs from the tree, leaving the rest floating. It was always a curiosity to me why some creatures, sand, and apples might fall, but almost nothing else does. Philosophers have discussed it for centuries. Newton got a particular reputation for getting drunk after yet another spectacular failure to come up with an explanation, ever since that apple fell on his head one sunny afternoon. He would go on and on about 'gravity' and how it was out to get him, but could never explain its particular selectivity in effect, though I understand from people whose math are better than mine that he advanced some quite elegant propositions in mathematical terms.
I'm much more practical in my approach, however. I didn't care about the mathematics, I just knew I didn't want to lose any saplings from that tree into the void, and if I cut down the rest, I knew it unlikely I would be able to capture any. With the logs I pulled I built a crude workbench, then set down with my stone shovel to dig out a pair of trenches, carefully preserving each bit of dirt I could. One trench opened over the side of the island, the other led into the first at a right angle. Easy enough. I put the ice into the end of the first trench and let it melt, until the flowing water made a waterfall down into infinity. With that first half ready, I poured out the lava into the end of the second trench. There was a great hissing noise as the two came together, and the lava cooled swiftly into rough cobblestone.
Ahhh, Father's lessons about making something from nothing were paying off. And I'd actually gotten it right on the first time, this time! I felt quite confident about my success - every previous attempt at a cobblestone generator had always taken four or five tries before I got it right. I sat down with a stone pick to gather up the cobblestone as soon as the water cooled it, readying myself for a long, meditative effort, knowing in advance that I would lose quite a bit into the lava birthing it, but without any real concern about the basics of survival. In retrospect, that smug confidence was probably why everything started going so very wrong afterwards. If I'd just stayed alert...
(Next time: Everything goes so very wrong)
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