Part 33: Eeeek

In the early dawn light, I hauled myself out of the vast, terrifying ocean, with just over one heart of health left.  It was blinking red - I was in bad shape.  If I so much as bumped my head against the ceiling, I would die.  I withdrew my emergency ration of mushroom soup, which I had against all odds kept safe in my pockets while boating, swimming, and battling sharks throughout the night.  My hunger meter finally restored to full, my health meter started slowly to regenerate.  I huddled there by the beach while my health meter slowly inched back upwards, sword at the ready, waiting for a creeper or giant green scorpion or, I don't know, a tyrannosaurus or something, to surge over the hill and attack.

But the morning was quiet.  My health finally restored, I cautiously crested the hill in search of breakfast.

I found a lion instead.  After the night I'd just had, I didn't feel up to dealing with lions.  I decided to try a different side of the hill.

Gonna pass on this one.

Here, I found a - oh, look, a goat!  Complete with little stubby horns and a beard.  But my mind was on my kebab breakfast, and I brandished my sword.  Turned out the goat was ready for me, and I was pretty surprised when I found myself butted high into the air, taking considerable falling damage.  Determined, I waded back into battle.  I eventually won, but the goat had reduced my health by half.  And there was no meat, only two leathers.

Hey, a goat!

Kebab-less, I headed on my way again, as my health slowly regenerated.  I saw a bee, but after the threat a mere goat had proved to be, there was no way I was going to mess with the bee.  There probably wouldn't have been that much meat on it anyways.

Also, I think there is a fox hiding somewhere in the background.  But I already know those aren't edible.

I continued along a steep and tree-thick coast, sort of glad for the moment that I didn't have to try to navigate a horse along this.

And if there WAS a pegasus, it would probably have spawned on that floating block, just to make things difficult for me.

I heard a horrendous noise, like the war cry of a thousand rubber bands, coming from the hill up ahead. I readied my sword - well, these days, my sword is always readied - and edged forward.  It turned out to be a pair of deer, standing majestically on the hillside.  Making very loud rubber band noises, for reasons known only to themselves.  My thoughts leapt instantly to venison, and I approached with my sword.  At the hill's crest, I hesitated - they were rather large, and one of them had an impressive pair of fractal antlers.

Rubber band crossed with wookie, in fact.

But when one of them made the gesture shown below, my hesitation ended.  They turned out not to be too dangerous.  They also turned out to be, apparently, inedible.  No venison, just a bit of leather.

All right, buckko.

Scarcely had I dispatched the deer, when something bumped into me and started biting me.  It was small and stripey and vicious - a cute little baby boar.  But it apparently was dangerous, so I quickly dispatched it, and looked around for the bigger one that I knew must be nearby.

With a strangely spherical shadow

There it was.  Also pretty cool-looking... an improvement over the ones in the old world.  But I wasn't going to mess around with these guys.  I killed the boar, eagerly awaiting the boar meat.  There was none.  Huh.  Fine.

Next up was a duck - those are good to eat, right?  Turns out they weren't.

In fact, I didn't even get a single feather from the duck.  They must have been painted on.

So far I've killed an entire menu's worth of wild game - rabbit, boar, venison, and duck - and none of them were good to eat.  And I couldn't remember ever seeing a cow, pig, or chicken.  Apparently in this world only rats are edible.

And the landscape in this new world is difficult - it's either rugged winding coastlines with steep cliffs:

Also, that is one eerie shadow.

Or forest so impenetrable that even I couldn't fit between the trees, and had to hop from treetop to treetop, taking damage each time I fell out of a tree.

By early evening, I had arrived at more promising territory, but I decided to stop for the night, and roast my delicious bounty of two dead rats.

I came across a modestly high hill, and dug myself a shelter in its side.

Looks a lot better, except for the treacherous hidden hole

The entrance safely bricked up with meter-thick glass, I roasted my rats and gnawed on them as the night's eerie noises began.  There was definitely some growling going on out there already, and some distant steady groan that I didn't like very much.  I yearned for the familiar clink of a skeleton or moan of a zombie.

Interior shot of Fort Necessity

There were things out there already - some sort of creature went by in the dark (looks like a zombie in a tutu?) and it was flashing red, meaning that it was being attacked by something even worse than it.  And that low steady groan was getting louder, coming distinctly from the north, accompanied by pounding sounds.

I don't even want to know.

Now I was getting nervous, and I tunneled through the hill toward the south, trying to put some more hill between myself and whatever was coming from the north.  I quickly ran out of hill, and returned to the main room - that sound was definitely getting louder - so that I might be able to see danger coming through the windows, and maybe have enough maneuvering room to defend myself.  In the face of the overwhelming scariness of the noises from whatever was coming, I had completely lost faith in the meters and meters of dirt, rock, and glass that protected me from outside.  I leapt on top of the furnace, seeking the high ground.  Something hurt me - I jumped back off the furnace.  What had happened?  Was the furnace still hot?  Was the ground shaking?  It was very loud now.  Something hurt me again.  I couldn't see anything.  What was going on?

I had just turned around for another look at the furnace, when...

What.

In a split second of chaos I drew my sword, slashed blindly once, and somehow took a screenshot.  Then...

If you look just right, you can see two of them over to the left with their fists raised in a victory dance, evil eyes and fangs showing.

What was that?  It looked like three giant green guys with barrels around their middles.  Did they smash their way in?  And why did the screen say I exploded?  Are they somehow explosive too, or did they blast me into the clutches of a waiting creeper?

Huh.

I hate this world.