Dear Aunt Floundering

Sorry about all the trouble I caused building that automatic aeroponic bread-maker. I honestly thought that aeroponics would be a wonderful thing, growing food for free while purifying the air and not using any corporate resources to do so. It only seemed natural to combine with a bread maker to make traditional Miners' bread. Free food every miner can enjoy! I never expected the shops to raise their prices in protest.

HyperSQLite and I are all right! Troubleshooters just don't understand machinery the way we do. The annual Masquerade, that event we always hear about but never go to because it's for the corporate types, helped a lot too. I spent a lot of time there meeting all sorts of people. Of course I was in costume (kind of)! I'll send you a picture next time.

You can see Subeta from Ziara! It's not just a story! I'm writing this from some place on Subeta called Veta Lake. A young woman named Sarah is helping me learn about Subeta. She keeps getting frustrated every time I suggest some way of improving things. I know I won't be staying here long. I'm fairly certain the corpsers are still out to get me.

O.

Dear Aunt Floundering

I'm in a place called Shadowglen. They're having an annual festival called Morostide. It involves dressing up in costume and begging for treats. I'm not very good at begging. It's just not something us Miners do. I feel so awkward!

Some of the people here, the Tehb, have wings, just like a lazarius! There are others who have horns called the Ji Meneb.

There's a pumpkin patch we're allowed to explore. I've gotten quite a few pumpkins. We're suppose to carve them. It's traditional they tell me. I can assemble nano-gears and fix hyper-dynamic oscillators, but I can't seem to carve a pumpkin. There appear to be some things corundum-tipped power tools were just not designed for.

They also have an underground here. Of course I couldn't help but explore it. They have people here some of the others call corpsers but they're nothing like the corpsers we talk about on Atebus. They're not corporate anything! Most of them look dead! They call themselves the Unliving and have invited me back for their big festival later on.

O.

Dear Aunt Floundering

I've made it to Riverside, the historical home of us Miners! It's not at all what I expected. There's water flowing freely through it, and I don't mean in a pipe! They call it the Peka River. The river often overflows its channel and floods the land leaving much of it very sludge like. When I suggested they dredge the river, using the dredgings as mine refill and building materials, and dry the place out, a bunch of people started yelling and throwing things at me!

I did visit one of the mining towns. It's even more primitive than 7C. It's apparently that way because they need to move it several times a year to avoid the floods! At first I suggested they ask some of the engineers from 8M to help them rebuild their town on legs. They all looked at me funny. Then I suggested they might try using hyper-dynamic oscillators to create a hydrophobic forcefield to keep the water out. Someone then yelled spark and someone else yelled trouble and they started throwing things at me!

I ran into a woman named Charity. She gives out free food and wanted a donation. I thought this would be a great place for me to install my invention that got me into so much trouble in 2B to begin with. However, Charity doesn't think anyone will be "desperate enough" to eat traditional Miners' bread. She compared the taste to sawdust. Clearly she has no idea what fine gypsum tastes like. Also, after one loaf fell out of the machine and left a hole in her floor, she became worried that it might hurt someone.

Luckily next door was a large green creature named Recycle. Recycle was only too happy to have a machine that made traditional Miners' bread. He said the Miners use to share with him when they lived in Riverside, but that all their kind left when Calvin Blackmoon became da boss on Atebus. Those left behind didn't eat traditional Miner's food. Worse, they left their tailings and other junk in the river instead of using them as refill to stabilize their tunnels. Ever since then, he's been trying to keep the place tidy.

O.

Dear Aunt Floundering

I've been in the Arctic Frosts. It's cold here! They're celebrating a festival called Luminaire. This very nice woman with wings named Melody likes to give gifts. Gift giving is something I understand. We Miners are a sharing sort, except when it comes to our tools. But I feel a little out of balance. I got many more gifts than I gave!

While not gifts, I seem to have acquired more companion animals. I now have 4 more. Gleaming Twilight is a lasarius from Riverside; Shining Armour is a legacia from the Coda Caves; Opus Prime is a magnus from Shadowglen; and Capricorn Rising is a Devonti from the Arctic Frosts. Apparently we are all fleeing our homes and exploring the great wide universe for one reason or another.

O.

Dear Aunt Floundering

I was in Showglen recently to participate in a major festival of theirs called Survival. It celebrates those who survived a great pandemic long ago. Everyone is suppose to wander about naked to show how healthy they are. Considering that we're so use to being covered head-to-toe, it was quite the novel experience. Unfortunately, I got rather sick and turned a bright glowing green.

In other news, I have a new companion animal named Overspeed. She apparently likes to go fast. And I thought popokos were as frenetic as possible.

O.