I've been mining a lot. The longer I do it, the less entertaining it feels. Eating up stone and watching cuts disappear gets old pretty quickly. It's not like I know much of anything else, but I've found myself taking short breaks, listening to the hum of the saps.

  They seem to go through a cycle of sorts. The noise is low at first, then rises to a very slight pitch, and falls slightly below what it was initially, only to return to the starting baseline.

  A very repetitive cycle, kind of like mining is a set of repetitive motions. Some of the rocks have different colors, so there's that. Not that much, mind you, but there are swathes of white dotted by black speckles.

  To break this cycle of constantly being short on currency, by expending almost all of my gauge for every new room and sap, I've slightly shifted my tactic. Up to now, I've been saving up just enough to buy a room and get a sap into it. I'm thinking of switching up to saving ten units and then buying a room, and skipping the sap for now.

  The objective is to grow the gauge overall, and as such be able to afford something different, to try and do things a bit quicker. Or just get a room and sap combo in one go. I've placed the new rooms beneath one of the four resting in the layer above.

  It's been a while. The rectangle sitting under the odd hat is now much longer, almost looking like a snake. The fact I know what a snake is, without ever having seen one, but can't read is a bit irritating. At least it gives me something to grumbler about that isn't related to the pangs.

  Either way, I've greatly enjoyed watching the gauge grow bigger and stronger. Now I need to make it fill up faster.

  9.8/27

  I was hoping something would happen once I hit twenty, or twenty-five. Alas, nothing. Apart from being able to afford a bunch of the odd rooms. I just need to fill up the gauge.

  Having more than doubled the number of rooms does make me feel larger. The little dots in the stone do appear slightly smaller, but the shift has been so gradual that I'm genuinely unsure if it's just a trick of the red light.

  I've begun to leave a trail of screens, both to constantly stare at the gauge and to shed some light on the newly excavated depth. Sometimes, I think it moves faster if I'm looking at it. Either way, I am eventually satisfied with the number of saps and empty rooms.

  I do not wait that long to experiment a bit more, mostly out of boredom, but a few more saps are sparkled here and there. I've lost count by now.

  27.8/30

  What I know is that five layers are stacked from the start of my rectangle. It seems like a lot at first, but as time goes by the number goes up quicker. Possibly because of the saps, even though I'm not quite sure.

  Either way, I'm happy because that leaves me with some empty rooms to mess around with and the currency to do it. Bringing up the screen lets me sift through all the options. Let's see. There's the good old Empty Rooms, or an Hatchery for the same price. Whatever that even is meant for.

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  Another thing catches my attention. There's a lab down at the bottom, for the same price as three rooms. Another thought has another screen blur into existence. On this, the only voice reads 'Drake', and costs twice as much as a trusty room.

  Blindly guessing, maybe the hatchery has to do with Drakes. Because they have scales, and generally things with scales make eggs, which a hatchery probably has to do with.

  It also just sounds right in my head, and my guts tell me I'm spot on. My guts also had me fainting some time ago, so I'm taking everything it says with a pinch of salt. Materially speaking, I want a Lab. Mostly to see what that looks like. Focusing on it highlights all the empty rooms, all bumbled up as they are.

  Focusing on the lowest layer has an invisible gear click, and a quarter of the rectangle goes from glowing green to glowing blue. There's red above, green all around it, and now blue too. At least it's colorful.

  Getting out of this funk takes a few seconds. Figuring out what's up with the lab takes even more, mostly because I don't. I can phase inside, unlike with the saps. There's a bit central pot.

  It's made of a pitch-black metal, and a blue fire constantly burns beneath it. The cauldron is smack dab into the middle of the room, which is otherwise empty apart from a few motes of moving light that hover around.

  They're blue, too. Is that a color scheme I sense? It's a nice break from the gray saps and stone.

  Finally getting to the bottom of this ends up being a rather complex affair. Probing it, focusing on it, trying to push it around, trying to do something with other phantom limbs all end up as fruitless endeavors.

  A breakthrough unexpectedly comes from bringing back up the research screen. It now looks significantly different from before, and it even has pop-ups that tell me what to do.

  ...Absorb a tagged element? As in, stone?

  Is it saying I need to dig more? It should know I've become quite skillful at it. Well, I don't need to be told twice. I take it so personally that I kind of forget about the tags showing up as question marks. This guy must be very curious.

  I get back to blowing exactly where I left off, at the bottom of the rectangle, showing off my mining prowess. And true enough, after a couple of minutes, the counter did go up.

  1/10

  Okay, so something is happening. I keep digging until it shifts over again. At that point, I hear something- a sound that while quiet, sounds impossibly loud as it echoes in the grotto.

  After a beat of uncertainty, I try to find where it comes from. Before I can begin to scan around the place I've excavated for myself, it sounds out again. And this time, it's pretty easy to pinpoint its origin.

  Phasing into the lab, I end up face to face with something a bit different. The central cauldron's softly bubbling, an odd gray liquid inside stirring by itself. The blue flame beneath dances, trying to climb the black metal.

  I stare at it in wonder for a few seconds. This is the first thing I've ever seen that moves on its own. This is fantastic. It's blue, it moves, the flame is warm, the pot is emanating a soft fragrance of damp stones. It's absolutely perfect. I love this.

  I want more labs. I want all the labs. More accurately, I want all the pots. Watching the liquid inside slowly turn on itself in the universe's smallest vortex is the best experience I've ever had.

  Wow. It goes on for so long that by the time I break out of my spell, the gauge is back to full. For a while.

  I've never seen anything move so nicely and neatly. The movement is truly harmonic. A treat to the eyes. The best thing since eatable stones.