#10 - In Which Spawners Sporadically Spawn and Subsequently Spawn Spiders

I make it safely to my half-finished castle thing under the cover of darkness and set about turning it into a fully-finished castle thing. In case you're curious as to the castle's layout, this room will be the foyer to the East Wing once I've added more than this one crappy stone box. There's not even a door as of yet. I've literally encased myself in a concrete tomb... Brrr. But any kind of shelter in Minecraft is welcome after sunset, so let's not be too judgemental. At least I'm not renting - I own the place with no mortgage to pay off, and at least even crappy stone boxes are set to rise in value over the next few years. To add some extra resale potential, I install a crafting table, chest and a furnace (which no good homestead can do without) and spend the rest of the night getting my inventory in order. On review, I need to arm myself a bit better. They say that defence is the best form of offence, which sounds suspiciously like bullshit to me so I ignore that and make a badass new sword. In a further effort to prove that offence is probably a better form of offence than defence or any other kind of fence, I try to make my first bow. Unfortunately, while I've got plenty of arrows I don't quite quite have everything I need to make the bow - I'm short on string. How much extra string do I need? One more length of string, apparently (if you're using the standard measure.) Hmm, what to do... well, as we all know, string comes from spiders. I can hear plenty of those scuttling around outside but don't really want to venture outside because, despite the new sword, I'm still a total coward. Hey, I'll man up once I get my new bow. Aha... While knocking a hole in the wall to get outside would leave me exposed to all and sundry, only a spider could climb up onto the roof. The theory comes good - I punch a hole through the roof, and an Incy Wincy leaps backs and forth over it in panic.

As it's hopping over I get a few blows in and the string I need falls into my hovel. Mission accomplished and I didn't even have to venture outside.

Sweet. I may try that at my house in real life the next time I need string. Morning arrives and with my brand new bow (insert Zelda noise here) in hand, I pack up and ship out. I'm determined to find some diamond today so I can make steps to build a portal into multiplayer land. I like the idea that it might not be a creeper or accident that eventually kills me, but one of my 'friends'. Plus, they keep telling me how much fun they're all having on the new server while I'm stuck writing this blog in single player. When I say 'friends', I mean 'chumps'. The day goes badly. I mine a few random caves and end up using more resources than I acquire, and nothing eventful happens. On my way to bed I fire an arrow into the face of a passing creeper and knock him off Sky Island, which lifts my mood a little bit, but I still go to sleep disappointed. The next day I try a different direction, and find something a little more promising - a landscape that would appeal to both geologists and Tetris fans alike.

I walk through the canyon and find a boring meadow (it's flat), then climb up onto the top of the dangerous mountain ridge (it's bumpy) before settling for the ground level (it's just right). While poking around the foot of the mountain ridge, I come across a really exciting cave that I want to explore!

If by 'exciting' you mean 'crazy risky' and by 'explore it' you mean 'avoid it like a rom-com starring Jennifer Aniston', we're on the same page.

Judging by the noise rising up from the dark cavern, it sounds like every monster in Minecraft is having a party down there, and I'm not invited. Or perhaps I am invited... invited for a spot of murder. So balls to that. Given my luck with cave exploration so far, if I venture down there I'm very likely to be risking my neck for a few paltry lumps of coal. I've already got tonnes of the stuff, and it's diamond I really need... if only there was some way in nature to turn coal into diamond? Sadly such alchemy is impossible, so I plod on in search of a more efficient way down to the bowels of the Earth, possibly in the form of a tiny yet interesting-looking hole leading to some mysterious level below. Oh would you look at that.

This is a quandary. On the one hand, I have no idea where the hell this rabbit hole leads, what dangers lurk down there or how easy it will be to get out. It might not go anywhere.** On the other hand, I'm incredibly curious by nature and th... you know what, I jump straight in without thinking about it. Perhaps a bit of forethought was required, however. I've landed in that stupid Party Cavern. I don't have time to scramble out before the cavern's many guests decide that I'm not welcome, no doubt feeling slightly irked by me out-dressing them (guys, you can never go wrong with a polished suit of iron armour). Before I can even ask where the punch is, they make their way over and share some strong words, driving the point home by kicking the absolute crap out of me. I already lost some health in the fall down here, so the situation is looking pretty hairy. With my back against the wall, my short term plans involve utilising my new bow, firing off my entire quiver of arrows and killing all my attackers. The plan quickly unravels when my arrows miss every single monster by yards (I forgot how rubbish I am at aiming) and the 'killing all my attackers' outcome I was so desperately hoping for fails to come into fruition. Dang. I briefly consider crying, but decide to elaborate on my tactics by hiding and crying. I dive forward into the pitch-black cave, pushing nasties out of the way as I do so and catching heat from more than a couple of creeper blasts, before finding a deep opening in the floor. There's no guarantee it's any safer down there, but it should be easier to light up than this huge open space and it'll avert my current situation (if only for a minute or two). I tumble into the hole and hastily block off the entrance above me with some cobblestone so none of the beasties can follow me down. Although I probably made a mess of my stone manhole cover given that I can't see a darn-tootin' thing, nothing follows me. It looks like I'm safe. The silence following that momentary chaos is lovely. Some torches are thrown up, and a long corridor stretches out before me. I stop sobbing and cautiously proceed - I wanted to get down deep beneath the surface, and this looks like a relatively risk-free (for now) way of making my way down there. But what's this? What the dickens? Who goes there? A stripy fire-snake? Sorry, I'm in an exclamatory mood tonight. But seriously, what is this thing that meets me in the darkness?

It's not a stripy fire-snake but rather a spawner. Spawners... er, spawn in certain sections of the subterrain and will endlessly... well, spawn a particular type of creature until they're either destroyed or bathed in excessive levels of light. In this case, it seems to be knocking out spiders. A spider spawner isn't a massive issue. It's a good sign there's treasure nearby, and spiders don't particularly bother me... ... hang on, I'll revise that statement. A spider spawner isn't a massive issue. It's a good sign there's treasure nearby, and spiders don't particularly bother me in the virtual world. To take out a spider spawner in Minecraft, it's just a case of whacking a load of torches around it so it stops creating more spiders, then killing the remainder before smashing it to smithereens. Again, no real danger as spiders only take off around one heart per hit and are quite easy to kill. So I'm not particularly concerned. Or at least I wasn't until I realised one critical factor at play.

FFFFFFUUUUUuuuuuu....