Indeed, the view atop the Ziggurat did far exceed my expectations.
I expected it to suck, but not to such a grand scale.
It's like this whichever way I turn. I have the option of walking in literally infinite directions, but whichever I choose involves walking through boring, flat swampland.
Possibly forever.
Yay. Paint me fascinated.
I do my best to put my unfortunate spawn point disappointment aside, mainly by leaving my desk to get a chocolate eclair. It does the trick - it's delicious and only slightly covers my WSAD movement keys in gloop when I return to the game and continue exploring.
Two things about the above screenshot worth pointing out. Firstly, I've got a wooden pickaxe in my hand. You might wonder why I have a wooden pickaxe, since there was ne'er a mention of me making a crafting bench. That leads us nicely onto point two - see that hole in the middle of the flat granite in the center of view? Basically, that's where I've decided to set up shop.
I came across it just before scaling the Ziggurat, and had a little poke around. Sure, it may look very humble in the sense that it is merely a hole in the ground. But given that the first night is not too far away, I figure it meets all the strict criteria I have in place for a starting base:
1) It is somewhere.
The little cave branches off into two from the entrance, but doesn't go too deep and doesn't branch off further. Just two little corridors joint by one entrance - easy to defend and seal off. Additionally, there's a crap load of iron ore going on. To find so much so near the surface (you can even see some on the surface of if you squint hard enough) is rare indeed, so I set up a crafting bench and made some wooden tools before heading to the Ziggurat.
I plan to hightail it back to the cave base before night falls properly, but I've still got a bit of time so I head onward from from the Ziggurat to see what's happening. Not a lot, it seems, though I come across a flock of sheep so I bludgeon them with my wooden pickaxe and attain enough wool to make a bed when I get back.
I also find some pigs peacefully roaming the countryside and mingling with the (now dead) sheep. Not letting standards slip, I also kill one of these just to let the animals here know what's what. I gain some raw pork chops as a result - this is useful for food, of course, but is even more useful for when you have the burning urge to smack a pig around the chops with a chop.
Mwuahahaha! However, enough of this childish tomfoolery. I tire of killing animals with the flesh of their fallen brothers.
I haven't wandered far from the top of the Ziggurat - a minute's worth of walking at most - but feel that as this brief foray has netted me a bit of food and wool, I'll leave it at that and not get too cocky. I always do this, even with my non-IMM games, and end up getting into strife when I mistakenly feel it's possible to trek back 300 miles to safety within the last few minutes of daylight.
With this firmly in mind, I tell myself to keep focused and walk directly to safety. The theory here is sound, but in practice I almost instantly get distracted and walk directly towards something dangerous... What's this?
I'm confronted with one of those bitchin' caverns you never notice due to the overhang until you turn backwards. Since I'm clearly prepared for such a dangerous exploration (no armour, weapons or spare time), I decide to poke my head inside and see what fires arrows at it. The second I do so, a bunch of skellywags fire arrows at it.
From what I can see (in between strategically blocking arrows with my face) the cave is deep. Very deep. And certainly worth further exploration some day... but that day is not today, my friends, and I back away gracefully. I'll have some time tonight when I'm holed up in my little cave to equip myself a bit better, and if I feel suitably prepared I'll head back here tomorrow and make conquering this cavern my mission. Basically, that means you can expect the untimely end of this blog in the next post.
Though it nearly comes sooner as I spot my first creeper. Eeek!
For those of you who aren't familiar with Minecraft, creepers are the game's equivalent of heavily religious people in the sense that they don't know when they aren't wanted, turn up at the most inopportune times, have nothing better to do than stick their noses into your business and... er, blow up a lot.
Oh, and they hate America.
In short, creepers = bad news.
I give this one a wide berth and don't think he sees me. And yes, I've decided to name him Kenneth - I have a curious feeling that we'll encounter him in the future, given that he's so brazenly walking around in the open at this time of day. As such, he deserves his own fearsome Arch-Nemesis moniker.
Ah, Kenneth. Of all the Ziggurats in all the servers in all the world, he creeps into mine.
I make it back to base, and not a moment too soon as the sun finally disappears beyond the horizon. I'm quickly able to grab some coal and cobblestone from the left-hand part of the cave, before returning to the right arm (which is where I previously set up a crafting table) to see about bricking it up for the night.
That image has been enhanced to make it brighter - it's actually extremely dark, and although this part of the cave isn't very deep (the back wall is right behind me in this screenshot), I'm a bit paranoid about the light/safety situation.
I don't have much coal but enough to make and throw up a couple of torches. With some light on the go I'm also able to quickly mine some more cobble to finish off the rest of this temporary wall in front of the cave entrance.
I'll be in here all night and will have nothing better to do than mine out and expand the cave while waiting for dawn. Now, I can make a door within the wall for easy exit - but that would take up a lot of my limited wood, and the wall is only a temporary measure for this first night.
Alternatively, I can brick myself into this enclosed space completely.
That's got to be the best option, right? I mean, I can knock through the wall pretty quickly if I need to get out of this enclosed space in a hurry. And anyway, what's the danger? I've got all the light I need to prevent anything nasty from spawning in here. So there's no danger whatsoever of bricking myself in, right?
Nothing I'm overlooking at all - no danger that could befall me which would require a very quick exit from this small space while I'm mining... right?
right?
And heck, what is up with airline food, huh?
