Picking up where I left off
I started my next session with exactly what I had planned when I left off last time, I ventured my way down the mountain side, and made my way towards the clearing that I showed in my last post. when I arrived I checked out the directly surrounding forest entrance, when I did I was greeted by this absolutely delightful bit of world gen!
I know I know, mods have been doing this for years (trust me I’ve installed them many times), but there was something about seeing this little diorama in my vanilla playthrough that just made me happy.
Laying the foundation
when I was done with my brief exploration I got to work chopping trees, I was sure to replant them as I want, as I am unsure what I want to do with this area yet and thus would like to keep it mostly as is for now. With a nice little stockpile of logs I got to work on the first structure of my starter base! which was not a house, or a shack, or a farm… but a dock!
Admittedly a random thing to start with, but I was in love with the pond and wanted to establish how my builds would connect to it, so I started with a dock and some paths leading from it, I used these as guides later.
I slept on the dock for a few nights as I gathered resources, I then started laying down a proper little house for myself, I did not have huge visions for this, I just needed somewhere to sleep, craft, and store my things in a less chaotic manor than a chest pile.
I used no tutorial (or even reference in this case) for this house, I wanted to just build freely the way I would have in my early minecrafting days, and I was quite pleased with how the freestyle house was turning out, but I wanted some spruce wood for my room to break things up a little, so I took an adventure to go find some, aswell as exploring some other biomes. I was quite happy to see that my lookout building from last time was serving as a rather excellent beacon to use for a sense of direction.
I explored some biomes on my way, including this new white one? that’s been added since the last time I played vanilla minecraft, I dig it. my expedition for spruce saplings was a success! though more dangerous than I expected, it is easy to forget that at the start of a hard more playthrough when all you have is a stone sword and no armour- that the mobs are actually quite a challenge, I will need to address that soon.
I made it home and planted the whole 2 saplings I escaped with while running from skeletons, I figured they would eventually give me more saplings- they did not after many growths, not sure if they have changed how sapling drops work, or if I just got unlucky- probably the later. Never the less I eventually built up enough spruce to build my roof
This was where I left it for this session, but there is more to come before this post is over.
The next day
If I was not clear about it in my post 0 explaining this format, not each session will be it’s own blog post, that sounds tiring, and frankly likely a bit boring once we get into later sessions, instead these posts serve as recaps from all sessions between my last blog post and this one (exceptions will be made where they seem fit).
The next day before I got back on I updated my world to minecraft version 1.21.6, the first update of this play through! I decided that I wanted to mark each update the world went through, I had nowhere more grand to do so for the moment so until I build something nicer, I will keep these updates in my mine entrance room
Into the mines!
At this stage I was feeling motivated and wanted to start getting equipped with something stronger than stone, it was time to mine! A couple of deaths to fall damage did occur, however over all I would call the expedition a resounding success! It appears I have build my home right over a large cave network, one that appeared at first to be just a small cavern, go me!
I made 2 trips, one down initially to get some iron, then after taking the iron upstairs and processing it into some gear, I headed down again with my sights set higher!
The caverns below my house were expansive, and loaded with resources, I certainly walked away from this with far more diamonds than I had hoped for, I was aiming for enough for a pickaxe.
I had plenty of food with me so I decided to keep exploring this cave as far as it would go, as it turned out the cavern I went down went very far, so far in fact that I ended up back above ground through an exit I found. I emerged from the cave thinking I must be so far from home, I turned around to see if I could locate my lookout, or at least the mountain it was on, just to see that I had merged no more than a couple hundred blocks from home!
I got to work smelting my ores, and while they were smelting I chopped some more trees and starting filling in the chest room in my house, I want this place to be able to support me for a while so I left room for a decent collection of chests, I will be working on a basic category system for these as I play, I one day want to build a large redstone item sorter, but that will be a much larger and much later project.
A village to pillage trade with
At this stage I felt ready for some adventure! and wanted to get to work on locating a village for future projects, I had not seen one in this world yet and wanted to locate one sooner rather than later. so I set out, finding a few choice locations on the way, including a woodland mansion, which I have saved the coordinates to but will be doing at a later date, I have actually never done a woodland mansion (always kind of ignored them) so I am excited to give it a go once I gear up a little better.
It took traveling some distance - really quite a long distance, but I eventually managed to locate a village, and I was in luck! it was not abandoned! I helped myself to a few hay bales and assisted a few of the villagers in staying nice and warm inside their houses, it’s for their safety really.
At this stage I was thinking about how time consuming it was going to be to transport these villagers to their new home, until I remembered why I was so excited for this particular update- the happy ghast! for those familiar with the new mob I am sure to know what I will be doing with it, as for everyone else, I will explain in my next post, but for now, this is where my last session ended.
Thankyou for reading, in my next session I plan to get myself a working nether portal and get to work on getting myself a happy ghast! I’ll see you then!
You can read the whole Tales from Alumantia series here