My life has been very hectic lately with work, volunteering, and a few side projects, so this segment of my blog contains a few quick periods I was actually able to get some play time in. I played mostly solo for these days, with Tim Smith showing up as well. I planned on playing a lot over my winter break from work, Dec 21 to Jan 6, but a corrupted save file kept me from playing. It took me a while to restore the save, and luckily nothing was lost. Also, Minecraft on my Xbox 360 was being very moody, and took a few uninstalls and reinstalls until it would work properly. I’m sorry it has taken me so long to update, and I promise I will be putting much more effort into this over the coming weeks. Thank you for everyone who has been reading and supporting me. All of your kind words keep a smile on my face!

Erica's Monument-al Adventure: Day 7

I’ve been having really bad luck trying to find gold lately and still haven’t found a single piece of diamond. Since my village and the underground chasm are pretty much located at the southwestern part of the map, I decided that I needed to focus my efforts down at bedrock. I climbed down into the chasm and dug out a staircase all the way down to bedrock. I dodged a few lava spouts here and there, and had to alter the direction of my staircase a few times. I made sure to mark the lava points so no one would accidentally mine a block and flood the stairs with the fiery hot death! From here, I started digging tunnels to the north and to the east. My plan was to make these tunnels the entire length of the map, and eventually complete a tunnel system at bedrock level.

After tunneling for a bit, my luck finally changed. I found a few pieces of diamond! I was so happy that I dropped my controller to celebrate. Right at that moment I heard a hissing sound, and found a Creeper strolling up behind me! It then exploded in my face once I turned around. I somehow survived with no armor and a half a heart of health. I ran back up to the surface to store the diamond and save the game. I did not want to lose this first bit of luck I’ve had since I started. After saving, I went back down into the tunnels. I continued to mine for another twenty or so minutes, finding a good amount of coal, iron ore, and redstone. I once again traveled back to the surface, saved, and ended the night on a great note!

Erica's Monument-al Adventure: Day 8

Today was a short, solo day. I headed back down into the tunnels and started to dig north. I had to clear out a few enemies, mostly skeletons but it did include a Creeper or two. I tunneled until I broke down a stone wall to come across a nice, little cave pond. Just looking into the cave, I noticed a good amount of iron ore, coal and redstone. While mining, I once again came across both gold ore and diamond! That’s two days in a row I have been able to mine some diamond for the monument. I continued to clear out the cave, then ran everything back up to the village and called it a night.

Erica's Monument-al Adventure: Day 9

Another short, solo day. I traveled back down into the tunnel. From the cave pond, I continued to dig north. After about ten minutes, I dug into yet another cave pond. These seem to be frequent in this current seed. I cleared out that cave, expanded it outward, and found some coal and a few pieces of iron ore. When finished, I once again started to dig north, mining both redstone and lapis lazuli along the way. After a few minutes, the fun started. With every stone block I mined, lave started pouring out at me, like it was out to get me. I dodged these lava spurts, blocking them off with cobblestone for a good twenty minutes, trying my best to tunnel around them. While tunneling around all the lava, I came across more gold ore and diamond. I almost lost all of it when more lava attacked me. I blocked up the lava, took all the ore back to the village, and ended the day here. I will have to rethink my tunnels a bit and alter their course. But it has been three days in a row where I have found both diamond and gold ore. Things are starting to look up!

Intermission: Erica Memory

A little while after meeting Erica, I started getting really close to her and just visiting her as often as I could; even when I wasn’t technically volunteering that day. I started to gauge her interest in video games, what genres she liked and disliked. I knew well she enjoyed TimeSplitters and Minecraft. She also really enjoyed role playing games and loved any game on the Nintendo 64. There was a week I visited the hospital every single day after work for a few hours. We spent that time running through Quest 64 together. Erica was always happy to see me walk in because she knew we would continue our game. Even though Quest 64 isn’t the greatest RPG, she had a ton of fun with its simple structure. I truly had a great time running through this game again with Erica.

Erica's Monument-al Adventure: Day 10

Since I’ve been spending most of my time down at bedrock, I decided to clear out a huge portion of the tunnel right at the bottom of the staircase, next to the branching paths, and build myself a new cave base. I did this to decrease my chances of losing valuable ore and cut down on travel time. It took a good thirty minutes to clear out this chunk and add in all the chests, furnaces, and beds.

Once finished, I thought of another interesting idea. The Nether might have materials I could use as well, but because I need to save every piece of diamond I come across, I cannot craft a diamond pickaxe to mine obsidian. I decided on making a nether portal anyway, but using the bucket trick instead (pouring water and lave over each other after making a mold for the portal). This process took such a long time. It would have taken much longer if I didn’t have a source of both water and lave within close proximity. I now had a nether portal located in my new cave base!

I didn’t have much more time to play for the night, so I headed down the east tunnel and mined for around twenty minutes. I did find a good amount of iron ore and coal, a few pieces of redstone, and 10 pieces of gold ore! I headed back to the cave base, smelted the gold ore to ingots, and ended on a positive note.

Erica's Monument-al Adventure: Day 11

started in the cave base, took the north tunnel, and continued to mine. Right away, I found some gold ore and diamond. But I came really close to losing everything when the next block I removed opened up to lava, and I wasn’t able to close it fast enough. Luckily, I had a bucket of water on me (I’m always prepared for the worst) and was able to put myself out. A few minutes later, Tim Smith signed online and joined my game. I quickly showed him around the rebuilt village, where the supplies were now located, my cave base, and the tunnel system. We then got down to business and started tunneling north (which included dodging a massive amount of lava).

We took all the ore collected back to the cave base, and I made a quick inventory check. I currently had collected and crafted: 10 gold blocks and 6 gold ingots, 2 diamond blocks and 5 diamond, and finally 30 lapis lazuli blocks and 7 pieces of lapis (which will be used if not enough diamond is found). I do feel way behind on my progress, and definitely need to start picking up the slack.

After heading back out to the tunnels to mine, Tim and I started to tire of constantly having to run back to the cave base in order to travel back up to the village. We resolved to build a second staircase back to the surface from the farthest point we dug to. While carving out this new staircase, we discovered a cavern about halfway up. Tim and I stopped to look around and found a bunch of gold ore and lapis lazuli, along with three Creepers. We kited and killed the Creepers, mined the precious ore, and continued up to the surface. Once we made it topside, we visibly marked where the new staircase entrance was for future reference.

Before stopping for the night, I really wanted to tackle the stronghold Tommy Bruner and I discovered a little while back. Tim and I suited up and traversed down where I thought the stronghold was located. It turns out; I forgot where Tommy and I had marked the location. We had to find a spot I knew was pretty close to the location and started digging. We pretty much got lost, but discovered an area filled with gold ore and diamond! While we were mining, Tim and I looked across the cavern and noticed something. We quickly realized the stronghold I thought I had found was just a dungeon, with one dungeon spawner and two chests. I was a little sad, but there ended up being some decent supplies in the chests. After clearing out the rest of the area, we traveled back to the surface, stored all the supplies, and ended the day.

Now that my Minecraft and saves are all fixed and running properly, I plan on putting in a ton of effort to catch up on my progress. I’m very far behind, so it’s time to take this into overdrive!