Day Twelve

The sun began to rise long before my iron had finished smelting. 

Getting light...

Hurry up, furnace!

(If you are wondering why there is a chest there, I have been leaving a chest at every camp and filling it with all the excess dirt, stone, and coal I have taking up room in my inventory).


While I waited for the furnace to finish, I packed up my workbench and went to place my sign. The canyon was just as breathtaking as the previous dusk. To the south of the waterfall I could see an O-shaped hole in the mountains. That would be my goal.

Looking good...

I sat and just took in the view for a while then returned to the furnace. I packed the iron in my inventory and packed away the furnace. I had a lot of iron now. The next night I might replace all my armour and tools. For now, it was time to explore the canyon. I decided a boat would be the best way to take it all in.

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So pretty...

I parked beside the three trees. Before I climbed up to the hole, I found a small tunnel underneath that worked around to beside the waterfall. I explored it quickly, finding more iron ore (which I took) and more coal (which I left).

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Beside the waterfall.

My admiration for the canyon sated, it was time to climb up to the hole and be on my way.

Through the hole, looking south and east.

Looking directly east. Guess I'm heading further south, then.

Back north-east at the outer side of the canyon mountains.

The eastern path was blocks so I drifted further to the south. I could have gone up and over the foothills, but a rather curious tunnel was right before me.

Hello there, tunnel.

I could see sunlight on the far side, so it seemed safe enough. Still, I placed torches as I went, not wanting to trip and fall in a pool of lava. The tunnel slanted down deeper into a cavern to the south, but a shaft of sunlight directly in front of me would get me back on the eastern trail.

Up to the sun, Brendan, not down to the mines.

The shaft though, did not end on my level. It kept dropping down.

Meep.

I dug away around the shaft's edge and back up to the grass. The land here was still hilly, but at least it was flat enough to pass over now.

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I defied my unconscious urge to keep drifting south and forced myself to go back around the north side of the next mountain. I had already drifted far south today. Still, I ended up filtered into another canyon.

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Hey, Pig.

The valley, it turned out, was quite amazing.

Looking south east.

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I decided not to explore the valley and to instead keep moving east. I climbed up the next hill and soon found myself on a sheer ledge looking down into yet another valley. Perhaps the one I left behind swung back up from the south to join this one.

I feel like I am looking across a road into someone's window.

I worked my way down to the flat ground and was on my way. Around me, some weird things were happening. Nothing too out of the ordinary, though, just the occasional floating block and odd shaped mountain. I thought little of it and kept going.

Hmm...

Climbing another hill, I found an entrance to the cavern. It stood out as the entrance seemed to have been gouged out of the mountainside with a knife.

It was hard to get it on a good angle.

I could see the mushroom as I neared. Jumping in to get them, I could see the cavern went for some way. Far to the south, either sun or lava was lightening another cavern.

Mushrooms! And an ominous tunnel...

Back down the western tunnel.

I backed out the way I had come in and looked to the east at a rather strange mountain.

Is that a big floating rectangle?

From this angle, I couldn't tell if it slanted down on the other side. Regardless, I decided I must climb the weird mountain before I moved on. The southern side was sheer cliff, so I would have to move around north to the hills. As a climbed down my current hill, the view to the south opened up, showing more weird mountains and floating blocks.

The floating blocks freak me out.

Off the hill and before I could begin climbing Weird Mountain, I found a cow in desperate need of a spade-wielding hero.

It's stuck!

Yay!

(Full credit goes to my girlfriend, Helen, for first convincing me that saving poor animals trapped in holes was a good use of my time. I strongly recommend it to everyone).


Moving on, I climbed the lower, more normal, levels of the mountain. As I got higher, the mountain got stranger. In the end, I was climbing a staircase a single cube wide into the clouds.

SO WEIRD.

Should not have looked down. (Back south and west)

In the end, I had to dig away a single cube of dirt to get to the top. When I arrived, I was not alone.

Some kind of Mountain Guru Pig?

Clearly, I had eaten the wrong cave mushrooms. I had climbed a stairwell of dirt to a floating rectangle and a mountain pig. Sure. The eastern ledge was sheer. There would be no way down except the way I came up. Still, I might as well enjoy the view while I'm here.

My eastern path.

I stayed a while with the mountain pig then worked my way back down. The stairs were even more daunting now as Not Looking Down was not an option now.

The staircase.

From the northern side looking up, the rectangle could be seen in all its weirdness.

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The floating block is a nice touch.

At this stage, I was fairly sure reality was starting to break down. Perhaps I was nearing the edge of the world? Time would tell. For now, I worked my way across the sand through the break in the mountains I had spied from atop the mountain.

An old riverbed, perhaps?

Goodbye, fair Mountain Guru Pig!

Beyond the riverbed, the meadow of trees was almost disappointingly normal.

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I should have watched my thoughts, though, as they soon ended.

Ocean time. Again.

The sun was already fairly low. I wasn't about to go repeating the same mistake as two nights ago. Just to the north I could see what looked like a complex of caves. I blocked off one end with some dirt and glass, and made myself a camp.

I guess this is home for the night.

Cosy...

It had been an exciting day. The canyon in the morning, the waterfall, the crazy rectangle mountain with its Guru Pig. Certainly, it more than made up for the previous day's non-adventure.

I crafted some tools and placed the iron I had found during the day in the furnace and started some mining. That did not last for long, however, as I broke into the broader cave network.

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I blocked it up, returned to my camp, and just waited for the sun.

I wonder if Guru Pig is still on his mountain?