Day Twenty-Seven

Before I get started, my apologies for the lack of updates of late. Life has caught up to me in the shape of several ghastly assignments. I'll still try to get Towards Dawn updated a few times a week at the very least. Moving on, Day Twenty-seven:

.

The torches did not seem to be working too well this night. I could hear the crunch of grass, the hiss of spiders, the rattle of skeletons, and the moans of zombies for most of the night.

.

That's everything but a zombie.

There we go.

Here comes the sun.

The zombies and skeletons were taken care of, but I could still hear spiders, and I knew there was at least one creeper lurking out of sight. Yet again, I would have to make a dash for it.

3... 2... 1...

Three spiders leaped down after me. One hit me as I backpedaled. I shot arrows but they jumped manically and my shots went astray. Then two creepers joined in the chase.

Back!

I turned to run forwards and put some distance between us, only to find more creepers trying to flank me. I turned and ran north, merging the two squads into one. Spinning back around, I had enough space now to start firing.

.

Fortunately, the spiders grew disinterested and I had only the creepers to deal. I managed to take out all of them without a single explosion.

.

I still don't trust them...

The morning excitement over, it was time to start the day. It was time to climb the hills to the east.

.

I hardly crested the first mound before another creeper jumped at me from behind a pig.

.

With that taken care of, I moved on. The ground lowered again into a plateau with hills rolling to the south and mountains rising to the north. The air also seemed overly foggy. I checked that my draw distance was still on normal, which it was. Perhaps the world is just so huge now that it is not rendering as much.

Looking east.

Looking south-east.

Mountains to the north.

Ominous cave.

Sure is ominous.

The flat, easy ground continued for a time, and I started to miss the ocean I had left behind. That was soon to change.

Looking north while coming down a hill.

That looks like an interesting mountain...

.

.

I thought I had captured him in this picture, but right above the coal on the right-hand side of the overhang stood a pig, precariously leaning off the edge. He was wandering back and forth out of sight. Unfortunately, I must have just missed him when I shot the previous picture. It hardly mattered, as I was going to climb up to him to take a picture. But first, I wanted a picture of the gravel stalagmite in the shade (just visible two pictures up).

And then several things happened at once.

Pig!

The moment I took the picture, I heard a squeal and the pig that had been on the mountain fell and died before my eyes! My god! Just as I was reeling over this turn of events, a skeleton leaped out from behind the stalagmite and attacked me.

Skeleton!

Get back!

So that was horrifying. Now that there was no reason for me to climb atop the overhang, I worked up the mountain just to the south and continued east.

Looking north at the overhang. RIP Mountain Pig.

Coming down the other side, I spied what is perhaps the most peculiar mountain thus far. Not most amazing, but most peculiar.

Like a giant ant mound.

Slightly different angle.

Well, I would just have to climb it, wouldn't I? Hopefully there would be a way down on the far side.

Okay. It looks less impressive from the ground.

Up we go.

From the top, the view was fairly extraordinary.

I can't remember what way this was facing. Perhaps south. There was ocean on both north and south horizons.

So no easy way down on the eastern side...

View to the east (I turned my draw distance up to far for this).

So it looked as though the rest of my day may be interesting. Some crazy stadium-esque mountains and an eventual ocean, if the north and south waters are going to meet up (which they inevitably always do). I could not get off this mountain to the east, so I headed back down to the south.

Heading down south as another young mountain pig starts his climb.

Crazy mountains.

.

I decided I wanted to go straight through the middle of these mountains. I carefully crossed a thin cube of grass into the central area.

Easy... (heading north)

Yeah, I kind of expected that (looking east).

With a bit of digging, climbing the cliff was not actually that hard.

Up, up, and up.

Looking back west at the rear of the peculiar mountain. Seems I missed a waterfall.

Atop the cliff.

Looking north through a crazy canyon.

Hmm. Might want to take a step back...

Continuing east, I soon looked out over some of the most breathtaking scenery I have seen for days. The upped draw distance may have helped. 

0_0 Looks just like a Cartograph map.

There was no way down directly to the east, so I balanced across a single-cube wide bridge to the mountain just to the north and headed down its less-steep eastern side.

Heading north-east (slowly)

Careful...

Looking east.

Sun beginning to sink back to the west.

On the horizon (further away than the horizon usually is) I could see the coast. I decided I would try to get to the beach before nightfall.

Crazy mountain to the south.

Strange overhang to the north.

The mountains came to an end with several lakes and sandy dunes before I hit the coast proper.

Looking east.

Interesting island.

.

Same island, from the south.

 I hit the coast just as the sky darkened. Looking for a place to set camp, I noticed a narrow cavern heading into the sand.

The lands I have traveled.

...And a cavern I did not craft.

I looked in briefly and placed a few torches. There was only one path, and it was quite narrow. I should be safe in here. I quickly glassed the entrance and went to survey the  cavern properly. In my rush, I forgot to place a single torch outside. Whoops.

.

Now about this cave...

I ran its length hastily, placing torches and checking for smaller caverns leading in from the sides. I found nothing, save a single block missing at the very end. Beyond it, I could hear the moans of zombies.

.

Just to be safe...

I still did not feel too safe. I was immediately regretting the idea of camping in a cavern that I did not dig myself. I still have nightmares about that zombie on Day Six (ish) that nearly slaughtered me. Still, this seemed safe enough. But then I looked up:

Uh, sand?

The ceiling, in places, was sand. All it would take is one block for it all to come tumbling down in an avalanche of zombies and creepers. Awesome. That was it. I could not sleep with a cavern at my back. Carefully, I mined some stone away from the sand. 

There we go. I feel safer now.

Sure is dark outside.

And so ends day twenty-seven.