Day Twenty

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The sunlight started to glimmer through the tree. The tree that I would have to cut down once the sun was a bit higher. See, once again I had made camp without gathering any wood for my sign or my chest. Moments later, my view of the sunrise was rudely interrupted.

Drop Zombie!

No you may not come in. And about that sunrise you are blocking...

Yeah. That sunrise.

Bye bye.

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 I think I need to stop resting in the base of hills. Monsters keep dropping down onto my camp. Knowing the sun was up high enough to burn zombies and skeletons, I broke away the glass and went outside, slowly and backwards. Sure enough:

Sssssssss!

I backtracked and waited for it to get to my level. And then the second creeper coming up from my right came into field of view. Distracted between the two targets, I backpedaled into a ditch.

No! back! (Second creeper behind my sword).

Well that didn't go so well.

Both creepers exploded. Fortunately I got myself unstuck with enough time to take only slight damage. I cut down a nearby tree and returned to camp to craft my sign.

I'm not quite sure what happened next. It was all quite surreal and sudden; I had no time to react or take pictures. Not two steps from the entrance to my camp, a creeper dropped out of nowhere and exploded without warning. Just dropped and 'boom!'. My camp was demolished, along with my workbench and furnace. I stood dumbly for a minute, unsure as to what had just happened.

Where my camp 'was'.

When I recovered, I chopped down a second tree to make my new workbench, and then crafted my sign and chest to place all the useless stone and rock I had collected.

On we go.

Nearby was a spider, and I kept a wide berth and a keen eye. I still remembered the spiders that had attacked me during the previous day.

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Watch my back, piggy.

For most of the morning I walked through a forest that stretched off in all directions. It climbed hills, it fell into valleys, it sat atop mountains. The trees were everywhere, but sparse enough I could walk by unhindered.

Odd mountain to the north.

Heading east.

Looking back south-west over the forest.

Mountains to the south can't block the forest.

After a time, my path was blocked quite abruptly.

Well I guess I am not going that way.

To the south it is.

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Rounding the southern side of the wall was simple enough. Beyond was another impressive monument.

What's that up there?

Whoops. Watch your step!

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That is kind of pretty cool.

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More stalagmites.

For those that missed the comments of the previous post (Day Eighteen, I believe it was), we figured out what these gravel pillars are. When the map spawns gravel as part of an overhang without any stone or dirt beneath them, the gravel falls to the ground and there it sits, and that is where we get the gravel stalagmites (if that is the right word) from. So thanks, Glynn (who actually saw this occur!) for the Minecraft geology lesson!

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Still under the towering monument, I could already see the next scenic stop of my day.

What a nice place.

Looking south-east at the waterfall.

Moving on (northern side of the waterfall).

Over the hill, the ground was flat and easy going for a time. A few free-standing mountains rose up to the north from time to time, but it was still easy traveling for me.

South-east.

Mountains to the north. Kind of looks like a Star Wards sandcrawler, no?

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Mushrooms!

Northern wall.

Dwarf tree! The leaves were touching the ground. How weird!

Around mid-afternoon, I came across a sandy valley. It would seem the ground had been slowly rising for sometime as now I was looking down from a cliff.

Looking east.

Looking north.

And then the strangest thing happened. I could here a zombie moaning, which itself was not that strange. I've heard zombies moaning in the middle of the ocean before. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, a zombie began climbing the hill towards me! In the middle of the afternoon!

Wha?!

I waited for it to burn before I descended. To the south of the valley, directly beneath me, was a cavern where I assume it came from.

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I looked inside briefly, but I could find no dungeon nor hear any other zombies. How strange. I guess it would just be one of those little mysteries. Turning back north, I caught a glimpse of this:

That... looks like an awesome waterfall.

I decided to go check it out and get some more pictures. As I got closer and the valley opened up to the west, I was greeted with yet another awesome waterfall.

Double waterfall!

All the way! (looking north-west)

Sun lowering behind western fall.

Northern fall.

Two awesome, controlled waterfalls. That was a nice find for the day. The sun was getting low now, but I would see if I could conquer a few more hills for the day.

Heading east again.

Cool mountains to the north.

Another apprentice mountain pig beginning his journey.

The ground continued to rise gradually, up and up, and occasionally down.

Looks deep.

Waterfall in a crater-like cave on the hillside (looking south).

Another deep cave. I grabbed the mushrooms and left quickly.

Another crater.

cresting the far side of the crater, I came across another uniquely shaped mountain. I think it was trying to tell me something.

"Head south, nomad!"

Looking down from same place.

I considered turning and heading south for half a second, but ultimately decided letting a few dirt blocks change my path, after all I've been though, would be somewhat silly. Instead, almost rebelliously, I went around to the north of the monument and began to climb.

Up and east.

The sky was darkening before I reached the ground leveled out. It seemed I was quite high. On the horizon, the moon was starting to rise. Time to make camp.

Tomorrow's land.

The hill I was on still rose to a point just to my north, so I climbed this before making camp. No creepers would be falling on me the next morning!

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