Day Forty

Skeleton watches the sunrise.

My fear that mobs would swim out to my island in the night was unfounded as the sun began to rise. I watched the skeletons and zombies burn on the eastern shore and the few spiders wander off, disinterested, before I climbed off my tower and swam ashore.

Finally!

Desert ahead.

I followed the grass to the south and crossed the small sand-bridge. A mountain rose up before me, blocking my view, but the sandy side hinted at a larger desert beyond.

Crossing the bridge.

Creeper to the south, minding its own business.

Climbing into the desert.

As I crested the mountain, a desert did indeed wait for me. But there was also this:

Uh. What?

Interesting...

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Beyond the monument, the desert looked like it would stretch off predominately to the south. Eastwards, I crossed it relatively quickly and hit the ocean again. Once again, I had to follow the land around to the south, where I could see a thick forest.

Looking south-east from near the monument.

Pig having an early morning bath, east of the desert.

Only a few steps into the forest, I spied something unusual through the leaves. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, something white and gray. As I got closer and it came into sight, I was still unsure as to just what I was looking at:

...what?

I was baffled. I have never seen trees like this before. Was this a one-off glitch? Had there been a recent update that I had missed? Was this some new kind of material? Beside the strange trunks, the leaves of the white trees were brownish and dead, while all nearby trees were lush and green. I didn’t understand so I just pushed on. Soon enough, though, I was finding more of the strange trees within the forest.

More strange, white trees. And tree-growing mushrooms!

Deeper in the woods, I was starting to freak out a little bit.

Another ocean. Perhaps this will be the end of these trees.

Perhaps not.

In hindsight, I should have attempted to chop down one of the strange trees to see if they dropped normal wood. I’m not sure why I never did this. Instead, I crafted myself a boat and set out east across the ocean, leaving the trees behind. It was not long before I stumbled across land—another desert.

So long, strange trees.

New lands.

A single-block shaft in the ground, not far into the new continent. Falling down that would have heard.

From a slight rise on the new continent, I looked out east and south. The desert continued in both directions more-or-less to the horizon, but was broken up by a small lake that splayed into a variety of rivers.

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As I started to walk down towards the water, I could hear the moan of zombies. Not far away, the water was being sucked down into an out-of-sight cave. Looking more closely at the water, I spied the wall of a dungeon just beneath the surface. I decided to leave it alone.

Underwater dungeon.

Looking south-east to greener lands.

But continuing east through harsher lands.

On it goes.

I walked across the sand dunes for some time. Besides the occasional rise and fall of the land, the terrain was unchanging for minutes before a pillar began to come into view on the horizon. Shortly afterwards, the sand dissipated into brownish, dry grass.

The end of the desert.

To the south was a small bay leading out to a southern ocean. While looking at it I almost stumbled into a small lake lurking beneath an overhang of dirt. Usually, this would be no big deal, but this particular lake could have ended my adventure for good:

0_0*

Lava lake!

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A lake of lava. On the surface! I was bewildered. If I had fallen into that, I would have surely died. I have never, never, seen a lake of lava on the surface before.

Recovering myself, I walked onwards towards the towering mountains I had spied from the desert.

Heading towards the mountains.

Sand and stone monolith to the south-east.

There was no easy path between the two monuments as they joined together in a steep incline directly to my east. Beanth some trees, I started to climb the southern face of the northern-most mountain.

Well. That isn't something you normally see in a tree.

Mountains to the south.

But thankfully flatter ground to the east.

The ground beyond the mountains was flat and easy to cross. I made good ground as the afternoon sun lowered at my back. 

What a lake should consist of.

Mountains to the south.

Dark caverns.

The desert refuses to be left behind.

Sun is starting to set.

Climbing into the clouds as the sky darkens.

The sun started to kiss the horizon as I climbed the mountain. I wanted to make the crest before setting camp, but it was getting too dark. As the earth continued to rise beyond me, I had to make my tower higher than usual to prevent skeletons launching arrows from the higher ground. I used up most of my stone building my tower. By the time I was ready to rest, the sky was nearly black.

Time to sleep.

It feels like nearly every second post this past month has been an apology for not posting more. Sadly, this is another one. I got ill near the start of December, and then there was a death in my family, and then it was Christmas, and then I got ill again, and now I am in the process of moving houses. All this time, I've had other writing deadlines to reach and Towards Dawn (and, even worse, my Minecraft time!) has taken a back seat.
I intend to wrap this blog up in the near future, but I do not want to leave it hanging in its current form. I would like it to come to some form of proper conclusion, and I promise I will do that. So for now, perhaps the best I can do is promise to post new updates at the beginning of February.
Apologies again for the inconsistent updates, and many thanks to those of you still reading it. There are a lot more of you than I ever anticipated when I started this thing. :)

Day Thirty-Nine

The mountain to the east blocked my first views of the morning until the red rays of sunlight crept around the northern and southern edges of the horizon.

North-east

South-east

The moon setting over the frozen ocean back west.

As the daylight cleared the mountain proper and the skeletons and zombies began to burn, I lowered myself to the ground. My four cacti had grown somewhat overnight so I jumped the final few cubes to land on the sand beyond.

Mobs burning to the north as I descend.

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I had already been traveling in snow for most of the previous day and continent and I imagined that the biome would be coming to an end very soon. But as I started to climb the mountain east, there was no end in sight to the winter wonderland in any direction.

Heading up the mountain.

Morning creeper.

Frozen lake to the north.

Snow-covered forest stretching off to the north-east.

While checking out the scenery from this small crest, I was ambushed by several mobs: two creepers and a zombie out way past his bedtime.

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Back!

I dealt with them and worked my way down off the crest, ignoring the greater bulk of the mountain to the south. Though, just as I returned to ground-level, I looked to the south and spotted a magnificent bridge of ground joining the mountain to several other hills. I decided to go investigate.

Looking south.

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Guess I better walk through it.

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There was a deep tunnel heading down into darkness back beneath the mountain I had slept by the previous night. I quickly checked its entrance for mushrooms and iron but found nothing and continued on my journey. After exiting the southern side of the valley beneath the bridge, I continued east and hit another small ocean. Or a large lake. Either way, it was  frozen over and I walked across.

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I kept expecting to come to the end of the snowfield but over every hill the snow just kept going.

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And going.

.

And going.

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Walking across another frozen ocean.

Across the frozen ocean, I hit another snow field. There were no trees, no movement, no sign of life aside from the occasional yellow flower protruding from the white.

Trekking across the snow field.

A mountain on the horizon. And more snow.

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Several steps after taking the above photo, I suddenly began to fall and found myself a moment later with my head under water.

Wha?

Beats falling into a pit of lava, I guess.

I climbed out of the lake and continued on. I seemed to have ended up on the northern side of the mountain. There was a deep cavern and, more excitedly, what seemed like the end of the snow.

A cave heading south.

The end of the snow?

Not to the south, at least.

Over the next hill I hit an ocean. An unfrozen ocean.

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Couldn't quite make out if that is gravel in a cave or cobblestone in a dungeon. Either way, something is probably lurking beneath me.

To the south, it looked as though the land may swing around east again, so I decided to check it out before crafting a boat.

The southern shore. No east-heading land here. Boat it is.

Heading east.

It wasn't long before I hit another continent, this one covered in trees.

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I followed the river to the left of the above image inland, but it soon dried up. I left my boat behind and continued to follow the sand. After a bit, I came across the deeper lake I have ever seen.

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This isn't the bottom, but it was as deep as I was willing to go.

Perhaps it was an underwater cave, linking on to a vaster network of caverns, all underwater? I've never seen that before but the idea of it possibly existing sure is cool. I left the pool behind me and continued to follow the mostly dried-up river through several other small lakes until I hit a large, closed off lake.

Following the river east. This final section was not as dry as most of it.

A large lake mostly closed off from the river with a small, pointed island in the centre.

The forest to the north.

I followed the sand around the southern side of the lake and continued east by its shore.

Pumpkins on the southern shore.

Looking back west past the river from the far side of the lake.

I hadn't noticed how close to sunset it was. It was time to make camp. On a whim, I decided to camp on the island in the middle of the lake. Why not? I marked its corners with torches and built up several cubes of cobblestone from its peak to ensure no aquatic skeletons would get close to me. There was still the danger of mobs in the water not burning in the morning, but I would deal with that tomorrow.

Placing the torches.

Safe for the night.

Tomorrow's land.