Part 11: Entering the new world

I spent another night mining beneath the hovel, this time at least finding something: a few lumps of coal, just before dawn.  What I really need is iron, though, since I seem to be going through a lot of armor.


This morning Boxter lingered out of the way, leaving the path clear for me to break a hole in the wall and leave the hovel. 

There were no monsters waiting outside, and I decided to let Boxter sleep in while I went to see whether we'd be able to continue on from the bridge I built yesterday, or whether another day of bridge construction was in order.  Fortunately, the bridge seemed to be connected to a long peninsula of the mainland.  I went back to get Boxter, and we crossed the bridge slowly and carefully, me trying my best to steer us straight as we wobbled drunkenly over the cobblestone.  Horses are hard to steer, and for all his brains, Boxter is no exception.

Soon we were on our way northward again.

There was a tense couple of minutes when I had to dismount to battle a pride of lions that was standing squarely in our way.  Sadly, there's no way for me to ride into battle on horseback - right-clicking to fire an arrow merely results in my jumping off Boxter at the worst possible moment, leaving my horse running around defenseless and prone to friendly fire in the middle of battle.  The lions spread out over the hill and tried attacking from different angles, but the landscape was clear enough that I could use my bow from a distance.

I didn't manage to kill all the lions, but I did clear us a path ahead, so I jumped on Boxter and we raced off, lion roars gradually dying away behind us.

This new country had horses too, and was riddled with what seemed to be a large network of scary caves.  I could hear zombies and lava.

In fact, although it was getting to be night time, every time I considered stopping for the night I would hear the lava, or the zombies, or the topology would not be right for pit-building.  Racked with indecision, I wandered on with increasing desperation as the sun began to set.  Finally I could not ignore the darkening sky any longer, and stopped by a slight depression in the sand, intending to scoop out a pit there, and attempt to build walls around it and all the rest.  I dismounted, and Boxter immediately ran off and stopped at a nearby sinkhole, staring meaningfully down into it.

"Nono, Boxter, that hole's scary," I told him.  "Look, I can hear a spider down in there.  Can't you hear that? Let me dig a different pit over here"

Boxter continued to stare at the sinkhole, then back at me.

It was getting quite dark now, and I realized he was right - I would never get another pit dug and walled off before the monsters started arriving, and since the pit would be in sand, I wouldn't be able to dig myself a safer shelter, but would have to stand under the stars waiting for spiders to jump on my head.

I jumped on Boxter and we leapt into the sinkhole.  The spider was waiting for us, sure enough, and I jumped off Boxter's back, fumbling for my sword in the dark as I caught a glimpse of beady red eyes.  In the confusion, I managed to get a screenshot - of Boxter standing bodily in the spider's way, blocking it from attacking me while I got my bearings.  Spiders don't attack horses, and Boxter was using this fact to our advantage.

Boxter delayed the spider for just long enough, and I charged in for the attack.

The spider was finally dead, and I fell to the task of lighting and securing our lair for the night.  First thing was to block up the scary hole that led to the rest of the cave.  Once I had finished, Boxter retreated to the tunnel, out of my way while I replaced the grassy floor of the sinkhole with safe cobblestone (predators can spawn on grass, even lit grass).

We were not alone in the sinkhole - another horse had jumped in with us, and was busily engaged in bouncing of the walls and making a racket. 

I had a momentary heart attack when I felt something bump against me where I was sure there had been no horses - this part of the sinkhole, after all, was open to the stars, and I wondered if a creeper had suddenly landed on my head.  It turned out to be merely a duck.

The duck busied itself checking my work as I replaced the rest of the grass floor with cobblestone.

By the time I had made the pit as safe as I could (without adding a roof, though the horses seemed unaccountably to prefer the roofed cave section), it was nearly morning.