Monday, December 24, 2012

Part 43: Twobit


Throughout the lonely night I mined, once breaking through into a cave (a scary moment, but it turned out to be a short dead end, free of monsters), and once breaking through into clear night air (even scarier, since I knew without a doubt that there were monsters out there).

Oops!  Brickitup brickitup

In the morning I continued my search for a new horse.  It was an auspicious beginning - good weather (admittedly, in this version of Minecraft it's always good weather) and open country.

My last night's shelter was somewhere back in the fold of the hill - I ran so far this morning that it was out of view.

I came across a high-altitude pumpkin sheep party.

Hey, who invited the fox?

And soon I came across a pair of horses!  One was full-sized, and the other was a mini.  They were both the bottom-of-the-line light brown horses, but the mini horse intrigued me.  If I could possibly tame and ride my very own mini horse, I would.

The big horse bounced up and down, apparently trying to attract my attention.  But my sights were fixed on the mini-horse.

Mini-horse!


I went up to the little tiny horse, and tried to put a saddle on it.  Nothing happened.  Perhaps the horselet needed to be sweetened up with some sugar cubes first?  I tried feeding the horse some sugar cubes, which it happily devoured.   I tried the saddle again.  Nothing.

It looks like I'm trying to put it in a hamburger bun, but that's a saddle, apparently.

More sugar cubes, perhaps?  I fed the minihorse some more sugar cubes, but still the saddle wouldn't go on.  Eventually I noticed that with each sugar cube, the tiny horse was growing gradually larger.  Oh.  I was merely turning the minihorse, at the great expense of a rich diet of sugar cubes, into a perfectly ordinary large horse, at which point the saddle would probably go on, and I'd be in possession of an plain light brown horse.

Slightly-bigger minihorse

Well, if I wanted that, there was already a full-grown light brown horse just over yonder.  I turned my attention toward the big horse.

It jumped up and down.  "Oh, boy, oh, boy, pick me!  I'm a good horse!"

I hesitated.  The light brown horses were the economy models among horses.  They were supposed to be slower, weaker, and less able to jump.

"Oh, boy, oh, boy!  I can help!  I'm a really good horse!"

There were no other horses in sight, and in the spirit of a journey northward on horseback, I realized I really ought to tame the very first horse I saw.  In this case, that meant the lousy light brown horse.  "Okay," I told it, and put the saddle on the horse - it went on immediately, with no need to coax with sugar cubes.

"Look how well it fits me!  As if it were made for me!  This is gonna be great!"

In its excitement, the horse has begun to bounce down a cliff.


The next step in taming a horse is to sweeten it up by giving it sugar cubes, then try to climb on.  Usually the horse will throw you at least once, and you'll take considerable damage from the fall.  Eventually the horse will let you stay on, and you can then ride away.

I gave the light brown horse five sugar cubes and then climbed on its back.


In retrospect, it probably wasn't a good idea to try this on the side of a steep hill.

As expected, a split second later I was at the bottom of the hill, having taken quite a bit of damage.  It was a moment before I realized I was still on the horse's back.  Apparently rather than the horse throwing me, we had simply walked off the edge of the hill and hurt ourselves by falling to the bottom. This was probably not a terribly auspicious beginning.

"Wheeee!  Let's do it again!  Did you see how far I jumped?  This is gonna be so much fun!"

At least it seemed the horse was tame already, with a minimum of sugar cubes.  I decided to name the horse Twobit.

"Wow, that's a great name!  What does it mean?"

"Mighty warrior."

"Gosh!"

We started on our journey through the high and open lands of Horse Heaven.

As I had feared, this horse was slow, noticeably slower than Boxter had been.  I think it was faster than me.  Barely.  I hoped it was faster than a bear.

Heading uphill

We began to climb upwards, and I discovered another problem: apparently this horse couldn't jump any higher than I myself could.  I can jump one block.  Boxter could jump two blocks.  Twobit, on the other hand...

"Nono, I can jump really high!  Watch this!"

"You just jumped a single block."

"With room to spare!  Lots of room to spare!"

"Can you jump two blocks, though?"

"Ummm... not quite.  Almost."

"You can almost jump two blocks.  So you can in fact jump only one block.  Just like me."

"No, look!"  We leapt against a two-block barrier and fell back.  "I can almost do it!  I'm jumping one and a half blocks!  Almost two!  I can be a good horse!"

"There's nothing that's one and a half blocks high.  You might as well be jumping one block."

"Fences!  Those are one and a half blocks high!"

"Um, okay.  If we come across any naturally-occurring fences, we'll be sure to leap over them with ease."

"Oh, boy!  I'm gonna be a great help!"

A somewhat dizzying view.

Shortly thereafter, we fell off another mountainside.

My health was once again depleted to near-death.  I wondered how Twobit was holding up.  He looked about the same as ever, but there was no way of telling whether he was really all right, or nearly at death's portal.  If we made it to shelter tonight, I probably should distribute healing sugar cubes.

"Hooray, I have a pronoun now!"  Twobit bounced with excitement.

Oh no, the health meter's doing the nervous shaky thing again.

We spent the day slogging up and down the mountainsides, only passing two more horses - I looked wistfully after the dark brown horse we passed, a Boxter-level model.


And another minihorse.  Sort of disappointing to find out they can't be tamed... I'd still pay attention to a mini pegasus, though.

Finally I stopped to dig a cliffside shelter.  Twobit watched with interest as I dug the cave, remembering to lower the floor past the entrance barrier, since we couldn't jump over a two-block barrier on our way in.

I broke into a cave during my digging, and he danced with glee.

"Wow, look how dark it is in there!  Are we gonna go explore?"

"No, we're not."  I began bricking up the cave.  "There are scary things in dark caves."

"Wow!  Will we meet any?  I can help you fight them off!  I'm a mighty warrior!"

"Let's not try to meet any tonight."  I bricked up the last dark scary hole.

Scary!

Soon, the cave was deep enough and tall enough, and I had built the entrance barrier.  I climbed on Twobit's back, and we rode inside.

"Hooray, we're camping!  What are you doing with that glass?  I can help!"

"No, that's all right, I - mffph - get out of the way"

"I'm helping, I'm helping!"

Despite Twobit's aid, I managed to get the shelter's entrance sealed with glass.

I'm helping! I'm helping!

"Oh, boy, oh, boy!  What are we going to do next?"

"I'm going to craft a new bowl of mushroom soup."

"I can help!"

"No, that's quite all right..."

With Twobit nosing over my shoulder, I did some crafting, then decided to escape underground for some horse-free mining.

"I can craft!  I can totally help craft!"

No sooner had I dug the beginnings of the mineshaft than I felt myself propelled bodily down the hole.

"I'll help!"

"Why don't you, um, guard the upstairs?  Make sure no intruders get in."

"You got it!"

With some relief I began a quiet night of mining.

Ah, just me and the creepy, lonely torches, and the sounds of zombies in the walls.

Toward morning I emerged from the mine to check on Twobit.

"It's safe to come up!  I didn't let anyone in all night!  And I swept the floor!"

"Gosh, um, that's really great, Twobit!"

I hope we find that pegasus soon.

Twobit, mighty warrior

3 comments:

  1. Me too!

    I'm concerned about the purple hue of your skin however. Did you get some sort of disease when an evil bear scratched you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's my natural skin color! I keep forgetting about it until I happen to see my own arm.

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