PixlBit

On Monday Mark and I finished the last achievement in Minecraft. It's called The Beaconator and is all about getting the beacon to maximum power. The beacon at maximum power throws a beam of light into the sky so you can find your way back home easily and gives you special powers within a certain radius of its placement. I had to go find the beacon piece, which I had left in a chest deep in some cave. I found it, put it on top of the pyramid of iron, activated it, and both of us got the achievement. Phew! What a grind! Well, I thought I'd be done with Minecraft after that, but read on and discover what other stuff kept me going the rest of the day. 

First, I stayed in Mark's world and thought of fun little things to do with all the resources we had gathered. I wanted to find routes across the map that were fast and easy to navigate. I used a horse to travel quickly to a water route and then took a boat to other inlets. I had to build a pen at the port to hold the horse and then a shallow docking area to keep the boat from drifting away.Then I thought to build a railway, making the journey even quicker, and Mark took down the pyramid of iron to do it. We built a short route to the port and fenced it in to keep those pesky creepers from blocking it.. 

At the same time, I was collecting gunpowder from creepers at night and making TNT to do some mining. I dug a mine right in front of the house and blasted a few large holes straight down. Unfortunately, I got a little too close once and blasted myself to bits along with all my enchanted equipment. So, I thought, whatever. I continued with almost no equipment and grabbed a bow and arrow from the house collection and started shooting everything. 

Once I saw a creeper on top of the house. I shot it and thought to build castle-like towers on each corner to shoot arrows from. I had a bow that shot flaming arrows, so it looked really cool once the towers were built and I was raining death down on all from above. Then I added other things up there like carpet dyed lime-green, a trampoline made out of slime blocks, and a hot tub with its own source of lava to heat it. I only wish I still had my ten dogs, but they got left outside a cave entrance, and I forgot where they were (I tried to find them once but gave up after a while).

After all that, Mark started watching the Penguin/Sharks Stanley Cup game. So I started a new world on my own, and he did too to play during the breaks. We challenged each other to get to certain objectives. 

The first objective was to find a village on the new map and set up base camp. The second was to build the Nether Portal. I managed to get both done really quickly - the quickest I've ever done it. I figured out just how to drop water on lava to get a whole field of obsidian made to build the portal. Then I just managed to make the Anvil that repairs equipment out of lots of iron (31 ingots) before we had to stop for the night. 

Man, I wanted to keep going too. The next objective was to build the Enchantment Table and then enter The Nether for materials for the Eyes of Endor. These help you find the Stronghold where you can pillage books from its library to power up the Enchantment Table.

From there it was going to be all about Wither Skulls and summoning another Wither for its beacon ingredient. I think I'll build only a small pyramid of iron for the beacon next time. That could be the ultimate goal.

I just can't get away from Minecraft. It's a bundle of fun.