Day 4: Two Regrets

Silver, gold, and redstone were plentiful in my secret magma chamber, so I went back down to explore. I found several, larger magma chambers in close proximity. And even enough diamond to make a pick ax! Upon expanding that initial chambe off to the right, I uncovered a water source and directed it into the larger magma chambers to great success! It appears that when water touches magma, the heat is extinguished and a dark purple block is left in its place. I have no idea how to destroy these blocks, or if it is even possible! The silver pick ax did nothing. I made my first golden pick ax and quickly realized how awful it is. Gold is a soft metal and is less effective than even a stone tool :| After directing water around and collecting some precious minerals I decided to head back up to my new home and renovate. I put real steps all over the place to make it easier to move around. To provide visibility in a safe way, I constructed simple turrets above the front door. Today was a good day :D

When I awoke I felt like doing something exciting and nwe. I learned how to make ladders and thought to myself, "stairs help us move down at a decent pace, but what if it go STRAIGHT DOWN?" So right within the entrance of my primary base (which I just decided shall be henceforth know as Einheim!) I dug down down down. I made the hole 2 cubes wide, so that I wouldn't plummet to my death upon hitting a cavern. This was wise, because after going about 10-15 blocks straight down, I hit open air and heard lots of zombie groaning. Using dirt, which falls straight down, rather than floating in space, like rocks, I built a simple staircase leading to the floor. One of the zombies got killed by the man-made dirt avalanche in the process :) After cleaning up the remaining baddies, I lit the room and explored. What a crazy cavern! There is a waterfall, which feeds into an underground lake and feeding into that same lake is a magma fall! There are tons of caverns connected to the massive one I uncovered which I slowly explored. "This would make a great base camp," I thought to myself. And so I set out to shape this cavern into an underground fortress; a place for me to feel safe and regroup before exploring the deep, dark unknown. I went crazy with stairs! At this time, I had collected hundreds of rocks and today I used them all. Bridges were crafted, columns were constructed, walls were torn down and rebuilt. Then something unfortunate happened.

I built a bridge adjacent to the magma fall. This was the first one I had ever seen, and like any good explorer, I wanted to experiment with it. Perhaps I could alter its flow as I had with the water from earlier. "Let's try plugging it," I thought. All it took was a few tries and a few stones and the primary light source in the room disappeared. "Interesting," I thought. Then I promptly broke the rocks with my pick ax to bring the flow back. The rock shattered and behind it was more rock. By plugging the flow at its source, I had completely extinguished the flow. The was the first moment in my journey that I felt genuine sorrow and regret. What an amazing fortress this would have been, with carefully channeled lava and and water placed at my whim! Alas, this place will have a lovely underground lake, but nothing volcanic within it.

I don't even remember how it happened, but I died soon after. I was carrying the diamond pick ax, some iron ore, and plenty of red stone. It's all gone now. I haven't seen any diamond since that day.