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Day 5739 - 85 Days Remain

My fifteenth day is mundane and grindy. I alternate between harvesting mature crops from the wheat field on the lower level, cutting any trees that have grown on the surface, and extending the walls up a little further whenever I have sufficient resources to do so. The chicken has dropped three eggs so far and I've immediately thrown each one, but I've not had a chick spawn yet.

By the end of the day, I've neatened up the wall and raised it to eight blocks high all round, so I'm just over halfway to the fifteen block milestone.

There's one thing I don't like about the current layout, and that's having my primary tree farm inside the trunk. Large oaks spawned from the sapling patch commonly touch the walls, which means the leaves adhere to the logs and I have to pillar up to clean them out. Furthermore, they also occasionally end up intersecting with the precious "bee tree" and its attached nest. I don't know if a large oak would be able to grow through an inhabited nest and delete it, but of such ideas are my nightmares made. So, I'd like to move my log production outside as soon as possible.

I'd ideally like to move the bees outside the walls as well but I'm not sure how to go about that yet, as I can't craft bee houses without honeycomb and I'd need to harvest it without angering the bees and I've simply not worked enough with vanilla bees to be confident about their mechanics.

Day 5740 - 84 Days Remain

It's not explicitly mentioned in the original ruleset, but most people abided by the principle that an area of ground fully enclosed by roots becomes part of the tree and thus freely navigable. I decide to start encircling some external areas so that I can use them, starting with a little patch outside the southern gate. This spot was already almost enclosed as I'd rooted around quite a bit while going after hostile mobs (and the unfortunate trader's llamas) previously. Only a few more logs need to be placed in order to claim it.

There. I expect the big ones will still end up sticking to the walls at this distance, but they won't be right in my face while they're doing so.

After planting up the saplings I return to the tree and then poke my head out through the north gate in the hopes that I might sight a lingering spider or two in the late morning. I don't see a spider out there, but I do spot something else.

That's another chicken and it's not unworkably far away. Can I get to it? I think I might be able to! I've got plenty of logs right now!

I root my way down the hill and start across the plain, keeping a few seeds in my offhand...

That's it, come with me! I have a friend who is very eager to meet you.

This is just awesome. I've got two types of breedable livestock now--well, three if one counts the bees. The sheep are really only of interest to me for their wool so I don't plan on slaughtering any of them, but the chickens will furnish me with meat to eat, and feathers to make arrows once I get hold of a bow. Furthermore, they're another step towards my stretch goal of being able to bake a cake. I only need to acquire a cow now for the milk and I'll be able to take care of that.

I spend the remainder of the day cutting trees and dumping saplings into the composter to make bonemeal to spawn more trees.

Night falls, and I'm standing at the composter spamming right-click when I hear a spider hissing right outside the walls. I drop the saplings and rush to the south gate.

Come on! What have you got for me? Let's see it!

The spider drops a string. Just one string. But that's enough, because with the one I already have in storage I can make the long anticipated fishing rod. That is huge. Fishing will potentially give me bottles to collect honey from the bees, more string and replacement rods, possibly leather, and if I'm very lucky a decently enchanted bow, which would synergize great with the arrows I'll soon be able to make from my new chicken farm.

Day 5741 - 83 Days Remain

There's more fun to come, because in the early morning I spot another spider just a little way north, within range of my roots. I engage it, and kill it handily.

Two more string!

I want to get fishing going as soon as possible but it'll require some infrastructure investment, as I'd like treasure drops for enchanted bows and that's not as easy as it used to be. I start by enclosing another large-ish area outside the walls.

Then I work through the remainder of the day and well into the night on excavating and filling a pool that'll count as "open water".

I don't recall offhand what the specific dimensional requirements for treasure drops are so I make it 7x7x4 deep, which is probably massively over-engineered but that's all right, the dirt and stone excavated will surely come in useful for something or other.

The first item I pull is a cod, which isn't surprising. The second item is a fishing rod with four durability left, Unbreaking III and Curse of Vanishing. Not very useful in itself, but confirmation that the pool I've dug works for getting treasure drops.

Day 5742 - 82 Days Remain

Eighteen days have passed now. I'm a bit concerned about the slow progress on the build. I'd hoped to be further along with construction than I am.

Today I want to move the bees out of the main chamber as ever since they showed up I've been suffering from low-level anxiety about accidentally hitting one. In order to be able to craft a beehive, I'll need to get some honeycomb. I'm still a long way off being able to craft a dispenser, so I resort to the low-tech method. I've never actually done this campfire thing with bees before so I'm rather nervous... they're the only bees I've got and if I aggro them and they sting me and die I'll be back to growing trees by dandelions over and over.

But the campfire method works just fine.

No angry bees!

I craft a beehive immediately and place it outside the walls. I'll work on persuading the bees to move into it later on. Right now I've got fishing to do.

I slip into a comfortable rhythm of work. I can see the new tree farm patch from the pool and every time a new tree sprouts I pause my fishing to go over and chop it. My stockpiles of fish and logs are both increasing steadily now. I pull no more enchanted rods, which is a shame as I'd really been hoping for Mending. I do pull a saddle and nametag, both of which are of dubious value to me currently. I suppose I could name and ride the pig... oh wait, no I can't, I'd need to get enough iron to make an anvil, and a carrot drop off a zombie for the carrot-on-a-stick.

Day 5743 - 81 Days Remain

I've decided to push for the first building milestone: raising the tree to fifteen blocks in height so that I can get access to the dye flowers waiting in the shulker box. They'd be useful not just for colored wool but for the bees.

Speaking of bees, though, there's something I need to take care of.

I break from the fishing-treecutting cycle shortly before dawn and take up position by the bee nest, armed with dandelions.

As soon as the bees emerge, I lead them outside to the waiting hive, then hand over the dandelions to get them in the mood. Aww... they made a bay-bee.

Yes, that's correct, you live there now!

While the bees mill around, checking out their new working area, I hurry back inside and block up the original bee nest with a bunch of planks so they won't be able to return to it even if they decide they'd prefer it. I'll wait until tonight when they've hopefully all gone into their new hive, then get rid of the old nest.

For the remainder of the day I work on expanding the tree farming area.

There--several more saplings planted, and all located further away from the walls now so they'll hopefully stop merging with the main body of my tree when the big ones grow, because I am 100% done with that nonsense.

I don't bother roaming around on the roots to look for hostile mobs tonight, but stay at the fishing pool, pulling fish after fish and watching the sapling patch in the meantime for more tree spawns.

This time I don't get any treasure drops at all, just a load of cod and salmon and pufferfish, but I'm amassing a substantial amount of logs so it's still more than worth it.

Day 5744 - 80 Days Remain

At dawn I return to the bee area to check on them. As soon as they emerge, I breed them again. It's not easy to be sure how many bees there are as they're generally either wandering or in the hive and I'm struggling to perform a reliable headcount, but I think there should be four now. From my recollections, only three can fit into a hive at a time, so that's going to leave one of them homeless.

They've already maxed out their first bee hive with products, so I use the campfire trick again to harvest the honeycomb and craft a second hive. There'll be no homeless bees on my watch.

Shortly after, it starts to rain. Poor bees. I'm glad I made that second hive.

Annoying as it might be for the bees to have to take a day off, the rain is great news for me as rain means a better chance of landing a fish. I head for the pool. It continues to rain all through the remainder of the day and well into the night. I continue fishing and cutting wood.

Day 5745 - 79 Days Remain

The rain finally clears up around dawn. I check my inventory... good grief, I've got about three stacks of logs. I know it takes precisely sixty logs to raise the level of the walls by one all round, so that's three more levels right there.

I ascend the scaffold to make the building amendments...

Three more y-levels. That puts me right at the top of my scaffolding tower--meaning the tree is currently 15 y-levels high. I've achieved my first progress milestone.

 Milestone: Get the tree to 5 blocks wide/15 blocks tall

Now that I've finally been able to remove the "bee tree" in here and all other remaining surface clutter, I can fully appreciate the amount of internal space I have available. I sketched the trunk circle out to be this size with the intention that I'd jump straight to the final dimensions, so that I wouldn't have to keep pulling things down and incrementally rebuilding them. More labor at the start, but less overall. It's a little bit of a shame not to be able to grow the tree out organically as I'd envisioned, but it'd just have created too much needless work. So this is my final foundations, and what I need to do from here is keep on building it up and out until it's done.

This is going to be one big tree.

Day 5746 - 78 Days Remain

It's very early in the morning and I'm at the fishing pool, in the same spot I've been all night long.

Ah! My first bottle!

Ordinarily pulling one of these while fishing would warrant a roll of the eyes, but I'm very happy to get it. If I can pull three more I'll be able to make honey blocks, and getting them as fishing loot drops is the most convenient way to do it given how far I'd have to root to get access to sand.

Once the sun starts to rise, I quit fishing and head inside to retrieve the dye flowers from the shulker box. I have the four standard two-block flowers, rose, sunflower, lilac and peony, and also a cactus and a single sand block upon which to plant it. That's access to red, yellow, pink, magenta, green and any combinations that can be made thereof, plus white from bonemeal of course. I plant the flowers on the upper level, but set the cactus up on the lower where the bees will be less likely to kill themselves on it. Bees, in my experience, are rather like Testificates, in that they share the same unerring ability to locate and interact with deadly environmental hazards.

Now there's something which I read on the Minecraft wiki that I want to try...

I'd been harvesting from the beehives by placing a campfire underneath the nest then removing it as soon as I'd gotten the product, to prevent the bees burning themselves subsequently. This works ok but is a bit wasteful in terms of materials as campfires break when harvested without silk touch, and the only bit you get back is the charcoal. Though I've no shortage of wood with which to replace the lost components, it's annoying to have to keep re-crafting new campfires.

The wiki says that I can put a campfire two blocks below the hive, then put a carpet on top. This will keep the bees safe and permanently pacified.

I craft up some carpets from wool...

One of the hives is already full so I try it out and harvest with the shears. Yep, works fine, no bees are angered. I use the honeycombs to craft a third hive then rig them all with campfires and carpet in the same way.

Then, since they're all out and roaming right now, I feed two more bees flowers to spawn another baby. The more bees, the better, because more bees means more spares in case of accidents.

I spend the rest of the day fishing and collecting wood, then switch to hostile mob hunting with the advent of night. It's become significantly easier to attract and kill hostiles now that I'm able to move around so much more, and I manage to score two spider kills.

More string, I want more! I was hopeful of being able to bulk-craft pretty candles to light my tree instead of torches, but I've realized now that of course, candles need string to craft too. I'm not sure how viable that's going to be, unless I manage to locate a cave spider spawner reasonably close to the surface and rig it as a grinder. I strongly dislike working with cave spiders at the best of times and I really don't want to have to farm them here where I don't have access to my netherite armor and powerful weapons. Or even, currently, redstone lamps. There's a stack of those in the supply shulker but they only become available when I reach the second milestone: raising the tree to 30 blocks tall.

Day 5747 - 77 Days Remain

The first thing that happens on this day is that I pull two enchanted rods in quick succession. One is Unbreaking III/Luck of the Sea II, and I immediately switch to using it even though it's got very low durability. It shortly gets me another which is even better.

Although again, very low durability. I wish I'd been able to pull a Mending one as well.

Actually, perhaps it's time to try for the iron to make an anvil. I could repair this rod by combining with a freshly made basic rod and keep on using it that way--given how limited my string supply is currently, it'd be well worth it compared to burning through a succession of basic rods with poorer drop chances and no Unbreaking buff.

I've amassed over two stacks of logs by this time, and though I'd intended to use them to make a start on some aesthetic tree-building, it seems to me now that it'd be a better use of my timber to dig down and get into the mineshaft if I can. So I craft up some more ladders and return to my little downward shaft.

...That's concerning. I can hear lava and it sounds quite close. I do not want to catch my roots alight. That would be Bad.

I rush back up to the basement level to fill my bucket with water, then climb back down again and resume digging with great care. Shortly...

That'd explain it. I'm glad it's a stream and not a pool.

After much cautious digging around I'm able to inch close enough to block up the source blocks with some cobblestone.

Then, with no more risk of fire, I'm able to stand back and take my first good look around.

This cave...

...I'm not the first person to come here.

That's not one of my torches. It can only date back to the First Grand Expedition.

It's an eerie experience. Central Alpha Prefecture is exceptionally old, of course, but it's been inhabited continuously ever since Alpha and so has a comfortable and familiar atmosphere despite the immense age of some of its structures. This place is different. It feels unfriendly.

...Foggy memories are stirring...

I didn't leave willingly back then. I was driven out. I found the mineshaft too frightening, too difficult to handle and so fled the place as soon as I'd found melon seeds.

I had forgotten that part...

Day 5748 - 76 Days Remain

After a brief break topside to cut some more trees and replenish my stock of logs somewhat, I return to the cave. There's a cleanly cut 3x3 opening quite close to where I came in, and I know what that usually means.

When I turn the corner, I see oak plank supports, and a cobweb. Yes, this is indeed a part of the ancient mineshaft. I make a mental note: cobwebs equal string. Perhaps it'd be worth crafting a sword to take those down whenever I see them. I won't do that just yet, though, as I first want to see if there's any exposed iron in the passage.

Hm... well, none just yet. And I think I'll obsidianize that before I attempt to venture any further.

An historical note: there are no fences to be found anywhere in this mineshaft. All the supports are solid oak planks. That's the giveaway that it's a Beta 1.8 mineshaft rather than Release 1.0 or newer.

I find a couple of deposits of iron along the corridor, but it's not enough to get me an anvil yet. The tunnel shortly makes a right turn and opens out into a ravine.

Another unspeakably ancient torch in the distance... this place is so creepy.

I can't see any more iron in immediate view in the ravine, and I don't want to just start bridging around speculatively as the supply of logs isn't going to hold out. So far I've found just 16 iron and I need 31 to make an anvil. I decide to return to the surface and spend some time restocking wood before making another attempt at exploring the underground.

Day 5749 - 75 Days Remain

My chicken farming cottage industry is going well.

Every time I enter the pen now I can rely on picking up at least a stack of eggs, which I immediately throw, almost always spawning at least one or two more. Every time I've harvested the wheat farm I've also been breeding at least a few pairs. I should probably start thinking about culling.

Not right now though. I've already reached the quarter-point of my hundred days and I want to start getting some serious building work done. Specifically, I'm thinking about the internal layout of the tree and how visitors will ideally move through the space. I know I want the entrance to be on the eastern side, because that's where the ancient door to the mineshaft is, and due to its historic importance I feel that the tree should be seen first from that angle.

How I'll ensure that, ultimately, I'm not certain. It may eventually become a project to build a road running from Bunnybury Ferry southward to Svaugremun's Village of Beta 1.8, and then another from Svaugremun's Village to here...

Upon entering, I want the visitor to see something truly spectacular. Well, I may not be a good enough builder to do spectacular, but I can surely at least aim for impressive. I envision a grand staircase running up and then curving around the inner bole of the tree to reach a second level floor. This will not only give me more vertical space to put stuff, but will make it significantly safer for me as I continue to build upwards, as if I fall off (on the inside anyway) I won't be
plummeting the full deadly distance down.

Putting the skeleton of the stair together takes up most of the day.

But I think I'm on to something. Now, I just need to get grass up to the new level... With no access to Silk Touch for the immediate future the only feasible way I'm going to do that is by building a dirt ladder and waiting for it to climb up by itself, Alpha style. Ugh. Oh well, here goes.

I don't bother going outside to hunt for hostile mobs tonight but keep on working on my grand stair build, as I'm on a roll right now.

Day 5750 - 74 Days Remain

By morning, I've got it mostly figured out. The stair will first ascend to a landing then diverge into two separate stairways circling around and up to the upper level, like those big posh stately-home staircases.

At least for now, I'm arranging to leave an open-air gap above the heart-block. I'm not certain if that feature will ultimately stay, but I do like the idea that someone could stand on the heart-block and look all the way up through the trunk and canopy to the open sky.

Around midmorning, there's a disturbance outside the tree, on the northern side by the beehives. I have another visitor, and it seems he really wants to come in. I open the fencegate and he barges past me, but his pack animals can't fit, so I take pity on them and break the fence gate. In they all rush.

Still not going to talk to you, since there's absolutely no way for me to get any emeralds to trade with you at the moment, but you can crash here if you really want to.

My staircase is just about done, but I'm blocked on continuing my building work until the grass climbs the dirt ladder, so I down tools and head for the fishing pool to see if I can score anything else of value. I get another nametag, a Smite IV book and a nautilus shell. That's nice I guess. I totally don't have about thirty nautilus shells already gathering dust in a storage box back home.

When night falls, I realize that I might be in for a bit more excitement tonight...

A pack of skeletons spawns quite close to the south gate and of course I just have to go and aggro them because I want their drops. That hide-behind-the-fence-gate trick that worked so well on the pillagers will surely be viable for skeletons too, right?

That was a bad idea. I shouldn't do that. Apparently skeletons are smarter than pillagers, even though their skulls can be visually confirmed to contain absolutely no brain matter. That's not a fact that reflects well on the Testificate species, come to think of it.

Day 5751 - 73 Days Remain

I survived the night somehow, and this time, so did the wandering trader, although a few zombies did come over to investigate. They couldn't get past my incredibly high-tech security mechanism of fence gates blocking one-by-two openings, so we were not in danger.

I step outside to make a pre-dawn check for any lingering hostiles I might be able to pick off...

Ha! Look at all the bees coming out to start their day! That's so cool.

All right then, the plan for today... The grass has progressed barely a few blocks up the dirt staircase as yet, so I need to find something else to do again. I'll have another crack at looking for iron underground. I've built my log stockpile back up to almost three stacks, so that should last me long enough to do some exploring.

My first point of interest is the ravine I noped out of previously. There's a skeleton in there when I get back down, but only one, so he surely won't be a problem.

(Narrator: He was a problem.)

If this was pre-1.18 with the old light level spawning mechanics, entering this ravine without armor would be a seriously dangerous endeavor. In the old days an area like this would have been crawling with hostiles, but I get down into the ravine base and only encounter the singular skeleton and one subsequent creeper. Mob spawns are still very thin on the ground even though this area is so dark.

There are many mineshaft passages running off from the ravine at different levels and in different directions. And boy oh boy, it's a mess.

I have been wondering whether this might have been generated in the very first public test of mineshaft structure generation. The wiki states that the mineshafts were initially severely tangled and sprawly with a tendency for passages to double back on each other. Mojang devs concluded that the structures would need to be significantly simplified for a more enjoyable player experience. These tunnels are certainly tangly, and the ravine's presence here makes it even worse because the mineshafts don't yet generate flooring over open voids. So we get this sort of thing.

And this.

...Help.

On the plus side, I am finding exposed iron ore here and there. Not as much of it as I'd like, but some.

I use up two stacks of my logs rooting around, and am well into the third, when I start hearing spiders. Not exactly out of the usual down here, I've encountered a couple already and they've been the safe regular kind of spider each time, and I'm quite willing to continue exploring and disregarding the sounds, but then I see something.

Uh, that's a cave spider. And it can get to me from there. Leaving now! I'm rather glad that they can't see the player through walls any more. And I'm certainly glad that they have footstep sounds nowadays. Back in Beta 1.8, they didn't make any sound at all when they moved around, so you wouldn't even know you had a pack of cave spiders pathing directly to you through pitch black unexplored tunnels until one bit you. Anyone who claims Old Minecraft wasn't bjectively
harder is objectively wrong.

Day 5752 - 72 Days Remain

It's easy to backtrack to the entry point despite the horribly messy mineshaft. All I have to do is follow the trail of logs. I make my way back to the ladder and thence to my basement, and set the iron cooking.

Combining with the little bit I'd previously stashed...

...I've got enough for the anvil! Fantastic! I craft one immediately and burn a paltry two levels on combining the UnbIII/LOTSIII rod with an untouched basic one.

The wandering trader is still hanging around. And the grass stair is getting there... slowly. It's over halfway up now.

I don't really want to go back to working on the upper level until I've got grass all the way up, so I decide to spend the day alternating again between fishing and chopping logs so that I can replenish my stockpile of timber.

The most interesting thing I pull through the whole day and subsequent night's worth of fishing is a pair of junk leather boots.

Really? That's all I get? Oh, fine, I'll wear them. It's rather sad that these are my first piece of armor...

Day 5753 - 71 Days Remain

A tree is not just a big round wooden tower, but right now a big round wooden tower is all I've got. I need to start thinking about branches. If I stick to the idea of building the whole thing by hand I'll need to collect stacks and stacks of leaves, not just logs, and that's been worrying me as shears don't have a lot of durability and I just spent most of my iron on making that anvil. I'll have to go back down and look for more iron imminently.

I burn about half the current durability on the shears harvesting a first batch of leaves so I can at least start trying stuff out.

For the majority of the day I work on the external structure, experimenting and formulating plans. First of all I want to flare out the base of the trunk with big chunky roots spreading out and twisting around, so that it'll look grounded. I've built several custom trees at spawn, albeit nothing of comparable size, and picked up tricks and techniques from those smaller builds which will hopefully work here too. Fences serve well as twigs and smaller branches, and leaves can be scattered over a trunk in clumps to mimic sucker growth and break up a monolithic structure.

I try out a window, or perhaps a balcony, on the internal stair's first landing, spamming leaves to mask the squareness of the aperture. From the inside, a big light-filled opening above the stair will invite attention so that you're drawn towards the grand staircase as the obvious first place to go.

It's not tall enough here to be a death fall but I keep my water bucket ready anyway. Getting some practice in with the MLG clutch thing while the stakes are still low might save me a long walk later.

Sometime around midnight, I get yet another visit from a wandering trader.

This is annoying as he's decided to park himself and his llamas right where I wanted to start building the first root section, and he really does not want to move. I resolve that I'll not protect him from zombies if any come calling. Perhaps this problem can solve itself.

No Unfortunate Accidents befall the trader, and I eventually just go away and find other things to do while I wait.

Day 5754 - 70 Days Remain

Since the trader still refuses to move, I give up for now on the root I'd intended to build, and start working on another one.

There's a matter I hadn't thought carefully enough about when formulating my plans. I want this side of the tree to be the primary approach point, with a grand entrance bringing you directly into the chamber with the heart-block. I'm pretty much locked into this as the Beta 1.8 door is here, and I've already built the internal stairway. But this side of the tree also has a steep drop-off to lower ground and then a murky pool. Terrain wise, of the four cardinal directions it's the worst I could have chosen for an entrance! So how exactly is the visitor going to walk up and into the thing in the first place? Perhaps I can make use of my big chunky roots idea and have a series of suspended bridges weaving back and forth between the roots...

I chop out a 3x3 hole in the trunk on the level of the heart-block and step outside to evaluate the situation. It's very high up. Drats. Well, I'm going to have to find a way to work it into the design somehow. I spend the day experimenting, building up a first massive root structure adjacent to the entrance-to-be.

By nightfall, the trader's still freakin' stuck to that spot. I wish he'd go away but he won't even let me push him. He's jammed himself into that corner good and tight. I assume that he's trying to get into the tree because it's well lit, and thinks he can clip through on the diagonal. Mob AI has never understood diagonal walls very well.

Day 5755 - 69 Days Remain

Trader, trader, go away, please come back another day.

I finish filling out the root structure and spam some leaves and fenceposts over it. It's all right for a first draft though I'm not fond of all the random wood directions. I'm endeavoring to finish corner areas with those new-ish six-sided log blocks so that the cut log textures aren't on display, but I've not been stringent about the placement, and it shows.

I check on the dirt stairway inside to see whether the grass has gotten to the top yet... no, it still hasn't. It's two blocks off. Sigh. I go down to the basement and cull the chickens for the first time, stuff 16 raw chicken into the furnace to cook, then decide to hit up the caves again and see if I can find more iron ore.

This time, instead of venturing back into the mineshaft tunnels, I head for the further end of the ravine.

Oh, neat, there's tons here! I wish I'd come this way before.

I soon have over thirty chunks of raw iron in my possession. That'll leave me set for shears for a good time to come.

On the way back, on a whim, I chop out one block of coal ore from the ravine floor. To my surprise, it reveals a void below. There's a murky pool. I descend to check it out in case there are any more useful exposed ores...

Hey, under the iron there, that's lapis! Awesome--that's blue dye, or fuel for an enchanting table. Given that enchanting was one of my stretch goals, perhaps I'd better put it aside for enchanting table usage, though I am fond of cyan dye.

It always gives me a mildly pleasant shock to remember that lapis can be mined with a stone pick. I tend to think of the ore as being on the same tier as gold.

Day 5756 - 68 Days Remain

It's early morning when I resurface, and it's raining. That means one thing and one thing only: today is going to be a fishing day. I load my iron ore into the furnace to cook up, then grab the fishing rod and head for the pool. Whew, finally that trader has moved on. He was really starting to get on my nerves.

Suddenly... I pull an enchanted bow. Oh hey, cool, let's just take a look.

!!!!!

Day 5757 - 67 Days Remain

I spend the first part of the day building up the second root around the main entrance area. This one goes straight to the new entrance opening I've carved, though I've not yet been able to figure out how I'll create an attractive walkable path up to it. The entrance can currently be accessed with thoughtful parkour by scrambling up the root but I'd prefer something a bit more formal.

To create some variation, I shape the second root to be partially raised out of the ground. It's possible to walk under it if you duck and shimmy to avoid bonking your head. That's a thought I file away for later: I rather like the idea of having to go and explore beneath the roots to find the historic Grand Expedition door.

With two solid roots in place the structure is starting to look a little more like a tree, or at least the stump of one.

I step inside to check on the progress of the grass ladder...

Ah! Finally, it's got up there! Now I can install the second level flooring and start thinking about further vertical expansion.

I work steadily through the night building the roof area. There will be an under-level of wooden slabs so that the dirt/grass won't be visible from below, then atop that I'll lay the dirt.

In between bouts of building work I'm also nipping outside every few minutes to grab anything that's grown up in the tree farm. Twice in a row I get planted myself, face first in the ground, by a tree growing up on top of me while I'm trying to harvest.

...This is undignified. I plant the trees, they shouldn't be planting me!

Day 5758 - 66 Days Remain

First job on the list for today is finishing up the second level flooring. It doesn't take long as I just need to fill in the gaps in the slab and dirt layers. The grass will take care of itself now.

There's a minor point of irritation in that the bees are still trying to path in. They have immediately accessible flowers all around their hives but they still for some reason fixate on the small scatter of dandelions and poppies to be found inside the structure, and the pathing they need to follow in order to get in and out is getting more and more complex. I had recurring issues with bees getting trapped in the attic at Angeveren's Farm. If they start getting themselves stuck in corners here I'll have to consider removing all internal flowers. Or perhaps install "bee holes", like the owl holes found in some old farm buildings to encourage owls to move in as pest control.

...Actually, that's a really cool idea, putting it on the to-do list right now...

With the second level floor completed, I return to the lower level to do some cleanup work, removing remaining fragments of the grass ladder and some other miscellaneous bits and blocks that had accumulated as I'd been clambering around.

It's still bare-bones in here but I can see the beginnings of something that, with a little thoughtful decoration, could be a really beautiful space.

Time for some more root building. The next spot I set my eye on is the place at the back of the tree where surface cave generation running through the elevated terrain has created a natural archway.

It'd be trivially simple to convert this terrain into logs and have a picturesque arched root. I'll do that!

I work on the root for the rest of the day and well on into the night. It's not enough just to do a 1:1 replacement of dirt/grass/stone with logs. I also want it to have a pleasing shape so there's a degree of aesthetic consideration too.

Midway through the night, I'm interrupted by a zombie.

Business as usual... except...

YES! I've been waiting so long! I'll progressively replace the smaller wheat plot with potatoes and then perhaps consider acquiring a second pig for breeding. It's only slightly a shame that it wasn't a carrot that dropped, as I'd have been able to craft a carrot-on-a-stick and ride the pig. For... what reasons, really? Bragging rights?

In the meantime, that's another field crop struck off the list. I now need pumpkins, melons, carrots and beetroots to complete the set. Pumpkins will be simple as there's a pumpkin patch within sight of the tree, but for melons I can only hope to stumble across a mineshaft chest that wasn't already raided back in Beta 1.8. Or capture a witch and a zombie Testificate... wait, no, even that wouldn't work, the farmer Testificates don't sell regular melon slices any more.

Day 5759 - 65 Days Remain

The day passes without incident. I plant up my potato, collect honeycombs from the beehives, then return to working on the root. I finish up the basic structure then start spamming fences and leaf blocks around in a semi-random manner. I also start padding out the base of the tree here and there to give it a slight taper.

I'm starting to feel more confident about the tree build as a whole. I think it's going to turn out well. But there's something I've been putting off, because I'm not sure how to even start the job: branches. This thing is already twenty-plus blocks high around most of its diameter when one factors in the ground level drop-off created by its being on a natural hill. A twenty-four block fall will kill a player with no feather falling. And I'm not good at water bucket MLG clutch. How on earth am I going to do this without dying?

Day 5760 - 64 Days Remain

I'm preparing to return to the mineshaft. There are three things I'm hoping to find and I'd be happy to locate any one of them in this session. Diamonds, melon seeds or a cave spider spawner that can be claimed without too much strife.

Before heading down, I combine the gorgeous Infinity/Power IV bow with another I'd fished up that has Flame. I don't particularly care for Flame on bows and due to the risk of retaliation from flaming skeletons would generally prefer not to have it, but it'll contribute enough extra durability to make the bow viable for the short term and that's more important to me right now. Swapping the bows in and out of the anvil slots, I see that I can do it this way for twenty levels or this way for six. Hmm... I'll take the six please.

And then down I go.

Once again I enter the ravine, this time aiming for the other end which hasn't yet been investigated in detail. As I bridge over to enter a tunnel I suddenly start hearing multiple spiders somewhere close by. Ugh. Yeah, that's probably not a nice chill dungeon full of the regular kind of spiders. That's going to be the tiny evil jerk kind of spiders. I make a mental note that there's a possible farmable spawner candidate here, and continue on my way.

These Beta 1.8 mineshafts, I swear.

I'm counting a total of five colliding passages here. And I swear I just heard quiet shuffling footsteps so there's probably a creeper up there somewhere as well, just waiting to drop down and send me crying back to spawn.

Proceeding with extreme caution, I manage to navigate the intersection without encountering either the suspected cave spiders or the suspected creeper. The worrisome sounds fade away to nothing behind me as I continue on my way. I've found nothing of interest yet aside from a patch of red mushrooms, one of which I pocket on the off-chance that I might decide to farm mushrooms later.

My wood supply is dwindling. I've less than a stack of logs left in total and I'm starting to seriously consider turning back, when I happen to glance down a passage and see...

A chest! Not a minecart-with-chest, a regular old chest. Mineshaft loot only started spawning in carts from 1.5 onwards, and of course since this mineshaft is Beta 1.8 it's got chests. The question is, could this chest possibly still be untouched or did I already raid it back in Beta 1.8? I've seen some old torches in this area...

I root my way over, and ease the venerable chest open...

Oh my gosh. It's untouched. And it has melon seeds.

I take just one of the seeds and leave everything else where it is out of respect for the historical artifact. It's tempting to head straight back topside with my prize so that I can plant it and get melons going immediately, but I've covered a fair distance underground on this trip and figure it'd be a shame if I didn't at least continue the exploration until my logs run out. I can perhaps pick up a little more iron and coal.

To give some lore context as to why this mineshaft location is so historically significant, and what's the obsession with melons anyway, melons were the staple food of Alpha Prefecture from Beta 1.8 to Release 1.4, and one company farmed them exclusively. The First Grand Expedition led directly to the rise of the megacorp originally known as Haldir's House Of Spiders And Melons, then Haldir's Melontech, nowadays just Haldir's. Every major settlement in Alpha Prefecture has a Haldir's outlet, and there's even a company town called Melontown.

These Beta 1.8 mineshafts... Six colliding passages on at least three different elevations.

I find nothing else of note through the remainder of my exploration, not even a cave spider spawner.

Day 5761 - 63 Days Remain

Back on the surface, I cut the trees that have grown in my absence, then till and hydrate a spot of ground for the melon seed. I plant it, immediately bonemeal it to maturity, then take up my usual spot at the fishing pool, where I'll be able to watch not only the tree farm but my melon vine. I'm now 50% of the way to my grow-all-crops goal. I still need carrots, pumpkins and beetroots, and pumpkins will be a non-issue as I can just root over to that patch in the distance whenever I feel like getting them.

It's not long before a melon pops up. I reel my bobber back in and walk over.

This surely must be a world record for the oldest successfully propagated Minecraftian melon seed. Beta 1.8 was released in September 2011. It's currently September 2023. Life... finds a way.

After harvesting the melon I return to the fishing pool and spend the rest of the day relaxing. Most of my catches are fish, but not all.

Drat it, why couldn't you have been a rod? I'm already committed to Infinity.

A few casts later, I pull an enchanted book. Could it be Mending!? No. It's Fortune II/Riptide III. Well, Fortune II's a pretty good find.

Day 5762 - 62 Days Remain

Buoyed by my success at acquiring melons, I decide to have another go at mining for mineral resources. This time I won't go into the mineshaft but will dig a shaft of my own running directly down to the formerly-bedrock deepslate layer, thus completing the challenge goal "reach the underdark". Once I'm just above deepslate I'll start mining horizontally and hope to find diamonds in the old terrain, the old-fashioned way. "Enchant an item" is another of my challenge goals and I'll need five diamonds, three for a pick and two to craft the table.

I make my way down to a low spot in the cave I originally broke into, then start excavating another ladder-shaft...

...Oh. Well, that simplifies matters. I'd not even hit deepslate yet.

And now I realize that I can't dig them out because I only brought stone picks with me. So I'll have to go all the way back up and craft an iron one. Grumbling, I make the long climb, withdraw three ingots from my iron stockpile (which is now looking noticeably healthier from all the mineshaft spelunking), and craft myself an iron pick, return to the ladder...

Wait, I just thought of something. Reverse, full speed astern. Back to the anvil.

All right, now I'll dig the diamonds out.

Spending the fishing loot book proves to be a good call. I get twelve diamonds out of five ore. I can craft my pick and enchanting table and still have seven diamonds worth of change.

With the diamonds in the bag, I continue digging down, and after just a few more blocks I find the other thing I've come for.

That's deepslate.

 Challenge goal: Reach the Underdark

I was going to start mining for diamonds once I'd reached this depth but now I don't need to, so I decide to just keep descending and see if there's anything exciting down here.

It's a weird feeling, digging down below y=0 in a region of the world that was generated so long ago. Not quite as mindblowing as finding the lush cave beneath ANCo Alpha back at spawn--it'd be hard to beat that discovery indeed--but it's still disorienting. This shouldn't be possible.

I continue descending, now hacking laboriously through the deepslate. I'm stubbornly not using coordinates so I don't know for sure how deep I've gone but I feel like I've been digging down for a long time. Deepslate is painfully slow to mine with stone tools, though, so that may be throwing off my estimate. Eventually I start hearing a zombie. There's some sort of open space down here all right. I poke around and shortly find it. There's just one resident zombie, who gets a Power IV/Flame/Infinity arrow to the face and immediately expires.

Here is the moment at which I, veteran of uncountable Minecraftian aeons and unchallenged master of my world, transform into a clueless noob. I've worked very little with these new caves as yet. I don't know their most common structural formations or the most effective tricks and techniques. Drop me into any cavern system from Alpha to 1.17 and I'll rampage through it without a care in the world. But this... I don't know anything about navigating this stuff.

Other than that one zombie, there doesn't appear to be anything around. I can see a bit of glow lichen stuck on the wall ahead, and I'd like to have that, so I root to it first thing and snip it off with my shears. One more decorative option for the tree.

Now then... what's next?

There's a slope running downwards nearby. I head that way, figuring that even if these caves are a novel phenomenon the best stuff is most likely still going to be found lower down. Some rules are eternal.

Ooh, my first redstone! Yes please! I whack it out with the Fortune II pick to maximise yield.

The cave dead-ends shortly after, and other than the redstone I've seen no exposed ore deposits at all. This has been rather disappointing so far. I'll have to double-back and take a look at some of the other dark corners, see if they lead me on to new areas. But first--hey, that material, that's not the stuff that spawns around geodes is it?

...No, it's just a blob of tuff. Would've been a bit too easy to just immediately blunder into an amethyst geode, I guess.

I'm happy enough with my haul as it stands. One piece of glow lichen, thirty-two redstone and twelve diamonds. That's more than enough goodies to be going on with. I turn around and follow my log trail back to the upward ladder.

Day 5763 - 61 Days Remain

Right, how to propagate this glow lichen then?

Oh, you just stick it on a surface then apply bonemeal. That's simple enough.

Having increased the glow lichen from one piece to eight, I snip them all back off the wall and store them away in the decorations box. I'll figure out something to do with them later on. Now for the enchanting table. I craft a diamond pick and head down to the previously obsidianized lava pool in the mineshaft.

Thock thock thock thock thock thock thock thock. I miss my netherite picks. Thock thock thock thock...

Four tediously mined blocks of obsidian later, I've got the necessary reagents, all except for the book. I can craft that, as I acquired three leather from killing those trader llamas.

Hmm... Although the achievement goal technically only stated "enchant an item" I'm not going to call it done until I can assemble the full complement of fifteen bookshelves and do a full level thirty enchantment. So I'll need to get hold of some cows before I can progress.

Day 5764 - 60 Days Remain

I'd been feeling nostalgic for times long gone and made an Alpha 1.1.2_01 instance to mess around in a winter mode world and relive the earliest era of Ancient Days. Now I keep trying to hit I instead of E to open inventory.

It's shortly before dawn and I'm doing a little casual mob hunting topside. The fishing loot bow makes hostiles pretty much a non-issue at this point, although I still have to take care not to get snuck up on as a creeper would easily be able to take me out. As long as I see the mobs coming, though, they're not a challenge at all.

There are no spiders to be seen, but I bag myself a couple of creepers, and then a zombie...

Yes! That's another one down! Disregarding pumpkins, then, the only crop left to acquire is beetroots. That one is going to be sticky. Unless I happen to get incredibly lucky and find a beetroot seed in a new-generation dungeon chest in the Underdark, my only means of getting hold of them will be to first cure a zombie Testificate, get some emeralds off him, then meet with a wandering trader who happens to have beetroot seeds in stock.

I'll focus on more immediately achievable goals today. Specifically, there's a cow over on that mountainside and I mean to get it.

The cow continues to meander away as I slowly root my way towards it. It scrambles up the mountain as far as it's able to go, finally stranding itself on a high ledge in an apparent attempt to prevent me getting into wheat-luring range. Annoying, but I persevere.

And there was a second cow that I hadn't noticed because it was down in a dip, so I end up attracting two, plus a free sheep. Sure, I'll take the lot!

Having lured all the new livestock over to the tree, I wrangle the cows into a hastily constructed fenced pen on the main level, then immediately breed them to spawn a calf. The plan for these, of course, is to breed them up until there's enough to get me 45 leather, which I'll use to make bookshelves for the enchanting table.

The sheep will be pushed through a hole to the lower level as before, and then I'll put it in the pen with the others.

By the time I've done all that and then cut the trees in the tree farm, it's late evening. I stick my head out of the side door to see if there's anything killable nearby--and holy crap there's a witch out there. A witch. Potentially one of the puzzle-pieces to solve my beetroot problem.

Witches are a troublesome mob. I'm deservedly wary of them as they, like cave spiders, can quite easily kill a player in god armor. It doesn't matter how many ProtIVs you've got on your gear if you're capped at half a heart for the next fifteen seconds due to poison.

How can I safely catch and confine a witch? Well... maybe the old boat trick... I craft a boat and step outside to see if I can lure her into it.

OK, that didn't work, she just walked around it and nailed me with a poison pot. But she's still out there, and quite close. I'll just heal back up, make another boat and try again...

A comedic sequence follows, with me running for my life around the tree, witch in hot pursuit. She gets me with slowness and then another poison pot, I panic and run back inside, then come up with a Cunning Plan. I poke my head out again and get her attention. She heads towards the fence gate. I back away, leaving the gate open, then drop the boat just as she steps up and through the fence gate...

Got her! Holy crap I actually caught a live witch!

...Glass shatters, at close range.

I'm poisoned. The witch is poisoned. The cows are poisoned. None of us are happy with this development.

I run away and hide behind the stairs to block her line of sight.

OK, so I currently have a fully armed and operational witch stuck in a boat in my main hall. It's not an ideal situation. I probably could have thought this through more carefully. If she was a regular old zombie Testificate I'd have been able to put on some armor, get in the boat myself and transport it wherever I wished, but if I try that with her she's going to hand me my ass, gift-wrapped.

Day 5765 - 59 Days Remain

...I think I know how to salvage this. I should be able to sneak towards her by building a succession of log walls to hide behind.

Carefully... carefully... All right. I can get within right-click distance now.

I think Mojang recently made it so that mobs in boats or minecarts don't despawn, but I'm not 100% on that, and since I have some nametags from fishing loot I figure I'll just name her anyway for old times' sake. Off to find a witch themed random name generator...

There we go--OW! Poison pot right over the top of the log wall the instant I jumped to use the nametag. Oh you--that's it, I'ma go grab some slabs from downstairs then I'm putting a lid on your box.

So, I can never use that entrance to the tree for the foreseeable future. I guess that's acceptable. It's rather inconvenient for my apiculture hobby as the bees are right outside the gate, but I'll just have to go around the long way to get to the hives.

As I'm quaffing a bucketful of milk to clear the poison status again, I hear a gruff "harh" from outside. Come on, you gotta do this to me now?

I see they found the other boat. Well, that makes things easier for me. The Minecraftian version of shooting fish in a barrel: illagers in a boat.

There doesn't appear to be a captain this time. Either he's wandered off somewhere where I can't see him, or he never spawned in the first place. Are they supposed to always have a captain leading them? I don't know the mechanics of patrols very well. I roam around the outside of the tree for awhile but don't find any more pillagers, and none of the ones I killed deigned to drop a crossbow. Bah.

I retrieve the vacated boat. I'll keep that in my inventory now on the off-chance that I spot a zombie Testificate.

There's one last thing I'll need before stage 1 of Operation Beetroot is ready to roll, and that's a golden apple. To acquire that, I need gold. I actually saw some gold ore in the mineshaft on one of my early trips but didn't collect it at the time because I'm aware that gold is Fortune-compatible nowadays. Since I now have a Fortune II pick, I'll go get it.

I receive nine raw gold from just four ore. So it was indeed a good thing I waited.

Since I'm down here... again... I can't resist looking around at least a little more in case there's more gold to be had. I don't find any, but after following one mineshaft tunnel to its terminus, I see two things dead ahead: the open void of another as yet unlit ravine, and lots of spiderwebs. Ohh boy! I wonder what that could be! It is a mystery!

There's a troublesome lack of floor or wall blocks upon which to place torches, but I take a crack at it anyway. It helps that because of the lack of floor in here, most of the cave spiders that spawn are spawning in midair, falling straight to the bottom of the ravine and dying instantly.

Is it deactivated? I think it's deactivated. I linger for a while but see no further spawns.

Oho. I think I may have just claimed myself a farmable cave spider spawner. Which means candles just officially became an option.