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I run up on the hill before I make my map in case the peninsula is on a different 2K map.



I needn't have worried. I should have just calculated it - not that it makes a big difference.

The desert is pretty big for a Geographicraft/BoP world, and provides relatively typical desert scenery other than there are more Hills than usual. Not that that's bad - it looks nice in its way. I continue east for a while, then turn north with the coast as it heads into the bay that piqued my interest.



Next up is Shrubland. This is my first encounter with it in this world. In prior versions this has been a spare biome but once I'm in it I find lots of flowers and small decorative plants. It feels more idyllic than it has before. The Harvestcraft plants add to this.

I've been pretty much following the coast, per my usual system, but I spot an inland biome worth a trip.



The BoP signature biome Cherry Blossom Grove. I try to find a spot for a really flashy pic but fail, so you'll have to settle for this.



After almost 1000 blocks the coast turns back east. Soon I encounter this interesting featre where two rivers join together right before they reach the sea. The biome you see there is Xeric Shrubland.

Still on this map, the coast turns back south again and back into desert. Then it turns east again, having completed the bay, and soon moves on to the next map. I pass through some Forest with rather few trees and then encounter another new biome for this world.



Wasteland. I'm fairly confident this little peninsula is where I first sighted this landmass, because I remember something roughly this size and shape (and swarming with mobs). My screenshot folder agrees. I'm a little surprised because this is only about 2500 blocks from where I landed and I figured I'd gone farther on the boat.

Heading north in the Wasteland I run into something you wouldn't expect in a Wasteland:



A village.

Rather like the Desert villages, however, even though the biome is inhospitable, the villagers should do fine. The only risk is that Wastelands contain poison pools, which I imagine the villagers are dumb enough to swim in.

The village has a Farmer too, which could be handy in the future. I collect some crops before I go.



Overlooking the village is a Mountain Peaks, the biome I spawned it. The view of the wasteland won't be as good as the view at home though. I avoid going through it for now by sticking to the coast.



As I pass the Mountain Peaks I also pass into the next map, so I make and expand another. Soon I'm into a Snowy Forest. I sleep the night here atop a tree, unperturbed by the wind chill.



I catch a view of what's probably Snowy Coniferous Forest, but it's inland and unlike Cherry Blossom Grove, I don't feel compelled to detour. I'll probably hit it later as I fill in my maps.



I have a interlude of dense temperate forest, and then return to cold biomes in a Cold Taiga.



Here's a shot of the map at that point, with the double benefits of letting you see the biomes I've been travelling through, and the fun that would await me beneath if I dug down here - which, obviously, I'm not going to.



Next is a Sheild biome, which has a river. RTG rivers are actually quite good for getting around - boats are fast; they're wide enough you can actually boat in them, unlike most vanilla rivers, and they are relatively straight. However, I'm sticking to the coast for now.



Then it's a birch forest, and - another village, with likely Desert Hills past it. My shears are not out for this rare natural brown sheep, whose wool would just clog my inventory, but for its white wool buddies, who provide me trade goods for villagers.



Continuing north, I soon reach the limits of this map. I continue north and activate another map basically out of habit, which turns out to be a mistake. This map only has land on a tiny little section on the lower left corner, then the coast continues to the west, to the map one up and one to the left of the one I'm showing here. That's a mistake because my sugarcane/paper supplies are limited, and it chewed up 40 of them.



Continuing on to that map, I encounter an Outback biome and a rare RTG river which is too narrow to boat. RTG rivers vary a lot in width, but it's rare that they get *this* narrow. It's so narrow it doesn't show up on my map.



And, yet another village. This one has a Librarian with Looting 2, so *maybe* a reason to come back.

This map also turns out to have not much land on it so I turn south. Unfortunately I now only have supplies for one more map, and this presents a choice. I'm virtually certain the continent has more than one map left to make. I'd like to be able to finish it without going back to Innwich, but if I make that map now I'll almost certainly have to. The alternative is to find a place I can hang out in for a while while I grow my cane supply up enough to make a couple more maps.



I actually wander about a little where the next map would be as I decide which choice to make. This is a nice Savanna Plateau formation I spot in the process.



Eventually I decide I'll head to a village and try growing some cane. My first thought is the Wasteland village, which is a bit more memorable, and also seems closer to the center of the landmasses than the two villages I just found. I'm going to follow my route along the coast, but more inland to add to the map.



I initially thought this was an RTG lake, but it's actually a little piece of Ocean that got cut off during the complexities of terrain generation. The beach is a tip-off. Geographicraft resists this kind of thing more than vanilla, but it doesn't completely stop it.

I pass through the Snowy Coniferous Forest I saw from the Snowy Forest and it is indeed a Snowy Coniferous Forest (just in case that wasn't clear in the first part of the sentence).



There's also a Mega Taiga, here with a Mega Taiga Hills, emphasis on the Hill.



In the Mega Taiga there's a Taiga village, which is my first Taiga Village in survival. I consider setting up here rather than the Wasteland Village - it's a scenic setting, and I like the village houses in spruce. But, there's no water here besides the farms, and I don't want to rip them up. So, onward.



I diverge from following just inside the coastal mapping because I don't want to go through the Mountain Peaks on the left. I go through a Dead Swamp and a Desert, both visible here. Seems the Wasteland has side effects.

Soon I'm back at the village. I trade stuff I've collected with the villagers. There are Shepards too along with the Farmer, so I can unload all the stuff I normally collect: Wool, Wheat, Carrots, and Potatoes.



I plant all my cane on the nearby beach. I then do step #1 of securing a village, knocking out stairs and lighting building interiors as necessary.



I'm going to set the town up as the base for this landmass. Since I have suspicions that Waystones is causing entity troubles, I don't set the Waystone up in town but a bit away partially up into the Mountain Peaks. I give it a little platform for style.

Then it's fencing time. It's not as much work as with the last one, but still not trivial.



Naturally once I'm done the Farmer, the villager I want most here, is outside, and I have to body bump him back in. He looks a little uncomfortable with me invading his personal space but, hey it's for his own good.

My cane still hasn't grown enough so I spend some time collecting resources in the town and tweaking some things like a house messed up by a pool formed underneath.

The next morning I go looking for the Farmer to trade and - I can't find him. I just rescued him; what's going on? After a long search, given that the town isn't big, I finally find him in the blacksmith's I'm sort of using as a house.



And now, he's going to stay there so I don't have to waste half a day looking for him again.

A little bit longer and I have enough cane for two more maps, so it's back out for mapping. But, in the interest of not clogging people's browsers with too many pics in a post, that's next chapter.

Next chapter - the rest of the landmass - maybe

Down to the water (in the wrong direction, kind of ironically), kill a few squid, rebuild the Duski, assemble, and I'm off!

I head north, which is the short way around from where I am



I quickly realize I should have brought the continent maps. I was thinking bringing maps would clog my inventory in a hurry (and they would) and left them there planning a map wall on each mapped landmass. But I should have brought them at least for this.

A master mapwall would be cool, but also huge - something like 1000 blocks long. It would be hard even finding a place to put it.

The continent jogs to the north several times and it's a while before I can head straight west over open ocean.

-140,000 x

Night falls and I plow on

-145,000 x



And a thunderstorm starts. No moonwatching this night, I guess

-150,000 x
-155,000 x

The thunderstorm drags on all night and halfway to the next morning before finally lifting.

-160,000 x
-165,000 x



Just before sunset I find another landmass - Ice Plains again too - at -167,000 x. However, I'm way behind schedule. I spent an entire real world week at the chalet continent. At that rate it's six years

TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

and that's entirely too long. I've set a goal this trip of getting to at least -250,000 before another major stop. Not far enough, really, but maybe I can get my stop duration down. So I just pass on by this landmass.



That looks like Tundra, but I don't stop to check. I'll see more than I want of every biome in this journal, eventually.

I'm back out to sea quickly

-170,000 x
-175,000 x



I get to see the moonset this night

-180,000 x
-185,000 x
-190,000 x
-195,000 x



And one of the Elder Guardians scores a hit on me even with the smaller boat.

-200,000 x (yay!)



And another one. I guess it was more a matter of luck that they didn't hit me for a while. I've noticed the Ocean Monuments really come in clumps. I won't see any for a while, and then get one every 30 seconds.

-205,000 x
-210,000 x



Another thunderstorm? Are the Minecraft gods threatening me for my hubris?

-215,000 x

This thunderstorm goes on for a while too.



I reach land again - at -218,000 x - near noon, and it's still going on. Again, it's Ice Plains (three in a row?). Again, still not far enough, so I keep going. Again, it's small and I'm past quickly.



Initially I wasn't having much glitchy generation but it starts up after a while. It's not duration because I've been logging out when I reach land, without any bugs (taking out the tile entities and the smaller boat apparently has helped).

-220,000 x
-225,000 x
-230,000 x
-235,000 x
-240,000 x

Not much happening. An hour to do and seconds to read - appreciate it, folks! I notice the ocean getting shallow and check F3, finding I'm on Ocean, not Deep Ocean, meaning there's almost certainly a landmass nearby. I'm not quite to -250,000, so I don't try to find it.



But it finds me. Some Mesa, and then a Maple Woods. The coast is curving in the wrong direction, though, so I'm not going to zip past this one like the last few. But I remember part of the advantage of the smaller boat is that I can stop, chop, and hop across land on foot.



Day spawns in Maple Woods? That's not right.



I score some Harvestcraft Sesame Seeds from a Tropical Garden, which is good, because that gives me Cooking Oil (once I grow them up a bit).



I head across the landmass, enjoying the scenery. This picture reminds me that Jungle Edge seems more obvious in RTG than in vanilla. I like the change.



I shear some sheep I find in the forest, and soon come to ocean on the other side.

The ocean I spot is a kind of bay. I score a few squid, and then walk to the end of the bay, largely out of curiosity about the coordinates. It turns out I've crossed about 1000 blocks of land. Then, it's back out to see sea.

-245,000 x

I hit yet another landmass at -248,000.



This one is just a survival island. But, I don't have any medium islands in this config. So, if there's a small island -



It's generally an outlier of a larger landmass. But still not *quite* -250,000, so I keep going.

-250,000 x (yay!)
-255,000



I hit another landmass (quite a cluster lately - I'm going to pay for this with a really long trip later) at -257,000. This is far enough, and I follow this coastline. If I'm still next to it come morning, I'll check it out properly.



Lots of Hot climate on this landmass. The coast turns north for a while, then back west, then back south again, so there's a kind of huge bay - an interesting shape.



Following the coast has really slowed me down. Near dawn, the spawns seem to have stopped, and I'm still here.



I beach on a long little peninsula which looks to be the end of the landmass, right at dawn.

Next chapter: back to exploring.

I actually have to cross the Ice Mountains range to fill in a little on the far side. Continuing south-ish



I find a small Moor squeezed in between the Chaparral and the Ice Plains/Mountains. A little beyond that:



I come to a scenic lake (RTG). Strangely, I think this is the first one I've encountered in this world. They're not rare - I must have been unlucky. There was that odd bay a few episodes back, which might have actually been a scenic lake, but the effect's not the same when it connects to the Ocean like that one did.



Continuing on, there's a small Prairie with this nice mix of biomes in the background. One thing I really notice about having BoP - biomes are smaller. The reason is that with only vanilla there are few biomes in each climate, so most biomes border another identical biome, and often several, and as a result most "biomes" cover more than one biome area. With all these extra biomes, identical adjacencies are rare apart from Ice Plains, so everything is smaller. I don't really mind, because often the transition biomes are the best part of RTG.



Continuing into that forest, I cross a river (the continuation of the river I scored some squid in on the first circuit). This is where the scenic lakes really shine - closed Forests. You get a nice long open stretch that really lets you appreciate those majestic trees.



A little further on is this smaller lake - almost a pond - affording a similar view of the Jungle.



I struggle through that Jungle a bit, and then come to this little village in the Prairie shortly before sunset. The Prairie is the one I found when I turned inland to avoid the Roofed Forest. The village has a farmer, but I have little to trade with him. Maybe I should carry my trading supplies - I'd been planning to use my spare backpack space to collect Harvestcraft items but I have most of the garden items I need (onlons, pepper, and a source of cooking oil are the only thing I really want) and it takes too much of a pause for tree fruits and nuts to ripen.



From the Prairie I have a view of the Extreme Hills. As with in the biome itself, the hills don't seem quite as spectacular, because the Prairie has a very high base height of 80, which is as high as a typical sub-biome hills. Not much I'll be able to do about that.



I head down into the SW corner of the landmass to pick up a few stray pixels on the map and and encounter yet *another* scenic lake, also an extra nice one providing a view hard to get otherwise. Weird how that works - almost 200 MC days without a single one, and then 4 in a row.



From the Heathland I saw going around the Roofed forest the first time, I get this interesting view of mixed hills. On the left is a Mountain Foothill. On the right is a Shield biome. In the distance is (I think) Highlands. But they all blend together and it's hard to tell where one ends and another begins. I love this naturalistic effect.



At the top I come to a Mega Taiga. It's only now that I realize the gravel-beached "Forest" I saw on the first go-round was actually Mega Taiga. Duh.

Mega Taigas can sometimes be day spawn biomes, but this one isn't, at least not here. On the other side I come to a Meadow, with this odd-looking plants:



I come in close to look at these unfamiliar plants - and they're Sunflowers. Aren't I being Mr. Observant today!

A brief stint on the Ice Plains where I was attacked by the Polar Bear mama.



I reach all the way to the third map, the one of the westerly peninsula. I only have a little bit to finish off here.



Then it's a Savanna, next to the Desert Hills where the rabbits were. As with the Prairie, there are two separate Savanna areas here and this is the westerly one.



And then another Sacred Springs. Day spawns, not going in. But what's that next to it?



Ah, Bayou. One of my favorite 1.7 RTG-version BoP biomes. But the 1.10 version of RTG got released without the water features, leaving a rather bland flat plain more like a Florida grassland. Again, since this is my private version (and want to test it for 1.11), I get to put the bayous back in and they're working very well.



Continuing into the western (and larger) savanna, I'm almost done with the second circuit. But I'm not anywhere near done and I have to do at least one more circuit. Fortunately each circuit is smaller and shorter.



For the night, I snooze atop a Bayou tree, which is basically perfect for emergency camp, as it's relatively low, flat-topped, and even has vines I can climb down in the morning, obviating any risk of another Rod of the Skies malfunction.



No new biomes here. I just like the pic.



Oh lookie, another village! At first I thought this was on the smaller eastern Prairie from the second go-round, but when I looked at my map I realized it was from the western Prairie I saw on both go-rounds.



And it overlooks - another Bryce. Literally years without seeing Bryce in a survival game even though I'm an enthusiastic explorer - and then 2 in as many weeks. Again, weird how this works.



Just like the Bryce on the should-have-been-the-spawn-continent-but-wasn't-but-it's-OK-because-gosh-darn-it-Spawn-Mountain-is-impressive, this one is impassible on the ground. It's a maze. I think I'm going to try a redesign of this one, so when you see the next (and you will see more if I go all the way to the FarLands) it will be different.



And then it's scenic lake number 5. It's big, too.



Another map shot to help with following my progress.



And, yet another village. This island is well-populated! There's a farmer here too.



Here's a nice view of a Highlands outcrop (yeah, I like that biome) over what might be a scenic lake on a river or might just be a wide river. It's hard to tell sometimes, and I like it that way.



Another night in the trees, and then a pass through this section of Sheild. I spot a day spawn, which is kind of a fluke here although the trees can get dense.



I'm almost through with the third circuit. When I came to the Sacred Springs last time I went to the north of it. This time I go to the south. You can see why I don't go through.



Through another Moor - and is that the *sixth* scenic lake? Wow. And, darn it, another Roofed Forest.



I come as close as I dare to the Roofed Forest, and then I have a bold idea. Vanilla rivers generally aren't boatable, but RTG rivers are (it was a design goal, and why they are generally wide and only gently curving). I'll go fast enough the mobs won't keep up with me.

So I try it, and although they hairtrigger turn controls nearly spin me out a few times, I avoid a potentially disastrous beaching and make it out the to the other side. Good thing it was a wider than average river even by RTG standards.



That got a good section mapped I would never have been able to get otherwise.

This circuit is actually finished things as circuits go, but there's an area of Bayou and Roofed Forest I missed.



So it's back to the Bayou to finish off as much as I can. I push as close to the Roofed Forest as I dare and a couple of spiders come out to fight me. There are also day spawns in the Bayou itself, but they are apparently *inside* the trees, which I guess are hollow.



And I do manage to get almost everything mapped. There's a few small spots I've missed, but I decide to call it a day and head back to the chalet. If you look closely you can see some of the apparent Chaparral is actually missed map, and I hit that on the way back to the chalet.



In which is concealed - yet another village. This is pretty close to the chalet and might be good for trading, but I don't find a farmer. I didn't search thoroughly, so I might have missed one.

A quick skid along the frozen river and I'm back at the chalet. The island is done - I have missed some spots on the map, but my view distance is higher than my mapping range, so everything is actually generated except maybe a bit of that Roofed Forest on the southwest. So I'm ready to continue on

TO THE END OF THE WORLD!

well, even if only a small portion of the way in the next chapter.

Once I'm back in the chalet, I make a map



I normally don't show these, but this one shows the incomplete octagon of the chalet pretty clearly.



When I expand the map to 2Kx2K, I'm in the northeast corner. I head up to make the map to the north. The way the geometry works out, I need to go a little east from there to finish the area and then it's easiest to continue clockwise on the coast. I turn south with the coast, which fortunately all stays on this map.



Here's a pic of the river the chalet overlooks. "Overlooks" in the metaphorical sense because the slope is so steep you can't actually see the river from inside the chalet. I didn't put in one of my tricks for looking down like the castle arrow turrets.



I head south for some distance on the coast before I hit the next biome, chapparal.



Next is a vanilla forest with a couple of squid I harvest.

I hop up into a tree to sleep with my Rod of the Skies.



In the morning this guy attempts to serve me a feather breakfast. Unsuccessfully.



Next up is an Extreme Hills, in one of my favorite Underground Biomes stone, Blueschist. Observant players will note that it doesn't look like current RTG Extreme Hills. Well, that's because it isn't. One of the privileges of being a mod developer is getting to adjust a mod. We're planning to alter the Extreme Hills for the 1.11 version of RTG, and this is the current test version, programmed into my version for testing purposes. We don't plan on ever releasing this for 1.10, because of the chance of gruesome chunk walls if somebody mixes versions. I know enough to avoid that, and if not, it's my own dang fault.



At present the "New X-hills" looks really good from outside biomes but sometimes a little low from inside the biome. This is probably not the final version and I plan to lower the base level of the biome a bit and raise the hill height to compensate.

Oh yeah, and the next biome is Birch Forest.



The next biome is Conifer Forest, which you've seen pictures of from the spawn island, so I'll show a map of the exploration so far.

Past the Conifer Forest is Roofed Forest, which is too dangerous to map under current circumstances. For one, the RTG version is extremely dark and generates lots of day spawns, and I'm wielding - a map. For another, the current MC+Forge has a problem where it becomes *very* laggy around very shady biomes like this - laggy as in multisecond pauses. That plus 360 attacks is very bad. So I turn inland and go around.



Wrapping around the Roofed Forest I come to a Prairie, and then to this junction of Heathland and Mountain Foothills. You can see some of the Roofed Forest trees to my left.



Continuing around the Roofed Forest, I climb onto a small Highlands, from where I get this vista of the coast and a coastal Plains. From there I turn north and head along the coast.



Highlands does make for great pics. Here's yet one more.



Next I come to what at the time I thought was vanilla Forest but which I later realized is Mega Taiga (the grass color is a cue, along with the gravel beach). Beyond that is another snowy zone.



In the snow I spot my first honest Polar Bear and cub. How cute!



Um - I thought they were neutral mobs? I certainly didn't do anything to them. Knowing how incredibly dangerous polar bears are in real life, I'm kind of frightened when this happens. But this isn't real life and the bear can't seriously hurt me in my majicked armor (although, by stats, they are indeed a pretty dangerous mob).

I don't kill the cub. I'm not a monster!



The coast turns east and I have to make another map.



There's a tinytiny Ice Spikes with about five spikes, right on the coast. Across the bay I spot a big forested Cold Taiga hill. It' really big so I head over to investigate.



It's big because it's Cold Taiga *M*, which uses a mountain code. Often sub-biomes like M biomes don't get enough space to "do their thing" but fortunately this one does. This is the picture for the other side, away from the bay, because it looks better from that side. As I take the pic, I'm standing on an even taller Cold Taiga M mountain, but I didn't get a good pics of that.

From there I spot a narrow Mountain Foothills, and the a Jungle. And, yes, those are all legal transitions, because vanilla has Jungle as a Warm biome, not Hot.



Night is approaching, so I hop up onto a shorter trees on the jungle edge to sleep.



In the morning I am unpleasantly surprised that the Rod of the Skies does *not* always protect you when you use it to jump down. Ouch!



I pass off the map to the north and have to make another map, the 4th for this landmass.



Again this is only a tiny penisula and soon I'm back on the previous map. It turns out this is all a long peninsula, and I see the backsides of the jungle, Mountain Foothills, and Cold Taiga (but now not M) that I saw on the way out.



Next is a Heathland (no pic) and then this pretty little copse forest in a plains, by the mouth of a river. By this point I've moved back north onto the 4th map and I'm in the lower right corner. The coast turns back east, and I move back onto the 2nd map



Next is a Wetland, where I do a lot of swimming because you move really S L O W L Y on all that mud.

I'm hoping to finish off the coast quickly, but it's like thinking that has jinxed me and the coast doubles back to the west again. I even go back onto the fourth map for a while.



This area is Xeric Shrubland, with a Desert Hills visible in the distance.



There are a lot of bunnies in the Desert Hills, but they are so skittish it's hard to even get pics. I don't have any carrots on me to lure them.



From there I see a Temperate Rainforest (BoP). Unfortunately this is another day spawn biome, if not as bad as Roofed Forest. Again the lighting problem is making the game extremely laggy, so I'm forced to stay out.



I continue around through an Outback and a Savanna, and spend a night up in a Temperate Rainforest tree right on the edge. Somewhat chastened by my fall from the Jungle tree, I carefully climb as low as I can on the Rainforest tree, then activate the Rod of the Skies when leaves above me prevent me from going up. No injury this time.



There's another Savanna, and it's really big for some reason. Towards the end I spot these two attractive rock formations. I figure the second is a Chaparral rockpile, but it turns out to be Savanna Plateau. Surprises!

It's actually Highlands next, and then the Ice Plains near the chalet.



I've finished mapping the coast, and often that would be enough. But, I've turned off the chunk wall protection feature of Geographicraft, and I expect to make changes to the configs in the future (I want to adjust the BoP frequencies, and I'm hoping to add Appalachia). I might put in some revised RTG biomes for testing too. If I change things now, and come back to this island, I'll get chunk walls. Unacceptable! So - it's round and round until I'm done.

However, this is already a ridiculous number of pics, so I'll have to split that off into the next chapter.

I decide this time I'll make the Waystone permanent and use it as my first "forward base". The idea here is that the base will be a kind of backup to restart from if somehow things go wrong and I either don't have a backup or they go wrong in a way where it wouldn't be proper to use a backup.

I could drop down a Waystone and move it later but I'll go for that little bit of efficiency and go ahead and build the base now. I've long had an idea for a ski chalet and this provides some excellent scenery for it.

I prowl about the Ice Plains for a while looking for a spot. I quickly realize it needs to be on one of the Ice Mountains for aesthetic purposes. There are a number of trees I figure I can chop for the wood I'll need (I have some Pine in the backpack but I'll want at least two for visual variety, plus I'm not sure I have enough) - but, they turn out to be Harvestcraft Maples, which I'm not sure I want to chop.



Fortunately I soon spot a Cold Taiga that will provide plenty of wood.



I'll use this picture to describe what's going on and my eventual siting decisions. Essentially, there's a range of Ice Mountains running from left to right. I want something on an Ice Mountain slope (so it looks ski-ish) facing an Ice Mountains (for the view). This would be hard, given only a linear range to work with, but fortunately the range is cut by a frozen river, forming that pass slightly to the right of the center of the pic. Sometimes these river canyons don't come out great for complex reasons, but this time it's fine. I chose to build on the left side facing the right because the mountain barely in view on the very far right provides the best view.



Here's the view from where I end up building. The view from this side with big mountain in the distance over the ridge right next to the river, is better than the view from the other side, where the mountain I'm on block sight of much of what's behind it.

My design is an octagonally shaped greatroom. Siting is tricky because the slope is so steep. I have to adjust twice, even with long support pillars in places, and the mountain ends up occupying more than half the interior space. I may dig some more out later.



I didn't take many process pictures for some reason. This was when I was starting on the roof, which has a two-block overhang. Initially I'd been planning a stair-pitch roof but I realize that would be far too high and switch to a slab-pitched roof. That's a bit odd for a heavy snow building but oddly a number of the real world versions I was looking at had that kind of pitch, so, OK.



On top I put a "lantern", a small tower with large windows or even open sides. In the real world, this is a common device to bring light into large interiors but it doesn't work in Minecraft unless you also leave holes in the top. But I figure it will still look good,and the building is smallish and easly lit anyway.



Which it does. Actually, it's pretty good for a spur-of-the-moment build.

Then I place my Waystone, permanently I hope, and pop back to Innwich to pick up some mapping supplies and a new Waystone.



Hrmm. That's not good. The Waystone list includes the "First Isle" Waystone I placed and destroyed some time ago. Hopefully I can get rid of it by trying to teleport to it. If not, I may not be able to use temporary Waystones after all. Even without temporaries clogging the list, you can see one problem with a Waystone connection network of the size I need. If I place a Waystone every 100,000 blocks, I'll have over 300, which will make this list awkwardly large.



While I'm here, I'll add another Botania Functional Flower - the Exoflame. This flower uses Mana to activate and accellerate nearby furnaces. This is basically a convenience feature - I don't have to keep loading my furnaces with coal. With elaborate designs, you can use a combination of Endo and Exoflames to get more smelted from a given stock of coal, but I don't need the efficiency, because my Egg Salad munching Gournaryllis provides plenty for everything I have to smelt.

I set up a chained series of Mana Pools to manage my needs. The Gourmaryllis already feeds a Mana Spreader that fills one pool. I set up another Mana Spreader which draws on that to feed a second pool. If I have less than one pool of mana total I'll end up with everything in the second pool, and if need be I can manually fix that. I could set up some automatic system to stop the second Mana Spreader if the first pool is too low but it's not a priority.



Here's the setup for the magically fueled furnaces. From the second pool there's another Mana Spreader filling this pool. This pool, however, is a diluted mana pool and has a much smaller capacity, only 1/100th of the rest of the pools, so it only serves as a buffer for the Exoflame and won't suck the rest of the system dry for this side function. The Exoflame is to the left and fuels any furnace within (IIRC) six blocks, which is all of these.

I'm going to need some more mana in the system, so I head to the egg farm to make some more Egg Salad. There are a lot of eggs in the chest still, but it doesn't seem to be making more. I go upstairs and



The chickens are gone. All of them. There isn't even dead chicken stuff (feathers and meat) in the chests. They've just disappeared. Puzzled, I chuck in a dozen stacks of eggs and head upstairs to trade while the chickens grow, and perhaps reveal what happened.



And there's a problem here too. Still a good number of villagers, but most of them have disappeared. Most of my standby traders are gone - the Farmer, the Mending Librarian, all the Shepherds, and the developed Cleric . Also, both the remaining monks are gone too. I can imagine a zombie siege clearing most of the villagers (if it happens in the mobbed building), but not BOTH monks as well. In combination with the disappeared chickens, the #1 suspect would be a mod bug. I'm not going to roll this back, because I have no idea what to roll back to, plus it will probably happen again in the future.



And to add insult to injury, the game has managed to spawn this Iron Golem in durance vile, in that Iron Golem spawning townhouse, in spite of all my blockages. Its head is in a one block hole in the ceiling and it can't even move. It would be way too much trouble to get him out, so I suffocate it with gravel, which will hopefully prevent another spawn here. It takes a LONG time for hiititm to die.

My trading is very limited now as there are no farmers and no shepards. I sell some string to fletchers and zombie meat to the cleric to develop him, and manage to squeeze out 2 Ender Pearls. They're breeding, at least, so I put my trading supplies back and plan to return later.

After that I check on the chicks, which are behaving completely normally. I make some more Egg Salad for the Gourmaryllis, leaving enough eggs to restart the egg ranch again if needed.

Now it occurs to me: if the problem that disappeared most of the village entities occurred with gating into the castle Waystone (and it does look like the survivors are those furthest from the castle) then it probably wiped the cows too. So I go check on them.



Nope, they're just fine. Well, except for the ones I butcher for leather. So that means the problem isn't arriving at the castle waystone. Maybe it's warping out? Or maybe it's not Waystones at all.

I head back to the village, clear out yet another grotto under the town, and then head to the sugarcane farm on the northern side of town.



Where the heck did that come from? I've been here many many times and I've never seen any. They're aggressive but not very effectual - they have a hard time hitting me and only seem to do half a heart. I try counterattacking but they're hard to kill, and when I finally kill one it's so far out I'll never get any drops so I just leave them alone. Maybe it's a freak spawn and they'll despawn when I next leave the village.

I check on the chickens, which are now producing eggs, so I make some more Egg Salad for the Gourmaryllis. Then I use some levels for enchants - an Silk Touch Efficiency 4 Pickaxe, and an Efficiency 4 book. The pickaxe really make me regret putting a Mending on my old Efficiency IV pickaxe but oh well, can't see the future.

Now I want to deal with the bogus Waystone. I make a backup and try to teleport to the nonexistent Waystone. Spooky noises, and then an error message. I try again, and it's off the list. Good!

Now I'm ready to go back to the Chalet. In case Waystoning out is the problem, I head some distance south of the village before I warp. Waystones lets you warp from anywhere, which is easier that I'd like - I'd like a system where you can only port to or from a portal. I'm not going to bother to change it now though.

Some spooky sounds and:



I'm back in the chalet, 130,000 blocks away. Sure beats a 3 hour boat ride.

Next chapter: Exploring Chalet Island.