The Truth Behind The Myth

I dutifully went off to gather some clay but didn’t, of course, find enough. Clay is tricky – some worlds are teeming with it, in others, it’s a rare as hell commodity. Still, I found some clay and some naturally occurring sandstone, which was cool – no more denuding entire beaches! – and made my way back to New Arcadia where I promptly grew restless again. A cave, I thought, a cave is where I need to be and so off to a nearby cave I went. It was a good cave, full of great cave stuff and, as well, two unhappy squids who had spawned in a trickle of water deep underground, poor things. I put them out of their misery – I hate killing squids, who yield only ink sacks which are, to me, pretty much useless – and delved on, finding diamonds and iron and gold galore.

Do you know the Minecraft superstition that if you are carrying diamonds you will fall into lava and die? Yeah, well, it’s based in truth. I had five diamonds, damnit! It’s my own fault though, because I had decided I needed to make a stupid portal to the stupid nether so I could get some netherrack to burn forever in my fireplaces. Now that logs actually go out, my fireplaces are no good and I am saddened, so I thought I might make a quick journey to the Nether to pick up some cut rate hellish fire logs. Netherrack handily burns forever, sort of like those fake gas logs only more uncanny. A cheery fire makes a home a home unless of course it is cheerily burning up your wood floors and paintings, which is depressing but also kind of morbidly entertaining. Therefore, I was mining obsidian, always a miserably dangerous task, when thunk, into the lava I went.

Ignominious death and worse, I spawned at night. The run from spawn to Cantilevers through the darkness was terrifying – skeleton archers! Zombies! Creepers! It was like Saturday night in clubland! - but I made it with four whole hearts of life intact. Early the next morning I was back on my way to New Arcadia. I’m not fucking with that stupid cave again, I fumed. Forget that cave. I’ll find another, better cave for my diamonds. Therefore, I left town in a different direction, found a cave in about three minutes and delved right down into it.

It was the same cave. I dug up some coal and some iron and avoided a creeper and then, as I went around a corner, found myself basking in the light of my own previously placed torches. That cave apparently underlies most of the New Arcadia suburbs or, well, what will be the New Arcadia suburbs if the town ever grows to that extent. It occurs to me that materials from hell are traditional construction for any self respecting suburbs so I will, at some point, when I’ve forgotten how much dying in lava sucks, have to mine some more obsidian and make a stupid portal to the stupid Nether. Fortunately, that unhappy day lies in the future and for now I need more clay. When I got out of the cave I built a boat and headed off for adventure. And clay.I always, always need more clay.