Player #2: That which eternal lies Pt 2

From the notes of Dr. Daniel McGoohan, Woot Project Researcher:

It is a staggering thing to face your own death. To feel yourself slipping away into the darkness, to know that this is the moment when your existence will, forever, cease.... And then to suddenly find yourself sitting up in your own bed.

My pockets were empty, my body was intact. It was early morning, and I had been awoken by the gentle screams of the zombies burning to death in the rosy fingers of dawn.

And yet... The items I had been carrying were gone. And when I looked into the tunnels below, the stones I had mined away weren't there. It seems that Woot had granted me another chance... somewhere between a dream and a death.

Perhaps it was incautious of me to plunge back into the underworld, given the way my previous foray had ended. But if I refused to face the depths, if I blocked up the tunnel and contented myself to explorations of the surface, I would never really know Woot. I would be little better than a tourist.

And so, re-arming myself with the few supplies I had not used up before, I descended once again into the mineshaft. More cautious this time, I quickly chanced upon the mysterious stones pictured above. When mined away with a sufficiently hard pick-axe, they dissolved into a clump of mysterious glittering red powder. Had I found "redstone" at last?

Of course, I was not alone in the maze. You would be AMAZED what sort of angles a brainless sack of bones can find to shoot you in the back with an arrow. It is amazing. I was amazed. And angry.

Oh, and the whole water-lava harmony thing is a lot less poetic when the current keeps shoving you backward toward the lava. Stupid essential harmony of nature.

Oh, and these things EXPLODE. Sure, why not, Woot? It absolutely makes sense for a lifeform to exist whose only purpose is to explode. To grow, fight, love, laugh, until the day it sees an overweight scientist clutching a pick-axe, which is its cue to detonate. PERFECT SENSE. You will note that by this point I had used the last of my available iron to form some simple protective garments, on the grounds that THE ENTIRETY OF THE PLANET WAS DESIGNED TO MURDER ME.

Back on the surface, I manage to kill one of the creepy weirdos before he can blow himself up. As wasteful as this seems, given their penchant for inevitable suicide, I manage to dig through the corpse and extract what appears to be biologically manufactured gunpowder. Because... yes. Obviously they explode because they are full of gunpowder. Of course.

Following some notes left behind by my predecessor, I craft a small lever and connect it, via redstone, to the door of my house. With bated breath, preparing myself for a spectacle that may rival the very powers of the gods themselves, I flip the switch...

Oh my. The door opened. No wonder "frimtanklin" was so enamored of it. Very impressive, if you have the kind of mind that thinks a 3x3 room is sufficient to act as living space...

However, the stuff is not entirely useless. Applying basic ingenuity, I managed to craft a compass, which, perhaps owing to the non-scientific properties of the redstone, and Woot in general, I was able to integrate with several sheets of paper... into this. I have dubbed this extremely useful piece of equipment, which fills itself in with the local terrain as I travel, the Manifested Aetheric Geographical Integration Cartography Multi-Access-Parchment. Or, um... M.A.G.I.C. M.A.P.
Giant cave spider, I find you horrifying and menacing, but at least you are not completely stupid, and I thank you for that rare blessing in the world I am forced to toil in, desperately seeking knowledge.

Yes, I was once more traveling the Halls Below (clever phrase, yes? It just came to me) in search of useful materials. Nature and the open air are nice, I suppose, but they contain very little in the way of smeltable iron.

Or GOLD. SHINY, BEAUTIFUL GOLD which is weaker than iron and less versatile and which I will not be allowed, under any circumstances, to bring back from Woot. Well.

I mined it anyway. It is so very shiny, after all.

Although not as shiny as this! Diamond, that most fabled of minerals! There are those scholars of the Royal Academy who claim diamond is simply coal, compressed over millions of years. These obvious idiots never seem to have a good response when a scientist of my caliber reminds them that coal is black and sooty, while diamond is BEAUTIFUL.

I should be able to make several valuable tools with this! Also, a sword, which I will drive into the heads of so many STUPID DAMN ANNOYING SKELETONS ARGH I HAVE NEVER HATED CALCIUM SO MUCH WAIT WHY DO I HEAR CLUCKING

WHAT IS A CHICKEN DOING IN THIS GARGANTUAN CAVE SYSTEM, THAT IS LUDICROUS, THIS WORLD IS LUDICROUS, NOTHING HERE MAKES SENSE, wait is that the sky?

A natural ravine, water flowing down it. Another entrance into the truly vast system of caves I have found myself exploring. Woot is strange, and at times infuriating. But sometimes it will offer the careful explorer a vision of true beauty... and a chicken.

Climbing the walls, I find myself in an unfamiliar but beautiful bit of terrain. I would be quite lost, if not for a recent acquisition...

The M.A.G.I.C. M.A.P. proves its worth already! Now, all I needed to do was follow it to make my way home... across half a mile of monster-infested desert.

The next morning I crafted myself a full suit of armor.

Still, there is nothing like the sight of a burning human skeleton to fill one with a sense of rightness with the world. I had had no more strange visions, no more disturbing singing. Just hundreds of corpses trying to kill me until I bashed them in the brains with a sword forged from diamond. Perhaps today I would take a break from the caves, explore my surroundings a bit.

This cow refused to give me any milk, which made jumping into this pond to try milking him somewhat unnecessary. I have developed two hypotheses as to why this noble beast would be so stingy. Hypothesis 1: This was a boy cow. Hypothesis 2: This was some sort of milk-less Water Cow, a species I have dubbed the Danielmcgoohan hydrobovis.

Brief aside: Danielmcgoohan hydrobovis is delicious when properly cooked.

While exploring near my home, I saw this cave in the distance. The darkness of its interior seemed to call to me, but I ignored its eldritch summons. I just felt so good today. Like laughing. Like I hadn't in years. Such a beautiful day. A beautiful day.
Hello, improbable suicide monster! You will not ruin my mood today! I am too full of laughter and joy today! Ah ha ha! Ha ha! You have an arrow through your head, because I shot an arrow through your head! Classic Comedy! Ah ha!

Oh! I dropped some dye on the sheep, and now the sheep is entirely blue! AH HA! Makes sense to me! Pretty funny joke! BLUE SHEEP! AHA HA HA HAHA! HA!

PIG UP A TREE! FUNNY! MAKES PERFECT SENSE! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! PROBABLY CLIMBED UP THERE OR THE TREE SUDDENLY GREW UNDER IT WHY NOT AHAHAHA HA HA HA HA

HEIGH-HO, HEIGH-HO, I MINE IN THE HALLS BELOW. THE WORLD UNRAVELS AND THROUGH SPACE I TRAVEL HEIGH-HO, HEIGH-HO

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

WE HAD A STARING CONTEST. HE WON. NOW I OWE HIM. HA. HA. HA.

Wait, how did I get underground? Oh... another pit. I swear, these caves riddle Woot like a hollow cancerous tumor. At times it feels like I will never escape them.

Climbing back out of the cave (where did I get these scratches?), I found that it was nearly nightfall. Following the M.A.G.I.C. M.A.P. (which had significantly more area covered than I could remember exploring - some sort of auto-mapping process?), I made my way home.

Of course, no homecoming would be complete without a welcoming committee.

One battered breastplate, five cracked skulls, and an arrow in my arm later, and I was home and in bed.

I had a beautiful dream that night.

Everything was right where it was supposed to be.
And all my debts were paid.

HA. HA. HA. HA. HA.