Title: A Survivor's Log

Author: WingedPanther73

Pairing(s)/Characters: Player

Rating: PG-13

Summary: A person shows up in the Minecraft world... with a little bit of assistance available.

Warnings: None

Disclaimer: Minecraft, its names and characters belong to Mojang.

Beta Reader: Sybil Rowan

Waking up the first morning, alone, in the middle of a jungle, was the worst experience. I found myself with a strange device, kind of like a tablet. A quick check revealed a GPS device with x-y-z coordinates, and a wiki about my whereabouts. It advised me to start collecting wood, and be ready to find shelter before nightfall.

"Great!" I muttered. I was stranded with nothing but a freaking guide that tells me I should start taking out trees with my bare hands. It seemed stupid, but after beating against the nearest tree, I was able to get a section of wood out from it to spare my knuckles on the next section. Strangely enough, the tree didn't fall. The damned thing just hung there, suspended in midair, waiting for me to take chunks out of it.

The tree gave me five hunks of wood and a couple saplings. I planted one where I had removed the tree, and proceeded to convert the five hunks of wood into twenty planks. I turned two of them into four sticks, and four more into a crafting table. I promptly set it down, and surveyed my tools: four sticks and fourteen planks. There was no help for it, my gizmo told me I needed an axe and pickaxe, and all I had was wood to get started. I soon found myself with those and the remaining eight planks.

I put my axe through some abuse getting the crafting table pried up again, and killed about a third of its durability taking down two more trees for later. Strangely enough, taking out the tree limbs seemed to do more damage to it than taking down the trunk. I'd worry about that later. I replanted the trees and headed for a hill I could see in the distance.

It was already noon by the time I reached the hill. A quick experiment showed the pickaxe worked faster on rocks than dirt. I'd worry about that later. I needed to create a cavern I could shelter in for the night. As I dug into the rock face, I kept an eye out for any coal I might find. Having some torches would be nice, so I could dig deeper into the ground.

I was quickly able to establish a cavern that would do as a base of operations. I planted my crafting table and made a stone pickaxe to speed up the process, my wooden one having given up rather quickly. I quickly scanned around for any sign of coal, but found none. I had to make do with partially blocking the entrance to my base with some cobblestone and watching the night sky.

Spending the night hiding in a small cavern, peeking out at the goings on of the dark, was unnerving, at best. Zombies began to appear out of nowhere, and I soon had to duck out of sight of skeletons wielding bows and arrows. The worst part, however, was listening to them moan as the night went on. I didn't expect to get any sleep at all.

I had a chance to reflect on my circumstances. I wasn't tired. Understand, I'd probably worked harder on that first day than I had the entire rest of my life, yet I wasn't tired at all. I was starting to get hungry, but it was mild enough that I felt I could stand to wait another day before worrying about it. I was at the peak of an ice mountain. Around me were ice plains with a decent population of cattle and sheep. There was tons of tall grass around that could be harvested to start growing wheat.

I spent the night reading, since I couldn't seem to get to sleep. I wouldn't be able to sleep without making a bed, and it seemed I didn't actually need sleep. I could worry about that later. I needed to find coal the next day, or harvest enough wood to afford to make charcoal. I also needed to start setting up a farm in my base, along with trees on top of my base.

With dawn, I peaked out of my base to see zombies and skeletons catching on fire. Soon, they had died. I was able to harvest some bones and arrows from the skeletons. Next, I grabbed enough seeds from long grass to start a small farm. I even found a couple pumpkins.

Next, a small cavern caught my eye. I was able to go through it and harvest some coal for torches. I quickly returned to my base and created a small wheat farm in the chamber I'd carved out. I made a pumpkin patch next to it, and set up torches inside.

It was time to sit down and read. My wiki told me that I needed to mine for resources. I needed coal, iron, and a lot of defenses to stay safe. Unfortunately, I was also going to encounter caverns as I dug in that would have more monsters to deal with. There would be more lava, like the lava pool outside my door, and a great chance of getting lost.

I made the decision: I would be methodical. I would hollow out this mountain, and work my way down to bedrock, creating a pillar of chambers as I worked down. I would extract every bit of minerals I could, and ensure that I missed nothing. Once done, I could build out from that shaft, acquiring more resources as I went. Meanwhile, I'd grow the cattle, sheep, and chicken flocks outside with the crops I was growing.

The plan started well enough. Bonemeal from skeletons kick-started my wheat harvest, letting me get cattle and sheep herds larger. Digging also went well. I soon had more dirt for growing wheat, and I had three trees on top of my hill providing wood. I could survive on steak, bread, and the occasional apple. I even found myself with a decent amount of iron and a nice bed.

As expected, at around 45 meters above bedrock, I ran into the exact issue I'd expected. While clearing out a level, I removed a piece of stone and saw a large chamber on the other side. Worse, I could hear the sounds of a spider someplace inside the chamber. If I went into that chamber, two things were likely to happen. First, I would probably find a wealth of minerals easily accessible. Second, I would probably get lost.

Despite the temptation of easy riches, I stuck with my plan. I opened up a hole on what would be my wall, and extended it across the chasm, walling off half the chamber from where I was working. I then quickly extended the floor across the hole below me. I would encounter it again on my next level, but that was fine. I would repeat the procedure, as needed. By being careful, I was able to criss-cross the passageway, claiming a section of it for my own.

When I hit 15 meters above bedrock, I encountered a larger problem: lava pools. My first thought was simple, I had a bunch of iron, I could use that to make buckets and collect the lava out of the pools. Actually, the thought of using an IRON bucket to scoop up LAVA kind of bothered me. My wiki assured me it would work. I tried it... and it did. I had ten buckets of lava that I was carrying around with me, unharmed. This place was weird.

I got ten buckets of lava collected. At that point, I was out of buckets, and still had a huge pool of lava in the chamber I wanted to claim as my own. The only solution I could think of was to fill in the pool with cobblestone. I knew that what SHOULD happen was that the lava would be displaced, and I would kill myself. Instead, it just replaced the lava.

Working carefully, I managed to fill in almost the entire lava pool, and then disaster struck. A creeper snuck up on me and detonated, killing me. As my eyesight faded, I saw my armor, and other equipment, scattered about me. I had been so close, and it was over.

I woke up at the top of my base in my bed. While I ran down to my scattered equipment, I pondered this strange circumstance. I had died. My body had been blown to pieces. Despite that, I was now whole, healthy, and charging down to a lava pit in the hopes that my equipment would be there, and that I could get it in order before anything else showed up to ruin my day. It was a truly surreal experience.

I found my equipment, and was pleased to see none had fallen into the lava. Unfortunately, a zombie had appeared near it. I grabbed my equipment and retreated. The zombie followed, unfortunately. I retreated up several levels and quickly put on my armor, and placed my sword in hand. As the zombie approached, I was able to kill it.

New priority. I sealed off the chamber in the corner of my room. I wouldn't be getting snuck up on again by creatures bent on killing me. With that done, I was able to finish filling in the lava pools. Now all I needed to do was work on level 12.

Level 12 soon gave me a scare: It turned out I had NOT filled in all the lava. I was working on the chamber, when lava suddenly started pouring into the chamber. After beating a hasty retreat, I managed to use cobblestone to wall off the spill, and eventually replace the source pocket with cobblestone. I now found myself in a narrow space that I wanted to expand out to be my chamber for this level.

I found myself working very nervously, expecting lava to burst out at any moment, killing me if I wasn't quick enough to dash away. I ended up creating channels the lava could flow into, and slowly working forward. I ran into several more pockets, and uncovered more lava in the floor, but managed to safely clear the chamber.

Moving to level 9, I quickly found my vision behaving strangely. I found myself unable to see more than about ten meters away. I found myself suffering from extreme paranoia. Worse, there were particles of darkness emanating from the floor. I wasn't sure whether there were any lava pockets left over, too. I slowly worked, creating channels to protect myself.

I finished up the process, with several chunks of diamond and a bunch of lapis to my name. I had a few hunks of gold that I couldn't think of a good use for. The lava buckets, on the other hand, could be useful for making a nether portal. I crafted the obsidian frame near the top of my base, and lit it. Now I find myself in hell, exposed, in the open.