They told me 1.5b is an unstable version. Even the Multiplayer list says immediately that it's in Beta. 'Expect problems', the warning says.
Alright. I guess I will.
We started playing this game on 1.5b years ago. Every once in a while, we feel like going back to it. You know, seeing where you start to where you are at present always solidifies the journey one makes. It reminds you of a time when you first started out, with friends or alone. We all started in dirt, and now we take that dirt and make emeralds from it.
I still remember the first real server I played on. It was run by a kid with a power and conformity complex. Rather than let people express themselves, he tried to make everyone around him (and inevitably the spawnpoint) build like he wanted them to. I got out of the spawnpoint for that reason and came across a mountain that curved at the top over the shore of what constituted an Ocean back on 1.5b. So, more like a big lake than an ocean, but the sentiment was there.
We had some good memories on that server. But it's not the good times that stay with you the most. Yes, we regale sometimes in how much fun we had and the stories we made and the playful 'griefing' we wrought on one another. But it's not that what makes us immerse into the game every time we turn it on.
It's the weird that stays with you the longest. The strangeness that evolves into traditions and beliefs and routines, things you don't think about later, you just do. The quirks of a specific map to write the rituals of your career.
'1.5b is an unstable version'.
I know. I'm prepared for it.
She blinks awake. The feeling of sand against one cheek, the sound of the waves crashing on the shoreline causing an ear to twitch as the grog of spawning starts to subside. She doesn't feel sore or burnt or exhausted, or the residuals of impalement or water-filled lungs, so she knows this is a new spawn. Not a respawn. Thank Gods...
What did they say? She wouldn't spawn in the same place as anyone else?
She can take that, but there are other questions on her mind right now. Namely, who are 'they'?
She thinks hard on that question, fragmented memories trying to push forward and giving her hardly a full answer she can be satisfied with. She decides to leave it for now. It's obviously not that important and thinking too hard on it will only hurt her more, either mentally or physically. She looks up to locate the sun, happy to see it's risen high enough into the sky to end the reign of monsters. If monsters are even enabled.
Are they?
She doesn't know. It's better to play it safe than sorry. But that's a problem for when night begins encroaching.
Her first order of business is to find shelter, or make sure she has materials enough to make a temporary one when that time comes. Slowly, she rolls over and up onto her feet, the heels of her boots sinking into the yielding sand blocks below with a slow grinding noise. What was she taught again? How do you start?
Put the sun on your back and walk its path.
She has no idea where she remembers the fragment from, only that it's the first thing to come to mind. It's as good advice as any, she figures it can't hurt to use it. Brushing the irritating grains of sand from her cheek, she looks up to assess where the sun is again before turning to put it at her back. It's muscle memory to start walking, every step she takes an audible grind of sand against hardened leather soles. Maybe she'll remember something else of use later on.
She's been on the move for half of the day, having stopped to pick up a few small things. A little bit of sand, some dirt, a few mushrooms, and she attacked a couple of sheep. How she remembered they drop their wool when smacked once, she doesn't know. But she is grateful for the materials stuffed into the squid-skin bag she woke up carrying. With the sun cresting its zenith and beginning its decline to the opposite horizon, she wants to make absolutely sure she is prepared for the onslaught of night.
Best scenario, there are no monsters.
Worst scenario, there are monsters and she won't build a temporary shelter in time.
By mid-afternoon, her feet and lower legs are sore from the exertion against the sand. She is impressed with her own stamina, having come close enough to evening without stopping for any extended periods of time. She briefly contemplates taking a short break before building four walls and a roof, but knows if she stops to rest, she will likely not be able to get up again until morning. Walking a short way from the shore, she notices the harder-packed dirt and grass is much easier to walk against and makes a note as she begins to construct her small would-be fortress that it will be an easier time tomorrow if she walks on the dirt along the shoreline instead.
Night falls and she lays beneath a low ceiling patched with dirt and wool, a single block near the top on one side acting as window. The space within the shelter is a decent three-by-three space, the center the inherent safe zone in case of Creepers. The little window will help her tell time and see approaching dangers, and she keeps a block of dirt in hand in case of sharpshooting skeletons or brave spiders. Without torches, the room is dim, but she can see well enough, silvery reflective shadows outlining what parts of her she can see as well as the defined edges of blocks. A surprise, really. She didn't know her eyes could do that here.
She listens closely to the outside. Trying to discern the noises of ambiance and passive mobs from the sounds of anything hostile. The sounds of the wind, the lapping waves a little ways off. Footsteps, the owner of them utters a bellowing moo. A familiar distant baa'ing, the cluck of a chicken. Through the defined steps of the local fauna, she can't hear any shuffling or jangling or hissing or groaning. Carefully, she decides to chance a look, keeping crouched to avoid any sight lines just in case, keeping the block of dirt in her hand to plug up her sight-hole should hostiles be present. She looks through the tiny window and starts, coming face-to-face with a curious cow, peering into the hole just long enough to assure itself the structure isn't aggressive before ambling off. There is some movement near the shore, but a look in that direction proves it to be a pair of chickens splashing in the shallows. There is no sign of anything that would mean her or the passive mobs surrounding her any harm.
Still, she decides it's best to stay in her improvised shelter, at least for the first night. She'll try to push through on the second night. At first, she lets the adrenaline keep her going, watching the window diligently but not for enemies. Her eyes are trained on the sky above, keeping the time. Long about midnight, when the moon is at its zenith, she succumbs to the exhaustion of the journey the day previous, laying down next to the dirt block she keeps out for security reasons. It isn't long before the dark world fades, the onset of sleep taking her tired body curled in the center of the cramped construction of dirt and sand and wool. It's a fitful sleep, though, plagued by vague images blurred and indiscernible, muffled voices and sounds, distant far-off music.
Don't forget the red path, walk the red path.
It's the only thing she remembers on waking, seeing light begin through the window. She sits up, rubs sleep from her eyes and dirt off her skin and clothes, sticking her head into the window space to assess the outside. The horizon behind her is still tinted in pastels from sunrise, the sky above slowly turning light blue from oncoming day. The world outside hasn't changed much, save that the cows are missing and inexplicably replaced by a herd of pigs instead, snuffling and grunting about. The chickens are still splashing along the shoreline and the sheep she heard during the night can be seen a short ways away, grazing among a patch of roses. The cluster of the red flowers seems conspicuous to her, and she removes the bottom block to turn her window into a door to exit and investigate. It's not very far, she'll turn back around to gather her shelter back up into her bag as soon as she's done.
The sheep meanders out of her way as she approaches the rose patch, her eyes placing the patterns in a randomized familiarity. One rose on one side, furthest from the shore she has been following like a compass' pointer. Their formation is like a path on the Plains flatland, the lower point starting from the shoreside toward inland. She follows the line made by the last rose with her eyes and spots another cluster of red a little bit further off, set on a shallow incline.
"Walk the red path..." she says under her breath as the meaning dawns on her.
She turns around to gather her shelter up before making sure she puts the sun at her back and starts the journey again by moving to the next rose patch. The way on the dirt is easier on her legs and feet, though they're still sore from her trek the day before. She powers through the ache to make it further to whichever destination she is going. She doesn't quite know where she's going or why, simply that she will know where she is meant to be and what to do when she gets there. It's the only comfort to know this journey is not an endless one.
The second patch is much like the first, a randomized splotch of red that points in a direction. She looks ahead to find a sunken spring, a grove of sugarcanes growing next to it. A quick look around is given before she descends the steady stepped slope to the tiny oasis, gathering the canes and storing them away. She's sure they will come in handy later, when she reaches her unknown destination.
She looks around for the next step in the path, only to find a lone red bloom sitting on the shore of a lake. When she stands next to it, she is in awe of where the next patch gleams from. Across the vast lake, just on the edge of the rendering distance, is a towering sheer cliff, the red glinting almost playfully from the very top edge of it. She looks right and, seeing there is nothing but water and a thin strip of sandy shore separating this lake from a couple others further inland, looks left. The land on the left shore curves up before jutting nearly straight up from her perspective. She's sure that if she goes around it a little, there might be a better way up that doesn't require her to scale a nearly-vertical cliff.
She walks around the lake shore, staring at the way the water seems to drop straight down next to the cliff face, as if there is no gradual shelf from the far shallow end to this side. She shudders a little at thinking how hard it would be to recover from such a fall into such deep water and makes a note to herself to watch her step along the cliff edges.
As expected, there is a much less-steep incline on the far side of the cliffs, backed up next to the Ocean she has been following since yesterday morning. It rises to another set of short cliffs around the oceanside, the summit hidden from view for the moment; she sees where it stops climbing, but not what to expect at the top. Cliffs are clearly treacherous, so she will have to be careful on the ascent and crest. It takes almost an hour to climb the sides, shaving away dirt or adding it to make steps that lead upward. It's much safer this way rather than trying to bore a hole into the side of the hill. She crests the summit with a lot less effort, too.
The sun is at its zenith when she makes it to the top, the heat pounding on her now and forcing her to remove her heavy suede-leather overcoat and stow it into her bag. She takes a small moment to rest from the climb before walking toward the roses clustered on the cliff edge around the next bend. She stops briefly at another small pond, using the water to splash her face and get a drink, unaware of how thirsty she's made herself until now by not stopping, often or at all. Though the water is cooler than the air, it's still fairly warm to the touch. How unusual...
Once refreshed, she keeps a distance of two blocks between her and the cliff edge, watching where she walks with the occasional glance up to make sure she's still aiming for the rose patch. There are dips and chasms, and she skirts around an inlet made from water seeping in from the cliff face. A steep and dangerous fall were she to misstep.
She feels elated when the first of the roses meets her gaze and she takes a few dancing steps into the center of them to determine which way they point. Until she sees the pointer-rose sitting on a single grass block surrounded by sand. Her excitement falters a little as soon as she realizes why the water in that spring before was warm. The cliffs end in dunes, sweeping into a Desert that stretches far and wide beyond her sight, radiating intense heat that overwhelms her even at the edges of it. She can't see where it ends on any side, though she can only guess it backs up to the shoreline of the Ocean on the one side.
She can't see any more clusters of roses, or even a single rose, in the distance to tell her where to go next. She looks up to the sun, now on its descent to the far horizon and giving her a clear path to follow. It leads over the Desert below, and she sighs heavily and sits where she stands, where the grass is still cool enough to touch and the roses surround her.
Great. More sand...