Minecraft VS Reality: The End Has Come

by Abyssal Angel

The apocalypse is upon us. A meteor is heading for the moon, and there is no time to stop it. But things are not always what they seem, and while for some, the end has come, for others, death... Death is but a new beginning... DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don't own it.

3. Chapter 3

I sat up with a gasp, panting as my hands automatically groped around my torso for the shafts sticking out of it.

Nothing.

I blinked down in confusion.

No arrows.

Then I stared all around.

I'm back in my bedroom.

I sat for a while, waiting for my breathing and heart rate to slow down as I tried to process what just happened.

It took me a few moments to realize that I hear whimpering.

It takes me a few moments longer to realize it's coming from me.

Grasping my head and closing my eyes, I started taking deep breaths and focused on nothing else for a time.

I don't know how long time passed before it occurred to me how stifling it is in here. Not like how it was when I first woke up.

Wanting to see if there were any other differences from the first time, I looked around.

My spear is gone. As is my backpack. I can see the papers from inside it that I'd set aside on the floor before sticking supplies in it.

So, I likely didn't travel back in time. I just… what, respawned? The idea seems ludicrous, if not for what I saw just before I last died. The final piece of the puzzle that's finally clued me in to what's going on here.

Just before everything faded to black, I saw what had been firing arrows at me. A skeleton with a bow.

Just like that, everything clicked. As ridiculous as it sounds, somehow, someway, Earth is being invaded by the monsters of Minecraft.

It all fits. The green zombies that burst into flames under the sun, the skeleton with arrows, the lack of anything outside now that the sun is up, it all fits. Even the craters everywhere have a decent explanation. They must've been caused by Creepers, those tall green explosive plant things.

It's not a perfect explanation though. Why hadn't there been any spiders or Creepers around outside? Skeletons and Zombies may fry under the sun, but they don't. Granted, I'm not super worried about the spiders while it's day time. They were docile in the light after all. But Creepers? I have no idea.

What do I do now though? If there are Minecraft monsters, then the threat come night fall is even more dire than I thought. I still don't know how they found me while I was hiding in the bathroom, as mobs in Minecraft didn't agro on you unless they saw you. But then some things only make sense for a game. Minecraft mobs in real life may very well be different from what I expect.

But based on what I know from the game, I'm screwed. I may be fine on a roof top during the day, but come night fall if I'm not high enough I'll either be picked off by the skeletons or swarmed by spiders. Nevermind if the Endermen show up. It'll be up to sheer dumb luck to survive one of those.

But then, this is the second time I've died and come back to life. Even that is explained away as Steve, the main character of Minecraft, could do the same thing.

Which begs the question… if I have one power of Minecraft's main character… do I have others?

Slowly, I sat up, and for lack of any other ideas, I spoke aloud the word, "Inventory."

Immediately the Minecraft GUI opened up, showing me my inventory, hot bar, equipped items, a small mirror image of myself, and a 2x2 grid for crafting.

More importantly though, is as soon as I opened it, it felt like I'd discovered a whole other limb I'd never even realized I had. Slowly 'moving' it about as it were, I quickly came to realize that I could control everything in the inventory by simply willing it, much like how one would simply move their arm. Plus now that I'm aware of it, I find I don't even need to actually see the inventory as I can feel exactly what's in there at all times, almost like seeing it in my mind's eye, and I could open and close the visual display of it with a simple thought.

As I explored this new found ability of mine, I began to grin.

"This… changes things," I said aloud to myself. Because if I have access to the inventory, maybe I have access to everything else too?

"Main Menu," I said aloud.

And just like that the world paused… including myself.

To say it's disconcerting would be an understatement. I can see what's directly in front of me and think, but everything else is frozen.

That aside, a new menu has appeared. It's more limited than the game's though. No button for quitting the game. Or going back to it for that matter, but that one hardly matters as, like with the inventory, I feel an almost instinctive knowledge that, with some application of will, allows me to exit and reopen the pause menu myself.

Aside from that, are only a few selections available: Achievements, Statistics, and Options.

Since the world is paused and I have all the time I could possibly want now, a fact which I planned to abuse relentlessly now for all my planning needs from now on, I decided to take my time now and check all of the selections carefully. Any one of them could be important later.

Opening Achievements, I found the vanilla Minecraft achievement window, with a tree of items grayed out, but for the first one, which is an achievement for opening the inventory, and all but two have text that's in gibberish or only shows ?. The first, again being the one for opening the inventory, and the other being the achievement for getting wood, which is the next down the line and still grayed out, showing I haven't done it yet.

I frowned. I'd check back on occasion, but mostly this is just the vanilla Minecraft stuff, and while it's great for hints at how to move forward in the game, for a ten year veteran of the game such as myself, it's fairly pointless. Still, this is real life now, and things may be different, so I'd have to make a note to check back later in case there are any changes down the line.

Going back to the previous list, I opened up Statistics, to find what essentially amounts to an accounting of everything I'd done since I'd woken up that morning. Knowing how many steps and jumps is interesting, but not very useful. Still, perhaps new statistics may be added as I do things that may be worth taking note of. If nothing else, I should always be aware of the time and how many days it's been since today as there's a clock and a timer counting up from this morning in there.

Returning to the main menu, I entered the one selection I'm most curious about, Options. At the very top I immediately took notice of a lack of button for Difficulty. Disappointing, but not unexpected. Would make my life far easier if I could just it to Peaceful mode, removing the monsters from the world entirely in one easy swoop. No such luck though.

What IS available though is kind of… odd. Sound, Video, Skin, and Languages.

Opening sound, I found everything to already be at 100%, including music. I wonder if that meant I would randomly be treated to Minecraft's soundtrack playing from invisible speakers in the world, or if it governed whether I could hear normal music from speakers or instruments?

Not having any clue, I got out of that and went to Video settings. To my surprise, despite all the options in game, all that's available here are GUI scale, crosshair, and brightness. GUI scale does about what I'd expect. Unlike the game though it's a slider that lets me change how large the window is much more smoothly. I left that alone for now.

Crosshair just controlled if a crosshair would be available at all times, none of the time, only while wielding weapons, or only while wielding ranged weapons. It seems to be defaulted to off, so I changed it to be available when using weapons. Perhaps it will help with aim?

Last but not least is brightness. To my surprise, it seems to be defaulted at 30%, and scales from 0-100%. Also from what I could feel from the slider, it seems to auto adjust based on how dark it is. Looking around the room and away from the menu, I noted that the slider seemed to auto adjust to 50%. Interesting. I decided to leave that alone for now as well.

Going back to the main menu, I selected Skins. This showed a picture of me, front and back, along with the option to change skin and go back.

Now extremely curious, I selected change skin, and a new window opened up, but this one just shows my name in the list along with a preview image of myself. Well that just makes me extremely curious. Can I make myself look like other people? How would I get new 'skins' anyway? I know how it works in game, but this is a whole other kettle of fish.

Ultimately though, I'm not sure if I even want to mess with this. I can see how it might be useful if I can figure out how to gain skins and use it to sneak through enemy camps as one of their own, assuming I run into any, but otherwise, it's just... weird.

Going out of that, I checked Languages next. A new window opened up with a scrollable list of a great many languages available to choose from. On a whim, I chose Italian just to see what would happen.

Ha fatto qualcosa? Mamma mia, È tutto in italiano! È necessario cambiarlo di nuovo! Tornando indietro al menu della lingua, ho selezionato l'inglese and everything thankfully turned back to English. Just because I could understand it perfectly somehow doesn't mean that wasn't completely jarring! Though maybe it would let me understand other people speaking another language if I could identify the language? Something to keep in mind for later.

All in all... not nearly as useful as I'd hoped. The most useful function of all of this is probably the pause menu itself. Being able to pause and think things through without wasting any time is going to be extremely invaluable to me in the future.

Right now, I need to figure out the rest of what all I have available to me that matches the game's main character, so I unpause and quickly grab some clothes. With a thought I shifted the shirt into my inventory and onto my equipped items slots. The shirt automatically placed and appeared on my body, already fit well and ready to go. In fact, I couldn't help but notice that it fits slightly different than normal. Better even.

Another important detail I could feel is that I could equip more than one item to the slot. Obviously there are limits, but I wouldn't be forced to only have one equipped item per armor slot now, which will be extremely useful. Grabbing my jeans, I put them on, making note to get my stuff back if at all possible, as I was previously wearing my favorite set of black tactical pants, which has all sorts of pockets for storage space.

Grabbing one of my show swords for lack of choice in regards to weapons, I wondered whatever happened to my katana I had in the bathroom? Going back to the livingroom, I grabbed my second of three flashlights and checked the bathroom interior carefully. No sword. I frowned. What could have happened to it?

Putting aside that mystery for now, I stepped outside, much more wary of any openings into dark areas. I do NOT want to get shot to death again. I'm gonna have nightmares from that for years...

Now, moment of truth. Getting wood. I frowned, considering how to go about doing it. I do have a shovel in the laundry room, but no axe, and I don't fancy punching a tree. Maybe I could grab and use a rock?

Looking around, I spotted and hefted a chunk of broken rubble and went to a nearby tree, paused, and started looking for a tree that wouldn't crush any houses and make a lot of noise if it were to fall. I can't trust that it won't after all. This isn't a game unfortunately. This is my life now.

Once again pushing aside potential existential crisis drama, I focused on the potential excitement of exploring my new abilities. Who knows where I got them from, and I'm still not very happy about being unable to go to the afterlife, but I've got them now and I'll make the best of it while I can. After all, if I can still age, I should still be able to die that way. Unless I'll be stuck at a respawn screen as I immediately die after coming back to life over and over. That would suck. Or maybe I'm ageless now?

Shaking my head, I turned my thoughts forcefully back towards getting wood. I don't want to waste too much time with this, so I'll just knock this tree down and hope it falls towards the parking lot rather than my apartment.

Knocking at the tree, I noted with some glee the black cracks forming on a rather large cross section of the trunk nearly half my size. Just to test, I stopped and watched as slowly the cracks faded away, then began whacking away at it again. Until finally the log popped out and disappeared into my inventory.

Immediately I became aware that the log there, while in my inventory, had the same form as in the game, but if I placed it in the world, it would look exactly as it did previously, or, to my surprise, it would take any shape of any form that fits the definition of 'Wood log', provided it's the same type of tree.

Before I could even begin to consider the implications of that, the rest of the tree dropped exactly a meter in height, crashed into its own stump, and slowly teetered over...

1 into my apartment

2 into the neighbors apartment

3 onto a car in the parking lot

4 between the apartments

5 into an empty spot of the parking lot

*rolls dice*

And I nearly had a heart attack as it fell towards the apartments, only for it to land with a thud in between them, crushing the lantern that had miraculously survived last night's destruction. I winced at the loud crash sound it made, but that was inevitable with a tree this big. Kinda wish I'd chosen a smaller tree now. Oh well. I sighed in relief at it not being any louder by crashing into one of the apartments.

I then winced at the sound of multiple flames igniting as I heard various shrieks and moans from zombies, and I swear I never thought I could hear something rattle in pain, but that's what I heard. There was also an explosion, so I'm guessing a Creeper got ignited by the fire.

Taking a defensive stance, I looked around wildly trying to spot any enemies. I'm not too worried about the zombies, but a skeleton on fire could still shoot in game, and Creepers don't catch fire.

Thanks to my looking around, I spotted movement and saw a Creeper coming straight for me! Chucking my rock as hard as I could, it made an angry hissing sound, as it flinched from the hit, but kept coming at me, and it's not exactly slow either! Running away, I turned to see it coming after me. It's moving at about the speed of a slow jog, so I don't see it catching me if I kept going, but I don't know if it'll actually lose interest if I get out of range or not, or if it can even lose me once I've been targetted.

With no other recourse, I picked up more rubble and began the time honored tradition of kiting the enemy, or in layman's terms, I ran away when it got too close, but not far enough that I couldn't keep chucking rocks at it.

I think I must've thrown twenty rocks before I think I hit something important. Either that or the accumulative damage caused it to just fall apart. Stepping close to examine whats left of it, I wrinkle my nose in curiosity, lamenting my lack of bandana to cover my face. The Creeper actually doesn't smell that bad though. It reminds me simultaneously of the smell of ivy and the inside of my ammo tin full of fire crackers from the last New Years celebration. It's an... interesting mix.

Also roughly in the middle of where it died after falling apart is a small pile of grey dust. Reaching down to pick up some, I was slightly surprised when it automatically got sucked into my hand and then appeared in my inventory. I then became aware of one of my new abilities that would let me pick things up from a distance without having to bend down. That will come in extremely handy... I could even pick and choose what I wanted to pick up, rather than picking everything up. Interestingly, this gives me an almost preturnatural sense of my surroundings, or at least what counts as loot around me. Hopefully walking down a grocery aisle won't give me a headache...

Oh, I hadn't mentioned it before, but along with my inventory, I'm now aware of my health, armor, hunger, and breath limit. If I were to hold my breath I now know exactly how long I'd have before I'm forced to take another breath or risk passing out. Yet another thing different from the game. No 'drowning damage' I can just push past for me unfortunately.

My health also doesn't read quite like a simple HP bar of ten hearts either. There still is that, but it reads more like an average estimation of my overall health. For instance if my head gets cut off, my percentage is going to drop to 0% even if the rest of my body is left untouched. At least that's the impression I'm getting from it.

Hunger is thankfully fairly straight forward though. I risk throwing up if I overeat, but saturation is still a thing. I think I'd lose hunger points too if I threw up, so there's that. Aside from that there is one major difference from the game. If I brought up the GUI of it to look at it properly, behind the hunger shanks depicting how full I am, and the gold outline on them showing how high my saturation is, is a blue bar showing my thirst level. Useful to know, that's for sure.

Speaking of which, I'm fairly hungry. Walking back to my apartment, I grabbed a box of mini muffins from where they'd fallen off my mini fridge and popped two of the bags inside open and ate them. It stopped my stomach from growling and gave me a fraction of a shank each, along with a small bit of saturation.

I then reached into the fridge which is already unfortunately fairly warm, and pulled out the half empty bottle of juice and drained it. It might be the last time I get to enjoy something like this, so I try to savor it. Granted, it's one of the Juicy juice drinks, so they can last about a month or so on the shelves, but not so much after opening. So I'll have to be careful with them until/if I can get power running again. Grabbing the second, and last, unopened bottle, I sat it on top of the fridge, making note to come back and get it once I have a proper safe house set up.

With that in mind, I went back outside, grabbed another rock, and started the process of breaking down the tree into chunks, noting that I could also pick up the branches with leaves, automatically getting them as the left item from the game and also noting that I would be able to place them in pretty much any configuration that would still qualify as leaves of this type of tree.

Of more interest to me though is that I could convert four of these 'leaves' into a sapling for the tree. I guess that makes sense seeing as the leaves didn't just disappear, leaving saplings to spawn. Which makes me wonder what other kind of things might be different to cater to Minecraft being in reality.

After breaking and picking up the rest of the logs, all that was left was the roots and a smattering of leaves on the ground. Curious, I tapped away at the roots with my rock and found that they too broke into a log for me, also unlocking the option to turn any log into tree configuration of tree roots for that type of tree. "Interesting..." I murmured to myself.

Now for what I counted as the first, and most important, test of all. Moving a block from my inventory to my hotbar, then switching the active slot to the one with the logs, I paused to note with interest the handheld representation of said log in my hand, then with a flourish, placed it on the ground.

And I don't mean place as in drop, I mean I placed it. As in willed it to appear in a configuration like the way it was before. And lo and behold, a chunk of log a meter tall appeared in front of me. I then placed another willing it to be the same shape as the previous. It worked. I then broke that by smacking it with the representation of a log in my hand, noting that it didn't cause the representation any damage, and that the log in hand itself did have some weight, but only a small amount. Just enough to give it a small amount of heft like a stone in hand. But that's it.

I then placed another log, willing it to appear the same as the vanilla Minecraft item in my hand. And it did. I marveled at the sheer size of it. This thing is a cubic meter of thick hefty log. A giant wooden block the size of a washing machine. Considering I got this from a much smaller, but just as tall, bit of log, I can only imagine how various scientists would be screaming at the impossible creation of matter before me. Well, I'm sure they would if, you know, they were still alive anyway.

Shaking the morose thought away, I continued on to the most important step of this test. Carefully, I placed a log on top of the second one, sticking to the minecraft block standard, though noting with some interest that it's just as detailed as its normal form, just cube shaped.

Then, with bated breath, I broke the log underneath the second block...

And it's still floating.

Taking a deep breath, an evil grin growing on my face, I gave the block a tentative shove. I may as well have pushed at the Earth itself for all the good it did.

Grin now firmly plastered on my face, I mightily resisted the urge to have a maniacal laugh. There are still monsters about after all, and it's not quite the same without a lightning bolt to punctuate it.

Plus, I'm not quite done with the testing.

Of interest is that, with my hand in contact with the block, I can actually feel everything 'connected' to the block, seeing in my mind's eye, the whole of the creation connected to it. That includes the wooden logs next to it, despite them not being physically connected in appearance. It all seems to be based on this one singular grid, which as far as I can tell, I automatically defined by placing the first block, and had connected each block to this grid automatically. Interesting.

Breaking the other blocks, I stepped a bit away and focused on creating a new build grid and placed a wood block. As I expected, this one is at an angle from the other and unconnected to the previous build. That'll come in handy. Too many times I was driven mad by the game forcing me to choose between building things on a scale of one or two. Placing a single block in the center of the room when the center is a line between two blocks is one of the most infuriating things in Minecraft, second only to chunk loading issues.

Speaking of, I seriously hope that there aren't 'chunks' that I'll have to deal with in reality. The idea that things simply stop working or unload from existance the further I get away from them is the closest I think I've ever gotten to an actual existential crisis. Luckily I'm fairly adept at getting past those at this point, with the simple adage of 'Even if it were true, it doesn't really matter.' Or to put it another way, 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted.' Granted, the philosophy is more complex than that, but I don't feel like getting into it right now when I should be busy building a safe house before it gets dark.

And I have the perfect spot to build it too. Since that condo down the road is now nothing but a field with a few trees, I have no qualms setting up a patent pending Minecraft starter house there.

Smacking down a sapling where the original tree previously stood, I made my way towards Walmart so I could hopefully get my stuff, knocking down trees, grabbing wood, and planting saplings as I went.

Once I got within sight of where I died though, I slowed to a stop.

I can see it. The details are indistinct from this distance, but there, in the parking lot in front of the broken entrance into Walmart is a body. My body. With arrows sticking out of it.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I consider the problem at hand. As the arrows have so handily reminded me, there's a skeleton in there, and their aim is just as uncanny as in the game. And I have no time to waste. I've only got a few hours left until sundown, and I can't afford to die and respawn and come all the way back here again.

Ultimately, I can leave the body there and the stuff behind. I'd be losing my favorite pair of pants, spear, and my camelpack with various supplies, but it's nothing completely irreplacable. Besides, I find the likelyhood that my pants are probably stained with my blood, and probably excrement as I heard that your bowels loosen in death, means that my pants are likely a lost cause already. The camelpack might have holes in it from the arrows stabbing through my body as well. As for the spear...

It's not worth it to risk my life just for a spear. And I should be able to make better weapons now. Hopefully.

Now decided, I turned away from the body and deliberately focused on cutting down more trees, keeping an eye on my surroundings so I don't get snuck up on.

It's a good thing too, as once the first tree fell, a moment later, a few zombies, skeletons, and even some Creepers and spiders came out of the Walmart on a beeline for me. Though I noticed with interest that the Spiders halted not long after coming out into the light and scuttled their way back inside. Sensitive to light maybe?

I had more important things to worry about though as I hid behind another tree not a moment too soon as I heard arrows thunk into the wood.

Cursing in my head, I knew I had precious little time and opened the pause menu.

Taking a breather, I considered the situation. I counted about four creepers, possibly more. I can't wait out the skeletons to die as that might be long enough for the Creepers to get close enough to blow me up. But if I run, the skeletons might take me out with a shot in the back. I might be able to throw off their aim by juking back and forth, but there's no guarantee it'll work, and I don't fancy getting shot. But I don't want to be blown up either.

Maybe if I ran away from the skeletons while keeping a tree between me and it? That would put me directly towards the buildings across the street though... Unless I curved towards the parking lot, but Target likely has the same problem Walmart does.

Sighing, I realized it was the best I was going to get. There's no clean solution, so I'll have to do my best and hope that it works.

Unpausing, I took off across the street, then immediately cut right through the parking lot, doing my best to stay away from the buildings. The lack of arrows caused me to slow down and glance back. I could see the Creepers still coming, and the last vestiges of zombies being burnt to the ground, but as for Skeletons... None?

Oh that's right, they were smarter in the game, weren't they? Staying under cover to snipe you from a distance and only pathing towards you through the shadows, not risking coming out into the light. Ironic that a creature with less substance than a zombie would prove to be more intelligent than one.

Still, the Creepers are coming, and I can't risk them potentially surrounding me and cutting me off from kiting them to death. So I was careful to only throw rocks at the closest one. What followed was several minutes of running down the road from Creepers, tossing debris as I scooped them up from the crater filled road. It was long, tedious, and nearly boring if not for the threat of death by explosion.

Eventually though, I got them all to die, got some more gunpowder, and enjoyed another new found ability that became rather obvious during the fight.

I can no longer get tired. For me, this is huge. Thanks to my rather sedentary lifestyle after getting medically discharged from the military, just carrying in the groceries could be somewhat taxing on me. Nevermind that one of my disabilities is a stinging pain in my skin from overheating, and dabilitating pain from exercising in the first place.

Now? That's all out the window. No pain whatsoever, and I can just keep going for practically forever. Sure, my hunger and thirst bar drains, but that's as easy to fix as eating and drinking. So now theoretically, I can run and jump and do anything I want for as long as I have food and water to sustain myself. To my previously disabled self that would have to carefully limit anything I ever did, this changed everything.

Up until this point, a few hours to build a house, even with Minecraft abilities, felt rather daunting especially as I was limited to walking everywhere, which takes a significant amount of time, plus my usual building style in game often involves jumping. A lot. At least a meter into the air. Now, I'll grant that I still can't do that, but that doesn't mean I can't climb up that height, and it won't even be that hard!

Grinning, I set out at a nice jog down the road back towards the now empty lot where I plan to install my starting safe house. I still need more wood though. I'd much prefer to build with stone, especially with wood blocks being flammable and this being the lightning capital of the world, but without a quarry or a source of lava, I'm rather stuck in that regard, at least for now. I'll see what I can do about it later.

Along the way, I break down more trees and plant saplings. I don't really plan to build something very grand to start with, but I do need at least enough resources to make a fairly decent sized room.

Once I arrived, and after a quick look around to make sure everything's still clear, I quickly converted all of my logs into wood planks, and after making a single crafting table for later, I started setting a perimeter around the area with a two block high wall. I won't be able to sleep after all if all I can hear are explosions, moans, and rattles after all.

Once the wall was complete, and working off the same build grid the wall is on, I set up a single pillar at the corner of where my safe house is going to be, making sure it reached five meters in the air, put a block on top of that, then broke the pillar and started building from there till I had a nice platform. I then made a set of stairs up to it with a porch made from a trapdoor, which I found to my delight I could manipulate in the same manner I can sense the build grid or place blocks to make it open or close from a short distance.

I then set up walls, placed the crafting table into a corner, made a door and put it in the entrance, and had just started putting in a ceiling when I realized I have a bit of a problem. It's too dark. Without any light sources, if I leave the area, well... in the game, Minecraft mobs spawn in darkness outside of a certain distance from the player. If that holds true here, then any time I leave my safehouse, I run the risk of mobs spawning, both inside my house, and below it. I need light sources, which means torches. Inside of a wooden house.

Sighing, I realized at this point there was only one thing I could do. I only have a few hours left, so I broke what was left of the cieling as well as the floor to hopefully keep any mobs from spawning, then made a pickaxe with some planks and sticks and went to the road. It's my hope that asphalt will count as a type of stone and be useable in place of stone blocks. I don't want to tear up the road, but needs must. Besides, it's not exactly pretty on the eyes, what with all the craters and debris anyway.

Luckily my educated guess proved correct. My wooden pickaxe, while inefficient and slow, worked on the road, netting me blocks of asphalt, which I confirmed my powers view as a type of stone when I found it would let me make a stone pickaxe and furnace from it, though interestingly both are the same black color as the asphalt.

Now with a furnace available, and a decently sharp stone axe, I was able to fell a few more trees much more quickly, placing saplings to replace them as a matter of course by this point. I then rebuilt my floor and set about converting a log into charcoal using two sticks. It hadn't occurred to me that it might be a problem beforehand, but the furnace is actually slower than in game. It makes a little sense though, when you consider how long it takes to burn down wood into charcoal in real life, and that the day night cycle in the game is only roughly twenty minutes or so. I'm just glad that despite there only appearing to be a progress bar till completion, I can actually tell with my 'Minecraft sense' how long I have until the furnace is finished, which is about an hour. Now to be fair, an hour per craft is actually really terrible, especially if I want light before night falls, but there's nothing stopping me from making more furnaces.

One rather torn up road later, and I had an array of sixteen furnaces cooking up logs into charcoal, and enough stone to complete the floating safe house. It needs to be floating so the spiders can't get in, since they can get over the wall. As for Endermen, well... the floating part will still help, but the only way I can keep them out is by building the ceiling too low for them to teleport inside, and while I don't like it, two meters clearance WILL keep them out, even if it means keeping my head slightly ducked to avoid scraping my head on it myself.

The instant the first piece of charcoal finished, I grabbed it from each furnace as it came available and soon had myself a stack of 64 torches and 8 charcoal extra for more torches or fuel, whichever came first.

Upon placing the torches on the now stone walls and on little nubs of stone blocks sticking down below so I wouldn't have to place the torches on the floor, I finished the floor and ceiling, making it two blocks thick for safety's sake and for the potential for decoration later, assuming I don't build something better elsewhere later. Some Minecraft building habits die hard.

I am a little worried about something though. While it's not a problem in game, torches don't exactly last forever in real life. Would these torches last, or not? I'm worried they'll go out during the night. If they do, that's going to be a huge problem, especially if saplings take a realistic amount of time to grow too. Unfortunately I have no idea how long real torches last for. At a guess, I'll give it overnight. If they're still lit by morning, then it's probably reasonable to assume they won't go out.

Also after some thought, I partially broke down and rebuilt the staircase up to the safehouse one block out, and added a second trapdoor connected to the house itself so that the 'drawbridge' as it were is two meters long rather than one. I figure this way if the zombies breach my walls somehow, they can't touch the door even if they were to lean over the edge of the end of the stairs far enough to reach. They'd just end up falling straight down to the ground below. Only a five meter drop, but the point is access denial. Making the entrance a death trap is for after I have enough materials to potentially redesign the safe house and make it safe enough that expanding underground is a viable option.

Which honestly might take a while. Without access to lava, my only renewable building resource is wood and one can only dig down so far anywhere in Florida before you hit water. It's the main reason basements don't really exist here.

Which begs the question, what exactly am I going to do if I can't get a source of stone up and running? Wood is all well and good, but stone is a far cry better in both durability and safety, as it's not prone to being lit on fire at normal temperatures and tough enough to withstand quite a beating. If I have to go mining, I'm not sure how I'm going to pull it off. The water issue is still a problem and without prior testing, I can't confirm if the wood blocks will hold out water or not. Conventional reasoning has me leaning towards 'not', but just about any Minecraft block could hold water back from flowing anywhere, barring a few notable exceptions, so it's entirely possible.

Speaking of, I need to test if my Minecraft abilities extend enough to saying 'screw you' to reality to allow for 'infinite' water. Again, my inclination is 'no', but I'm also currently sitting on a wood block in a floating aslphalt safehouse with time paused considering my next actions to take while there's still daylight and the furnaces are working. Plus it's something of a paradoxical relief from the heat, as an array of sixteen furnaces in an almost entirely enclosed stone room in the middle of Florida of all places is almost hell on Earth, heat wise. I say paradoxically because I suspect that it isn't actually any less hot while time is paused, it's just a relief as I can't actually feel the heat, or much of anything really, with everything frozen temporally.

Before even that though, I need to take steps to ensuring my survival. I may have a shelter now, but with my camelpack stuck in the area in front of Walmart that I really don't want to be shot again trying to retrieve, I need both food and water. Ultimately enough to survive at least a week to start with, seeing as I only have enough snacks in my pockets currently to maybe last me the night. Which means another run back to my apartment to retrieve some more supplies as it's the only place I know currently where I know exactly what I can get and is still relatively safe enough to get to.

Plan set, I left the pause menu, grimacing at the wave of heat that washed over my body, and made a mental note to get the furnaces moved elsewhere soon. Perhaps a few more floors should be added to the building?

Leaving the safehouse with some relief, and then grimacing again at the fact that leaving my safehouse in the middle of the Florida summer is a relief from the heat, I moved the moving of the furnaces up in priority while setting off.

Getting around the wall currently is limited to wooden stairs in the corners and hopping down. Seeing as they're only three meters tall, it's no real hardship, though getting back in could be a small problem. I'll have to break part of the wall coming back to do it.

Once back on the now almost completely stripped stretch of road, I headed back west towards my old apartment, giving the Walmart on my left the stinkeye as I passed, knowing my body is still laying ignomiously out in the parking lot, stinking up the place.

Past that, I turned up the road towards where my ruined apartment is located. Seeing as it's still daytime, even if the sun is getting on into late afternoon, the area is still fairly clear and I make it there without any incidents.

Once there, I immediately grab the rest of my stored food and pushing it into my inventory. I then made the incredibly useful discovery that I could store a duffel bag in my inventory and it would only take up one slot no matter what I put in it, So I piled all of the rest of my non perishable food in that.

I then took note of what else to bring. I quickly threw a sleeping bag into my inventory, before pausing to consider. I don't have a way to transport my bed normally, but in game, a Minecraft character could break down their bed, store it in their inventory and bring it around with them wherever they liked.

I brought out my stone axe and considered for a moment, then decided to test it on a spare mattress first. It broke down exactly as expected and became a bed item in my inventory. Likewise so did my bed, causing me to grin as I piled my bedding in as well. How fortuitous.

I then went back out into the living room, what's left of it anyway, and started taking everything that is still salvageable. Namely my couch, at least the backhalf that wasn't crushed by my fallen giant TV, the smaller flat screen sitting in an alcove against the back wall, and the black ottomon currently acting as a shelf for a number of various things.

That last proved to not be terribly smart as everything that had been sitting on it promptly crashed to the floor loudly.

Wincing, I rushed outside, ready to book it if I so much as caught a hint of movement or heard a whisper of bone rattling.

Attacked by zombies, skeletons, and creepers

Attacked by zombies and creepers

Attacked by zombies

You got lucky.

*rolling dice*

It seems my paranoia paid off. The instant I heard zombies screeching and fire, I started running. The instant I heard whistling and the tick tack of arrows on pavement, I started juking left and right, cursing at myself for not being more careful. It seems I can tick the 'Can these mobs spawn in darkness?' checkbox, as I'm sure these guys would have come out of the woodwork earlier already when I'd brought that tree down. Pretty sure anyway. The idea that they'd be smart enough to test me by only sending out small waves of their forces at a time suggests a level of intelligence in these creatures that sends a cold chill down my spine.

I've already died twice! If they're organized enough to suggest human level intelligence then I'm screwed! I don't want to die again! Dying sucks!

Praying I'm wrong, but realistic enough to realize I should plan for the worst and hope for the best, I realize I'm going to have to alter my thinking to counter what an intelligent army of Minecraft mobs could do.

I wouldn't put it past the zombies to be able to lock open the trapdoors to cross into my safe house, or simply pile up enough that mobs could walk over any obstacle, or possibly even break more than just doors and windows.

Ranks of skeletons could possibly let off a storm of arrows that would blot out the sun and never stop since they have infinite arrows, pinning me down indefinitely if not killing me outright.

Creepers could blow my wall up voluntarily and my safehouse isn't nearly high enough that my floor wouldn't take at least some damage if a Creeper underneath it blew up. And building underground isn't safe either as they can just line up to blast a tunnel to anywhere I could go.

And don't even get me started on spiders or Endermen. Human level intelligence in either of those is enough to give my nightmares, nightmares. Spiderman meets Batman in an eight legged arachnid the size of a bear, and a teleporting alien that can grab and teleport you anywhere, and then just let go, for starters. And if Endermen ever learned how to duck, I'm not sure even living underwater constantly chugging water breathing potions would keep me safe!

As for what I could do to mitigate these potential problems… Several of them can be fixed by just building higher. If I treat this world like a skyblock and go high enough, I can mitigate the threat of the skeletons by the simple expedient of being out of range of their arrows. Zombies can't build, so ditto for them, and heaven help me if they can.

Spiders… Well, if they learn to shoot webs and webswing like Spiderman, again, I have to hope I can build high enough to get out of their range. Good thing the closest tall buildings are several miles away, so they likely won't be able to use them to bridge the gap, though if they make like baby spiders and give themselves silk parachutes to float up to me, I'm screaming shenanigans.

As for Endermen… Well, to be honest, there was nothing in the game that didn't suggest that they weren't already intelligent. They just didn't seem interested in you, at least until you looked at them. So I'd have to hope that would remain the same, as well as their physical incapability to bend over, because I have no clue how to stop them otherwise. The only thing I can think of is to keep a full water bucket or two on me at all times along with a sword and shield, ready to defend myself at any moment.

So the way I see it, as soon as I get back, I need to start towering up immediately. Once I hit a certain height I can start establishing myself up there. But then, that makes my base even MORE vulnerable to lightning and the only renewable resource I currently have is wood. One strike and my whole safe house burns to the ground. Down here I at least have a chance of avoiding that.

I sighed. There's just no good answer is there? Can't build on the ground, the mobs will get me. Can't build underground, the ground is too wet and the mobs will get me. Can't build up high, lightning will strike and the fire will get me.

What about an island?

I paused at that thought. To be honest, most of my more recent starter bases I usually didn't even begin to build until I'd sought out and found a fairly small island just far enough away from the coast to not have mobs spawn on the shore, but not be far enough away that getting to the main land for supplies is a problem.

Heck, I don't even necessarily need an island. I could simply build out to sea… and then I'd just be dealing with hurricanes, tornados, and potential giant waves, plus a lack of buildings taller than mine to handle the lightning. I just can't win, can I? Islands have the same problem. There's just no place I can set up that I won't have to deal with some sort of threat to my existence now, or some threat to my psyche as I don't want to imagine what kind of an effect dying repeatedly can have on the mind.

Pausing at the turn on the road that would take me east towards my safehouse, I looked back. The Creepers are still heading straight for me, but they're a ways off. They're all beelining straight for me, which is a bit of a relief actually, since that means they're not trying to sneak up or flank me.

Taking the moment, I opened the pause menu and looked past it at the Creepers now frozen in the act of shambling forward on their weird stubby plant feet. I probably should've done this earlier as I let myself calm down and cleared my mind.

Ultimately, I don't actually know that the mobs are intelligent, so I could be overreacting. Seeing how these creatures behave come nightfall will go a long way towards giving me intel on their behavior. For now, I'll tower up a few stories so I have a good vantage point during the night, and push comes to shove, I can drop some blocks over the stair well to stop any mobs if they break in somehow. What I do after that can wait till later.

Eyeing the Creepers down the road, I made a snap judgement and decided I didn't have time to kite these things. There's only an hour or two left till night fall and I can't waste it killing these things. If they follow me all the way back to the safehouse and they blow up my wall, at least I'll have early warning rather than finding out what they'll do when all of them show up tonight.

Unpausing, I kept up an easy jog down the sidewalk next to the stripped out section of main road leading towards my safehouse. I don't have too much stone left, having used the majority of it for the furnaces, so I'll have to make a second floor using wood. Here's hoping torches won't catch it on fire.

Making it back to my wall, I quickly broke a section of it to make a doorway, stepped through, then put it back. A quick glance around confirmed no mobs had gotten in while I was away, much to my relief. Lighting up the area underneath my safehouse definitely helped in that regard.

Going up the stairs, I paused and turned back to the wall, considering. If I ever need to get back over the wall in an emergency, I can't just break it if that emergency entails mobs on my heels.

Thinking for a moment considering the problem, a metaphorical light bulb lit up over my head. Hurrying inside the safehouse, I went over to my crafting table and made a small amount of fence posts with some wood planks and sticks. I then stepped outside and made a tall pole three meters high out of them. I then tested to see if I could climb them. Using both my hands and legs, I could shimmy up it with some difficulty, so it's not a very good option if I'm being chased.

Thinking again, I placed another set of fence blocks next to it, which prompted one pole to connect to the other. Reaching up, I found that it made a decent make shift ladder which I could climb without too much issue. The only problem is whether or not the mobs could as well.

Then I realized I was being foolish and taking some stair blocks and two more trap doors, I dropped down outside the wall after confirming the Creepers haven't arrived yet and quickly made a set of stairs two meters away from the wall and placed the trap doors to act as a draw bridge of sorts, exactly the same as I have leading to the entrance of my house. Problem solved! I then made a second one at the other corner facing the stripped out street so I'd have an alternate path to take if a mob sat itself on top of the stairs.

I didn't think I had time to make a third or fourth at the last two corners of my wall before the Creepers arrived, so I crossed the drawbridge onto my wall, automatically dropping the trapdoors behind me so nothing could follow, and feeling extremely glad that I don't have to actually stare at the doors to do it like you do in game, since I can sense them through the build grid.

I then crossed over into my safe house, stopping for only a moment at the wave of heat that smacked me in the face once I opened the door, and broke a strip of blocks from the ceiling against the back wall across from the front door, and made a set of stairs leading to the roof. Hopefully the new hole would help vent the heat from the furnaces out of the room, while I made another mental note to move the furnaces somewhere else.

Going to the edge of the roof, I looked towards the west for the Creepers, only to frown as I don't see them. Are they still that far off? They should've gotten within sight range by now… if they were still coming. What if they stopped following after I got out of sight? That means they could be milling about anywhere between where I saw them last and a ways up the road. Either way, I don't see them now.

While still idly considering the matter, I used the wood planks I had available to create another floor for my safehouse, cursing as I ran out partway through making the ceiling, and broke the planks I was using for that and turned them into their slab form and finished the ceiling. It's a little troublesome though as it gives me just enough head room to stand up straight without scraping my head on the ceiling like in the room below, but what if it gives the Endermen enough room to spawn in? Hopefully it doesn't. They're three meters tall after all, not the two and some change like I am. Still, having a clearance of 2.5 meters rather than just 2 meters is making me feel a bit antsy, even if it's nice to not brush my head against the ceiling anymore. Actually it kinda reminds me of the clearance I had in my apartment. Stretching my hand up, I can put my palm flat on the ceiling. Yup. Just like my ruined apartment. Fun.

Shaking my head, I put my hand back down and knocked some blocks out of the wall and put fence posts in them to act as window. Only to remove the fence post and replace it with a trap door as those have holes in them to see out of, since the amount of open space afforded in the gaps between the wall and fence post is more than enough to allow arrows through.

Already the heat from the room below is seeping into this one, so I busted a door size hole in the wall and made an alcove using the last of my stone, then went downstairs and moved the furnaces onto the alcove and placing torches on the walls to make sure it's bright enough to stop mobs from spawning. It's unfortunate losing the progress the furnaces had, but I don't think I can stand the heat anymore. Besides, they had already finished the next batch of 16 coal anyway, bringing my total up to 24. Aside from some saplings and the things I grabbed from the apartment, I don't have much left.

Gratefully I pulled out the duffel bag I grabbed and had a bite to eat and drinking from my last juice bottle. I'm hoping that keeping it in my inventory will leave it in a kind of stasis, preventing it from going bad. If not, at least I'll know that my inventory, and likely chests too, won't be able to magically preserve any perishable food. I'm hoping it does though since there's no means of food spoiling in the game, but we'll see. And it will open up my options for food considerably, seeing as there's plenty of food items that are still in industrial freezers and other food items that only require refrigeration after opening that I could potentially save that way.

After eating, I put my bed in my hotbar and placed it in the room on the second floor. Immediately I noticed that with my new 'minecraft sense' that let me see the build grid, I can interact with the bed to set my respawn point, confirming once and for all that I can't die and will respawn in my bed. I briefly wondered where the world spawn is, but without leaving my bed deconstructed, I have no idea. Maybe it's my bedroom in my ruined apartment?

Putting that aside, I then took my TV and the bits of the sofa I was able to save and arranged them in the room. While I can't use it without power, it's a nice touch that I hope I can use later, even if I have to set it on the floor since I don't have a table for it to set on.

Sinking onto the couch, I wiped my forehead of the sweat I'd accumulated, grimacing at how grimy I feel having been running around everywhere. I still need a source of water.

After placing the other stuff, I still have that extra mattress in my inventory. Shrugging, I placed it between the wall and my bed, just like it was placed before in my old apartment.

With little time left before sunset, I know there's not much left I can do, but there's just enough time for me to test something I'm curious about.

Leaving the safe house, I went over the wall and out to the nearest abandoned car. Its windows are smashed and the driver's side door is missing, so I have no desire to keep it. So I took out my pickaxe and started breaking it down.

A cubic meter sized chunk of the frame broke and went into my inventory. To my surprise I now have a new item that I've never seen before in the game. It's labeled as scrap, and the GUI displays it as a pile of junk, while the info window about it reveals a bit about what it consists of. This one consists mainly of plastic, steel, and fabric in various amounts.

Breaking down the rest of the car, I got more of the same, plus a few odds and ends that came separately like the engine, gas tank, wheels, seats, and lots more scrap. No iron though unfortunately, so I won't be getting a bucket that way, but maybe my powers would let me substitute in steel or plastic?

I also grabbed some more wood while I can until the sun was low enough that I didn't dare risk being outside any longer.

Taking my loot back into the safehouse, I found that I could separate out the scrap into its different materials by processing it with my internal crafting grid. I could then combine the bits of scrap left behind into chunks, which I'm hoping I can smelt in a furnace for ingots.

By this point, my furnaces had finished processing the small amount of wood I'd placed in them so I cleared it of the charcoal inside and used three of the furnaces and some sticks to start smelting some steel chunks, and then did the same with another three with some plastic chunks.

I'm not honestly sure what I'll do with the fabric scrap I got. Playing with it a bit, I found I could combine four 'pieces' of it into a fabric sheet, then four sheets into… a block of wool surprisingly. That's odd.

With nothing left to distract myself with, I equipped a stone sword and watched as the outside became darker and darker, until the sun finished setting.

Slowly, I noticed the mobs start to trickle in. First a few, then more and more. I spotted Zombies, Skeletons, Creepers, and Spiders at first, making up the majority of the creatures out there. And there's more than I expected. It's actually fairly crowded even. And they're all much more scary looking than their pixilated boxy appearance in the game would suggest. If this is the kind of numbers that showed up that first night, no wonder I didn't see any survivors!

I kept watch for a good while, observing them milling about, feeling rather relieved that they're not immediately heading for my safehouse.

I blanched when I spotted the first child zombie. The kid must've been seven, maybe eight years old. Now she's out there shambling around with the rest, missing part of her jaw and just as gangrenous and putrid smelling as the others. I had to lift up my shirt over my nose in the hopes that it would help stave the smell. The stench of death is decay has gotten to the point where it's reached me all the way up here. I can only imagine the field day all kinds of bacteria and diseases are having right now…

When I spotted my first witch, I grimaced. Whoever it is, they're just as undead as the zombies, but they're dressed in black robes and a pointy hat and covered in warts. It doesn't help when it pauses for a moment then turns to stare right at me. I felt a chill down my spine, but it didn't do anything else.

Spotting my first Enderman was a nightmare in and of itself. At three meters it towers over everything else. And something about it just feels wrong. To my surprise, as soon as it arrived, it turned to my safehouse, and if I didn't know any better, I would think the tilt to its head was actually curious. I carefully avoided looking directly at it though. It was hard, but I didn't want to risk it aggroing even though I'm viewing it from behind this trap door. I know blocks like trapdoors, doors, and glass would prevent the Endermen from getting aggressive by looking at them, but I don't want to take the chance if it doesn't hold true here.

That's how I spent a good chunk of my time for the rest of the night, just watching the mob. Just like in the game, they didn't seem to have any particular interest in anything. Just milling about aimlessly. I'm sure I won't like the results if I show my face though. But I'm not stupid, so I stay safe and just watch them through my tiny peephole in my trapdoor.