A few days ago, miffed at my (un)expected demise in the Nether once again, I found myself still wanting to play Minecraft and so I began yet another hardcore playthrough — this one aptly named: Crikey! The Nether is bad mmmkay.
This time I'm planning on avoiding the Nether until I've got fully enchanted diamond armour and weapons and tools. So it'll be awhile before I embrace the fiery flames of the hell regions once more. So, I like to assume that this time I'll actually survive longer than 30 hours or so.
After a great journey I found a dark oak biome where I decided to call home.
I dug a mine into a small mountain and am currently digging my life away in tunnels, with stone tools, hoping I'll finally come across some more iron post-haste!
There is an entire area I need to deforest and terraform and I really would prefer to do it with iron, not stone. I'd also prefer to mine with iron, not stone, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Finally, I reached y24, which is now one of the better heights to find iron these days, and dug a lonnngggg tunnel so that I could do some branch mining.
When, on my last pickaxe of my run, I dug into a cavern.
Hallelujah! xD What should greet me straight away but some lovely greenery I plan to steal to use as decor and some fine iron but a few steps away.
The area was dangerous, brimming with skeletons and zombies and about ten creepers. 😱 Yes. So many creepers.
I crept about the area and placed torches around to better get my bearings, all the while protecting myself from the evil that lurked in the depths. I gathered all the immediate iron and coal that was safe to gather and got the heck out of there as my torches ran out and food ran low.
During my swift adventure in the cavern, I managed to acquire 38 pieces of iron ore! Woo!
Enough to gear up, tool up, and return to the great caverns in search of MOAR IRON.
But first. Low food?? You know what that means! I need to collect some animals, breed them, and slaughter them for their delicious meats!
So I began my deforesting efforts with my new trusty iron axe. I got accosted by several creepers, one of which was being very creepy and actually climbed up a tree with me. I may or may not have shrieked and zoomed away just in the nick of time.
I love the dark oak biome for its aesthetics. Less for its mob spawning and how cutting down one tree is the equivalent of cutting down four trees.
I also like the dark oak biome for its mushroom prevalence. And so I made a bunch of mushroom stew to tide me over while I got my new farm plots sorted out.
After quite a few axes and shovels were spent, I had a nice flat area fit for an animal paddock and a path planned out to go from mine to river.
It's farmin' time!
Voila! The finished farm. I have plenty of pigs wandering around, but I'd rather lure over some cows. Hopefully I can navigate the dark oak trees without an evil creature sneaking up behind me and trying to ruin my day.
Before leaving for my cow hunting endeavour, I wrote down my coordinates lest I get lost on my journey. -1505, 5047.
In fact, next time I go to the Nether (after I'm prepared this time), I'm going to write those coordinates down too. So we don't have a repeat of me getting lost and flailing around like a loony.
I quickly found the cows. And the sheep.
At one point I had about four sheep and five cows following me! They didn't all stay with me, but that was fine... I only needed two of the cows after all.
As I tried to lead my new animals back to their pen, I was accosted by several skeletons and zombies and creepers. A group of pillagers also spawned nearby but I managed to get away from them without them really caring about me.
All that mattered was that I got these cows home!
At last. Success.
The cows were penned and ready for breeding. Soon I'll have an inexhaustible supply of steak and leather! 🐄 And milk too, I suppose.
That about wraps it up for today! Next up I have a cavern to spelunk, an area to terraform, buildings to construct, and diamonds to find!
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 
