Chapter 12: I despise swamps

After playing with my magic wand I happily have ranged options I can improve upon, in fact, it has monumentally improved my flexibility.

None the less the mental exhaustion is catching up so I recuperate for a couple of hours, my sleeping schedule is in tatters, its day right now but I stayed awake through most of the night, the nether is weird you never know what time it is.

Well, none the less I collected what I went for and more. Crafting up a brewing stand, I start preparing a chest with ingredients; I should get brown mushrooms soon to make fermented spider eyes. Since my eyes aren’t for use. Checking the recipe for fire-resistant potions I realize I neglected the most important ingredient, magma cream. Thankfully I recall slime and blaze power works as a substitute.

Now I need a slime? Well, none the less I produce a speed potion, I enhance it with Glowstone to improve its potency; a get out of jail card. Incase things get hairy.

I need to find a slime island ideally, a slime sapling is immensely useful. For slime obviously. A slime cube would work too but I neither have slime or a nether star.

Well back to being productive, crafting a compass, for personal use I also make the dials and stuff for my airship. Allowing for height and cardinal directions. Speed as well, which is cool but useless as it moves like a snail. They are called measuring gauges if you want to be politically correct in the art of airships so I will refer to it as a flying compass for convenience sake.

Honestly, with some perseverance, I could make my whole home on top of an airship. Not going to do it but I could. Call my captain!

I am getting distracted back on topic, slime I need slime. Creating the flying compass and placing it onto my jet. I prep food, water, and my wand along with tools and armor. I then fly in a cardinal direction, east which is past the mountain. I am careful not to stray off the cardinal direction so I don’t get lost, flying for a long time: losing sight of the mountain. Burning daylight for sure.

I start to shake a little I have never been away from home, the shaking gets worse. Fine, turning around I head home, another day. “It's not that important anyway”: It is very important.

Wait I am stupid and forgetful, I got it, combining purple dye and paper I craft a position filter, right-clicking it marks this location, surrounding my compass with gold creating a golden compass, together they make a compass that always points home. I got it a method home, how did I forget, I guess it was never that useful before. I would like more than 1 method to find my home but for now, this will do.

I can finally explore safely! I am ecstatic.

Not foolproof, mind you; random things truly is a very convenient mod. I had been thinking about that conundrum for a while, how can I find my home? I guess running away from my problems mentally ran me towards the answer to solve them; my memory is not as reliable as it once was.

What am I talking about I was not even past my twenties before I died; just call it a bad memory.

Back to my moderately delayed adventure, cresting over the forest I pick a new random direction to go; no longer inhibited by getting lost. Primary goal: Slime island, secondary goals include – civilization, structures of man-made origin, curiosities that could lead to future mod advancements.

“Onwards to new sights and better food!” sighing internally, still as silly as ever; are mental health checks available in separate dimensions and universes? What am I talking about its already impossible to get one before I expired.

Now unrestricted by the direction I choose to go upstream. With hope I keep an eye out as I pass by the terrain, looking upon the earth like a God on his mighty throne; outside my imagination, I look like a smug twat in weird clothes.

“This forest is massive” I speak in a hushed tone, I never anticipated to only see hues of green. This will be more difficult than anticipated; revised goal, find either a slime island or swamp.

I should clarify the spawning conditions slims relied upon inside the game. Three points of note, really. Slime chunks, which are chunks slimes can spawn in irrespective of the other two conditions I will state further. Anomaly, now aside the other 2 are below 30 blocks from bedrock, if I recall in cavernous environments. Third, swamps; I hate swamps! They are damp, slippery, dangerous, and just plain vile. None the less my best hope for finding the material I require.

Using common-sense I try and identify a decline in the terrain, where water could potentially pool; this would create the environment I am looking for as far as I’m aware. Spotting an indicator; a slight slope downwards to the east. Following it with fervor, I continue to follow the decline, noticing a rise in humidity, sighs of a – swamp!

As I continue down I find myself upon an almost bog-like swamp of trees and vines plenty. The dramatic shift in environments is jarring, to say the least.

At a minimum, it is comforting to have some rules to how biomes appear; this being a clear example of a logical appearance of a swamp, even with clearly defined biome lines.

Pondering on the inner machinations of this world can wait for after gathering the materials I require. So, relaxing the speed of my vessel I descent holding steady above the treeline; if it can be called that, given the sparsity of the gnarled wood, referred to as trees.

Gliding over keeping an eye out for the lime green among the dirty green ground. The night will fall in a few hours, time waits for no one, I don’t wish to be in unfamiliar land when night falls; disaster strikes upon night time.

After what felt like hours but much more likely was within 1 I find what I am looking for, a large-sized slime, hopping from dirt to dirt; Avoiding the network of stagnant water pooling in every crevice.

With a target I choose to disembark my silly little jet, choosing to continue this hunt on foot. Ideally, this would be an easy fight; comparative to the blazes. But appearances can deceive in this world, as I so learned. Recalling them in the past game they were pitiful little creatures, encumbered by the size they grow to, they struggle to escape water from what I recall. And the behavior they exhibit lends credence to this line of thinking.

So with a rough plan in mind, equipping my tools: a helmet and chest plate, along with my axe and a flint and steel. Armour is hardly needed when fighting something that fights with dissolving liquids, but it’s a protective measure over other possible situations.

The axe will be my weapon of choice, sturdier than a sword, the flint and steel is simply a gut feeling.

With my gear on and speed only partially encumbered, I get within sight of it, a somewhat deep pool of scummy water between us. As expected it starts to hop around the pool, thankfully slowly. It likely has limited speed.

As it comes closer I prepare to hit it banking away from its hop before diving in and striking the jiggling mass; the impact creating waves upon its body. The damage minor, but information – major.

I slowly chip away at it, preparing for it to split. After my 4th strike, it trembles before falling apart and recombining into 2 medium-sized slimes; as anticipated.

I am grateful the slime is not sticky; while part of said slime. I had wondered if my weapons would be glued to its body since its dropped-item “slime” is used as an adhesive.

These 2, new slimes I noted are faster now they are not needlessly large. I assume the trend will continue with further divisions. Still, far slower than me; I continue the long process of dodging, hitting, dodging… and so on. I focus on 1 of the slimes causing it to further divide.

Producing 3 small slimes, harmless in the game, but I neither am reckless nor stupid enough to test if they are harmless without precautions.

With the final split into 3 small slimes, the speed went up further but not by an equal amount, assuming its diminishing returns. Similar to rabbits, yet far cuter; they dart around me as I eliminate them with a simple strike. Weak little things.

Continuing this trend I have now killed all but one of the slimes; a small slime. Since 1 small slime is unlikely to be a danger I allow it to approach me. With some caution I stroke it. As anticipated very gelatinous and jiggly, but not overly so. It seems to be far more docile than its parent; given they divide like cells. None the less it still approaches me with some aggression but its acidic properties are far weaker in this form, causing irritation at most.

Collecting my “spoils of war”, so to speak I take count of how many I collected: 7 slime, adequate for now. I am sick of this swamp after all, and I may very well get sick staying here; “God I hate swamps”.

With my goal achieved, I start walking to my craft. Noting the slime still hopping towards me, as if it could stomach me. Hmmm, fine you are coming home with me.

Flying home with spoils of war and a… pet? Maybe I can use you to make more slime rather than having to make a trip to the swamp every time I run low! For now, you can just chill at my home, I will allow it to roam free within the confines of my fence.

Reaching home, with a grateful breath of familiarity, my lingering fears of getting lost; melt away. Tossing some leftover bread into my new slime, he? She? It gobbles it down quickly.

While my slime is now digesting its meal, I go towards my brewing stand, I have a few glass bottles so by hand mixing the slime with blaze powder [to bypass having to craft it together], I create an amalgamation of firey glue that should, in theory, produce a fire-resistant potion. “One can only hope I guess,” I say with a forced smile.

Moving on to producing the potion, [which are produced in sets of 3] I quickly tap away on the wooden countertop, praying to Felix that my potion works. And with a puff of smoke out the top of the perpetually hot brewing stand, the potions rests. A beautiful orange colour, bubbles along the side. It worked and I cannot be happier, calm happiness – success.

With it still fresh in my mind I use one of them to produce the heatproof vest. Donning my new, rather pricy gear I can instantly feel, cooling and relaxing sensations travel through the vest. I do believe this will do.

Placing it safely away in a chest for when I next go “hell diving”. I take a short rest, continuing to read up on the magic guide book. Rome was not built in a day so magic theory shall be my only pastime for now.

I should make the guide book for random things, it exists right? Should do I could have sworn I have used it before.

After checking, I can verify the book does not exist… a shame. Not to be so dishearted I can still open NEI and just search that mod, not as clear-cut what an item does, but with intensive focus investigating said item, sussing out its use is possible. It how I was able to recall the golden compass, during my downtime I was searching through random things and spotted it, but thought nothing of it at the time; I was struck with inspiration at a later date as I used it once before, testing it rather than to actually use it. Hence why it was hard to recall.