Bergbau für den Sieg! -- Minecraft succession game

[CaptainHaplo]

Day 5, Entry by Chief Engineer Wilhelm Putz

That sorry excuse for a navigator came running into the camp this morning screaming about incoherently about the walking dead. He refuses to leave the camp now, instead he sits blubbering about the Kapitan being a moaning zombie. He was useless to begin with, but he is doubly so now.

Our supplies are low. We have wood and some coal, but we need food. Our tools are mere stone and sticks. If we are to survive until we are rescued, then we must be better prepared. Also, we need to see if there are any more survivors, and we need a way to find our camp if we stray too far. I get a few men to help and we build a tall tower outside camp, with a torch burning so that it can be seen from some distance.

The navigator has written a log entry, and it mentions Iron. I bet the fool has found nothing but colored rocks. Still, it would be best to check out. I take the shabby tools and some torches to investigate the tunnel he exited.

I follow it and he has done something right, for one. The cave is well lit. No "monster denizens" to be seen - though I admit I was one who saw one of those arrow shooting skeletons. Having grown up near the Black Forest, I know there are things which we cannot explain. All the more reason to prepare!

Well what do you know - it IS Iron. I quickly chip all I can from the first vein, then continue one. There are 2 others I find, and have a good solid load when I leave the cave. I give the iron to one of the machinists who did an apprenticeship with a blacksmight as a young man. He says its good quality and can be smelted. Maybe enough for some crude protection. He starts to work right away.

It is still daylight, and I saw a few of those wild bovine near the camp. Stone isn't good for weapons, but my oversized stone knife is big enough to make quick work of about 4 cows. They are quickly cleaned and the leather meat hauled back to camp. Thankfully it isn't far and the crew helps with gusto - they are excited about the food. By the time we get back, the machinist is hard at work. He has what looks like some leggings and a hauberk, with some shoes and a helmet cooling. Fast work! With all that, a man might have some protection from the crazy creatures roaming around.

We eat a good meal, and I take a quick nap. When I wake, the "armor" is cool enough to handle, I put it on. Sure, I look odd and its heavy, but this might just help me avoid getting killed. Our new "blacksmith" used all the Iron we had. Still, he says if we can find more, he can make better tools for us. Something to think about.

Its dark now, but I think I will go out and check the tower. A few of the men warn me about monsters in the dark, but I haven't seen anything in the day, so maybe now is a good time to see what might be out there. I check the tower, its a good beacon for now, just not big enough to be seen from too far. Well, for now it will have to do. Our rescue beacon will be much bigger.

As I stand on a small hill, I look around in the dark and see two giant spiders.



Rage lights in me suddenly, the Kapitan died because of these creatures. Recklessly I run down the hill and attack them. They hiss and spit, trying to leap upon me.



Revenge is mine! They fail to even damage me, and I have avenged the Kapitan. Their carcasses yield some fine silk string. I return to the camp for rest, adreneline crashing has me tired.

[CaptainHaplo]

Day 6, Entry by Chief Engineer Wilhelm Putz

I wake the next morning as the men feast on the leftovers from the night before. We have some food, but we will definitely need more. The problem is that if we hunt all the nearby game, we will soon have nothing to hunt. Growing food is time consuming. It may be something we try in the end, but there is an ocean nearly right outside our door. If only we could fish....

Inspiration hits me. The silken string I got from the spiders last night! I quickly fashion a fishing pole and head out. I spend the better part of the day fishing.



Success comes quickly. Strike after strike and I soon have a nice string of fish to fry. With all the wading in the shallows, I notice some clay. With my shovel I soon have a large load to take back to camp. A late lunch of fish, the men experimenting with the red clay, and I have a hours of daylight to go. Looking out of our camp, I see the two caves in the side of the mountain. Perhaps its time to check them out.

I search first one, then the other. There is some coal in one, the other is just a large open cavern Still, the exploration takes time. I fix some torches up so we can see inside if we climb up. As I exit, I marvel at the beauty of the moon rising behind the hill that sits atop our camp.



As I head back to camp, I put two torches up where we last saw one of those skeleton archers. Perhaps it will be the next place to be explored.

************************************************** ********************

This ends the 2nd 3-day period. Who else wants in on this? I have the save ready to email. So PM me if you want to play it!

[Safe-Keeper]

Since there are no other applicants, I might as well have a turn again. Just send it over to oyvindsw@hotmail.com.

[Safe-Keeper]

After having played another turn, I'm increasing the play time of each player from 3 to 4 days and nights. Gives you more time to get stuff done.

- Day 7 -

Leutnant zur See Johannes Kregelin reporting.

Has it really been a week already? It is amazing how much time has passed, and how we have all coped -- and, more importantly, how so many of us have survived the week.

When dawn breaks, we'll have to get to work again. I, too, am highly curious as to what’s inside the caves around us, but we’ve decided the first order of the day should be the building of a larger and safer home.

Unable to sleep, I venture into the wilderness again, even though it is night. Lighting up our surroundings like a christmas tree was supposed to give us a feeling of safety and keep the monsters away, but I fear it is attracting them instead, like moths to candles. They seem to understand there's fresh meat to be had in the direction of the lights. We'll keep fighting them off, though, there can't be that many more left.



The walking dead wear ordinary clothing, and they look like they have been dead for years. Our first guesses were that some kind of sick Allied experiment had taken place, but judging by how there’s also skeletons afoot, with no meat left on their bodies, I guess whatever happened here took place a long time ago. If this is the result of some kind of research project gone horribly wrong, it happened long before the war began.

What scares me is that we've been here a week without anyone coming to pick us up. The Destroyer sunk us within swimming distance of this island, and you would think they would have sent someone to capture us a long time ago. Many of the men theorize that we have ended up in a different word, which would explain the strange and terrifying creatures we have encountered. I hope it is not so.



At least the zombies have all been unarmed so far, and they don’t fight well, they just come at us with their arms outstretched. Even unarmed, we kill them easily. With our crude stone tools, they go down even faster. We’re still adamant we won’t eat their meat, though. It reeks of rot and mildew and would probably kill us if we ate it.

I decide to head down into the mine opposite from our makeshift home, in part because we need stone if we’re going to move house. I take out some coal, but leave most of it be, as we don’t need more right now. I also find more iron, however. It will come in handy, our “blacksmith” will be able to turn it into weapons, buckets and tools.



I end up spending quite a bit of time in the cave network, because I get lost and can’t find my way out. Signage might be needed. We could make signs easily out of wood and write on them with coal. It would help us navigate the tunnels far more efficiently, and also map out hazards for each other.

Enough dawdling. We have big plans, and need to get to work. I have our “smith” throw the iron into our oven. The ore is turned into an iron sword, a bucket, and an iron pickaxe. That should make our clumsy mining attempts a lot more efficient.



Meanwhile, those of us capable of doing heavy manual labour or guard duty climb up in the mountainside to the big cavern with our cobblestone. The cavern will be our new home.

We fortify the back entrance.



Then the front.



Then, when we dig out coal from the ceiling, we find an opening that leads to one of the "side cave" entrances. This is great – it will be our main entrance, allowing us to block off access to both the other openings. Our blacksmit even believes that given enough iron ore, he could fashion a crude iron door.

We work throughout the night, heaping rocks upon rocks. In the morning, our stronghold is taking shape. We christen it Festung Vampir.



- Day 8 -



Dawn, day eight. Our sick and wounded surprise us when we return. They have put blocks of clay in the oven and burned it into small bricks. We reckon we could use these to fortify our new cavern home.

We designate the entrance of the Spider Cave our quarry, and spend the morning taking out stone. Then we spend the rest of the day building our new mountain fortress. Rain pours down the entire day.

This wall will keep the creeps out, but not the cold and rain. We need to either seal the opening off completely somehow, or build structures inside the cave out of stone or wood. Wood might be a better option than stone, as wooden structures will be easier to heat. We could also experiment more with turning sand into glass.

Either way, tomorrow we will probably have to head back to the forest and get more wood – we have very little left. We’ll also have to decide if we want the existing hideout for anything, or if we should take it apart to provide materials for our new home.

- Day 9 -
We get the wood gathering done today, and also planted some new saplings that will grow into new trees some day. We then get back to work on our new fortress. We fortify the "side tunnel" entrance with bricks and a wooden door. It’s agreed among us that a door made of iron should be a high priority if we come upon another vein of iron ore.

We fill the cavern with torches. They make the dark room a bit cozy and also provides a little bit of warmth as we huddle up around them.



Then we get to work sealing up the entrance a bit, and we also add a walkway on the inside of the wall.



It still doesn’t look nearly as visually appealing from the outside, but it’ll keep us safe. We can always work on making it prettier in the future.

[Safe-Keeper]

I'm wondering if we should call this one off due to lack of interest. What do you say, Halo?
Edit: I'll email the save to you and whoever else wants it.

[CaptainHaplo]

I think we should, unfortunately.

Perhaps some minecraft novella's - give yourself say 3 lives total, and play it out as far as you can with a story.

I may do the same soon. I'd love to hit a good random seed - so far my last few attempts at new games have put me in really bad spots.

[Safe-Keeper]

Ya, don't really understand the lack of interest here, to be honest, I expected loads of people to sign up. Might start a separate thread to ask people what their feelings are.

Oh well, was fun while it lasted! I'll send the save file to you now!

Perhaps some minecraft novella's - give yourself say 3 lives total, and play it out as far as you can with a story.

Or a game where several players start at the same spot, and we then play for, say, a month and then submit let's plays. Would be interesting to see what different people do to the same start area.

I may do the same soon. I'd love to hit a good random seed - so far my last few attempts at new games have put me in really bad spots.

I'm really happy with this seed, it has a very "Norwegian" landscape and is also really exciting in that it has loads of caves and animals and diverse biomes and magma right at my doorstep.

I feel I need to get better at regenerating "bad" starting positions, though.