Hi gang! Do you know the movie The Village? It's an old movie, came out around 2004, and although the plot is a little unrealistic I always enjoyed it for its well played out atmosphere and the overall acting. No spoilers, but it roughly tells the story about a medieval village (my estimate for time period would be around 1900). It's a small village (around 50 people live there) and surrounded by thick forest. The only problem is that there are dangerous creatures living in the wild which prayed on humans. Fortunately the village has managed to establish a truce over time: the villagers won't cross the village borders to enter into the creatures territory and in return the creatures leave the villagers alone. It's not the greatest movie where story line goes (if you know the ending you'll soon realize how unrealistic it is for the village to maintain the status quo it's in) but despite that I always enjoyed it for what it was: A fantasy (/horror) tale about a medieval village with several mysterious and scary monsters around it. Why I'm telling you all this? Well... Look what I found on the live map (SMP2 wasteland, west from the Northern outpost): It's a village pretty much surrounded by a forest. That just begged for a further investigation! And so we did. I really had a fun time exploring and sceneries like these often spark my fantasy and imagination. THIS is what Minecraft really is to me So make yourself comfortable, get a cup of hot choco and let's get this fantasy story started! The (Minecraft) village in the woods It was a day just like any other. I was hanging around on my residence and noticed that my wood reserves got a bit low. Nothing serious to worry about because I got my own in-door tree farm. All it requires is some actual effort to chop down and replant the trees. And the problem here being "effort" After stripping my jungle tree of its vines and then cutting it down I considered myself lucky: I didn't get four but six saplings back. 4 to use for replanting and 2 for my storage. But surely there should be a better way? If I could find myself a jungle then I might be able to get a whole lot more wood and saplings. I decided to walk over to my other residence where some villagers have actually build a miniature village for themselves. They basically live there and help me to maintain my wheat field. When I asked the village elder if he might know the location of a jungle he nodded and tells me of a villager legend: a magical forest where the trees would grow so high that they'd block out the sun. If you chopped down any trees you'd obviously get some wood but it would also drop saplings which you could then replant. I told the villager that this wasn't really all that special, I did this on my residence all the time, but then the true morale of the villagers came out: those saplings were worth a lot of emeralds. At least to the villagers who lived close by. Although he wasn't sure the elder villager reckoned that these trees had to be jungle trees, because jungle is one of the favorite wood types of the villagers. So that was soon settled. I asked my friend Aya to join me and we soon set sail for the village in the woods! The forest After sailing for more than a day we finally found a small island and we decided to take a quick stop to gather some extra supplies and get something to eat. "Well, I got good news and and I got bad news", I told Aya who immediately sighed: "Always making things difficult, eh Shell?". I grinned: "Well, the good news is that according to this map the village is only around 200 blocks away from us.". "And the bad new is probably that there's a giant zombie waiting to stop us?", Aya asked. "Naah, nothing that bad", I said: "We only need to get through the forbidden forest which is rumored to be infested with skeletons, their creepery bodyguards and some zombie henchmen". "Are you sure you don't want to check if some of the shops in town have some jungle saplings for sale?", Aya asked in return. We decided to wait for sunrise so that we could cross the forest with as much light as possible. As you probably know most hostile mobs don't really enjoy the bright sunlight. Unfortunately things don't always go as planned. When we woke up the next day a storm had come out of no where. It rained, there was some thunder rumbling in the distance and we knew that this wasn't going to be easy. "At least the forest blocks all the rain", Aya said while we were using our axes to cut a path through. "Yeah, that's the good news", I said: "the bad news though is... DUCK!". As if we had been expected several skeletons started shooting at us from all around our position. While I kept cutting the vines and leaves away to make a path Aya quickly returned fire and forced the skeletons to hide behind the trees. "Hurry up!", Aya said: "it'll only be a matter of time before they'll sent in the creepers". Fortunately for us we had almost made it through the forest. "Here, a secret passage!", I yelled after I discovered a small sand trail. We decided to make a run for it and after half an hour we suddenly saw sunlight in the distance. That almost looked like an open space. Could it be? Unfortunately for us all the trees turned out to be dark oak trees, which wasn't really the type of wood I was looking for. On the positive side though we had actually made it through the forbidden forest and it soon became apparent that the monsters had called off their attack. So far, so good! "Look!", Aya said and pointed to some houses. We did it! We found the village in the woods! "Welcome, welcome!", one of the villagers said while running towards us: "You are the first visitors we've had in ages. Please make yourself comfortable and enjoy our hospitality". Well, that sounded good to us! A villager came up to greet us While we walked up to the buildings it didn't take long for the whole village to come out. It became obvious that they didn't get much visitors. Not that surprising with such a thick and dangerous forest around. "What brings you to our village young man?", one of the villagers asked me. I told him how we were hoping to find a jungle around here but unfortunately for us he told me that the dark oak was the only thing that grew in this area. Well, so much for that idea. We decided to help the villagers with the harvest and replanting of their crops. The villagers told us that they really didn't mind the forest all that much, the creatures usually left them alone and their gardens provided them with all the food the needed. So they basically led a very peaceful existence. "Oh, the sun is almost setting, we really must hurry!", one of the villagers said. I asked him why, didn't they just told us how the creatures usually left them alone? The villager sighed. "Yes, they do. The forest creatures mostly leave us alone, but the creatures from the gloom cave.. that's a whole different story", he said with a sad voice. "Gloom cave?", I asked. Then the villager told me that a few years ago several villagers decided that they really needed to try and get some ores on their own because it became obvious to them that there wouldn't be many visitors around to trade with. So they started a huge mining expedition and because they didn't really have much space it was decided that the mine would be made right behind the church. At first they spend days digging up dirt and making the hole bigger, but after the third day it seemed that fortune smiled upon them: they discovered a huge cave which contained tons of coal and iron. "So what happened?", I asked him. "We better get inside first", the villager answered. The village in the woods The whole village gathered in the mess hall for the evening meal. I sat next to the villager I talked to earlier and asked him to continue his story. It turned out that everything went just fine at first but then a younger villager had an idea to speed things up: he had found some gunpowder near a river bedding and decided to mix that with sand to create TNT. The villager sighed again: "The good news was that we could clear out the cave pretty quickly", he said: "but the bad news was that it also opened up a huge pit and all sorts of evil creatures came out". Aya grinned: "what is it with everyone suddenly having good and bad news all of a sudden?", she asked. Before I could say anything a loud banging noise came from the front door: "they're trying to get in!", a villager screamed in panic. "Not on my watch!", Aya said while pulling out her sword on her way for the front door. "Get lost u, we don't want to buy any encyclopedias today!", she said while opening the door and slashing away at the zombies outside. After the fight was over we decided that we couldn't really abandon these guys to fend off that invading army for themselves. So the next day we would head out into the cave to investigate. The next day we entered the cave and while we slowly made our way down it didn't take long before several arrows were fired in our direction. Fortunately we had shields with us which protected us. It took us a while but eventually we managed to take out the skeletons at the bottom. "Got any torches?", Aya asked. I nodded and threw some over after which we decided to split up. I carefully grabbed my voters bow and shot some flaming arrows into the cave before me. This allowed me to see and much to my surprise it almost looked as if the cave was empty. But.. then where did all those creatures come from? After a good 30 minutes I had finally explored the whole cave on my side and other than a spider and some bats there wasn't anything dangerous to be found. Most peculiar. I back tracked the torches I placed and then walked into Aya's direction. After a few minutes I found Aya who seemed busy to inspect a wall. "Found anything?", I asked: "My side was completely empty", I said. "Shhht!", Aya answered. I slowly walked towards her while she pointed at the wall. I pressed my ear onto the wall to listen and... That's strange... It's almost as if someone, or something, is making noises in there. "It must be a secret cave", Aya whispered. I nodded: "So now what?", I asked. "Got any arrows left?", Aya asked. I nodded. "Good", she said with a normal voice again: "Let's knock on the door to see what happens". Before I could ask what she meant by that Aya had grabbed her pickaxe and started smashing it against the wall. "That seems rather pointless to me", I said just before the whole wall came crumbling down. "ok, scratch that". "Shell, look!", Aya said while she quickly hid behind some rubble. I quickly ran up to her and looked. We found a ravine of some sort. Pitch black but judging by the sounds of it it was infested with creatures. I quickly peered over the edge and saw some kind of wooden pathway covered in cobwebs. "I'm sure we found their lair", Aya said. End of Part I I didn't plan for this to become a multipart story but it's getting late here and I have to get some work done tomorrow. So I'm going to leave it here for now and if all goes as planned I'll finish the story tomorrow.
I'll read the post later, but I opened this thread so I could 'watch' it, and the second sentence struck me... How can you say it's an old movie when it came out after my birth?
Part II (and ending) So there we were, on a ledge overlooking a ravine and a passage way across which was filled with cobweb. It became obvious that we had found a lair of some sort. "So what's the plan?", I asked. We decided that I would fan around to the other side and place torches after which I would stand ready with my bow to provide support. Just while I was placing some torches a creature walked by and spotted me. Uh oh... time to bring out my bow! It didn't take long for Aya to jump down and shoot all the baddies. "All clear!", she said after grabbing her shears and starting to cut away all the cobweb. "Wow, this place looks huge!", I said. I shot a flaming arrow into the ravine and it looked as if went on for miles. We decided to explore the tunnels a little bit and light up the area. "I wonder what's up with all those cobwebs", Aya said when we discovered a bent in the tunnel. After a while we discovered that the tunnels twisted and eventually ended at the bottom of the ravine itself. "Look, there's the last section", Aya said while pointing to another tunnel at the other end when we suddenly saw a several red eyes staring at us from the tunnel: "Who daresss intrude the valley of the ssspiders?", a eery voice said. "We do", I said before shooting the spider with my bow. "One down, many to go". "Perfect place for an ambush", Aya said. I nodded: "I'll backtrack and find my way up so that I can light up and clear out all the ledges". Easier said than done of course, but eventually I managed to climb back up and move ahead while carefully leaving torches behind. This went on for half an hour or so after which the valley came to an end. "There's one final tunnel here", Aya said: "Oh look, a chest!". I made my way down while Aya was busy trying to open the chest: "I. can't. budge. it.", she said. I also started pulling and finally it gave way and crashed open. "Freeeee, finally freeee!", a ghostly voice yelled. "I sense an eery presence", Aya said. The chest contained some bread, diamonds and several tracks of rails. Always handy to keep around. We started making our way to the final tunnel when we suddenly noticed a strange device. Fully covered in cobwebs it looked like a strange cage with flames in it. "That must be where all the creatures are coming from", I said. Aya nodded: "look, in the distance, there's another one!". "Well, the good news is that they haven't spotted us yet", I said. "Wrong!", Aya yelled when she quickly fired a few arrows. Darn, so much for our surprise effect. What followed was a rather tiresome battle, it almost seemed as if there was no end to the spider invasion. Just after we thought that we had killed all the spiders would the next suddenly appear. But fortunately with a little persistence (and some good armor!) we managed to prevail and we destroyed all the spiders and the strange devices which seemed to spawn them. "So what was the bad news?", Aya asked while she remove the last pieces of cobweb. "Yeah, good question", I said: "But I can think of something: now we have to climb all the way back". Valley of the (now removed) spiders But fortunately for us we eventually made it. And there was even a strange skeleton flying around. "I am Marlix and I will now be protecting this village", it said. Well, that sounded helpful enough. We said our goodbyes to the villagers after which Marlix pointed us to a shortcut. There was a small mountain area which allowed us to quickly make our way to the ocean so that we could sail back home. Convenient. I suppose we should have tried this approach when we just got here, it would have saved us a lot of effort getting through the forest. Oh well, at least we ended up getting a ton of goodies from the mines. And that's the story The villagers lived happily ever after, Marlix would now protect their village and the Gloom cave was now open for all to safely explore and get some loot from. The End And if you want to explore this area for yourself (there's still a Marlix and plenty of ore to be found) then you can! Just go to the North waste outpost and be sure to bring a boat. Get into the ocean and sail all the way to the West, the coordinates are above. If you check the livemap (see my screenshot in the first message) you'll see that there's an opening at the right side of the village. That is the easiest way to get there from the ocean. We circled around it and came in from the north, but that's because I was trying to avoid the night time and was also hoping that we might fine some jungle trees there. Now to try and find some jungle
I haven't got that, but I suppose I could make some tea! I haven't done that in a while. I like that. Hahaha! :D This reference is especially lovely because non-EMC'ers won't get it. Great story!! I had fun.
