Found and Lost

I've had an interesting Minecraft experience.

So, here's the story.

A couple of months ago, I created a Minecraft survival world with plans of building a small city.  I wanted to build skyscrapers.  

I initially spawned in the midst of a rainforest.  I walked around trying to find a place to start the city...preferably not in a rainforest.  

The best I could find was a bamboo forest.

There was a lot of bamboo.  

I started to make a ground for my city.

I decided to use polished diorite (which I sort of regret. I wish I had chosen gravel instead).

I started working—alternating between mining, chopping down the bamboo, and replacing the dirt with the diorite.

I also started a small wheat farm and did some other exploring.

Then one day, I got lost and couldn't find my way back home.

I tried and I tried.

Then I gave up.

I found a....

I think it was a forest biome?  

I'm not sure, actually.

I just know it wasn't rainforest.  Though there was rainforest very close by.

I started a new city.

I repeated the mistake of using polished diorite as my ground.  Then I started working on the skyscrapers. I have a polished granite one, a stone brick one, a polished andesite one, a deepslate one, a stone one, and a brick one.

A couple are finished, some are close to finish, and others are going to be works in progress for awhile.

Oh, and I plan to start some new buildings as well. 

Though I love building.  I've also had the itch to explore.  And I've been REALLY into creating maps.

I don't know what it's called. But with the maps....

You can put a map into a cartography table along with some paper and then expand the map.  Well, it shrinks the area that you have already mapped and then leaves extra space for more mapping.  

I'm doing a really bad job of explaining this.

Maybe I should add that with mapping, you start with an empty map.  Then when you walk around your world, the empty map gets filled with the places you are visiting.

So....

I had fun creating various maps and then expanding then.

Each map gets numbered.

When I got to map #35, I decided to make copies of this particular map.  Then my secondary goal (first being building of skyscrapers) was to completely fill out map #35.

And in filling out map #35, I hoped to finally find my original city location.

It's become almost like a holy grail to me.  Or...like the lost city of Atlantis.

In the past week or so, I've taken many treks.  I've built little houses to protect myself at night...sometimes sleeping and resetting my re-spawning in them and sometimes not.  I took precautions against losing my second city by putting copies of #35 in various chests along the way and also in some of the houses.   

This way if I respawn somewhere and find there is no longer a map in that particular house, I can walk around aimlessly and hopefully find a random chest with a map #35 in it.  

Everything was going fine.

Until one day, I was exploring, and I went to check the map and saw I had gone off map.

This has happened to me with other maps, and I was able to quickly get back onto the map and find my way back.

But this time.....

No such luck.

Night was approaching, so I decided to go underground to continue my getting-back-on-the-map with much less threat of encountering the hostile mobs.  

I mined and I mined.  I walked and I walked.  

No matter how far I went, I couldn't seem to get back on the map.

Note:  My little map curser seemed to be stuck onto the top left side of the map, so my guess was that I had gone too far north and too far west.  So I thought heading to the south and to the east would remedy that.

But no.

The little map curser wouldn't move.

Well, then it did move but it moved further up on the map.  ???!!!!!

I decided to take another tactic. 

Another note: I should mention that though I had the map with me, I did NOT have a compass.  So I found myself some iron and some redstone.  I made a few compasses. That's how I was able to head south and east.

Since going south and east wasn't helping, I decided that I would go north on the compass instead.  Going north on the compass is supposed to bring you to your original spawning point.

Neither my old city or new city are at my original spawning point.  But I know (hope) that it is at least somewhat close to both of them.  I didn't travel THAT far in finding either of my cities.  

I followed north on the compass for awhile.

I decided, though, that I should probably start heading upwards and out into the over-and-above world.  Though I had enough materials to survive for awhile, I knew soon that I would need more wood for tools, torches, chests, etc.  You can't often find underground.   

I went up and then out...cut down a few trees.  

I went back under.

Then for some reason...I went back up and out again.

I saw torches in the near distance...which means I had been there before.

I went out....took some steps towards the light.

Guess what I found?

My original city!!!

I opened up the double chest I had left there and found all kinds of goodies.  For some reason, there were multiple shears. I guess I had hopes of finding sheep close by.  

It was really nice to find my old city.

My original city beginnings

Now I have to try to find my new city.

I could easily find it, actually, by letting myself be killed.  Then I will spawn back into a little house that is in the map #35 area. The problem with that is while being lost, I have picked up a ton of stuff....lots of materials for my skyscrapers plus a lot of iron and other lovely things.  If I die, I will lose it all.

I could craft another chest in the old city, put my goodies in there, respawn, and then hope to find the old city again later.

But instead, my plan is to expand map #35 some more and hope that the expanded map will include both the old city AND the new city.  

To do this, I need a cartography table and some paper.  For both of those, I need sugar cane.

I found three pieces of sugar cane and planted them.  I'm waiting for them to grow; then I will eventually be able to make an expanded map.  

Hopefully.

Once I make my way home, I'm still worried about not surviving the trek....and then losing all my carried treasures.

So I think I'm going to craft a lot of chests and put various amounts of the treasures in the chests along the way.  That way if I die, the treasures won't all be lost in the oblivion.  I'll have hope that in future explorations, I'll be able to find some of the stuff.

And I'll also keep some of the treasures with me...in case I do happen to survive my way back to my city.

Well....that's my tale.  It will probably be incredibly boring to anyone who doesn't play Minecraft and probably boring even to most people who do play Minecraft.

I'm hoping that I explained things well enough that, at the very least, my future self won't be bored reading this post.  

In other video game news:  Tim and I have been watching Mythic Quest.  I'm loving it.  It's making me want to play one of those types of games.

I think the one in Mythic Quest is modeled after World of Warcraft.  I'm not attracted to that type of setting.  I'm wondering if there's any that have settings I would like.

I wouldn't mind a Western, maybe?  

Oh!  You know what would be awesome?  A massive multiplayer roleplaying game that is based off some of the Mario Kart tracks.  I would love the water park one.

For now...I will probably just stick to playing Minecraft and Mario Kart.  

P.S-Bad news.  Between writing this and proofreading this, I grew enough sugarcane to make enough paper to expand the map.  It didn't work the way I wanted.  What I have now is an almost completely blank map with my curser still stuck in the upper left hand corner!  This map is now #39.  

I'm not sure what to do next.  

If anyone has any advice......