Horse Play
Part 9 ~ 6 July 2025
Played: 20 March 2025
Today's task was a simple one – bring the home the horse with the good jump stat that we found last time. To make things more spicy, I decided to do so through the nether rather than go overland again. This way, I'd have the beginnings of a fast travel network – this horse spawned near a village (specifically village #2 of 3), which is a point of interest worth having a shortcut to.
Checking the coordinates, I figured it'd be about 200 metres in the nether. Unfortunately, that 200 metres consists of 50 blocks bridging over a chasm in soul sand valley, followed by 150 blocks tunnelling, mostly on a diagonal, through basalt. Oh well, at least nothing can spawn in there¹. I actually ended up cutting the dig short because I broke through into an open basalt field. So, I closed it off, put down the portal, and... popped out right in the village! I meant to put it away from the village to stop the locals from wandering in (and get closer to the horse), but you know what, this works too.
I crossed the river to the north, found my steed, and rode it back to the portal. Then, in a rare L for pre-1.20, I had to dismount and push it through to get it into the nether. My tunnel was *barely* wide enough to fit a horse, and it bumped the side of every block on the way through... noted for future diagonal tunnels! But, we got home unscathed. And without skipping a beat, jump-horse and speed-horse got acquainted :D
With my horse bloodline established, I need somewhere to house them. To that end, I leveled a site just around to the west and broke ground on a stable. It's... a bit tight to say the least. The horse doesn't even fit through a fence gate lol. Shows how much experience I have with these creatures! I'll try this again next time.
- The only spawns in Basalt Deltas are magma cubes and ghasts, which need a 3x3x3 and 5x5x4 space to spawn. So 2-wide tunnels in the deltas are automatically spawnproof!
