The End Is Just the Beginning
Part 13 ~ 23 July 2025
Played: 25 March 2025
All right folks, we've spent the last four days at base, it's time for an adventure! In fact, it's time for THE adventure. It's what we've been preparing for all this time. The horses, the villagers, the nether fortress trip, the netherite... okay, the netherite is way overkill. Today it all comes together.
First thing's first – an enderchest. Yes, I can carry absurd quantities of stuff, but I'm still limited to 37 slots. This magic box will be great for stashing my surplus tools while I'm not using them. Also on my shopping list: glass bottles, a bed, a carved pumpkin, and my entire stockpile of enderpearls & blaze rods. Craft up 12 eyes of ender, saddle up my finest horse (a perfect 14.2 speed and a strong 5.1/5.3 jump), and... follow the eyes!
The first eye sent me on a bearing¹ of 110 – roughly west by northwest. By sheer coincidence, this took me back past the river mount village that I'd visited earlier when looking for horses. (It's where I got that sweet sunset pic.) While leading my horse over the water onto the boardwalk here, I was ambushed by two trident zombies from below. Turns out this river is a breeding ground for these guys... noted for future reference!
After many tosses of the ender eye, which miraculously didn't break once, I was finally turned around at -1900x. I marked the spot with a fence pole in the open field, and set to mining. A short way into the deepslate layers, I broke into a cave, and soon after found a spiral stairway built of stone bricks – the stronghold. The creepers tried their best to stop me by ambushing from behind doorways, but my shield foiled their attempts.
Before long, the end portal beckoned me, and I made my final preparations: break the silverfish spawner, douse the lava (not strictly necessary but it makes me uncomfy), light up any nearby connecting rooms, set spawn with the bed, fill the totally empty frame with 12 eyes... And swap out my helmet for a carved pumpkin. Tragically, I can't hide this one under my hair. (Yes, that's my natural hair. Honest!) It does, however, allow me to look at the endermen without them trying to murder me, even if it's just an accidental glance while I'm trying to slay a dragon. Which means I'm willing to commit a fashion crime, just this once, if it means upping my odds of survival!
Into the End, and I found myself with a gap to cross to reach the main island. Not to worry, I'll just craft up some slabs, start bridging, and... Oh heck, the dragon shot at me on the spawn platform! I didn't know it could do that. Ever prepared though, I had ender pearls on my hotbar, so I popped over to the island and out of the purple poison now carpeting the obsidian square. Whew! Okay dragon, you had the element of surprise on your side, but this is MY island now.
I promptly shot out the towers, starting with the cage ones (you can totally hit them from below, just get close to the base of the tower at the corner and shoot through the gap), then took advantage of its perching to sneak in and smack it with my 10 attack sword. Of course, I grabbed an ample supply of dragon's breath while I was at it – I have plans for this stuff. A couple more perch cycles later, and BOOM, the dragon was down. It's day 218 in-game, for anyone keeping score.
I took a moment to complete the bridge from the obsidian platform, grabbed the egg with the usual torch trick, then went to the newly spawned end gateway at the opposite corner of the island. I know you can throw an ender pearl into the teleporter, but that entails the risk of bumping the side of the block and then falling into the void. So I prefer the more dignified method of making a staircase and crawling in under a trapdoor.
I was rewarded with possibly the worst outer end spawn I've ever seen. I usually don't like to draw attention to my minimap, but LOOK AT MY MINIMAP. I'm on a tiny island, some 50-60 blocks from land, and even with Distant Horizons I can only see one end city. And I'm not seeing a ship. How far am I going to have to wander to find my wings? How much will I have to bridge over the void? Welp, time to turn on toggle crouch and start heading over there...
...Oh! It totally has a ship! It was just obscured by the buildings and/or not rendering in from that far away. Well then. This endbusting session just got half an hour shorter. All I need to do is pillar up to the boat, and... Wait, what are THOSE?
Ta-da! These aren't your standard-issue elytra – these are AMETHYST WINGS. Aren't they magnificent? I love the crystal details, and of course they are my favourite colour :D (Texture pack by Meltly on PlanetMinecraft 💜) And with these secured to the back of my hoodie, I'm flying off into the sunset – well, gliding back towards the gateway – and headed back to base to craft some rockets so I can rule over the skies!
- As taken from the Minecraft HUD. These numbers are different from nautical compass bearings, in which this direction would be read as 290. Fun facts with Ela!
