Why Didn't They Just Fly The Amethyst Wings To The End?
Part 14 ~ 29 July 2025
Played: 26 March 2025
Good morning, crafters! I've just woken up from a dream, heard the voices of gods, the universe loves me, yada yada. I've seen this one before. Skip credits!
Where were we? Right. Back in the end portal room. I've got some work to do around here if I wanna make future visits to the End easier. First thing: crack open a portal to the nether and see if I can use that to shortcut the journey with its 1:8 distance conversion. If I could fly it'd save me so mu... Never mind! This is gonna need some serious earthwork (hellwork?), and the wings are an absolute no-go for this one.
All right, next step in Operation Make the End Dimension Accessible: the classic two-way bubblevator. Can I call this classic? It's only been a thing since 1.13, but it feels like such a core part of the game now. I've actually built one already in this world, as a service entrance to the zombie well, but this one's way more important so I'll actually talk about it now lol. I've developed my own fun little design for these, optimised for space and for speed! It's got two columns side by side, one full of water to go up, and one with a water block suspended two blocks off the floor to fall down. It's up off the ground so you don't have to awkwardly swim out. SPEED. You can even orient these end-to-end so you walk under the "down" column on the way to the "up" column.
In order to build this elevator starting from the portal room, I had to break the lesser-known second rule of Minecraft: Don't Dig Straight Up. I picked a spot in the wall and dug a 3x1 hole upward, filling the middle column by pillaring up as I went. About halfway up, I broke into a cave, which I took as an opportunity to hunt creepers for rocket fuel. Back on the dig, I got a reminder of why Minecraft Rule #2 exists as a pile of gravel cascaded down – luckily not on me, but harmlessly onto the signs at the bottom of the hole. Soon after that, I broke through to the surface, and – oh, hello moon!
I marked the spot with a glass pillar (shout out to anyone who gets that throwback!) and, since it was night, looted some more creepers. And then I FOUND A PINK SHEEP! This spot has the stronghold and a pink sheep? This place needs a name. This SHEEP needs a name. Hmmmmmm...
Anyway, I need more materials to finish this job so, brb! I got back on my horsey (also needs a name btw) and headed back to Elaville. Where I immediately got to work tinkering with my fancy new amethyst wings. Some Unbreaking magic here, some Mending magic there, and... some modding magic to attach the wings to the back of the chestplate! That's right – I can have my flying cake and eat it too! :D Though it seems I have to detach the wings temporarily for Mending to work. Consider it as a curse for meddling in the dark arts!
I dipped into my supply of gunpowder and crafted a few (200) rockets, took a brief flying tour of Elaville, and then jetted westwards over the woodlands to the stronghold. There, I finished the bubblevator by dunking water down the "up" chute, dropping down, popping soul sand at the bottom, and planting kelp all the way up the water column to turn the falling water into water source blocks. With one tap of the lowermost kelp piece, a stream of bubbles emerged from the soul sand reaching all the way up to the surface. This thing is FAST – it's some 90 blocks tall, but I can go from stronghold to grassland in a mere 8 seconds.
Lastly for today, with my newfound mobility I couldn't resist paying another visit to that river-mount village to see if I could get my hands on a trident. I spammed torches around the place until dusk, then dove in. And oh boy, this place was EVEN BETTER than I thought for water zombie spawns. Not only is there a deep, wide arc of river around the village, THIS THING KEEPS GOING! There's a huge "lake" of river biome beyond, and more sections forking off that, far enough that I can despawn the drowns at the village before swimming back there. It was like the pool stage of Plants vs Zombies. I had my trident before dawn. I'm gonna go enchant this bad boy and take down some ocean temples!
