Chapter III: Far, Far Away
Tacky emerges into a dark cavern. He checks his coordinates and is (momentarily) horrified to discover that he is more than 3,600 meters west of and 2,000 meters south of the Point of Origin. He proceeds forward into the cavern, placing Torches along the way so he can find his way back. He soon notices wall sections made of sand, which baffles him. He comes to a dead end and smashes through a block of stone. Suddenly, a wave of saltwater rushes into the tunnel, which he has coined “Faraway Tunnel,” from above. Tacky swims up through the shaft of water and emerges in an ocean bay beside a desert which neighbors a taiga.
Intent on further exploring Faraway Tunnel itself, Tacky immediately dives back down the shaft, covering it with a trapdoor, and returns to the site of the Nether Portal. The young adventurer walks around the Portal’s frame and continues into the tunnel. Not a minute later, he almost falls into a large hole leading down into a pool of lava in an open area. After recovering his balance successfully, he flies down into the hole and finds himself in an abandoned mine of which the hole pierces through three levels. He lands on some stone on the bottom level and steps down into a natural cavern neighboring the Forgotten Mine (as Tacky dubs the mine). There, he finds an odd-looking ore floating in a pool of lava. He approaches the ore and is confused to discover that the ore is embedded in Netherrack. He mines a piece of the mysterious ore to take back to The Maker. Before returning to Faraway Tunnel, Tacky thinks up a name for the cavern he found the strange ore in: Faraway Depths. When he emerges from the hole in the tunnel, facing deeper into the tunnel, he is shocked to find the ruin of a Nether Portal resting in a small alcove by the hole. Now properly freaked out, Tacky teleports across the kilometers back to Maker’s Grove to tell The Maker of his adventures and findings.
Played out in-game on 10/4/2013. Written 10/4/2013.
