The entrance to the cave in question.

I like this side view of the mountain through a forest path.

A weird discontinuity in the water level. And you’ll see a very flat wall next to that, clearly I hit a generation algorithm change.

A sheep wandering in the water next to another one of those walls.

Here’s the pier sticking out from the cave.

And here’s the one at the lighthouse.

Taking a trip in a boat to try it out.

The view of some more of those weird flat walls.

Here’s a top-down view of those odd walls.

And then I sunk my boat.

Should I put in some steps down from the cave?

I decided I liked it better with sand blocks instead of steps.

I decided I preferred to have the pier to be two blocks wide instead of three blocks.

A flat area with sand bricks and some red/black thing.

There are some pillars nearby with cakes on top.

A side view of those cake pillars, showing the flaming pumpkins from October nearby.

If you want more cake, here’s cake stacked on more cake.

A higher view of that stacked up cake.

Sure, let’s put some boats on top of some blocks, why not.

Some more random stuff.

Yes, those are beds on top of those trees.

A bunch of doors next to each other.

Approaching the tree scaffolding.

Here’s the base, trees growing thickly there.

Trees are much sparser at the top.

Some more trees have popped up on the right side.

You can see the trees growing in real time, the top right one is larger in this picture than in the previous one.

Here’s the view from the other side, it’s quite close to Roger’s unfinished cathedral.

And here’s the top-down view, with lots of seedlings waiting to grow.

Looking across the bay from the lighthouse to the cave in the side of the mountain.

While wandering around, I noticed a hole in the sand, and it seemed surprisingly deep?

Yeah, there’s a cave down there, here’s the view up the hole.

And there’s a second chimney going down near the bottom of the one under the hole in the sand.

Here’s a bat that I ran into.

Returning to where I was planning to build from, here’s the inside of that cave mouth in the mountain.

Here’s a waterfall that was somewhere around there?

The view from the bottom of that waterfall.

Another place where that cave leads to the bay, where the strange physics means that the water doesn’t flood in.

I think the back of this wall is where I want to put some stairs up. This is on your right side when you enter the cave from the water, so it won’t go deep into the mountain, it’ll go up just inside the edge of the mountain.

Here’s the view up from the bottom of the stairs.

And the view down from the top; pretty long stairs.

I think this must be the view into the cave from the bottom of the stairs? Looks a little messy…

Halfway up, the stairs pass over this crevasse.

The view of the lighthouse from near the top of the stairs.

I have pathways connecting the other landmarks on top of the mountain, I’ll need to add one (or two?) to the stair entrance. (Which is sort of near the middle of this picture, a little on the left side.)

Maybe I can fit a path here under the trees? It’s straight enough.

Now there’s a path in place.

Here’s how the new path meets the deck that had been on the water side of the top of the mountain.

I’m also going to fork the path so it goes up to the fountain.

Here’s the path along the edge of the mountain top near the building and fountain.

Extending the path further past the fountain.

Now you can see most of the path network. (Though a fair chunk on the water side is covered by trees.)

I’m pretty sure this decoration near the entrance to the underground passages is new?

Here’s a white smoking boot thing near the train tracks.

Some pumpkin blocks surrounded by fires.

A closer view.

Their pumpkin nature becomes a little more apparent from the top.

A green sculpture with some bells near it.

While wandering around in a cave near there, I came across this unexpected sight.

Here’s the view through that glass; it’s from a patterned pit that Dan had built several months ago.

Here’s the view of that from the non-cave side.

Traveling to the castle, I went past the jungle glitch in the ice; was that chunk of ice in the middle of the jungle there from the start of the glitch, or has the ice started to reform??

Approaching the castle.

The visiting committee is still here; Ariel is consulting with its human member, while its llama members are examining the wall.

Patterned windows.

And a patterned door.

Here’s the inside view from the top, you can see the plan for interior walls.

A closer view of the bridge, you can see the water from this side.

I have the basic interior structure in place, I just need to complete the execution.

Now the inside is complete.

I need to put something on top, though.

Experiment 1: fill the windows with lanterns.

Experiment 2: use a single row of glowstone.

Experiment 3: make the window taller, and have both lanterns and glowstone.

Going back to lanterns, but sticking in some glowstone accents beneath.

The center is too dark, OSHA would not approve at all.

I added some windows and torches to the interior floors.

A first look at the windows from the outside.

The top of the building was a little boring, so I added a smaller layer on top.

Here’s how the windows interact with the stairs.

A further out view.

Here’s what it looks like during daytime.

Here’s the view from the seating area at the back of the forest up top.

Here’s the view of the side of the mountain on the lighthouse side; I think in October I’ll spend some time providing a way to get from the top of the mountain down to the bottom?

I should be able to do something with this cave, in particular.

And here’s the view all the way across the top of the mountain.

He’s added in a door at the back and something that’s making lots of smoke.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Here’s what the path looks like at ground level.

The path continues through the door into darkness.

Here’s the view from the dark area back into that room.

The shell of the building is taking shape.

One of our neighbors has stopped by to visit.

There’s a sunken pond between the arms of the building.

Here’s what it looks like from water level; that’s pretty far down, it turns out.

Looking out over the water behind the mountain.

There’s a pair of islands here, maybe I can do something with that?

Here’s the view back towards the mountain from about where those two islands are. Nice little inlet there, I should do something with that, probably using that black hole in the wall as a starter?

Just making sure that it really is an inlet, instead of an enclosed lake; and, in fact, there is a nice little mouth.

Here’s a closeup on the islands. And they’re joined together underwater; so maybe I can build on top of the area between the two of them, leaving the existing islands relatively untouched?

Taking a look underwater just to see what’s down there.

Here’s my first take at the base; but it was a little pointy, and also a little small.

This is better: more balanced with the existing islands, and more room to build on.

Now I’m trying to get the outline of the walls figured out; I think I decided that this version was a little short on one side?

A dolphin came to inspect the ongoing work.

I decided to try stairs circling around the sides, with a landing each time it hits a corner.

Here’s a top-down view, though most of the landings are missing.

Here’s a view from farther away; certainly needs to be taller, but it’s a start.

Here’s one option for a railing, to try to more or less match the color. But it does take up a lot of space.

This puts a regular fence on the top, that makes each floor feel airier.

Turns out that Minecraft lets me use fence as a base for more fence, so maybe I should do that?

Here’s the way that last version looks from the bottom; you do have good line of sight all the way to the top.

It still works once I’ve added more floors.

Let’s try to figure out what the correct height is.

Here’s the view towards the mountain from that height, it looks plausible?

And here’s what it looks like from the land, sitting on the little patio that’s out there.

Sunflowers and the setting sun.

Some strange dark shapes on the horizon.

I was wandering around the area and I found this glowing entrance on the side of a mountain; I’d completely forgotten about it!

The entrance hallway.

A mysterious grove inside.

A mysterious room, leading down to a green light.

The first floor of the large hall he’s building.

There’s an alcove at one end of the hall.

The stairs up to the second floor.

The second floor room.

Here’s what the door looks like from the outside.

Sitting up on the roof, looking over the city.

A view of the moon from the roof.

Looking down into the current room.

It’s a lot darker on the bottom.

Back on the outside, looking back toward the mountain.

A random crafting table and banner in an island somewhere.

Some towers become visible from a distance.

It’s a compound in the desert that I’d forgotten about.

Back to the jungle glitch in the water near the city.

A bump in some water.

The outside of a large hall.

The inside of the hall.

The view looking out from the entrance to the hall.

Pat found some lanterns he really liked.

He added the lanterns inside the hall, too.

And to the path! Along with a green fringe.

A small flower garden next to the hall.

Walking down into the garden.

There’s a nice little pond with a bench further down.

Some lanterns in the entrance to Dan’s underground white halls.

The top of the steps heading down to a large unfinished room. (Except for the lanterns!)

Inside that room.

Looking back up those steps.

The bottom side of the staircase is uneven in the top half.

Now the bottom looks better.

There’s a desert out the back.

And, if I look right, there’s Roger’s abandoned cathedral.

A pig on the side of a mountain.

Pigs hovering in the air, waiting for support to get rendered under them.

Some mountains sticking up from the water.

A sheep looking over a mountain ridge.

A mountain lake, with lava above it.

Sunset in the middle of a rendering void.

A crevasse with water at the bottom and lava running down the side. (And, I think, a sheep watching.)

A couple of small buildings on the outskirts.

Peeking into one of the houses.

There’s a library behind this grille door.

Some people talking, with a cat.

That golem is keepings its eyes on me.

A small sheep pen behind a house.

A broader view of the village: note the large building on the hill in the upper right and the one in the lower left.

A cold moon shines over the desert.

Some horses and cows.

An oasis in the desert.

Hello, desert bunny.

A crevasse and a river in the desert.

Approaching a city in the desert.

The full city comes into view, it turns out to be on the shoreline.

One of the villagers is looking at me with suspicion.

Some of the buildings with people standing around nearby.

A cave right on the edge of the water.

Here’s part of that earlier village, now during the day.

I’ve returned to where I started.

One other random picture from when I was flying around afterwards.

Lots of water around.

There’s some sort of weird glass block with water inside in the middle here.

After a few attempts, I managed to destroy blocks in a way that didn’t leave water flooding back in.

You can see a few of Dan’s structures here. (Hmm, I should clean up the bottom of those big stairs.)

A view looking down from the other side of the formerly desert area.

Looking down the pit that Dan had made last time.

Dan isn’t at the bottom.

A pedestal he’s built nearby.

This sculpture is new too, I think?

Here’s a closer view of that sculpture.

Easy to miss this one unless you’re right there.

There’s actually a big drop down from the entrance.

Here’s the view up towards the entrance from the bottom.

Here’s the room at the bottom of the entrance, with a hall coming off of it. (Lots of white!)

I’ve finally found Dan!

A closeup of one of the nooks in the hallway.

Here’s Dan in the midle of digging out another room around the bend of the hallway.

Done with the stairs down to that room.

Lots of torches on the floor of this one.

Almost positive I’ve taken a picture of this one before.

Bookshelves visible at the other end of this passageway.

That is a lot of bookshelves!

To be completely honest, I’m not sure what the role is of the rowboat and armor here.

A closeup view of the armor.

The tower of books is just as imposing from the back!

The current state of the mountain, lit up at night.

A top-down view of terraced land in the rain. With, I think, a cave entrance as well?

Looks like these days if a cave roof has loose sand then the sand sprinkles down from it.

Tracks next to Roger’s abandoned church.

A view of my mountain buildings, Dan’s mountain building, and Roger’s church.

A top-down view of the back of the mountain.

A winter moon over the mountain.

A cow blocking my way when I went to investigate.

Here’s where the tracks ended, Steve had already put a glass wall in place to hold off the water.

Here’s what it looked like up top, with a forest sprouted in the middle of the water.

It’s cutting through the glass castle and the train tunnel.

The fire palace was cut in half.

The tower with the eagle had a quarter removed. (Quite neatly, I should add!)

Here’s the bottom part of that tower, with the lava escaping from its glass enclosure.

The view from inside the glass castle.

A dark, deep hole in the sand; if you squint, there’s a figure at the bottom.

Another view, this time during daytime.

Here’s Dan working at the bottom of the pit.

Now the pit has vines and colors.

The bottom of the pit is yellow.

There are colored stripes on the walls on the top half of the pit.

Here’s the view from the top.

It actually gets a little wider (with stairstep walls?) right under the colored stripes.

A glass pool with a terrace, some flowers, and floating trees nearby.

Here’s a view of the flowers from the side.

And a closeup of the flowers and the wall they’re next to.

A path through the floating trees.

A side view of the whole area.

The stairs are narrower now, and Dan has built out the plaza. And I’ve started to build up the corner rooms, you can see the ladder sticking up to where the third floor will go.

And here’s the view going up the stairs.

Now the third floor is finished. Or at least the third room on that stack, it’s probably the fifth floor overall.

Looks better with some decorative blocks sprinkled in.

Here’s what it looks like inside the room.

That’s a pretty long stretch of ladder; I bet we could fit another room in there.

The fourth room. Which is, I guess, the four-and-a-halfth floor?

The other rooms connect up to the rooms above the train station, but this one doesn’t; so I put a niche on that wall and filled it with pictures.

Here’s what the outside looks like now.

The bottom was a little messy, so I cleaned it up.

The top doesn’t look quite right, let’s do something about that.

Looks a little better with an extra layer of stone and then a few pieces of dirt.

Here’s a view from slightly farther away at night.

A tower Dan built in the desert.

Flooding most of the desert.

Here’s a closeup of the tower in the water; new brick types!

The dirt tower was procedurally generated; I like how the two towers relate to each other.

There’s a tower of sand inside, that’s fallen down from the surface or something.

I like how the roof is sprinkled with sandstone.

Looking down from above.

Ground-level view of floating trees.

The trees in the context of the city.

There’s a flat area on the side that he’ll be working on next.