1.7.10 Worlds Beyond (custom pack)

[ICountFrom0]

Though the twilight forest did chase me out, injured and much wounded in the pride I was able to locate some resources. The bare portal room will not stay that way.





I did even manage to get even with the Naga. I defeated her and enough of her kind to make new armor. It is not an improvement but it throbs with a strange power. If I could I would draw that power off into a book and use it elsewhere, but it seems the magic is too wild and powerful to be tamed in that way.



With a touch of that strange vitality from the scales with me I was able to break into the tower that had repaired itself as I attempted to enter it. The hints of lore that I'd seen implied that there was a powerful mage at the top of the tower, but I saw no signs of life. Skeletons, zombies, and even the very books of the tower possessed with a strange form of unlife, hostile to me. At the top there was indeed a mage, as undead as the skeleton and as hostile. Far more dangerous then any I'd faced before.



Swarms of zombies tumbling out of the wall and more summoned by the lich, minions and phantoms summoned to attack me and a form shielded that turned my blows. Though I too can do that, I returned those shots and some of them could pierce the shields. Then the minions fell to my scythe, and then the mage to my sword.



With the fall of the lich, I was able to take control of the magic that had drawn the toxic fumes to the swamp and disperse them. While the mosquitoes would still swam and bite the environment was much less toxic to me this time. Deep within there was a hummock and that one spit of dry land had within the entrance to a vast underground labyrinth. Such places have a strange attraction to minotaurs, the place was practically overrun, but they where not the only infestation. The toxic fumes of the swamp, the wet nature of the air had encouraged a fungal spread. Mushrooms and slime infesting the bugs that lived here.



Even the most protected chamber had been infested. One of the minotaurs infested with fungus. Though it is from her that I won what I needed. A strange stew, mushroom and meat, but also the spore of the region. Taking it into myself and the spells on the region thought me one of the creatures that belongs here, the heart of the swamp opened. One other rumor needs investigating.



Deep within the vaults and behind nearly unbreakable wall is a chamber where breaking the wrong block leads to disaster and destruction lays the mazebreaker, the most protected reward. It took me much time and effort and is now a most treasured trophy.

I took home the mazebreaker and samples of the maze for my own uses. Sadly it is not a good material for the walls of my tower, too vulnerable to explosions, too hard to work with and rare for replacement. Still it makes a suitable decoration in the chamber, to mark the achievement.



It's not the achivement that I need here, but the trophy. I need the head of the hydra, the burning blood of her is the only thing that will let me progress. She's in the deepest, darkest, and most guarded heart of the swamp. The very ground here feels alive, pulsing, lava close to the surface, erupting in bursts of flame, smoking even with it does not erupt. I suspected that such fire was what was keeping the center of the swamp dry when I encountered the fire breathing bugs within the mazes.



When the hydra hidden within the hill has fallen I was able to pierce the darkness of the dark forest, the flames of the hydra infusing my torches to withstand the unnatural darkness. The trophy placed on a receptacle within the core of a goblin infested stronghold weakened another of the protective spells, the blood weakening the brick until it could be damaged and mined out. This reveled an even deeper, more strongly protected cavern. It was not a venture I could take casually.



Sometimes entire rooms had been flooded by lava that rose up to attack me all by itself. Sometimes there was treasure. The goblins in the stronghold had weapons that I'd never seen before, made of a strong material but they dropped only the least scraps of it when I defeated them. Maybe someday I will return to obtain a useful amount of this metal. I'd never known goblins to craft things of high quality themselves.



I was right. The goblins are scavengers. The innermost chamber is the burial place of knights from a better age in this land. The spirits of the fallen knights where most disturbed by the looting of the tomb and struck out at me, not understanding that I'd come to remove the goblins. I had to put them to rest.



Good night fallen knights, may you rest be without further interruption from the goblins and other raiders of the tomb. In tribute to you I make this small shrine in remembrance in my own home.



I find myself falling further into alignment with the magic of this place, the hints and lore had told me that much of the questing to this point was needed just to learn to bend the magic here to my desires.

Out of the center of the stronghold rises a tower, with the strange machines that only respond to one bathed in the magic of this twilight realm, and this tower is a mighty fortress in every right. The walls are made not just of the strong trunks of the darkwood but further infused and strengthened, I needed to make my axe strong as the diamond axes of yore to break the shell. Once I was inside I found that was the easy part.



Some of the devices prevented me from building. Others produced blocks where I was trying to pass. That same magic that caused wounds in the tower to close themselves turned to another task to prevent me from just breaking through the chambers within.



Other devices unlocked chests with the lost loot and lore of the people who once worked and lived here. This machine though gives the greatest hint as to what happened...



Attempting to bend the magic here too far to gain riches, instead they broke the thin reality and the nether realms leaked in. That explains the netherack and the ghasts. There's also infestations of that power in corrupted golems, beings that had once been servants turned against everything in fury and rage.



There are signs that some lived even after the dark invasion here. Devices that help you to fight back, to capture and draw on the twisted darkness survived the ruin. Then again it could just be that they had been using the dark powers for energy the entire time and just got too greedy.



Still, it gives me a slight advantage against this crying overlord of the flames and sky when I can use the power siphoned from the offspring of darkness against the very being that rends the sky to bring them into this world.



While I know this magic and lore to be dangerous, I cannot resist using some of it for myself. Just enough to make a door into my guarded portal chamber, no more.

 

[ICountFrom0]

This latest encounter infused me more with the warmth, though the realms below are dark, they protect against the cold of the blizzards that rage in the north. Lands harsh and nearly barren, overrun with packs of wolves that hunt anything that move.



The blazing blood and firey tears of the foes I've fought against forges into weapons and arms that burn anything that gets too close. The yeti and wolves have fur that not just protects against the cold but has become infused with the cold. Those that come too close slow and freeze. It gives me just enough enough protection that I could climb the glacier and fight through to frozen core.



At the very tallest spire of the tower was the very queen that ruled the frozen lands, her might causing the twist in weather that drove me back from the guarded high lands. Still, no force is forever, not even winter, and all things must pass.

Though even in the hottest of summers I will have a shard of this ice in my home.



The highlands are honeycombed with chambers, veins of glowing ore and obsidian in the walls. These stones used to form reinforced vaults to hide the valuable treasures that the trolls have taken over the years. They are not the most dangerous protector, it seems they've also formed a pact with the witches, any fight with the trolls is often interrupted by a potion flying in to harm me.



Though it is in the nature of monsters to fight eachother, when they turn to internecine fighting I can escape to tend my wounds and light the region. Enough light and the vines ripen, the glowing fruit enough to drive away more darkness, to make an entire portion of the chamber safe. Only then do I have time enough to break away and break open the vault.



The protected treasure is beans and a rare fertile soil that spreads slowly. The combination of the two grew a vine up into the very sky. Leaving the ground far below me, working up through the clouds and using them for shelter, the largest foe, a giant foe.



I was able to slip out, strike at the ankle and escape, over and over, slowly strike and whittle them down, slice by slice. Even Achilles can fall if you know where to strike. From them I take primitive but strong tools.



One cannot strike fast with such a thing but you can strike well and strongly. The strongest vault is in the deepest chamber and the foes must be fought back very far indeed for you to be able to have the time to wield such an instrument.



The treasure that stacks of obsidian guarded? A lantern that can burn anything. This is the key to fighting through the thorns. The rich soil causes them to grow faster then anything else could possibly drive them back. The top of the plateau is a barren waste, the rich soil completely consumed to support the vines.



There was rumor of a castle here, a last bastion holding against the thorns, a place to be rescued by the lantern that was stolen and hoarded by the trolls. Sadly it looks like the vines won, or the acid rain, the wind and weather, nature itself has blasted the castle from the face of the world.

It seems this is as far as such travel can go.



In my explorations, returning home there was one other structure I found. A mysterious and empty structure looks like it grew up overnight. This isn't the only unknown in this world, but I suspect that for now my trouble has been driven away with the dawn.



And so the treasures are secured, and the portal room built with the trophies of my troubles on display.
I will need time to test what I've taken, find what is of worth and what is less needed. Not ever resource is going to be diamond, but I shall tinker.

 

[ICountFrom0]

(So much for 24, or even 48 hours. EGADS, I have learned to not be quite so arogent when the RNG is involved. 5,000 by 5,000, and it was just enough space to get the treasures... that I forgot to get a picture of. I'm going to write the story and then add them to the end)



One final adjustment to the containment structure around the twilight forest and that adventure is done, until a rumor brings news of some further quest to my ears.

I'm finding the floors to slowly become too cluttered for me to move. The amount of storage for the items I've acquired is quite impressive. This is perhaps what one should expect when they are taking the treasures of an entire dimension home for themselves.

Given a nexus of unless worlds, I come to loot them all.



So I climb a little higher in my tower, build the structure sound and beautiful, growing the tower slowly towards the sky, step by slow step.

A project this size requires many resources and as my tower grows taller I find myself in need of stranger and more arcane materials. I often run out of them, many side trips to collect more of them to replenish my stocks.



Making paths deep into a volcano I discovered this chamber, the chests and the stones below them protected with traps. Lava and explosives are dangerous combinations. Part of me would gladly have made my base here, but it is not to be, not in this world.



This is the structure, and the scarab, a small sacrifice to break into a new world. I've heard very little about what lies within, a dry and endless desert. I'd heard of the world of Atum before I'd known of the twilight and on further research I should have gone here first.



With the scarab sacrificed, the rift has formed, glowing and swirling in the soft sandstone structure.

The further research hinted that I need less then I'd prepared to get me through the twilight so I've left behind the strongest of my toys and tools, not even taking with me potions to ease my way.



No sooner have I passed through the shining sun portal then I was standing below a searing sky and facing a hostile reception. These foes are the first people I've seen, and yet these raiders walk side by side with the fallen brethren that have become undead.

As I strike them down, they cry in pain a voice much like my own, but they did strike at me first. There is no sign of any town or settlement that they might be defending, or raiding, honestly I have no idea.



This half burred building is the only structure anywhere near, the entrance was sealed, but still it was filled with sand. Some of it quite old, dried into stone that I had to chip out in order to reveal the old ornate library within.

Raiders have no need of such a place, almost a temple. Perhaps they are the last remainders of a once proud people. Perhaps not. All I can be sure of is that everything here is hostile and dangerous.



Beautiful, wonderful, but dangerous.

Even water is scarce, the few places it pools and flows have a breath of fertile ground around them, a scarce few trees. The saplings of these trees too are scarce. Over time one would surely have to explore further and further away from a base to get more wood, such a basic resource, and such a struggle.



I've seen ruins, but other then that there is only these pyramids, and inside them a maze riddled with traps. Dark, twisty, filled with blowing sand. Somewhere within a ladder, to an upper chamber.



If you seek the treasure, lost artifacts, you cannot simply break through. You must solve the maze. While dealing with traps, even at risk of burning searing flame.



Within the inner most chamber is a chest. This chest is defended.



The very spirits of the dead rise up to challenge you for it.



They will only let the artifacts pass into your hands if you are worthy, the fight is not easy. The Pharaoh was king once and his minions answer him still. Again and again they rise to try to end you. I refuse to die. I refuse to pass. I shall not be weighed. My life is my own.



Not every treasure is on the surface, like most places there are valuables in the depths.

The stone here is soft, my pick is strong. I am able to make vast caverns in brief seconds. To cross distances and consume the stone, seeking treasure.



Though even here there are difficulties. While this world has less lava, when I find it, it is not a small and simple pool. Instead there are vast and hostile caverns. These deep lava pools are the reservoirs for the volcanoes of the surface.



Sometimes there entire ranges of volcanoes. Such a range as this is what it takes to make the lava caverns that turned me away from the underground and sent me back to the surface.



With the treasures of the world, from the ruins, guarded in the pyramids, and looted from the deeps, I decorate and contain this portal. The limestone of that world framed with sandy stones of my own. The balance helps deflect the energy, and so another rift I have made is tamed.



Here it can pulse that shining light, and no harm will it bring to my world. I've seen Twilight, I've seen dry desert. I've brought the treasures home. I've work that must be done.

Some of these have been covered in the dirt of ages, requiring time in the waters of the world to clean them.



The rarest of the treasures where in the hands of the Pharaohs. I proved worthy to have them, but the fight was not easy, the rewards well worth it.



(Again, thank you for the likes and the patience.)

 

[GreekAnalyzer]

I say magic. I want to see your idea for a blood altar!

 

[ICountFrom0]

(sorry for the delays, got hooked on a clicker game due to steam summer sale, then weaned myself off and played lego LOTR, and then got HOOKED AGAIN... I'll try to get clean and get posting again soon.)

 

[ICountFrom0]

(Mod Removed: Warp Effects.

If not for the effects of warp (summoning withers) I'd not need the overpowered tools to remove warp. I could just deal with the small, and sometimes deadly effects it has. I can't even tell you how many hours it's taking to recover from the damage that's occurred from a number of withers spawning inside my tower, over and over. As much of a reward the few "free" nether stars seem like, they do not equal the loss of my main storage chests, or my thaumcraft storage chests. I appreciate the difficulty added, and how it's balanced by the ability to remove even permanent warp, if I'd known this was a possible effect of warp, I'd have taken more precautions, but my warp isn't even high enough to summon the CULT yet.)

 

[ICountFrom0]

The loot of many worlds. Plunder of nations. A problem. My tower is covered with these chests and it's hard enough to keep things sorted without curses and warp from beyond twisting reality to move items from chest to chest at random. This is no solution for my storage, this is the opposite of a solution.

My first thought was to power through, to complete the research, to speed things up.



To put as much as I could into the research table and advance the arcane knowledge far enough that I could purify myself of these curses.

To this end I took up some of the rarest materials I could find, bits that where only in the most secure chests in ATUM.



With them I crafted this wand. Small, with limited power, but highly efficient in crafting. (If Elysium had been finished, the thaumcraft integration would have had the wand and caps in the thauminomicron, and been able to be mixed and matched. Also likely nowhere near that high a discount.) Aware that I am racing the clock, that these phantom effects of the warp would only get worse, I plunged in. Further. Faster. Into the whispering darkness I drove myself.



Into the darkness, but it was not enough. I lost. Again and again I spent what I had, and again it blew up. Summoned beings from other realms and horrible explosions. Blocks melting into sand, or stone turning to earth below my feet. Earth into water, my works washed away. Chests destroyed. The tower breached more times then I could count. I turned away from magic. (I removed warp effects after withers arrived and blew up large potions of my base, multiple times, before I could get deep enough into the research to reach the items that warp effect adds to let you handle warp that was made more deadly. Perhaps if the worst effects didn't show up until you'd read the crimson book, but my warp was never high enough to even summon the cultists)

Nay, I turned to a new direction.

(this is the post you should have gotten last month when I stopped for a while and had to mine up replacement... well, pretty much replacement everything on the thaumcraft floor)

 

[ICountFrom0]

Thus, into technology I turn again. The solutions I seek might be here, I can solve one of my troubles with it if nothing else.

Long ago I found the strangely shaped metal presses inside rocks that fell from the sky. An almost unreal method for things to be preserved, storing them inside ancient space rocks, but I've no complaints, they where easy to find, even if it did take a while.

Taking a while is perhaps the entire theme of this entry. It took me a while to find the presses. With them I was able to slowly construct the first chips. It was slow work getting enough of the rare crystal needed for even these first few early steps. Slow work to find the few charged crystals that had formed naturally, I suspect the pressure of the earth was somehow responsible for these. Slowest though was refining these crystals into a seed of the pure crystal and letting it grow. (Seriously folks, tanked my frame rate, took overnight) Slowly my system grew.



What you see here is the first few machines and what is so far the most important thing I've built, a crystal growth acceleration chamber. Slightly more power then the standard accelerators would draw, but without the risks of being drawn into the system or my inventory too early.

Thus is solved my lack of pure crystals, at a cost of power.



Thus my system grows. Pure crystals into calculator chips, and into larger and better drives. Drives into bays, and as my supplies of charged crystals dwindles, even a way to charge new ones. Thus is the loot of many worlds stored into these drives, sorted, and made sane. Yet this too has a cost. Power. This too can be solved.



A tremendous cost of resources, but a solution just the same. It makes just enough power to keep my system running and slowly build up a stockpile in my storage. I know that storage to be antiquated, my jetpack takes more power then it can hold and still takes most of an hour to recharge it if I should fail to remember. It will take more resources then I have now to do this properly, even with my vast array of strange and forbidden loot.



Behold, my tower, behold the space I am reclaiming with the growth of technology. The loot of so many worlds, my pride, my glorious stockpile, it does not cover my entire base with random chests anymore. Instead just a few, one of food. One of potions. One for the records next to the player. There is also a chest with an emergency supply of coal coke, if the solar fails me and I cannot reach into the drives to get more.



The smeltery is down, the tools I have enough for now. I will rebuild if I find the need for it, but for now I am enjoying the space. Even the garden is moved. I've such stockpile of food that I need not grow more, for the moment.



This space to explore, to tinker, to build, to grow, this is what I gained from the days of research and building. From the use of many rare materials to make this system. Still, I know it to be a temporary solution. This tower is not static, the contents are not forever. All my work must grow and improve.



The tower is carved to the very building blocks of the earth, to the very bedrock. All the way down until it could go no further down. Such a gap will only get larger with time as I steady and improve this foundation.



Likewise, the tower will grow up, until it can grow no more. One floor more at a time. Towards the sky. It grows faster and easier now, these higher levels smaller. The materials I can afford more refined and rare. Still, my actions are ones to serve more then one purpose. The very stone of the ground is the material I need to forge onward. First though one more piece...



A ritual in the darkest hour of the night, taking a chance with the world while the boundaries between the worlds are weakest. The sacrifice of a life, a curse striking the ground to taint it. A resource for latter, but the talisman unlocked is what I needed.



There is much I could see to sacrifice, my own life is not one of them. Yes, that is gold that I am dividing by diamond. Something almost never done. Something rarely seen. Each one of these cuts a small hole in the universe.



Reconstructed into an ingot it holds a small sliver of stability. Such things are not toys and are still dangerous. I moved quickly to use them before reality noticed such an impossible object existed, for fear that these so very expensive things would evaporate.



Stones compressed until nearly as strong as the bones of the world. Raw impossibility. Combined make a very small portal. Still it is strong enough. In this world I will find the resources I need, though the fight is beyond any I have yet faced. The foes of the twilight where strong but few. Here the foes are many, and strong. Even the shadow bites and claws at you.

And yet.

Hello Darkness my old friend.

 

[Vasa]

I dont read the texts but so far your base looks very cool, i like how massive it is and even if i dont read text i can imagine the story behind these pictures.
Ps its kinda sucks because you play on fast and smooth lighting off..

 

[Master_Builder_800]

he lives!

 

[ICountFrom0]

Wait, this is madness.

I can't go into the darkness, not like this, not without preparations.

Turning away from magic, in a world like this, that must be part of the insanity.

Maybe I should embrace the madness. I heard rumors of cultists...



Turns out they where rather hostile, and the magic they where preforming was sinister even by my own slightly warped view of things right now. They where not very forthcoming with answers either. They tried to drive me away with arcane magics, with fireballs and strange spells that ripped through space towards me. They summoned guards to try to drive me away with blades. Mine was sharper, bit harder, cut through them until there were no more. In the remains...



A book. Almost incomprehensible, except. Except the things whispered to me, through the thin cracks in the world, those whispers told me things as I looked at it. Somehow I understood it. Somehow the secrets of the crimson cult where mine.

It seems this is one of the groups that is responsible for this world being too thin. That spell they where casting at the node, it was meant to open a gateway into another world. I've one of those structures in my home, I encased it in obsidian, to try to prevent it from spreading.



I'd built up quite a bit of a stockpile, I built it in a stack, pulled out my best pick and took to it while thinking about how I might best approach this. With one of those portals practically in my bedroom, everything is questionable. Even the questions.



Such wealth, and I know it will not last. Even the most basic building blocks cost in shards. Space is tight but everything has a place. All is ordered, all is right, and one step at a time towards my goals.



Magic in the very stones.

Though not the most beautiful thing, but stones made of magic and secrets have a beauty that is not for the eyes. It's in the whisper. The quiet whisper of secrets.



Slowly completed research, slow progress, the secrets unlock. Aspects, and infusion. Breaking down reality into the essence, and then the ability to rebuild it. I think I understand.



Those essences, brewed in the water, they bring changes as I throw in the right reagent in the crucible. Such is the secret behind alchemy, the magic in all things just needing a little extra spark from without to drive it into a change, to let it become something more then what it was. Coal into pure power, glowstone into ever burning light, fat into tallow that will never be consumed. Not madness, no, never madness, but careful chemistry. I am not mad. I am not mad.



The beautiful symmetry of those stone circles, of the obelisks, of the obsidian structures, yes, exactly. Just exactly there. That core with even more of the magic built into it, and an infusion of mana from my wand to ignite it. Though, even with the wind of madness blowing through the crack in the worlds, I know this isn't safe.



This is better. Oddly the candles stabilize this structure. Might have something to do with the small touch of magic that I put into each of them as I formed them with wax that I'd taken from the crucible. These small measures of tame magic keep the madness and the chaos restrained.

It's not enough.



There. The shards aligned together in stable clusters, placed under the altar, they balance each other and they give more stability to the process. This isn't perfect, but a start, refined enough to risk using. Such uses as only whispered in my ... no, those were not dreams, those were nightmares. No, I am not mad. Not mad. There are things I refuse to do. I need another solution.



A calm pool, and bathing salts infused with order, and balanced stability. Dissolved into the water. It fizzes around me as I soak in it. I can feel myself recovering. Those odd sounds further away.

There's a way to refine this cleansing further. Just a little more work...



Yes, and as this soap washes me, I come to know that the warding effect is only temporary, but the worst can be washed away, the rest warded.

I have passed through madness. I have seen, and it changed me, but I have passed through it. The things I have seen, I would not describe them to others, for now I know the price.



There are things that one can make, and things that you shouldn't even though you can. I can't be sure that this is something that should exist, I do know that even if I built it in the grip of madness, destroying it is not a good idea.



Though, even the quiet of my garden has whispers. It might be slightly insane, but the runes of botania, a simple flower, and bottled essence infused, form a flower that can open rifts in a controlled way. Small whisps of essence, each costing some of the mana that fuels all such flowers, the portal only open for an instant, on paper it is safe enough.



This on the other hand is far from safe. The elements that make up nitor are unstable enough, but when I take up a number of them together and use another nitor as the catalyst, there's the potential for trouble and explosions.

This time it worked, safely.



With the nitor enhanced into an everburning light, my preparations are complete.

Now I am prepared to face the darkness.

 

[KingTriaxx]

What's that in the ground beside the crucible?

 

[Yusunoha]

What's that in the ground beside the crucible?

nitor?

 

[ICountFrom0]

(The sink. Lovely if you are not ready to hand things over to a golem just yet. Thank Pam's Harvest Craft. I keep finding places that I love to have one ready.)

Through the gateway, and into a well lit room encased deep inside the ceiling of this chamber. It was only a little work to mine down until I'd exposed the cavern. Carefully placed torches keep the thick darkness, used the rope ladder and let myself down into a world of shattered stone, columns, stalagmites and stalagmites.

The darkness presses in against me, the nitor that I infused with magic creates a thin nimbus that glows with light as I move. This protects me against the grue and other terrors in the incarnate darkness that makes this subterranean chamber home. Even the most basic of monsters here has been embraced by the darkness and strengthened. Things can be rough when too many of them get to me at once. The chakarams come in handy to help me take them down before they can swarm me.



Deep within the darkness, castles fortified against the world, lit with torches, it shines in the eternal night of this world. It was not enough to save them. The many chambers of the castle are infested with zombies, skeletons, and swarms of spiders. Where once were bedrooms, kitchens, and all that was needed for life, now twisted by the darkness to spread death. The light at the edge is the last trace of the life here.



The corrupted world is so thin that even the bedrock is shattered. The breath of the void erupts forth, this world itself is stretched thinner and thinner. It's slightly uncomfortable here for me, I remember all the times that Fell Out and ended up someplace else. Quickly away from this sinkhole in reality, this vast underground chasm is a tomb. Though this does not stop me from looting what I can, needs must.



There, aglow in the darkness is the only natural thing left in this vast cavern. The wood of the tree is unbreakable, hard as bedrock, taking years and years to grow to maturity. I know of no way to harvest this for myself, but I would not, I have no need for such a substance, and I respect the years regrowing it would take.

I need a breath, I need to think. I've got to get out of this darkness.

Fresh air, deep breaths, and open sky. The menial task of building is almost calming, or maybe it's the simple joy of the light after spending so much time in the darkness. The marble shines in the light of torches, the quartz glitters, and my creation reaches into the sky.



Even in the darkness it's calming, perfectly normal darkness that isn't trying actively to kill me that is. The builder's wand makes this project go much faster then before. I end up having to take a break to harvest more marble from the roof of the hydra den from before. I end up taking all of it, knowing that it will be needed for other floors, waste not, and want not. I've got the storage now. While I'm out I break down some more of the volcano just over the hill and start processing that into proper blocks as well.



The shell goes on, the last details connect the floor to the wall, a few more ladders to climb the inside faster and easier, though I will replace those in time. The basalt isn't the only project going on inside the tower, but things need a little more time to be made.



It's hard to see the tower in the night, but you can see the edges. Each layer the basalt shell goes on the tower becomes that much safer. No way for the monsters to get in. Even the infighting between the creepers and the other monsters isn't enough to breach basalt, the stone is durable. Still I know my own mistakes and madness can break the walls.



There sits the top of the tower, nearly. Some of the last space that's large enough to be used. I may just put my bedroom up here, for the view. Though high as it is the ground itself is lost in the mist of distance and the clouds. Still, the idea is calming. I can use ore of that with the small madnesses that have been inflicted on my mind.



The last of the tower, a final spire into the sky. It says, here I make my stand.

Now that the tower is complete, I've got the space I've been needing. At first I'd put everything together, all in one chamber as soon as I could make it secure. I've now taken it apart, the space now has better uses and I know where everything can go. There is a place for everything. It is not yet time for everything to be in place, I still need more resources, and when I have them, then there shall be a renewal.



There shall be a rebirth. This is not that, not yet. This is the egg from whence the rest of my technology will hatch. The simple storage of the AE2 system. The machines of the thermal foundation and endertech on the other side of the room. Even a small coke oven to refine the fuel I use, though I am growing less dependent on it, I've not broken free yet.




The first machine born from this is the start of the cobbleworks, this is little more then a device to make, compress, and store cobblestone, but it will be the seed to spawn a sprawling and beautiful machine to make me so many things.

I look at this, and I see possibility.



Knowing that I'm building what I can for resources here in this world, it's time to turn to the outside. time to assemble the machine. I've gotten everything I need with just one exception. A silk touch pick. That isn't hard anymore. A prepared book, a slime ball, the dark steel altar and I've got the spell book. Then I let botania do the job.



There, silk touch, worldhole, ender quarry in the darkness deep below the world. I've placed the markers, I've made things safe as I can, but it is best to stay away from the edge, the skeletons might knock me in. Yes, best to be safe, away from this darkness.

Home.



I wish I could go home, wish I knew where home even was. Out there, somewhere, so instead I make the places I live as secure as I can make them.

The loot arrives here, and then I'll take care of it and process it myself. Large batches of it, a chest full converted into resources at a time.

It all takes power, and resources will become power.

I've come so far from the days in my cave in the cliff, come so far from living like an animal.

This isn't home, but it can be a home.

I've stockpiled what I need to build the rest of the tower and set them out here, to be prepared.

 

[ICountFrom0]

Here I am, up in the sky again, improving my power system. The base is hungry. Resources come in and I expand the power generation, to bring in more resources faster. This is not an endless cycle, there's only so much that I need and only so much that I'll make. Still, one more small upgrade, there's solar enough that I'm able to store a little more.



A full power capacitor bank. Enough power to run through the night if need be. If I can work through the night, so shall now my tower.

While I'm doing these small upgrades, that huge tank of experience that I've been saving has been a bit behind the times. A small intake tank, some drums to buffer the liquid exp and then a tank so that I can pull it out one level at a time. One might be amused that I've left such technology here, but it fits so well with the magic of the flowers I feel no need to move it. I'll be back to better conceal it with covers in the future.




Now, while I am in the mood to upgrade and improve, my wand has served me well but it seems most suited to crafting and life paired with the magical crafting table. Energy passing through the crystal caps feels almost jagged, holding it in my hands as I cast does not feel enjoyable at all. Instead it is to the quiet slumbering of flowers and plants that I turn.



Carefully infused and refined botanical magics solidified into runes. A critical mass of mana prepared and held in stasis. Raw brute force, the thaumic altar prepared with a block of dreamwood gifted from the elves. The reaction triggered, balanced opposing forces drawn into the wood, a new wand core fused from these opposites the result of my efforts. The process renders the core inert, empty, and dreaming. A quick bath in raw mana awakens it, reminding the wand of mana, but now it can transform the mana, the same way it itself was transformed.



The finest manasteel infused with the aspects of thaumcraft for the wandcaps and I've got my wand. The core remembers dreaming and mana,the caps have a taste of aspects. Together mana is drawn and converted, the wand fills itself. As long as I've got a mana tablet on hand to feed the wand I will never be caught short.

Still, wand alone is useful for little more then crafting and I've got a wand for that, no, I need focus. Focus, in a world with this madness? No, not to focus, I need a focus, or less focused, as a group, focii. No reason to leave a pile of them in my pockets, a neat pouch to hold them is next.



Here I stand again with a pile of loot and a mission. It's a good thing my tower is safe, to die with these treasures would be a loss I do not want to contemplate, that would be madness.

Arcane crafting, a touch of alchemy for the nitor, euclidaisy produced escences from mana that I broke down for some of the more exotic aspects.



Thus quite the hoard was used and quite a bit of sacrifice was done in order to turn these materials into the refined tools that are going help me through a number of grand tasks.

The most useful of these are the equal trade, warding and dislocation focii. If the builder's wand is the best thing for growing my tower, these are the key to refining the tower and all within it to my many whims.

 

[ICountFrom0]

I've ripped out the floor and turned the first floor into a massive chamber, a grand sight, or rather it will be. Perhaps a dozen block types in this chamber from the way I built the foundation of the tower, using any block I had on hand and then changing them for more solid stone as I found them. This level has never been pretty, though when we start there is rarely enough time to spend on being beautiful.



These few blocks are the first puzzle piece in a larger plan for this grand open space. The torches are place holders for a latter part of it, for now they help light things up and help me to align the latter pieces. Building comes rapidly with the builder's wand, and soon it's spread from end to end.



Torches placed, the floor is ready, little more then placeholders, everything here is only temporary. Even the walls are only here for a moment. I have one small regret, I'd enjoyed looking down through the water tank at the lower level. Now the view will be lesser.



The dark and reinforced glass is rather impressive. I discovered it by accident. With this I can still look down into this room, I need not worry about things going wrong and breaching the tank. It's not as strong as warded glass it will prevent the light from getting down there. Tinted glass, what a concept.

As I prepare for the next step, it seems I've got to unpack one of the machines I'd prepared.



The simplest of automated forges in my toolworks, powdered mixed metal in, and the plates I need come out. I find myself once again glad that I'd constructed this AE system, so much easier to handle crafting when I don't need to leave a stack of 81 bows floating around me just to make a stack of dispensers.



Impossible instability into an ingot, darkened ethereal glass, a small safe booth to watch the destruction from, also access to the obsidian shell protecting the arcane error. The walls converted into the stronger basalt, conveyors that required me to make rails. Steel rails from the rolling machine, creosote from the coke production, railcraft tracks make quite a few conveyors. Well over 200 of them needed. Those loaded into the advanced drawbridges, with dirt for the test run.



The puzzle is clear, the pieces are in place. The torches are the conveyor belts, all leading to the middle. I've tested, and now it's time to prepare for the next step. Back into the bottom of this layer, a nice dark space roofed with stone, cursed earth and soil to spread into.



In the darkness glow the eyes of the endermini, a teaming mass of them summoned by the cursed earth, but not harmful to me for I am NOT the dire one. The spiders are dangerous, and a bit of a risk to deal with. Five stack of cursed earth with just a little time and effort.



With the cursed earth in place, this room will be the only safe place there is. I'll be able to watch from here as chaos is unleashed and herded into the pit to be dealt with. No more having to go to the far away islands in the sky to find and hunt monsters. Course this also means my base might not be safe. If things go wrong I could find myself unable to climb down the tower.



One more trip up the tower to my main room, and it's oddly quick to make eight stacks of blocks to make this decoration. The bricks that I'd used to quickly build are now a deep red, hinting of sacrifice. The glowstone is now a sturdy block that takes much more effort to break.



With the warding power of thaumcraft most of these blocks could have been much less durable and still survive any trouble due to protections. Still, can't ward everything, and I have to be aware that this place is dangerous. The red will remind me.

Enough red, enough new building, while I've got my wand out there is something I've been wanting to do. The warp rifts and accidents caused me trouble, shattered the tank, broke walls, a third of the tower is patchwork. Now repaired, and made even better with glowing glass that will resist breaking.

 

[ICountFrom0]

(I had a request to show my blood magic idea, today I give a preview)



After a manual test with levers I gathered all the luxducts together into one structure with one switch, it should be easy to control this system now. This MOB system. No more having to go out at night to harvest the land for what I need. I had to take extra precautions with this as it is within my tower. The least of them being that my bed is above the mobsters. Should they breach and escape I will retreat up the tower towards the top, gathering what I need as I pass through.



It seems the corrupted nature of the region means that I attract highly unnatural creatures to my trap. Each of them a highly unusual challenge, in containment, destruction or exploitation. The endermen and enderminies teleport in and out as if my walls were meaningless but the vinviculum draws them back time and time again. Enderminies and poison spiders are capable of escaping even a half block gap, but can be constrained with the fence posts, yet I can strike in between them. Creepers are always trouble, but the concussion creeper could teleport me up into the mob trap, against this I have no protection, only luck and hope. Of zombies and skeletons, the simple fact is, here they can grow 3 tall, or more, if I want them to move to the center I have to let the roof be tall enough for them to pass. I've witches, the normal ones, the more aggressive sistren with the pet cats, they might be the most dangerous, for the potions can splash out against me even with blocks between. Lastly, some of the pech from the region seem to wander in, a proud people, they are not meant to be captured by this but I have no way to isolate them and set them free, so sometimes even one of them must be sacrificed and they fight against it with powerful blasts. Still, I should be safe.



The first steps here, just a bit of glowstone, and stones for placeholders this structure is already taking more space then the room had height, but I knew this would be the case, I'd gone without building anything lower in my tower, just so I could dig down. This entire floor is going to have to go, in due course.



These stones represent the furthest that I can remember ever having made one of these structures before. I don't think I'd ever even gotten the capstones in place, still I place stones. (Just sitting here, pushing buttons. Placing stones.) Getting the structure built up on the off chance that I can master these skills this time.



As it grows you can't see the top and bottom at the same time anymore. I'm keeping the bottom as minimal as possible. With the least blocks needed I have the most room to work in the slim slivers of space between the two structures and the ground.



Above, you can see that I've expanded to the final tier, it's against one wall, nearly fills the room, just enough space left for storing the food that I'm going to be consuming as I heal the damage that I know I'm going to make in feeding this thing. I've given of my time, my energy, and even of my mind to progress. I've fought, farmed, and struggled. I shall not hesitate to give this as well.



Filling in a little more, the floor secured, those chests supplied, very little to do before I make my sacrifice to this altar. A final decoration. With the look of the monster trap above it's clear what the block choice must be here at the shrine to death. I paint thee with the flesh of my foes.

 

[KingTriaxx]

That mana wand, is that native to Botania? Or is that some other mod?

Also, awesome mob farm, even if I'm partial to MFR's conveyors since I can speed them up and use plastic boots to walk over them.

 

[Genius83]

Nice

 

[ICountFrom0]

Enough working on the altar, I need time to prepare myself, the sacrifices it takes are not small. I made this new tool for a nice big project to relax myself. A new shovel, an excavator, something to make it that much easier when my diggings leave the world of stone. This, a hammer, and a scythe, the three tools most needed when digging.



Down below the altar is where my grand entrance will be, a space for the celebration of everything I've done, for now though it's hardly even a hole in the ground. I'll need quite a bit more hole before I'm even ready to make a real start. The shovel makes it fast to dig out the earth, and while this means I sometimes fall, it's faster then switching back and forth.



Outside, days pass. I can see through gaps in the wall that crumbled as I worked my way down that the sun sets, and the monsters gather close, but I'm safe in here just the same, holes or not, there's just no space for them to strike at me from. I've already opened the gap on the outside and lit up the caves. Monsters won't approach the edge when they can't see how to reach me.



Nearly cleared it out, just the last few stones. The shape of the wall is hard to see with the gaps in it, but I can see it in my mind, I can see what it will be. Course, truth be said, once I fill it in, it'll be too dark to see it at all, just a shadow to draw the line. I've ideas about what this will look like with the farms down here and automation in the deepest levels.



Still, today I am doing little more then filling it in. Unlike above where the design of the narrowing tower was a strict limitation on each floor, could be no higher or smaller then any other floor, each of these will be able to be shaped to my needs. What good is a tree farm that can grow no trees.



At first, this entrance isn't very grand, still I know that it will be better. I've got the tools, I've got the knowledge, for now though I lack the time. Firstly I've got to widen the hole around the tower until there's space enough for the rest of the project I have in mind.



This will have to do for the entrance, with the big hole around the tower dug down as far as I need, and wide as I need, I cleared out the chests. With the scale pf projects chests are being less and less useful, another note on the things that I'm going to have to take care of.



While putting away the stone, storing it and processing it, I took some materials and added one more improvement to the lower regions. I've wires in the walls, and someday these pillars may too hold cables down to the automation levels. For now they are solid, purely decorative, though if this universe was different it might have been needed as a support.



Now, around this I start to place the blocks. I've used magic to duplicate the stones of the nether that I'd carefully taken the few times I've encountered them in other worlds. Then refined them multiple times to get the look I want. Progress placing them is as slow, nay slower then the digging of the hole had been. On the other hand, as nice as it feels to accomplish a big dig, these perfectly placed blocks are a delicious thing themselves.



The ring of stone closes, but this is still the first pass, the first iteration. I know this much work will come, three more times, and even then it will not be finished. This is not hell on earth, but rather a representation of a rend in the world that I've crafted here. Symbolic, and possessed of a strange appeal.



So here I take my rest, one last upgrade, the marble floor changed for almost glowing polished tiles. I might, or might not use this everywhere else, but in the entrance it has a crisp look that I like. When I start to fill this with the links and the loot of worlds. There is perhaps one more tool that I shall try to gain, one more gift I might try to reach into the outside and draw into this world.