Mechworld (TechWorld2 Narration)

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ICountFrom0

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Aug 21, 2012
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Vermont
One of my forefathers was afraid of portals of all kinds. I think I understand now. Sure, some of the lands in this far place where harsh, but none where unreasonably so, until this time.

I found a book, left carelessly, and once I read it, I was pulled in. Sure I'd visited a few ages this way, but not without the means of return. Though this time I was lucky, there was a fissure. Then as I was falling through the night, I remembered, our people where not from that world, this fissure would not return me to it.

I fell past many worlds. I've a brief recollection of passing through a gateway made of many gears before landing here. A brief glimpse of an entire world of machinery, of gears and cogs. It fascinates me.

Reeds where close to where I landed, but wood nearby was mostly in low bushes. Yet there was enough to start this book for my notes. Though I do think I will wait until the morrow to start it properly, I had to capture the images from the, I guess I better call it a dream, or a vision, before it faded.
 

ICountFrom0

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Aug 21, 2012
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(FTB pack name is now in the title. I like to narrate my worlds and turn out these little stories from them. Sometimes I include additional challenges. This time it's not just playing a tech only pack, it's not using items in the tech mods that are inherently magical. I've not made my mind up about enchantments but the odds are against them.)


I've landed. Already I am in trouble, my head breaks water, I find a Lilly pad to rest on for a bit as I look around, as I try to get my bearings. Sadly it is hopeless. I've seen junglewood before, but never one growing like these, and those spiders...

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The strange little spiders where on me before I could even get into the chest that had been left for me. The bite of them made it hard to see, and even the plants on the very ground are poison to me. I fought them, and then checked the chest, only to find more strangeness.

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I'd known steel before, but it had never been this common, it was a rare thing, hard won by driving back the nether and using the heat in the materials from there to concentrate iron into a stronger form. It was a dark, almost ugly material. This was shinning pure, and lustrous. Common enough to be left as a gift to strangers on the beach. Never the like of it. I've much to learn.

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I was have little space to learn it in though. To the south this strange and toxic badlands of cracked earth. The north was just as bad, water and a very few places at the horizon that might be islands. It looks like all I am going to have, is what I can find near. Though here at the edge of the wilds, while things are dangerous, things are not as bad as they could be. There are seeds that I can plant in the grasses, and even a few sprouting potatoes and carrots mixed in with these plants. This makes for one of the better gardens that I've ever had to survive from.

When I went digging for resources, things likewise are strange, and what I thought to find was scarce, often replaced by other things. There was a network of mostly played out mines deep under the ground, sometimes peeking out into an underwater cavern of abysal stone.

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Breathtaking.

But not safe.

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The poison on the surface was all through the ground, even in pools deep below the surface.

Still I was able to bring enough materials back for a proper base, and a suit of armor.

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I will just have to learn what these glowing stones are for, and what uses I might make of this treasure dragged from the earth.

(If you do enjoy these stories and like them well enough to ask, I can include other ones I've done before as well, editing the links into the top.)
 
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ICountFrom0

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I was digging clay in a river in the wastelands when I broke into yet another cave full of poison. As I have need of the copper that I saw in here, I took my time to clear out the poison and mine the materials. Somewhere nearby a zombie spawned, and then another. I started to think I'd found another dungeon, and close from the sound of them, but then I heard a wooden door being broken down. This is something you almost never hear underground. Was somebody else building around here? I approached the sound and ... wow.

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I can feel you looking over my shoulder, you've noticed what I've made? The last two items there are a backpack, a large one, and a crafting table. It is not hard to make, chips made with gold iron and redstone, and then a careful upgrade with them to a crafting table. It saves me from having to set down a crafting table to work with it and that helps me keep track of my inventory better. The backpack was made with a toughened leather, the leather itself salvaged from zombie flesh. Seems that one of these new materials lets me purify the shards of ripped flesh into preserved leather. Speaking of zombie, the door that was being broken down...

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The end portal, inside the stronghold. Within an arrow's flight of the place I landed. This is one of the things that I always look for in a world, but it's not everything that I am seeking for. Between this base and the contents of the mines I've gotten armor. I'll be headed out soon, to try to find a place to make my way in the world, though the Stronghold is tempting.
 
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ICountFrom0

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From the chests, an ancient suit of black steel armor. With that and some spare materials so that I can replace my sword, always breaking those when I travel. I tell you, I wasn't far from home before I was lost. The good kind of lost, the lost that you can be proud of.

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Through a thicket, over a marsh, and a glacier was climbing down out of the mountains. I took samples as I passed, saplings, flowers, stone in a few kinds, ores and minerals. Crossed the entire glacier before landing on the other side, not as easy as it sounds as there where strange flying things in the blizzards, snowballs thrown out at me, and a howling core inside, my sword bit something and with a scream it scattered.

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A small patch of pine forest and an overgrown beach had drawn my eye, gave me a chance to collect some cactus. I was getting many kinds of plants and I would have to have a garden for themselves. So much of the world is untamed and wild, dangerous and sharp. It's going to be hard to find a place to live. Everywhere is strange, and swarms of the undead come at me out of the darkness, caves and deep forests spilling them out at me. I've already broken one sword.

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A frosted forest, and I think I heard wolves. Surely enough to eat out here, I've seen pigs and cows plenty enough for me to try to tame some and bait them home, wherever home ends up being. Perhaps I would even like to tame myself some dogs. The jungle I landed had itself a few ocelots, I suspect there could be come conflicts between the two if I got both, but I'd be tempted just the same.

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I almost fell down that hole, it's wet all the way to the bottom I've been told. Yes, told. I'll tell you about that soon. You see those low bushes? Quite a few saplings, but only one log. A deep purple wood that's rather attractive. Perhaps part of the attraction is from how hard it would be to make a building of it. Now let me tell you that the monsters where getting worse and worse as I fought through these hills and forests. Where I'd been doing well against the zombies, and the skeletons let themselves be baited around a tree, but it was those green monsters, creeping up behind me that did the most damage to me. That was the most dangerous.


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Most dangerous, because soon I was trying to protect this village. The locals where sieged by the monsters, waves after waves of them, day and night. I've shown you a picture of what it looked like after because before there was no time to stop. A large village, aparist and blacksmith had moved in, swelling the numbers, but none had the secrets of making golems so the town was unprotected. The locals stayed inside, hiding, the forest had overgrown the town. This only brought the monsters on closer. So they gave me work. I cleared the trees. I lit the paths, and I built a fence. It wouldn't stop arrows but it would keep out the worst of the monsters. They would be safe again. Maybe someday I'll be able to return and perhaps they will expand a little. It wouldn't take much more to attract one that knows the secrets of golems. They told me many secrets, and I'll have to write them down once I am safe. Here I will only make a short note, the magic has left this world.


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There is beauty, and wonder, but the magic of lands my family has known in the past, is just that, the past. There are rumors, there are stories, but the days of magic are past. Technology is taking the place where magic used to be, but the growth is slow in these distant villages. I thanked them and moved on. Near to the town was these huge cliffs of hardened clay, mottled mesa views. I've lived in the hills before, in cliffs for the views. Always loved a view. Still I wasn't going to settle where the only growth is a distant forest.


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Beyond the cliffs is a paradise, not for me but for horses. Not forests, but vast open fields, prairies and herds. Horse after horse, all on the run for they did not want to be near me. Wild as anything. And into the wilds I did continue. Across into the badlands, and then into desert and dunes.


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I saw in the distance, a huge dune and rememebered the story of my grandfather, he found shelter in a dune like that, but to hear him it was smaller. This dune was almost as large as the pryamid that he built. If he'd moved into that he'd hardly have had the need to expand out of it. From the top of it I saw that swamp, with gnarled trees, and beyond the sea. For all that I was traveling I didn't want to cross the sea. Nor did I want to go more then 1km from the place the world began. I'd hit the sea and turned, not once, but twice now...

It was time to come back.

On the way, I saw...


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Those are mountains, and they call to me. There is a whisper.

Home.

(thank you e_dm_b for the like, was worried I'd lost my touch)
 
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ICountFrom0

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So, let me talk to you my friend, you're my journal and I can call you what I want of course, it will help me to understand what I was told. While back home, everybody knew that the darkness was bespelled and it summoned the monsters, that it was magic, simply and truly magic that brought the monsters. Part of the nature of the world to balance all the help that magic brought with it.

I am told that here, all the monsters are brought in due to instability between dimensions. There is one very nearby where the darkness is so strong that anywhere in this world that conditions come into a parallel with that world, the two are joined and a monster is then able to slip out. I admit, I don't understand the difference but they where very clear that the two events are /very/ different.

When I asked how they could exist in the other world, the villagers very patiently explained that the other dimensions have physical laws that are not the same ones that rule here. Artifacts that could only be created there will carry enough of the variance that they continue to operate here. Seems quite a bit of the technology is based around harvesting these changed principles in order to do work here. So the ender pearls are not magic, they are somehow nth dimensional singularities.

I honestly don't understand it.

What I know as enchanted armor is either been passed down and repaired so often that it's a relic, or brought in from the shadow world by the monsters. That is one of the few places where there's enough of the old magic, and it might be possible to work with such powers, if I could get there myself. Though such a practice is purely theoretical as no stable gateway has ever been constructed. If this is not enough for me, I am told that there is on rare occasion an old tome found with some of that power lingering in it.

I've also been warned that the obsidian portal for the burning nether has to be constructed at the weakest region of the bedrock that seals that realm shut from ours, and that things are much more likely to pass out of it then I am used to. Though there is technology to make these stable as well.

That seems to be most of it, I'll write more as I come to understand it. For now I've prepared a small storage room for the stockpile...

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I will rest here as I prepare the valley, clearing out some of the trees, driving away the darkness and searching for a place within it to build. I've the oddest feeling that I won't be able to get away with a small treehouse this time.

(Thank you Salamileg9, I should have time to work on it more today, update today or tomorrow)
 
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ICountFrom0

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I don't know why such a thing would happen, but there are mushrooms growing between the dark branches of the trees in the deepest depths of this forest. They will not be able to grow here for long though, I'm removing many of the trees, lighting up the rest of the places, there is simply no shade for them to grow in. No darkness to thin the boundary.

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I even explored down into the caverns, networks of caves. First one under the forest itself, rather near the surface I found another spawner, the locals talk as if these cages thin space near them, make it easy for monsters to escape. Yet monsters are a resource and if they rarely bring things of magic with them, then maybe I will have to capture this resource for myself.

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Deeper into the caves, there was another, this one far under the mountains. If I had not been trying to light up as much of the caves as I could reach, to prevent the monsters from reaching me easily I would not have gone this deep. The zombies are not as dangerous as the skeletons, when they are few. When there are many of them, it becomes a war of attrition and they become more dangerous. This cave is such a place where they are thick enough to be dangerous indeed. Yet like the skeletons, this is a resource that might be of use to me.

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Here is where my bed is now. This is the fortress I have made for myself, a stockade where the woods where. It is not large compared to some places I have seen, but I used much of the resources of the region in it. It is made almost completely of wood, as you can see, and even without a roof I am protected from the spiders, they cannot climb past the gap in the wall.

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It is an old trick, but one that I remembered, and will use well myself. There will be another floor, and while I won't need to protect that one from spiders in the same way, I think I will, it is easy on the eyes and pleasant to see the wood put to good use like this. For the ground level, and for construction below the ground I've gone with more primitive blocks. Complete with iron doors.

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I built above the skeleton spawner, walled it in, and gathered them with water, flowing it over and into spikes. This is only the most simple way to work with the monsters, and I must improve it too with time. When I've mastered some of this technology, the locals talk of climbing the tree, I suspect I will find more ways to use this resource. It feels odd to me not to be doing this with my own hand, but it is not unlike a golem, I guess.

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Though, I will admit this is not quite as neat a way to collect the items as a golem, some is lost. but not all.

(Thank you Not_Steve, if there's anything you'd like to see more of, feel free)
 
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ICountFrom0

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This being a world of science, the first thing I would make seemed rather obvious to me. Without magic to make a set of seven league boots, flight becomes my best option for traveling this world.

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So, first, I needed a way to charge it, the energetic infuser. The survival generator was a simple enough way to charge it, to get started. I thought for one moment to make for myself the one, simpler jetpack, but...

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I went with a safer option instead. I was frustrated, the tier 2 jetpack required glowstone for faster fuel transfer, and the third tier would have required hardened glass in order to reinforce the fuel lines. (I also note here that a flux capasitor cannot power the jetpack, maybe next version...)
Into the air went I. I've shown you the mountains from below many times now.

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I cannot yet show you what the mountains look like from the top, I used most of the power in my jetpack just to climb halfway where the lowest of the mountain passes crossed these alpine peaks. Still, is not that view magnificent? I turned and moved on, I was headed north, to where the dunes had claimed most of a huge island, what I was in need of was sand. I could have claimed all the sand from the beach without getting enough. I could have worked a grindstone for hours and not had enough. It was faster to simply travel for it.

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Even if I had to cross these deep swamps to reach my goal. Even if I did get lost returning. Sometimes what you find when you are lost is beautiful, and worth it, so very worth it. I honestly have to share these pictures, for I am afraid that my words would not bring it back, they lack so much of what is needed.

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I did eventually get myself home. I set the furnaces to cook what I'd made from the sand, and set out for one more trip. This is but a hint:

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(thank you E_DM_B, new segment tonight)
 
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ICountFrom0

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(There are a few lesser used items that take insane amounts of power that I will be using latter)

I believe I'd left off with collecting obsidian. To this day I am reluctant to use diamond to break so simple looking a block and am slightly resistant to the idea of using a material that rare. I know I could just make a machine to handle the obsidian for me, and so I very carefully work around the edges of each block with this survivalist pick, and bring home this so stubborn block. The real prize was the tank of lava, 16 buckets in the tank. I'll be sure to have a larger tank when I return.

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While I work downstairs, I've this machine processing the many ores I'd gotten on the caving trip, yes, I went into the caves, it wasn't just for lava and obsidian, and the leftovers that I had not the patience to process with the so primitive grindstone. I'd had enough luck that there was no real scarcity of resources, there was nothing in this world that I lack in any reasonable amount.

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There is much you can do with a proper smeltery. It's been said that the best and wisest of inventors are always the sort of people who make their own tools. In a world where I've been stranded without anything but my addled wits, well, it's a requirement. It's a poor workman who blames his tools, but I am tired, deep down tired, of breaking picks and driving shovels into ruin.

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And thus, this nearly full set of casts. The other shot shows off the proper tool forge, while I've not made a tinker's bench I don't yet need them. Now I'll be able to make what I need, when it's time to get more resources. For now I am flush so the tool ranks hang empty on the walls. I've plans for tools. I will note that early testing has once again shown that I can't use the same tools I did back home, for one the effect that regenerated tools must have been magic, for it does not work here.

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I took my time and expanded the basement a little, put in a backdoor, a touch of decoration, seems that stacks and stacks of ore take a long while to process even with the larger generator. The smelter took care of working the dust into blocks. Even in blocks though I had quite a bit more material then I had space for. When I'd moved from the stockpile to the stockade I'd just dumped the chests. Now I've sorted things out a bit better.

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The first major installment of machines from thermal expansion. I've left a spot for the one machine that I can't make, yet. You can also see that I've upgraded my equipment slightly. A rather stronger jetpack, and some strange boots that promise to prevent fall damage.
Soon I'll have pictures from the top of the mountains around me as I'll finally be able to get up there and have a proper look around.

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Science. That means testing. Even things you've been told are pure futility. So, I've tested. And yes, it IS a dud. Possibly I might have better luck with the one that mechanically fuses essence into the object, there was a story or two about them working, but such systems where notoriously temperamental. Though I might have slightly better luck if I could somehow reach the place that the monsters come from.

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Iron Ingot. Hammer. Plate. Case. Copper Ingot. Hammer. Plate. Cutter. Wire. Coil. Tree. Sap. Rubber. Insulated Wire. Copper. Tin. Bronze. Plate. Casing. Tool Chest. Metal Former.

Yes, that's the EASY way. Powered with redstone so I don't have to make generators first and do all this stuff twice. Power that with redstone a while and make an extractor before the generator. I've always known that redstone was some amazing stuff but I didn't know it was THAT powerful.

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A rather basic IC2 setup here. No furnace as there is nothing special that it does, but macerator and compressor are very handy. I'll look for better power and the advanced ore handling in the future. I'm not entirely sure that it's worthwhile, but that's something to test. If for no other reason then I will want to make a reactor someday, and then a bigger reactor.

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There you have the entire workshop. I'm using so much fuel that I find the need to coke the coal into a more efficient fuel. Over in the corner you'll see a much better use of the space then an enchanting table. I will just mention as I return to my work, I might regret being here in the cold... though there IS a solution, it is nothing from this world.

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(Thank you E_DM_B and midi_sec)
 
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