Day one

I always was a fan of snow.

Day one

 I spawned in the middle of a rather thick forest with a small collection of caves, joined by a bumpy gulley, in front of me. Immediately, I set to work gathering wood for tools and weapons, and also some chicken to keep my hunger bar up.

I'll have to explore there, for sure.

After a short while, my curiosity got the better of me and I jumped down into the gulley for a bit of spelunking. After crafting some tools, naturally- who would wander unprotected into dark caves but a fool?

Oh. That's lucky, I suppose.

That's... Double lucky?

Almost immediately, I hit surface iron veins; a rare occurence for my luckless self. Fashioning a set of stone tools as fast as I could, I set to work digging out the ores, keeping an eye on the steadily setting sun as I did.

Is that the glow of.. Lava?

Why yes, it is!

Setting my sights on the cave after my rather profitable mining session, I paused at the mouth of the cave for a second when I saw the glow of what appeared to be lava. I'd never had so much iron AND a cave full of lava so close to my spawn; this seemed almost too good to be true. Venturing down, my suspicions- or were they hopes? Were confirmed- it was lava. Right next to some rather large veins of iron and coal too, may I add.

Pretty.

With the setting sun on my mind, I decided to make my way back out of the cave, pausing for a second to look at the subterranean waterfall only metres away from the lava. I wondered how close I was to diamond, but decided not to risk it; I'd already used enough daylight up mining for things I could see.

Wow, this place really keeps on giving.

Hitting another four or five block vein of iron on the way to the surface, I decided to set up my furnace and workbench and get into the core of the game: Crafting. By this time I had around twenty two blocks of iron- more than I had ever gotten on my first day. (For the record, that is zero.) I set up my crafting bench and furnace against a tree and proceeded to smelt my iron, keeping an eye on the sky from which the sun was mysteriously absent.

While it isn't a panoramic view of the sky, I assure you the sun was nowhere in sight.

 Before long, the light dimmed, and the area around me was illuminated by the flickering yellow light of the furnace. I didn't fancy my chances of not being creepered, so I packed up my gear and dug into the ground, fashioning myself a little dugout, and then squeezed my furnace into the enclosed space.

I'm sure this would be cosy, were I not claustrophobic.

I sat and waited, the sounds of chickens filtering through from above as I fed more coal and iron into the furnace and waited for the night to pass. To make my time useful, I put my workbench down and started to craft iron tools to help me on my way. I devoted my attention to the crafting so completely, however, that I let the fuel for my furnace dwindle and run out. Plunged into darkness, and with an innate fear of being in an enclosed space, real or virtual, I panicked to get more fuel into the furnace, completely forgetting about torches.

OMGWTFBBQ

Before you could say "Torch, maybe?" I'd piled most of my coal into the furnace. Only then did I remember about torches, crafting up a batch and sticking one on the wall to prevent any more unpleasant surprises. From time to time I would dig away a block and look at the sky hopefully, eager to move out of this enclosed space. No luck; the sky was as black as it had been the last time I looked every time I did look.

Oh dear, a creeper.

Before long I had the amazingly bright idea of going up to collect some snowballs, something I had never done before. After picking up sixteen, I sighted a creeper in the distance and, eager to get away, turned and ran. Jumping back into my dugout, I half blocked the entrance with the single block of dirt I could pull out of my inventory. Through the gap left, I saw something that made my blood run cold: Four little green feet. I backpedaled as far as my underground shelter would allow me, and, in my haste, blocked the hole with my crafting table instead of the dirt I was aiming for.

Herp.

I hastily knocked out the table and replaced it with a block of dirt, pausing to get a photo of the creeper's feet bobbing up and down just feet from me.

Gulp.

Before long, I knocked out a block in the ceiling to check the time, and, sure enough, warm, golden sunlight filtered in. I packed up my table and furnace and tunneled away for a stretch, eager to put some space between me and the creeper before I went above ground.

That's right, you just stay there like a good creeper.

Taking a look back at our bouncing green friend, I couldn't help but smile as I walked away into the morning light.