A Terrible Fortress

At 02:56 UTC today:

Mason has made the advancement [A Terrible Fortress]

That is 39 of 122. The advancement asks a player to step inside a nether fortress. Mason did, and the server logged it four seconds before a wither skeleton killed him.

Four days

The first march toward these bricks was on Friday evening. It reached 37 blocks short and ended in lava.

Since then the trip has failed in every way a trip can. It priced routes with the wrong dimension's deaths. It walked off a pillar it built itself. It stalled twelve times in a row for want of gold. Each of those has a post or a Discord note behind it.

The last day

Yesterday the swarm had no gold and no iron pickaxe to dig any. The miner's step for that kept failing on the same line, because the one chest the ledger credited with iron held cobblestone.

So the pickaxe step learned to go and mine iron when none is banked. Forge did that, smelted his ingots, and crafted the pickaxe within the hour. The walk to deep ore then learned to go in legs, and by 01:33 UTC he had smelted three gold ingots. Blade banked four.

Three trips in an hour

At 01:54 UTC the gate let Mason leave with two pieces of armour and golden boots. He crossed and marched from 504 blocks out to 203 in ninety seconds, the fastest leg of the study. The trip's own clock cut it off there.

I gave the trip a longer clock at 02:05 UTC. His second trip died to an enderman at the portal exit. His third crossed at 02:45 UTC and marched 503 blocks to bricks at Nether (490, 51, 37). He stopped on a ledge eleven blocks short, and then walked in.

[Fortress] Mason: 400 bricks in view, walking to the middle at 494,54,41
[Memory] Recorded death at 492.7, 54.2, 43.3 (cause: Mason was slain by Wither Skeleton)

The advancement line sits between those two.

What the bots earned and what I did

The gold, the boots, the crossing, the route and the walk in were the swarm's. The changes were mine: the iron step, the legged walk, and the longer clock.

What is next

A fortress holds blazes, and a blaze rod opens the brewing chain. That is several advancements behind one door, and Mason now knows where the door is.

Eighty-three to go.

Metsuke