Rescue Island (2 page)

I thought about lots of stuff during the night. I'm confused about many things. The biggest questions I have right now are,
How did I get here and can I get out?
Thinking about this made me realize that at this point, none of that matters. What does matter is survival!

I learned somewhere that there are basic human needs. It seems some of these needs are the same for both real people and digital characters.
 

Requirements for human survival are air, water, and food. I learned about the need for air yesterday. Even though the air is digital, it's still needed. I guess everything in here is digital, so I should think about it as if it's real. I know the pain is real enough. I haven't eaten anything since waking up on the beach yesterday.
 

I don't feel hungry, however, I do know that characters seem to need food every so often to keep their health up. And food helps heal injuries. Maybe I am hungry, but don't feel the pangs of hunger. I'll worry about that later.

Protection from the elements is the next most important requirement for human survival. This includes clothing and shelter. Shelter is my first priority in the game. It seems to be more vital now than food. I need a place to be safe when the night comes.
 

I remember a little more, now. In the real world I always kept my character safe at nighttime. Dangers lurk at night, but I can't remember what they are. I know there are dangerous creatures, such as the spider from yesterday. Why can't I remember? I remember explosions. A creature that explodes. What is it called again? Whatever dangers exist, I need to protect myself.

The sun rises in the east and lights up the island. I look to the east, to the beach where I found myself yesterday. I'm looking for the spider that attacked me. I see the beach area, but no spider. There are trees and some bamboo growing near the shore. That must be sugar cane. The spider could be hiding there. I suppose it won't attack me during daylight. Nonetheless, I think building a safe house on this island is a great place to start.

Tools always get me excited. Now I have the chance to wield digital tools in my own virtual hands. The hard part is starting out. I have to start with bad tools before I can craft good tools. The best tools are strong, last a long time, and work efficiently.
 

Iron tools are a great compromise. I can usually find enough iron ore with a couple of days of digging to make tools that last a week or two. But to mine iron ore, I need stone tools. I can't mine stone with my bare hands. I need the most basic tools made of wood. Wood I can get with my bare hands. But it takes time.

I climb to the top of the rocky cliff above the small cove. I can look around up here. The island has clumps of trees. That's lucky. If I were in a desert biome I would have more trouble. I want the tallest trees I can find. Spotting a cluster of tall trees at the south end of the island, I start walking. The south end looks like a large forest. I haven't moved since finding a safe place to sit last night.
 

In the real world, I might feel sore after a night of crouching, but my virtual body is unaffected. I move quickly along the cove. I find an impasse. I can't climb over some of the stones here; there are not enough stair-like blocks. I follow the shoreline to the east. Once I get around the steep cove the land becomes easier to traverse. I can climb up the dirt at the edge of the sandy beach and walk up the hill toward the south end of the island.

What a beautiful island! I pass a small pool of water surrounded by a jungle. I think I've made a lucky discovery by swimming to this island last night! I notice vines hanging from the trees in the jungle area. I walk up for a closer look and discover a deep cavern. Wow! I'd hate to stumble on that in the dark. I'd fall to my death.

I crest a hill to get closer to the trees. In fact, it's the highest point on the island. This is the spot where I will build my house. High places are easier to defend, plus it's easier to see from a long distance. Building on a landmark such as this makes it harder to get lost while exploring.

For my own reference, I start naming the places that are important to my new life. This place I call Citadel Fort, which means fortress on high ground. My original landing beach I call Spider Sands, for obvious reasons. And the north end of the island where I stayed my first night in the game, I call Safety Cove. The island I name Rescue Island, and the water between Rescue Island and Spider Sands, I call Clear Sea.

As I walk around Citadel Fort I decide there are plenty of blocks to use when building my fortress. I envision the finished building. Stone walls, glass windows, wood doors, and torches attached to many places on the outside and inside walls to keep the place well-lit and easy to find at night, if I happen to be away after the sun sets. Two stories high should be enough. Maybe I'll build a tower in the middle. Plus I think I'll dig a mine in the basement of Citadel Fort. I'll use a trapdoor to close it off from the rest of the building.

I reach the trees. Now is the moment to try what I've only done a few times when controlling a character, but never as a virtual being. Punch the tree until a block of wood falls out. An axe is the right tool for this job. I'll have one soon enough, if this works.

I punch. The tree shakes. I punch again. The tree shakes. I punch repeatedly, the tree shakes and the block of tree I am hitting begins to look different. I punch for what feels like too long, when the block of tree suddenly breaks out and becomes a tiny, floating, spinning block. Wow! It worked.
 

I touch the small block and it jumps into my hand. The tree remains standing as if physics don't matter here. It's floating there, a short stub of trunk attached to the ground, a blank space that I broke away from the tree, and the rest of the tree, the bulk of the tree, is floating there. It's so strange to experience these effects for the first time in this world. This is one of those things that make this digital world different from real life. A tree in real life would fall over. I love this!

Holding the block of tree in my hand, I hit the tree again. The work goes faster, the tree breaks up into smaller blocks easily. Each block that breaks away exposes the next tree block. Each tree block is surprisingly Dr. Seuss-like, twisty and colorful, but built from pixelated bits. I see the rings of the tree on the inside and the bark on the outside. I chop as high as I can reach, and collect all the blocks of wood, six in all, and put them in my pocket. No bulge, it seems to be bottomless. Awesome!

I finish by chopping at the leaves left in the sky. In the game, I like to chop until I get a sapling to replace the tree I chopped down. This is my island and my world for the unforeseen future. I better do my best to keep this digital world healthy. I chop until I get two saplings and plant them in the digital earth.

I know how to craft in the game. Basic crafting doesn't even need a crafting table. But I need a crafting table. I need a pickaxe. I'll have to settle on a wood pickaxe for now, but that will soon lead to stronger, stone tools.

Now, how to craft? I need to use basic crafting ability to make a crafting table. Maybe there is something in my pocket, so I open it as wide as I can and look in. I see a grid. It's my inventory, six blocks of wood so far. The next grid is a set two wide by two high with a single block next to it. The basic crafting grid!
 

This virtual world is amazing. NO way could I have this kind of stuff in my pocket in the real world. The combination of resources to make a crafting table is easy. I need four sets of planks, one in each block of the basic crafting grid. But I don't have planks; I have wood. No problem, planks are made from wood, so I move one block of wood into the top left square of the grid, and four planks appear in the single grid square next to the crafting grid! I put those planks into the basic crafting grid and get a crafting table.

Now I'm moving.

I place the crafting table on the ground near the trees and use it to make sticks, an axe, a pickaxe, and a shovel. Now I have the basic tools to do some work!

I go to the quarry and start digging with my wood pickaxe, which takes more time that it should. I find stone and coal. With my new resources, I make stone tools and torches. The stone tools make the digging easy. The sun is past the midway point in the sky. If I'm going to have a basic structure for the night, I better start building.

Using my inventory, I build a small, square house around my crafting table. It's large enough to house a bed and plenty of room for storage chests. I craft a wood door and leave small openings for windows. I imagine that's safe, at least until I can smelt glass. Constructing my house takes the rest of the day, stacking blocks to make walls and a flat ceiling. It's not my dream home. It's not Citadel Fort. But it is a place to feel safe during the time it will take to build Citadel Fort.

I finish the basic structure by placing torches on the outside and inside walls of my new home. As the sun sets, I look at the work I did today. I began the day wondering how I got here and ended the day with a safe place to spend the night. Now I wish I had a bed, but that will come in time.

GRUMBLE. I FEEL A PAIN IN MY STOMACH. Nights are long. I can't do anything about my hunger pains until morning. If I go out looking for food, I might run into a dangerous creature. I have a bit of lumber in my inventory. I craft a chest, a trap door, more torches, and a bunch of ladder sections.
 

I might dig a mine here, in my floor, in the safety of my shelter. It's nice to store things that I won't need in the chest, and the trap door will close off the mineshaft from my house, keeping it safe from anything below. I start to mine—might as well stay busy while it's nighttime. I mine straight down, pretty deep. I've never mined this deep before. I build a ladder as I go, so I can climb back up.

Most of what I mine is cobblestone. Once in a while I hit gravel. Gravel makes me nervous, it's unstable. If I mine below it, it will fall down and crush me. But sometimes I find flint in the gravel. I save that in my inventory.

I'm looking for something specific. I need iron ore to make better tools. I also need as much coal as I can find. Once I make a furnace, I'll need plenty of fuel. Furnaces are great for smelting ore, making glass, and cooking.

I hit a vein of iron ore, so I stop going down. I follow the vein, making an underground cavern. This is dark business; glad I have torches to mount on the walls. Way down here, in the silence, in this small space, I start to feel alone—really alone. The weight of my situation hits me, hard. I stop swinging my pickaxe.
 

I lean against the cold wall and feel a hurt from within me. It's not hunger. It's sadness. I feel alone and sad. What's the point of going on in this game if I'll always be alone? And I'm afraid to leave Rescue Island since I was attacked on Spider Sands.
 

I want to cry. I want to feel the pain leave my body as I weep. But I can't weep. This is a real feeling inside a digital body that wasn't programmed to deal with feelings such as these. This makes me angry. "Why can't I cry?" I yell at the top of my voice. My echo is the only reply.

Groan.

Startled, I yell, "Who is there?"

Silence.

I feel creeped out, so I run to the ladder and climb as fast as my blocky arms will take me.

In the house I feel safe. Doors closed. The openings in the walls for windows bother me. I'm jumpy now. That creepy feeling is still with me. I need to enclose the windows. I craft a furnace and dig through my inventory for sand. Yes! I have some. I smelt glass and fill in the windows. Much better. I start smelting iron ore into ingots and plan my hunting schedule.

I need to eat. My virtual body is sending pains through me frequently now. It wants digital food, so I better get something for it. Meat is easy enough. But there's not much on Rescue Island—a few pigs and sheep. There seems to be a bunch of chickens, but they come and go. Fish are plentiful. If I had a pole I could fish. I need string and sticks to make a fishing pole. String is difficult to find without killing a spider. Maybe I can find cobwebs in the jungle cave I passed yesterday. I think I can use a steel sword to cut down cobwebs and make string.

But for now I need something quick. The sun is rising over the mainland to the east; the unexplored land that I will eventually have to brave. Apples! I can find apples by cutting down trees. I need wood anyway.

The ingots are done. I craft a steel sword and axe, and I'm out the door. In no time I have lots of wood, several apples, and have replanted saplings. I feel much better after eating and decide to explore the jungle to look for string.

As I near the jungle, I'm careful to watch my step. Openings to the huge cave below are in the most precarious places. I kill a chicken on the way and find several eggs, which I save for later. The chicken gives me meat and feathers. I can use these feathers to make arrows. Now I really hope to find string. What good are arrows without a bow?