Last time ended with a scramble to get Basket geared up again, and this one opens with the same idea. "Time to get some people jacked up." The plan is to light up a spawner off to the left and then head for the other emerald in the Breeding Grounds. The death counter opens at Scoti 34, Basket 25.
Become a monster
Plan A doesn't last. There's a building right there, and it's full of spawners, poison spiders and mobs that regenerate as fast as they get hit. Someone calls out a legendary weapon inside, and one of them switches to an iron sword because the Smite one "is not doing anything."
The prize is in a chest upstairs. The tooltip on Basket's screen names it the Reptilian Warmask, Protection II and Blast Protection II, with the line "Sometimes, one must become a monster to defeat one." It goes on, and Basket now has a creeper for a head. "I'm gonna look like a creeper."
More armor turns up: a chestplate called Pristine Reptilian Scales (Torso) and a pair of boots, both Protection III, Blast Protection I and Unbreaking V, plus a Protection III book. There's also a chest of splash potions, Necrosis among them, which unstack all over an inventory that's already full.
Three deaths in the swamp
The emerald sits past a lit beach area with at least three spawners on the near side. They go in torching, one left and one right, and it falls apart fast. Lizard guys everywhere, a creeper spawner, and nobody sure "which creeper headed guy to shoot." Basket ends up in the water, and the chat reads "BasketMC was blown up by Bluescale Creeper."
Scoti goes after the dropped gear and fishes out the Depth Strider boots and the cracked reptilian scales. Basket, it turns out, had been carrying about 12 potions that looked like healing and were really Purification. Then come two more deaths in quick order: "BasketMC was slain by Reptilian Warrior," and another Bluescale Creeper. The counter climbs to Basket 28. Scoti stays at 34 all episode.
Friends get emeralds together
On the next push the spawners by the emerald go down one by one, and some of them get capped. "Friends get emeralds together." A witch shows up by a fence and doesn't last long. Then the creepers come back, and they can't kill them because "their regeneration is way too fast."
What follows is a lot of running. One of them gets stuck in a web while breaking a spawner. There are Guardians in the water. Both end up hiding in holes they dig, which get names: a Scoti hole and a "basket case." Somewhere in all that Basket picks up Strength and Regeneration without knowing where from. "I was in the water a bunch."
There's another emerald on the way out, and the plan is to grab it and get back to safety. The emeralds end up in a chest. "Operation emeralds in the box."
The Outpost
Looking for a way out, they find a clock tower and a checkpoint with a sign: "THE OUTPOST (path to I2) [3 Emeralds]." In a chest there is a book, "Orders" by Mine Overseer. Workers are to stop mining and retreat to Mining Center 26 behind the mushroom cave, and "in the unlikely event that any miners get killed, please set the corpse on fire and make sure that not a single part of it is left. Don't ask why." They decide that's a later problem and go back down.
![Sign reading "THE OUTPOST (path to I2) [3 Emeralds]" beside a glowstone block](https://www.basketmc.com/images/2438/conversions/sign-reading-the-outpost-path-to-i2-3-emeralds-beside-a-glow-07da4afb-content-image.webp)
Fighting from the water
Back in the swamp they finally get it. "If you're in the water you get the buff." So they stay in, plug spawners, and pass heads on spikes and something they call a mass grave. "Now I understand the mechanic of this place, so it's a little bit cooler."
The episode ends with them looking at a big, dark cobblestone staircase going down into a hill. That's for next time. No crystals or emerald blocks went on the monument this episode, so it's still 4 of 16 crystals and 2 of 12 emerald blocks, with deaths at Scoti 34, Basket 28.