Day six of the Lorax Challenge, Michael Deering's September 2014 Minecraft Hardcore Challenge. The goal is a nice stone castle with a melon farm, without breaking a single tree or leaf. Basket starts where the last episode stopped: inside the big cobblestone walls, on a floor that is half dirt and half dug-out stone, with the rain still coming down. The guest voice is back on the call, building in a separate world on the same seed.
The rain stops
The episode opens in third person, with Basket in iron armor knocking dirt out of the floor in the rain. Then the rain stops and the sky clears to blue.
The plan gets said out loud on the call. "I'm going for some squares, or rectangles, and then I'll probably have towers in the corners. If I get that far." And for the floor: "I'm going to make the floor smooth stone, I'm going to use lava water, see if that works out." After that, "build up the towers, and then maybe make a door somewhere."
So the shovel keeps going. The last banks of dirt and grass come out one block at a time, until the whole pit inside the walls is flat gray stone.
A pool inside the walls
Next comes water. Basket goes back and forth with the bucket, pouring it across the stone until the whole floor is a shallow blue pool from wall to wall.
Then the lava bucket comes out. Basket tips it onto the water, and where the lava sits, the water underneath turns to stone. Basket scoops the same lava back into the bucket, moves over and pours again. One bucket, used over and over.
Melons before dark
The light starts to go. "Wow, it's getting dark out. That's gonna be no bueno here in a second." There is something else to do first: "I should really check on my melons before it gets night."
Basket climbs the ladder out of the old yard and runs down to the farm by the lake. Melon blocks have grown again between the stems, and Basket breaks them. The melon slices in the hotbar go from 21 to 24.
A long night of lava
Back inside, night falls and the work slows down. Some dirt still lines the edges of the pit, so Basket digs it out with the shovel and patches the gaps with cobblestone. Then it is back to the lava: pour, wait, scoop, move, all night long, with torches set down on the new stone as it spreads.
"It's going pretty well. It's kind of slow. I should have gotten more lava to do this, I think." And a moment later: "It's not the fastest thing."
A stone floor by sunrise
By the time the sun comes up over the walls, most of the pool has turned to stone. A strip of water still sits along the far wall. "I think it's daytime, my friend." Basket picks the last lava back up: "I'm gonna grab this lava so I don't accidentally run into it the next episode."
Then a switch to third person shows Basket in iron armor with an iron sword, standing on a wide gray floor ringed with torches. "I hear some skeletons, but they can't get in."
Basket is alive with full hearts, a full hunger bar and experience level 20 when the credits roll. The hotbar holds the iron sword, pickaxe and shovel, the lava bucket, 44 cobblestone, 27 melon slices and 43 torches. The walls are up and the floor is nearly all stone. No towers yet. Nothing follows the credits.