Episode nine is the last one 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 picks up where the last episode ended, down in the quarry under the castle. The guest voice is on the call again, building in a separate world on the same seed.
One more load of stone
It opens in third person on Basket in iron armor on the quarry floor, then it's back to work with the iron pickaxe. For the first three minutes Basket cuts trenches down into the floor and stacks up cobblestone before climbing the ladder back out into daylight.
Walls, a gateway and another tower
Up top, Basket builds along the walls, puts up two pillars with a block across them for an entrance, and crafts six iron ingots into an iron door. "It's a very secure door. There's no levers to open it."
"Right. Now the other tower." Basket climbs another of the tall cobblestone towers and builds a notched top on it, with torches on the blocks. The walls now carry square cobblestone blocks along their tops with torches on them, and from up there the melon farm is still sitting by the lake.
The throne room
A ladder goes down inside the tower to a big cobblestone room with a smooth stone floor, torches along the walls and iron double doors. This is where most of the episode goes.
At the far end Basket builds a throne on a raised platform of cobblestone and stairs, with fence posts for arms and torches on top. Its back is two blocks that look like iron ore. "It's the Iron Throne."
Next comes the carpet. Basket turns planks into sticks and lays a rail track down the middle of the room to the steps of the throne. "It's my iron carpet. To my iron throne." Then Basket rides a minecart down it.
Goodbye, forest
Night passes while Basket works, and the sun is coming up by the time Basket climbs out to look around the walls. Then Basket crafts a lever to open the iron doors and a flint and steel, and heads out across the grass to a dark forest full of giant mushrooms. Basket sets the trees alight one trunk after another. "Goodbye forest. This is what you get, cause Michael wouldn't let us chop you down."
The end of the month
Basket walks back past the sheep toward the castle, its row of notched towers showing over the grass, and stops to eat some melon. The last shot switches to third person: Basket in full iron armor with the iron sword, standing among the torches with a tower behind.
Basket finishes the Lorax Challenge alive, with full hearts. The castle has its walls, its notched towers, its stone floor and now a throne room, and the melon farm is still growing by the lake. The episode does not show a verdict on the challenge. The credits roll, and nothing comes after them.