Minecrafting for my brother-in-law

BLOGS. This feels really old, but I thought this would be a fun story and that I should tuck it away somewhere for people to read (on the off chance I don't mention it in conversation).

So I started this Minecraft world called Byronus (my dad's middle name is Byron and I've always thought that it was cool) with my brother-in-law, Dan, a few weeks ago. He'd never played the game before and he really enjoyed sort of searching around and finding coal and helping me build a castle and all that. But, as we were getting ready to move into the city and I would have to take my Xbox with me, he got a little listless. I would be encouraging him and telling him he should just make whatever he wants or he can help me build my castle or what have you, but he wasn't terribly interested in it.

On a separate note, the very first time we played, we did it on easy mode so there were a few monsters. It was a slaughter. He kept dying over and over and respawning nearby and he would run to this village full of pigmen that I was hiding out in and somehow lead a bunch of creepers over. He'd tell me to come out and help him and by the time I'd find him (because I still had my map), I'd be picking his stuff up from the bottom of a crater and scampering back to safety.

So I had this idea yesterday to make the game more fun for him and something we could maybe try out and I could help him with. He just beat the main quests in Skyrim the other day and he was telling me about it so I was thinking I could make something like that for him in Byronus. I also wanted to try creative mode because I had been busy playing survival for a while and making castles and whatnot in that (I have kind of a one-track mind with castles and lighthouses).

So I was flying around Byronus, just clearing out the map so I could make something cool for me to show him and have him check out the next time we play; and I found a little patch of stone in the middle of this desert like something had been there but was destroyed a while ago and whatnot. I started throwing down stone bricks thinking I'd make some ruins and then I thought it might be fun to have some sort of Yu Yu Hakisho-style ascent up this ruinous tower.

The tower was made out of mossy and regular stone bricks. It was three regular stories with a little shack on top with a bit of loot for him. This I built last so I'll save it.

The bottom floor was all hollowed out and hard to get into. Lots of patches in the wall, but no real obvious entrance. He could always walk around and just hop on the staircase or stack blocks and jump to the top, but he's not very good at either so I just left a little opening in the front for him to walk in.

Right at the foot of the stairs, there's this sign. It says something like "Where is she?" It's a little ominous, maybe he'll read it, maybe he'll miss it. There's more signs, so no biggie.

The second floor is a bedroom. There's a sign on the wall that says "Princess Brin's room" (I wanted PrincessBrine's room, but I think it was too long (I might go back and change it)). There's a couple little posters and a torch hanging over a chest. In the chest, there are a few flowers, both red and yellow. and maybe a piece of food (cake or watermelon or something). There are a few more flowers all around the room so that hopefully Dan gets that they're important. I think I may have put a bunch of nether brick or something in the room too, to make it seem a bit more destroyed; like there had been an explosion or attack or something.

The third floor is much more fun. It's one room, a box, with one entrance. The door is iron and there's a switch right next to it on the wall. Next to the switch, going up and down the stairs, are signs that are nearly gibberish that repeat the same phrase. "Where is she?"; "We need her"; etc. I hoped that this would conjure the idea that there was a princess who lived in the room below and ran up the stairs to escape her attackers. I imagine that Dan will chuckle at these a bit, but that'll be it. Then he'll try the door.

I might go back and fix this, use some silverfish stones or something so he won't just try and bust into the box; but basically the box is somewhere between a trophy room and a death trap. There's no torches in the room and the walls are covered in zombie and creeper faces. There's a hole in the roof at the back of the box (covered by a trap door) and ladder that he'll have to jump to climb up. There's a sign that says something like "WHO ARE YOU?"; which I think is both menacing and important. This level is supposed to be the test. There's supposed to be monsters and he will have to push to get through it, proving himself worthy.

But here's my favorite part. Once he climbs out of the box, having defeated whatever was waiting for him in there, he'll reach the top floor. On top there is a little shack with another iron door and a button. He'll push the button and enter the room to find a chest and a sign. The sign says something to the affect of "If you've found this, know that I'm gone." I like this because it sets of the premise of the adventure and it introduces my favorite thing about this quest- the Princess. Princess Brin isn't a princess who is waiting at the top of a tower to be saved. I think that the room below was her trophy room and that she is a fighter and a builder. She's crafty. Her families home was attacked and instead of succumb to her plight, she became something else, something new. So Dan's adventure won't be so much about saving her, but discovering just what sort of person she was and what she accomplished. He'll be following in her footsteps and having his own adventure in the process.

In the chest, there's a sword and a set of iron armor and some more cakes. The rest of the chest is filled with flowers.

I'll have to put up some more directions for him, but I'll do that after I make some the next locations for him to travel to so I can establish a clear direction. In any case, I hope he likes it because I'm having a lot of fun putting it together.