Alright, we ended on Day 22 after I respawned in the first portal room after pearling into the void.
We start, then, in the portal room! I checked what I had there and it was... not a lot. Since I am nomadic in this quest, I carried almost everything on me, loosing it all into the ethereal-nothing. I did not want to store it in the portal room because, with Dortals--the plugin that makes this all possible--you spawn back in the overworld on the highest block above the portal's center. I did not want to dig back down to my stuff.
Alas, I was stuck in the stronghold. No wood in the chest I had there, and no way to get to the surface. I resigned myself to digging my way out with my damned bare haands, and even started to do so.
However! Running from a Skeleton that was trying to kill me, I spotted two oak logs. Glorious! They were directly under the portals center, where I put them while ender-eyeing in the frame. I was saved!
I dug straight up with a newly-minted stone pickaxe. At the surface, I gathered woof, good, and dug back down to re-enter the end to loot the islands.
Aaaand I did it again. Not quite the same, my finger slipped off shift this time, but tragic nonetheless. I had the presence of mind to leave some materials in the chest this time, on the unfortunate case I died, so I took those and went end looting.
I got some good stuff! Well-enchanted armor, am Elytra, and satisfaction that those deaths did not get to me too badly.
Preparing for Dragon Two
I was excited to leave the end. So excited, in fact, that I did not grab literally any end pearls. Drat!
So I had to boat-kill some enderman in the overworld. It was... I made a mistake!
My kill-method was flying up with my Elytra, using rockets, and swooping down to spear them to death. It was the only Looting III weapon I owned as the End gave me not a single enchanted diamond sword or an axe.
So my theory on what happened is thus: I bit the enderman so hard that the knockback un-boated them. Or maybe I just broke the boat, I honestly don't remember. Either way, they were loose. While fighting and running and panicking, I did not switch to my chestplate. In the end, those tall men got to me.
Death in the Wrong Direction
What's that mean? I'm not so sure, but to me it means I was silly. After respawn, I went to the wrong coordinates. See, I was pearl-harvesting around -1000 / 2000, since my ring-math told me that was around where the next stronghold was.
I went to -1000 / -2000. Ahhhhh! At least my items wouldn't despawn. It was at this time I took a break, wrote some code for my plugin, and returned.
Getting to the End
I traveled the distance, annoyed, and managed to recover my items. After two-nights I got the pearls I needed, built a small gazebo to cover my temporary base (so it looked cute), and headed towards the stronghold, directed by the eyes.
I dug down where the eye indicated and fell into a trial chamber. What???
Trying to not die, I ran around the chamber and- The stronghold was intersecting it?? It was truly wild. I will update this post with some screenshots when I get the chance.
I found the portal, a 2-eye, centered on -1357 / 2201. My math said it was likely to be -1044 / 2014, so that was within margin of error for me. Horray!
I went in and swiftly fell the dragon. It's a lot easier with flight and rockets and armor and tools. The end looked... strangely familiar. We'll get back to that.
The Ring Falls
Making sure to grab my pearls, I went back to the overworld and wanted to see how fast I could get the next one.
I also wanted to try something I've never before: One-cycling the dragon. I'd never tried it, nor practiced, but I've seen the likes of Couriway (an inspiration to this quest) do it before and thought "that can't be so hard".
I gathered my 10 beds and, after an infuriating forty-five minutes of stronghold navigation, I found my 2-eye portal and entered.
T-this looks familiar... Does the- is the seed for the end correct? I booted up my dev server and no it was not correct. It was taking the overworld seed everytime! This is a bug in the server software I'm using, which I fixed while staying up much too late.
That does mean, though, that I entered 3 identical ends. This is fixed moving forwards.
So what is one-cycling? One-cycling is a method to kill the dragon quickly. Like, used in speedruns quickly. You go to the fountain first-thing, place some obsidian, and run away again. When the dragon is perching, you run back and use your obsidian to place beds to dispatch the dragon.
B-beds? Yeah, beds. They 'splode in the end, don't'cha know? W-well, they explode in minecraft:the_end. But, since I have custom end-dimensions to make this all work, they do not explode in mine... oops!
I killed the dragon normally, making a note of the bug for later. Turns out I needed to add some data to the world at creation, which was an easy fix. Same for respawn anchors (which also explode in the end).
I'll spare you the almost-dying-in-the-outer-islands and the couldn't-find-a-damned-gateway-for-like-an-hour, and jump to the exit.
I spawned in an ocean, swimming there, directly next to a Mushroom Island. I saw it going down, but it was still neat.
That's all for now. Kind of long-winded!