Read the book: «Quest for Justice»
Copyright
First published in the USA by HarperCollins Publishers Inc in 2015
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
HarperCollins Publishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Copyright © 2015 by Sean Fay Wolfe
Cover art © 2015 by Max Gonzalez
Design by Victor Joseph Ochoa
Sean Fay Wolfe asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008152864
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008152871
Version: 2017-05-18
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
PROLOGUE
PART I: WELCOME TO MINECRAFT
CHAPTER 1: Welcome to Minecraft
CHAPTER 2: The First Night
CHAPTER 3: Mines and Creepers
CHAPTER 4: The Adorian Village
CHAPTER 5: The Programme
CHAPTER 6: Stan and Steve
CHAPTER 7: The Thunderstorm
CHAPTER 8: Proclamation Day
PART II: BIRTH OF THE REBELLION
CHAPTER 9: The Shot Heard Round the World
CHAPTER 10: Flight to the Jungle
CHAPTER 11: The Apothecary
CHAPTER 12: The Desert
CHAPTER 13: The Abandoned Mine Shaft
CHAPTER 14: Avery’s Story
CHAPTER 15: The Portal
CHAPTER 16: The Nether
CHAPTER 17: The Fortress and the Blaze
CHAPTER 18: A Daring Escape
CHAPTER 19: The Town of Blackstone
CHAPTER 20: The Monster Slayer
CHAPTER 21: Oob’s Helping Hand
CHAPTER 22: The Siege
CHAPTER 23: The Twelve Eyes of Ender
CHAPTER 24: Within the Stronghold
CHAPTER 25: The End
ENLIGHTENMENT
PART III: THE BATTLE FOR ELEMENTIA
CHAPTER 26: The Speech
CHAPTER 27: The Battle for Elementia
CHAPTER 28: The Ultimate Sacrifice
CHAPTER 29: The Last Casualty
CHAPTER 30: The New Order
Preview to The Elementia Chronicles Book 2: The New Order
The Quest Continues …
From the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
The hallway of the brick castle echoed ominously with footsteps as a figure ran down the corridor. His outfit was comparable to that of a medieval English king: red shirt, trousers of elegant design and a flowing cloak with white fur around the edges. This man was a player on the Minecraft server Elementia. His tag was Charlemagne77, known informally as Charlemagne.
The hall he ran down was lined with paintings of pixel art. Torches protruded from the walls and gave light to ward off the mobs, terrifying creatures that lurked in the dark. There were arched windows that revealed an expansive metropolis, sprawling as far as the eye could see, beyond the outer protective walls of the castle. All of this was made entirely of cubes, one metre long on each side, with textures that resembled brick, wood, glass and all sorts of other materials.
In this game, Minecraft, the entire world was made of these cubic “blocks,” which stood in formations with textures that were made to resemble the trees of the forests, the water of the oceans, the green grassy hills and the stone and minerals of the underground mines. These blocks also made up the castle and the city, textured as stone and glass. Living things were composed of blocks as well, including Charlemagne and all other people, animals and monsters that inhabited the spacious world.
Charlemagne ran because he was late to the meeting of the Council of Operators (though there were no operators on the council, despite the name). This council was made up of the highest-level players on the server, and was led by King Kev, most often referred to simply as “the King”. The meeting had been called to discuss a most important matter, a matter that, unbeknown to the council, would be the downfall of the King, Charlemagne and so many others. This one decision would be the downfall of the luxurious life that the high-level citizens of Element City enjoyed.
The man finally reached the iron doors and pressed a button on the wall. Five note blocks above his head activated and played a chime that functioned as the doorbell. Moments later the doors opened, and Charlemagne stepped into the council chamber.
There was a round table in the middle of the chamber, the King’s allusion to the mighty King Arthur. Around it sat six of the eight council members. The other two seats were situated at the right and left hand of King Kev, who sat upon a throne, elevated eight blocks above the floor, presiding over the council. The right seat held Charlemagne’s fellow adviser to the King, Caesar894, while the left was reserved for Charlemagne himself. The King looked down at Charlemagne. He changed his skin, Charlemagne noted. The King had, indeed, changed his appearance. King Kev now had on a baby-blue shirt with navy trousers and black boots, and he had even added a blood-red cape. The only thing that remained unchanged was his head: a golden crown perched upon his neat blond hair. But enough of this, thought Charlemagne, I have other things to attend to.
“Forgive my tardy arrival, Your Highness,” said Charlemagne, bowing by looking at the floor and crouching simultaneously with his golden sword drawn. This sword was ceremonial only; all council members and the King had one, though it was an impractical weapon.
“Forgiven,” boomed the King, pointing his own golden sword at Charlemagne in a sign either of welcome or intent to kill. “I trust your lateness has a good reason?”
“Oh, yes, my liege.” Charlemagne grinned. “My lingering among the low-level peasants under a disguise of leather armour took longer than I had anticipated, as I took part in a conversation regarding the local attitude towards certain aspects of the last major law you enacted.” At this, several council members cringed. Like most upper-class players, they were averse to mingling with the commoners.
“The Law of One Death?” asked the King.
“That’s the one, my lord,” Charlemagne replied. “The attitude of the common folk is mixed. Some, mainly those under level ten, say that it is a good law as it gives the game a higher risk factor, while most say that it undermines the superiority of the high-level folk. To be totally frank, I agree with both arguments.”
“You dare to question the reasoning of my law?” bellowed the King. “Have you no respect for my authority? I ought to have you executed at once.”
“Oh, no, Your Highness, that is not what I am trying to say at all!” exclaimed Charlemagne, although he knew the King would do no such thing to him. Charlemagne had enough skill to escape any attempt by the King on his life. Moreover, Charlemagne knew things about the King, dark things, and the King would be a fool to provoke Charlemagne into revealing them to the public.
“I agree with both arguments, but only to a degree. The game is much more … er … exciting now that you can die at any minute and be forever banished from the server, as opposed to simply returning to the last place you slept in a bed as is usual in Minecraft. However,” he continued, “this does mean that the game is harder for those who have worked their way to the top, such as the members of this council. We upper-level players have the best plots of land in the known server, and a bounty of well-earned supplies. If, say, I were to die, I would leave a plot of fertile land and a house full of diamonds, emeralds, gold … well, you get the point, and I would never be able to return and retrieve them. Meanwhile a player who has just spawned could waltz into my home and steal everything I owned, thus becoming rich by doing almost nothing! Well, you can imagine how the people in the city who have worked their way to the top feel about that.”
There was a murmur of agreement around the table.
“Hmmm,” said the King. “You may be right. This new law does undermine the level system that rightfully benefits our upper class – which is ironic, given the circumstances in which the law was imposed – but what do you propose we do to fix this problem?”
It was at this point that Caesar894, dressed as his Roman namesake, stood up. “I have an idea,” suggested the King’s right-hand man.
“Speak it,” replied the King.
“Well, it occurs to me that, within the walls of our city, we have almost no remaining fertile land. The forest beyond the city limits on all sides will not make good farmland. If we are to keep this city up to the standard we are used to, we must take multiple actions. First, we must not give away any more of this fertile land. Second, we must force the lower-level citizens of this city to leave. As Sir Charlemagne pointed out, they are likely to steal from us if we die or, even more likely, rise against us and murder us in our sleep just to take our supplies!
“The lower-level citizens of this city outnumber us two to one,” Caesar continued, “and if they should ever realize this, we would have a serious problem on our hands. We must force them to move from the city. If they do that, this city will have more land to be taken by those who deserve it.
“The Adorian Village can take on most of the outcasts, and there must be a fertile tract of land out there somewhere beyond the Ender Desert, even if our cartographers haven’t mapped it yet. Some of the refugees can settle there. One thing remains certain, however: the lower-levels must go.”
As Caesar894 finished his speech, the council members clapped their blocky hands in approval. The King stood up.
“Very well,” the King said. “The law proposed shall state the following: ‘All citizens of Element City with a level under that of fifteen are required to leave the city within one week of today’s date. After that date, all players under level fifteen found in the city shall be killed and their houses destroyed.’ Those in favour of this law?”
Ten geometrically shaped hands rose into the air.
These ten players on the Minecraft server Elementia had no idea what they had just done. They had no idea just how the people would react to this law. And they had no idea at all what this simple action would do to their way of life, to their citizens’ lives, and to the game of Minecraft itself. Still the King continued.
“Motion carried,” the King announced. “The law shall be put into place at the next Proclamation Day. It is time for the elite of this city to take back the kingdom!”
At that very moment, as the council cheered the King, a new player called Stan2012 appeared on Spawnpoint Hill.
CHAPTER 1
WELCOME TO MINECRAFT
It was dark in the Great Wood. Visibility between the tall trees surrounding the flowery hill was limited; who knew what was lurking in the shadows? The stars were still out, but the white square that was the sun had begun to peek over the horizon, giving the starry sky a faint pink-and-orange glow. The haunting howl of an Enderman pierced the peaceful dawn. It was this striking scene of the Minecraft server Elementia that met a new player who had appeared on Spawnpoint Hill.
This player was clearly new; he held nothing in his rectangular hand and was gazing in wonder at the infinite cubes of dirt, grass and oak wood that composed the meadow hill and forest that surrounded him now. He had dark brown hair, a turquoise shirt and blue trousers, the standard look for a Minecraft player who had not yet changed his skin or appearance. This player had never played Minecraft before. Unbeknown to him, he couldn’t have picked a worse time to join this server. His name was Stan2012.
Wow, Stan thought as he gazed around at the dimly lit morning. This is awesome! Everything’s made out of cubes! The dirt on the ground, the trees, even the leaves! And look at that stream over there. Even the water is perfect cubes! You can pick up these … blocks, and build stuff out of them? But there are blocks everywhere! Awesome! Oh, wow!
Stan looked around. The place where he was standing had clearly seen other players before, though he saw none now. He was surrounded by pixilated torches sticking up out of the ground, and there were signs and what looked like chests. One of the signs told him not to steal any of the torches, and another told him that he was standing on Spawnpoint Hill, where all new players entered the server. But it was one particular sign, which was located next to a chest, that caught his attention. It read: “If you have never played before, take a book from the chest.”
Stan walked over to the chest and opened it. It was sectioned off into compartments. One was full of loaves of bread, another was filled with what appeared to be swords constructed out of wood and yet another held books. Stan took one of these books and walked down the hill with it. He sat down on the bank of the nearby stream, dangled his feet in the water, and was about to begin reading when he heard a shout from behind him.
“Hey, wait up!”
Silhouetted against the brightening blue sky was a figure that appeared to be another player. As he walked down the blocky hill, Stan could see that this player was wearing a simple white tunic and white trousers and dark brown boots. He looked like someone who might make his home in the desert. The player reached the foot of the grass-block slope and stood over Stan.
“Hi,” he said. “My name’s KingCharles_XIV, but you can just call me Charlie. I’ve never played this game before and I have no clue what to do. Could you help me?”
“Maybe. My name’s Stan2012, but you can call me Stan,” Stan replied. “I’ve never played before either; I just heard that it was a fun game, and that this server is a great place to learn to play. The sign up there said that this book would tell us how to play.” He held up the book.
“Well then, let’s read it,” said Charlie. He sat down next to Stan and looked on as Stan read aloud.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Minecraft, new player. This is a very fun game with no particular goal. You can see that the world around you is made out of blocks. You can destroy these blocks with certain tools and place them elsewhere. After you have established a place to take refuge from the monsters of the night, you may work by day to arrange these blocks into fantastic structures. You are now standing on Spawnpoint Hill, where new players such as yourself enter the game. Before you can start building crazy inventions, you are going to want to join a community.
The suggested thing to do is to follow the path you can see. It will take you to the Adorian Village, a community dedicated to the training of new players. It is a day’s journey away, so take one wooden sword and two pieces of bread from the chest. The bread will keep you fed until you reach the village, and the sword can be used to fight off the monsters of the night. If you have not reached the village by dusk, take some blocks from around you and build a wall around yourself to keep out the monsters. If you need to know anything immediately, this book is full of information about blocks, crafting and monsters. Good luck, and see you in the village!
Stan flipped the page. That was the end of the introduction. On the following pages was information about the different blocks and their properties, instructions for crafting various tools and descriptions of a bunch of different monsters.
Stan looked at Charlie. “Did you know that there were monsters in this game?” he asked.
“Well, I heard rumours about this thing called a Creepy or something like that, but I didn’t think that it was actually real.”
“Well, let’s hope we don’t run into any of those, or anything else,” Stan said. “Now, do you see that road anywhere? ’Cause I kind of like the sound of this Adorian Village.”
“Yeah, we should try to find it. But where is the road? I don’t see it anywhere.”
They glanced around. They didn’t see a road, but Stan noticed something else. In the shadows of the trees was what looked like another player. The figure was the right height and had the right figure, but Stan couldn’t see his face.
“Hey, Charlie, look down there! Do you think he knows where the road is?”
“Maybe. Let’s go find out.”
The two walked down the hill and towards the figure. It was dark; the green foliage above them provided shade from the sun. As they got closer to the figure, he suddenly turned and walked towards them, arms outstretched.
“Great, he sees us! Maybe he’ll give us directions!” Charlie exclaimed.
“Yeah …” But something didn’t feel right to Stan. The player completely ignored them until they got close and then walked straight towards them with outstretched arms.
“Charlie, look out!”
“Stan? What’s your prob—Oh my God!”
The figure walking towards them had just walked under a patch of light. It was dressed like Stan was, but it had rotten green flesh and empty eye sockets. It smelled like death, and it was making soft moaning noises. The figure was still walking towards Charlie, who was immobile and wide-eyed with panic. Stan charged at the monster and did the only thing that he could think of.
He clubbed it over the head with his book.
The monster stumbled backwards a few feet but stayed upright, and again began to walk, this time straight at Stan. Stan started to run, but the monster was right behind him. He ran out of the woods, across the field, and suddenly stopped. He was standing in front of a ravine that he hadn’t noticed before, which cut straight through the field. It was deep; he couldn’t make out the bottom. He was trapped, with a fall to his death in front of him and the monster behind him. Afraid that he was about to die before he had even started playing the game, Stan balled his fists and turned towards the monster, ready to fight. Then he stared.
The monster had stopped chasing him. It was running back towards the woods, away from him and not towards Charlie. But the strangest part was that smoke was rising off its skin; Stan caught the putrid stench of burning flesh. The monster was making loud moaning noises and Stan was sure that it would be screaming if it could. Suddenly, the monster keeled over and burst into flames. It writhed on the ground until it had burned out of existence, leaving nothing but a small piece of rotten flesh in its place.
Charlie walked out of the woods, staring in shock at the small piece of flesh on the ground. Stan wore a look of equal bewilderment. Charlie turned to Stan.
“What was that thing?”
“I don’t know man, but it definitely was not a player.”
“Maybe it was one of those monsters that were mentioned in the book. Maybe it was a Creepy, or whatever you call it.”
“Let me look.”
Stan flipped open to the section of the book describing monsters, and on the first page he found what he was looking for. He read the description written next to an illustration of the monster they had just encountered.
ZOMBIES
Zombies are hostile mobs, or creatures, that spawn at night or in dark areas. They are the easiest hostile mob to defeat as their attack pattern consists of simply walking towards the player and trying to attack. They will burn when exposed to direct sunlight. They are also able to break down doors, and are the main attackers during a siege on an NPC village. They drop rotten flesh when killed.
As Stan finished the passage, Charlie said, “So that was a Zombie? And those things are supposed to be really easy to kill?”
“Apparently so,” replied Stan. He picked the flesh up off the ground. “Do you think this stuff is safe to eat?”
“I doubt it.” Charlie frowned, staring at the rancid lump of green and tan meat. “Check the book.”
After a little searching in the Items section, Stan found the page describing the flesh.
ROTTEN FLESH
Rotten flesh is an item dropped by Zombies and Zombie Pigmen and found in Temples. It can be eaten, but it is inadvisable to do so as it has a high chance of giving you food poisoning. It is not, however, poisonous to dogs.
“So, I guess we shouldn’t eat it unless we’re really, really desperate,” said Charlie.
“Yeah, you’re right,” agreed Stan. “Besides, we each get two pieces of bread from that chest up there, plus a sword. That sword should be helpful for fighting off any more monsters that turn up.”
“Agreed. So let’s get the stuff and go! It’s still morning; we’ve got an entire day to get to this Adorian Village before more monsters come out tonight.”
The two players walked back up the hill to the chest, where they each took two pieces of bread and a wooden sword. They then went to the top of the hill and looked around until Charlie spied the path. Bread in their inventories and swords in hand, Charlie and Stan started on the road to the Adorian Village.
CHAPTER 2
THE FIRST NIGHT
The trees around the pathway had been cleared out, so there was light shining down on the two players as they walked down the road to the village. There were no monsters on the path, but they spotted a few in the woods. Zombies seemed to be the most common, as they were all over the place, but the players noticed a few others, too. Charlie pointed out, deep in the woods, what appeared to be a Zombie but thinner and less substantial, and Stan could have sworn that, from what he could see in the dim light, it was holding a bow and had a quiver of arrows on its back. Once, when Stan looked up into the trees at the sides of the road, he saw a flash of blood-red eyes contemplating him from one of the higher limbs. None of these mysterious creatures, thankfully, pursued the players.
“We’d better hurry and get to that village,” said Charlie, looking nervous. “I don’t want to be out here when it gets dark enough for those things to come out and hunt.”
Stan nodded in agreement, but things did not go well from that point on. The path became less clear as they went deeper into the woods, and a few times they found themselves accidentally straying onto side trails that led to dead ends. One of these paths turned out to have a Zombie at the end of it. Stan and Charlie barely managed to outrun it before it lost interest in them.
The sky began to turn a shade of beautiful pink, but the two players were unable to appreciate it as they made their way back onto the main road after their fifth detour and saw no sign of a village when they looked ahead.
“I think we’d better make a shelter for the night,” said Stan. “We’d better make a wall two blocks high so that we have at least some type of barrier that the monsters won’t be able to get over easily.”
“You’re right,” said Charlie. “I’ll go get some dirt blocks. You try to get some wood from these trees. Meet back here once you’ve got the stuff.”
Stan nodded and the two set off in opposite directions.
Gathering the dirt was faster than Charlie had expected; after being hit a few times the blocks of dirt came loose, ready to be picked up and added to Charlie’s inventory. He had amassed a whole stack of dirt blocks by the time he went back to meet Stan.
Stan did not have nearly as easy a time; he had to punch the sections of the tree trunks over and over to get them to break off. It hurt, too. “What … I … wouldn’t … do … for … a … chain … saw …” Stan growled through gritted teeth as he punched the tree trunks, leaving the leaves suspended in midair. Stan was quickly realizing that Minecraft didn’t always follow the laws of physics.
After about an hour the players met back on the road, and by the time night had fallen they had constructed a small rectangular box out of dirt and wood, two blocks high on all sides, with no roof. They ate their first pieces of bread, and then hunkered down in their fort.
“Brace yourself,” said Stan. “The attacks should start any minute now.” Charlie gulped and pulled out his sword.
But to their surprise, nothing happened for quite some time. They just sat in their shelter, hoping no monsters would show. They popped their heads up over the wall every now and then to make sure that there was nothing, and in fact, nothing was what they saw every time. When the half-moon was at its highest point in the sky, Stan was about to say that there were no monsters around, and that they should just break camp and continue, when an arrow whizzed past him, grazing his shirtsleeve.
“Incoming!” he yelled to Charlie as a firestorm of arrows began to fly over their heads. Charlie ducked. He looked through a small gap in the wall and saw about four animated Skeletons, all standing at a distance from their shelter and raining arrows down on them. He stared at them, but he jumped back from the hole a second later as his view was obscured by the head of a Zombie.
“Zombies!” Charlie yelled to Stan. “And Skeletons, too! There’s a ton of them, and” – he looked through a few other cracks in the sides of their shelter – “they’re swarming the wall!”
He was right. From all sides, the four Skeletons were firing arrows at the players, and about six Zombies were forming a rabble around their fort, trying to walk straight through the wall. But the horror didn’t stop there.
“Tssssskeeeeh!”
Something large had fallen down from the trees and landed right behind a cowering Stan. Without thinking, Stan whipped around and slashed his sword as hard as he could. He made contact; the monster was knocked back and he sliced at it many more times before it finally died. Then he got his first good look at it and his heart gave a terrified jolt.
Stan was staring at the dead body of the largest Spider he had ever seen. It had a whole mess of glowing red eyes on its head; the rest of its hairy body was dark grey. Stan knew then that this was what he had seen up in the trees during the day. The Spider’s body vanished, leaving a thread of fine string in its place.
More Spiders began dropping from the trees. “Charlie! Help me!” cried Stan as he tried to beat back the horde of Spiders with his wooden sword. Charlie yelled in horror as he saw the Spiders rushing his friend, and he used his sword to get the attention of a few of the monsters that had focused on Stan. In the midst of the attack, Stan managed to cut away the tree limb above them that the Spiders were climbing along to drop into their shelter, effectively cutting off the flow of arachnids from above.
“We won’t have to worry about them any more,” sighed Stan.
However, he turned out to be quite wrong. The Spiders were able to climb over their wall to attack them. The players resigned themselves to the fact that they would have to battle the Spiders all night long, and they put their backs to each other and drew their swords.
It was a long, hard night; the supply of Spiders was seemingly endless, and the players couldn’t lift their heads up too high thanks to the barrage of arrows flying overhead. Miraculously, neither of the players lost any health that first night. The Spiders attacked them, but Stan and Charlie managed to keep the giant bugs at bay and killed them with wild, frenzied sword slashes.
After a few hours, the sky began to turn pink and then blue. The storm of arrows ceased. Spiders stopped climbing the walls. The players were safe.
“That,” mumbled Charlie wearily, “was a very long night.” He slid back against the wall.
“Yeah, I wanna sleep, too, but we have to go,” said Stan through a poorly stifled yawn. “We have to make it to the Adorian Village before nightfall, or we’ll have to put up with all those Spiders again.”
“You’re right. I guess we should go.” Charlie stood up, but then he screeched and quickly crouched back down.
“What is it?” asked Stan.
“Don’t look over the wall. Just don’t,” whimpered Charlie. He sounded petrified.
Stan looked over the wall. What he saw made his stomach flip.
The road ahead of them was covered with Spiders. They were everywhere, crawling around and getting into fights with one another. There were no Zombies or Skeletons left, but there were so many Spiders that Stan’s knees failed him and he sank down next to Charlie.
“Why aren’t they dead?” asked Stan. “I thought that monsters burned in the sunlight.”
“Well, apparently the Spiders don’t. What do we do? Fight them all?” Charlie looked at their wooden swords. They were covered with Spider guts from the previous night, but through the gore Charlie could see that they didn’t have much more left in them. A few more hits and the swords would break apart.
“No, that’s a bad idea,” said Stan. Then something occurred to him. “Hey, Charlie, if these Spiders are still here, then why aren’t they climbing over the wall to attack us like they did last night?”
Charlie thought about it. “That’s a fair point. Do you think that Spiders only attack at night?”
Stan knew what he had to do. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.” He started to walk towards the wall.
“Hey, where are you going?” yelled Charlie.
“I’m going to see if these Spiders are going to attack me if I’m outside the wall.”
“But what if they do?”
“Then I’m dead.”
“Dude, no you can’t …”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Well … um …”
“I didn’t think so.” Stan began to climb over the wall again.
“Wait,” said Charlie. He handed Stan his sword. “Take this,” he said. “Yours is about to break, and if you have to fight off all those Spiders, you’ll need a sword.”
“Thanks. Wish me luck,” said Stan with a nervous catch in his voice, and he jumped over the wall and closed his eyes.
Nothing happened. Stan opened his eyes. The Spiders were still minding their own business, as if Stan had never scaled the wall. As Stan tiptoed tentatively among the Spiders, none of them even acknowledged his existence. He did this as hastily as he could, not wanting to take any chances, and he didn’t stop until he came to a portion of the road not littered with Spiders.
“It’s OK, Charlie, they’re not hostile. You can come over now.”
Charlie was petrified, and his blocky hands were shaking as he collected the string from the dead Spiders within their fort (perhaps they would find a use for it later), scaled the wall and sprinted through the pack of Spiders to join his friend.
“Well,” Charlie said with a sigh. “I’m glad that’s over.”
Stan nodded. “Amen to that … hey, look!”
He walked over to a pile of bones and arrows. He picked up one of the bones.
“One of those Skeletons must have dropped this when it burned up in the sunlight.” He handed the bone to Charlie. “Do you think it could be useful?”
“Check the book,” Charlie replied, now examining the arrows. “Look up bones and arrows in there.”
Stan opened the book to the Items section and read aloud:
BONES
Bones are items dropped by Skeletons when killed. Bones have two main uses. One can craft a bone into bone meal or use the bone to tame a wild wolf into a dog. This may take multiple bones.
ARROWS
Arrows are items that can be either found when dropped by a dead Skeleton or crafted from flint, sticks and feathers. Arrows can be fired as projectiles out of either a bow or a Redstone Dispenser. They are also shot by Skeletons.
Stan closed the book. “Looks like the bones will come in handy if we run into a wolf. And we’d better get a bow so we can use these arrows.”
Charlie agreed, and the two broke their shelter down, saving the materials for later use. They began walking back down the path, en route for the Adorian Village, with plenty of daylight and the prospect of a day of smooth sailing ahead of them. They had just stopped to eat their last pieces of bread when something jumped out of the woods.
It was a player holding a sword, made out of what looked like stone, pointing right at Stan’s heart.
CHAPTER 3
MINES AND CREEPERS
This player had the same body as Stan and Charlie, but Stan could tell by the appearance of this player that she was a girl. She had blonde hair that extended beyond her blocky head to create a ponytail behind her. She was wearing a leather tunic, neon-pink shorts and blue shoes.
Stan then thought, Why am I thinking this? She’s pointing a sword at my chest!
“Give me all your materials,” said the girl in a monotone, “or your friend gets a blade through his chest.”
Charlie, who had been paralyzed with fear up until now, quickly scrambled to get out all their materials. He laid them on the ground: his own damaged wooden sword, a piece of bread, a pile of dirt, a piece of rotten flesh, a bone, five arrows, some wood and a whole mess of Spider string. The girl looked at them with a distasteful eye.
“I should have known. You two don’t have anything good, do you.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I don’t know. I have … this!” And Stan, who had remained perfectly still up until this time, suddenly whipped out his wooden sword. Taking advantage of the girl’s diverted focus, he cut her across the chest, knocking her backwards. She fell to the ground and cringed; the cut had not actually hurt, but the leather armour on her chest had fallen off, revealing an orange T-shirt with a heart in the middle that was the same neon-pink as her shorts.
Stan stood over her, his wooden sword now pointed at her, and Charlie quickly joined him, his quivering hand pointing his sword at her also. Stan, sounding much braver than he felt, said, “I wouldn’t try anything if I were you. There’s two of us and only one of you.”
She pulled herself up and, to Stan’s surprise, looked almost bored as she said, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna try. There’s no point. Killing you two, which I could easily do, would accomplish nothing. You’re just a couple of noobs. Let me know if you decide to attack me or let me go or whatever. I’ll just sit here.” And with that, she sat on a nearby tree stump, put her hands behind her head, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes as if she were lounging on a beach chair by the sea rather than being held at sword point. Stan felt himself flush.
“How do you know that we’re new at this?” asked Charlie defiantly, his hand still shaking as he pointed his sword towards her heart.
“Yeah, what if we’re, like, complete masters at this game who are just carrying around bad stuff to fool people like you?” spat Stan bitterly.
She opened her eyes and looked at Stan.
“Well, one, you’re on the road to the Adorian Village, which is for players under level five. And two, any smart player would carry around any weapons he had for self-defence, now that the King passed that new law.” She closed her eyes again.
“What new law?” wondered Charlie.
She opened her eyes again. “And three, only noobs don’t know about the law that bans you from this server after you die once, instead of just losing all your stuff and going back to the spawn point like you usually do in Minecraft.” She closed her eyes again.
“Hang on a second,” said Stan. “If you aren’t new, then why are you carrying around a stone sword? If I had to guess, I’d say stone is pretty common around here.”
She opened her eyes and a bitter look came over her face. “Oh, that. It’s, like, the stupidest thing ever. I was on this server called Johnstantinople once – run by a guy named John, go figure – and I was doing really well. I found an abandoned NPC village with an iron sword and a bunch of apples in the forge chest, and I was going around killing monsters, when this Griefer came up from behind me and killed me! I went back to the spawn point, I killed a bunch of Creepers, and I got sand and crafted a ton of TNT, and I traded a golden apple for some fire charges that this guy got from the Nether, and I griefed the house of the guy who killed me by blowing up his house! Unfortunately, turns out that that guy was John, who ran the server, and he banned me.
“It is so unfair! So now I had to join this stupid server, and there’s no NPC villages anywhere, so I had to kill this sleeping guy, take this lame stone sword, and … you’re not following anything I’m saying, are you.”
Again, it was a statement, not a question, and again it was true. The boys stood there with a look of bewilderment on their faces; they had not followed any of her rant from the mention of PCD towns or whatever she said. They were utterly confused, so the girl just got up and walked away.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?” yelled Charlie.
“I’m going to find some people with stuff that I actually want,” she replied, heading for the woods.
“Wait up!” Stan yelled, walking after her. “Why don’t you come with us?”
She whipped back around to face him. “WHAT?” she and Charlie yelled at the same time.
“You can’t be serious, Stan. She just tried to kill us!”
“You expect me to come with you noobs?”
“She’ll turn on us as soon as we fall asleep!”
“If you think I’ll protect you, then you’ve got another think coming!”
“SHUT UP!” yelled Stan, so loudly that both Charlie and the girl did.
Turning to the girl, Stan said, “Look, if you attack people who have better weapons than you, then you’re going to get slaughtered. Come with us to the Adorian Village. They’ll help you get a new iron sword, and then we can go our separate ways.”
The girl thought about it while Charlie stammered weak protests, which Stan ignored.
“Fine,” said the girl. “I’ll come with you, but just until we get to the Adorian Village. After that, I’m going to leave you two to fend for yourselves.”
“Good,” said Stan. Charlie looked at him incredulously, but he could see that Stan had made up his mind, and he doubted that he could change it.
“Come on,” said Stan. “The path leads this way.” He started walking down the path and the others followed.
“By the way, my name’s KitKat783,” said the girl. “But you can call me Kat.”
“My name’s Stan, and this is Charlie,” said Stan, gesturing to Charlie, who feebly raised a blocky hand. With no further words, Stan walked off, followed by the smirking Kat and the scowling Charlie.
They walked along the path in silence. Stan was followed by Kat, with Charlie taking up the rear. “I don’t trust her behind my back,” he’d whispered to Stan. They kept walking until about noon, when Stan spotted something on the side of the road. He pointed it out to the others. It appeared to be a large hole in the ground, lined by stone, with darkness inside that extended deep underground. He noticed black specs on a few of the stones that he could see.
“That’s a mine!” cried Kat excitedly. “There are minerals inside it if you mine them out! Let’s go in there!”
“Are you crazy?” snapped Charlie, still upset that Kat had come with them. “It’s all dark in there. There’s bound to be monsters.”
“Eh, don’t be a baby,” smirked Kat. “See that black stuff?” She gestured to one of the stones flecked with black. “That’s coal ore. We can make torches out of the coal to see in the dark and ward off the monsters at night. Besides, even if there are monsters in there, we can fight them off. We’ve all got swords. We’re all big boys here, except for me, and ironically, I’m probably the least scared to go in there.”
Nobody argued with her. Stan was a little unnerved at the prospect of heading into a dark mine after the episode with the Spiders. He did need to make a new weapon soon, though, and it would be nice to have a sword made out of stone rather than wood, though he had no idea how to make one. He also wondered what other kinds of minerals were in there. His desires and curiosity overpowered his fear, and he said, “All right, Kat. I’ll go into the mine.”
“I don’t care what either of you say, I’m not going in there,” Charlie retorted. “I remember the Spiders. I’m going to stay right here, thank you very much.” And with that he walked to the middle of the path, plopped down a piece of wood from his inventory, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at Stan and Kat defiantly.
“Fine,” said Stan. “You stay out here. See if you can find any more food; we’re almost out. Kat and I will grab some coal and stone and stuff.” And with that, Stan turned and walked towards the mine.
“Hold on,” Kat said, and she threw him something that he caught and examined: a pickaxe made of stone. She held up an identical one.
“It hurts your hand and takes forever to punch through rock, and you don’t get anything from it. You’d be best to mine stuff with a pickaxe.”
Feeling a little bit stupid for his ignorance, Stan set into the mine, pickaxe in hand, tailed closely by Kat.
His first stop was the coal ore he’d seen. He took his pickaxe and mined a good-sized lump of coal in a matter of minutes. He saw that the coal ran in a vein, and before long he had collected about ten lumps of it. He brought them over to Kat, who was hacking away at a stone wall.
“Good,” she said. “Let me see those.” He handed her the lumps. She pulled some sticks from her inventory and fastened them to the coal to make torches. Each lump of coal yielded four torches, so they had forty in all.
“Now we can go deeper into the mine, where there isn’t any natural light,” she explained. They ventured further, placing torches along the wall as they went. Stan noticed that the torches ignited the second that Kat attached them to the wall, with no matches or lighter or anything. Strange …
“Hey, look over here!” Stan ran over to a spot on the ground flecked with black. “More coal! I’m going to dig this out,” he said. “Could you get me some stone for a new sword? And get some for Charlie, too.”
“Whatever,” she said. She started hacking into the wall at a new location, gathering up tremendous amounts of stone chunks. Stan dug into the coal vein. He was about to dig into the eighth piece of coal when Kat said, “Hey, Stan! Come check this out!”
Stan walked over to her. She had made quite a dent in the wall, and she was staring at a block that was different from the stone all around her. This block was flecked with little spots that looked similar to the coal ore, but were light brown instead of black. Kat stepped back.
“I’ve never seen that before. Do you think it could be gold?”
“It might be. Hang on, put a torch up,” Stan said. Kat obliged. Stan pulled out his book and turned to the section on blocks. He found a page describing gold ore and showed it to Kat.
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t match the colour. Gold ore has yellow flecks; these flecks are tan. Check out the other pages.”
Stan turned to the previous page. He held that illustration up for Kat.
“That’s it!” she exclaimed. “What is it?”
Stan read from the book.
IRON ORE
Iron ore is an ore block typically found in mines or mountainous regions. When smelted, it produces one iron ingot.
Stan looked up.
“Do you know what an Iron Ingot is?” he asked.
Kat shrugged her shoulders. “Look it up,” she said.
He did.
IRON INGOT
An iron ingot is a crafting item. It is most commonly obtained by smelting iron ore, but can also be found in the chests of Dungeons, Strongholds, Abandoned Mine Shafts, Temples and NPC villages, or by killing Iron Golems and (rarely) Zombies. The iron ingot is an essential crafting item for a wide variety of things, including iron swords, iron armour, iron tools, buckets, shears, iron bars, tripwire hooks and many other things. Tools and armour made from iron are of a higher quality than stone or leather, respectively, but of a lower quality than diamond.
Of this entire passage, one small section caught Kat’s attention.
“Iron sword?” she exclaimed. “So if I smelt this stuff, whatever that means, I can get an iron sword?”
“Apparently,” said Stan.
“Sweet!” shouted Kat gleefully, and she began hacking away at the wall of ore. The two players hacked at the wall and managed to get out four blocks of iron ore before they hit stone again.
“Let’s look around here. Maybe there’ll be some more!” She was about to take her pickaxe to the adjacent section of the wall when she heard a bloodcurdling cry echoing from the top of the cave.
“Aaaaauuuuughhhh! Stan! Heeelllllpppp!”
“Come on!” Stan shouted to Kat, and the two raced up the mine and into the light.
After Kat and Stan had vanished into the mine, Charlie stood up and walked around, a scowl on his face.
Stupid girl, he thought, looking around and spying a patch of wheat next to a sign that said “Take what you need, but replant.” Why should she get to be in our group? She nearly killed us! What does Stan see in her? It was true, he thought as he harvested the wheat, that the girl did seem to know her way with a sword. Ah, what am I talking about? I don’t know that. I didn’t see her actually fight! For all I know, she’s never killed anything in her life. I’m ditching her first chance I get, the arrogant brat.
And now look what she’s done, he thought as he began to break the leaf blocks on the trees. He had read in Stan’s book that every now and then an apple would drop from a leaf block if you broke it. She’s gone with him into a mine, delaying us from getting to the Adorian Vill— Wait a second, he thought, not noticing the apple dropping from the block he had just broken.
What if it’s a trap? What if she’s just lured Stan down there to kill him, and she’s going to come back and finish me off? I have to go find them! He quickly picked up his sword and was about to dash into the mine to save his friend when something stopped him.
A little way into the darkness of the mine, he saw a figure. It looked like a monster of some sort. He was about to run, but his curiosity got the better of him because it was the most bizarre thing he had ever seen. He edged slightly forwards to get a better look. It was as tall as he was, two blocks high, but it didn’t have any arms, and it stood upright on four stubby legs. He couldn’t see well, but he could have sworn that its body was flecked with different shades of green, with some white in there, too. He edged a little closer. This turned out to be a huge mistake.
The creature suddenly turned towards him. He had gotten too close. It stared at him, and he had never seen such a terrifying face in his life. It looked like a morbid, green-speckled jack-o-lantern. It had empty black eye sockets and a gaping hole of a mouth that was open in a horrible upside-down grin.
He swung with his sword, and the monster was knocked back, but his wooden weapon had reached the end of its life. The spent blade splintered into a thousand pieces, and Charlie threw the useless handle aside as he screamed into the mine for his friends to help him.
This creature was fast but silent as well. The Zombies made moaning sounds, the Spiders made a clicking sound, and you could hear the rattling of a Skeleton’s bones as it moved. But this thing was absolutely silent. As it chased after Charlie, he could barely hear the sound of its footsteps. Also, the Zombies and Skeletons burned up in the sunlight, and the Spiders hadn’t paid him or Stan any attention. But Charlie was running around in the path in direct sunlight and the thing kept following him, not slowing down or taking any damage. Charlie did not want to know what would happen when the thing finally caught up to him.
Kat and Stan burst out of the mine just as Charlie was running back towards it, still being followed by the monster.
“Guys, thank God! I’m so glad that you’re—”
“Get down!” Kat cried.
The monster was upon them, and it was starting to hiss and swell like an overinflated balloon. Kat pushed Stan, who fell backwards into the mine, and she tackled Charlie out of the way just in the nick of time. There was an earsplitting explosion, and a cloud of dust rose over the road. Then, all was quiet.
As the dust cleared, Stan got up and came out of the mine. The monster was gone, and in its place was a huge crater, blown right into the middle of the dirt path. Stan stared at it, and Charlie and Kat got up. Kat turned on Charlie.
“How did you get a Creeper on your tail? I thought you were staying out of the mine!” she yelled at him.
“Wait … that was a Creeper?” asked Stan.
“Yes, that was a Creeper! Why did it start following you?”
“So that’s the thing that everyone talks about?” asked Charlie, wide-eyed with shock and horror. “I’ve seen the posters online … but I always assumed that they, like, broke into your house and stole your stuff or something! They blow up?”
“Yes – now for the last time, Charlie, how did it get on your tail?”
“I went down into the mine.”
“Why?” Kat demanded.
“I … uh …” Charlie thought that it would be a little bit rude to tell Kat that he’d gone in the mine to stop her from betraying him and Stan after she had just saved both of their lives from the Creeper.
“I, uh, wanted to help you guys. I wasn’t finding any food, and I didn’t want to be useless, so I, uh, went in after you guys. Followed the line of torches … Yeah! And, uh, then I saw that thing and tried to fight it off but my sword broke, so I called you guys for help because I knew you had swords that were … uh … un-broken?” he finished lamely. Kat was staring at him with a look of half exasperation and half amusement.
“Uh-huh,” she said in a teasing voice. “Well, we’d better get going. We should really get you an ‘unbroken’ sword, and I don’t know how to make one. So you didn’t find any food at all?
“Well,” replied Charlie, “I found some wheat and a few apples. I don’t know if we can do anything with the wheat, but the apples are edible.”
“Well, that’ll have to do,” replied Kat. “Let’s go.”
As the three players continued on the road to the Adorian Village, Charlie sighed, resigning himself to the fact that now he could never abandon this girl who had saved his life.
They still had plenty of daylight left. The path was going in a straight line, and they were beginning to see hovering chunks of leaves with no trunks on the side of the road. This meant that they were definitely close to civilization.
“Excellent,” commented Stan as they passed a watermelon farm with a sign that was identical to the one at the wheat field. “We can get some food from this field. Just don’t destroy any of the vines.”
Each player picked a watermelon and destroyed it. There were multiple watermelon slices yielded from every destroyed watermelon, and the players ate all the juicy fruit to completely assuage their mounting hunger. Kat, who was particularly hungry, even ate the two raw pork chops that she had in her inventory.
The free sample has ended.
