Ghastly Battle

by Winter Morgan

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  Copyright © 2016 by Hollan Publishing, Inc.

  Minecraft® is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB.

  The Minecraft game is copyright © Mojang AB.

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Cover photo by Megan Miller

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-0600-2

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0610-1

  Printed in Canada

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 1: New Arrivals

  Chapter 2: Escape

  Chapter 3: New Villains

  Chapter 4: Escape to the Nether

  Chapter 5: Overheard

  Chapter 6: Familiar Face

  Chapter 7: Pools of Lava

  Chapter 8: Fire Resistant

  Chapter 9: Nether Surrender

  Chapter 10: Back to the Overworld

  Chapter 11: Command Blocks

  Chapter 12: Swampland

  Chapter 13: Journey to the Jungle

  Chapter 14: Choices

  Chapter 15: Finders Keepers

  Chapter 16: The Showdown

  Chapter 17: Good News

  Chapter 18: Theme Park

  Sneak peek at the next book!

  1

  NEW ARRIVALS

  Simon kept a close eye on his inventory. “We have to make sure there is enough wood.”

  “We’ll be fine. If we run out of supplies, we’ll just stop and get more,” Michael dismissed Simon’s comment.

  “I don’t like to start a project I can’t finish.” Simon was annoyed.

  “We can finish it, but we might have to pause in the middle to get some more wood,” Michael clarified.

  Lily walked over. “What are you building?”

  “We’re building a carousel. I was thinking we could use some redstone,” said Simon.

  “That sounds like fun,” replied Lily as she eyed their large roller coaster. She had built that coaster with Michael and Simon, and now they were building a carousel on their own. “You’re building it right by the roller coaster?”

  “Yes,” explained Michael. “We want to make an amusement park.”

  Lily felt a lump in her throat. “It seems like a rather large project for two people.”

  “Do you think we need help?” asked Simon.

  Lily tried to hide her disappointment. “I guess you can do it on your own.”

  “Is everything okay, Lily?” Michael put down his supplies and walked over to his friend.

  “Yes.” Lily wiped the tears from her eyes.

  Simon rushed over. “What is it?”

  “I feel left out. We always built everything together, and now you’re doing this on your own. Why didn’t you think to invite me?” She frowned.

  “We just forgot. We didn’t mean to upset you,” Simon stammered.

  “You forgot about me?” Lily was hurt.

  “We always like building with you,” Michael explained.

  “Yes,” Simon added. “We just walked over here and had the idea to build a carousel. Of course we were going to ask you.”

  Matthew thought for a moment. “I guess we’ve all gotten used to being a bit more independent since being trapped on the server. But we have to remember how important our friendships are and work together as a team. Lily, would you please help us build this carousel?”

  Lily smiled. “Thanks. I’d love to help you guys.”

  “Do you have any redstone?” Simon asked as he perused his inventory for the second time.

  Lily studied her inventory and suggested, “An amusement park is a big project. Why don’t we invite other people from the town to help? I’m sure Warren, Robin, Ilana, Peter, George, and Sarah would want to build an amusement park with us. And I bet there would be even more people excited about it, too.”

  “Yes, we should make this a team effort,” Simon agreed.

  “That’s a fantastic idea,” Michael exclaimed.

  “Come with me,” Lily said. “Let’s ask the townspeople to help us.” Her two friends followed her back into the center of Lisimi Village.

  “I hope we find someone to help quickly. I really want to get back to work,” Michael remarked.

  As they reached the center of the town, Lily thought about a name for the amusement park. “Should we name it Lisimi Land?”

  “Or we can name it Adventure Park and make a bunch of adventure courses,” suggested Simon.

  “What about Fun Park?” Michael added.

  As the trio bounced around various names for their amusement park, they stumbled upon two people who looked lost. The strangers stood by a tree, looking off in the direction of the town.

  “Can you help us?” the girl, who was wearing a pink beret, called out. She was shaking and seemed very upset. “We see there is a town in the distance.”

  “I see an iron golem,” said the boy, who was wearing a black suit.

  “We’re lost,” admitted the girl.

  “Are you okay?” Lily asked.

  The girl in the pink beret shook as she spoke. “No. I think something has gone very wrong.”

  “Yes, incredibly wrong,” added her friend. His voice cracked. “I think we are actually in a Minecraft game. We were playing, and we got zapped into this game.”

  Lily’s heart started to beat rapidly. She couldn’t believe more people had been zapped onto the server when all of the griefers responsible for sucking people into the game had been imprisoned. Seeing these two new people not only shocked her, it also scared her; she wondered who had trapped them on the server.

  “Can you tell us your story?” Michael asked. “How were you zapped onto the server?”

  Lily nodded encouragingly. “I know you’re upset, but please, tell us what you can remember. We want to help you and this is an important step in figuring out how you were trapped on the server.”

  The girl wearing the pink beret introduced herself first. “I’m Blossom. I was playing on a server with my friends and then it just shut off.”

  “It’s not that simple,” the boy in the black suit added. “We were in the middle of unearthing treasure. It was so annoying because we lost the treasure, and now we’re actually in Minecraft. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  Blossom explained how they were both playing Minecraft at her house when it happened. “The game shut off as we were unearthing the tre
asure and when we turned our computers back on, the lights shut off in my house and we were zapped onto the server.”

  “That’s awful,” Lily exclaimed. “We know how hard it is to adjust, but we’ll help you,” she reassured them.

  “But we have to find out who zapped them onto this server,” Michael added.

  “Yes, we do.” Lily wondered if there was another griefer in the Overworld who had the power to zap people onto the server. Lily was terrified that there was an unknown, powerful griefer in the Overworld.

  Michael uttered, “This isn’t going to be easy.”

  Lily gave him a dirty look. She didn’t want to frighten the newcomers.

  Simon looked up at the sky. “It’s almost night, and we have to get back to the village.”

  “Do you have a place where we can stay?” asked Blossom. “I can’t bear to battle any hostile mobs in real life.”

  “Yes.” Michael offered them a room in his house.

  “Thanks,” said the boy in the black suit, and then he finally introduced himself. “I’m Sunny. I forgot to mention that when we were unearthing the treasure, we saw other treasure hunters, and they started to attack us.”

  “Do you think they had something to do with trapping you on the server?” asked Michael.

  “I’m not sure,” replied Sunny.

  “What did they look like?” asked Simon.

  “I didn’t see them for very long, but they were wearing blue hats, which I thought was very strange,” said Sunny.

  “Blue hats. I don’t know anyone who wears a blue hat.” Lily tried to figure out who wanted Blossom and Sunny’s treasure.

  “Did you hear them call out any names?” questioned Michael.

  Blossom stammered, “Um, no. It all happened so quickly. I wasn’t paying attention, I just wanted to get the treasure and TP back to our village. And then the lights went out and we were trapped on this server.”

  “This is so similar to how we were trapped. Our parents were calling to us to stop playing because there was a powerful storm in our town, but we were trying to stop a gang of griefers from attacking our roller coaster. If only we had shut the computer down and stopped playing, we wouldn’t be trapped on this server, too.” Simon’s eyes filled with tears.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Blossom looked at Simon.

  Lily didn’t want to focus on the negative or the reason they were trapped on the server. She wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. “We will find out who trapped you on this server,” she declared.

  “And you’ll definitely get us home?” asked Blossom.

  Lily opened her mouth to answer, but she didn’t know how to respond.

  2

  ESCAPE

  Lily couldn’t even figure out how to get herself off the server, so she wasn’t sure how she’d get Blossom and Sunny back home. She had seen others, like the Prismarines and Georgia, get zapped back to the real world, but it had been a while since anyone had made their way back home, and she was getting discouraged. Lily might have hoped that meeting Blossom and Sunny would energize her and inspire her to think of new ways to escape, but instead it just made her feel helpless.

  “I will try my hardest,” Lily promised Blossom and Sunny, nonetheless.

  “We have to pick up the speed,” Simon reminded them. “It’s getting dark, and soon hostile mobs will spawn.”

  “Too late,” Michael cried. “Skeletons!”

  Arrows flew through the sky, and as one punctured Blossom’s arm, she wailed, “It hurts a lot more in real life!”

  “It’s going to be okay,” Lily reassured her as she leapt toward the bony mob with her diamond sword.

  As Blossom watched Lily, she bit her lip, then tossed her fears aside and lunged at a skeleton, destroying the creature with three strikes from her diamond sword. She called out to Sunny, “It’s not as bad as you think. Just start fighting.”

  Sunny reluctantly grabbed his sword and struck a skeleton that was trying to attack him.

  The skeleton fighting Blossom shot another arrow at her, piercing her other arm. “Ouch!” Blossom screamed, as she leapt toward the skeleton and delivered a final blow, destroying the beast.

  Blossom picked up the bone the skeleton had dropped on the ground when it was destroyed. She began to feel more confident, and she smiled as she struck another skeleton that charged toward the group.

  “Good job!” Lily called out. “You’re getting the hang of this rather quickly.”

  With another couple of strikes from her sword, Blossom was able to obliterate another block-headed skeleton. Then she turned around and, to her horror and surprise, saw a band of zombies marching toward them.

  Lily sprinted toward the zombies and splashed potions on them. As she ran, she called to the others, “We have to stay near the iron golem, where zombies can’t spawn.”

  The others agreed as they annihilated the vacant-eyed, undead mobs that strutted toward them. When the final zombie was destroyed, Michael said, “We need to get to safety. My house is the closest. We should all go there and hide.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Lily could barely get the words out as she ran as fast as she could toward Michael’s house. When they opened the door, they each hurried to a bed and dove beneath the covers.

  As Blossom pulled the covers over herself, she said, “Thanks for letting us stay here. This has been quite an awful adventure so far. I just want to go home.”

  Sunny sniffled as tears streamed down his cheeks. “I miss my bed.”

  “Me too,” Blossom sobbed.

  “Why would someone do this to us?” Sunny asked.

  Simon explained, “We know why the person who trapped us on this server zapped us here. He’s a master griefer named Mr. Anarchy. We have no idea who zapped you onto this server, but I assume they did it for the same reason. They were upset that they are trapped here and wanted to zap more people in.”

  Lily added, “We’ve been stuck here for a long time, and we never thought about trapping other people on the server. We just focus on trying to get out.”

  Simon agreed, “We’re also trying to have fun while we’re here. We love Minecraft, and it’s fun to do cool things like build rides for our amusement park.”

  “You’re building an amusement park?” Blossom perked up.

  Michael described the amusement park, and soon everyone drifted off to sleep, lulled by the sound of his voice, and dreamed about the park and the different rides they were going to create.

  Blossom was the first to wake. She rushed to the window, catching a glimpse of the sunrise over Lisimi Village.

  “It’s so pretty,” Blossom exclaimed.

  The rest of the gang got up, and Lily offered everyone cake. Blossom took a bite. “This tastes so much different than I imagined.”

  “Everything is different,” Michael reminded her.

  “At least there aren’t any hostile mobs spawning during the day,” Sunny said as he took a large bite from the cake.

  “Yes, this means we can spend the day working on the amusement park. We still don’t have a name for it. What did you want to call it again, Lily?” asked Michael. “Lisimi Land?”

  “The amusement park?” Blossom asked. “I think we should spend the day working on ways to get off the server.” Blossom was angry. She wanted her new friends to help her get back home.

  “We are always plotting new ways to get home, but we’re also going to build a super awesome amusement park,” Simon didn’t want to fight with these new players. He knew how hard it was to adjust to living in the game, but he also wanted to focus on his new project.

  Blossom suggested, “We will help you with amusement park if you can tell us how others have left the server.”

  “Deal,” Simon said.

  The gang was ready to leave to work on the amusement park when Robin and Peter ran into Michael’s house.

  Robin cried, “I have bad news.”

  “What?” Lily was worried.<
br />
  “It’s Mr. Anarchy.” Peter’s voice shook.

  “What about him?” Michael demanded.

  “Isn’t Mr. Anarchy the person who trapped you on this server?” questioned Blossom.

  “Yes,” Robin answered, “and he’s escaped!”

  3

  NEW VILLAINS

  “Now we know who trapped Blossom and Sunny on this server,” Lily said.

  “We can’t be certain of that,” Michael said. “When did Mr. Anarchy escape?”

  “Just now,” said Peter.

  “Two people wearing blue hats sprinted into town, shooting arrows at everyone,” Robin told them. “They destroyed the guards at the prison and set Mr. Anarchy free.”

  “Blue hats!” Blossom gasped.

  “The griefers!” Sunny exclaimed.

  “What about Matthew, Otto, and Emma? Did they escape?” Simon questioned.

  “I think they’re still there. I didn’t see them escape with Mr. Anarchy,” Peter spoke quickly.

  “We need to see them,” Michael said, and he dashed to the prison. The others followed.

  “Michael’s right,” Simon confirmed. “I bet Matthew, Otto, and Emma know who is behind this escape.”

  The group hurried over to the prison. When they approached the jail, they saw the prison guards respawn.

  One of the prison guards apologized for letting Mr. Anarchy escape. “It happened so quickly. I didn’t have any time to react.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Lily told them.

  Robin said, “I was in the village when the two people in blue hats came running into town, and they were very powerful. It was a surprise attack, and you did the best job you could.”

  “Thanks,” the guard replied.

  Michael questioned, “Was there anything that stood out about the attacks? Did you recognize the people who took Mr. Anarchy? Was Mr. Anarchy acting strangely over the last few days?”

  The guards were overwhelmed by the numerous questions. One of the guards spoke slowly, trying to remember every detail of the escape. “I can’t say that Mr. Anarchy was acting any differently than he usually acts. We weren’t expecting this attack, and the people came in very quickly. We had no time to react.”

  When it was clear they weren’t going to get any more information from the guards, the gang visited Emma, Otto, and Matthew. But all three of them claimed they knew nothing about Mr. Anarchy’s plan to escape.