by Cube Kid
I’d show you my parent’s bedroom, but I don’t think they’d be too happy about that.
Oh. We also have a bathroom.
Again, Steve said in the original computer game, village houses didn’t have bathrooms. I still don’t know what a computer game is. At some point, I’ll ask.
Well, anyway, there you have it.
And now Steve is living with us. He’s been kind of sad. He just sleeps and sleeps all day.
* * *
Oh, I almost forgot. If you’re wondering what happened to that Mike fellow . . . He’s in jail.
The elders decided that was the best place to put him, after what he did to that farmer.
I’ll have to visit him sometime, and find out what his story is. Not now, though—as I said, I’m way too busy with my studies.
* * *
So that’s the biggest news. Two outsiders are staying in our village for a while. (Not to mention those twenty “tourists.”) It’s happened before. But before, it had always been noobs. Not warriors like Steve and Mike. Usually, the warriors who come to our village don’t stay for very long. Just to rest up and trade.
Times are changing.
Part of me is thankful for that. I mean, look at it this way: The only reason I started this diary was because of how crazy things are getting. I wanted to make a record of these troubled times. If I’d started this diary months ago, it would have been the most boring diary in Minecraftia. There would have been no point in writing anything. Months ago, my life was so dull you can’t even imagine. This diary would have gone something like this:
I ate a baked potato. This is how I accomplished it: I grabbed the baked potato (with my hand). Then I moved my arm up (and also my hand). By doing this, I could put the baked potato into my mouth.
A chicken gave me a strange look.
Yes. It looked at me. With its eyes. It’s getting too crazy around here.
* * *
Hurrrrrr.
Even three weeks ago, that was my life. So maybe we should thank the mobs, huh? I mean, at least they’re making things interesting.
After school, I showed my record book to Steve.
Honestly, I’m proud of it.
Even though every student has one, it’s the first item I’ve ever owned that has a purple glow. Steve chuckled as he glanced at it.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What are all these numbers? Your grades?”
“Grades? Actually, we refer to them as scores. Our skill scores. And this here is our student level.”
“So strange,” Steve said.
“What’s so strange about it?” I asked.
His comment really hurt my feelings.
“Never mind.”
“Hurrrr! Tell me!”
“It’s just, it reminds me of a computer game,” he said. “It’s really weird. I mean, this is obviously a real world, but it still behaves like the game in some ways.”
There it was again—computer game. Of course, I couldn’t resist anymore. I had to ask about that.
Steve paused for a moment, as if not sure how to explain.
“Well,” he said, “you know about redstone, right?”
“A little,” I said. “There aren’t any classes about it yet, but I kind of know how it works.”
He nodded.
“A computer is kind of like that. Except way more complicated. You can do a bunch of stuff with computers, such as, um, write to people, and, of course, play games.”
Hurrrrr? I had no idea what he was talking about. Complicated redstone machines? His world sounds really interesting. I bet computer games are really fun . . .
“Also,” he said, “even though this world behaves like the original computer game, there are differences.” He paused again. “Minecraft never had record books, for example. The mobs didn’t work together. And, in Minecraft, you sat at a desk and used a keyboard and mouse.”
Minecraft? Keyboard? Mouse?
What was all this stuff? I asked him more. From what I could understand, in his world, on their redstone machines (or computers) there’s a game that somehow copies this world. A game called “Minecraft.” I don’t know why the people of Earth would have a game that simulates our world. It’s a little strange, right?
After Steve explained, he glanced around my bedroom.
“Sometimes, I still can’t believe this world is real,” he said. “Sometimes, I wonder if maybe . . . maybe I just played too much. Maybe I played so much Minecraft it fried my brain, and this is just some kind of weird dream.”
I shook my head.
“If this was just your dream,” I said, “that would mean I’m not real . . . and I assure you, I’m very real.”
After I said this, the sadness returned to Steve’s eyes.
I’m not sure why. He nodded.
“Yeah.”
The teachers added a new class to our schedules. It’s called Intro to Combat.
Too cool
When I heard that, I was too excited. Combat is my favorite subject, as you surely know by now. Even though only five students this year will become warriors, the elders feel every student should learn at least the basics of combat.
The class takes place in a big field outside the school. When we first arrived in the field, everyone was pretty excited.
The training dummies were wood blocks and fences pieced together, with pumpkins for heads, to resemble zombies. They weren’t anything fancy, but hey, for a second I began to feel like an actual warrior-in-training.
Even better, the class was being taught by an elder. An elder! They’re the most respected people in our village. Besides the mayor, at least. You can imagine how much we students freaked out on hearing this. Apparently, this elder has the best combat score in the whole village.
Stump and I looked at each other with huge grins.
‘It is going to be an awesome day,’ we thought.
We thought maybe this elder was secretly a master swordsman.
We thought maybe he’d show us how to dice up mobs into steaks with just a wooden sword. We thought a lot of stuff like that.
We thought wrong.
Wrong.
I realized this after Urf took out his wooden sword and began . . . um . . . “teaching” us.
“Now, this is how you hold your sword,” he said. “This thing here is called a handle. You hold the handle with your hands, see? Like this.”
Who doesn’t know how to hold a sword? And even I know that’s called a grip.
I quickly began wondering how much Urf actually knew about fighting. All was revealed, soon enough.
“And then,” he said, “you swing the sword. Use your arms and swing the sword with all of your strength.”
He clumsily swung his sword around, cutting the air.
He almost tripped. Someone snickered to my left—Razberry.
“Now, I’ll swing the sword at a dummy,” the elder said. “Watch and learn. This is how you attack a mob.”
He rolled up the sleeves of his robe. “I’m really going to dunk this thing.”
Urf approached a dummy and swung with a loud grunt. When he connected with the dummy . . . his sword bounced off . . . and flew out of his hands. It was hard to see his cheeks, since they were hidden under his huge gray beard, but I could see a hint of red.
“A bit rusty is all,” he said, picking up the sword.
Rusty, indeed.
Someone behind me coughed. Then Max stepped forward and said: “Um . . . sir? If I may ask . . . what is your . . . combat score? Sir.”
Razberry snickered again, proudly.
“Seven,” the elder said proudly. “Yes, sonny boy, I’ve smashed a few zombies in my time. I once beat a zombie upon the head with a stick. Rest assured,
I’ll teach you all you need to know!”
“I’m sure,” Max said.
“Did that zombie die?” asked a girl.
“Well, no,” said Urf. “But it became very, very angry.”
Someone groaned. There were a few more snickers. Sighs. Everyone was thinking the exact same thing I was.
Our combat teacher
has a combat score of 7%. Seven.
Not seventy-five. Not even fifty. Seven.
The best in the village.
Wow.
So once upon a time, he almost killed a zombie. Almost.
He was a noob leading noobs.
It was hopeless.
The mayor himself might as well have been out here. He’s without a doubt the wimpiest villager of all time.
Wait—I shouldn’t haven written that. If this diary ever gets into the wrong hands!
I didn’t mean that. No, the mayor is super amazing and awesome and fabulous—he’s the coolest guy ever. Yes. That’s what I meant.
Anyway, we have a problem. A huge one. We need to learn how to fight mobs. However, no one knows how. Not even the elders. How can we ever become real warriors if we don’t have a real teacher?
When it comes to being a warrior, beating zombies with sticks is not what I had in mind . . . For the rest of the class, Urf kept talking about the most basic stuff, like how to swing and how to block. The class seemed to last forever. Some boy even fell asleep.
Then, Urf revealed a huge “secret tip” at the end of the lesson:
“If there are thirty mobs around you, just run away,” he said.
He took a swig of water from his water bottle.
“Just run away.”
The students were totally silent once more. I myself couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Run away when thirty mobs are surrounding you.
Really? Are you sure?
You mean like, move your legs so you move away from the mobs? That’s brilliant!
Good tip. This elder was a total nooblord. Stump and I left the class disheartened. We had to get some ice cream after school. That was the only thing we could think of to raise our spirits.
And it did. In fact, we soon had an idea on how to solve this problem. I guess diamond ore chunk is just that amazing. Maybe you’re thinking the same thing I was thinking at that point. Let me give you another little quiz, then. We need a real warrior to teach us; however, none of us villagers are warriors.
So in your opinion, what should we do?
A) Immediately start crying.
B) Ask the mobs real nicely to just stop attacking.
C) Dig down until we hit bedrock and live like dwarves, eating mushrooms and bats.
Or, maybe . . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
JUST MAYBE . . .
. . .
. . .
. . .
(You know what’s coming, right? You know. You surely know.)
. . .
. . .
. . .
D) Recruit Steve as a combat teacher?
That’s right.
We do have a real warrior in the village. Two, actually. Mike is a warrior as well. Although he’s in jail.
Hurrrrr. I wonder if the elders would release him if he agreed to help us out?
First, I went to ask Steve about this.
When I went back home, Steve was asleep.
Right now, I’m finishing up my crafting homework, trying to ignore his snores.
There’s always tomorrow.
When I woke up this morning, I checked my record book.
My combat score was up.
My crafting score had an even higher gain.
That was obviously from my constant crafting attempts at night, in my room (sorry Fluffles).
I wasn’t too far behind Max, then.
This morning, I went out for a walk, and I saw Max in the street. He was looking at his own record book. I managed to peek at it.
How is his trading score so high? Whatever. He’s probably the highest-level student in school. If I keep working hard, I’m sure I’ll catch up. Even if I don’t, as long as I’m in the top five, I’ll be eligible to become a warrior.
Still, how awesome would it be to out-level Max? I can imagine the look on his face!
* * *
As for Steve, he was still moping. He didn’t even get out of bed to eat breakfast. He took out some bread from his inventory, shoved it into his mouth, and went back to sleep.
So I went to go hang out with Stump, Sara, and Ariel. We talked about some new ideas for the upcoming mining test. My hope was that by the time I came back, Steve would be up, and we could talk about him becoming a teacher.
Well, when I returned, the sun was on its way down, my parents were working in the fields—and Steve was still snoring away. It looked like he’d eaten almost an entire cake by himself. The last half-eaten slice was lying on the table near the window.
I cleared my throat. Loudly.
Nothing.
He didn’t move at all. Then I approached the bed and said:
“Creeper.”
He shot up out of his bunk bed. Cake crumbs went flying everywhere. Then he glanced around, his eyes wide, before giving me a dirty look.
“Not funny.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
“Whatever.”
He rubbed his eyes. Yawned. “What time is it?”
I ignored his question and stepped forward. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been sleeping all day!”
He only sighed and laid back down in bed. Then he turned away, facing the wall.
Basically, as I came to realize, Steve is “depressed.”
He had lost all of his items, all of his buildings. What’s more, he had lost his pride. The mobs defeated him, got past all his defenses. Nothing worse can happen to a warrior than that, I imagine. Not only that, but he’s trapped here, in Minecraftia. He really misses Earth. For once, it was my turn to be the strong one. For Steve.
I marched over to the bed, looked up, and said: “You know, those mobs are going to figure out how to break through our wall sooner or later. Some day, the creepers are going to realize they don’t need to bomb us with slimes. They can just blow up next to the wall, and that’ll be it. We need you, hurrrrr. Besides, don’t you want to get revenge?”
I thought it was a good speech.
But Steve just made a strange groaning noise.
“Uuuuuggghhhhhh . . .”
I tried a few more times to motivate him, but he didn’t move. He was just another zombie. A zombie who sleeps and eats cake. My parents said I shouldn’t bother him. They said he needs some time alone. That’s fine. I understand. Besides, he’s not the only warrior around.
Tomorrow, I’m going to visit Mike.
I went to the jail today. I spoke with Mike.
He said he’d be willing to teach us how to fight. Of course, I asked him if he actually knew how to fight.
His response was: “Dude, seriously? Don’t you know who I am?”
“Not really . . . dude?”
Saying that word—dude—it felt awkward. I’d never used it before, and didn’t know what it meant. Earth slang, I guess.
He sighed. “Well, back home I used to play this game called Minecraft . . .”
(Here we go again, I thought.)
I waited for him to continue: “Urr-hurrrr. And?”
“And, I was the best warrior ever,” he said, “I was known as Minemaster Mike. Just get me out of this stupid jail and I’ll teach you villagers everything. The mobs won’t ever think about going near a village again. The endermen will be so afraid, they’ll
actually start crying just looking at your village. And because water hurts the endermen, their own tears will actually burn them. See? That’s how pro I am.”
“Endermen hurt by their own tears,” I said. “Is that even possible?”
Mike shrugged. “I don’t know. But we’re going to find out.”
Hurrrrn. I admit, I really like Mike’s attitude.
Even so, I questioned him further. If he was anything like Urf . . .
“If you’re so good,” I said, looking at him through the iron bars, “then why did you come running into our village?”
“Come on,” he said. “There were like a hundred zombies. I just wasn’t prepared. I heard that Steve guy got ambushed as well, and he’s pretty good, right?”
“Hurrrrrrrrrrmmm. Okay. I believe you. I’ll try to convince the mayor to let you out.”
“Do your best,” he said. “Just get me out of here, and I’ll carry you guys to victory. By the way, I really want to talk to Steve. Can you tell him to come down here?”
“That’s going to be tough,” I said. “He’s been moping lately. But I’ll try.”
“Well, you’d better,” he said. “Things are getting bad, I guess. I overheard the guards talking earlier . . .”
“What did they say?”
“Something about another village, near here. It was destroyed. The mobs overran it. They didn’t have a wall.”
Another village . . . destroyed. So that’s why those “tourists” are here. Mystery solved. Of course, I suspected this the whole time. Maybe I just didn’t want to accept it.
