Ghast in the Machine! (Minecraft Woodsword Chronicles #4)

by Nick Eliopulos

  “At least the lights work,” Po said at the end of their morning class. “Imagine if we had to do math and reading by candlelight!”

  Harper nodded in agreement. But her mind was back in the Minecraft desert. Between Jodi’s broken gear and Po’s poisoning, they’d had to disconnect before going through the portal. If they’d even decided to go through the portal. Harper half suspected the whole thing was a trap.

  They had used dirt to wall off a little corner of the mineshaft. Then they’d set up their beds. That way, when they returned to the game, they’d be right by the portal and they could decide what to do about how to continue their hunt for the Evoker King.

  Ms. Minerva had wheeled in an old chalkboard for their morning lesson. As she wiped it clean with a tattered black eraser, Harper sneezed. She had never seen so much chalk dust in her life!

  Over by the window, Baron Sweetcheeks sneezed, too.

  “Well, that was adorable,” Jodi said. “Harper! Take a video with your phone.”

  Harper sniffled. “Okay,” she said. She put her notebook into her backpack and pulled out her phone. She was the first of them to get a smartphone, so she’d become the group’s unofficial videographer. The phone was an ancient hand-me-down, however. She’d had to tinker with it to make it run more smoothly.

  She opened the camera app and held the phone up toward the hamster’s cage. Ms. Minerva had already replaced the treadmill with the old-fashioned hamster wheel.

  “Come on, little guy,” Jodi said. “Achoo! Achoo!”

  Harper pressed the record button with her thumb. She held her hand as steady as possible. She was ready to capture the moment Baron Sweetcheeks sneezed again.

  She was not ready for what she actually saw.

  “Um. Guys,” she said. “You’ve got to look at this.”

  While her other classmates filed out of the room, Harper’s friends crowded around her. By their gasps of disbelief, she knew they could see what she saw.

  She felt a small sense of relief to know she wasn’t imagining things. But only a small one.

  Because there, on the tiny screen of her phone, was the real-life Baron Sweetcheeks…next to a blocky Minecraft rabbit.

  “Is that a new filter?” asked Morgan.

  “No,” said Harper, starting to get over her surprise. “I…I think it’s really there!”

  “No way,” said Jodi. She went over to the hamster cage. She waved her hands around.

  “You’re passing right through it,” Ash told her.

  “I don’t feel anything!” Jodi said.

  On Harper’s screen, the rabbit twitched its nose and hopped idly across the room.

  “Follow that rabbit!” said Po.

  They all grabbed their backpacks and scrambled out of the classroom. The hallway was crowded with students. Harper had to hold her phone up to catch glimpses of the rabbit as it hopped between kids’ feet.

  “This way,” she said, and the others followed. But she lost sight of it as it rounded a corner.

  “It couldn’t have gone far,” she said, and she waved her phone around. Its screen showed the familiar hallway, packed with the students…and with Minecraft zombies.

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, that is too weird.”

  “Can they see us?” Jodi asked.

  “Can they hear us?” Po whispered.

  “I don’t think so,” Harper said. “They’re just shambling around. Anyway, how could they get us even if they wanted to?”

  “Is this only happening in the school?” asked Ash. “Let’s look outside.”

  They passed through the lobby and held the phone outside the main doors. On its screen, Harper could see the schoolyard. There was the flagpole…there were the bushes…and there was a huge ghast floating inches above the lawn.

  “It’s like a window into another dimension,” Morgan said. “A window into the game!”

  “We should tell an adult,” said Ash. “Just to be safe.”

  “Doc will know what to do,” Harper said. “We have her class next anyway.”

  “Aw,” said Po , a little bit disappointed. “I was hoping to see a mooshroom first. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen a mooshroom.”

  “Priorities, Po!” said Harper.

  The bulletin board just outside Doc’s lab was decorated with artwork. The first graders had all drawn food webs, and Doc had put their creations on display. But when Harper looked at the board through her phone, she saw something else. Something sinister.

  It was a drawing of a Minecraft Nether portal. It looked just like the one they’d seen in the mineshaft the day before. And it had a big red X over it.

  “Oh man,” Ash whispered. “Someone doesn’t want us going through that portal.”

  “One guess who,” said Morgan.

  “Or a few guesses,” said Jodi. She was scribbling madly in her notebook. “Harper, didn’t you let Sandy Mistletotter use your phone to call his dad last week? And didn’t you download a game that Tammy Yosemite recommended?”

  Harper turned the phone away from the bulletin board. Before she could answer Jodi’s questions, her jaw dropped. “What is that?” she said. The hallway had emptied of students. But through the phone, she could see a tall figure in the distance, all the way at the end of the hall. It seemed to be moving blocks around. There was something eerie about it. “Is that a person?”

  “It’s an enderman!” Morgan said. “Don’t look at it! Harper, turn away!”

  But it was too late. The enderman turned toward them. It seemed to see Harper. It glared at her with hostile eyes.

  And then it teleported toward her. In the time it took Harper to blink, the enderman’s face was filling her phone’s screen.

  Harper shrieked in surprise. The phone fell from her grip. It hit the floor with a crack. The screen went dark, and a piece of the phone broke off.

  “Oh no!” Harper cried. She bent over to retrieve her phone. “It won’t turn on.”

  “Is everything okay out here?” Doc stepped from the doorway of her classroom. “Harper, was that you I heard?”

  “I just…startled myself,” Harper said. “My phone was acting strange. Showing us things that shouldn’t be there. It was showing us Minecraft mobs!”

  Doc chuckled. “You five have Minecraft on the brain, don’t you?” She tapped her chin. “But it’s an odd coincidence that your phone would glitch when everything else around here is crashing like two bumblebees listening to Beethoven.”

  “Maybe it’s not a coincidence.” Harper’s shoulders slumped. “Do you remember when you told me I could use some of your scrap for after-school projects? Well…I may have used some of it to enhance my phone….”

  Doc clucked her tongue. “Normally I’d praise your inventiveness. But it’s a bad week to be using my hardware.” She looked at the phone in Harper’s hand. “May I borrow that for a bit? Maybe it will help me figure out what’s going on.”

  “Sure, but I’m afraid I broke it,” Harper said.

  “Maybe that’s for the best,” Doc said. “It’s like my tech has developed a mind of its own. It’s been downright strange.”

  “You can say that again,” said Harper. Her eyes drifted to the colorful drawings on Doc’s bulletin board, and she shuddered remembering the big red X.

  Jodi couldn’t stop thinking about the portal.

  If the Evoker King had meant to scare her away, then he’d made a big mistake. Telling Jodi not to do something only made her want to do it more.

  She was practically shaking with excitement as she waited for the others to meet her at the computer lab.

  Harper was the first to arrive. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I had to tell my mom about dropping my phone. I told her I can fix it, but she wants to go to the store and have it fixed professionally.”

 
Po showed up just as Harper was leaving. “Emergency basketball practice!” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m already late!”

  Ash had a scout meeting. “I can’t believe I forgot it,” she said. “Well, I guess I can believe it. It was a weird day….”

  Morgan’s excuse was the strangest of all. “Detention?!” Jodi said. “What did you do to get detention?”

  Morgan blushed. “I decided to warn some kindergarteners about the enderman roaming the halls. The teacher thought I was teasing them!”

  “This is very aggravating,” Jodi said. “I’m beginning to think the Evoker King scared you all away.”

  “We’ll deal with the Evoker King tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll see you at home. Don’t go into the game alone.”

  And that was Morgan’s big mistake.

  He shouldn’t have told Jodi not to do something.

  * * *

  At first, Jodi told herself she’d just play Creative mode for a while. She hadn’t used the headsets for that yet. It would be nice to spend some time building without worrying about getting poisoned or set on fire.

  But she and her friends were always in need of more supplies. They could use more coal for torches and more feathers for arrows. She still had to replace her sword.

  And if she was totally honest, she was a little annoyed at the last-minute change of plans. This wasn’t the first time in recent memory that her friends had been too busy for her.

  “I’ll just connect for a little bit,” she said to herself. “Gather some resources. That’ll make everybody happy!”

  Her avatar rose from the bed she’d left in the mineshaft. She left the bed there, along with the torch they’d placed on the wall. She knocked away the dirt they’d used to enclose the underground bedroom.

  She poked her head out. No vexes. No spiders. Just the tantalizing purple glow of that portal…

  “I’ll just take a quick peek,” she said. “Then I’ll come right back here.”

  She stepped up to the ring of obsidian. She reached toward the purple light. But she hesitated.

  She thought she should leave something. Just in case. A trail of bread crumbs.

  Bread crumbs didn’t exist in Minecraft, though. She scanned her inventory for something else.

  Seeds. She’d been gathering them for weeks. She’d been hoping to use them to tame a parrot.

  But they’d make a decent trail.

  “So much for a pet parrot,” Jodi said. She sprinkled a handful of seeds at the base of the portal. Then she stepped into the purple light.

  Everything on the other side was dark red. She recognized the landscape immediately. “The Nether,” she said. “Not again!”

  She was standing on a narrow ledge of red stone. There was lava far below. And in front of her, only a few steps away, was another portal.

  She dropped seeds as she walked along the ledge. She held her breath and stepped through the portal.

  She was back in the Overworld. But there was no desert or mineshaft in sight. She stood atop a low hill overlooking a swamp.

  There was still another portal nearby.

  “All right,” she said, examining the new portal. “I admit it. I’m intrigued.” As she stepped through, she only hoped she ran out of portals before she ran out of seeds.

  * * *

  After four portals, Jodi found herself in a dark forest. She didn’t see another portal right away, so she walked deeper into the woods. She kept her eyes open for the telltale purple glow.

  Instead, she saw figures moving beneath the trees.

  “Uh, hello?” she said. “Morgan? Po, is that you?”

  The only answer she received was an arrow. It flew through the forest, aimed at her chest. She dodged it, and it stuck in the tree behind her.

  “Not cool!” she said.

  Sounds of grunting and honking came in reply. The figures sounded just like Minecraft’s villagers. As they stepped into the light, she saw that they looked quite a bit like villagers, too.

  All except one major difference.

  They all had weapons. And those weapons were aimed right at her.

  Jodi was outnumbered. Her only hope was to make it back to the portal she’d come through. She looked down at her feet.

  Uh-oh.

  “Um…,” she said. “Any of you notice some seeds lying around here anywhere?”

  The figures bleated and grumbled in reply. They shuffled closer, raising their axes.

  “I guess it’s a fight, then.” Jodi drew her bow. “But would you mind standing very still? You know, to even the odds a little?”

  An arrow whizzed by her head. It came from behind her. She was sure that meant she was surrounded.

  But the arrow struck one of her enemies, and Po’s voice rang out: “She’s over here!”

  Jodi’s heart soared as her friends came leaping out from behind the trees. Now it was a fair fight!

  Swords clashed against axes, axes clashed against shields, and arrows flew from both sides of the battle. Jodi kept moving and focused on her aim.

  “These illagers are no match for us,” Ash said as her foe fell back, defeated.

  Illagers. That was a new one to Jodi.

  But Ash was right. Working together, the team made short work of their enemies. As the last illager vanished in a puff of smoke, Jodi beamed at her brother. “I’m sure glad to see you!”

  Morgan did not return her smile. “What were you thinking?” he said. “You could have gotten hurt. You could have gotten lost!”

  Jodi waved his words away. “I’m fine. I left that trail of seeds for you.” She’d been overjoyed to see her friends in her moment of need. But now that they were here—and now that Morgan was lecturing her—she started to feel something else. “Besides, you’re the ones who canceled,” Jodi said. “I’m the one who stuck to the plan.”

  “We couldn’t help it,” Morgan said. “Things just…came up.”

  “Then how are you all here now?” Jodi said. “Did you all finish your plans at the exact same moment?”

  “It’s lucky for you we got here when we did,” Morgan argued.

  Ash, Harper, and Po were all silent. They’d clearly decided not to get between the siblings this time.

  “I was worried sick,” Morgan said.

  “Well, I’m sorry I worried you,” Jodi said. “I didn’t mean to.”

  In the silence that followed, Jodi felt a rush of guilt. She really hadn’t meant to worry him.

  But part of her didn’t believe his story about having detention. Or that he’d had a make-up quiz the other day. Part of her felt like the old Morgan was back. The Morgan who didn’t want to spend time with his baby sister.

  “We’re all here now,” Ash said. “We might as well explore a little bit more. Right?”

  Jodi felt relieved to have something else to talk about. Morgan seemed relieved, too. “Right,” he said.

  “We didn’t have time for sightseeing while we were rushing after you, Jodi,” said Po. “Did you notice anything interesting?”

  “Any clues about what’s going on?” Harper added.

  “Nothing that made sense to me,” said Jodi. “I’m sure you noticed that the portals go back and forth between the Nether and the Overworld. Almost like the Evoker King is using the Nether as a shortcut to access different areas.”

  “It seems he can’t link two portals in the Overworld without going through the Nether first,” said Morgan. “So in this case, he’s bending the rules more than he’s breaking them. Maybe there are limits to what he can do!”

  “Let’s talk while we walk,” Ash said. “I want to see where this trail is leading. And I’m guessing I’m not the only one.”

  Po liked wearing his rabbit outfit. But he decided he needed to look like a prope
r explorer for what came next.

  Their first stop was the Nether. Po hadn’t missed it, exactly. But it was hard to argue when Ash called the view “breathtaking.”

  The group paused to take in their infernal surroundings. They stood on a narrow ledge between two active portals. Far below, there was a lake of lava. Across the way, too far to jump but close enough to see clearly, was another ledge with another set of portals.

  The red mountains in this region were covered with portals. It was like an ant farm, with dozens of little paths going around and through the landscape. And pair after pair of portals.

  “He’s been busy,” Harper said.

  “I kind of admire his focus,” said Po. “I wonder if he’s free for tutoring?”

  Po meant it as a joke. But as soon as he said it, he remembered that the Evoker King was most likely a kid at their school. Whoever it was, they were doing an excellent job of messing with Po and his friends.

  With every other portal, they appeared in an entirely new area of the Overworld. They saw a lush jungle, where Jodi kicked herself for running out of seeds to feed the parrots. They saw a mushroom island, where Po spent a blissful five minutes chasing mooshrooms. They saw a cavern, deep underground, lit dimly by portal light.

  In each spot, they stopped to gather materials. The jungle had more wood than they could carry. The island provided mushrooms and mushroom soup. In the cavern, Po breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of iron ore. There was a lot of it right beside the portal. They would be able to craft Jodi a new sword and still have enough to replace some older pieces of armor.