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

by Nick Eliopulos

  “Isn’t there usually a spider spawner in this room?” Ash asked.

  “If so, we can guess what happened to it,” said Harper. “It was somehow moved to that mineshaft.”

  “This place is way too empty,” Morgan said. “Not just this room. We’ve definitely been through rooms where hostile mobs are supposed to spawn.”

  “I would say it’s nice to have good luck for once,” Jodi said, “but we all know luck has nothing to do with it.”

  The next room was the strangest yet. The far wall was a huge, pixelated piece of art. It looked like a giant illager head. But its eyes, which should have been green, were bright red.

  And the room was crowded with people.

  Except they weren’t people. Not really. They looked like Minecraft avatars, but they were completely still. Lifeless. They sat at school desks and leaned against the walls. Some seemed to be frozen in midconversation.

  And there was something eerily similar about them.

  “Are these supposed to be…our classmates?” Jodi asked.

  “It can’t be,” said Harper.

  “Look there,” said Ash. “Those look like they’re wearing Wildling Scout uniforms.”

  “And the ones over there are wearing basketball jerseys,” said Po.

  “It’s like the Evoker King is determined to build everything he sees at Woodsword,” Morgan said. “He’s just copying everything instead of creating anything original.”

  “Hmmm…,” said Jodi.

  “What?” Morgan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jodi answered. “That just reminded me of something Doc said earlier.”

  “How would he even do this?” asked Ash. “You can’t build an avatar using Minecraft blocks. The hands are too small, for one thing. And the custom details of these outfits are incredible.”

  “This looks just like our team jersey,” Po said, poking one of the unmoving figures.

  “I’m not sure you should do that, Po,” said Harper.

  “Yeah, what happened to not touching anything?” Jodi said.

  “I can’t help myself. It’s just too weird,” Po said. “Besides, they’re not real.” He poked one figure in the shoulder. He poked another on the nose. A third, he poked in the big, bushy hairdo.

  The hair moved.

  “Huh,” said Po.

  The figure suddenly burst to life. It darted past Po, who screamed and leapt backward. Morgan screamed because Po screamed, and then they were all screaming, and the figure was running into the room they’d just come from.

  Ash was the first one to follow. Morgan came to his senses and ran behind her. They twisted through room after room, punching webs aside and throwing open doors. The figure had a head start, but they were gaining on it.

  I can’t believe it, thought Morgan. We have him. We’re going to catch the Evoker King!

  The figure led them to a small cobblestone room. It was empty except for a cauldron and a brown carpet. It looked like a prison cell, with only a single door.

  A dead end. They had him!

  Of course, there were no true dead ends in Minecraft. “We have to reach him before he smashes through the wall,” Morgan said.

  But the figure didn’t produce a pickaxe or any other tool. It didn’t produce a weapon, either.

  It turned to face Morgan and the others. It held its empty hands up in surrender. This didn’t look like an evoker, as Morgan had expected. It looked like a villager. And one they’d seen before!

  Morgan’s square jaw dropped. “The Evoker King…is a librarian?!”

  Weeks earlier, Ash and her friends had come across a village. It was a typical Minecraft village in every way, except for one detail: each night, the village was overrun by a massive number of hostile mobs.

  They’d solved that problem. They’d saved the village. And they had noticed, at the time, that the town librarian was a little bit unusual. They had assumed her oddness was simply another difference that the goggles produced in the game.

  But the librarian stood before them now. And she honked, “Huur…I am most certainly not the Evoker King.”

  “Whoa,” Po whispered. “Can villagers talk now? Was that in the latest update?”

  “I’m not a villager, either,” she honked. “Huur…not really.”

  “So who are you?” asked Harper.

  “ ‘The Librarian’ will do for now…hahr,” she answered. Everyone was trying to suppress giggles. Hearing actual words spoken in the typical villager voice was…ridiculous.

  “You’re the one who’s been helping us,” said Ash, making a mental leap while swallowing another giggle. “You’ve left potions behind for us. And the compass that led us to the underwater base.”

  “And I left the warning…hurr,” the Librarian added. “ ‘Beware the Evoker King.’ Hahr…you didn’t listen to that one. But…ahh…he’s hard to avoid.”

  “A warning?” Morgan said. “We thought it was a threat. We thought the Evoker King did that.”

  “You have the sixth headset,” Harper said. “Don’t you?”

  “But why go to all this trouble?” Po asked. “If you have the headset, you’re at our school. Why not talk to us there?”

  “Because the Evoker King has been watching,” Jodi said. Like Ash, she was connecting the blocks. “He’s accessed the school’s security system.”

  “That’s right,” said the Librarian. “I’ve been trying to help without drawing his notice. Huur hurr…I think I’ve been successful so far.”

  “Who is he?” Morgan asked.

  “Hahr…I’m still working on that,” she answered. “But I’m not sure you’re asking the right question.”

  “What does that mean?” Morgan asked.

  “Never mind for now,” she said. “He may be able to tell we’re communicating, and he may be watching us right now so I’ll make this quick. The source of his power— Huur…I don’t know what it is, but I’ve traced it deep underground. It’s locked away in a dungeon at the very heart of the Overworld.”

  “And you want us to go after it?” Po asked.

  The Librarian smiled again. “You’re a good team…hahr. And you’re much better at battling monsters than I am.” She placed her hands on her chest. “I’ll do everything I can to help you when the Evoker King isn’t watching. But I can’t do this for you. Huur…all I can do is give you the tools you need to succeed. Hurr-hurr.”

  With that, the Librarian disappeared in a cloud of pixelated dust.

  * * *

  Jodi removed her headset. She was sitting in the computer lab, and her head was spinning after so many revelations.

  “I don’t know about you all,” Po said. “But I’m more confused than ever.”

  Morgan’s frustration was written all over his face. “She said I wasn’t asking the right question about the Evoker King,” Morgan said. “What did that mean?”

  “You asked who he is,” Jodi said. “Maybe…you should be asking what he is.”

  Harper’s jaw dropped. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Jodi counted out the facts on her fingers. “The Evoker King is not using the sixth headset. He’s able to bend the rules of the game, like he’s rewriting the code as he goes. And he’s great at building stuff—but not at creating anything new. He’s got no imagination. No…creativity. It’s the same with the AI program Doc was telling me about.”

  Harper hopped out of her chair. “The Evoker King is like a ghost in the machine! He’s the ghost in the system! He’s—”

  “He’s an artificial intelligence,” Morgan finished. His brown skin looked ashen.

  At that moment, a sound came from the PA speakers. Jodi thought it might be laughter. It sounded almost--but not quite--human. But it could have also just been static.<
br />
  “Did you hear that?” asked Jodi. “Was that what I think it was?”

  Her brother frowned. “I really hope not.”

  Jodi’s birthday celebration was simple. It was just the five of them, with no secrets and no surprises. Exactly what she’d asked for.

  They were roasting marshmallows in Ash’s backyard. The fire was getting low. “I should ask my parents for more wood,” Ash said.

  “Allow me,” said Jodi. And she tossed her spy notebook into the fire.

  “Oh no!” said Po. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up the spy life?”

  “I think I’ve outgrown it,” Jodi said with a grin. “Anyway, it didn’t feel right spying on my friends. I should have trusted you.”

  “To be fair, we were telling white lies,” said Ash. “We meant well, but maybe we shouldn’t have done that when there were real mysteries hounding us.”

  “I guess it’s a good time to give you my present,” Morgan said, and handed her a package. Jodi unwrapped it eagerly. She laughed when she saw what it was.

  “Another notebook?” she asked cheerfully.

  “Not for spying,” Morgan said. “For sleuthing. After all, you solved the mystery of the Evoker King.”

  Jodi thought about it a moment. Then she nodded. “I suppose I did. And I can still be a detective without being a spy. I’ll need a totally different hat, though….”

  “Speaking of spying,” Harper said. “Doc told me it was safe to use her tech to fix my phone. The glitch is officially out of the system.”

  “Which means the Evoker King can’t see Woodsword anymore,” Po said. “Whew.”

  “Probably,” Harper said. “But we’re up against an actual thinking computer program. I’m not taking any chances with my privacy.” She held up her phone. “I’m disabling the camera on this thing for good.”

  Jodi grinned. “Should we say goodbye first?”

  Morgan grinned too. “Just in case he’s in there somewhere?”

  “I like that idea,” Ash said.

  Harper handed Po the phone. “You’ve got the longest arms, Po.”

  Po held the phone up. “Everyone gather around!” he said. “Selfie position!”

  They all stuck their heads close together. They put on their toughest faces. Po cleared his throat, then pressed the big red button.

  “Are you listening, Evoker King?” he asked. “Can you see us right now? Because we’re not afraid of you, blockhead. And we’re coming for you!”

  They all laughed. Jodi enjoyed a moment of perfect birthday happiness.

  And then she heard that sound again. Low, sinister laughter. This time, it was coming from Harper’s phone.

  “See you in the game, then,” said the voice.

  is a game about placing blocks and going on adventures. Build, play, and explore across infinitely generated worlds of mountains, caverns, oceans, jungles, and deserts. Defeat hordes of zombies, bake the cake of your dreams, venture to new dimensions, or build a skyscraper. What you do in Minecraft is up to you.

  Nick Eliopulos is a writer who lives in Brooklyn (as many writers do). He likes to spend half his free time reading and the other half gaming. He cowrote the Adventurers Guild series with his best friend and works as a narrative designer for a small video game studio. After all these years, Endermen still give him the creeps.

  Luke Flowers is an author-illustrator living in Colorado Springs with his wife and three children. He is grateful to have had the opportunity to illustrate forty-five books since 2014, when he began living his lifelong dream of illustrating children’s books. Luke has also written and illustrated a best-selling book series called Moby Shinobi. When he’s not illustrating in his creative cave, he enjoys performing puppetry, playing basketball, and going on adventures with his family.

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