exclaimed, tapping himself on the forehead. “I
forgot to tell you, that giant spider down
there—it was Angela!”
“What are you saying, Rip?” she replied.
“It was her. Actually her, in a new form. I
saw her face. She was under the control of
the game somehow. Also, I think she was
going to eat me. Which was pretty intense.”
Mei looked concerned. “That’s . . . not good.
Is she . . . stuck like that?” Mei’s eyes grew
wide. “Rip, we have to work out the rules of
this game.”
“Yeah, I know. Actually, I remember Angela
said something about ‘Big Lava,’ and the fire
lizard said Megalava. I wonder if they are the
same thing. A game boss, maybe?”
“Maybe. And if Angela was destroyed by
the night monsters, why didn’t she just
leave the game? And what will happen to us,
if we . . . I mean, I thought that fire lizard was
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just making stuff up to scare us, I didn’t
think it was TRUE,” Mei said, worried.
“Hey, Mei, it’s OK,” said Rip. “Angela was
careless. You and I are going to get through
this game, and beat it, and then we’ll see
Angela out in the real world. Plus, you’ve got
the medallion,” Rip added. “That must do
something special.”
Mei pulled the medallion out of her bag.
“This is important,” she agreed. “I don’t know
why. But it is.”
Mei put it back in her bag thoughtfully, and
they continued to walk in silence for a while.
Mei saw it first. “There!” she said pointing
upward at a large cube above them. “It’s
daylight!”
Someone or something had built a direct
shaft down. A rookie mistake—you never
build straight down. You can never get back
out that way, which was now the exact
problem Rip and Mei faced.
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The entrance was very high up, but Mei
could just make out a few tree branches
hanging over the edges. It was the forest.
Mei said, “It’s definitely our way out. But
how do we get up there?”
Rip thought for a moment and said,
“Digging a shaft system upward would take a
long time. Maybe even a whole day.”
“We don’t have that kind of time,” Mei
replied. “This mine is dangerous, and I don’t
know how long that trapdoor will keep those
fire lizards at bay.”
They turned toward each other, seemingly
having the same idea at the same time.
Rip pulled out his bow and began breaking
it apart. He positioned wood cubes in a cross
shape on the ground, and applied some silk
strands to the shorter cross. Shuunk.
Ripley held up his new, spider-silk
strengthened crossbow.
“Hopefully, arrows should go much farther
now. And do more damage,” he said.
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“That’s perfect!” Mei said. “Spider silk is one
of the strongest materials in the world! Did
you know spider legs move by using
hydraulics? They use hydraulics to jump too!
Some can jump fifty times their own length.”
“Let’s hope lizards can’t jump that high,”
Rip said. “Also, can we not talk about spiders
anymore?”
“Sure.” Mei grinned as she reached into her
backpack and fashioned a grappling hook out
of vines, silk, and stone. It was sharp to
touch, and the vine section was
strong and stretchy. Mei
passed the grappling hook
to Rip.
“This grappling hook is
awesome,” Rip said with a
grin. He placed the hook into the
crossbow and wrapped a part of the silk vine
around his arm. Mei did the same, and Rip
aimed straight at the hole.
“Hold on!” he said.
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Mei tightened her
grip on the vine. “If you
miss, I’m going to be very,
very angry,” she said.
“I never miss!”
Mei raised her eyebrows.
“OK, well, I sometimes miss,” Rip
said.
He pulled the trigger, and the hook
shot straight up into the air, stretching
the grapple vine until it was taut. The
hook hit something, and they both felt it
take hold.
There was a moment of hesitation, as if
the tension of the vine and the forces of
gravity were in a stalemate, working out
what to do next. Then Mei and Rip were
pulled upward toward the blue hole.
They were moving so fast, the sharp,
blocky walls around them were a blur as they
whizzed past. They approached the top, and
the tension of the vine lessened, which
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thankfully also reduced their speed. Rip
and Mei shot through the opening into the
air and straight into a tree. The bushy
branches caught them, their arms and
faces scratched by cube-shaped
leaves.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Rip yelled.
“Don’t be a wuss!” Mei replied, spitting
some leaves out of her mouth.
Ripley and Mei hung there in the branches
for a moment, a little dazed and confused.
CRACK!
The tree split in half and dissolved into
cubes, throwing Rip and Mei to the ground
with a heavy thud.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Mei
yelled.
“Don’t be a wuss!”
Rip said, mockingly.
Mei poked out
her tongue.
They were inches away from the mineshaft
opening. But they were out of the mine.
They were safe.
Rip and Mei slowly stood up, shaking off
bits of dust and dirt out of their hair and
clothes. It was midmorning, and there were
no monsters to be seen. Right in front of
them was Angela’s fallen castle. They had
barely moved!
Rip and Mei stood there, exhausted and
hungry.
“That was quite a
show!” said a familiar
voice behind them.
Quite a show,
indeed!
the
answer
S
irCrabbington of Beachburry scuttled
about in the pixelated grass, clicking
with excitement when he came across a
berry and promptly devouring it.
“Easy now, Sir Crabbington!” George said
with a groan, laboriously climbing down from
the crab’s back, staff in hand. “He’s had a
big night. Definitely earned himself that new
set of armor!” He gave the crab a friendly
pat on the shell. “Terrified of butterflies,
though. Very odd. So! I see you two are still
alive! Very well done! Although I dare say, you
look terrible!”
Mei and Rip did indeed look like they’d just
barely survived a war. They were both
covered in ash and mud, their clothes were
169
torn, and they had scrapes and bruises on
their arms and legs. Mei was attempting to
pull sticky clumps of spiderweb out of her
tangled hair.
“We’re alive? What about you? The last
time we saw you, you were about to battle a
pack of monsters!” Mei said.
“You know,” Rip added, a little annoyed, “you
could have warned us about all of this!”
“Didn’t I? Ha! Deary me. Terribly sorry. I
thought I was quite brave, actually, coming to
your rescue earlier. Well—how’s this for a
warning. You had better eat something!”
Mei looked down at the one heart left on her
wristband. Keeping track of health was hard!
The two adventurers hurriedly dug around
inside their packs for some food.
“All I have is fish,” Mei said.
“Me too,” Rip sighed. “Should I make a fire?”
The last half a heart on Rip’s wristband
was blinking rapidly. His entire body was
starting to turn slightly translucent.
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“Rip, you’re
literally fading
away!” Mei
exclaimed in alarm.
“No time for a fire—
just eat!”
The raw fish was cold
and scaly, and tasted horribly fishy. It was not
a pleasant meal to be having after all they’d
been through. Mei found herself wondering
why the carrots had tasted so bland, and yet
the flavor of raw fish in her mouth was so
strong—that hardly seemed fair!
Begrudgingly, she ate just enough to see
her heart meter filling back up again, then
slumped down on the ground. Rip was
starting to look decidedly more opaque.
“OK, so ask me anything,” said George.
Rip and Mei looked at each other. Rip
shrugged his shoulders. “Where do we
start?” he said.
Mei’s mind was starting to work properly
171
again and she thought about moments in
games where there was a chance to ask
questions—by working out what the most
important question was, the gamer could get
an advantage. Even though she wanted to
know about what happened to Angela and so
many other things, she tried to think what
was THE most important thing of all . . .
“I just want to go home. Please, George.
Can you just tell us how to get OUT of here?”
Mei asked.
George smiled warmly. “Well, of COURSE I
can! Silly girl—you only had to ask!”
She leapt back up, grabbing Rip’s arm
excitedly.
“WELL?” Rip said. “What do we have to do?”
George stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I
can help you, but KNOW THIS: I can only give
you this answer for free—once. After that, a
price must be paid.”
Rip shrugged. “Who cares? Once we’re out of
here we won’t need your help again anyway!”
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Mei laughed with relief and exhaustion.
They were so close! She could practically feel
the warmth of her own bed and smell the
enticing aroma of her mother’s cooking. She
wanted to go home more than anything else
in the world right now.
George regarded them both with a
strange look in his eye. “Very well, then. To
leave this world, you need only to walk
through the right door.”
Rip and Mei exchanged glances.
“Door?” Mei asked urgently. “What door?!”
“The answer can only be crafted. But it
must be done at a place of great power.”
George lifted a gnarled finger and pointed
off into the distance. Rip and Mei looked
where George was pointing and
saw an outcrop of rocks on a
small hilltop. It was glowing a
soft purple.
“So . . . we craft
this . . . ‘door’ . . . at the
place of power. And that will get us out of
here?” Rip asked, uncertain.
The wizard nodded solemnly.
Rip and Mei studied the hilltop, curious as
to what kind of magic was radiating from
within.
Rip gathered his courage and looked
determined. “OK. We’ll do it. Honestly, this
game . . . it’s been . . . insane. We’ve never
played anything like it! We encountered
another player—Angela. She’d been
turned into some kind of spider! We need
to find—”
Rip and Mei turned back around. But
George the Wizard was gone.
The two gamers approached the hill. Storm
clouds seemed to gather over just this part
of the landscape, churning and crackling
with electricity. A strange tingling sensation
rippled across Mei’s skin. She looked down
174
to find her arms were covered in goose
bumps.
“Do you think . . . this is . . . what magic feels
like?” Mei asked.
Rip shivered. “I guess so. I’m a little
nervous. This place kind of gives me the
creeps.”
The climb was long and exhausting.
Occasionally they had to stop and help each
other up some particularly steep rock faces,
removing their packs and passing the bags
between them to get over tricky sections of
the jagged, pixelated ascent.
At last, however, they reached the summit.
The magical storm intensified. Wind howled
around them, and rain began to fall in heavy
sheets. Rip and Mei grabbed on to each other
for support.
“I feel like I’m going to get blown away!” Rip
yelled over the raging weather.
“Let’s just get this done,” Mei yelled back,
wet hair slick against her face and rain
175
pelting into her eyes. “We’re so close to
freedom, Rip!”
Rip nodded, pulling his own hair from his
eyes and turning his attention to their final
task. There didn’t seem to be any obvious
place to build a door—no cave or opening for
them to walk through. It was just a sharp
collection of rocks with a level area in the
center.
The purple, magical energy pulsated from
within the rock, casting a shimmering haze
through the waterfall of rain.
“Where do we start?” Rip wondered,
exasperated.
Mei thought for a moment. “Maybe . . . it
isn’t so much of a door that we need, but . . . a
portal!”
Rip snapped his fingers. “Yes! A portal that
will transport us back into the real world!
What do you need to build portals out of?”
Mei shook her head, her mind racing. “I—I
don’t know. It’s different in every game.”
176
“Well . . . we have the diamond we collected
from the mine . . .” Rip suggested, eyes
hopeful.
&n
bsp; Mei looked unconvinced. “I don’t think
diamond has any magical properties—it’s just
really strong. I’ve never heard of portals
being built out of diamond.”
“Well . . . ” Rip threw his hands up in the air.
“We have to try something!”
Lightning crackled amid the dark purple
clouds above them. Mei nodded and yelled
again over the roar of the storm, “You’re
right. Let’s just try it!”
They started pulling cubes of the
diamond they’d collected from their
packs and setting them down in piles
on the flat surface of the magic
hilltop.
“Rip—look!” Mei shouted excitedly, pointing
to their pile.
Rip hefted the last cube of diamond from
his pack and turned to look at the pile they’d
177
amassed. But it was no longer a pile of pale,
shimmering diamond blocks. They now
glittered and shone a brilliant purple, shot
through with flashes of rainbow light.
In his hands, the final block of diamond
remained in its original state, but as soon as
he placed it on the surface of the mountain,
it too transformed into this new material.
“It’s the magic coming from this rock!” Rip
realized aloud. “When combined with diamond,
it changes the material into something else!”
Mei watched the dancing flashes of
rainbow and purple light. “It’s . . . beautiful.
What do you think it is?”
Rip shrugged. “No idea. But it must be what
we need to build the portal. Why else would
George have told us to build it here?”
Mei didn’t need any more convincing. She
raced over to the gem pile and began
stacking the blocks on top of one another.
Rip helped her to build the structure so that
it stood taller than they did, using regular
178
stone to frame the outside of
the shimmering doorway. As Rip
placed the last framing stone,
encasing the purple crystal
within, the structural integrity
of the creation began to shift.
“Mei, step back,” Rip warned.
“Something’s happening.”
They both backed away,
drenched from the rain, tired
Pixel Raiders #1: Dig World Page 9
