The group drank the potions. As Harriet finished, she looked down on the ground. “What’s that?” she asked as she leaned over to pick up pages off the floor.
Julian stood next to Harriet. “I think those are the missing pages from the journal.”
Harriet asked, “How did they get here?” She leafed through the pages and confirmed, “These are definitely the missing pages.”
“However they got here, we have to read them,” said Toby.
“No, we need to find Oliver first. I don’t like being in this stronghold. It makes us vulnerable. Charles could trap us down here,” Julian argued, walking deeper into the stronghold before anyone could stop him.
Harriet hesitated. “I think I hear something.”
“Me too,” said Ezra. “It sounds like it’s coming from behind that wall.”
A muffled voice called out, “Is someone there? Help me!”
“It sounds like Oliver!” Julian sprinted toward the sound of the voice.
As the voice grew louder, the group became more hopeful. They wanted to find their friend Oliver and free him from the stronghold.
“It sounds like he is trapped over here.” Julian ran to a wall and took out his pickaxe. He banged against the wall.
“I see a hole!” Oliver called out. “Is that you, Julian?”
“It’s me!” he shouted back. “We’ll save you—don’t worry! It will only take a few minutes.”
A loud laugh boomed through the stronghold. “You think I’m going to let him escape me twice?” It was Charles. He stood behind the group, and pointed his diamond sword at them.
“You can’t trap Oliver. We are going to free him and find William. Your reign of terror is over,” Julian shouted at the villain.
“What a nice plan. If only you could actually follow through with it. You are all now my prisoners.” He called to a group of soldiers dressed in black, “Get them!”
The soldiers sprinted toward the gang and began to strike them with their diamond swords.
“Stop!” Charles ordered the soldiers. “Take them to their new home.” He let out another loud sinister laugh.
The group was defeated. Julian asked, “Can’t we stay with Oliver?”
“No, he will stay alone in his prison. You will be kept separate from him. Enjoy your life in a prison cell.” Charles’s laugh grew deeper.
The gang was led into a small room lined with beds. The soldiers closed the door behind them. Almost immediately, a silverfish spawned in the center of the room. Julian hit the insect with his diamond sword.
“What are we going to do?” asked Toby.
The group could hear Oliver crying for help and they felt powerless. They were all upset that they were being kept prisoner and were losing hope quickly. Harriet took the missing journal pages from her inventory and said, “We’re going to read.”
10
JOURNAL ENTRY: SMALL EXPLORATION
Day 5: Going Up
“I think we can try to dig our way out from the top,” said Sean.
This seemed like a good plan, but it also appeared to be quite difficult to pull off. I didn’t know how we’d reach the ceiling. We didn’t have a ladder and it was very high up. And once we reached the top, we might not be able to actually escape. It wouldn’t take us very far and Charles would probably spot us and force us back to the prison. Again. I told this to Sean and his face grew very sad. “I’m sorry. It seemed like a good idea, but you’re right—I don’t think it will work. I’m trying to come up with a plan that would work. I want to get out of here.” He was upset.
“We all want to get out of here, and we will,” I reassured him. “Now we have both Molly and Esther helping us. I think the more people we have on our side, the better. There is strength in numbers and we are going to need all the resources we can gather to battle Charles.”
“You’re right,” Sean said. He went over to the hole in the wall and asked Molly and Esther if we could join them in their cell. We were going to strategize yet another plan of escape.
Molly and Esther had some ideas of their own. They wanted to make a hole in Esther’s wall and free the person who lived in the next cell over.
“There is a voice that calls for help all the time,” said Esther. “And the more people we have on our side, the more likely we’ll be able to fight back.”
“I think it’s Thao,” I commented. “We should try to get to him. He was Charles’s partner. He could be incredibly helpful, because he knows Charles better than we do.”
We climbed through the hole in the wall to reach Esther’s room. I stood by the opposite wall and spoke. “Who are you?”
The voice was weak. “I need help. I am trapped here and I have been attacked by hostile mobs every day. I have no energy and all they feed me is a carrot per day.”
“This is happening to all of us. But if you want me to help you, you must tell me who you are,” I said.
“I don’t see how that is important.” The voice sounded even weaker. “I just need help. Can you help me?”
Before I could respond, two blazes spawned in Esther’s room. She quickly grabbed a snowball from her inventory and threw it at the yellow beast, but a fireball struck me and I was destroyed.
I respawned in my bed. My friends were by my side. “Are the blazes destroyed?” I asked.
“Yes.” Esther smiled. “And we have someone we want to introduce you to.”
Then Thao walked into the room.
My heart skipped a beat. Although I knew he wasn’t working with Charles any longer, I still remembered the many battles I had fought against him. It was going to be hard to work with someone I had considered my enemy, someone who had destroyed my life, who had destroyed my best friend’s life. But he was also a fellow prisoner, and now we had a common goal. We both wanted to escape.
“I know who you are,” I replied finally.
“I’m sorry for all the trouble I have caused you in the past. Esther set me free and now I want to work with you guys to escape from this prison. I’m no longer working with Charles. He turned against me. I can’t trust him anymore.”
I listened to Thao talk about Charles. I wanted to believe that he could have changed and that he was truly on our side this time, but I was wary. I knew how mean he could be and it was hard to let that go. “I’m going to accept your apology, but I want you to know that you were very destructive when I was an explorer. Both you and Charles tried to stop me from sharing my discoveries with the Overworld. I’m not sure I can trust you.”
“I was being forced to do that because of Charles,” he replied.
“You don’t have to do things just because others want you to do them. You’re responsible for your own decisions.”
“I promise that even once we are free and back in the Overworld, I will think for myself and will only help others.”
Thao sounded sincere. And I knew it would be helpful to have him on our side.
“Is there anything that you know about Charles that would help us? You worked with him for so long—you must know some of his secret plans and his weaknesses.”
Thao paused and thought for a moment. “I know a lot about this space. I was here when Charles built it. If we get to the room next to yours, there is a tunnel to a stronghold and we can escape through there.”
“Excellent!” I replied. We took out our tools and chipped away at the wall until it began to crumble.
Peeking through the hole we’d made, Esther said, “I think I can fit through now.” She crawled through first.
I kept banging the wall with my pickaxe to create a larger hole. “Esther, what’s in there?”
“It’s empty. But Thao is right—there is a hole in the ground and it looks like it leads to a tunnel.”
“Great,” I said. “Wait for us. We’ll be there in a minute.”
We finally made a gaping hole in the wall big enough for all of us to climb through. We followed Esther down the hole, into the ground.
M
olly was nervous as we entered the long tunnel to the stronghold. “What if this is a trap?”
Thao reassured her. “I know how to escape from this stronghold. We just have to avoid Charles. So we need to be very quiet.”
We silently made our way into the stronghold as we followed Thao. I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart—it was beating very fast and very loud.
11
BATTLE IN THE NETHER
We are all trapped in a stronghold,” Jack pointed out. “What a coincidence.”
“Well,” said Julian, “it looks like reading isn’t going to help us here. We need to escape, free Oliver, and get back to the Nether. We can’t waste any more time.”
Harriet put the pages back in her inventory and began to pace in the small room.
“How?” Toby asked.
“We are going to break down this wall.” Julian took out his pickaxe and banged into the wall. As the wall crumbled, the others joined him.
“I hope Charles doesn’t catch us,” Toby said as he banged his own pickaxe against the wall.
“And what about his army?” Jack was worried but he also wanted to escape.
“We have no choice. We need to escape this room.” Julian finished a large hole in the wall and the group crawled through. They ran toward the room where Oliver was being kept prisoner.
Harriet heard a noise. “Guys, stop!” She called to her friends in a loud whisper. “Take this.” She handed them a potion of invisibility and the group drank it and disappeared.
They walked up to Oliver’s room. Julian called out quietly, “Oliver, we are breaking down the wall.”
Harriet kept watch. Even though they were invisible, the soldiers that guarded the prison would be able to see the pickaxe.
Julian made a large hole and Oliver crawled through. Before they could celebrate the reunion, Harriet splashed a potion of invisibility on Oliver and together they sprinted out of the stronghold and through the desert. As they reached the jungle, the potion wore off.
Jack looked at the others. “Finally, we’re all together again.” He was relieved. He’d been worried that one of them might have gotten lost when they were invisible.
“We need to craft a portal to the Nether,” Toby said.
They all agreed and began to craft a portal. They climbed into the portal and a purple mist rose up around them. In the distance they could see Charles and his army sprinting toward them, but it was too late. They had truly escaped. Once they arrived in the red landscape of the Nether, Jack broke the portal.
“We don’t want Charles following us here,” he said.
The gang filled Oliver in on what had happened in the last journal entry. “We know they were trapped in a stronghold,” Harriet informed him.
“But where?” asked Oliver.
“We aren’t sure, but we’ll find out,” said Ezra.
“Maybe we should stop and read a little more. It might help us find the stronghold,” suggested Oliver.
“Actually,” said Harriet, “we don’t have anything left to read. There were a bunch of pages missing from the journal. We found a few of them, but the others are still missing.”
“Do we have any idea where they could be?” asked Oliver.
“We don’t know,” said Ezra. “But we do know that Veronica and Valentino are also searching for the missing pages and for William.”
“Wow,” exclaimed Oliver. “We have a lot to do.”
“Yes,” said Julian, “but we have clues. We need to go back to the spot where we saw Molly’s bucket. The stronghold isn’t far from there.”
“We should be on the lookout for Veronica and Valentino over there. They know about that clue, too,” added Jack.
The group made their way through the Nether and toward the lava stream where they had found Molly’s bucket.
“Here we are,” Harriet said as she looked down at the stream. “We should start looking for holes in the ground.”
Three blazes flew through the sky. But the gang was prepared this time. They gathered the snowballs they had collected and threw them at the yellow fiery mobs, annihilating them quickly.
“I see a hole!” Harriet called out.
The group was running toward Harriet when Oliver called out, “Ouch!”
An arrow had hit him, and now Veronica and Valentino raced toward them. “You aren’t going down that hole. We are!”
Valentino splashed a potion of weakness on the group and suddenly they were frozen in place. They couldn’t move as their hearts depleted. The group watched as Veronica and Valentino climbed into the hole in search of William.
“We need to follow them,” Julian called out when he could speak again.
Before they had a chance to take his advice, they heard Veronica and Valentino scream and then saw them sprint from the hole.
“What happened?” Harriet asked.
“It’s filled with lava. You guys were trying to trick us. Admit it, the journal is a hoax.” Veronica aimed her sword at Harriet.
“No. But why would the hole be filled with lava?” asked Ezra.
Nobody wanted to say it, but everyone was worried that William and his friends had been destroyed by lava. Charles might have flooded the stronghold to destroy them. Oliver’s face collapsed. They all stood by the hole and stared.
“Where is the rest of the journal?” Valentino pointed his sword at the gang. “We need to know where William is being kept prisoner.”
“Maybe this was the place and now he is destroyed,” Jack said glumly.
“I don’t believe you.” Valentino struck Jack with his sword. Jack was too weak to fight back and feared that he’d respawn in the Overworld.
They were saved by a group of ghasts. The ghasts flew toward them, and Valentino was hit by a fireball and destroyed. Jack was relieved. He had enough strength to hit one of the blasts with his fist and destroy the ghast. Veronica, unable to fight the group as well as the ghasts, was soon also struck by a fireball and destroyed. The group began to regain their energy and fought the ghasts with their fists. They were happy when the final ghast was destroyed. Oliver made sure to gather up the dropped gunpowder.
Julian looked down on the ground. “No way!” he called out.
“What?” asked Ezra.
“I think I found pages from the journal.” Julian picked them up and inspected them. “They are the missing pages!”
“Read them!” Harriet called out.
Julian paused and asked the group, “Do you think this is a trap? Do you think Valentino and Veronica are trying to trick us? I mean they leave and we find the journal pages. It just seems a little suspicious.”
The group agreed, but Harriet said, “Maybe we should read them and see what we think. It could be that they had these pages and they just dropped them. We can’t be sure that they are tricking us.”
The group kept a close watch for hostile mobs as Julian read aloud from William’s journal.
12
JOURNAL ENTRY: FALSE START
Day 6: Escape
I was very nervous as we traveled through the tunnel. I wanted to trust Thao. I wanted to believe that we’d be safe, but I was worried and doubtful. When we emerged out into the Nether, I felt much better. I knew that we had to trust Thao, that he also wanted to get back to the Overworld. The further we traveled from the stronghold, the more hopeful I became. I imagined being reunited with my friends and enjoying my life in the Overworld. These were the thoughts that filled my mind, when we spotted three Ender Dragons flying toward us.
Thao asked, “Does anyone have any snowballs?”
I didn’t. But Esther had a few. She handed them out and said, “Charles must have summoned these Ender Dragons. He knows we escaped.”
We used all of our strength to battle the deadly mobs. Luckily they were easier to destroy when they weren’t in the End. I hit one with a snowball and used Sean’s diamond sword to strike the side of the scaly dragon. The dragon roared and then exploded.
“On
e down. Two to go!” Molly said as she threw a snowball at a dragon, destroying the second one.
The last dragon was strong and it was not an easy battle. We used arrows, snowballs, and diamond swords to fight the dragon, but it just didn’t seem to weaken. It seemed like it had super strength. Esther used her final snowball, but the dragon didn’t explode.
Molly shot arrows at the dragon, but it flew toward us and roared. I was ready to give up. I didn’t have very much energy left and this was a pointless battle. We were just going to get destroyed and respawn in the prison again. This was all a part of Charles’s plan.
Thao shot a final arrow at the dragon, and this time it exploded.
“Great job!” I said. “Huzzah!”
We looked over at the End portal that had spawned. Molly asked, “Should we go to the End?”
“We can’t,” I replied. “Our energy is so low that we would be destroyed instantly.”
“We need to go to the Overworld,” Esther reminded her.
“Let’s build a portal,” Sean said.
Luckily we had enough resources to build a portal to the Overworld, and quickly began to craft it. As we stood by the portal, ready to ignite it and finally make our way home, Charles and his army sprinted toward us. Before we had a chance to react, they shot arrows at us, and we all respawned in our prison cells.
When I respawned, Charles stood above me.
He laughed. “You almost made it back to the Overworld.” He laughed again. “Almost.”
“We are going to get out of here,” I replied.
“Well, your friends aren’t here anymore. I have moved them to another place. You’ll never find them. So good luck trying to make it back to the Overworld on your own.”
He let out another laugh and then left my cell. I was alone. It would be impossible to escape on my own. They had been so helpful. Feeling hopeless, I paced around the room and tried to come up with a plan.
A carrot came flying through the small hole in the wall. Nothing had changed.
An Explorer's Guide to the Nether Page 4
