Diary of an 8-Bit Warrior: Crafting Alliances: An Unofficial Minecraft Adventure

by Cube Kid

Mike facepalmed. "Why did I mention popcorn? Why?"

  "Will you two noobs be quiet?!" Pebble hissed. "You’re gonna scare off the mobs!"

  Yeah, those mobs sure were hard at work. It was interesting watching them struggle with that huge obsidian block. You see, the mobs just couldn’t stand it. They just had to find out what was up with that thing. They wouldn’t be able to rest until they blew it all up—or destroyed just a single block so they could find out what was inside. (There was nothing inside. Tee-hee. Just a torch.)

  They built a dirt staircase alongside it …

  Then creepers climbed the staircase. Oh, yeah, that iron golem was still hanging around.

  He looked really sad, too, with his head always lowered like that. Anyway, back to the cube—

  The zombie down below started shouting:

  "Urgbo! Jorgbo! Gurggo!"

  I guess the zombie was trying to make sure the creepers exploded at exactly the same time. Not that it helped. According to Max, it just didn’t matter.

  Anyway, the mobs tried a lot of stuff.

  TNT. Lots of TNT.

  Charged creepers.

  Enchanted iron pickaxes.

  Blocks of TNT mixed with charged creepers.

  They even tried digging under it to see whether there was an obsidian floor.

  Pssh. Just LOL @ them.

  As if I wouldn’t have thought of that! My building score is 97 now, the nooblords. The zombies spent like fifteen minutes digging under that thing. And the whole time they were probably thinking, Ohhhhh, we’re gonna dig under it! Ohhhh, we’re clever! Then they discovered—oh, so there is an obsidian floor.

  LOL

  One zombie, after he came back up to the surface, was so angry that he kept beating the ground with his shovel, over and over.

  "Dude, that zombie looks really, really mad."

  Eventually, it started pouring, and the mobs called it a day.

  Stump sighed. "Rained away."

  "Show’s over, folks," the mayor called out. "It’ll be dark soon. Everyone please go inside."

  I said good-bye to Stump and Max. Emerald was looking at me while I did.

  It seemed she wanted to say something to me, although I couldn’t imagine what. I walked past her and took off back home through the wet streets …

  thinking about Breeze,

  and what she might be doing …

  Well, the mobs didn’t attack the cube much today. From what I heard, every hour or so a new zombie had walked up and swung a pickaxe at it, then retreated back into the forest. He probably heard about the cube from the other zombies and wanted to take the "obsidian cube challenge." You’re probably not a cool zombie unless you do that.

  In other news … I’m seriously freaking out about Breeze. What happened to her? Where did she go? She didn’t show up to school the whole week, and I have no idea where she lives. And since I’m apparently her only friend, there’s no real way to find out. I’m about to go door to door until I find her.

  Be back later, Diary.

  Update:

  I didn’t find Breeze. As luck would have it, the third door I knocked on swung open … to reveal Emerald. And here’s the thing: She wanted to talk. She insisted.

  "I’ve been, um, wanting to get something off my chest," she said. "I realized you’re not such a bad guy. What you did yesterday was pretty cool, actually. So with that being said, I kinda wanna apologize for running away last Saturday. I mean, that pigman was crazy huge, you know?"

  I eyed her cool-looking cloak. "Happens to the best of us."

  At this, the so-called war heroine poked me in the chest. "Hey! I did manage to get some iron golems! I’m not a wuss, okay?!"

  "Sure. You’re not a wuss."

  Anger flashed across her face. She poked me again. "You might think you’re hot stuff, but honestly, your social skills need a lot of work! All you do is rage, show off, and act like a total tryhard!"

  Tryhard? Really … ?

  Emerald narrowed her eyes. "I don’t suppose you heard what my friends said about you in the hall the other day?"

  "No, and I don’t particularly care."

  "You should. You’re well on your way to becoming the least popular boy in school." Suddenly, her anger vanished, and she smiled.

  "So you should consider yourself lucky, because I’m willing to help you out. Let me teach you how to be cool and likable. I mean, with the way Pebble’s been treating you, you really need more friends."

  I peered at her suspiciously. "And what would you be getting in return?"

  "I wanna join your team."

  "Um, you are on my team. And what a team it is. Between you and Urf, the mobs pretty much have no chance. You know the giant pigman? He didn’t explode from TNT. He was just thinking Oh, man, Emerald and Urf are coming for me; I really don’t want to have to deal with this, and then he swallowed a charged creeper."

  "Not funny. Anyway, I’m not talking about that, silly. I wanna join Team Runt. I want to roll with you guys. You, that baker kid, the bookworm, and … Breeze."

  Wait. Wait, wait, wait. So Emerald was saying … she actually wants to be a part of Team Runt? Ms. Popularity actually wants to hang out with a kid who’s been dunked in water more times than a farmer’s bucket?

  "It’s funny, when you think about it," she said. "They’re teaching us all this stuff in school, like advanced crafting, redstone circuits … but they never teach us anything about how to make a friend."

  Her words slowly sank in. Friends are important. I had learned that with Stump.

  But equally important is not having too many enemies.

  Friends matter! Without Breeze, I’d probably be in Urkk’s inventory as an item called "Villager Stew." If I knew how to make more friends, Pebble and his crew wouldn’t be able to harass me so much! Life is other people, isn’t it?! If there was no one else in this village … if it was just me and a bunch of blocks … how boring would that life be? The thing that matters most is the people around me.

  I go to the bakery to buy cookies so I can eat. I’m trying to become a warrior so I can protect my family. Every day I pray that Pebble and Donkey don’t do something horrible to me. And all those things involve … speaking to other people. Making friends. Not making enemies. Being "likable," as she puts it. Emerald really has something there.

  Why don’t they teach us anything about this in school?!

  And, honestly, I was such a jerk to Breeze. At first, I totally ignored her! And, yeah, a lot of kids did ask for my help—but I’d ignored them too! No wonder kids at school glare at me in the halls lately …

  I nodded. Stood up straighter.

  "Okay," I said. "Let’s say I agree with you. What then? Where do we start?"

  Emerald’s face lit up

  like a sea lantern.

  "I know just the thing. Follow me."

  Yeah. Emerald took me to the biggest clothing shop in the village. The Clothing Castle. It’s owned by Puddles. Apparently, he’s not only a master builder but a fashion designer as well. As you can see, it’s a huge place. A bunch of girls from school work as assistants here: Heather, Mia, Mary, Emma. They love crafting clothes.

  Oh, and Sophia and her brother, Ryan. (Ryan’s into combat like I am, so he helps Puddles come up with new types of leather armor.) Puddles had recently hired Tomoya, a kid from school, as a new assistant. Is this information boring you? Stump said I should include more details about our village, so …

  Anyway, Emerald said the first step in getting more people to like me is … buying a new robe. I glanced down at myself.

  "Is there something wrong with this one?"

  She sighed. "Look, I’m not saying you need to buy some diamond-encrusted outfits or something, but dude … if you want people to re
spect you, you have to stop walking around in that ratty old thing."

  "Ratty? Come on! It barely even has any mold spots!"

  "Urggh. You’re seriously hopeless."

  Apparently it isn’t okay to have mold spots on your robe. Who knew? I gave in and looked around at the various garments. Most of the robes were like this.

  Emerald held up another robe in front of me. "Why don’t you try this one on?"

  "It’s bright pink. Want us to match, do ya?"

  "How about bright green?"

  "No."

  "Bright purple, then?"

  "No."

  "Fine, what about baby blue?"

  I gave her a look that said: no

  (That’s a "no" without a period. You see, not including a period means you simply don’t want to take the time to end the sentence completely. It means you care so little about what was just asked that you can’t be bothered with taking the fraction of a second out of your day to add the period in.)

  And finally … Emerald picked out the worst robe in the whole store.

  Yellowish-greenish brown.

  "This isn’t so bad, huh?"

  "… It’s the color of baby poo."

  "Sigh. You’re so frustrating to shop with."

  Then Puddles himself came over. He must have overheard us.

  "Ahh, vat a strong young mahn! A fucha warrior, I see! I hev just zi sing for you!" He turned around. "Tomoya! Where’s zat special suit? Zi dark gray one?"

  Tomoya came over and guided us to whatever robe Puddles was talking about. It was slightly hidden in a corner.

  It was the coolest

  outfit I’d ever seen.

  It even came with some kind of hood and a special pair of boots … In a robe like that, even mobs would respect you. If they didn’t break down crying and beg you not to crit them.

  Emerald, however, groaned. "You can’t go to school in something like that. Especially not while wearing the hood. It’s a little creepy. You’ll become the boy version of Breeze."

  Whatever. I bought it immediately.

  I bought a second one for Stump.

  (Emerald suggested that.)

  Then I asked Emerald to draw me afterward.

  Looks pretty cool, right? If you don’t think so, it’s just Emerald’s drawing ability. I asked her not to make it look as cool as it does in real life. Because you’d probably come to this world, head to my village, and steal it from me. By the way, the hood can be removed at any time. That’s great, because we can’t wear hats in school, and the same thing probably goes for ninja masks … (Sigh.)

  "By the way," Emerald said, "you can dye that just like you can with leather armor. How about blue?"

  "Okay. I’ll think about it."

  I felt like someone was

  watching me just then.

  Breeze? I didn’t see her anywhere, though.

  Strange.

  An explosion shook me from sleep.

  Mom and Dad were peeking out of their room at about the same time I was. Someone ran by our house shouting something about how we were under attack.

  The west wall is under attack.

  I hate weekends.

  Really. I do.

  Why does all the crazy stuff happen on weekends? I can’t even remember the last time I had an uneventful one.

  My father, of course, tried to stop me. Then he just sighed, nodded.

  "I’ve realized by now that I can’t stop you from going on your crazy adventures," he said.

  Mom smiled, although there was sadness in her eyes. "My little warrior is growing up so fast. Just be careful out there, all right?"

  But they didn’t have to worry. When I got to the west wall, I realized that it wasn’t the mobs that had caused the explosion.

  It was some humans. That’s a new word I learned recently. Human. That’s what they call themselves—the people from Earth. The west wall wasn’t heavily fortified, so their TNT blasted through it pretty easily. When I got there, the humans had already stepped through the hole they’d created. About one hundred villagers were there, whispering to one another and studying the two warriors.

  The warrior on the right pointed in our general direction. "You! Villagers! Is this Herobrine’s castle?"

  The mayor pushed through the crowd. "Herobrine?! We have nothing to do with the likes of him! Who are you, exactly?"

  "I am Kolbert of the Lost Legion! I assumed this to be the Kingdom of Herobrine."

  "Real sorry for that," said the other warrior, a girl, who introduced herself as Elisa. "Our clan is pushing eastward. We’re trying to stop Herobrine’s advance."

  Lost Legion?

  Never heard of them.

  And what’s a clan, anyway? I glanced at Max. The walking Wikipedia just shrugged. Moments later, the girl, Elisa, nudged Kolbert with an elbow.

  "Right." Kolbert cleared his throat. "Ahem! This village is now under the control of the Lost Legion! As the clan’s captain, I demand food, supplies, and shelter immediately!"

  Murmurs swept through the crowd of villagers:

  "What does he mean?"

  "Why would we give them our stuff?"

  "Is that guy crazy or something?"

  "He means give them things?! For free?!"

  "We will do no such thing!" the mayor said. "We have enough problems! Leave us alone!"

  The two humans whispered to each other. Then Kolbert turned back to us. "You are NPCs!" he declared. "You will do as I say! You will kneel before us and show your respect!"

  "Fail to assist us," Elisa said, "and we will lay siege to your village by sundown!"

  The mayor glanced between the two of them.

  "You and what army?"

  Just then, more humans began to appear over a distant hill … and more … and more. There must have been over a hundred of them, and most of them looked tough. I mean, tough. Imagine a guy who’s slept in a two-by-one cube emergency shelter in the ground for months, eating bats and drinking rainwater. (Two-by-one dimensions mean that you can’t move your arms and you’re sleeping upright.) That’s the kind of tough I’m talking about. Several of them, like Kolbert, wielded diamond swords and wore enchanted leather or iron armor.

  "Oh," the mayor said. "Okay. That army. Well, come right in, then."

  He opened the gate and let them all in. A total of 125 humans, 88 horses, 31 donkeys, 17 cows, and 11 dogs. Oh. And 8 cats. Also 3 chickens. Also a sheep. Yeah. I am not

  drawing all of that.

  So things are even worse in our village now.

  Now we can’t even walk the streets without being harassed or bossed around in some way by a multitude of different people.

  "Hey! Villager! Help me with this!"

  "Hey! Villager! Help me with that!"

  "You! NPC! Get over here and give us a hand!"

  "You don’t even know what NPC means?! That stands for

  non-player character!"

  "NPC, that’s what you are!"

  "Sorry to break it to you kid, but you’re just a game character! A bunch of computer data! Oh, don’t cry! It’s impossible for you to have feelings! Hey! I said stop crying, kid!"

  "You exist only to trade with us!"

  "We will eat your food!"

  "We will sleep in your beds!"

  "We will barge into your house whenever we want to, open your chests, mine part of your house, and possibly take your door."

  "And also your crafting table."

  "And possibly your furnace."

  "And maybe the carpet."

  "Especially if it’s white. I just love white carpeting."

  "Blue’s also nice, though."

  Emerald didn’t like being told what to do. Kolbert demanded that she clean his new
house for him. She demanded that he go jump down a well until his air meter ran out. Surely you can see the problem here. Call it a personality clash. The end result was … Emerald’s hands being tied behind her back with spider string. She was then led to Kolbert’s house, where she was untied and forced to scrub the floors on her hands and knees. At swordpoint. Here’s another problem: Emerald is now a member of Team Runt.

  I marched up to Kolbert. "I want you to release my friend."

  "Who? The mouthy one?"

  "That’s right."

  Kolbert turned to Elisa. "What’s up with this village? Seriously. It’s weird. Five-block-high cobblestone walls, hundreds of houses. One of them’s even referring to himself as the mayor! And now we have villagers talking back and giving us orders."

  The captain turned to me and pushed me back.

  "Since you want to be with your friend so bad, how about you help her out?"

  Just then, I saw Breeze drop down from a house into an alley to my right. She stepped out of the shadows.

  "Release her," Breeze said.

  Kolbert whirled around. "And who are you? Whatever. Looks like we’ll have three workers, then." He took out some spider string and reached for Breeze.

  "You really don’t want to do that," I said.

  The captain ignored my warning… and promptly found himself facedown in the grass.

  Breeze had thrown three punches in less than a second—and these unarmed attacks hit hard, from what I could tell.

  Kolbert rose, rubbing his cheek. "That girl," he said. "She’s … OP!!" Breeze strode past him and stepped into the house that held Emerald.

  "These villagers are crazy!!" Kolbert said.