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

by Cube Kid

  Simple. They vanished in puffs of smoke long ago. Back then there was a huge war led by Herobrine. In this first war, the various races joined together and drove the mobs back. They even defeated Herobrine. But he didn’t die. He retreated into some underground lair where he plotted his revenge for many, many years.

  Much later, he launched a second war. It was way worse than the first. He still lost that war … but every kingdom, city, and castle was destroyed. So many lives were lost defending them. Entire races were wiped out. Remember when I said one of those wolf people visited our village once? He’s the only wolf man we’ve ever seen. We believe he’s the last one left. He hasn’t shown up in months. Maybe the mobs got him, too.

  Stump and I talked about this, but we found it depressing and a little boring. We soon changed the topic to something far more interesting. Magic.

  "How cool would it be to actually cast a spell?" I said.

  Stump nodded. "Shoot fireballs like a blaze … "

  "Teleport like an enderman."

  "Summon a kitten just before a creeper gets close to you … "

  "Whoa. Can wizards actually do that?"

  He shrugged. "Why not? If they can bring humans here, they can surely summon kittens."

  "Hurmmm. I never considered that."

  "I wonder whether a wizard can create food, then?"

  "Well, if they can summon kittens, maybe they can summon cake, too?"

  "I wish I could do that." He sighed. "Would make my life so much easier."

  When he said this, I thought of something. All this time, I’ve wanted to become a warrior … But what about becoming a wizard? How crazy would that be, huh?

  I pushed this ridiculous idea away. As far as I knew, no village had ever had wizards before. I’d heard stories of some who turned evil and became witches—but even then, they just dabbled in potions, not actual spells.

  Stump gave me a funny look. "Hey, you’re awfully quiet all of a sudden," he said. "What are you thinking about?"

  I smiled and shook my head.

  I chopped at some more wood.

  "Nothing, dude. Nothing."

  After chopping for over an hour, our inventories were nearly filled up. I felt like an expert lumberjack. Swing this way and that way—I know how to chop! Pebble had better pray that the village doesn’t have a wood-chopping competition!

  I’ll be there for that!

  I’ll be the first one to sign up!

  With all of that chopping, our hunger bars had gotten pretty low. So we took a break. As usual, Stump had brought some cake. Steve once said eating in this world is just like in the game. No matter how carefully you eat, crumbs go flying. But then, I’m never careful. Why should I be? A warrior should eat quickly. If I’m ever in battle and need to top off my hunger bar, do you think I can just call time out?!

  Ahem. Excuse me, my dear zombies. May we take a break from all this fighting? My hunger bar, you see … allow me to set a dinner table so that I may replenish it. You’re most welcome to join me. We shall have an appetizer followed by a main course and then a most elegant dessert.

  As if.

  No, that food needs to be eaten as quickly as possible so my health bar can regenerate in combat! Sword in one hand, half-eaten cookie in the other—that’s a real warrior! So today, during our break, when I jammed a whole slice of cake in my mouth, I wasn’t being a pig—no, no, no. I was just … training. Yeah. Training. That’s it.

  "Oh, I almost forgot," I said. "I bought you some robes just like mine. They’ve been in my inventory the whole time."

  I handed him the robes, the special boots, and the mask. He slipped into them immediately, then looked down at himself.

  "Hurrmmm. These robes are really cool and all, but … we look kind of similar now, don’t we?"

  He was right. Our robes were the same dark gray color.

  "Emerald did mention that these robes can be dyed," I said.

  "Oh." Stump turned his gaze to the woods. "I guess we’re in luck, then."

  Yes, we were in luck. The tree farm has just as many flowers as it does trees. All we had to do was go around and pick whatever color we needed.

  "I wanna dye my robes black," Stump said. "I wanna look just like Notch!! All black with an obsidian sword. Even a big hat!"

  "You need ink, then. Not flowers. We can go squid hunting in the pond. Wait. Maybe we should think about this carefully."

  "Why?"

  "Well, Emerald came up to me the other day … "

  I told Stump about what Emerald had said about popularity and how we’re not exactly on many people’s friend lists.

  "Tomorrow at school, let’s ask all the other kids what their favorite color is," I said. "We’ll dye our robes the two most popular colors. That’s sure to boost our popularity, right?"

  Stump looked unsure about this idea. "I dunno … what if most of them like rust brown or something?"

  "That’s the risk we take!" I said. "Our team needs more allies!"

  "All right." His uncertainty seemed to fade. "Let’s do this."

  Remember that time Razberry distracted me by asking a bunch of random questions? At school I kinda felt like him today. We just went up to kids and asked, "What’s your favorite color?"

  Or, "What color do you like most?"

  And also, "If you were stuck on a deserted island with just one color, what color would that be?"

  As you can imagine, we got a lot of weird looks. Still, when we show up at school in our dyed robes, it’ll be totally worth it.

  Here are the totals.

  Gray: 2

  Obsidian: 3

  Blue: 29

  Red: 23

  Orange: 4

  Purple: 3

  Black: 20

  Green: 17

  Yellow: 1

  Pink: 1

  White: 2

  Greenish-yellowish brown: 1

  We lumped similar colors into one category. For example, a few said lapis lazuli was their favorite color—we counted that as blue.

  Obviously, blue was the clear winner, followed by red. We dyed the robes after school on the tree farm. It took us only about five minutes to gather enough blue orchids and poppies. We didn’t even need a crafting table. (Not that we were short on wood or anything.)

  Well,

  what do you think?

  The first person I showed off my new robes to was Breeze. I ran into her after I came back from the tree farm.

  "I like that color," she said. "It’s somehow peaceful."

  Of course, I asked her what it was like being a prisoner in Herobrine’s castle. She shared her experiences there but made me promise not to write about it. I wouldn’t have written about it even if she hadn’t. You’d probably start crying if you knew what the mobs did to her. I almost did. The thought of eating grass stew for weeks and weeks … how could the mobs be so cruel?!

  Oops.

  Please forget I wrote that.

  (Breeze would get angry, and I’d rather face Herobrine than her.)

  In the end, I reassured her that we’re good friends—and that she’ll always be a part of Team Runt. I also said, since we’re such good friends, she should tell me how Herobrine managed to make her so strong.

  She wouldn’t tell me.

  She claimed she didn’t know.

  Whatever. I’m about to go to an enchanting house

  and sleep on an enchanting table myself.

  Wish me luck.

  Well, I just took a nap on an enchanting table. And when I did, I learned something very important.

  Enchanting tables are very, very uncomfortable. In other words, nothing happened. I feel like I’ve been scammed! I just want to be able to kick a zombie so hard it flies back thirty bl
ocks. At least thirty. Is that too much to ask?!

  Hurrmmmph!

  After my chores were done, I visited Max at the library. He’d been assigned to rearrange all the books. At least this suited him.

  "Did you say that you’ve read something about people being enchanted?" I asked.

  He closed some random book.

  "Yes. It’s done through something called a rune chamber."

  "What’s that?"

  "It’s like an enchanting table for pets. Let’s say you had a pet wolf. You could place the wolf in this chamber and give it special powers."

  "Like what?"

  "Like, you could give its bite a knockback effect or a flame effect or increase its armor. I guess you could do this with any pet, even baby ones."

  "So maybe Herobrine figured out a way for this table to enchant people?"

  "Maybe. I need to keep researching."

  "Good. Let me know what you find out."

  I know, I know. So many bad things are happening in my village. All you really need to know is … Herobrine is a punk.

  Take Pebble. Multiply his bad attitude by ten. Give him the ability to cast crazy spells. Now you have Herobrine, the Ultimate Bad Guy.

  To think, I actually mouthed off to him! He’s gonna be looking out for me now! I may have to change my name.

  I shouldn’t have shared my problems with you. If you weren’t crying before, you must be crying now. "Oh, those poor, poor villagers,"

  you’re probably saying between sobs. "Won’t they ever get a break?!"

  If you’re reading this and you’re a ghast, please come to my house!

  Your tears will go for a fortune here!

  We can start a very profitable business

  together!

  Well, our idea paid off. It could just be my imagination, but the other kids treated me better at school today. At least I’m not getting so many dirty looks.

  But having nice robes is just one part of the equation.

  When I get a chance,

  I need to ask Emerald more about that.

  Before classes even started, Brio informed us that there are two tests coming up. One is the mining test. It had been delayed for some reason. So we’re having that next week. The other test is a building test. Each group must come up with a new way to protect our village. Cactus pits. Lava moats. Piston traps that crush mobs into goo. Yeah! We’re finally getting to the cool stuff! After school, I’m gonna spend all day dreaming up such things.

  Oh. Wait. I have no time to think about all that! I have way too many trees to chop after school! I’ve already crafted an iron axe. And now I’m thinking about using up some of my experience points to enchant it. That’s how serious I am about my chores. In fact, I’m so serious about harvesting wood I’m even thinking about putting two axes on my hotbar. First, there will be the iron axe—the basic axe I normally use. Then there will be a gold axe—for when I need to chop really, really fast. As I said, you will never see a more serious harvester of wood. After I’m done harvesting a block, I will immediately turn to the next block and begin chopping all over again. After school, so many trees will be chopped. After school, we will be the most professional woodchoppers in the Overworld, the Nether, the End,

  and even the Void.

  After school,

  there will be absolutely no goofing around.

  Stump tried to chop the oak tree with his stone sword.

  It didn’t really work.

  "Overlord Runt!" he shouted. "This oak golem is way too tough!"

  "Then we must surround it!" I shouted back.

  "Of course, my lord!"

  We were standing next to each other, so there was no reason for us to be shouting. We were just doing that for dramatic effect. We were also trying to sound like courageous knights. However, our dialogue was a little cheesy …

  Stump dashed to the other side of the "oak golem." "Take this, foul tree mob!!"

  Meanwhile, I stabbed the golem from the front. "You’re right, Commander Stump! This golem’s bark is like enchanted bedrock armor!"

  "Perhaps we should use magic!" Stump took out a water bucket from his inventory. "Frost II!"

  He dumped the bucket of water next to the oak tree—err, the oak golem.

  "Great work!" I said. "The frost has frozen its feet! Now it can’t move!"

  "Do oak golems even have feet?"

  "Who cares? Attack, Commander Stump! Attack!!"

  "At once, sir!"

  We began clobbering the tree from both sides with our swords.

  "Hurrggg!! You’ll never take our village!!"

  "We are wizards and warriors, leaf head!!"

  "There will be nothing left of you but planks!!"

  So we weren’t really fighting an oak golem. We were just making the best of our lumberjack situation. Can you blame us? As we finished off the legendary tree monster … there was a laugh in the distance. A girl’s laugh.

  It was Emerald.

  "What are you guys doing?" she called out.

  Stump and I froze in place. We slowly turned our heads to her, then back at each other, then back to Emerald again.

  I lowered my sword. "Umm … "

  "Well, we were just, uh … testing out how fast stone swords can harvest wood," Stump said.

  "Yeah? And why is there water everywhere?"

  Oh. Right. We were standing knee-deep in water from Stump’s bucket. Stump scooped the spring back up, but the damage was already done. Soggy boots are no fun.

  Emerald rolled her eyes. "You guys are such noobs."

  I decided to change the topic quickly. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"

  She looked at me as if I’d just asked whether ender dragons really fly.

  "Drill wanted me to check on you guys," she said. "I mean, hello? The sun’s going down in an hour."

  She was right. The blue sky was already beginning to take on a golden tinge just above the trees. It would be night soon. Even so, we would be safe out here at night. Torches covered every block of this tree farm with light. There was no chance that any mobs could spawn even in this secluded area. But when Herobrine’s influence can be felt everywhere … even your own bedroom seems scary, let alone a place like this.

  We headed back. I hadn’t seen Breeze at all today, so I asked how she was doing.

  "She’s all right," Emerald said. "I’ve been trying to get her to be a little more outgoing."

  I turned to her and said something boring and lame, like, "That’s good."

  That was when I noticed it.

  In the distance, past Emerald, there was a

  hole in the ground.

  "What are you staring at?" Then Emerald saw it too. "Um, were you guys trying to test how well swords dig holes?"

  Stump and I shook our heads wordlessly. It was a terrifying discovery. A hole had been dug in the tree farm. Grass grew around it, helping to hide it from view. I only spotted it by chance when I’d glanced at Emerald.

  We soon learned that it

  was more than just a hole.

  It had a ladder along one side that went down several blocks.

  It was … a tunnel.

  "I don’t believe this," Stump said. "The mobs have been digging right under our village?"

  I looked both of my friends in the eye. "Either that, or Urf made this. Or maybe there’s another traitor we don’t know about."

  "Well, we’ve gotta go tell the mayor," Emerald said.

  I carefully approached the edge of the hole and peered in. "How about we solve this mystery on our own? I mean, if there really is another spy in our village, they could be close to the mayor. So if we do the right thing and report it … maybe the spy will come and cover it all up."

  "I agree," St
ump said. "Besides, I don’t want someone else taking credit for our discovery."

  "Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves," Emerald said. "This could be something that Steve guy made."

  "Then maybe we should check," I said.

  "‘We’?"

  As Emerald said this, Stump gave me a pitiful look. Of course. I didn’t even bother arguing.

  Torch in one hand, I climbed down the ladder. The shaft ended after five blocks. The floor was cobblestone. As I’d expected, it didn’t lead to a storeroom or anything like that.

  A small part of me wanted to explore, just to see how far it went. (The rest of me was trembling and sweating uncontrollably.) I climbed back up and told my friends about it and how it was heading east.

  "Of course it’s heading east," Stump said. "It probably leads to the mob’s forest."

  "Great," Emerald said. "So the mobs made a tunnel. If we’re not gonna report it, then what?"

  "I say we wait," said Stump. "Maybe we can find out who’s using it."

  "And how are we gonna do that?" Emerald demanded.

  Stump glanced upward.

  I followed his gaze

  to the top of a tree.

  "Move over! You guys are such tree hogs!"

  Yeah. We totally climbed a tree. We also removed some of the leaves to make a nice, little hiding spot. If spies were using that tunnel, they would probably use it at night, right? All we had to do was wait and listen. Eventually, the spy would come. That was Stump’s thinking, anyway. It made sense.