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

by Cube Kid

  Breeze just shook her head and left.

  Everyone else was quick to follow her out the door, but I took one last glance around at Leaf’s items. Something caught my eye. It was round and slightly shiny, bluish-green in color. An ender pearl. They’re quite rare around here. It was only five emeralds, too. I’d been wanting to buy Breeze a gift anyway and thought she might like to have one.

  Wow.

  Breeze used to annoy me,

  and now I’m buying her stuff?!

  What’s going on here?!

  Without another word, I joined my friends in search of another place to spend our hard-earned gemstones.

  As we made our way to another blacksmith, there was a distant shout. Far away, some humans were standing on the wall. Christina and Sami were among them—two humans I actually like. They were shouting, although I couldn’t hear what they were saying from this distance. Also, I couldn’t see what they were looking at. The wall was totally blocking my view. It didn’t matter. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from growing up in my village, it’s that shouting is bad. Is there any kind of shout around here that isn’t followed by a wave of zombies, people running in terror, explosions, and/or burning houses? Usually, no.

  So we ran to the east wall. Gone were my dreams of spending some serious gemstones. Gone were my dreams of enchanted boots, a new sword, and more gifts for my friends. As we got closer to the wall, the only thing filling my head was what the terrified humans kept screaming.

  "Slimes!"

  "There’re so many!"

  "Why don’t we surrender already?!"

  So the village was under attack.

  It was going to be a totally normal weekend, then. I mean, this village can’t possibly have a weekend without a random mob attack!

  It’s tradition around here! Apparently, the mobs in Mob City have classes in Mob School only during the weekdays, and during Mob Weekend, it’s something like this:

  Still, from what the humans were saying, it was just some slimes out there.

  Slimes usually aren’t a very big deal. It’s not like they can wield pickaxes, unless Herobrine found a way to give them arms.

  They were probably going to creeperbomb us. Have the humans never seen a creeperbomb before? There’s a lot of commotion after one, sure. Baby villagers crying. Young girls screaming. Tiny slimes bouncing everywhere. But these days, it’s not exactly what we could consider an emergency. The little slimes don’t deal any damage—they’re just really annoying. And we’ve come to realize that a creeperbomb is an excellent source of slimeballs. If anything, we’re now thankful for such attacks, because slimeballs can be used to craft cool stuff.

  And let me tell you right now—to a villager, there’s only one thing better than cool stuff, and that’s free cool stuff. So I hadn’t even climbed up the ladder yet to see what all the fuss was about. I didn’t have to. My plan was I’d just wait for the green cubes to come raining down, play Whack-a-Slime, and profit.

  (I only wished they could have attacked after I’d bought a new sword so that I could test it out on them right away. Those mobs are so inconsiderate!)

  I told my friends about the plan. Max, Stump, and Emerald thought it was a great idea. Breeze, however, made no comment. Instead, she climbed up the ladder. (I’m guessing that was her way of saying my plan stunk worse than zombie breath.) What is she doing?! I thought. The slimes will rain down in the city, not on the wall! The streets will be filled with slimeballs! We have to be the first ones to collect them! Slimeballs sell for, like, one emerald each! Emeralds might as well be falling from the sky!

  Hurmmmph.

  I went up the wooden rungs after her. By the time I reached the top, everyone had stopped shouting. A bunch of humans and a few villagers were just staring at the forest without a word. I quickly understood why. A huge row of slimes stood out there, in front of their forest. Now, everyone knows that slimes hop around constantly. They never stop bouncing. Not these, though. No, they didn’t move at all.

  It was unsettling to say the least. A row of slimes, just sitting there, motionless. It was like watching a skeleton hug a wolf—

  totally unnatural.

  After Emerald joined us up top, she made a slight gasp."Well, this is new."

  Max slowly stepped toward the edge of the wall. "They must be … practicing."

  "Practicing? Practicing what?"

  "Formations, I think."

  I suddenly had a horrible idea. Maybe our village is just like a practice dummy to the mobs. Maybe they’ve been studying us. Learning from us. Using us to improve their techniques.

  Which means … when they finally destroy us, they’ll be experienced enough to handle the real villages to the west. Could it be? Is that all we are to them? A training ground?

  A tutorial?

  A hands-on test called

  How to Properly Destroy Walled Villages?

  Before long, the slimes began advancing.

  That Herobrine … he sure has those mobs trained.

  They all hopped at the same time. They looked like a bouncing wall of goo. Naturally, this caused a lot of commotion. Perhaps one-third of the village had gathered on the wall. A small army of villagers and humans—mixed together, bows ready, faces grim—studying the approaching enemy.

  "What are they doing?"

  "Why are they all lined up like that?"

  "Are they about to have a race or something?"

  Soon, everyone realized the purpose of today’s attack. Slimes are somewhat transparent. You can see through them.

  As they inched closer, I started to make out more mobs behind them.

  It was a solid strategy, though.

  After today, we’re calling it the slime wall.

  The slimes were acting as shields to protect the creepers.

  They were testing whether slimes would be enough to bring creepers close to the wall. If the troops made a large hole, it would take too long to repair. A huge army of zombies could then pour in. It would take a huge amount of arrows just to break through those meat shields.

  Their little plan had one major flaw, of course:

  Well, not just me. There were a lot of us. These days, everyone carries two stacks of arrows in his or her inventory. At least two stacks. My grandfather carries around three. And TNT. And a lava bucket. And a water bucket, because why not?

  Did I ever mention that my grandfather doesn’t like mobs? Maybe it just runs in the family. Some zombies trashed his flowerpots a long time ago. He’s sworn vengeance ever since. I haven’t talked to him much since I started school, but he taught me a lot.

  Anyway, we had enough arrows to turn every last slime out there into a huge supply of leashes, slime blocks, and sticky pistons.

  Then, once the slimes fell, the creepers could be easily picked off before they could cause any real damage. Simple, right?

  There’s two steps in the plan:

  It’s not exactly redstone science. Until today, though, that was our plan for pretty much any mob attack. Almost any mob-related problem can be solved with a ridiculous amount of arrows. Almost any. But today, that strategy didn’t work out so well …

  Breeze was standing on the very edge of the wall, next to Brio. At her father’s command, she pulled back her bowstring all the way. (The only other student strong enough to do that is Pebble.)

  Then there was a loud twang. Her arrow made the sharpest sound as it cut through the air. And even though the slimes were still some ways away, I heard a wet slap as the projectile sank into one of them.

  Strangely,

  nothing happened.

  The slime quivered slightly, but that was it. It was as if the slime hadn’t taken any damage at all. Beside her, Pebble drew Sir Mobspanker II, his enchanted bow. "Let me show you how to shoot," he said to Breeze.
"Then you can go back to your wool crafting."

  Calm as always, she only smirked and said in a cold way, "Weren’t you the one asking me for archery lessons the other day?"

  There were a few gasps. Behind him, Mia and Emma laughed. Also, Priyanka, Nadia, Kaylee, Ben, Bekah … yeah. A lot of kids laughed.

  Pebble’s cheeks turned red. "Like I need archery lessons from a nooblord like—"

  "Enough!" Brio shouted.

  All laughter ceased immediately. Then Pebble scowled and turned back to the slimes. Like Breeze, he unleashed an arrow that had enough force to one-shot a zombie in leather.

  No effect.

  Face reflecting both anger and confusion, the "war hero" sent out another arrow. Again, it was as if the slime had been struck by a snowball, not an arrow driven with Punch I. Immune. It was like they were somehow immune to arrows. If watching the motionless slimes earlier was like seeing a skeleton hugging a wolf, well … this was like a skeleton and a wolf being bred to create something I don’t even want to imagine. It was the craziest thing we’d seen yet.

  There were a few seconds of total silence. Then everyone exploded into blind panic all at once.

  "What is this?!"

  "Their arrows had no effect?!"

  "Pebble and Breeze are the very best! How is this even possible?!"

  The mayor looked super scared, like a noob who’d built a small base but forgot to light one small section, and a creeper spawned there, and the base had a hole in the roof, so lightning struck the creeper, turning it into a charged creeper, which blew up the noob’s entire … base.

  Um. Never mind.

  The mayor looked really scared.

  "Are you two using those things correctly?!" he asked, meaning their bows.

  Yeah. Sounds about right. A wall of slimes, backed by creepers, was slowly crawling toward Villagetown, and everyone around me was freaking out. No, not everyone. Breeze and Pebble had both fired shots, so I thought it’d be a good idea if I did, too. With sudden anger, I almost pulled my bowstring back all the way. Almost. That arrow went soaring. There was so much power behind it.

  So much.

  Huge. Huge power.

  Max nudged me.

  "I think those slimes are enhanced somehow. Remember what I told you about rune chambers?"

  "You mean they’re enchanted?"

  "Something like that."

  I recalled what little Max had told me about the so-called rune chambers. They’re extremely advanced—about ten times harder to construct than an enchanting table with a full set of bookshelves.

  Today, everything changed.

  Today, we finally realized

  just what we were up against.

  Everything we villagers had learned in school … everything the humans had learned in the computer game … all that was just the basics. Baby mode.

  At the basic level, you know that a slime is difficult to drop because it splits into smaller slimes. Past that, we’ve learned that mobs work together—zombies and slimes stand in front of more important mobs to protect them, for example. But today, things were taken to a whole new level and training for the real stuff began. Up on that wall, we were noobs all over again. A few kids around me looked at the slime formation with actual tears in their eyes.

  It was Drill who pulled us to our senses.

  "They may be able to protect against our arrows, but anti-sword protection does not exist!!!" Drill shouted.

  He was right. We had to go down there. We had to go down there and show those mobs a few good swords. No longer could we stand upon a wall and fire a small forest’s worth of projectiles until nothing moved. We had to climb down those ladders, open that gate, and come pouring out, screaming, ready to defend our biome village. There were about twenty slimes out there, though … big slimes, too. Just over two and a half blocks in size.

  I’d heard stories about how large slimes can swallow a rabbit, a chicken, or even a block of dirt whole. Well, I’m not that small, but then … I’m not that big, either!!

  Suddenly, my legs felt too heavy to move. Suddenly, it was like I’d forgotten how to climb down ladders. I wasn’t scared, though. I was probably under the effects of some kind of magic. Yeah.

  It’s the strangest thing, too. Everyone else around me was suffering from the same mysterious spell. Brio, of course, helped Drill in removing this debuff.

  "This is it," he said. "This is the day we drive back the enemy. The day we’ve all been waiting for."

  "Yeah," Emerald muttered to Breeze. "I’ve been waiting for today … and would be happy to continue waiting for at least five thousand years. Possibly six. I’m patient."

  The mayor joined Brio and Drill

  with his own little speech.

  "If we fail today … we will all become slaves."

  Slimeballs are used in lots of their recipes. They raise them like cows or pigs.

  "Now they’re telling us kids’ stories to make us scared? There’s no such thing as slimeball stew."

  "My dad knew the recipe. Right up there with slimeball stew is herb stew. Nothing like ice cream. Ice cream with cookie pieces … and bits of cake."

  EPIC BATTLE. We charged out of that gate. Angry. Scared. Desperate. (Some of us were also kind of hungry.) No one wanted to imagine a future in which mobs ruled. No one wanted to imagine a day when eating things like slimeball stew was totally okay, even fashionable. Drill surged past me, uttering the loudest battle cry, and repeated what he said earlier about how our swords would tear through them.

  Boy, was he wrong. After those first few swings, we realized that our swords were doing almost no damage. It was like trying to drop an ender dragon with your bare hands—possible, sure, and brag-worthy to your friends, okay, but very, very time-consuming.

  "It’s their armor," Max said. He took another swing. "It’s the only explanation for this."

  That was certainly possible. If the slimes were resistant to both arrows and melee weapons, an increase in armor was most likely the reason.

  "Hurmm. Are they under some kind of potion effect? Stoneskin?"

  I remembered that battle with the zombies. Their armor was so high that my sword more or less bounced off them. It was just like this. Still, even large slimes don’t deal that much damage. All we had to do was stay away from the hungry-looking ones.

  (For anyone who says slimes don’t eat things, just come to my world. After one looks at you like you’re a giant cookie with legs, you will cry. CRY.)

  It would have taken time, but we could have chipped away at their life until they eventually dropped. Together, Breeze and Pebble had already removed half of a slime’s health bar.

  We were making progress!

  By the way, you might be thinking to yourself, "If they wanted to reach the creepers, why didn’t they just run around the slimes?"

  Herobrine must have known that we’d try this. So he told the mobs to bring backup … just in case. Behind trees, hidden in shadow, they’d been waiting there the whole time. As soon as we tried moving around the slimes, they charged out. There were so many of them.

  That Herobrine …

  what a guy.

  I hate to say this, but he really is a genius, you know?

  He rounded up these mobs, trained them, and buffed them somehow. These mobs were so noob before, you know?! Back when I was a little kid, you could confuse a zombie with a dirt block. A dirt block!

  Then they start planting trees, spying on us, chugging down ten potions before battle … now this?!

  At that point, I understood that our strength didn’t matter at all. Brute force wasn’t the answer here. No. We needed something else.

  A flaw. A weakness.

  A hole in their defenses.

  Somethin
g that Herobrine had never imagined.

  We needed to think. Unfortunately, the only thing anyone was thinking of right then was survival.

  "Back inside!!" Drill shouted. "Retreat!! Retreat, you bedrock jockeys!! You’re moving like mine carts off rails!!"

  "The Legion never retreats!!" Kolbert stepped forward, surveying the approaching swarm. "Actually, in this case, I think we can make an exception."

  Within seconds, everyone was running.

  Everyone.

  If a Nether portal had been around, some of us probably would have jumped in just to escape; we were that terrified.

  I’ll be completely up-front here: I also ran. Yes, that’s right. Runt, the kid who dreams of someday becoming Overlord Runt, ran away.

  But I stopped. For some strange reason, I just stopped running and watched everyone go. The mayor’s words echoed in my head. If we are defeated today, we will all become slaves.

  What are we doing? I thought. We can’t give up so easily. So we can’t deal with the slimes, but we can still take out the creepers, right? With the creepers gone, those slimes won’t matter at all. Of course.

  Still, I was alone. No one even looked back. No one had any second thoughts. I can’t blame them. They were just following Drill’s orders. Besides, we hadn’t trained for this kind of situation. We were totally disorganized.