by Dr. Block
I let out a painful zombie moan. I sounded so stupid, but it was exactly what the player wanted to hear. He shot a flaming arrow at our feet, hoping to scare us long enough for the other player to build a rock wall around us to trap us for a ewe-tube death.
But, I reached down and grabbed the still burning arrow, shoved it into the TNT, and then Harold and I ran away as fast as we could. I saw the look of terror on the player’s face as he realized what was happening.
And then, the TNT exploded. The shock wave pushed Harold and me down to the ground, and we tumbled in a heap. The two players were also knocked down and dazed.
“Whoa,” said Harold, shaking his head. “I hope Bob and Otis weren’t sitting by that wall.”
“Yeah,” I said as I raced back toward the opening.
I ducked into the hole and yelled, “Otis! Bob! Are you guys okay?”
Nothing.
“Bob! Otis! Come out!” yelled Harold.
And then, emerging from the dust cloud created by the explosion, came Otis and Bob. They rushed toward us, and we exchanged bro hugs.
“Awesome!”
“You’re alive!”
“Thanks for saving us!”
“Epic!”
In the midst of our celebration, I could hear moans from the players as they struggled to stand up.
“Time for some revenge,” said Otis as he pulled out his diamond sword and started to walk over to the players.
I put my hand on his arm. “No. Now is not the time. We need to get out of here.”
Otis sighed. “I guess you are right. I need some food. I’m weak.”
“So am I,” whimpered Bob.
“Hop on, Otis,” said Harold. “Zeke and Bob can walk by themselves.”
“Really? You’d give me a ride?” asked Otis. Then, he looked at me. “Is it okay if I ride your chicken?”
“Sure, dude, anytime,” I said. I didn’t really mean anytime, but since Otis had just been freed from prison, what else could I say?
Chapter 11
On the way back to the cave, we told Otis and Bob what we had done to save him from the ewe-tube. We told him that Zeb had sacrificed himself, and we did not know if he had survived. We finished our story just as we reached our cave.
“Sorry, I was so stupid,” said Otis. “I was being selfish. Bob could have died because of me.”
“Just don’t do it again,” said a voice from the darkness of the cave.
“Zeb? Zeb is that you?” I said.
Zeb stepped out from the darkness with a big smile on his face. “Of course. That iron golem didn’t stand a chance.”
I ran over to Zeb and shook his hand, placing my free hand on his shoulder. I looked at his face and silently thanked him for his bravery.
“How did you escape?” asked Harold.
Zeb laughed. “I got lucky, actually. I was running down a path and thought the iron golem was about to crush me when a horde of zombies wandered onto the path behind me. The iron golem started killing them instead.”
“Gross,” said Otis.
“Yeah, I felt bad for them, but you are my friends,” said Zeb. “I’m glad to be back.”
I sat down on the ground and pulled out some raw beef and passed it around. I also pulled out some grain for Harold and Bob. Everyone ate their fill.
As I rubbed my undead stomach, bloated with raw beef, I yawned. “I am so tired. The last few days have been crazy.”
“Yeah, I’m tired too,” said Harold.
“I wonder what might happen tomorrow?” asked Otis.
“Only time will tell,” said Bob.
And we all went to sleep.
End of Book 3
Book 4: Mysterious Objects
Chapter 1
After saving Otis and Bob from the horrible fate of the ewe-tube, I did not want to have any more adventures. I was done being a hero. I just wanted to find a place to call home, raise some cows, and live the rest of my undead existence in peace.
This cave seemed like the perfect place.
After everyone woke up and we had finished breakfast, I stood up. “Guys,” I said, pausing to look in the eyes of Harold, Zeb, Otis, and Bob. “I think we should try to make this cave our permanent home.”
They sat there for a moment, considering my proposal.
Zeb spoke first. “I think it could work. All we need are some pickaxes to break rocks, expand the cave, and mine for ore.”
Otis laughed. “You want to play house, Zeke? Come on, where is your sense of adventure?”
I could not believe Otis. “Seriously? Your ‘sense of adventure’ almost got you and Bob killed by those players. Don’t you want to lay low for a while?”
“Yeah, Otis,” said Bob. “I don’t want to go anywhere right now.”
“But, you are my chicken, Bob. You have to come with me,” said Otis.
Bob shook his head. “No, I don’t have to do anything. I like being your chicken, but if you are going to act crazy and continue taking pointless risks, then … well … you can find yourself another chicken.”
Otis was crushed. He slumped his shoulders and sat down on a rock. “Fine,” he said.
“Look, Otis,” I said. “If you want to go out on your own, we won’t stop you. But, you are part of our group … part of our ... family, so we would like you to stay.”
Harold walked over to Otis and put his wing on Otis’s undead arm in a gesture of friendship. “Otis,” he said. “Believe me when I tell you that even an awesome baby zombie pigman like you cannot survive in this violent world without friends who have your back.”
Otis flipped his arm, knocking Harold’s wing from it. “Leave me alone,” he said quietly.
“Okay, we will,” I said. “But, make up your mind soon. We have a lot of work to do.”
“If we are going to make this cave awesome,” said Zeb, changing the subject, “we will need to have some pickaxes. We could make pickaxes if we only had a crafting table.”
“Where do we get a crafting table?” I asked.
“I know you can make them, but I have no idea how,” said Harold.
“We could steal one from a villager,” Zeb suggested.
“We could,” I said, “but that is really dangerous. I wish there was another way.”
“I know how to make a crafting table,” said Otis softly.
We all looked at him.
“Really?” I asked.
He nodded and sighed. “Yeah. I saw a villager make one once. It is pretty simple.”
“So, why did we sneak into the village all those times to use the crafting table?” I asked, getting very upset.
“Adventure?” said Otis.
“You idiot,” I said as I launched myself at Otis. I grabbed onto his shoulders and pushed him to the ground. I shook Otis roughly. “What do you mean you knew how to make a crafting table? We could have been killed going into those villages!”
Zeb ran over and pulled me off Otis. “This isn’t helping, Zeke,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me to restrain me.
Otis got up and brushed the dirt off his chest. “Dude, I’m sorry. I just thought it would be cool to sneak into the village.”
“How can we trust you anymore?” asked Bob.
“Look, guys,” said Otis. “I realize that I was only thinking of myself, and that was unfair. Give me another chance.” He paused to look at all of us and then continued. “Look, I’ll go get some wood from the forest so we can make a crafting table. You wait here.”
Chapter 2
Otis returned after about thirty minutes. He had a bunch of wooden planks in his inventory. “Check it out,” he said, tossing everything to the ground. “You just put these four planks in a square like this and ….”
I watched in awe as the four boards transformed into a wooden cube with a three by three grid on top. “Whoa! Cool!” I said.
“And then we can put some boards on the crafting table and make sticks, right?” said Zeb. Otis nodded and quickly cra
fted four sticks.
“And then planks and sticks to make wooden pickaxes,” said Otis, as he crafted a pickaxe for each of us.
I reached over and grabbed a pickaxe, feeling its heft in my hands. “Why didn’t we make a crafting table sooner?” I asked. “This is dominant.”
We all looked at each other and realized what fools we had been by not making a crafting table before. We all started laughing and shaking our heads. What a bunch of noobs, I thought.
“Well, mobs aren’t exactly known for our intelligence, now are we?” said Zeb.
“Speak for yourself, Zeb,” said Otis. “I am as smart as any player out there.”
“Like the player who led you and Bob into a trap and almost made a ewe-tube video out of you?” I said.
“Shut up,” said Otis, scowling and kicking the dirt.
“Can you craft some grain with that thing?” asked Bob. “I’m hungry.”
“If we had some wheat, I could make you some bread,” said Zeb. “But, we don’t have any.”
“I think I spotted a farm when I was harvesting wood. We could sneak over there at night and steal some wheat,” suggested Otis.
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “I mean, I don’t like to steal, but a few bits of wheat to feed our chickens probably won’t be missed.”
“Thanks, guys,” said Harold.
We spent the next few hours using our wooden pickaxes to mine the walls in the main chamber of the cave. We each made our own little rooms so we could have some privacy for a change.
Harold and Bob said they wanted to sleep in the same room because chickens are communal animals and feel lonely if they aren’t sleeping around others. So, I made them a small niche in the cave.
“How does that look, guys?” I asked when I had finished.
They both walked into the niche and scratched around. “It looks great,” said Harold.
“Yeah,” agreed Bob. “We just need to find some hay or wheat to put down for a nest.”
“I’ll be sure to grab some tonight when we go get wheat from that farm.”
“Thanks,” they said together.
Now that the chicken coop was done, I was able to turn to creating my own room. I first carved a space about twenty blocks deep and ten blocks wide. I even found a couple of blocks of iron ore while I was doing it.
Then, I made a bed out of cobblestone so that I would have something flat to sleep on. I was getting sick of sleeping on the dirt or propped up against a rock.
After that, I blocked off the front of my room except for a small rectangle into which I wanted to put a door. I knew doors were made of wood, and I saw that we still had some planks left over from what Otis had brought in.
“Hey Zeb? Otis?” I called.
They both stopped mining and walked over.
“Yeah?” said Otis.
“How do I craft a door?”
“Easy,” said Otis. “Just put six wooden planks on the crafting table and you get a door, just like that!”
I quickly made three doors.
I attached mine to the entrance to my room and left the other two doors on the ground for Zeb and Otis.
I suppose I could have decorated the walls of my room with pictures or knickknacks or whatever, but I was a baby zombie, and zombies don’t really care about decoration, just functionality. So, I stretched out on my bed and took a nap.
Chapter 3
I woke up a few hours later to a knocking on the door to my newly-constructed room.
“Zeke? Zeke? Wake up, we need to talk.” It was Zeb.
I stretched and rubbed the crust from my eyes. “Just a sec,” I said. I stood up, grabbed my sword – hmmm, still iron; maybe I could find some diamonds to make a diamond sword – and then opened the door.
“Come on,” said Zeb.
I walked out of my room and saw everyone sitting in the center of the chamber. Someone had crafted some benches while I was asleep.
“Nice benches,” I said as I sat down.
“Thanks,” said Otis.
“Okay, everyone,” said Zeb, “now that we are all here. Let’s begin.”
“What’s this all about?” I asked.
“Otis and I were talking about this cave and how nice it is,” said Zeb. “It does seem like a great long-term home, but as always, the problem is how to avoid being seen by players.”
“And getting food,” said Harold.
“Right,” said Otis. “This place is awesome, I will admit, but inevitably one of us will be seen hunting cows or scratching for grain.”
I sighed and rested my chin on both of my palms. “Sometimes it is really lame being a mob.”
“True,” said Zeb. “But, the good thing about being a mob is that no one expects you to think outside the box.”
I raised my head from my hands and sat up straight. “What do you mean?”
“What if we made an underground farm?” said Zeb. “That way, we would never have to go outside and risk being seen.”
It was a cool idea, but obviously there were some flaws. “Uh, how are we going to get sunlight underground? Don’t we need that to grow food?” I asked.
Zeb nodded. “We can tunnel up to the surface to let the sun in. If we poke a few holes out of the cave, it should let in enough sun for plants to grow.”
“This old guy really impresses me sometimes,” said Otis. “He is crazy.”
“Crazy like a fox,” said Zeb.
“But, how do we keep the holes from being seen?” asked Harold.
“I think we need to be sure we only break the surface at night, when no players might be about. Then, we will have to do our best to camouflage the holes,” said Zeb. “Maybe surround them with trees or rocks.”
“This is going to be a lot of work,” I said. “Let’s mine a test hole tonight and see if it really lets in enough light.”
“Good idea,” said Harold.
“What about dirt?” asked Bob. “Plants grow in dirt.”
“We will just have to bring dirt from the outside,” said Zeb.
“That will be tricky,” said Otis. “We can’t take too much dirt from any one spot, or else it will look suspicious.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Great,” said Zeb. “Then we are all agreed that we will try creating a farm.”
I felt a great sense of relief as Zeb said that. Maybe we could stop wandering for a while. Maybe life would settle down. Maybe things would even get boring. It sounded great.
But, then I had a depressing thought. “What about water?” I asked. “Don’t plants need water to grow?”
In response to my question, Zeb simply stood up and said, “Follow me.”
Chapter 4
Zeb lit a torch and told us to do the same. Then, he led us through a narrow passage he had mined. After only about one minute of walking, it opened into a massive cavern with an underground stream running through it.
“Wow,” I said in awe. “This is amazing.”
“Sweet!” said Otis.
Harold and Bob were speechless and simply clucked and scratched the ground.
“Isn’t it amazing?” said Zeb. “About an hour ago, I was just mining in this direction hoping to find something useful and I broke into this chamber.”
“It looks pristine,” I said. “Like no player or mob has ever been here. It must have looked like this from the beginning of time.”
Otis smirked and punched me in the arm. “Dude, don’t be so overly dramatic.”
“Ouch,” I said, rubbing my arm.
“Calm down, babies,” said Zeb.
“Hey, we aren’t babies!” said Otis.
“Uh, actually you are,” said Bob. “A baby zombie pigman and a baby zombie.”
“Shut up,” said Otis, silently admitting Bob was right.
“Anyway,” continued Zeb, “I thought we could put dirt along the sides of the stream and use the water for irrigation. Then, we could dig a few holes directly above the dirt for sunlight.�
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I looked around the chamber and started nodding my head. “Yeah. Yeah. This could actually work.”
“I thought we could put the first hole right there,” said Zeb, pointing to the ceiling high above the chamber.
“Let’s do it,” said Otis, already starting to build a pile of cobblestones to stand on. Otis jumped and then placed a stone under his feet and then repeated the process until he was standing on a tower of ten cobblestones. Then, he started mining.
Otis had mined eight blocks when he broke the surface. A dim ray of moonlight entered the chamber. “I’m through,” he shouted down to us.
Zeb gave him a thumbs-up and shouted back, “Can you hop out and scatter a few rocks around the hole to hide it?”
“Sure thing,” said Otis as he disappeared from view onto the surface.
“Fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering,” murmured Bob.
“What?” I said.
“Oh, uh, did I say that aloud?” said Bob.
A few seconds later, Otis was back and had begun to break up his tower with his pickaxe. Soon, he was standing next to us.
“Great job, Otis,” said Harold.
“Thanks,” said Otis.
“Did you see where the moon was?” asked Zeb. “How long do you think it will be until the sun comes up?”
“Probably a couple of hours,” said Otis. “The moon was still fairly high in the sky and the air was chilly.”
“Why don’t we sneak out and get that wheat for Harold and Bob and then come back here in a couple hours to see if this idea works?” suggested Zeb.
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
Chapter 5
When we returned to the cavern a few hours later, we could see a little bit of sunlight trickling in through the hole, but it was very dim.
“Shouldn’t it be brighter?” asked Harold.
Zeb nodded. “Yes. We won’t be able to grow plants with this.”
