by Dr. Block
Otis nodded. “How many do you think it is?”
“I think I only hear one, but I think it’s pretty big.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think too.”
The thing about slimes is they aren’t that difficult to kill, but they take a long time to do it completely. When you start with a big slime, you hack it a few times and it turns into a few medium slimes and when you hit those a few times, they turn into small slimes and you can finally kill those.
I was exhausted just thinking about it.
What’s more, it takes a lot of effort and time and makes a lot of noise. I was pretty sure if we had to battle even one large slime, it would make so much noise that it would draw the attention of many other mobs. We had to hope it would pass without seeing us.
As before, we pressed ourselves into the shadow of the alcove, hoping to remain unseen. The squishing and bouncing and sloshing of the slime came closer and closer. Otis and I had our swords at the ready, just in case.
As the slime bounced into view, I saw something horrible.
A chicken was stuck inside the slime! The chicken’s head slowly turned against the goo and looked at me and blinked once.
It was Harold!
“No!” I screamed as I jumped into the air, about to bring my sword down on the slime to free Harold.
The slime quickly took one bounce backwards and squirted Harold out of its mouth directly at me. I was barely able to stop the downward stroke of my sword to avoid hitting Harold when his slime-covered body struck me in the chest.
Harold splatted on the ground. He wiped the goo from his face with one wing and said, “The slime’s a friend. I found a way out.”
I was never happier in my life. My chicken was back, albeit covered with the most disgusting goo I had ever felt in my life. And, that is really saying something, given that I’m an undead zombie and I like to eat rotten flesh. Even so, I gave Harold a great big hug and helped him wipe as much of the slime off as possible.
Otis came over to Harold and asked, “The slime help you?”
Harold nodded.
Otis looked up and down the corridor, and seeing no other mobs, walked over the slime and said, “Nice to meet you slime. My name is Otis.”
The slime, having recovered from its fright said, “My name is Jade.”
“Zeke,” I said.
“I’m Bob.”
“Now that the introductions are taken care of, let’s get out of here,” said Harold.
“You want to come with us, Jade?” I asked.
“No, thank you. I like bouncing inside dark hallways by myself. It’s fun.”
“Uh, okay. Thanks for helping Harold.”
Chapter 25
We left the slime behind as we rushed through the escape route Harold had discovered. A few mobs spotted us, but we were moving so quickly, they could not get to us.
Harold was easily able to lead us to where the trebuchets were firing against the wall of the High Castle.
“Harold, you are a genius,” I said with admiration as we had reached a place of momentary safety.
Harold took a bow.
I looked around. It was chaos.
As the obsidian boulders and TNT bombs struck the castle wall, the bodies of skeletons, zombies, spiders, wither skeletons, slimes, and even blazes were blown in every direction. Many flashed red and disappeared in puffs of smoke. The wounded mobs crawled away to regenerate their health.
Herobrine’s mobs were firing back at us with arrows while iron golems were lobbing TNT bombs in our direction. Fortunately, they were not strong enough to reach the trebuchets.
A few times they tried to launch assaults, but the trebuchets took care of most of them and the Ender soldiers finished off the survivors with their teleportation martial arts.
It was a festival of death.
I ran up to one of the Ender soldiers. “Have you seen the Ender general?” The soldier shook his head “no” and continued firing his trebuchet.
Another assault of skeletons ran toward us. A few got through our bombs so I helped take a couple of them out. One of them slashed my arm and my green undead blood began to ooze out. But I continued to struggle and was able to defeat them.
I retreated behind a trebuchet. My arm was bleeding badly. I needed something to stop the bleeding.
That was when I remembered the NOOB t-shirt.
I’m not sure if this was what that crazy old man had intended the shirt for, but I’m using it now.
I pressed the shirt against my wound. Harold came over and helped me tie it on. Oddly, the letter N was hidden from view and the shirt, with its backwards B, appeared to read “BOO.”
Harold laughed. “Now you will really scare Herobrine.”
I laughed too as the bleeding stopped and my health regenerated.
I had just recovered my health when I began to feel a rumbling in the ground. Oh no, I thought, it can only be one thing.
I stood up and motioned for Harold to come over next to me. We both looked in the distance and saw the obsidian golem slowly walking towards us. His deliberate, massive steps, shook the very foundations of the High Castle.
“What is that thing?” shouted one of the soldiers.
“It’s an obsidian golem,” said Otis. “We had to deal with him earlier. He’s pretty dominant.”
“Aim the trebuchets at the golem,” I said. “It’s our only chance.”
“But then the mobs will be able to break through and attack us,” said a soldier. “They will have a direct line toward our position.”
“It cannot be helped,” I said. “There is no other way.”
The Ender soldier surveyed the battlefield and the approaching golem. He knew I was right. He gave the order for three of the four trebuchets to concentrate their fire on the obsidian golem. The fourth trebuchet would continue to launch projectiles toward the hostile mobs on the castle wall.
As the first of the boulders and TNT blocks hit the golem, it shuttered under the force. Still, it was so massive that it was able to keep moving forward, although at a much slower pace. Small pieces of obsidian had broken off and were littering the ground.
“It’s working!” the Ender soldier shouted encouragement to his fellow soldiers. “Keep pummeling him.”
I was glad to see that it was working, albeit very slowly. However, I was not glad to see a few dozen skeletons, armored zombies and wither skeletons rushing towards our position.
In addition to Harold, Bob, Otis and me, there were about 95 Ender soldiers and about 25 zombie pigmen as well as a couple of villagers. None of the soldiers who had teleported away from our group earlier had reappeared. I assumed the golem had killed them.
The Ender soldiers rushed to meet the mobs head-on. They teleported in the midst of them attacked them, and then teleported back. Had there only been five or ten hostile mobs, this would’ve been enough. But with dozens, some of them would eventually get through the soldiers and we would have to battle them ourselves.
The first to arrive was a skeleton. He rushed up with a sword in his hand and slashed at my head. I easily ducked under the blow and slashed his legs. He fell to the side glowing red before I chopped his skull off and then he vanished in a puff of smoke.
“Hop on, Zeke,” said Harold. “We can move a lot faster that way.”
I hopped on Harold’s back and he darted to the side just as another skeleton was about to slice me with his sword.
Otis was sitting astride Bob as they rushed at a pack of three armored zombies stumbling toward them. Otis slashed the leg of the one on the left first and he fell over. Then he circled around and slashed the one on the right who also fell over. However, the one in the middle reached over and grabbed Otis’s shoulder and pulled on it.
“Ouch!” Otis yelled in pain. Bob darted to the side and to give Otis a little breathing room while he recovered from the injury.
I could see Otis grit his teeth and encourage Bob to head back toward the middle zombie. With one
swift slice, Otis scored a critical hit and chopped the zombie’s head off. Its corpse flashed red and disappeared in smoke.
The other two zombies on the ground were struggling to grab Otis and Bob as they rushed past. But to no avail. Otis finished each of them off with another blow.
In the meanwhile, the obsidian golem was coming closer and closer but more and more of him was being chipped away by our bombardment. Nevertheless, I worried that the golem might have enough health left to get to the trebuchets and destroy them. If he could accomplish that, there would be no stopping him.
But, there wasn’t any time for me to dwell on that. I had to help defeat the remaining wither skeletons and zombies. With the help of the Ender soldiers, it didn’t take too long.
Unfortunately, two Ender soldiers were killed when a wither skeleton blew itself up using a TNT bomb it had hidden inside of its inventory. In addition, six zombie pigmen were killed in direct hand-to-hand combat with Herobrine’s mobs.
Thankfully, we are able to defeat all the hostile mobs that came after us in the first wave. But then, we saw something that disheartened us greatly.
In the distance, we could see a horde of blazes and skeletons.
“There must be more than 100 of them,” said Harold.
I nodded. “This isn’t going to be easy.”
As we were looking at the huge horde of hostile mobs which was only now beginning to rush towards us, I felt the earth shake under me with such force, I thought maybe the TNT-filled chamber had begun to explode. I was thrown off Harold’s back and knocked to the ground. Harold had fallen on his side.
When I recovered my senses, I looked over and saw the obsidian golem had collapsed on top of one of the trebuchets, crushing it and two Ender soldiers. The golem had gotten close enough that it was stopped only by a close-range obsidian boulder that happened to rip its head off.
For some reason, the golem’s body did not flash and disappear in a puff of smoke. It must have had something to do with using obsidian instead of normal flesh.
I looked back at the horde of hostile mobs, but they had stopped running towards us. They were looking from side to side, as if they were confused about what to do next.
“That’s right you cowards! We defeated your stupid obsidian golem! Now what are you little babies gonna do?” shouted Otis, taunting the mobs.
The thing about asking a question like that, a question you think is rhetorical when you ask it, is that often times you do get an answer to the question, and it is not the answer for which you were hoping.
Chapter 26
Otis’s question was greeted by deep, loud, maniacal laughter.
“Where is that coming from?” asked Harold.
I was standing beside Harold now with my arm resting on his soft head feathers. “I don’t know buddy, but I’m pretty sure I know who it’s coming from.”
The laughter continued. I looked across the courtyard and saw the pack of hostile mobs beginning to laugh as well.
The laughter continued for a few more seconds before I saw him standing up on a balcony above the courtyard: Herobrine!
Herobrine stood looking down upon us and laughing with his hands on his stomach as if he was about to split his side. No one said anything. We just watched this freak continue to laugh.
After almost a minute, Herobrine’s laughter slowly decreased to a chuckle and then into silence. He stared at us. Actually, he was staring at me.
“How dare you attempt to infiltrate my High Castle!”
“You told us how to find it, you idiot!” shouted Otis.
Herobrine turned his head to look at Otis. “If all your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” shouted Otis.
Herobrine laughed. “If I were to show you the way to find the evil demon that dwells deep within the Nether, would you go find it?”
“Demon? What are you talking about?” said Otis.
“Enough of this,” said Herobrine angrily. “I’m here to destroy Baby Zeke. He made my life miserable and disrupted my plans for the apocalypse. It is time for him to die.”
“Never,” shouted Harold, Bob, and Otis in the same breath.
“Never is a long time,” said Herobrine. “But it is more than enough time to watch your friends die.”
I wasn’t quite sure what he meant until, emerging from behind him, was an iron golem shoving Zeb onto the balcony!
Herobrine continued. “You see, Zeke, I know how you weaklings think. You don’t mind suffering a little pain yourself, but if one of your friends has to suffer pain, you can’t live with yourself. Boo hoo.”
“Don’t do anything to hurt Zeb! I will trade my life for his,” I shouted beginning to walk toward Herobrine.
“Yes, I know you would. And that’s why I’m not going to give you the choice.”
And then, to my horror, Herobrine reached over and pulled the helmet off of Zeb’s head.
Zeb burst into flame.
Chapter 27
“No!” I screamed in horror as I saw my best friend beginning to burn to death.
Inexplicably, Zeb did not cry out in pain. He did not even look like he was in pain. He stood there passively allowing the flames to engulf his undead flesh.
“No!” I yelled again.
Time seemed to slow down. Each flame flickered in slow motion. Herobrine’s evil gaze stared unblinkingly out at me, enjoying my distress as much as or maybe even more than the pain he was inflicting on my friend and mentor.
I clinched my diamond sword firmly in my hand and was about to rush toward Herobrine to try and do something, anything to stop Zeb’s pain. Then, suddenly, an Ender soldier teleported next to Herobrine shoved a helmet on Zeb’s head, and teleported back to us.
The look of surprise and shock on Herobrine’s face was priceless.
“That’s what you get for being a meanie!” I shouted.
Otis looked at me like I was two years old. “Meanie? Seriously, bro?”
I didn’t care what Otis thought. I rushed over to Zeb, pulled some water from my inventory, and poured it over his burns. His flesh steamed as the water put out the last of the flames.
“Thank you, Zeke,” said Zeb. “That feels nice.”
“You almost died, Zeb. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you,” I said as I began to cry.
“Do not cry. I was fine with the situation, but I’m glad I’m no longer in it. I did not want to respawn somewhere else. I wanted to be with you, if this is to be the end of the world.”
I stood up and looked at Herobrine. I shook my diamond sword in his direction and yelled, “You evil monster! Come down here and fight me like a man. One-on-one.”
Herobrine laughed. “Why would I do something like that? Fight fair? Never! Besides, I think it is you who will want to come up here when you meet my next guest.”
What did he mean by that? And then, it slowly began to register in my mind what he meant.
My worst fear was realized when I saw a small obsidian golem dragging the Ender general in chains up onto the platform!
“How could he have captured the Ender general?” I asked Zeb. “Couldn’t he have just teleported away from his imprisonment?”
Zeb coughed a little before answering, “Herobrine has invented something that prevents endermen from teleporting. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but once he surrounds an enderman with the material or puts the material in contact with their bodies, they lose the ability to teleport.”
Of course! That was what happened to those Ender soldiers in the cage earlier. Our only hope of defeating Herobrine was the teleporting abilities of the Ender soldiers. Now, we had lost that advantage.
I let the diamond sword slip from my hands. It clattered to the ground. I began to whisper aloud, “It’s over. We can’t win. There’s no way.”
The next thing I felt was the slap of a small undead hand against the side of my head. I smelled the distinct odor of bacon. It was Ot
is.
“Quit your sniveling, fool, it’s not over until it’s over. And it’s not over until I get dominant.”
I laughed with frustration. “Well, go ahead and get dominant. What could you possibly do except run out there and get killed?”
Otis looked at me with fire burning in his eyes. “I’d rather die trying to defeat Herobrine than live and let him kill me like a helpless sheep that any stupid player can kill on their first day in Minecraft.”
“Go ahead and get yourself killed. See if I care,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
Otis didn’t say anything. Instead, he began to run towards Herobrine. As arrows flew at him from all directions, an Ender soldier quickly teleported, grabbed Otis and teleported back, restraining him.
“Let go of me you long-limbed spider-like freak creature. I’ve got some killing to do.”
“No. You will stay here until we receive orders from the Ender general.”
“The Ender general is a prisoner,” shouted Otis, straining against the enderman’s grip. “He can’t give you orders any more. Think for yourself!”
I couldn’t believe Otis. He was insane.
But, as always, I admired his heart. It was in the right place. If someone could get to Herobrine without being attacked along the way, there still might be a chance. Even if Herobrine could not be defeated, maybe it would distract him long enough for the Ender general to escape. But how?
I stared down at my diamond sword. I could see my reflection in its shiny blade. My face reflected upside-down, a visual depiction of my disturbed situation. The sword was so sharp and so useless right now. It made me angry.
I find it strange that when one becomes angry it has one of two effects on one’s ability to think. Sometimes in the heat of anger, it is impossible to think. You simply act, and once the anger stops, you realize what you’ve done. Other times, the anger acts as a form of clarifying energy, creating rapid fire thought patterns allowing you to come up with ideas you would never have had if you remained placid.
