by Jerome ASF
Now and then, they encountered other villagers headed the opposite direction. They greeted one another on friendly terms, but the travelling villagers usually cast Bacca a suspicious eye. Bacca wondered if it was because of his hairy face, his wet, wrinkled suit, or something else entirely. Maybe they just didn’t like strangers.
Just when Bacca thought the maze couldn’t possibly keep going, the villagers took one final turn and the pathway opened into a large clearing with many different maze corridors leading away from it. Inside this clearing were houses and shops and buildings of all types. The place was brightly lit by torches and also stones in the ceiling that naturally radiated yellow light. There were even pens filled with animals. And, of course, villagers. Lots and lots of villagers.
Bacca was quite surprised.
“I’ve seen villages crop up in some strange places,” he said. “But this one takes the cake.”
The farmer pointed over at the animal pens.
“You might start there,” the farmer said. “A few people here raise rabbits for rabbit stew. Maybe some of them are green?”
Bacca thanked the farmer and made his way across the village and over to the animal pens. He looked high and low for green rabbits, but saw only the usual black and white ones. The rabbits in their pens were skittish and hopped away when Bacca drew near. A few passing villagers thought he might be a rabbit thief stalking his prey. Bacca assured them his intentions were honorable.
“Maybe I could dye a rabbit green,” Bacca thought out loud. “If I liquefied an emerald somehow, and then . . .”
“Dye a rabbit?” said a high-pitched voice. “Why on earth would you do that? Did the rabbit ask to be dyed?”
It was one of the villager children. A young boy with bright yellow hair. He had wandered over from a nearby farm. He looked up at Bacca curiously.
“I need an emerald hare,” Bacca explained. “You don’t know of any green rabbits who live in this maze, do you?”
The young boy scratched his head.
“No,” said the boy. “I don’t.”
Bacca wondered what that emphasis on “I” meant.
“So, somebody knows?” Bacca asked.
“The Wizard might,” the boy said.
Suddenly, as if carried on the breeze, Bacca thought he heard the sound of a hundred very tiny voices shrieking in unison. He decided it must have been his imagination.
“Sorry,” Bacca said. “What were you saying about a wizard?”
“The Wizard,” the boy said. “And he knows lots of things. Whenever we have a question, there’s a good chance the Wizard knows the answer. He’s been down here for ages. Seen all kinds of stuff in his day.”
“Why do you call him the Wizard?” Bacca asked.
“He knows how to make things,” the boy said. “It’s kind of hard to describe.”
“Hmm,” said Bacca, thinking that of all his options, going to see the Wizard was a pretty good one. “Can you take me to him?”
Just then a voice rang out from across the rabbit pens.
“Come to dinner! Your rabbit stew’s getting cold!”
“That’s my mom,” said the boy. “I gotta go. But here . . . I can tell you how to find the Wizard.”
Bacca listened as the boy with the yellow hair described a series of twists and turns leading away from the village and back into the maze. Bacca nodded dumbly and tried to memorize all of them as best as he could. He had the feeling that these villagers were used to complicated trips.
Bacca thanked him, and the boy ran off to dinner. Bacca made for a tunnel leading back into the maze.
Once inside, Bacca followed the boy’s directions carefully. When the directions said make a left, Bacca made a left. When they said to take the fork to the right, Bacca took the fork to the right. It was very challenging because of the sheer number of turns. On top of this, many of the maze’s corridors looked identical. There were almost no defining characteristics. Bacca wondered how in the world these villagers managed it. He supposed it took a lifetime of practice.
More quickly than seemed possible, Bacca had exhausted all of the boy’s directions—he’d followed all them perfectly, he was sure—but as he looked around, he didn’t see anything that looked like a destination. He certainly didn’t see a wizard. Bacca stood at a dead end. He faced only a brick wall.
This couldn’t be right, could it?
Bacca crept forward and knocked on the wall with his fist. It did not give. Then he ran his hands along the walls looking for openings or levers or trap doors, but he didn’t find anything in the way of a secret opening to a wizard’s lair. Or, really, anything at all.
Bacca leaned against the wall, frustrated, and wondered if he could even remember how to get back to the village.
“Are you lost?” a disembodied voice said.
It was a gentle voice, and also high-pitched . . . as if it came from someone very small.
“Hello?” Bacca said. He looked around but saw nobody. His heart sank as he imagined dealing with another hermit like Bill.
“I’m up here, silly,” the voice said.
Bacca looked.
High above his head, a purple bat hovered near the ceiling.
“Can I help you?” it asked.
“I’m looking for a wizard,” Bacca said. “Or maybe it’s ‘the Wizard.’ A boy gave me directions to where I could find him. But I’m worried that maybe I went to the wrong place.”
“It happens,” said the Bat. “We all get lost now and then. Lucky for you, I’m here.”
“How is that lucky?” Bacca asked.
“Well, for one, I’m the Wizard,” the bat said. “For another, I decided to take pity on you and say hello . . . instead of letting you just bounce around this maze like all of the other people who go looking for me but never think to look up.”
Bacca suddenly had a lot of questions.
“I suddenly have a lot of questions,” Bacca told the Wizard.
“That’s fine,” the Wizard said. “Let’s go to my workshop. I’ll answer them there.”
And with that, the purple bat began to flap its way back down the corridor.
Bacca saw no alternative but to follow. The bat flew quickly. Bacca ran in order to keep up with it. They raced down the corridors of the maze, sometimes passing bewildered villagers, and taking the turns with so much speed that Bacca seriously doubted he would ever remember the way they’d come.
“If this bat is getting me confused on purpose, it’s going to be in big trouble,” Bacca said to himself.
Eventually, the bat took a turn down an old, dusty corner of the maze. Here, the grass was completely undisturbed. Bacca’s feet left big indentations as he walked.
“Don’t worry about that,” the bat said brightly. “I don’t get many guests in my workshop. Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”
Bacca followed the bat around a corner, and the way before them suddenly opened into a giant room filled with crafting materials. There were ingots and stones and blocks of every size and color. One pool in the floor supplied an endless stream of fresh water. Another supplied fresh lava. Different objects—some complete, some only half crafted—were stacked in the corners, sometimes in precarious, teetering piles that stretched nearly to the ceiling.
The bat perched atop a pile of iron ingots that was roughly the same height as Bacca.
“Sorry about the clutter,” it said halfheartedly. “I’m always busy crafting something—or trying to—and the projects have a way of getting away from me. I suppose that’s why you’re here, eh? You want something crafted?”
Bacca opened his mouth to say “not exactly,” but the bat just kept talking.
“That’s why they call me ‘the Wizard.’ Because I can craft things. Here, that’s as rare as wizardry. This is such a strange server plane. We’ve got twenty different kinds of dragons, and creepers who behave like organized criminals, but there’s virtually no one here who can craft. Other servers are full of crafters. I�
�ve heard all the stories. In those places, anybody and everybody can make things. They’re all builders. Great crafters! Creative crafters! Crafters limited only by their imaginations! Why, there’s a long list. There’s . . .”
Here, the Wizard named a string of famous, talented crafters, many of whom Bacca knew well. The list ended with “. . . and then there’s Bacca, the most famous of all.”
Bacca let out a little laugh. (He tried to hold it in, so it sounded more like a snort.)
“Are you okay?” the Wizard asked.
“Yeah,” Bacca said. “It’s just funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“Well . . . I’m Bacca,” said Bacca.
“You?” said the Wizard, quite bewildered. “Really? Really and truly? You’re the Bacca? As in Bacca-Bacca?”
“Sure,” Bacca said. “I can prove it too. What are you working on right now?”
The Wizard looked at him doubtfully, but couldn’t resist.
“I’ve been working on making a jukebox,” the bat said, and flew over to where a pile of wooden planks was stacked next to a large diamond. “It’s been giving me a bit of trouble, to tell you the truth.”
“Let me see,” Bacca said, bending down to examine the Wizard’s work.
The Wizard hovered in midair and watched carefully as Bacca began to assemble the different components. Bacca worked swiftly, as if he already knew exactly where each piece should go. Just a few short moments later, a finished jukebox sat before them.
“There you go,” Bacca said. “All done. Your problem was you were trying to use nine wooden planks. You really only need eight.”
“So that’s why I couldn’t get it to fit!” the Wizard said.
“What else have you got?” Bacca asked.
“One of the villagers did ask me to craft him a new piston,” the Wizard replied cagily, as if this were not a very complicated item at all.
“No problem!” Bacca replied.
Bacca began to sift through the workshop’s plentiful piles of material. Soon he had assembled three wooden planks, four cobblestones, an iron ingot, and a glistening redstone. He stacked them together on the floor, and began using the Wizard’s tools to create a perfectly-functioning piston. When it was done, Bacca tested it by using it to push a few blocks around the workshop.
“There you go,” Bacca said, handing it over to the Wizard. “It works great.”
The Wizard had to agree that it did.
“Maybe you are Bacca,” the Wizard said. “But one final test. Craft me a . . . a . . . sticky diamond minecart.”
Bacca smiled but did not move.
“What?” the Wizard said slyly. “Can’t do it? I thought you were a famous crafter.”
“There’s no such thing as a sticky diamond minecart!” Bacca replied.
The Wizard fluttered about excitedly.
“Wow!” the little bat said. “That’s right. You really are Bacca.”
“I’m glad you’re finally convinced,” Bacca said.
“But now I’m confused,” the Wizard said, hovering close. “If you’re Bacca, then what in the wide world of Minecraft do you need with me?”
Bacca told the story of how he had been visited in his server by the Diamond Dragon, and about his quest to retrieve the Dragon Orb.
“This latest riddle seems to say that I have to catch an emerald rabbit that lives somewhere in this maze,” Bacca concluded. “I’ve found some nice villagers who live in the middle of the maze, but no rabbit so far. Some of the villagers thought you might know where I could find it.”
The Wizard stopped hovering and set itself back down atop a half-built minecart hopper.
“So . . . any idea where I can find a green-colored bunny?” Bacca asked.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” said the bat. “It’s just, um, a little complicated.”
Bacca wondered how complicated it could be to catch a rabbit. They didn’t seem like very smart animals. And they were known to do almost anything for a carrot.
“You’ll have to trust me,” the bat continued. “See, there’s a witch who lives in this maze. Not a ‘witch’ in the way I’m a ‘wizard,’ but a real, proper witch, with a pointy hat and a wart on her nose and a big sack full of unpleasant potions she throws at people she doesn’t like—which is everybody. She’s always attacking people for no reason. Everybody hates her. What I need you to do is kill the witch—or at least convince her to leave the maze. Then I can show you where the emerald hare is.”
“Wait . . . if you know where it is, why can’t you just show me now?” Bacca asked.
“Hang on, I’m not done yet!” the Wizard said. “I said it was complicated. I also need you to make a map. To the witch’s lair. People have been looking for it for years, but we’ve never found it. I need you to make a map of everywhere you go in the maze. Circle on the map where the witch lives. Then bring the map back to me. That way, we can go to her lair and verify that you’ve done what I asked.”
“This is a very strange errand,” Bacca said. “Are you absolutely sure you can’t just tell me where the rabbit is? What if I show you how to do some crafting as a trade-off?”
“No, sorry,” said the little bat. “Take care of the witch. Make me a map of how you got there. Only then will I show you how to find the emerald hare.”
“Okay,” Bacca said with a sigh, “but this feels over complicated.”
“Here,” the Wizard said, flying over to a desk cluttered with different odds and ends. “There’s a scroll of paper and a pen and ink in this desk. You can use them to draw the map as you go.”
“Thanks . . . I think,” Bacca said, adding the supplies to his inventory.
“Perfect,” said the Wizard. “Off you go. Come back when the witch is gone. And make sure to make a detailed map!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bacca said. “I got it.”
Bacca left the Wizard’s workshop and stepped back out into the maze. He breathed a deep sigh. If there was one thing Bacca hated, it was busywork. And he had the distinct feeling that the little bat was making things more difficult than they needed to be.
Still, Bacca had faced down many witches in his day. If he had to face one more to solve this riddle, then he was happy to do it. Making maps was not one of his regular activities, but sometimes it could be fun to try something new. Bacca always tried to look on the bright side.
He set off down the corridor, tracing his route in miniature on the paper the Wizard had given him. Every so often, he looked up from his page to check for witches. He rounded a bend in the corridor, and soon the Wizard’s workshop passed entirely out of sight.
“This is very strange,” one creeper said to another.
They were clustered together in the shadows at the edge of the dungeon maze. One of their group, a spy, had just returned—out of breath and panting—to relate what he had overheard in the Wizard’s workshop.
“Very strange indeed,” a different creeper agreed. “The Wizard knows exactly what Bacca needs to do. He could have told him how to solve our riddle then and there.”
“Don’t you see?” said another creeper. “The Wizard is using Bacca to get revenge on the witch. He wants to break the spell.”
“I still think it’s a good riddle,” another creeper said defensively. “It’s just taken a slightly different turn than we expected. That’s all.”
“I wonder what Bacca’s going to do next?” one of the creepers said, scowling at the creeper-spy who had only just got his breath back. “Well . . . ? That’s your cue. Get back in there and get us some more information!!!”
The creeper-spy sped back into the dungeon maze, keeping to the shadows, hot on Bacca’s trail.
Someone had once told Bacca that the way to beat a maze was to keep making lefts at every turn. That way, you’d eventually arrive at the outer walls of the maze, and you’d be able to work it out from there. The problem with that approach, Bacca also knew, was that sometimes there were places within a maze that were ju
st big square blocks. If you hit one of them, you’d just keep turning left and going in a square forever!
Because of this, Bacca now and then also took a right.
He explored the corridors of the dungeon maze for what felt like hours. Now and then he encountered an interesting feature. A fountain made of sandstone blocks shaped like an enormous fish (but sadly, bereft of any real fish) was one of his favorites. There was also a two-headed gargoyle that seemed to have been crafted out of giant blocks of yellow sponge. (Bacca hoped it might be alive—and tried talking to it—but if the gargoyle could understand him, it didn’t let on.)
He also encountered several groups of villagers making their ways to different places. They were all cautious but friendly. Bacca made a point to ask if they knew anything about the witch. Mostly they didn’t.
One villager said: “Witches, sure. They live up on the Overworld. You’d have to leave the fortress to find them though. I wouldn’t want to do that.”
“No,” Bacca clarified. “I’m looking for a witch who lives here, inside of the dungeon maze.”
“Inside the maze?” the villager responded, dumbfounded. “Well that would be just awful. I hope there’s not a witch down here.”
Bacca did not press the point.
He hated to admit it, but the mapmaking was turning out to be a sensible idea. The maze was enormous. If he had not chosen to make recordings of each place he’d already been, the chances of getting lost and going over the same places again and again would have been very great indeed. Then again, Bacca thought to himself, he wouldn’t be making a map in the first place if the Wizard had just told him where to find the emerald hare.
It was safe to say that Bacca was having mixed feelings about this new adventure.
At one point, Bacca’s journey through the maze took him back to the village at its center. Bacca saw a familiar face lounging in one of the stables. It was the boy with the yellow hair.
“How was your rabbit stew?” Bacca asked him.
“Good,” the boy said. “It was cold, but I like cold rabbit stew.”
