by Jerome ASF
“It’s been ages since I’ve stepped outside of this place. Years and years.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Bacca said. “Come with me.”
So the Tinkerer took off her tool belts and put away all her crafting gear and followed Bacca as they walked back down the quartz staircase to the entrance to the workshop. Bacca opened the quartz door, and there they stood. There was nothing but the tunnel beyond—leading back to Gargantua—and the guardhouse with the guard standing stalwart inside it.
“Ahh,” said the guard. “Nice to see you again. How did your riddle solving go?”
“I’m still working on it,” Bacca said. “But I feel I’m getting close to the solution.”
“Oh, that marvelous to hear,” said the guard.
“Listen,” Bacca told him. “When we were talking before, you said something about doing this job until somebody came to relieve you?”
“I’m afraid that’s correct,” the guard said with a frown.
“Does it have to be a creeper who relieves you?” Bacca asked.
“Does it have to be a creeper . . .” the guard repeated. “I never really thought about that. I don’t suppose it has to be, no. But then, who in the wide world of Minecraft would want this job?”
“Guard, I want you to meet the Tinkerer,” Bacca said. “She’s looking for a new line of work. Preferably one where she does as little as possible.”
“I don’t mind saying that this would be perfect for her, then,” the guard said, turning to the Tinkerer. “All you do is stand here. Gives you a lot of time to have some really interesting thoughts. And now and then you meet nice people to talk to, like this hairy fellow Bacca.”
“That sounds like exactly what I should be doing,” the Tinkerer said. “Can I try on the hat?”
The guard happily handed his tall hat over.
“Wow!” she said. “This is much more comfortable than my old hat. Tell me, how does it look?”
“Very good,” Bacca said. “Fits you perfectly.”
The Tinkerer seemed quite pleased with this turn of events, and took the guard’s place in the guardhouse. The guard was overjoyed to be released, and gave them both big hugs.
The only one who was not feeling ecstatically happy . . . was Bacca, who began angrily pacing the floor around the little guardhouse, looking up in the dark nooks and crannies of the ceiling.
“Okay, creepers!” he cried out to the darkness. “I’ve solved your riddle. Do you have any more, or can I please have the Dragon Orb back now?”
The creepers looked down at Bacca from their secret hiding place. They did not believe that Bacca could truly see them, but it did appear that his gaze lingered in their direction a little longer than it should have. For many of the creepers, this was deeply unnerving.
“He’s done it!” one of the creepers said—putting into words what all of them were thinking. “He’s solved the final riddle!”
“Yes,” said another creeper. “But that’s exactly what we wanted him to do, remember? Everything has gone swimmingly.”
“It has?” said a slightly confused creeper. “I mean . . . yes it has!”
“Of course it has,” snapped the previous creeper. “He’s passed all of our tests, and solved all of our riddles. But now comes the truly difficult part. Now we have to tell him why he’s really here.”
A general murmur of excitement ran through the creepers as they remembered what their original plan had been.
Then a small creeper at the back of the bunch found the courage to ask: “But . . . what if he says no?”
“If he says no!?!?!” thundered one of the senior creepers. “He’s not going to say no! And do you know why? Because we will make him say yes!”
The creeper began to laugh. It was a dark, sadistic, evil laugh. It went on for a very long time.
The junior creepers looked back and forth at one another and smiled nervously. Very few of them actually understood what was going to happen next.
Chapter Twelve
Bacca scanned the darkness above, looking for the creepers. He could tell they were there. He could smell them. After years in the field, you learned to recognize a whiff of creeper.
Suddenly, there was a rustling from one of the room’s dark corners, and a motley crew of purple creepers began to emerge. When they walked, they stuck together in a tight bunch. Bacca worried what would happen if they all decided to explode at once. The sheer force of it might blow a hole in their fortress. This fact alone, that even though creepers were real jerks, they probably weren’t big enough jerks to ruin their own home, made Bacca feel safe.
“That’s close enough,” he recommended as the creepers drew near.
“Very well,” whispered one of the creepers.
“Why are you whispering?” Bacca said. “We’re not trying to keep secrets here.”
“I’m not whispering,” the creeper said, just barely loud enough to be heard. “I’m screaming. And boy, is my throat going to be sore tomorrow.”
“Very well,” Bacca said, rolling his eyes and mimicking the creepers. “So was that the final riddle? Did I solve it?”
Bacca had a feeling that he had.
“Yes,” the creeper said.
“So then hand over the Dragon Orb,” Bacca said.
“First, answer me a question,” the creeper said. “Why do you think we took the orb?”
Bacca considered it. The obvious answer was because creepers were jerks. If they were jerks to crafters and villagers, then they were probably jerks to dragons too.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Bacca said instead, tired of playing creeper games.
“We took it because we needed a crafter,” the creeper said, who obviously was more excited to brag about how clever their plans had been than they were with tying Bacca up in a guessing game. “We needed a crafter far superior to any in our own server plane. But how to get a crafter? That was our dilemma. Creepers cannot travel far or fast. Creepers cannot transport crafters. But dragons can.”
“Oh my goodness!” Bacca said. “You used the dragons!”
The creepers all nodded shamelessly.
“We knew the dragons would do anything to get their orb back,” the creeper said. “They would travel far and wide to find the greatest, bravest, most worthy crafter in the multiverse. Then they would bring him or her right to us. And as it turned out, that crafter was you.”
“I know I should be flattered,” Bacca said. “But instead I feel like chopping you all up with my diamond axe. I wonder why that is.”
“Now, now,” the creeper cautioned. “Don’t be hasty. You haven’t finished hearing us out.”
“Well then, out with it!” Bacca snapped. “Why did you have the dragons bring me here? What do you want with a crafter?”
“This fortress . . .” the creeper began tentatively. “It’s getting old. And full. So many creatures and people have come to live here. There’s hardly room to move!”
“Seriously?” Bacca said sarcastically. “That’s why you brought me here?”
“We want a new fortress,” the creeper said. “Not just a new fortress. A bigger, better one. The best that’s ever been built—in any biome, on any server plane, in any Overworld, anywhere! For this, we knew we would need the best crafter in existence. So we hatched our plan.”
“First you used the dragons, and now you want to use me?” Bacca said. “What a bunch of jerks!”
“Watch your tongue, mister,” the creeper said sternly. “You may be a master crafter, but that’s all you are. We are still creepers, and you’re still a guest in our house. We could explode you any time we felt like it.”
Bacca decided he was about through talking to creepers.
“I solved all your riddles, so give me the Dragon Orb,” Bacca said, growing angry. “Those were the rules.”
“The rules?” the creeper said sarcastically. “Ha ha ha! The rules are what we say they are.”
“Yeah,” added another creeper. “And ri
ght now, we say that you’re going to build us a brand new fortress. One that’s twice as big as this one. So everyone will know how powerful and important we are!”
“You’re a bunch of crazies, is what you are,” Bacca said. “How about this instead: You give me the Dragon Orb—right now—and I won’t smash your fortress apart and take it. And I also might let a few of you walk out of here in one piece.”
“Ha!” one of the creepers laughed dramatically. “I’d like to see you try.”
“Yeah,” said another creeper. “That’s never going to happen.”
“I know,” said a third, “and it would be a total waste of time because the Dragon Orb’s not even here!”
There was a sudden awkwardness among the creeper ranks.
“Quiet, you dolt!” one ordered.
“Shhh!” said another.
“Stop talking right now!” shouted a third. “If we aren’t careful, then he’s going to find out that we hid it down in the Nether!”
“. . .”
All of the creepers turned and looked at the creeper who had just spoken.
“Darn it!” the creeper said.
The cat was out of the bag.
“Thanks very much for the information,” Bacca said with a smirk, wondering how the same creepers that had put together such challenging riddles could be so careless as to ruin their own master plan. “It’s been fun solving your riddles, but I’m afraid I must be going.”
“Wait!” one of the creepers cried. “Do you think we’re stupid?”
Bacca looked right and left, wondering if this was a trick question.
“Well, you did just accidently tell me where you’d hidden the Dragon Orb,” Bacca said. “But . . . go on.”
“We’re not stupid enough to leave the orb unguarded,” the creeper said. “The Nether is dangerous, and we have a bunch of friends down there. I don’t know how it is on your home server plane, but here the Nether is a horrible realm of lava and darkness and many dangers.”
“No, that sounds about right,” Bacca said, remembering with a shiver his last encounter there.
“In that case, you know what I’m talking about,” the creeper replied. “To venture there means great danger. Why risk it? Why risk it on behalf of a bunch of dragons you don’t even know? Why not instead stay here, and use your crafting powers to help us create the greatest, most impressive fortress in the history of . . . hey, where are you going???”
“See you later!” Bacca called as he headed back through the quartz door and began bounding up the steps two at a time. When he arrived at the Tinkerer’s workshop, it took Bacca only a few moments to stack some chairs and tables high enough to reach the skylight above. Then Bacca climbed to the top of the stack and jumped through.
The creepers had not moved from the bottom of the staircase.
“Well . . . that didn’t go very well,” one of them said.
“This is all your fault,” said another. “Why’d you have to open your big mouth up and blab about the orb being in the Nether?”
“I’m not so sure this is a problem,” said a senior creeper who had been one of the chief architects of the plan. “No, this may end up being the very best thing for us. When Bacca goes to the Nether and sees how impossible it is to get the orb from where we’ve hidden it, he’ll come crawling back to us. He’ll beg to build us a new fortress. And then when he’s finished, will we give him the orb? Of course not! Once the dragons had what they wanted from us, we’d be toast! Evaporated! Disintegrated! No, we’ll keep it, and then we’ll make Bacca keep doing whatever we say . . . forever!”
The senior creeper began to laugh hysterically. The other creepers smiled nervously, but were secretly disturbed. Sure, they were kind of jerks, but even this seemed like it might be crossing the line. And making them more uneasy was a sound they began to hear above the laughter. The sound of very large wings. Several pairs of very large wings . . .
From the top of the creeper fortress nestled high in the clouds, Bacca leapt onto the back of the Diamond Dragon. A swarm of other dragons had joined it, each made of a different material. They all looked into Bacca’s eyes with a hopeful longing.
“Do you have it?” asked the Diamond Dragon urgently. “Did you get the orb back for us?”
“Um . . . let’s just say that I’ve got some good news, and some bad news,” Bacca said. “The bad news is that your orb isn’t inside the creeper fortress. It never was. The good news is now I know exactly where it is.”
“Where?” asked the Diamond Dragon excitedly. All the other dragons crowding the sky hovered close, listening in.
“They’ve hidden it somewhere down in the Nether,” Bacca said.
There was a collective groan from all of the dragons.
“Ahh, we feared they might put it down there,” said the Diamond Dragon. “The Nether is one of the few places where dragons cannot go!”
“Well it’s definitely a place that Baccas can go,” Bacca said. “Been there several times. I wouldn’t recommend long visits, but it’s not without its charms.”
“You’re still going to help us?” said the Diamond Dragon. “That’s wonderful. Thank you so much.”
“Of course, I’m going to help,” said Bacca. “And not just because I like helping dragons. Those creepers have done bad things to a whole bunch of people. They stole your orb just to lure me here. They tricked a crafter into wearing eyepieces that would make her craft horrible monstrosities. And . . . and . . . probably a bunch of other stuff we don’t even know about yet! Anyhow, my point is, anything that upsets those creepers’ plans just got moved to the top of my agenda.”
“Glad to hear it,” said the Diamond Dragon.
“Is there a Nether Portal around here?” Bacca asked.
“Yes, there is,” the Diamond Dragon replied. “Not far from here is a forest with a great tree in the center. At the top of this tree you will find a Nether Portal. It is the only one we know of on this server plane. I can take you to it right now.”
With Bacca clinging to its back, the Diamond Dragon swooped down from the top of the creeper fortress and flew far across the landscape until a lush green forest appeared on the horizon. The other dragons flew alongside. The expressions on their faces were ones of unhappiness and unease. Several of the dragons were orange, and maybe one of them might have been the Pumpkin Dragon—whom Bacca still very much wanted to meet—but this felt like the wrong time to try to make introductions. The dragons were clearly preoccupied.
“Psst, hey,” Bacca said into the Diamond Dragon’s ear. “Why is everybody in such a bad mood?”
“With every hour that passes without the Dragon Orb in our possession, we grow weaker,” answered the Diamond Dragon. “Soon we may lose the power even to fly.”
Looking around at the formation of dejected, nervous dragons made Bacca feel sad. He kicked himself for ever believing the creepers would be true to their word and return the orb if he solved the riddles. Creepers were jerks, that much he already knew, but now he knew they were also liars. Bacca was determined that no matter what challenge lay on the other side of the Nether Portal, he would do whatever it took to find the Dragon Orb and bring it back safely to the dragons.
The forest on the horizon drew near. At first, Bacca had wondered if it would be hard to locate the tallest tree. Then he saw a central one in the very middle of the forest that grew three times as wide and twice as tall as all of the others. Not even a creeper could have failed to spot it. And there at the very top, glistening like a holiday ornament, was a shining portal to the Nether.
The Diamond Dragon reached the great tree and began to circle it, flying ever higher with each rotation. Soon, it reached the toppermost branch and Bacca jumped off. The other dragons circled warily below. Bacca could still see the worried expressions on their faces.
Wasting no time, he lunged into the Nether Portal and felt himself pass through to the other side . . . where an entirely new reality awaited him.
&nbs
p; Bacca took a deep breath, and quickly regretted it. The air around him was smoky and metallic. Underneath his feet, a floor of dark netherrack seemed to extend endlessly in all directions. Interrupting the uniformity of the floor were long rivers of hissing, burbling lava. Patches of fire burned randomly across the dark, endless terrain.
Trips through Nether Portals were seldom pleasant, and this one had been no exception. Bacca had arrived face-first in a pile of gravel and soul sand. He stood up and brushed his suit off, then spit a few bits of gravel out of his mouth.
“Pfft!” Bacca said. “Stupid gravel. Okay. Time to find that Dragon Orb!”
He set off across the dark, mysterious landscape. He had no sense of where the orb might be found, but Bacca reminded himself that it had been taken here by creepers. They probably hadn’t thrown it through the Nether Portal and called it a day. He knew he was looking for something which the creepers didn’t want him to find. In Bacca’s mind, this left two likely possibilities. The orb was probably either hidden in the darkest corner of the Nether where nobody would ever think to look . . . or put somewhere that nobody would dare to go.
Bacca scoured the ground all around him. Sooner rather than later, he found what he was looking for. Creeper tracks. Lots and lots of them.
“Only creepers could be this dumb,” Bacca said to himself. “They think being quiet makes up for everything else. What a bunch of idiots. I’ll bet this trail leads right to the Dragon Orb.”
Aware that time was of the essence—the dragons growing weaker and weaker with every passing moment—Bacca took off across the dusty plain of netherrack in the direction of the creeper footprints.
He made good time until a group of ghasts floated into view. He could hear their pitiful moans from yards away. Ghasts were the saddest creatures that Bacca knew—even sadder than dragons who’d had their orb stolen. This group was floating right above the trail of creeper footprints, effectively blocking the way forward.
Bacca always liked to give potential foes the option to rethink their plans to attack him—partly because he was a nice guy, but also because fighting was just so much more work than negotiating—but before he had time to present a persuasive argument, the mewling, floating balls of tentacles began spitting searing balls of fire at him.
