Digger paused and turned around, confusion written on his face.
Crafter approached the NPC and held out his own crafting bench, waiting for it to be accepted. Digger took an uncertain step forward, then another and another until he was almost nose to nose with Crafter, his face showing confusion and fear, his wrinkled unibrow accentuating his uncertainty.
“Digger, I choose you to lead the villagers in this area, to craft those tools and items that the users will need throughout this land,” Crafter said, his voice rising in volume so that all in the village could hear. “I choose you to keep the electronic machine that is Minecraft working smoothly and without lag. I name you ‘Crafter.’”
Pushing his crafting bench forward, he placed it into Digger’s hands, the light-brown box seeming to glow in the yellow sunlight. When the crafting bench was accepted, Digger’s brown coat suddenly turned to dark black, a long grey stripe running down the center while Crafter’s own coat faded to a forest green. And then it was done. The villagers all turned to look at their new Crafter and nodded acceptance as they went back to work, the old Crafter just smiling a huge smile that stretched around his blocky face and curved up to meet his ears.
“Now we can leave,” Crafter said as he wiped the last remnants of tears from his face. “Come, Game-knight, we have to find our final battle and save this world from destruction.”
“Oh, is that all we have to do?” Gameknight replied sarcastically.
“Yep, that’s all.”
And the two characters walked out of the village and into the unknown, Crafter humming a melodious tune as their path led them toward the final battle that they both could feel just over the horizon. As they walked, they could hear the sounds of work: the digging and stacking of blocks, resetting of redstone pistons, and the crafting of new tools, all coming from behind the village’s wall. None of the NPCs watched them recede into the distance or they would have seen the tall, dark red, lanky shape watching from the shadows of the forest, a dance of purple particles floating about the creature as its narrow white eyes glared at the pair with overwhelming hatred and a desire to kill.
“I will have my revenge,” Erebus screeched softly to himself, the anger in his voice making the trees want to lean away from the source of such tremendous malice.
He chuckled a maniacal laugh.
“You can run, User-that-is-not-a-user, but I will find you.”
And with that the enderman chief chuckled again as he faded back into the shadows.
CHAPTER 12
THE HUNT
T
hey walked all day, the landscape of Minecraft beautiful with clusters of tall oak trees nestled amongst rolling hills of grass and flowers, a white snowcapped biome far off to their left. It all seemed so tranquil and gorgeous, well, except for the bloodthirsty monsters that were roaming the land, looking to feast on the pair’s XP. Gameknight led the way, his head on a constant swivel, scanning the terrain for threats while ducking behind trees or crouching behind hills to avoid large groups of monsters; spiders seemed to be everywhere. Crafter hummed his nameless song as he walked, more out of nervousness than anything else, the melody becoming more dissonant when monsters were near. He wasn’t sure how it worked, but somehow Gameknight could feel their path, a tingling in his mind that told him where Shawny was preparing for the last battle.
“So Crafter, if Digger is now the new Crafter of the village, what are you?” Gameknight asked.
“I am but a villager, an NPC, as you call us,” Crafter said. “Notice, my clothes are no longer the traditional black with a grey stripe, the uniform of my old position. Digger, I mean, the Crafter now wears those colors.” He pulled out a cookie from his inventory and ate it as they walked, slowing down slightly. “I am nobody, just another being in this world.”
“Do I still call you ‘Crafter?’”
“Titles are unimportant. You can call me anything you want; it is of no concern.”
“Well, you’re still Crafter to me,” Game-knight affirmed.
“Fine.”
They continued on in silence as they played the real-life game of hide and seek, the end result potentially deadly for the hiders: them. Pushing their way through a small copse of trees, the duo stumbled onto a lone spider. Instantly, they fell on the creature. Gameknight’s diamond sword flashed through the air in great shimmering arcs, striking out at the eight-legged monster, killing it instead of allowing the beast to escape and report their position to the endermen, to Erebus. This happened three more times, the lone spiders and singular creepers quickly dispatched. They had to chase one of them for a while before catching it. Clearly, Erebus had the creatures out looking to gather information, their position more important right now than their deaths.
Looking up, Gameknight checked the sun. A feeling of dread spread throughout his body when he noticed the square yellow disk start to gently kiss the edge of the world before it gradually began dipping below the horizon, the sky fading from brilliant blue to a majestic reddish-orange, and then to a final, deadly black.
“We need to find a place to hide,” Crafter said nervously, his eyes darting about as darkness closed in around them.
“We’ll be OK for a little bit,” Gameknight said confidently. “Just have your pick and shovel ready.”
“But we need to find somewhere, a cave or cavern or something, a defendable place to hide.”
“Don’t worry, Crafter, I have that figured out,” Gameknight reassured. “Just be ready with your shovel.”
Crafter looked up at his companion, confusion showing on his blocky face, his long grey hair flowing down his back. Slowing their progress, they moved carefully through the landscape, now traversing a grassy plane with low rolling hills covered with blue and red flowers. There were no trees to hide their presence, so they had to be very cautious to avoid the mobs, their numbers now having significantly increased. Erebus clearly had them out looking for them, great hordes of spiders and zombies moving in clusters, their eyes pointing in all directions at once. If one of these groups saw them, they would all fall on the pair and there would be no chance for defense. Choosing to play it safe, Gameknight brought their trek to a halt.
“We’ll hold up here,” he said to the old NPC.
“What . . . right here?” Crafter asked, confused as he looked about the flat plain.
“Yep, get out your shovel; let’s dig.”
They dug a hole four blocks deep, going straight down. It was a cardinal rule to never dig straight down in Minecraft, but Gameknight knew that there was little danger of hitting a cavern or lava this close to the surface. Once they had made it down four blocks, they sealed themselves in, with two blocks of dirt above them. Carving out a block next to him, Gameknight placed a torch so that their little hidey-hole had some light. Turning to Crafter, he could see the fear painted across his square face; he projected fear and terror.
“What’s wrong?” Gameknight asked.
“They’ve seen us somehow,” he said pointing upward with his shovel.
Straining his ears, Gameknight999 could hear the mobs approaching: the moaning of the zombies, the peculiar clicking sound of the spiders, the bouncing sound of the slimes, and of course the terrible chuckle of the endermen, all of them clustering nearby.
“How did they see us?” Gameknight asked. “We were underground before any were within view!”
“It’s your name above your head, they can see it somehow. Quickly, crouch; your name will disappear.”
Gameknight crouched down, lowering slightly, which made movement difficult. He couldn’t tell if it made any difference or not; how he wished he had an X-ray mod right now. As he looked up at their dirt ceiling, Crafter pulled out his shovel and dug down another block under Gameknight and then under himself.
“What are you doing?”
“Shhh.”
Pulling out a block of cobblestone, Crafter placed the stone above their heads, then another, filling in the ceiling, the blotchy overhe
ad surface lit from the warm glow of their lone torch. Gameknight looked to his companion, confused, questions on the tip of his tongue. Before he could ask, Crafter held up a hand, silencing him, then pointed upward. The sounds of zombies could be heard just beyond the rocky barrier, the suffering moans driving icicles of fear into their minds, freezing their courage. Gameknight shuddered, terror bordering on panic pulsing through his veins. The memory of those sharp claws bounced around in his head, making him want to just dig his way out and run.
What good will that stone ceiling do, Gameknight thought, with so many monsters on the other side? Maybe we should have stopped sooner, found a cave or tall tree, or . . . and then a reassuring hand rested on his shoulder, bringing Gameknight’s panic under control a little. Turning, he found his friend smiling at him, his long grey hair glowing in the torchlight.
“Endermen can’t take cobble, only natural materials like sand or dirt,” Crafter explained. “If they find where we are, at least they can’t dig us out. It will keep us safe, for a while.”
Pulling out his shovel again, Crafter continued to dig around them, creating a one block space on the perimeter of their two-block home. As he dug, he filled the empty spaces with more cobblestone until they were completely surrounded, the stone making them feel a little safer, easing their fears, a little. Once this protective layer was complete, Crafter put his shovel away and just listened, the two companions looking up at the ceiling in fear. The sounds of the mobs were getting louder, then dissipated as the monsters spread out, hunting their prey.
“I think they lost us,” Gameknight said.
“Shhh,” Crafter said, then moved his head close to Gameknight’s ears. “If we can hear them, then they can hear us. You must whisper,” the old man whispered.
Gameknight nodded.
The sounds of their pursuit seemed to get fainter for a bit, the mobs moving farther away, but then individual monsters could be heard; the occasional zombie or spider coming near, all moving in a seemingly random manner.
“They don’t know where we are,” Gameknight999 whispered, a little bit of tension gone from his voice.
“Possibly,” Crafter agreed, his scratchy voice barely audible, “but one thing I’ve learned after all my years in Minecraft—the nights are long. We must still hope for good fortune here; this isn’t over yet.”
Just then, an explosion tore through the silence, the blast echoing in the distance, likely a creeper, the rumbling boom causing a little bit of dust to fall from their stone ceiling.
“What was that?” the old NPC asked. “What would have made a creeper go off?”
Gameknight was just about to answer when another explosion rocked their chamber, this one a little closer, then another one just barely noticeable in the distance. He knew what was happening and was about to whisper to his companion when an explosion went off nearby, the ground shaking as the blast echoed through their tiny hidey-hole; their walls held.
“That was close,” Crafter said, fear painted on his blocky face. “What’s happening?”
“It’s like in ‘Silent Hunter,’” Gameknight said.
“What?”
“Silent Hunter, it’s a submarine computer game.”
“Submarine?” Crafter asked, confused.
“Submarines are boats that go under water,” Gameknight explained with a whisper. “They hunt other ships on the surface and sink them with torpedoes from the depths.”
Boom!
He paused as another blast reverberated through their little hole, the sound hurting his ears and choking their hidey-hole with dust. Fear rippled along his spine as he waited for the next blast to kill them both. “When a ship thinks a submarine is nearby, they drop depth charges, bombs that explode underwater, to try to sink the sub.”
“But how does the ship know where the submarine is at?”
“They don’t,” Gameknight continued, “so they drop the depth charges everywhere, hoping to get lucky. Using the last known position of the sub, the ships will fan out in all directions and drop their depth charges, hoping to. . .”
BOOM!!!
Another explosion violently shook the ground, rattling the duo within their stone hole, the undulating ground causing Gameknight to bang his head against the cobblestone walls, his head and ears now ringing.
“That was close,” Gameknight whispered, pointing up at the ceiling.
Cracks were now visible on the face of one of the stone blocks overhead. Looking to his friend, he saw that Crafter was now starting to shake. “They hope to hit the sub and sink it. That’s what they’re doing up there . . . blowing up creepers all over the place, hoping to get lucky, and get us.”
“They came close on that last one,” Crafter said, his body still shaking, his eyes filled with terror. “You think they uncovered that block?”
“Not sure, but if they see it, we know where the next creeper will go off.”
Another explosion went off nearby, the ground shaking, more dust falling down to coat their throats and fill their eyes, but not as close as the last. Fear of the next blast overwhelmed the two companions, panic starting to rule their minds. Crafter looked about their little stone room, trying to find a place to run, but there was none. It looked as if the old man wanted to scream, his fright just barely kept in check. Putting an arm on the old NPC’s side, Gameknight tried to reassure Crafter while staying crouched, his dark eyes looking up at the old man. Looking down, Crafter saw the strength in Gameknight’s eyes, the determination that they would get through this, and he started to calm down; his panic abated, for the moment.
More blasts rumbled in the distance, creepers giving up their last breaths in hope of killing the only thing with XP out in the open. The two companions did the only thing they could do right now, they waited and listened in their tiny stone submarine as the destroyers overhead exploded their creeper depth charges randomly across the grassy plain, an unquenchable thirst for their deaths bubbling across the surface of Minecraft. This continued throughout the night, the rumbling of explosions echoing throughout the area. Erebus was driving his mob with a vengeance to find his quarry. Occasionally, they heard explosions close to them, but for the most part, the storm of hatred and malice that raged above had drifted away, their fear finally beginning to ease.
They’d survived.
Gameknight’s legs were getting stiff from crouching all this time to hide his user moniker from the predators above. He wanted to stand and stretch, but didn’t dare. Just then, Crafter pulled out his pick and started digging away at the cracked cobblestone block overhead.
“What are you doing, Crafter?”
“It’s morning.”
“How do you know?” Gameknight asked.
“All NPCs can feel the sunrise; it’s something we learn growing up. We teach all our children how to sense when the sun sets and when the sun rises. If you can’t sense that, then sunset means death if you’re not prepared. I felt the sunrise. It’s time to go.”
Crafter dug quickly through the cobblestone blocks overhead, allowing shafts of sunlight to stream into their hidey-hole, the dust that filled the air creating golden shafts of illumination that would have looked beautiful if they hadn’t just survived the worst night of their lives. Carving out steps from the dirt, he climbed out of their hole, followed by Gameknight. Once out, they were shocked at what they saw. The beautiful grassy plain they had left at sunset was now covered with gigantic craters, the skin of Minecraft torn and gouged by the work of the mobs. The hunt for the pair had been voracious and relentless. As far as they could see, the terrain now resembled the surface of the moon, lifeless and shattered. Blocks of dirt and stone floated everywhere, remnants from the creeper’s work, an occasional flower or clump of grass surprisingly undamaged amidst the destruction, but these were few. Most of the landscape was destroyed by the wave of violence that had crashed over the plain; it was a no-man’s land from “the war to end all wars,” redrawn here, ninety-five years later, in Minecraft.
Gameknight looked to the east and could see the glowing square face of the sun rising over the horizon, its lifesaving presence bathing them with light and warmth.
“Come on, we need to get going,” Crafter said.
Pulling out a piece of melon, Gameknight ate quickly, then gobbled down more until his hunger was sated while Crafter did the same. Drawing his enchanted diamond sword, he started walking, chasing the sun, their destination—the location of the final battle—still tingling in the distance. He hoped that Shawny would have it ready, hoped that he’d be able to get other users to help, or all was lost. But why would any of the users help him, Gameknight999, the king of the griefers? There probably wasn’t a single player on this server who he hadn’t done something to, griefed their home, killed them, taken their inventory . . . Why would they help him, the person who had no friends, only victims? A peculiar sadness swept over him, a feeling that he thought was regret, though he’d never really felt it before. If only he’d been a better friend, a better Mine-craft player, if only . . . There was no time for these thoughts right now. He had to protect this world, protect his world, his family, everyone. Squaring his shoulders, he sprinted ahead; hearing the reassuring footsteps of Crafter at his side. The old man was humming again, but his tune was now starting to sound dissonant and filled with fear. With uncertainty and doubt nipping at their courage, the two lone warriors ran on toward their fate.
CHAPTER 13
FINDING THE ALAMO
T
he two companions ran across the landscape, relentlessly pursued by the daytime monsters of Minecraft. Spiders seemed to be everywhere throughout the land, the gigantic arachnids seeing them and instantly running away, hoping to inform Erebus of their position. Likely they were being used because the zombies were too slow to be of any use for reconnaissance, and the creepers, of course, were easy to detonate, destroying any useful information they may have gleaned. Using his bow, Gameknight was able to kill the spiders from a distance, something that he was very good at. He felt guilty every time he delivered the killing arrow, his skill having been honed at the expense of many a user and NPC. He didn’t share his feelings with Crafter, but Gameknight suspected that he felt his unease; the old NPC was staying conspicuously silent during the long-ranged battles, his humming slow to return.
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