The Shipwreck: An Official Minecraft Novel

by C. B. Lee

  “This could take forever,” Emily groans as Tank puts the finishing touches on their quick shelter.

  “You know, we could always go back for our stuff first before we go solve this clue,” Jake says.

  “Do you think our stuff is still there? I mean, the Wizard could have just destroyed everything,” Tank says.

  “I think so,” Jake says optimistically. “I mean, there’s no harm in looking.”

  “Days and days of walking sounds harmful,” Emily says.

  “We’re going to be spending forever getting to the next clue anyways,” Jake says. “I think going and getting our stuff now would be better than wanting it later and not having it.”

  “That’s true,” Tank says.

  “What about the stuff we had on us before the Wizard killed us?” Emily asks.

  Jake shrugs. “It’s just armor and weapons. We can make more. It’s the nether wart that took forever to get, and we still have those potions back at the base. I’m sure we’re going to need them.”

  He also doesn’t want all that planning and hard work to go to waste.

  Emily and Tank agree to the detour, and when the sun rises they head toward their new goal.

  * * *

  —

  It’s strange how easily they settle into a routine; showing up at the community center, playing for a while and then taking a break to clean. Most of the things are organized now, and every day they bring a box of stuff over to Mrs. Jenkins’s door. Jake’s nervous as the pile grows smaller and smaller. What will happen when they officially finish the service project? They’ll have to give back the gate key and the construction crews would come back and they won’t be able to work on the puzzle anymore. Without the mystery of the riddles, would Emily and Tank still want to play Minecraft with him?

  They made it back to the base in record time; luckily enough, it looked untouched, right down to Tank’s intricate flower spirals decorating the crop fields and Emily’s torch-lit paths to her mines.

  There was also a chest in front of the western entrance containing all of their missing items and a book inscribed with the following:

  Seeing as you’ve discovered this unfinished world and started working on the riddles halfway through

  I have devised a completely new challenge for you.

  There are seven riddles total to find the treasure—you’ve solved two.

  Good luck,

  The Crest Wizard

  “Whoa,” Jake said when they first arrived back at the base. “Look at this.”

  Emily had been surprised, scoffing as she read the book. “Whatever happened to ‘this world is not for you’?”

  “I would be mad, too, if someone just started messing around with my world,” Tank said.

  “I think the Wizard was impressed with how we solved the riddle,” Jake said. “That’s when he teleported us to the beginning, and then we solved the first two riddles. I mean, it must be awfully lonely to make a game and have no one play it, right? That’s why he made a special challenge for us.”

  Jake feels good about this, like winning a soccer game. He feels like they made an impression. The Wizard saw how well they did without any resources, saw their potential, and recognized all the hard work they put into getting this far, too, so he gave them their things back. Since then they’ve been rotating between tasks like building up the base, enchanting weapons, and brewing potions to get ready for the next clue. Once they’ve found enough nether wart for the potions they want, traveling through the Nether is easier without having to navigate the challenges of a fortress. Even Tank feels confident, venturing out toward the map’s location and building shortcuts back to their base through the Nether as they make progress.

  The past few days have been busy, preparing for the challenges to come. Jake isn’t sure what to expect, but after trial and error with brewing potions and a lengthy attempt at a turtle farm to try to make helmets, they’ve finally come up with a system. They’ve created enchanted helmets, a bunch of Potions of Water Breathing for backup, and prepared stacks of ladders that can create pockets of air underwater. He feels ready for anything now—another shipwreck, ocean monuments, elder guardians, anything the Wizard can throw at them. Each day they’ve been getting closer and closer, exploring more of the world and new biomes, badlands and plains and snow-covered mountains, and more.

  Tank appears through a Nether portal. “Okay, the portal shortcut back is officially set up. I was really close to the spot marked on the treasure map, guys. I think this will be it. Once we come back here it would be within a day’s walk.”

  “Thanks,” Jake says. “You ready?”

  “If we see the Wizard and he attacks us again, I’m going to be so prepared,” Emily says, laughing maniacally as she brandishes a brand-new enchanted sword in the hallway of the main room in their base. Her diamond armor glimmers, and she bounces up and down in excitement. “Can’t wait to see what the next riddle is! Do you think it’s going to be another set of coordinates?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I think these are some that the Wizard tailored especially for us. I have no idea what to expect.”

  Jake follows Tank through the portal. The Nether looks as forbidding and dangerous as usual with its glowing red sky, but this area has been warded off with torches, and marked signs point the way to other portals. He smiles proudly at the way they’ve settled into this world and the various biomes for harvesting resources.

  The new portal leads them to open, grassy plains. The map from the second clue shows their destination in clear view. When they log in tomorrow, they should be able to find the next riddle easily.

  “Same time tomorrow?” Emily powers down the computer and grins at him.

  “Absolutely,” Jake says.

  Tank offers his hand to him for a first bump, and Jake taps it with his own before pulling it back and mimicking an explosion. Tank holds his gaze, mischief dancing in his eyes as they both take a step back, the narrow computer lab aisle barely big enough to do this but they make it work. Jake raises his arms and then brings them both down like he’s swinging a pickaxe, and Tank makes clink clink noises and sways back and forth like he’s digging, and then both of them jump up and high five.

  “Nerds,” Emily says, with a soft, fond smile.

  Jake smiles back at her. Next to him, Tank offers his fist to Emily for a tap of her own, which she gently returns, and to Jake’s utter surprise, they both pull their fists back and open their hands, warbling their fingers as they pull back.

  “It’s a jellyfish,” Tank explains.

  Emily rolls her eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She waves cheerfully at the two of them before sweeping out of the computer lab.

  “Tomorrow,” Jake says, like a promise.

  The corner of Tank’s mouth curves up like he’s fighting a smile. He claps Jake on the shoulder, and they walk through the courtyard together before setting off for their own towers.

  Jake waves back at Tank as he disappears into the West Tower’s stairwell.

  The summer afternoon light is warm and golden, and it makes their little run-down apartment center seem almost dreamlike. The glass doors glitter as the sun dips low behind the distant downtown. Inside the chain-link fence surrounding the community center and the empty lot that once held a garden, construction equipment has piled up. Bags and bags of concrete, impossibly large rolls of plaster, steel beams all stacked together.

  It feels startlingly real, and Jake is in shock at how the clock is running out.

  But maybe…

  After today, Jake feels like maybe Tank and Emily would spend time with him after the project is over. They’ve settled into this pattern of hanging out during lunch, one of them bringing food or going out after it.

  Jake’s been waiting this whole time for Dad to get ready to leave, but it’s halfway thr
ough the summer and he hasn’t done any of his restless pattern of hiring new people to take over and looking for the next job.

  Maybe they are going to stay here. Maybe Jake can have friends.

  Something dangerous, like hope, settles in Jake’s chest as he, for the first time, starts to think of Pacific Crest Apartments as home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  TANK

  Tank flattens the last cardboard box and tosses it into the recycling bin. He hums to himself the lilting notes of the melody he’s come to associate with the underwater city and the mermaids, and thinks about how close they are to solving the mystery.

  “You haven’t been answering your phone.”

  Tank whirls around. Shark approaches him. AJ and Gus follow from the path from the courtyard. Gus kicks a stray soda can, watching it clatter to the ground.

  “I told you, I was grounded. I’m busy with the community service.” Tank doesn’t know how to say that hanging out with these guys hasn’t always been fun. Sure, Fortress Park is cool, but only when you have money to spend on tickets and games. They usually end up wandering around the mini golf course, and so much of what Shark likes to do is talk about all the great stuff he’s going to do, the money he’s making with his brother, and how to scare the kids in the neighborhood.

  “I dunno,” Shark says thoughtfully. “Saw you over by Taco National with some kids, including that guy from this building. Thought we agreed, Tank. They’re losers.”

  Shut up, they’re my friends is the first thing that leaps to Tank’s mind, surprising himself. They are his friends; they’ve never laughed at him for the way he likes to play the game, or how he likes to collect flowers and build his mazes and farms. It was Emily’s idea for him to help make the shortcuts back through the Nether, and Jake had gone through with him several times, showing him how to avoid the zombified piglins until Tank felt comfortable going on his own.

  “I—” Tank doesn’t know how to answer. He was annoyed, at first, at having to clean every day, but he’s come to enjoy spending time with Jake and Emily. He doesn’t have to pretend to be someone they think he should be. He can just be himself.

  “Look, you can see them when you’re doing your service thing,” Shark says. “But you should remember that without us, without me to watch your back, you’d be nothing. A nobody.” Shark’s teeth glint menacingly in the morning light. “You want to go back to kids laughing at you and calling you Frankenstein?”

  “No,” Tank admits quietly.

  “Then remember who you are. You’re one of us, and we don’t hang out with losers,” Shark says. “Next time I say we’re hanging out, you’re gonna be there. Okay?”

  A curl of dread starts in Tank’s stomach, and he nods.

  * * *

  —

  “Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Emily asks.

  Tank was sure that his last portal would result in just a short walk to the next clue, but he might have done the math wrong to get coordinates from the Nether to the Overworld. They’re standing in a grassy field, approaching what looks like a massive, thick growth of forest.

  Tank refers to the map in his hand. Sure enough, the red X is ahead of them, and they’re walking right toward it. “I think so,” he says.

  “I thought this would be another underwater clue,” Jake says. “We spent all that time preparing. I just see green.”

  As they approach, it comes into focus: a massive, thick growth of forest expands as far as the eye can see. It’s clearly unnatural—a uniform wall like this would have to have been built deliberately, stacking leaves from trees cut with a Silk Touch axe.

  Tank is standing where the X is. On the map, his marker is right on top of it. Sure enough, there’s an opening in the wall here—almost invisible with the way the other green wall behind it blends in.

  The green hedge walls extend up so high Tank can barely see the sliver of blue sky above.

  “What is this?” Jake asks. “Where do we go now?”

  There’s no sign, no instructions, but it feels incredibly clear to Tank.

  He steps inside.

  “It’s a maze,” Tank says confidently. “I think to find the next clue we have to go through it.”

  “A maze?” Emily says, glancing around nervously. “Just of leaves?” She takes out an axe and slams it directly into the hedge wall.

  Nothing happens.

  “Same mod as in the beginning,” Jake notes. “We can’t break this.”

  “We’ll have to go through. This is the riddle,” Tank says. “Solve the maze.”

  Emily sighs. “Great. Just great.” She stands at the ready with her sword. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

  Tank blinks. “I don’t think this challenge is about fighting anything.”

  “Wait, let’s set a spawn point here just in case,” Jake says, throwing a bed on the ground.

  “Good idea.” Emily follows suit.

  Tank shrugs and does the same, even though he’s sure this will be an easy challenge. After the Wizard attacked them, he was worried that this whole game was going to be player-versus-player style, but solving those first two riddles was actually pretty fun.

  Music starts—a different motif from the haunting melody from the shipwreck. This one is playful but has a twisted air to it, a quick staccato of movement.

  Something inside Tank rises up; he may not be the best fighter or know how to build any complicated things with redstone, but he knows that to solve a puzzle like this all you need is patience.

  He’s always seen it as something to hide away, something people would make fun of, because it’s not normal, to sit down with a tangle of wire and lights and come out with a single strand, but Tank loves the steady quiet of a single task like this.

  “I’ve built a ton of these,” Tank says, surprising himself by speaking. “I love mazes. They only seem complicated, but we can go through it. The easiest way to solve a maze is to make a map.” Tank pulls out a notepad and plops it down next to his keyboard. He starts drawing an outline so he can keep track of which paths they’ve taken.

  The first step is to fill in the blank page.

  Tank makes a quick decision and heads left, following the path until it meets an intersection. He adds the route to the map he’s creating, drawing each dead end and open route he finds.

  “I am so lost,” Jake mutters.

  “We’re not lost at all,” Tank says. “Look, being lost means you don’t know where you’re coming from and you don’t know where you’re going. Where you have nothing to refer to and no way to make a plan. But we are not lost. We know exactly which path leads back out, and one of these is going to lead to the end. And hopefully the next clue.”

  The first outer walls are all made of different leaf materials, variations of oak and birch leaves; as they move inward the hedges burst into a riot of color with lilacs and rose bushes lining the paths. Tank takes a minute to admire the design as he adds a dead end to his map. It’s a little more difficult now that the walls are shorter—he can somewhat see to the other side and where he has to go, but it’s frustrating still trying to figure out the paths.

  Clink.

  “What was that?” Jake asks.

  Emily takes out her sword.

  “It sounds like a skeleton shooting at us,” Tank says. “But that would be impossible because it’s daytime—”

  Tank’s suddenly hit by an arrow.

  “We’re under attack!” Jake shrieks. “They must have been modded. Bows, quickly!”

  “I—hate—these—stupid—bushes!” Emily says, shooting frantically at the skeletons.

  “Let’s hurry up and get out of here!” Jake calls out. “Come on, Tank! Which way do we go?”

  Tank breaks into a run, darting down a new pathway, only to come face-to-face with a group of
skeletons. These are different from any kind he’s seen before, covered in moss with flowers growing in the crevices of the bones.

  He backs up frantically, his heart in his throat.

  “We got you,” Jake says. “You can do this!”

  Tank takes a deep breath and concentrates on his map. This corridor of lilacs had three paths—they’ve already tried one. He quickly calculates that based on what they’ve already explored, the one on the left has nowhere to go.

  “Right!” Tank says, running quickly as he crunches on a loaf of bread.

  Tank takes the lead.

  He ignores the skeletons firing at him and concentrates on what he does best: being patient. He writes down every new path he discovers, doubles back to his last known solid point, and keeps going. Left. Right. Turn. Mark down this intersection. Wait, no, they’ve seen that lilac–rose–azure bluet formation before. Turn around. Go back in order to go forward.

  He keeps moving.

  The next turn, Tank comes face-to-face with a spider. He doesn’t think about it, just slashes at it with his sword, plowing forward.

  More spiders scuttle down the path, and this time, Tank is sure. He’s sure of his map and how the mobs are positioned here—they’re to scare off the adventurers, make them second-guess where they are in the maze. But he knows exactly what he’s doing.

  “This way!” Tank calls out.

  With Emily and Jake at his side, Tank feels like he’s capable of anything.

  An open archway beckons them. Dandelions and peonies grow in soft yellow and pink blooms, and beyond it, an open stretch of sand and the sparkle of water.

  They climb up the sandy knoll. Ahead of them, the ocean glimmers. A single chest stands at the center of the sandy beach.

  Emily opens it and reads the coordinates aloud. “These are super far,” she groans. “Even if we go through the Nether.”

  “We can figure that out,” Jake says. “But first, good job, man. We made it!” Jake exhales in relief.