He woke standing in the middle of a vast, snowy forest. Strangely, he felt no cold. Or was it strange? He could remember nothing. Only his name: Steven. Steve. He could remember almost nothing else. He knew that the bar in the edge of his vision was his hunger bar. He also had a sense that he would need shelter before nightfall.
Wood, he would need wood and a crafting table. Well, he thought, plenty of trees around here. He headed for the nearest one, his feet making soft footsteps on the snow. When he reached the tree, he looked up into the branches. He groaned. He would need an axe to cut this giant thing down. In his frustration, he hit the tree. A small crack appeared in the middle of the block, and disappeared.
Steve jumped. Experimentally, he hit the tree again, and again, a small crack appeared. Yes, he thought, I’ve got it! He hit the tree once, twice, thrice, and kept hitting as the crack branched out across the block. When the crack reached the edge, the block broke, shrinking to the size of Steve’s fist. It fell to the ground, disappeared, and reappeared in his hand.
Finishing off the tree was easy, and he soon had 14 blocks of spruce wood. Let’s see, he said to himself, I need to somehow convert this into planks. Trying to think, Steve closed his eyes. He instantly opened them, surprised at what he had seen. Almost immediately after his eyes closed, a wall sprang up in his mind.
In the top, left-hand corner, there was a cubby with the image of a strange looking head. Right below it, there was a cubby with a picture of a chest plate, below that, pants, and below that, boots. Directly to the right of that column, there was a black space with a representation of Steve himself inside if it, in the same position he was standing. To the right of that, there was a 2x2 set of cubbies with an arrow pointing to the right, towards a separate cubby. Below all of this, there was a large set of cubbies, three up and nine across. On the very bottom there was a row on nine cubbies. The cubby on the very bottom left had fourteen spruce logs in it.
Excited, Steve closed his eyes again. The wall reappeared. Whoa… that is cool, thought Steve. The 2x2 group had a word above it that he hadn’t seen the first time. The word said crafting. Steve was exuberant! Mentally reaching out, Steve grabbed the logs and placed one in one of the cubbies under the word. Four spruce plank blocks appeared in the cubby the arrow was pointing to. When he put the logs into one of the cubbies in the 3x9 group and grabbed the planks, the first log disappeared and he held the planks. He had succeeded!
From there on making a crafting table was simple. He only had to fill all four cubbies with planks, and a crafting table was ready for him. Crafting recipes flooded his brain and he laughed. He was ready to build a shelter, weapons, tools, and much, much more.
Chapter Two: Of Creepers and Spiders
In his chest, he had 22 coal, 57 cobblestone, 19 spruce logs, two stacks of spruce planks, 47 torches, one stone sword, a full set of stone tools, a partly used wooden axe and pick, 6 cooked pork chops, 13 seeds, 15 spruce saplings, 23 dirt, 6 gravel and 2 flint. His spruce wood house was a fair size, with one door and no windows. His well lit mine’s entrance was inside his house. He had a crafting table, a furnace and a double chest.
Steve thought he was pretty well off. It was almost dark when he had finished mining and he felt that he would be well protected against whatever spawned at night. Nothing would come out of his mine, he had made sure of that. All in all, he thought that it would be an uneventful night.
A short hiss from his roof made him jump. He heard the scrabbling of legs and a giant spider dropped in front of his door. Luckily, it was outside. Steve opened his chest and retrieved his sword. As he closed the chest, a zombie groaned outside and began beating on his door.
Steve opened the door and closed it as soon as the zombie was inside. It came for him and he sliced at it with his sword. It flew back against the wall and came back at him. He hit it again and kept attacking. The zombie managed to hit him once before it fell dead, its body sinking through the ground, leaving behind only a piece of rotten flesh, which popped into his inventory.
Another hiss came from outside. The spider was trying to find a way inside. Steve peered out of his door. As he did, a green, reptilian quadruped walked by his door. The creeper turned its head to look at him. It let out a long hiss, expanding to twice its previous width and exploded with a loud boom.
Steve was flung against his back wall as the front was blown to smithereens. He heard the spider let out a dying hiss as his health dropped to half a heart. An arrow lodged itself in the wall by Steve’s head and a skeleton clanked nearby. Two zombies were headed in his direction and another spider was coming around the house to the front. As Steve slumped to the ground with an arrow in his neck, his last thought was how did the creeper see me through the door?
It was nighttime as Steve opened his eyes back where he had woken that morning. Sensing his presence, monsters stirred nearby. To his right, his house stood with his sword lying on the ground.
Steve looked around and saw a zombie headed towards him. He dug a hole three blocks deep beneath himself and blocked the top with a piece of dirt. He heard the zombie groaning above him and a skeleton’s bones clacking. Then he heard a sound that made his heart sink. It was a hiss. This time the explosion killed Steve instantly.
Steve died three more times before he finally managed to make a tall column of dirt and surround the top with more dirt. Creepers exploded below and spiders tried to climb up, but Steve remained unharmed.
When morning finally came, he’d heard enough explosions to last him his entire life. He mined the dirt and went straight to his house. He was going to have to make it creeper proof if he didn’t want to die multiple times every night. He had a lot of work ahead of him.
Chapter Three: Something's Up
Yes, coal! Steve started mining the new vein of coal. During this mining trip, he’d found only one other vein. Iron had been plentiful and he now had twenty-nine iron ore in his inventory. The first coal vein had surrendered twelve coal lumps. This latest one gave him twenty. As he continued mining, he heard a bubbling sound, like water boiling in slow motion.
As Steve broke another stone block, light flooded his mine from the hole he had just created. He looked through and saw the source of the noise he had heard. A pool of lava bubbled in a small cave. Half of the pool was covered with water, creating obsidian underneath. Steve decided that having a bucket or two of lava wouldn’t hurt, and might prove useful against the monsters.
Setting down his crafting table, he looked around for monsters. The lava seemed to light the entire cave, so he brought out some cobblestone. When he filled all the spaces in the table except the middle and tapped the side with his foot, a pop sounded and a puff of smoke obscured the cobble. When the smoke cleared, a small furnace hovered a few pixels above the table. Steve walked forward and picked it up. After placing it next to the crafting table, he filled the bed with coals and put six iron ore on the grill above it.
One of the coal lumps burst into flame and soon there were six iron ingots on top of the furnace. Steve put two in the bottom middle slot of the table, two in the middle right slot, and two in the middle left. He tapped the table and filled the resulting buckets with lava. Satisfied, he removed the coal from the furnace and used his pick to break it. Taking the crafting table, he returned to his mine.
As he began to mine the next block he realized that the lava was in his way. Shrugging, he turned left and hit the stone in front of him. On the other side of the cave, there was an explosion, and the wall blew to pieces. Two zombies, a skeleton, and a spider charged him.
The spider reached him first, but by that time he had his iron sword drawn. He struck the spider across the eyes and sent it flying back a few blocks. As he did, an arrow flew towards him. Steve knew there was no way he could avoid it, so he braced himself for the pain.
It never came. The spider, flying back through the air, intercepted the arrow. Enraged, it charged the skeleton, which was fitting another arrow in its bow. The spider bit the skeleton’s face and sent it stumbling into the lava. It apparently was not very smart, because it followed, flying at the skeleton.
All this happened in a few seconds, and by that time, the zombie had reached Steve. Steve sliced it twice across the stomach and leaped after it. While he was in mid-air, he struck the zombie across the face. This blow killed the zombie, but Steve landed in the lava. No, no! Steve screamed in agony and lunged out of the lava. He dove for the water and sighed when he submerged.
His health bar blinked back to full as the pain in his legs faded. He got out of the water and patched the hole in the wall with two layers of cobblestone. He decided that he had enough materials for the moment and headed back up his mine. Halfway up, he saw a block of coal ore that he had missed on the way down. That’s good, I can always use more coal. The coal vein totaled thirty-two coal lumps, and behind the coal, there were three iron ore.
Steve placed the furnace that he had crafted by the lava next to his other two. He filled the bed of the furnaces with coal. He then filled the furnaces with cobblestone, retrieved his axe, and set off towards a grove of spruce trees.
He soon cut all the trees down and went back to his furnaces. He put the wood in a chest and grabbed a few stacks of stone. He was going to remake his home. He had already crafted an iron door, a stone button, and a stone pressure plate.
Steve had already mostly taken down his old wooden house and was making a new one, two stone blocks thick. The floor was done, and the walls were already two blocks high. Using a dirt block as a step, Steve got on top of his wall and began building his house.
When he had placed the last block of stone, Steve lit the interior of his new home. With that done, he placed his door. On the inside if the door, he placed the pressure plate and the button on the outside.
Steve stepped back and looked at his new house. Made completely of stone, it was two blocks thick in all areas. The interior was 9x9 with one block of headroom for comfort. The Exterior was ugly. He decided that he’d have to make it look more natural at some point.
Windows. Steve wanted some way to see outside during the night. Glass wouldn’t do, so it would have to be iron bars. Ugh. It’ll look like a prison, but it’ll be functional. Wait, what’s a prison? Where did I get that word? He decided not to think about it too much.
Steve removed everything from the furnaces and mined them. He then crafted sixteen iron bars and broke his chests. His inventory just managed to fit everything. As he jogged over to his house, he noticed it was getting dark. I’ll have to make a bed at some point, but tonight, I’ll be safe and sound in my home.
Steve put his iron bars in convenient places around the house and placed his chest. He then crafted a full set of iron armor and a sword. That left three iron with which he crafted an iron sword and some flint and steel. Then he waited for the first monsters to appear.
A zombie moaned outside and peered in through the iron bars. A skeleton made its way around his house seeking an entrance. The zombie walked around to Steve’s door and turned away. As Steve looked out his window, he saw the zombie walking towards the trees where at least sixty more zombies appeared to be forming military style ranks.
From behind the zombies, two creepers made their way forward. One of them stopped about ten blocks away from Steve’s house. The other one approached the wall. It looked back at the zombies as if waiting for a signal, then back at Steve.
The creeper exploded, taking the outer part of Steve’s house with it. The other creeper then walked forward. Steve knew what was about to happen and was already running for his door. By the time the creeper exploded, Steve was running out the door.
The instant the wall was open, the zombies charged. Arrows flew out of the woods at Steve, but they all fell short. The zombies were still moaning their battle cry as they charged through the house and after Steve. Steve was sprinting for the woods on the other side of his clearing and was scared out of his wits. Creepers don’t act that way. They just don’t. Neither do zombies for that matter. There’s something messing with them, making them act unnaturally.
Steve made it into the woods and raced through the trees as fast as he could. He didn’t look back, but he could hear the zombies running after him. The trees seemed to be his enemies, concealing creepers or zombies. They were getting thick, forcing Steve to go slower.
Still his pursuers came after him. A unit of six zombies emerged from behind the trees. Steve skidded to a stop. He had to fight them, but he didn’t want to let the others catch up. He drew his sword and began to attack. Then he stopped.
He could light them on fire! Steve whipped out his flint and steel and quickly lit a line of fire across the path he had taken. Then he kept running. He reached a plains biome and saw the moon overhead. He kept running. As he ran, his hunger bar steadily dropped. He would have to eat soon.
Pain exploded suddenly on his back as an arrow lodged itself in his body. He stumbled, and the zombies engulfed him. He swung out wildly with his sword as more and more zombies flooded into the field. Steve ran back to the woods, lighting fires as he ran, but he never made it. The zombies knocked him to the ground and everything faded.
---
Steve respawned in the creeper hole near his house. Instantly, arrows poured into the hole and he was pelted with the missiles. Steve had had enough of this. He leapt out of the hole and began punching one of the skeletons as hard as he could. The skeleton went down, leaving a pile of bones, arrows, and its bow. Steve picked the bow up and loaded an arrow. He was shot by multiple skeletons at once and went down .
Steve respawned before the skeletons had time to reload. He instantly picked up the bow and shot at the skeletons. He took one down and retrieved its arrows. Shooting at another skeleton, he ducked behind a tree. From here, he kept them back long enough to dig up some dirt and jump his way into a tree. He got to the top and destroyed the block of leaves above the wood and sniped the skeletons from there.
Morning was slow in coming, but when it finally did, the skeletons started burning. Steve waited for the last one to burn up before he dropped to the ground and collected the drops. He combined three bows in his inventory to make a new on with almost no use on it.
Steve ran through the woods and to the plains. His gear was lying out in the sun and he collected it immediately. After donning his armor, he collected the drops the zombies had left. He found a bunch of potatoes, carrots, and stone shovels.
Looking around to make sure there were no survivors, Steve saw that this would make a nice place for a house. My house! He rushed back to his stone house and saw with relief that the creepers had not blown up his chest. He wondered how he could create a creeper proof house if it had only taken two to get through this one.
Then he remembered his mining trip the day before. The creeper had blown a hole on the wall near the obsidian. Yet the obsidian had remained unaffected. He wondered if obsidian could be destroyed. He knew how to make it. It would be dangerous, but it just might work.
Chapter Four: Diamonds!
Steve respawned and ran to his house. Collecting his drops, he surveyed his progress. A one block deep, 5x5 hole in the ground was mostly filled with lava with only a few spots where the lava still flowed. His plan had been to make an obsidian house.
It had been harder than he had thought it would be. He had assumed that he could make an infinite lava source by making a 2x2 hole in the ground and filling it with lava. He was wrong. When he had done this, the lava merely flowed into the space, not filling it. He had had to make more buckets and many trips to the lava cave in his old mine.
Steve dumped more lava in the hole to make lava stop flowing. When it was ready, he poured water on the lava, turning it into obsidian. So far, everything was going well. Before he could start on the walls, he’d need more lava. Time to go back down the mine.
Steve collected all the buckets he had and ran over to his mine. He ate a pork chop and hurried down his mine. When he reached the cave, he filled his hot bar with buckets and a sword. As he approached the lava, he heard clanking on the other side of the cobblestone wall. I’ll have to be quick about this he thought. He filled his buckets and was heading for his mine shaft when the creepers exploded. The wall was blown to pieces and a spider ran at Steve.
Now an expert monster fighter, Steve held his ground. The spider leapt at him and he jumped aside, slicing its belly as he did. It turned and jumped at him again. Steve stabbed it and jumped back. The spider charged him and he swung at the air where he thought it would jump.
It didn’t. The spider was more wary this time and slid under the blow. It bit Steve in the leg and he yelped. He swung his sword at the spider again and this blow killed it. Steve collected the string and spider eye and patched the hole.
Steve made his way back up his mine and went towards his unfinished house. He looked at the sky and decided it was about noon. He’d have to try to find some sheep at some point to make a bed. Right now, he had to finish his house.
--- Steve stood back and looked at his home. It wasn’t very pretty, but it was functional. The inside was well lit with torches and he had a block of headroom. There was an iron door, which was the weak point, controlled by buttons and a pressure plate. His chest was on the side farthest from the door, as were his crafting table and furnaces.
The sun’s last rays were disappearing over the horizon as Steve entered his abode. It seemed dark inside, but Steve knew that no monsters would spawn. He would just have to protect the door.
Steve waited for the attack. He then had an idea. After taking a stack of stone out of the furnace, he positioned himself in a spot where a skeleton could not shoot him, yet he still had a clear path to the door. Steve heard an explosion, but it came from a long way off. The monsters must not have known that he had made a house in an entirely different biome.
A single zombie made its way past Steve’s door. It saw him and ran off into the woods. A few minutes later, the rest of the monsters came out of the woods. The attack was about to begin.
A creeper walked up to his house and exploded. It was not near the door. Another creeper walked over to the same spot and exploded. More creepers went to that spot, one by one, and exploded. The wall held. This continued halfway through the night, and Steve had relaxed some. Not enough to miss the creeper coming up to his door though. He readied his stone.
The creeper exploded and the door was destroyed. Instantly, Steve placed a block of stone in the hole that the creeper had created. He placed another block of stone and sealed the entrance. Another creeper exploded. The stone gave way. Steve quickly sealed the door again.
This went on for a while. Finally, the creepers stopped exploding. Steve peeked out of his door. The monsters were at the edge of the woods, watching. Watching what? He found out a moment later. There was a strange buzzing sound, and a tall, black creature teleported into his house.
The creature was three blocks tall, had leathery, black skin and purple eyes. Its mouth was open and it was making a loud, angry sound that made Steve cringe. The creature had long arms and legs and it held a block of grass. A name popped into Steve’s head: Enderman.
The Enderman attacked Steve who ducked for cover. He swung out with his sword, and the Enderman teleported away. It came back a moment later and hit Steve. Hard. Steve cried out in pain and sliced at the Enderman. It hit him again and he stabbed it twice. He dodged its next attack and hit it again. It teleported away, and Steve began to regenerate. The Enderman teleported into Steve’s house and Steve sliced its face.
The Enderman screamed “aaahhhhhhhhh!” and dissipated into dust, leaving behind a green pearl. Steve just had time to pick it up before a creeper exploded outside his door. Steve blocked the hole with stone and then covered the inside of the roof with stone to prevent any more Endermen from teleporting in. Another explosion. Steve sighed and went back to his task of sealing the doorway.
When morning finally came, Steve was exhausted. The creepers did not burn in the daylight, but they ran off when the other monsters did. Steve was glad he had stayed alive the whole night. It was a first for him. He decided to start a new mine.
Steve picked a spot right next to his house and started digging. He quickly reached stone and pulled out his pick. He mined down. He hit coal very quickly and got 17. He mined a few more blocks and found more coal, this time 26. After that he mined through solid stone for quite a while and then hit iron. He collected 7 iron and kept mining. He mined through three more blocks of stone and found some lapis lazuli. Further on in his trip, he found Redstone and gold.
Steve mined another block and saw a blue ore behind it. Must be more lapis. He noticed his hunger bar getting low. Taking his cooked pork out of his inventory, he looked at the ore more closely. It was lighter than the lapis lazuli had been and shinier as well. He gasped. DIAMOND!
He had found diamond. He made sure he was using his highest quality pick, and then he began to mine the diamond. He got five diamonds in all, enough to make a sword and a pickaxe.
Steve placed a torch to light the area up before heading back up his mine. He was not going to risk losing this diamond right after he got it. As he ran up his mineshaft, he decided that he would make a clock, a diamond sword, and a diamond pick.
When he reached the entrance to his mine, he looked around. No monsters were out. He could easily have dealt with them, but he didn’t want to risk it. Steve entered his home and crafted his tools. He put what he did not need into the chest and crafted a set of shears. He was going to look for some sheep so that he could finally get a good night’s sleep.
Chapter Five: Acquiring Horses
Steve pulled out his newly crafted diamond sword and struck at the creeper. It hissed at him, and he backed away. The creeper came back at him and he hit it again, this time following quickly with another blow. The creeper let out a dying hiss and sank through the ground, leaving behind a small pile of sulfur. Steve collected it and moved on.
He had killed five creepers so far, and gotten seven piles of sulfur. He looked around for more monsters, but none showed themselves. Sighing, Steve looked at the sky and decided to head back home. He had crafted a clock and made two more blocks of obsidian, which he had then mined and put in his hot bar. He had then set out to find some sheep, but instead, he ran into a creeper. He had quickly dispatched it and collected its sulfur.
On his way home, Steve passed a small pond and dug some sand. He ran the rest of the way home. When he arrived, he crafted one block of TNT. He then went outside and dug a hole two blocks deep in a spot near the woods. After placing the TNT block in the bottom of the hole, he put the dirt back on and set a pressure plate on top.
Steve returned to his house and blocked the entrance with obsidian. Then, he waited. His clock said that the sun had set when he heard the first creeper. He smiled. Nothing could get him while he was in here.
When darkness came, Endermen teleported around his house, but there was no room inside. Steve decided to have a little fun. He mined one block of stone from the roof. Instantly, an Enderman teleported into the three-block space and tried to hit Steve. Steve sliced at it and it teleported away, replaced immediately by another one. Steve sliced it and it teleported off.
This continued far into the night. Eventually, Steve started killing the Endermen and collecting their pearls. He ate when he was hungry, and slaughtered Endermen when he wanted entertainment. He crafted a wooden sword to spare his diamond one.
About the time that his clock showed that it was morning, the Endermen stopped coming. Steve took out his diamond pick and mined the top block of obsidian. Light streamed in from outside. He mined the bottom block and stepped outside.
It was a beautiful day, as always, and Steve decided to find more food. No animals were in sight. He looked over the grassy plains and wondered how he could find food. Then it hit him. He was standing in the middle of a giant food source! The grass could give him seeds to grow wheat with, which he could craft into bread to fill his hunger bar.
He instantly began mowing down the grass with his hands and collecting the seeds. When he had 32, he took out his iron hoe and made a farm. Taking his bucket, Steve ran to the lake and filled two buckets. Soon, he had a farm growing.
He looked at his clock. Sheep. He would have to find sheep. He set out to the North. He found the end of the plains rather quickly and came to a desert. Cacti were scattered across the vast plain of sand.
A little way off, there was what appeared to be a hole in the sand. Steve went over to investigate, and saw that it was a dungeon. A zombie spawner was in the center of the room and there were two chests.
A zombie spawned and instantly began burning. That was when Steve saw all drops scattered on the floor. He leapt into the dungeon, drawing his diamond sword as he did so. He quickly dispatched the zombie and mined the spawner. Then, he opened the chest.
Inside, he found some bread, a few iron ingots and some iron horse armor, and a golden apple. In the other chest, he found a saddle, some apples, a few more ingots and some bread.
Steve took the chests and some mossy cobblestone. He then climbed out of the dungeon. Cacti might not be a bad idea, Steve thought. I might as well get some. He took a few cacti and some sand, and then left the desert.
On his way across the plains, he collected more seeds and filled his buckets with water. He could not find any sheep of other signs of life until he saw the pigs. There was a small group of pigs wandering near the edge of a forest of oak trees. He decided to kill all but two of them.
Steve approached the pigs. Drawing his diamond sword, he picked out his first target, a pig near the edge of the group. As he was about to strike, he heard a hiss. He dove to the side as a creeper exploded, leaving a gaping hole in the ground and launching Steve into the air.
As he landed, he saw another creeper exiting the forest. He expected it to come towards him, but it didn’t. Instead, it made its way into the center of the group of pigs, hissed and exploded, killing most of the pigs. There were two pigs left and Steve looked around anxiously for any more creepers.
A groan sounded behind him, and a zombie wearing a leather helmet and holding an iron shovel charged at him. Steve directed his attention at the zombie, who backed away when he saw Steve’s sword.
He yelled and leapt at the zombie. It turned and ran for its life, and Steve gave chase. The zombie made a sharp right and Steve followed. He was gaining rapidly and was raising his sword when he heard the creeper explode behind him.
The zombie stopped and charged at Steve. It had been a diversion and now its job was done. Steve killed it quickly and collected the shovel. Then, he went back to where the pigs had been. There was raw pork scattered all over the place, and Steve collected it.
He then set off back through the field. As he came over a hill, he saw a herd of about seven horses. One of the horses, a beautiful pure white one, looked over at Steve. That one. That is the one I want. Steve cautiously approached the horse. He mounted it and it bucked him off. Unperturbed, Steve tried again. And he tried again. At last, Steve tamed the horse. He put the armor onto the horse and strapped on the saddle. Then, he galloped off over the plains.
Steve arrived home about an hour before darkness settled over the land. He tried to ride through the door, but the horse was too wide. Steve mined two more blocks of obsidian and rode the horse through. He placed the last blocks of obsidian and waited for night to fall.
Chapter Six: Unease
Steve survived the night without much incident. It was a little crowded in the house with the horse in there as well, but it was not much of a problem. The only problem had been when he had tried to mount the horse while still in the house. He had immediately started taking damage and quickly dismounted, almost landing outside the house. As he regenerated, Steve made a mental note not to ride indoors.
After exiting the house and dispatching the lone creeper that remained outside, he headed back to his mine. Not much occurred, but he found eight more iron and some coal, as well as three diamonds. He refilled his buckets with lava and water and headed back up his mineshaft.
Mounting his horse, Steve rode out into the desert. He stopped once to mine some sand and some cacti. He reached the end of the desert before noon and found himself in another plains biome with a village. He entered the village and found it deserted. The blacksmith had a hole where the chest should have been and there were no doors to be seen anywhere. The place had obviously been raided by zombies and a creeper. Disappointed, Steve left the ghost town.
He rode on and came to a swamp. He wanted to explore more, but it was already past noon and he needed to be heading home. As he rode away, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had come close to something discovering important. He heard zombies spawning in the houses of the village as he rode through, but knew that none would dare go out until the sun had set.
He reached home before the sun had set and led his horse into the house. He tended to his garden, closed up his house and waited for the first creeper or Enderman. He didn’t have to wait long for the creepers. They exploded all around his house. It even sounded like some were burrowing under. To his surprise, no Endermen came into his house, though he heard plenty teleporting around outside. Steve had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Then he realized that his hunger bar was low. That explains it, he thought.
But even after he ate, he still felt that something was wrong, and he feared what the morrow would bring.
Chapter Seven: The Breaking Point
It was morning. Or so the clock on Steve’s wall said. Outside, the sounds of monsters were still audible. The sounds were not all around the house, only under the house and to one side a little ways off. Curious, Steve mined a block of obsidian and peered through the hole. He did not like what he saw. Replacing the block, he mined his usual exit on the other side. And almost fell into a pit.
Steve instinctively crouched to avoid falling over the edge and barely saved himself. Surrounding the house was a ditch a few creeper blasts deep and two blasts wide. Judging from the sounds the night before, creepers had blown a ring around his house and probably burrowed under as well. That would explain the monster sounds beneath the house.
The pit was a minor inconvenience – he easily bridged the gap with dirt – but what he saw over by the woods worried him. Three blocks above the ground, a roof was partially constructed out of dirt, stretching towards the house and keeping a congregation of skeletons safe from the burning sun. That’s why no Endermen teleported into my house last night, Steve realized, they were busy building a roof!
Steve quickly realized the ingenuity of the plan. He could not easily destroy the roof because of the skeletons underneath. If he got close, they would shoot him. He could try shooting them with his own bow, but it was dark enough under there that more would spawn as he killed them. That would take most of the day, and when he finished, he would have to go back in. Maybe…
Steve equipped his bow and jogged to one side of the roof. He pulled back the bow, aimed, and fired. Before the skeleton could respond, Steve ran around to the other side of the roof. He hoped that the skeleton he had hit would try to fire at him from behind his buddies and hit one of them, starting a civil war so to speak. No such luck. The skeleton pushed through the crowd until he had a clear shot at Steve and waited. Too smart… thought Steve. I’ll have to find another way. I have about five days before the roof reaches my house. A week at most.
Not sure what to do, Steve decided to revisit the swamp. He felt that the place had some significance. He first went to his mine and stayed down there until he found enough diamonds for a full set of armor. Luckily, he found three veins very close to each other, two containing four diamonds, and one with five. After a little more mining he found two containing three diamonds and another with four. He could not believe his luck.
When he got back to his house, it was evening and he closed himself in. While the sounds of monsters came from outside and more creepers widened and deepened the hole, he crafted his armor. He liked the look of the full armor bar over his health. The night was just like the one before and the hole twice as big when he came back out.
As he started on his stepped off his makeshift bridge, the sky flashed black and he heard a sound like thunder rumbling in the distance. Steve staggered and dropped to his knees as his hearts changed in appearance, a line running through the usual solid red, and he felt something break within himself. He somehow knew that if he died, he would not respawn. He would simply stay dead.
Shaking, Steve got to his feet. His life had just become so much more valuable. He wanted to hide in his house and never come out. He saw new dangers everywhere – the small drop over by the woods became a cliff in his eyes. The cacti in the desert became malicious fiends, bent on his destruction. He almost broke right there.
Then he looked up and saw the sun. It gave him new strength and he straightened. He would not give up and leave the world. He would not die. He felt a surge of anger at the being messing with his life, directing the monsters, trying to destroy him. He knew now that his hunch had been right. There was something hiding out in the swamp. The thing or person who was responsible for all of this. Steve would find whoever or whatever it was and he would destroy it, not let it destroy him. “I’m coming for you,” Steve muttered. “Whoever of whatever you are, I’m coming for you. You’re going down.”
Chapter Eight: Showdown
BOOM! And explosion rocked the pillar of dirt Steve was standing on and he heard the sound of his horse taking damage. It was the middle of the night, yet he was still only in the desert. During the day, monsters had been making suicidal raiding parties to hinder his journey. It worked, but it also made Steve even more certain that he was going the right way.
Another explosion rocked Steve on his perch. “Get away!” He shouted at the monsters. “Leave my horse alone! Come after me!” They ignored him and he listened to a final explosion and his horse’s dying neigh. Well, thought Steve, this journey just got much harder. The monsters were now targeting him. He sighed, knowing they could not reach him but not looking forward to another night of explosions.
Morning came, and with it, the sun so deadly to the undead monsters. Steve came back down and continued his journey on foot, thinking sadly of his lost horse. Luckily, no monsters attacked him that day and he reached the village. After spending the night in the church, Steve resumed his journey. Another day passed before he reached the edge of the swamp.
Another night of explosions was spent on a dirt pillar. Morning came and Steve plunged into the swamp. It was not a pleasant biome. Dark, dreary and smelly, the swamp was riddled with lakes full of murky water. All of the ground was wet and vines hung from the trees. Steve shuddered. There was an air of something he could not identify.
It feels like I’m being watched he thought as he trudged over the soggy ground. Something not very friendly is watching me. It’s going to spring out at me and kill me. It could be behind any of these- Steve stopped. He realized that something was influencing his thoughts. No. Not his thoughts. He could still think clearly, but something was trying to impose emotions on him. Trying to make him afraid. As soon as he realized this, the urge to panic became easier to resist, as if recognizing the weapon made it easier to defeat.
As the sun reached the top of its ascent and began to sink, Steve saw it. It was a hut, sitting in the middle of the swamp. It was set on four posts of logs, with spruce walls and a small porch. Steve cautiously approached it, taking note of the mushroom in a pot on the windowsill.
The hut was empty. He was about to leave when he noticed a hole in the corner. Peering down, he saw water at the bottom. He dropped down and looked around. He was at the beginning of a long passageway that turned left after about twenty blocks. He followed the passage and found himself at the entrance to a huge cave that looked like it was made by creeper explosions. In the center, there was a small stone structure.
Steve knew that this was the end of his journey. He boldly walked up to the structure and raised his pick to break in. At that moment, and arrow landed beside him with a thud. And another. Suddenly, there was a storm of arrows, most missing Steve, but a few hitting him. He quickly broke open the stone and barged in.
Sitting on the floor in the middle of the room was a bald woman clad in purple. She had her back turned to Steve, but when she noticed his approach, she stiffened. “What is it?” she asked. Steve made no reply. “Well, what is it?” she asked while turning around. Then she saw Steve. “You,” she said. “Me.”
She got to her feet, donning a pointy black hat with a green symbol on the front. Steve recognized her as a witch. “You actually had the nerve to come here after I destroyed the spawner? I honestly wasn’t expecting you.” Steve looked at her and asked “Are you the one who has been trying to kill me?” She looked surprised. “Me? No!” Steve relaxed. “I was the one controlling the monsters who attacked you though.” Steve drew his sword. “I’m going to kill you.” She looked vaguely amused. “Really? How? No blade can hurt me. Nor arrows. I can hurt you though.” She took out a green globe of glass. “Let’s start with the poison, shall we?”
Steve rolled jumped out of the way right as she threw the sphere at him. It hit the ground and shattered, leaving a pool of green liquid that quickly seeped into the dirt floor. Before she could attack again, Steve made his move, swinging his sword at the witch’s neck. She made do move to avoid it and it struck her right below the chin. The sword rebounded off of her, the diamond taking a massive amount of damage.
She laughed and threw a red potion at Steve. This one hit him and he lost three hearts. He decided to change tactics. He backed off into the far corner and waited for her to throw another potion. She did, but this time he caught it and threw it back. It hit her and she took damage. “How?” She asked and then began throwing more powerful potions. He was hit by a poison one and caught another of the same kind. He threw it back and grabbed an instant damage. She dodged the poison, but the damage hit her and she was hurt again.
He grabbed the next potion that she threw and returned the throw. The potion seemed to have no effect. He ran outside and she followed, eager to destroy him. He tripped and fell a couple of blocks, taking minimal damage thanks to his armor. The mobs seemed to have all disappeared. She jumped after him and also took damage.
“How?” She asked again. He took the opportunity and leapt at her with his sword. She again made no move to dodge it, but this time she took a little damage. Steve’s health was getting low due to the poison potion, and he did not want to give the witch another opportunity to attack. He swung as quickly as he could and hit her again and again. She ran and he gave chase.
He quickly fell behind. Stopping, he drew his bow and fitted an arrow to the string. Taking in her speed and direction, he aimed his bow and fired. The arrow flew through the air in a graceful arc and struck the witch on the head. She collapsed and Steve ran up to her. He knew that one more strike would kill her. “This,” he said, “this is for my first home, my horse, my farm, and all the times you had the monsters kill me. This is for the life you took from me. I will live in fear of death forever now thanks to you. At least you won’t respawn.” He stuck.
---
Steve lived in his mansion of quartz for many years. He then built a castle and began work on a town. After finishing a neighborhood, Steve went to the bed he wished he had before. As he sat down on the bed he remembered his obsidian house. He hoped never to see it again. He didn’t want the memories of those sleepless nights. He wanted quiet and peace. And rest. He lay down on the bed and spoke into the darkness around him. “Good night me.” And he drifted into dreams.
Just a suggestion, I'd recommend you keep all the chapters on one post and continually edit that post until you run out of room. Only then should you move on to the next post. if you'd like to write a post saying that you've added another chapter, go ahead, but don't include the other chapter in it. If your story get's really long this will make it incredibly difficult to locate all of the individual pieces. Good luck with you r story.
Feel free to leave your comments. Or criticisms, I suppose, if they're constructive. Almost anything really, unless it's an outright threat. In that case I'd prefer you put it in a private message.
I'm changing my every Thursday thing to every other Thursday (Hopefully.)
I've hardly started working on the next chapter...As somebody (I don't remember who) said: Pretty soon, I'm going to have a page full of my comments!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sucking at something is the first step to becoming sort of good at that thing.
Technically (which is to say in regard to sentence structure, imagery, speech etc), this story ranges from proficient to good at varying points along its length.
This is probably because the story has been written sporadically over a year. I've drastically improved in both my vocabulary (I know a plethera of words), and my writing skills have also improved. Sometimes I wrote when I felt like I had to, (when I was doing a chapter a week,) and the sixth chapter was the first one after a year.
I'm writing another story now, and it's going to be longer and have much better descriptions and such... I'll definitely remember to use B.
I think I know what your talking about in chapter two. I mostly described his chest inventory to fill space... That doesn't work so well. I guess it's better to have a short interesting chapter than a long boring one.
...it was an enjoyable enough read, good shot, needs work, would read another story by the same author, practice makes perfect, story did not disgorge bobcat, did not cause blindness in >50% of test subjects, avoid hot and spicy foods for ten hours ater reading story, do not read if pregnant, consult your doctor before reading siege of monsters if you take medication on a daily or twice-daily basis
whoa dude... impressive.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sucking at something is the first step to becoming sort of good at that thing.
Chapter One: Taking Inventory
Wood, he would need wood and a crafting table. Well, he thought, plenty of trees around here. He headed for the nearest one, his feet making soft footsteps on the snow. When he reached the tree, he looked up into the branches. He groaned. He would need an axe to cut this giant thing down. In his frustration, he hit the tree. A small crack appeared in the middle of the block, and disappeared.
Steve jumped. Experimentally, he hit the tree again, and again, a small crack appeared. Yes, he thought, I’ve got it! He hit the tree once, twice, thrice, and kept hitting as the crack branched out across the block. When the crack reached the edge, the block broke, shrinking to the size of Steve’s fist. It fell to the ground, disappeared, and reappeared in his hand.
Finishing off the tree was easy, and he soon had 14 blocks of spruce wood. Let’s see, he said to himself, I need to somehow convert this into planks. Trying to think, Steve closed his eyes. He instantly opened them, surprised at what he had seen. Almost immediately after his eyes closed, a wall sprang up in his mind.
In the top, left-hand corner, there was a cubby with the image of a strange looking head. Right below it, there was a cubby with a picture of a chest plate, below that, pants, and below that, boots. Directly to the right of that column, there was a black space with a representation of Steve himself inside if it, in the same position he was standing. To the right of that, there was a 2x2 set of cubbies with an arrow pointing to the right, towards a separate cubby. Below all of this, there was a large set of cubbies, three up and nine across. On the very bottom there was a row on nine cubbies. The cubby on the very bottom left had fourteen spruce logs in it.
Excited, Steve closed his eyes again. The wall reappeared. Whoa… that is cool, thought Steve. The 2x2 group had a word above it that he hadn’t seen the first time. The word said crafting. Steve was exuberant! Mentally reaching out, Steve grabbed the logs and placed one in one of the cubbies under the word. Four spruce plank blocks appeared in the cubby the arrow was pointing to. When he put the logs into one of the cubbies in the 3x9 group and grabbed the planks, the first log disappeared and he held the planks. He had succeeded!
From there on making a crafting table was simple. He only had to fill all four cubbies with planks, and a crafting table was ready for him. Crafting recipes flooded his brain and he laughed. He was ready to build a shelter, weapons, tools, and much, much more.
Steve thought he was pretty well off. It was almost dark when he had finished mining and he felt that he would be well protected against whatever spawned at night. Nothing would come out of his mine, he had made sure of that. All in all, he thought that it would be an uneventful night.
A short hiss from his roof made him jump. He heard the scrabbling of legs and a giant spider dropped in front of his door. Luckily, it was outside. Steve opened his chest and retrieved his sword. As he closed the chest, a zombie groaned outside and began beating on his door.
Steve opened the door and closed it as soon as the zombie was inside. It came for him and he sliced at it with his sword. It flew back against the wall and came back at him. He hit it again and kept attacking. The zombie managed to hit him once before it fell dead, its body sinking through the ground, leaving behind only a piece of rotten flesh, which popped into his inventory.
Another hiss came from outside. The spider was trying to find a way inside. Steve peered out of his door. As he did, a green, reptilian quadruped walked by his door. The creeper turned its head to look at him. It let out a long hiss, expanding to twice its previous width and exploded with a loud boom.
Steve was flung against his back wall as the front was blown to smithereens. He heard the spider let out a dying hiss as his health dropped to half a heart. An arrow lodged itself in the wall by Steve’s head and a skeleton clanked nearby. Two zombies were headed in his direction and another spider was coming around the house to the front. As Steve slumped to the ground with an arrow in his neck, his last thought was how did the creeper see me through the door?
It was nighttime as Steve opened his eyes back where he had woken that morning. Sensing his presence, monsters stirred nearby. To his right, his house stood with his sword lying on the ground.
Steve looked around and saw a zombie headed towards him. He dug a hole three blocks deep beneath himself and blocked the top with a piece of dirt. He heard the zombie groaning above him and a skeleton’s bones clacking. Then he heard a sound that made his heart sink. It was a hiss. This time the explosion killed Steve instantly.
Steve died three more times before he finally managed to make a tall column of dirt and surround the top with more dirt. Creepers exploded below and spiders tried to climb up, but Steve remained unharmed.
When morning finally came, he’d heard enough explosions to last him his entire life. He mined the dirt and went straight to his house. He was going to have to make it creeper proof if he didn’t want to die multiple times every night. He had a lot of work ahead of him.
As Steve broke another stone block, light flooded his mine from the hole he had just created. He looked through and saw the source of the noise he had heard. A pool of lava bubbled in a small cave. Half of the pool was covered with water, creating obsidian underneath. Steve decided that having a bucket or two of lava wouldn’t hurt, and might prove useful against the monsters.
Setting down his crafting table, he looked around for monsters. The lava seemed to light the entire cave, so he brought out some cobblestone. When he filled all the spaces in the table except the middle and tapped the side with his foot, a pop sounded and a puff of smoke obscured the cobble. When the smoke cleared, a small furnace hovered a few pixels above the table. Steve walked forward and picked it up. After placing it next to the crafting table, he filled the bed with coals and put six iron ore on the grill above it.
One of the coal lumps burst into flame and soon there were six iron ingots on top of the furnace. Steve put two in the bottom middle slot of the table, two in the middle right slot, and two in the middle left. He tapped the table and filled the resulting buckets with lava. Satisfied, he removed the coal from the furnace and used his pick to break it. Taking the crafting table, he returned to his mine.
As he began to mine the next block he realized that the lava was in his way. Shrugging, he turned left and hit the stone in front of him. On the other side of the cave, there was an explosion, and the wall blew to pieces. Two zombies, a skeleton, and a spider charged him.
The spider reached him first, but by that time he had his iron sword drawn. He struck the spider across the eyes and sent it flying back a few blocks. As he did, an arrow flew towards him. Steve knew there was no way he could avoid it, so he braced himself for the pain.
It never came. The spider, flying back through the air, intercepted the arrow. Enraged, it charged the skeleton, which was fitting another arrow in its bow. The spider bit the skeleton’s face and sent it stumbling into the lava. It apparently was not very smart, because it followed, flying at the skeleton.
All this happened in a few seconds, and by that time, the zombie had reached Steve. Steve sliced it twice across the stomach and leaped after it. While he was in mid-air, he struck the zombie across the face. This blow killed the zombie, but Steve landed in the lava. No, no! Steve screamed in agony and lunged out of the lava. He dove for the water and sighed when he submerged.
His health bar blinked back to full as the pain in his legs faded. He got out of the water and patched the hole in the wall with two layers of cobblestone. He decided that he had enough materials for the moment and headed back up his mine. Halfway up, he saw a block of coal ore that he had missed on the way down. That’s good, I can always use more coal. The coal vein totaled thirty-two coal lumps, and behind the coal, there were three iron ore.
Steve placed the furnace that he had crafted by the lava next to his other two. He filled the bed of the furnaces with coal. He then filled the furnaces with cobblestone, retrieved his axe, and set off towards a grove of spruce trees.
He soon cut all the trees down and went back to his furnaces. He put the wood in a chest and grabbed a few stacks of stone. He was going to remake his home. He had already crafted an iron door, a stone button, and a stone pressure plate.
Steve had already mostly taken down his old wooden house and was making a new one, two stone blocks thick. The floor was done, and the walls were already two blocks high. Using a dirt block as a step, Steve got on top of his wall and began building his house.
When he had placed the last block of stone, Steve lit the interior of his new home. With that done, he placed his door. On the inside if the door, he placed the pressure plate and the button on the outside.
Steve stepped back and looked at his new house. Made completely of stone, it was two blocks thick in all areas. The interior was 9x9 with one block of headroom for comfort. The Exterior was ugly. He decided that he’d have to make it look more natural at some point.
Windows. Steve wanted some way to see outside during the night. Glass wouldn’t do, so it would have to be iron bars. Ugh. It’ll look like a prison, but it’ll be functional. Wait, what’s a prison? Where did I get that word? He decided not to think about it too much.
Steve removed everything from the furnaces and mined them. He then crafted sixteen iron bars and broke his chests. His inventory just managed to fit everything. As he jogged over to his house, he noticed it was getting dark. I’ll have to make a bed at some point, but tonight, I’ll be safe and sound in my home.
Steve put his iron bars in convenient places around the house and placed his chest. He then crafted a full set of iron armor and a sword. That left three iron with which he crafted an iron sword and some flint and steel. Then he waited for the first monsters to appear.
A zombie moaned outside and peered in through the iron bars. A skeleton made its way around his house seeking an entrance. The zombie walked around to Steve’s door and turned away. As Steve looked out his window, he saw the zombie walking towards the trees where at least sixty more zombies appeared to be forming military style ranks.
From behind the zombies, two creepers made their way forward. One of them stopped about ten blocks away from Steve’s house. The other one approached the wall. It looked back at the zombies as if waiting for a signal, then back at Steve.
The creeper exploded, taking the outer part of Steve’s house with it. The other creeper then walked forward. Steve knew what was about to happen and was already running for his door. By the time the creeper exploded, Steve was running out the door.
The instant the wall was open, the zombies charged. Arrows flew out of the woods at Steve, but they all fell short. The zombies were still moaning their battle cry as they charged through the house and after Steve. Steve was sprinting for the woods on the other side of his clearing and was scared out of his wits. Creepers don’t act that way. They just don’t. Neither do zombies for that matter. There’s something messing with them, making them act unnaturally.
Steve made it into the woods and raced through the trees as fast as he could. He didn’t look back, but he could hear the zombies running after him. The trees seemed to be his enemies, concealing creepers or zombies. They were getting thick, forcing Steve to go slower.
Still his pursuers came after him. A unit of six zombies emerged from behind the trees. Steve skidded to a stop. He had to fight them, but he didn’t want to let the others catch up. He drew his sword and began to attack. Then he stopped.
He could light them on fire! Steve whipped out his flint and steel and quickly lit a line of fire across the path he had taken. Then he kept running. He reached a plains biome and saw the moon overhead. He kept running. As he ran, his hunger bar steadily dropped. He would have to eat soon.
Pain exploded suddenly on his back as an arrow lodged itself in his body. He stumbled, and the zombies engulfed him. He swung out wildly with his sword as more and more zombies flooded into the field. Steve ran back to the woods, lighting fires as he ran, but he never made it. The zombies knocked him to the ground and everything faded.
---
Steve respawned in the creeper hole near his house. Instantly, arrows poured into the hole and he was pelted with the missiles. Steve had had enough of this. He leapt out of the hole and began punching one of the skeletons as hard as he could. The skeleton went down, leaving a pile of bones, arrows, and its bow. Steve picked the bow up and loaded an arrow. He was shot by multiple skeletons at once and went down .
Steve respawned before the skeletons had time to reload. He instantly picked up the bow and shot at the skeletons. He took one down and retrieved its arrows. Shooting at another skeleton, he ducked behind a tree. From here, he kept them back long enough to dig up some dirt and jump his way into a tree. He got to the top and destroyed the block of leaves above the wood and sniped the skeletons from there.
Morning was slow in coming, but when it finally did, the skeletons started burning. Steve waited for the last one to burn up before he dropped to the ground and collected the drops. He combined three bows in his inventory to make a new on with almost no use on it.
Steve ran through the woods and to the plains. His gear was lying out in the sun and he collected it immediately. After donning his armor, he collected the drops the zombies had left. He found a bunch of potatoes, carrots, and stone shovels.
Looking around to make sure there were no survivors, Steve saw that this would make a nice place for a house. My house! He rushed back to his stone house and saw with relief that the creepers had not blown up his chest. He wondered how he could create a creeper proof house if it had only taken two to get through this one.
Then he remembered his mining trip the day before. The creeper had blown a hole on the wall near the obsidian. Yet the obsidian had remained unaffected. He wondered if obsidian could be destroyed. He knew how to make it. It would be dangerous, but it just might work.
It had been harder than he had thought it would be. He had assumed that he could make an infinite lava source by making a 2x2 hole in the ground and filling it with lava. He was wrong. When he had done this, the lava merely flowed into the space, not filling it. He had had to make more buckets and many trips to the lava cave in his old mine.
Steve dumped more lava in the hole to make lava stop flowing. When it was ready, he poured water on the lava, turning it into obsidian. So far, everything was going well. Before he could start on the walls, he’d need more lava. Time to go back down the mine.
Steve collected all the buckets he had and ran over to his mine. He ate a pork chop and hurried down his mine. When he reached the cave, he filled his hot bar with buckets and a sword. As he approached the lava, he heard clanking on the other side of the cobblestone wall. I’ll have to be quick about this he thought. He filled his buckets and was heading for his mine shaft when the creepers exploded. The wall was blown to pieces and a spider ran at Steve.
Now an expert monster fighter, Steve held his ground. The spider leapt at him and he jumped aside, slicing its belly as he did. It turned and jumped at him again. Steve stabbed it and jumped back. The spider charged him and he swung at the air where he thought it would jump.
It didn’t. The spider was more wary this time and slid under the blow. It bit Steve in the leg and he yelped. He swung his sword at the spider again and this blow killed it. Steve collected the string and spider eye and patched the hole.
Steve made his way back up his mine and went towards his unfinished house. He looked at the sky and decided it was about noon. He’d have to try to find some sheep at some point to make a bed. Right now, he had to finish his house.
--- Steve stood back and looked at his home. It wasn’t very pretty, but it was functional. The inside was well lit with torches and he had a block of headroom. There was an iron door, which was the weak point, controlled by buttons and a pressure plate. His chest was on the side farthest from the door, as were his crafting table and furnaces.
The sun’s last rays were disappearing over the horizon as Steve entered his abode. It seemed dark inside, but Steve knew that no monsters would spawn. He would just have to protect the door.
Steve waited for the attack. He then had an idea. After taking a stack of stone out of the furnace, he positioned himself in a spot where a skeleton could not shoot him, yet he still had a clear path to the door. Steve heard an explosion, but it came from a long way off. The monsters must not have known that he had made a house in an entirely different biome.
A single zombie made its way past Steve’s door. It saw him and ran off into the woods. A few minutes later, the rest of the monsters came out of the woods. The attack was about to begin.
A creeper walked up to his house and exploded. It was not near the door. Another creeper walked over to the same spot and exploded. More creepers went to that spot, one by one, and exploded. The wall held. This continued halfway through the night, and Steve had relaxed some. Not enough to miss the creeper coming up to his door though. He readied his stone.
The creeper exploded and the door was destroyed. Instantly, Steve placed a block of stone in the hole that the creeper had created. He placed another block of stone and sealed the entrance. Another creeper exploded. The stone gave way. Steve quickly sealed the door again.
This went on for a while. Finally, the creepers stopped exploding. Steve peeked out of his door. The monsters were at the edge of the woods, watching. Watching what? He found out a moment later. There was a strange buzzing sound, and a tall, black creature teleported into his house.
The creature was three blocks tall, had leathery, black skin and purple eyes. Its mouth was open and it was making a loud, angry sound that made Steve cringe. The creature had long arms and legs and it held a block of grass. A name popped into Steve’s head: Enderman.
The Enderman attacked Steve who ducked for cover. He swung out with his sword, and the Enderman teleported away. It came back a moment later and hit Steve. Hard. Steve cried out in pain and sliced at the Enderman. It hit him again and he stabbed it twice. He dodged its next attack and hit it again. It teleported away, and Steve began to regenerate. The Enderman teleported into Steve’s house and Steve sliced its face.
The Enderman screamed “aaahhhhhhhhh!” and dissipated into dust, leaving behind a green pearl. Steve just had time to pick it up before a creeper exploded outside his door. Steve blocked the hole with stone and then covered the inside of the roof with stone to prevent any more Endermen from teleporting in. Another explosion. Steve sighed and went back to his task of sealing the doorway.
When morning finally came, Steve was exhausted. The creepers did not burn in the daylight, but they ran off when the other monsters did. Steve was glad he had stayed alive the whole night. It was a first for him. He decided to start a new mine.
Steve picked a spot right next to his house and started digging. He quickly reached stone and pulled out his pick. He mined down. He hit coal very quickly and got 17. He mined a few more blocks and found more coal, this time 26. After that he mined through solid stone for quite a while and then hit iron. He collected 7 iron and kept mining. He mined through three more blocks of stone and found some lapis lazuli. Further on in his trip, he found Redstone and gold.
Steve mined another block and saw a blue ore behind it. Must be more lapis. He noticed his hunger bar getting low. Taking his cooked pork out of his inventory, he looked at the ore more closely. It was lighter than the lapis lazuli had been and shinier as well. He gasped. DIAMOND!
He had found diamond. He made sure he was using his highest quality pick, and then he began to mine the diamond. He got five diamonds in all, enough to make a sword and a pickaxe.
Steve placed a torch to light the area up before heading back up his mine. He was not going to risk losing this diamond right after he got it. As he ran up his mineshaft, he decided that he would make a clock, a diamond sword, and a diamond pick.
When he reached the entrance to his mine, he looked around. No monsters were out. He could easily have dealt with them, but he didn’t want to risk it. Steve entered his home and crafted his tools. He put what he did not need into the chest and crafted a set of shears. He was going to look for some sheep so that he could finally get a good night’s sleep.
He had killed five creepers so far, and gotten seven piles of sulfur. He looked around for more monsters, but none showed themselves. Sighing, Steve looked at the sky and decided to head back home. He had crafted a clock and made two more blocks of obsidian, which he had then mined and put in his hot bar. He had then set out to find some sheep, but instead, he ran into a creeper. He had quickly dispatched it and collected its sulfur.
On his way home, Steve passed a small pond and dug some sand. He ran the rest of the way home. When he arrived, he crafted one block of TNT. He then went outside and dug a hole two blocks deep in a spot near the woods. After placing the TNT block in the bottom of the hole, he put the dirt back on and set a pressure plate on top.
Steve returned to his house and blocked the entrance with obsidian. Then, he waited. His clock said that the sun had set when he heard the first creeper. He smiled. Nothing could get him while he was in here.
When darkness came, Endermen teleported around his house, but there was no room inside. Steve decided to have a little fun. He mined one block of stone from the roof. Instantly, an Enderman teleported into the three-block space and tried to hit Steve. Steve sliced at it and it teleported away, replaced immediately by another one. Steve sliced it and it teleported off.
This continued far into the night. Eventually, Steve started killing the Endermen and collecting their pearls. He ate when he was hungry, and slaughtered Endermen when he wanted entertainment. He crafted a wooden sword to spare his diamond one.
About the time that his clock showed that it was morning, the Endermen stopped coming. Steve took out his diamond pick and mined the top block of obsidian. Light streamed in from outside. He mined the bottom block and stepped outside.
It was a beautiful day, as always, and Steve decided to find more food. No animals were in sight. He looked over the grassy plains and wondered how he could find food. Then it hit him. He was standing in the middle of a giant food source! The grass could give him seeds to grow wheat with, which he could craft into bread to fill his hunger bar.
He instantly began mowing down the grass with his hands and collecting the seeds. When he had 32, he took out his iron hoe and made a farm. Taking his bucket, Steve ran to the lake and filled two buckets. Soon, he had a farm growing.
He looked at his clock. Sheep. He would have to find sheep. He set out to the North. He found the end of the plains rather quickly and came to a desert. Cacti were scattered across the vast plain of sand.
A little way off, there was what appeared to be a hole in the sand. Steve went over to investigate, and saw that it was a dungeon. A zombie spawner was in the center of the room and there were two chests.
A zombie spawned and instantly began burning. That was when Steve saw all drops scattered on the floor. He leapt into the dungeon, drawing his diamond sword as he did so. He quickly dispatched the zombie and mined the spawner. Then, he opened the chest.
Inside, he found some bread, a few iron ingots and some iron horse armor, and a golden apple. In the other chest, he found a saddle, some apples, a few more ingots and some bread.
Steve took the chests and some mossy cobblestone. He then climbed out of the dungeon. Cacti might not be a bad idea, Steve thought. I might as well get some. He took a few cacti and some sand, and then left the desert.
On his way across the plains, he collected more seeds and filled his buckets with water. He could not find any sheep of other signs of life until he saw the pigs. There was a small group of pigs wandering near the edge of a forest of oak trees. He decided to kill all but two of them.
Steve approached the pigs. Drawing his diamond sword, he picked out his first target, a pig near the edge of the group. As he was about to strike, he heard a hiss. He dove to the side as a creeper exploded, leaving a gaping hole in the ground and launching Steve into the air.
As he landed, he saw another creeper exiting the forest. He expected it to come towards him, but it didn’t. Instead, it made its way into the center of the group of pigs, hissed and exploded, killing most of the pigs. There were two pigs left and Steve looked around anxiously for any more creepers.
A groan sounded behind him, and a zombie wearing a leather helmet and holding an iron shovel charged at him. Steve directed his attention at the zombie, who backed away when he saw Steve’s sword.
He yelled and leapt at the zombie. It turned and ran for its life, and Steve gave chase. The zombie made a sharp right and Steve followed. He was gaining rapidly and was raising his sword when he heard the creeper explode behind him.
The zombie stopped and charged at Steve. It had been a diversion and now its job was done. Steve killed it quickly and collected the shovel. Then, he went back to where the pigs had been. There was raw pork scattered all over the place, and Steve collected it.
He then set off back through the field. As he came over a hill, he saw a herd of about seven horses. One of the horses, a beautiful pure white one, looked over at Steve. That one. That is the one I want. Steve cautiously approached the horse. He mounted it and it bucked him off. Unperturbed, Steve tried again. And he tried again. At last, Steve tamed the horse. He put the armor onto the horse and strapped on the saddle. Then, he galloped off over the plains.
Steve arrived home about an hour before darkness settled over the land. He tried to ride through the door, but the horse was too wide. Steve mined two more blocks of obsidian and rode the horse through. He placed the last blocks of obsidian and waited for night to fall.
After exiting the house and dispatching the lone creeper that remained outside, he headed back to his mine. Not much occurred, but he found eight more iron and some coal, as well as three diamonds. He refilled his buckets with lava and water and headed back up his mineshaft.
Mounting his horse, Steve rode out into the desert. He stopped once to mine some sand and some cacti. He reached the end of the desert before noon and found himself in another plains biome with a village. He entered the village and found it deserted. The blacksmith had a hole where the chest should have been and there were no doors to be seen anywhere. The place had obviously been raided by zombies and a creeper. Disappointed, Steve left the ghost town.
He rode on and came to a swamp. He wanted to explore more, but it was already past noon and he needed to be heading home. As he rode away, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had come close to something discovering important. He heard zombies spawning in the houses of the village as he rode through, but knew that none would dare go out until the sun had set.
He reached home before the sun had set and led his horse into the house. He tended to his garden, closed up his house and waited for the first creeper or Enderman. He didn’t have to wait long for the creepers. They exploded all around his house. It even sounded like some were burrowing under. To his surprise, no Endermen came into his house, though he heard plenty teleporting around outside. Steve had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Then he realized that his hunger bar was low. That explains it, he thought.
But even after he ate, he still felt that something was wrong, and he feared what the morrow would bring.
Steve instinctively crouched to avoid falling over the edge and barely saved himself. Surrounding the house was a ditch a few creeper blasts deep and two blasts wide. Judging from the sounds the night before, creepers had blown a ring around his house and probably burrowed under as well. That would explain the monster sounds beneath the house.
The pit was a minor inconvenience – he easily bridged the gap with dirt – but what he saw over by the woods worried him. Three blocks above the ground, a roof was partially constructed out of dirt, stretching towards the house and keeping a congregation of skeletons safe from the burning sun. That’s why no Endermen teleported into my house last night, Steve realized, they were busy building a roof!
Steve quickly realized the ingenuity of the plan. He could not easily destroy the roof because of the skeletons underneath. If he got close, they would shoot him. He could try shooting them with his own bow, but it was dark enough under there that more would spawn as he killed them. That would take most of the day, and when he finished, he would have to go back in. Maybe…
Steve equipped his bow and jogged to one side of the roof. He pulled back the bow, aimed, and fired. Before the skeleton could respond, Steve ran around to the other side of the roof. He hoped that the skeleton he had hit would try to fire at him from behind his buddies and hit one of them, starting a civil war so to speak. No such luck. The skeleton pushed through the crowd until he had a clear shot at Steve and waited. Too smart… thought Steve. I’ll have to find another way. I have about five days before the roof reaches my house. A week at most.
Not sure what to do, Steve decided to revisit the swamp. He felt that the place had some significance. He first went to his mine and stayed down there until he found enough diamonds for a full set of armor. Luckily, he found three veins very close to each other, two containing four diamonds, and one with five. After a little more mining he found two containing three diamonds and another with four. He could not believe his luck.
When he got back to his house, it was evening and he closed himself in. While the sounds of monsters came from outside and more creepers widened and deepened the hole, he crafted his armor. He liked the look of the full armor bar over his health. The night was just like the one before and the hole twice as big when he came back out.
As he started on his stepped off his makeshift bridge, the sky flashed black and he heard a sound like thunder rumbling in the distance. Steve staggered and dropped to his knees as his hearts changed in appearance, a line running through the usual solid red, and he felt something break within himself. He somehow knew that if he died, he would not respawn. He would simply stay dead.
Shaking, Steve got to his feet. His life had just become so much more valuable. He wanted to hide in his house and never come out. He saw new dangers everywhere – the small drop over by the woods became a cliff in his eyes. The cacti in the desert became malicious fiends, bent on his destruction. He almost broke right there.
Then he looked up and saw the sun. It gave him new strength and he straightened. He would not give up and leave the world. He would not die. He felt a surge of anger at the being messing with his life, directing the monsters, trying to destroy him. He knew now that his hunch had been right. There was something hiding out in the swamp. The thing or person who was responsible for all of this. Steve would find whoever or whatever it was and he would destroy it, not let it destroy him. “I’m coming for you,” Steve muttered. “Whoever of whatever you are, I’m coming for you. You’re going down.”
Another explosion rocked Steve on his perch. “Get away!” He shouted at the monsters. “Leave my horse alone! Come after me!” They ignored him and he listened to a final explosion and his horse’s dying neigh. Well, thought Steve, this journey just got much harder. The monsters were now targeting him. He sighed, knowing they could not reach him but not looking forward to another night of explosions.
Morning came, and with it, the sun so deadly to the undead monsters. Steve came back down and continued his journey on foot, thinking sadly of his lost horse. Luckily, no monsters attacked him that day and he reached the village. After spending the night in the church, Steve resumed his journey. Another day passed before he reached the edge of the swamp.
Another night of explosions was spent on a dirt pillar. Morning came and Steve plunged into the swamp. It was not a pleasant biome. Dark, dreary and smelly, the swamp was riddled with lakes full of murky water. All of the ground was wet and vines hung from the trees. Steve shuddered. There was an air of something he could not identify.
It feels like I’m being watched he thought as he trudged over the soggy ground. Something not very friendly is watching me. It’s going to spring out at me and kill me. It could be behind any of these- Steve stopped. He realized that something was influencing his thoughts. No. Not his thoughts. He could still think clearly, but something was trying to impose emotions on him. Trying to make him afraid. As soon as he realized this, the urge to panic became easier to resist, as if recognizing the weapon made it easier to defeat.
As the sun reached the top of its ascent and began to sink, Steve saw it. It was a hut, sitting in the middle of the swamp. It was set on four posts of logs, with spruce walls and a small porch. Steve cautiously approached it, taking note of the mushroom in a pot on the windowsill.
The hut was empty. He was about to leave when he noticed a hole in the corner. Peering down, he saw water at the bottom. He dropped down and looked around. He was at the beginning of a long passageway that turned left after about twenty blocks. He followed the passage and found himself at the entrance to a huge cave that looked like it was made by creeper explosions. In the center, there was a small stone structure.
Steve knew that this was the end of his journey. He boldly walked up to the structure and raised his pick to break in. At that moment, and arrow landed beside him with a thud. And another. Suddenly, there was a storm of arrows, most missing Steve, but a few hitting him. He quickly broke open the stone and barged in.
Sitting on the floor in the middle of the room was a bald woman clad in purple. She had her back turned to Steve, but when she noticed his approach, she stiffened. “What is it?” she asked. Steve made no reply. “Well, what is it?” she asked while turning around. Then she saw Steve. “You,” she said. “Me.”
She got to her feet, donning a pointy black hat with a green symbol on the front. Steve recognized her as a witch. “You actually had the nerve to come here after I destroyed the spawner? I honestly wasn’t expecting you.” Steve looked at her and asked “Are you the one who has been trying to kill me?” She looked surprised. “Me? No!” Steve relaxed. “I was the one controlling the monsters who attacked you though.” Steve drew his sword. “I’m going to kill you.” She looked vaguely amused. “Really? How? No blade can hurt me. Nor arrows. I can hurt you though.” She took out a green globe of glass. “Let’s start with the poison, shall we?”
Steve rolled jumped out of the way right as she threw the sphere at him. It hit the ground and shattered, leaving a pool of green liquid that quickly seeped into the dirt floor. Before she could attack again, Steve made his move, swinging his sword at the witch’s neck. She made do move to avoid it and it struck her right below the chin. The sword rebounded off of her, the diamond taking a massive amount of damage.
She laughed and threw a red potion at Steve. This one hit him and he lost three hearts. He decided to change tactics. He backed off into the far corner and waited for her to throw another potion. She did, but this time he caught it and threw it back. It hit her and she took damage. “How?” She asked and then began throwing more powerful potions. He was hit by a poison one and caught another of the same kind. He threw it back and grabbed an instant damage. She dodged the poison, but the damage hit her and she was hurt again.
He grabbed the next potion that she threw and returned the throw. The potion seemed to have no effect. He ran outside and she followed, eager to destroy him. He tripped and fell a couple of blocks, taking minimal damage thanks to his armor. The mobs seemed to have all disappeared. She jumped after him and also took damage.
“How?” She asked again. He took the opportunity and leapt at her with his sword. She again made no move to dodge it, but this time she took a little damage. Steve’s health was getting low due to the poison potion, and he did not want to give the witch another opportunity to attack. He swung as quickly as he could and hit her again and again. She ran and he gave chase.
He quickly fell behind. Stopping, he drew his bow and fitted an arrow to the string. Taking in her speed and direction, he aimed his bow and fired. The arrow flew through the air in a graceful arc and struck the witch on the head. She collapsed and Steve ran up to her. He knew that one more strike would kill her. “This,” he said, “this is for my first home, my horse, my farm, and all the times you had the monsters kill me. This is for the life you took from me. I will live in fear of death forever now thanks to you. At least you won’t respawn.” He stuck.
---
Steve lived in his mansion of quartz for many years. He then built a castle and began work on a town. After finishing a neighborhood, Steve went to the bed he wished he had before. As he sat down on the bed he remembered his obsidian house. He hoped never to see it again. He didn’t want the memories of those sleepless nights. He wanted quiet and peace. And rest. He lay down on the bed and spoke into the darkness around him. “Good night me.” And he drifted into dreams.
The End
-Kasparal
Never mind. I figured it out. Thanks!
I've hardly started working on the next chapter...As somebody (I don't remember who) said: Pretty soon, I'm going to have a page full of my comments!
I take that back. Don't expect any chapters for a while, as I hardly have any time to write.
This is probably because the story has been written sporadically over a year. I've drastically improved in both my vocabulary (I know a plethera of words), and my writing skills have also improved. Sometimes I wrote when I felt like I had to, (when I was doing a chapter a week,) and the sixth chapter was the first one after a year.
I'm writing another story now, and it's going to be longer and have much better descriptions and such... I'll definitely remember to use B.
I think I know what your talking about in chapter two. I mostly described his chest inventory to fill space... That doesn't work so well. I guess it's better to have a short interesting chapter than a long boring one.
whoa dude... impressive.
Oh the guilt I go through reading this statement! <-- overly descriptive git who can't write short parts.
Will be reading this soon. Then delivering my divine judgement on the matter!
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