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Hey guys!

These are the first two chapters from my latest minecraft book. If you like them, please let me know! Even if you didn't like them, let me know! You could even be like: "this is the worst book I've ever read" and I'd be fine with that. (Well, actually, I wouldn't be fine ... I'd probably cry myself to sleep. But go ahead -- I still want to know! Especially if you help me out and tell me why, so I can improve next time!)

Anyway, here they are. Enjoy! And if you don't have time to post specific comments, it would be great if you could still take the short poll above.

Chapter 1

I breathed a sigh of relief as the wooden roofs of my village came into view. The leafy treetops that surrounded it looked more beautiful than ever before. I adjusted my armor and strode toward the wall.

"Hi, Joseph. Hi, Michael," I called to the guards standing on the wall.

"Hello, Jake," Joseph, the one on my right, responded. "Long time no see."

"Yeah," I agreed. "I've been too busy getting myself out of life or death situations."

"That's more or less your job, isn't it?" asked Michael.

"I guess you could say that," I chuckled. "Now can you open the gate? I gotta get back to my latest customer...."
Joseph nodded and disappeared behind the wall. A few moments later, the iron door that served as the gate flicked open, and I stepped through. I was finally back in my village.

As I sprinted through town, my heart was full at being back home. When you were a treasure hunter, you got away often, possibly even too often. Maybe I should spend more time at here, I thought.

I pelted through the village, searching for the house that my latest customer lived in. Normally, I treasure hunted for myself, but there were many ways to get treasure, and I was usually paid in diamonds.

For my latest expedition, I had been sent out into the dangerous wilderness to make a map of what was out there. Harold Frames, the man who had hired me, had told me that he wanted to visit his brother. I had mapped the quickest way so he could easily get there and back without much trouble. Being an enchanter, he had agreed to make me a diamond sword with Sharpness V, as long as I could provide the sword.

At last, I found his house and knocked on the door, then waited patiently for an answer. Within a few seconds, the door swung open, and Harold greeted me warmly. "Hi, Jake. Glad you're back. Come on in."

I stepped over the threshold and into the house. It was clean and tidy, with enough room to move comfortably. A door in the back wall led to the enchanting room, I knew. Leaning against the wall, I showed him the map and my diamond sword. So far, the only enchantments the sword had were Sharpness I and Knockback I, and I looked forward to having it deal nearly twice as much damage.

"Here you are," I told Harold, handing him the map.
He took a few seconds to look it over, then said, "I heard correctly when the other villagers recommended your services. This map is so detailed!" He held out his other hand for my sword.

I passed it to him, hilt first. He strode through the door that led to his enchanting base of operations, and came back out a minute later with my sword, which sparkled with an even more powerful magic glow. "Here you are," he told me, echoing what I had said a few minutes earlier.

As he placed the diamond sword back into my hands, I felt the power coursing through it. This was one powerful sword, all right. I gave it a few expirimental swings, then sheathed it and nodded to Harold. "Nice doing business with you," I said.

"You, too," he agreed. We shook hands, then I stepped out the door back onto the road. I had another destination before I finally made my way back to the privacy of my own house.

As I stepped onto the brick path, I thought about the last time I had been here. I came here after all my adventures, but it's also where I grew up originally.

I opened the door and stepped inside. "Hi, Mom!" I called. "I'm back!"

My mother was a small, squat woman with black hair that was starting to go gray. She had twinkling blue eyes, framed with black eyelashes and eyebrows. Mapping the section of wilderness had taken a long time; I hadn't been here for a month and a half.

My mother came running up, a wide smile on her face. "You are back!" she exclaimed. "I was starting to think the monsters had gotten the better of you!"

She said it jokingly, but a while ago I had realized just how scared she was for me. I was her only child, and if she loved me as much as I loved her, well...I couldn't imagine losing her, either.

"I've got a present for you, Mom," I said, hoping that she liked it. It had taken me a lot of time to obtain; I didn't want it going to waste. I pulled out a handful of the cocoa beans that I had collected on the way back. "I thought these might help with your bakery."

She stepped back, wide-eyed. "Thank you dear, thank you so much! I ran out and ever since I've had half as many customers! They all like my cookies so much!"

"You're welcome," I said, glad that she appreciated my gift. "Where's Dad?"

"He's out in the fields," she answered. "He still insists on farming each day, even though he's in his mid-sixties by now."

"Old habits aren't broken easily," I chuckled. "Hey, why don't you show me the bakery? It's Sunday, and I know it's closed Sunday, but ... you know."

She laughed merrily, a sound I always liked to hear.

"Sure, let's go," she agreed. "You can tell me about your near-death experiences on the way."

"Why does everybody think that I almost die?" I teased her playfully. "Can't me being alive be enough for you?"

An hour later I was eating a freshly baked cookie. I held it in one hand, and a bottle of milk in the other. The cool, creamy drink was deliciously refreshing after walking under the hot sun. Soon I had drained the whole thing and was refilling it from a bucket that sat on a nearby table.
A while later I went back to my house. As I sat on the bed, I took out the journal that I had been writing in for the last month and a half. I record every adventure I go on, every job that I do. I had made a journal of what had happened for the past forty-five days, everything from drawing the map to dodging skeleton arrows.

I read it through, then carefully placed it in a large chest. If I ever had kids, I would give it to them to read, along with all the other harrowing adventures I had gone on. I didn't know if I wanted kids, but hey, I would have to decide sooner or later.

I hung my armor on the stand next to my bed; it was all iron, except for my diamond chestplate. The dull armor shimmered with magical light.
As I lay down to go to sleep, I had one last question for myself. How long will I wait for my next adventure?

The days passed slowly. Nobody wanted to hire me. I was stuck reading books about other people's adventures, when I could have been going on my

own.

Within a week, I was very restless. I rarely went this long without going on a treasure hunt. I enjoyed being in my village, but the wild was where I really belonged.

I may as well take some time now to explain how the village worked. Most people had a shop or a job. If someone had a shop, they obtained money from business. Jobs were paid by whoever the person was working for. I was a special case; I got rare materials for people on demand, although I found most of my money by treasure hunting. Those that helped everybody, such as the village guards, or the Mayor, recieved their pay from taxes. Every citizen of Rodrikton was required to pay two gold nuggets (the main currency) per week. The taxes paid the guards, Mayor, and schoolteacher.
My village is call Rodrikton because the guy who started it was named Henry Rodrik. I guess he wanted everyone to remember that he was the one who had settled here first. Anyway, he's dead now, of old age.

So that's more or less how our village works. Everyone here has a different profession so as not to have competitors. Until now, everything's been working very nicely. I hope nothing changes.

One week. Two weeks. Three weeks. Nobody was hiring me, and if somebody wanted to, they would have done it by now. I was going crazy!!! It was time for me to go out adventuring again. I remember once somebody asked me if I liked to go on adventures, and I had responded: "Like it? It's my job!"

And it is my job.

I decided that tonight I would pack, then leave tomorrow morning. I told my parents that I would be leaving the next day. As always, they didn't want me to go, but I told them I needed to. I had to earn a living, after all.

At home, as I was climbing into bed, I heard a knock on my door. I climbed out from under my warm sheets and opened the door to find a thin, pale man standing at my door.

"You're Jacob Thompson, right?" the man asked.

"Yes," I confirmed. "Why are you here?"

"It...it's my son," the man told me. "He's sick, dying, in fact. He needs a potion of regeneration, but, well, the local brewer says that he's out of stock."
"So you're asking me to go to the Nether and find the potion ingedients for you?"

"Well, yes," the man agreed.

"Okay...." I did some computations in my head. I hated the Nether, and I'd rather not go there unless absolutely necessary. And that made my price...

"Five hundred gold nuggets."

"Five HUNDRED?" the man asked. "My little job isn't worth nearly that. I don't have five hundred nuggets."
"In that case, go to the Nether yourself," I told him. Then I closed the door.

Chapter 2

I had a good night's sleep and woke up ready for the day. After saying goodbye to my parents, I headed for the village gates. "Leaving so soon?" Michael teased. Joseph grinned. I did too.

"Yep. I am."

"Hey, Michael," Joseph prodded Michael with his elbow. "We need to open the gate ourselves for such a distinguished gentleman."

"Oh, shut up," I replied. "I can open a door." I pressed the button next to the iron door and it swung open. I stepped through and it closed behind me automatically. "See you guys in a while!" I called to the guards. Then I donned my armor, including my enchanted diamond chestplate. And without looking back, I strode into the surrounding forest.

Two days later:
I woke up and looked around. I was in the makeshift shelter I had built the night before. It contained my bed and a crafting table, that was all. But it kept me safe from the monsters that ruled the world when the sun was down.

I got out of bed, pulled my pickaxe from my inventory, and proceeded to hack the walls of the shelter apart. I collected the cobblestone and broke the crafting table. After I picked up my bed, I ate a quick breakfast of bread, and then it was time to go.

I was heading north, a direction in which I had never gone far before. I was currently in a swamp, but I was trying to get out because I'd heard that swamps had nothing but witches and muddy water. From what I'd seen, that was true.

But I had collected some mushrooms in case of a food shortage.

I continued on my merry way, skirting around a witch hut (I didn't have any business there), but then I saw something I had only seen once when I was a kid: a Slime. It was a green jelly cube the size of the witch hut. Huge! I was about to about to go around that too, but then I remembered that there was a large shortage of slimeballs in our village. If I could get my hands on some, I could get a lot for them, maybe even some more diamond armor!

I pulled my bow out of my inventory and nocked an arrow. I pulled the string back as far as I could and let it fly into the gelatinous giant. It flashed red and turned toward me, and now I could see that it had a large face: two eyes and a mouth the size of my head, frozen in indecision. It took a huge leap into the air, then landed right next to me.

I whacked at it with my sword, barely connecting. It flashed red again, then slid forward and hit me! It stung, but it wasn't too bad; it hadn't dealt much damage.

I stabbed it with my sword, and it flashed red again. But instead of dying, it split open and its halves fell to the ground, revealing three medium sized slimes.

They leapt at me, but I dodged to the side and skewered one on my sword. But then it split into four tiny slimes! Was this thing never ending?
Eventually, I finished off all the slimes. The other medium ones had split, but the tiny ones didn't, so I was okay. And now I had seven slimeballs! I wondered how much they would be worth.

I stuck them in my inventory and once again started my trek through the wilderness.

After a good night's rest, I needed to decide which way I should go. I took stock of my supplies to see what I could do.

Inventory:

Diamond sword w/Knockback I and Sharpness V

Bow, no enchants

117 arrows

Shield

Iron Pickaxe
Forty-five loaves of bread
Ten steaks
A golden apple
A crafting table and furnace
A bed
A bucket of water
Three cookies
216 pieces of cobblestone
33 planks of wood
Sixty torches
20 brown and red mushrooms
Seven slimeballs
Flint and Steel
My iron set with diamond chestplate, which I was wearing, of course.
30 backup iron ingots

It looked like I was fully geared. I supposed that I might as well keep heading north; after all, this swamp had to end eventually.
Finally, at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I reached the end of the swamp. Ahead of me lay a great plains biome, so large I couldn't see the end of it. Happy that I was out of that swamp, I jumped into this new biome and began to explore.

After another hour, I found a village. Like, a village of real people, not those mindless farmers with their arms linked across their chest. I could tell because there was a wall around it; the farmers didn't build those. I immediatly sprinted toward it, thinking it would be a good place to rest for the night.
However, upon clearer inspection, I could see nobody on the walls. And there was no iron door to let people in, either. Just a hole big enough to walk through. I ducked through the wall and took in my surroundings. It was obvious that nobody was here, only...it looked recent. I mean, there were craters that were still warm, and blocks and items scattered on the ground. A few times, I found a large collection of items, as if somebody's entire inventory had been spilled there.

This village had not been abandoned. It had been destroyed. Ruthlessly.

Hey, I just wanted to say I think this is really good, and hope that you continue it.

Thanks man! I'm glad you like it!