Minecraft Diary of a Zombie Hunter Player Team 'The Skull Kids' - Book 1 - Unoff

Title

Diary of a

Zombie Hunter Player Team

The Skull Kids

An Unofficial Minecraft Series

Book 1

Skeleton Steve

Copyright

“Diary of a Zombie Hunter Player Team – The Skull Kids – Book 1”

Copyright © 2016, Lightbringer Media LLC, All Rights Reserved

http://SkeletonSteve.com

Disclaimer: This unofficial novel is an original work of fan fiction; it is not an official Minecraft book. It is not endorsed, authorized, sanctioned, approved, licensed, sponsored, or supported by Mojang AB, Microsoft Corp. or any other entity owning or controlling rights to the Minecraft name, trademarks, or copyrights.

Minecraft®/ TM & © 2009-2016 Mojang / Notch / Microsoft

All names, places, characters, and all other aspects of the game mentioned from here on are trademarks or company names mentioned in this book are the property of their respective owners and are only mentioned for identification purposes.

EBooks are not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.

Published in the United States of America by Lightbringer Media LLC, 2016

To join Skeleton Steve’s free mailing list, for updates about new Minecraft Fanfiction titles:

http://SkeletonSteve.com

h1<>{color:#000;}.

Author’s Note and Dedication

Thank you to all of you who are buying and reading my books and helping me grow as a writer. I put many hours into writing and preparing this for you. I love Minecraft, and writing about it is almost as much fun as playing it. It’s because of you, reader, that I’m able to keep writing these books for you and others to enjoy.

This book is dedicated to you. Enjoy!!

After you read this book, please take a minute to leave a simple review. I really appreciate the feedback from my readers, and love to read your reactions to my stories, good or bad. If you ever want to see your name/handle featured in one of my stories, leave a review and tell me about it in there! And if you ever want to ask me any questions, or tell me your idea for a cool Minecraft story, you can email me at [email protected]

Are you on my Amazing Reader List? Find out at the end of the book!

June 29^th^, 2016

Now I’m going to try something a little different. Tell me what you guys think! This ‘Players Series’ is going to be a continuing series of books following my new characters, the players Renzor51, Molly, and quantum_steve.

Make sure to let me know if you like it or not! Would you still like to see more books about mobs? More books about Cth’ka the Creeper King? I’m planning on continuing that one. ;)

Don’t forget to review, and please say hi and tell me your ideas! Thanks, Ryan Gallagher, for the ideas to continue the wolf pack book!

Enjoy the story.

P.S. – Have you joined the Skeleton Steve Club and my Mailing List??

Book Introduction by Skeleton Steve

If you have found this diary, it means that I, Skeleton Steve, am dead.

Just kidding. Ha ha … I hope.

Of course, I was already dead to begin with. Undead, actually. But if you are holding this book in your hands, then you must have found my library of adventures—my collection of writings by myself and my friends, all put together over years of exploring the worlds of Diamodia and others.

Some of these books are my own stories, and some are the tales of the friends I’ve made along the way.

This particular book is the continuing story of some Minecraft players—a trio of friends who leap from world to world, searching for the elusive Herobrine. They’re zombie hunters and planeswalkers.

They call themselves “The Skull Kids”.

Every time these Skull Kids hop into a new world, they start with nothing more than the clothes they’re wearing, and they end up dominating the realm where they decide to live.

What you are about to read is the first collection of diary entries from Renzor51, the player and member of the Skull Kids who documents their adventures, from the day they landed on Diamodia and carved out their own little empire, and beyond.

With that, future readers, I present to you the tale of the Skull Kids, Book 1.

The Skull Kids Ka-tet

Renzor51

Renzor51 is the warrior-scribe of the group, and always documents the party’s adventures and excursions into game worlds. He’s a sneaky fighter, and often takes the role of a sniper, but can go head to head with the Skull Kids’ enemies when needed. A natural artist, Renzor51 tends to design and build many of the group’s fortresses and structures, and keeps things organized. He also focuses a lot on weapon-smithing and enchanting, always seeking out ways to improve his gear.

Molly

Molly is the group’s fiery and independent free spirit, and is a natural-born miner at heart. She loves to go for the diamonds, and will happily create vast, safe, and highly-organized mining networks. The most efficient of the group at resource gathering, Molly always has the most stuff. Stone, wood, iron, diamonds—she can get her hands on any of it faster than the others. She also loves to fish, farm, manage large ranches of animals, and is an expert Minecraft chef.

quantum_steve

As the group’s techno-wizard, quantum_steve is the developer of the group’s technology, acquires and adapts the excursion’s mod tech, and controls the Destiny Net—the unique equipment that allows the group to hop between worlds. He’s a brave fighter and a fearless explorer, and will often charge into battle head-on. With his interest in the technical aspects of the game, quantum_steve is a master of Redstone and Nether portals.

h1<>{color:#000;}.

Day 1 – Morning

I was the first one into the new world.

This is the first entry of Renzor51 of the Skull Kids Ka-tet, documenting our excursion into this particular Minecraft universe.

When I finally got my bearings, I realized that it was morning. Mid-morning. The sun shone high in the sky, but there was still plenty of time for us to figure out how we were going to hole up and protect ourselves before dark.

Standing in the shadow of an oak tree, I looked around. It had been a long time since I set foot in a Minecraft world. Molly, quantum_steve and I had been exploring other games for so long that I was worried about how much this game had changed.

There was grass under my feet, but not far away, the grass gave way to sand, and the sand continued forever. Behind and around me was a forest of oak trees, gradually changing to tall, thick, dark oak.

“Okay,” I said into the comm. “I’ve appeared on the edge of a desert … and a forest.”

I heard the chatter of quantum_steve and Molly in my earpiece, but couldn’t make them out. They must have still been in the Destinal Net.

The Destinal Net was the teleportation technology quantum_steve built for us to travel from world to world.

I was first feet on the ground.

A group of chickens clucked nearby, and I saw a pool of water surrounded by the plump, white birds just inside the trees.

Molly’s voice garbled in my ear. I caught a moment of “…you have to…” from quantum_steve. They were having trouble with the Destinal Net.

I wasn’t hungry yet, but it was good to know that there was a flock right next to our landing zone. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about hunger anyway—at least not until I crafted some weapons and tools. It was very difficult to catch and kill a chicken by hand.

Looking around, I saw that the desert extended far into … whatever direction. I would look into directions later. The sun was opposite the desert, and the sun always rose in the east. I guess the desert went west…

In the hazy distance of the barren landscape, I saw several light, sandy-colored building on the horizon.

“Oh, there’s a village!” I said.

“Nice!” said quantum_steve’s voice over the comm.

“It’s not letting me …” Molly’s voice garbled and faded out in my ear. What if they couldn’t get through? Would I be stuck here all alone? I took several steps out into the sand toward the village, but hung back at the landing zone.

I turned around to face the spawn point, and saw quantum_steve standing in the sand not far from me. His light blue, checkered polo shirt was bright in the sun, and several pieces of small electronics equipment hung from his belt.

“Oh, there you are,” I said.

Quantum_steve ran over to me distracted, holding his comm piece to his ear, and typing something on his arm console. He must have still been trying to help Molly transport. He stood next to me in the desert, hardly paying attention to the new world around us.

He and Molly chatted back and forth as he helped her through the Destinal net.

Most of the time, we were able to hop from world to world without a problem. But sometimes the worlds changed. And whenever the worlds changed, quantum_steve’s Destinal Net technology—as well as our mods—had to be adapted.

Once, back in our earlier days of planeswalking (as quantum_steve calls it), we were stuck on a world without technology for quite a long time!

But we survived. That’s what we do. We’re the Skull Kids. We survive.

When we learned, long ago, about the myth of Herobrine, the ghost in the machine, we decided to travel from world to world to see if we could get a glimpse of the elusive creature amidst our adventures. I suspect that quantum_steve wanted to study him, to learn about the code he had inside that allowed the ghost to bend the laws of the game.

Although, to this date, we’ve never seen it. We’ve been on worlds where other players have reported sightings of the ghost, but after setting up extensive bases and exploring the worlds for miles across terrain and down to the bedrock, we never found anything outside of the normal Minecraft universe.

Universe.

Multiverse.

I don’t know … quantum_steve talks about the ‘multiverse’. I guess it’s not like traveling from world to world—not really. It’s more like ‘universe hopping’ according to my more technical friend. Each Minecraft universe has a world, a Nether, and an End. So going from Minecraft world to Minecraft world is actually shifting back and forth between totally different universes!

Or … a Multiverse.

I’ve always called it ‘world hopping’ for simplicity. But that’s too simple of a term for it.

Heck, maybe there are other planets out there too, outside the atmosphere of this world, past the square moon, even past the square sun. But we’ve never gone off planet before. I’ve heard of some other players visiting space, but we never have.

Looking down at my own arm console, I could see that the directionals and coordinates were working, as they always did, but my JourneyMap mod did not. My mapping software was gone.

While quantum_steve talked with Molly over the comm, I made a mental note of where we spawned on this world, and decided to explore just a bit into the desert. My feet hissed through the sand, as I sprinted across the distance to get a closer look at the far-off village.

Approaching the large, bright-green cacti that grew here and there, I broke up a few cactus blocks to carry with me. Ever since my first exploration into these Minecraft worlds, I learned that cacti can be valuable as an obstacle for the mobs.

Who knows where we’d end up?

Maybe it would be a good idea to make a cactus fence around the front of whatever home we built.

It passed the time, anyway…

My friends were still having problems with the Destinal Net by the time I was halfway to the village. I broke up more cacti, looked around from the top of a sand dune, then headed back.

Returning to the spawn point, our landing zone, I saw a single cow standing at the edge of the sand and forest among the group of chickens.

I was a little hungry, so I approached with a piece of cactus in my hand and hit it with the spikey, green block. It mooed in protest and tried to run, so I chased it through the sand swinging my piece of cactus whenever I was close enough. Man, that cow was fast on open ground!

“Moo!” it cried. “Moo! Moo!”

My arm console told me that Molly arrived, and I saw quantum_steve approaching.

“I’m killing a cow,” I said over the comm, and my friend joined me in chasing the animal, hitting it with his fists. Eventually, we cornered it, and obtained our first pieces of food on this new world.

“Yay!” I laughed.

Quantum_steve laughed too, and we turned to join up with Molly.

“Okay, let’s go to that village!” I said. “I now have three steaks to start us off with.”

“Cool,” quantum_steve said, and we began running through the desert to the cluster of sand-stone huts in the distance.

I hadn’t heard from Molly yet since she arrived on the world, and couldn’t see her on my map since my map mod wasn’t working, but before I said anything, I saw her in the distance, running ahead of us to the village.

She knew exactly where to go first.

I laughed.

Day 1 – Afternoon

Sprinting across the desert, I tried to catch up to Molly, and reached the outlying farms just behind her. The hot sun made her blonde hair glow, and she stood out distinctly from the villagers in her pink shirt and green shorts. I passed all of the green stalks of plants sprouting from the tilled dirt, the colorful crops and blue water a stark contrast against all of the sand-based blocks that made up the village.

“Hurrr…” a villager said, as I ran past, catching up to Molly.

I ran past the small homes and into the center of town, and saw desert bunnies hopping around in the streets as I approached the village’s well.

Multiple villagers bustled around us, talking in their weird, squawking villager language.

“Where did you guys go?” quantum_steve asked over the comm.

“Village,” I said. I ran through a bunch of villagers and bunnies, rapidly exploring the different buildings to see what this small desert town had for us. “There are rabbits!”

“Okay,” quantum_steve said. “Are the buildings built with sand? Can we build with sand?”

I climbed a ladder inside a small building without a door.

“It’s like ‘sand-block’ and stuff,” I said. “Sand stone … and bricks.”

“I’m just wondering,” quantum_steve said. “It’s going to get dark. We’re going to die…”

He said that with drama. He was kidding, of course. But it had a grain of truth to it. Was it late afternoon already? I wasn’t worried yet, but we would have to figure out a way to secure our safety before dark.

“No, not necessarily,” I said. “We can easily just hole up in a building here.” I descended the ladder after taking a quick look over the town from the roof, then ran through the rest of town.

Man, all of this running was making me hungry!

“Oh man,” I said, “I’m super hungry all of a sudden!”

Molly’s voice came in over the comm. “But all of the villagers will die,” she said, “if we just stay here.”

“Maybe not,” quantum_steve said. “The world is different now. They might be able to get away better?”

I opened a door and went into one of the larger houses. A table, and some sort of structure made from stone slabs. Maybe I could find a chest somewhere with food so I wouldn’t have to eat one of these raw beef steaks.

Nothing useful in here, I thought. I left, closed the door, and went into the smaller house across the street. Also nothing. Closed the door behind me as I left.

Suddenly I was too hungry and tired to run. Walking through town, I entered another larger building. It was the village library. Scores of books lined the walls, and I approached a crafting table in the corner, but stepped away when I realized that all I was holding was raw meat and cactus blocks.

Back out in the street, I saw a mushroom growing in the sand under the edge of a house. Yes! I slowly approached to pick up and eat the mushroom, and when I reached down to grab the little snack, I accidentally placed a cactus block in front of it instead.

“Oops,” I said, and broke the block with my fist.

I was so hungry, I wasn’t thinking straight!

I happily picked up the mushroom, but was then disappointed when I realized that I couldn’t eat it. Not yet. It needed to be in a stew.

Was the sky getting darker?

I went into the sandstone church, and climbed the ladder to the top of the tower.

“I killed a rabbit,” quantum_steve said over the comm, “but I didn’t get any meat! What’s up with that?”

Climbing back down the ladder and exiting the church, I saw quantum_steve standing in the sand just outside of the village, doing something with sand blocks. I bet we were all getting very hungry.

We would need wood. This whole place was made of sand.

“Let’s see,” I said to myself, “where’s the nearest … forest?”

Looking out to the horizon, I saw quantum_steve milling about, and Molly was in one of the farm plots, pulling up … carrots? That was a smart idea.

“I don’t see a blacksmith,” I said. “Has anybody seen a blacksmith?” I walked through the town some more. The villager cleric was standing in a farm plot. The librarian stood talking with a farmer, both watching me, speaking in the language I didn’t understand. A tan rabbit hopped past them.

“Hmm? Hurr… Hurr…” they said to each other.

“There’s a library…” I said over the comm, walking through the town, looking for any other helpful buildings I haven’t already found.

“Oh yeah!” quantum_steve said. “Harvest!”

He must have seen Molly pulling up the crops.

“Yeah, I guess we could eat a bunch of carrots and stuff,” I said.

I ran-walked back to the farm where I previously saw Molly pulling up crops, and found quantum_steve pulling up wheat with his fists. Approaching a separate line of tilled earth, I started pulling out potatoes. They’d be best cooked, but raw potatoes and raw beef were better than nothing. We wouldn’t be able to cook anything until we had enough stone to make a furnace, and we wouldn’t be able to gather any stone until we cut down some trees.

Where was Molly?

“And we can bake cakes from the wheat!” quantum_steve said. “I don’t remember how to do that, but I bet Molly knows.” He was on another farm plot up a dune a little ways away from me now. I gathered the rest of the potatoes.

“Yep,” I said, “It’s been a while.”

“I have sticks,” he said, suddenly.

How did he find sticks? Was it from those bramble bushes here and there in the sand? I approached a couple of painful-looking, thorny bushes.

“What are these nasty—?” I punched a thorn bush, and it broke up into kindling. “Yep,” I said. “They make sticks. I gathered a couple of sticks. Rearranging my inventory, I now saw that I had blocks of cacti, three raw steaks, a mushroom, twenty-two potatoes, two sticks, and some wheat and seeds that quantum_steve had left behind.

“And I have cactus,” quantum_steve said, “which I don’t think I can eat.”

“I wonder if I can eat a potato,” I said, and started munching on a raw one.

“You can try,” Molly’s voice suddenly said. We all laughed.

The raw potato went down with difficulty. Yuck! I was able to eat it, but it didn’t really help at all. I was still too tired and hungry to run.

“It hardly did anything,” I said.

As I played around in my inventory, I saw quantum_steve exploring the village. I wondered where Molly was. It had to be close to getting dark. I hoped that she wasn’t too far. Not that she couldn’t handle herself…

“Where are you, Molly?” I said.

“By the spawn,” she said.

Holy cow. She was back in the landing zone!

“Ooooh,” Molly said. “Sugar cane!”

“I’m so hungry!” I whined.

“Oh yeah,” quantum_steve said. “I’m dying too. Well, not dying yet, but going to.”

“I can’t run,” I said.

“Oh, I got one potato!” quantum_steve said. We laughed.

I walked through town for a while before responding, looking for another farming plot. When I found one, I approached the rectangular enclosure of crops, tilled dirt, and water.

“I ate a potato,” I said. “It didn’t really do anything.”

Pulling on the nearest crops, I was surprised to see … carrots! That had to be better for my hunger than raw potatoes. I actually like raw carrots. I picked them all, and started cutting down all of the wheat.

“Yeah, it didn’t really help,” quantum_steve said. “Can we make something out of this wheat? I have, like, ten wheat. Can we make anything out of that? I don’t remember.”

We laughed.

I felt like such a noob.

“Me either,” I said. “Well we need a forge to … how do you cook? You cook in a forge? Yeah…”

Quantum_steve laughed. “Uh … yeah,” he said. “You make like an oven-like thing. ”

The Skull Kids, quantum_steve, Molly, and I, used to explore worlds like this all the time, but we had taken a break from adventuring for a little while, and the Minecraft universe had changed. And now, we were talking about how in the heck we were supposed to cook food!

I chuckled to myself as I approached a random villager. He stared at me with his hands held together under his brown garments and white apron.

“Huh?” he said, and showed me his wares. He was a leatherworker, and was asking for twelve pieces of leather in exchange for an emerald. I wondered if he’d take cactus?

“You make it out of stone,” Molly said, as I punched another cactus in the middle of town.

“Oh yeah, we need stone,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah,” quantum_steve said.

“And to get stone,” I said, “we need wood, but we’re in a desert.”

Day 1 – Evening

“Okay, where are you, Molly?” quantum_steve asked.

“I’m in the forest,” Molly said.

Quantum_steve and I were still wandering randomly in the village, looking for anything of value while talking over the comm.

“Have you found anything you can break in the forest?” quantum_steve said.

“Uh, yeah, I found some wood,” Molly said, “but I’m looking for a place that will be a little safer to cut down trees, ‘cause that’s a really thick and scary forest…”

Walking as quickly as I could, I wandered away from the edge of the village onto a taller sand dune, and looked around until I could see the landing zone where we came from.

“There’s the forest,” I said. “I’m heading back to the forest.”

So hungry. I trekked out into the desert, walking across the large expanse of sand as quickly as I could with my stomach grumbling. We wouldn’t be able to do anything without wood and stone, and I figured I could catch up to Molly and probably make a safe place to sleep … if I could reach the forest before dark.

“I’m starving,” quantum_steve said. “I ran too much.”

“Yeah, that’s what’s happening to me,” I said.

“A zombie!” quantum_steve said over the comm. “I can eat your meat!”

He was probably back behind me still in the village somewhere, or near it.

Where’d he run into a zombie?

I continued my hungry journey to the forest.

Oh yeah! I thought. The carrots!

I pulled out and munched on a carrot.

Molly laughed over the comm at the thought of quantum_steve eating gross zombie meat.

The carrot was delicious.

Ahhhh, I thought, that hit the spot. It wasn’t much, but it helped. I had twelve carrots, and was now down to eleven.

“Oh, hey,” I said, over the comm. “Carrots help a little. Did you get any carrots?”

I beat up some more thorny bushes to get more sticks as I ran across the sand. I could run again!

“Ummmm,” quantum_steve said, probably rummaging through his inventory. “I didn’t get any carrots. Got seeds and cactus and wheat.”

I ate another carrot. That should be enough to tide me over until we could cook some real food. Some meat.

“I killed the zombie, but he didn’t drop any meat,” quantum_steve lamented.

“Well let’s see,” I said, counting the bunch of them in my inventory. “I have ten carrots. You can have some—”

Quantum_steve interrupted me over the comm. “I can’t … I don’t think I can die from hunger, can I?”

Man, he was really in trouble.

As I finally approached the forest, I saw one of our group breaking blocks near the forest’s edge. I assumed it was Molly, but it was quantum_steve! How did he beat me there? Well, I did slow down to eat carrots and break a handful of thorny bushes to get sticks…

“There you are!” I said, running across the sand. “I’m going to the same place so I can cut wood.”

“I need to make a wooden sword. How do I—?”

“You need to make a crafting table first,” I said, approaching my friend. “You make planks out of tree wood.” Running past him, I made a bee-line for the nearest tree. Through the thick growth of oak trees, shadows, and blocks of leaves blotting out the sky, I saw patches of red and white … red with white polka dots. “Oh, there’s giant mushrooms over there.”

I started punching a tree.

Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump plop.

Thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump thump plop.

Turning, I saw the sky was orange, and I was looking directly west, facing the bright, setting sun.

“Uh oh, the sun’s going down,” I said.

At the same time, quantum_steve joked, “Oh no, we’re all going to die!”

Where was Molly? I wondered. She was being so quiet. Probably already had a little hut made of dirt to hide in for the night.

Watching the sun go down, I hurried to convert the three pieces of dark oak I had into wooden planks, then quickly built a crafting table.

“How do I use a crafting table?” quantum_steve asked over the comm.

“You have to place it on the ground,” I replied. “Been a while, huh?”

We laughed.

I put my own crafting table on the ground, and immediately picked up the sticks I made from all of those thorny bushes. “Hey, are you guys near me?” I asked. “I can make us all swords!”

“Yeah,” quantum_steve said. “I’m here.”

No word from Molly.

After making two wooden swords, I quickly made a wooden pickaxe. The sun was almost all the way down the horizon. Less than half of the brilliant square remained.

Darn, I thought. I didn’t have enough wood to make a pickaxe for quantum_steve. Making a single pickaxe for myself, I pulled the rest of the sticks off of the crafting table in a hurry.

The sun disappeared, leaving an orange and blue sky with stars starting to peek out from the glow.

“Jeez,” I said to myself quietly. “This is going to be nuts!”

We were still out in the open.

I grabbed my wooden sword in one hand, and the pickaxe in the other. I broke down my crafting table and picked it up just when night fell.

Night 1 – Part 1

“I’m gonna die,” quantum_steve said. I didn’t think he was joking anymore. “Where are you, man?”

“I’m just past where I passed you before,” I replied. I turned after picking up the crafting table, and ran back through the sand to where I saw my buddy last. “Are you dying of hunger?”

“No,” quantum_steve said. I could see him moving out into the open sand away from the forest in the dim light. “But I’m going to die from zombies before too long, probably if—” He trailed off, his comm a little garbled.

Probably referring to us not having a shelter.

I turned back to the forest and ran a few steps. “I need … uh…” I looked around, my mind racing.

No mobs yet, but they’d be on us very soon.

“I need some stone so that I could…” I ran to the forest’s edge. It was so dark in there. I heard quantum_steve’s footsteps and turned back to him. “Here, come to me so that I can give you a sword.”

He approached, and I threw a sword down at his feet. He picked it up.

“Oh, I already have a sword,” quantum_steve said.

Oh well.

I turned into the forest and ran into the trees. Had to make a shelter! Had to dig into the hillside or something!

“I need to get some wood,” quantum_steve said.

“Man, it’s very dark,” I said, running between the trees. I approached a rise in the ground, then turned back, looking between the trees some more. What was I doing?

“You must be laughing your butt off because you remember how to play this, Molly,” quantum_steve said.

I started digging into the grass in the hillside between some trees. Smashed the grass. Smashed the dirt under it.

“What?” Molly said. Her voice was a welcome sound. She’d been very quiet. We were in a tough spot, but I bet she was just fine…

“I said you must be laughing your butt off listening, because we’re so bad at this game now,” quantum_steve responded, laughing. I cut deeper and deeper into the hill into raw dirt. We were going to make it.

“Nah…” she said. “It’s not like hilarious or anything.” The two of them kept chatting about it. It’s amazing that we weren’t being swarmed with bad guys yet.

Was she being sarcastic? I smiled to myself as I dug further into the hill. Deeper into my tunnel and several blocks under the surface, I started to see stone, and pulled out my pickaxe.

“I’m digging into a hill,” I said, swinging over and over. “Okay … I found some stone. Are you next to me, quantum_steve? Cause if you are, can you just … protect my back?”

“I’m at the edge of the trees,” he said.

“I can get enough stone to make a forge and we can go back to the village…”

“Wait,” he said, alarm in his voice, “There’s a skeleton!”

“That’s not good,” I said. Keeping my head down and not looking behind me, I just kept tunneling and tunneling, collecting blocks of stone. “You could also come in here with me until morning.”

“Where are you?”

“I went into the hill a little bit,” I replied, and turned around, running through my short tunnel back to the surface. I wasn’t as far into the hill as I thought I was, I realized with dismay. Popping out among the tall grass, I saw that the world outside was dark and full of bad guys.

“Oh, I see you,” quantum_steve said, and ran to me. An arrow hit him just as he jumped into my hole.

“Ow,” I said, feeling his pain.

We ducked into the tunnel, and I turned around, facing the entrance, holding blocks of dirt.

“You didn’t bring more wood, did you?” I asked, as I blocked up the entrance to the tunnel.

We were cast into darkness, but we were safe.

For now.

“I brought wood,” quantum_steve said. “Here, you can have it.”

I picked up twenty or so wooden planks in the darkness.

“So let’s see,” I said, “now I can make … I’ll put my crafting table down again—wow it’s really dark in here—I can make a pickaxe.”

Using some of the stone I just gathered, along with the sticks I still had left from the bushes, I made a couple of stone pickaxes. Definitely an upgrade from the lousy wooden one!

“We were too busy checking out the village,” quantum_steve said from the darkness, “and not busy getting prepared.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Molly, are you in the village?”

Silence for a short time while I built another stone pickaxe for quantum_steve.

“Yes,” she said.

“Cool, baby doll.” I quietly rearranged my inventory for a short time. “Okay, quantum_steve, here is a pick. A stone pickaxe.” I threw it on the ground at his feet.

“Cool,” he replied.

“And let’s see …. I also need to make an axe.” I turned back to the crafting table and arranged stone and wood to make something I could use to chop down trees in the morning. “So we can bring some wood back to town.”

Not enough stone to make a furnace yet. I used my new axe to break down the crafting table as I heard quantum_steve harvesting stone behind me, then I turned to join him. Quantum_steve had already cut out quite a bit of stone with the improved pickaxe.

We were now in a large, and dark, carved-stone room.

“If we go too far out from here, we might have zombies spawning, because it’s so dark,” I said.

“Oh yeah, good point,” quantum_steve said. “We don’t need tons of stone.”

“We just have to keep in sight,” I said, as I started harvesting stone too.

It was so dark! I approached a stone wall that looked a little different.

“What is this?” I asked myself. “Is this dirt?”

I cut into the block and looked at what I picked up.

“Nope,” I said. “It’s granite.”

“Nice rock,” quantum_steve, “but don’t take it for granite.”

We laughed. Lame. Ha ha.

In the quiet darkness, we carefully cut away at the walls of our hiding place, taking care not to extend too far in any direction.

“What we need is some coal,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

I cut on into the stone, then said, “You know what I’m really going to miss about not having my shader though?” I was referring to another Destinal Net mod on my personal arm unit that wasn’t adapted to this new world. “Being able to see by just holding a torch…”

It wouldn’t have made any difference right now, of course, because we didn’t have any torches or any way to make them. But I imagined that if I did have a torch, we’d be just fine. In our previous worlds, I had a mod that allowed me to cast light from just holding the torch in my hand, instead of having to place it on the ground or on a wall.

“Oh yeah,” quantum_steve. “Well that’s cool—maybe we can figure out how to get that working again…”

In this new world, we were stripped of most of our old technology. A lot of it didn’t work and had to be disabled. Heck, we even had trouble with the Destiny Net just teleporting onto this world. I didn’t even have my JourneyMap, my favorite mod of all.

I wondered—would we even be able to get off of this world when we tried?

What if we were stuck here?

As we worked quietly in the dark, I listened as the surface above teemed with zombies, skeletons, creepers, and spiders.

We mined some more. More stone.

Night 1 – Part 2

“I could get lucky and find a little coal a couple levels below our feet,” quantum_steve said, cutting a new level down into the floor of what was now a decent-sized cave.

“Oh wait!” I said. “We do have a little bit of wood! We might be able to—”

Thump thump thump…

I paused, hearing zombie footsteps. We held our breaths for a moment, and the footsteps passed. Not very far above us.

“Oh yeah, we can make charcoal,” quantum_steve said.

Suddenly, I was disoriented. With the floor cut down some more, the walls all looked the same. Dirt on top, stone on bottom.

“Wait, how do we get out?” I asked, looking around in the dark space surrounding us. “I lost track of where our exit was.” I approached an area of wall where the dirt above the stone was big enough for us to pass through.

“Here?” I cut into a block of dirt, revealing more dirt behind it. “Nope.”

“Oh, it’s over here,” quantum_steve said. “Next to this block of granite.”

Back to work.

“Yeah…” I thought out loud, placing down my crafting table. “I can make a forge, and we can cook these three steaks I have, and get enough energy to run back to town!”

Suddenly, I heard some hissing, lightly-thumping footsteps above us that I didn’t recognize. They were like thin, sharp feet plodding around in grass or sand.

“There’s a weird sound out there,” I said. “You hear it? Weird footsteps…” I crafted a furnace and prepared to place it. “What do you suppose that is? That sounds new.”

Opening the furnace, I looked over the food I had to cook. We didn’t have any raw wood, so I couldn’t make charcoal for torches, but I could definitely cook some food with these oak planks!

The thin footsteps continued. “That must be a skeleton,” I said.

“There’s zombies too,” quantum_steve said.

Just then, I almost jumped out of my skin when a zombie made a wet, gargling snarl, much louder and closer than I was expecting.

Huuurrurururururrr…

Not much dirt between us and them.

“Or maybe that sound is a spider,” I said, when my heart slowed down again. I put the steak on the grill, and wood in the furnace, and the meat started cooking. Those steaks were going to be so tasty! I smiled in the darkness.

“Zombies growl,” quantum_steve said.

“Yeah, but that sound is some kind of footsteps that sounds kind of … I dunno … spiderish…”

“Well, yeah,” quantum_steve said, “things have changed a little. Oh hey, that makes light too!”

I didn’t realize it while I was watching the steaks cook, but he was right. The furnace lit up our little cave like a torch.

A zombie moaned outside.

“That’s definitely a zombie nearby,” I said.

The zombie—or zombies—outside continued groaning, moaning, and make wet gurgling sounds. The undead knew that we were in here, but I suppose they couldn’t figure out a way in.

The light from the furnace went out, and we were in total darkness again.

I picked up the meat, kept one for myself, and handed two to quantum_steve.

“Here’s two steaks,” I said. “I’m a little ahead of you because I’ve been eating some carrots.”

“Thanks,” he said.

I debated holding off on eating the meat for a moment, but it smelled so good and I was hungry enough, so I just wolfed it down. Yum. Finally, I was sated! Quantum_steve ate both of his steaks.

“That hit the spot,” he said, as I was breaking down the furnace to take with me.

“Now,” I said, licking my lips, “we can conceivably go out there, and make a run for the village. You wanna do that?”

“Remember, we’ll use up our energy running there,” quantum_steve said.

“We’ll use some, but now we can run into town and kill things and … oh yeah!” I said. “I suppose I should make us some stone swords first.”

“Yeah, that’s good thinking,” my friend said.

I thought about Molly. She’d been off on her own ever since I saw her last harvesting some crops in the village, and she’d hardly said a word. There was no way she’d made a bed yet. Was she just waiting out the night tucked away in the village? Were the villagers being killed by zombies all around her, like she was afraid of happening?

Quantum_steve and I certainly had our own share of problems in the forest over here, but I hoped she was okay…

Zombies moaned and gargled as I crafted a couple of stone swords.

“Okay, here’s one for you,” I said, handing quantum_steve an improved weapon. Now, with a stone sword in one hand, and a stone axe in the other, I chopped down my crafting table again.

For a little while, I tried to figure out how to get out of our cave. Even though quantum_steve showed me where our original hole was earlier in the night, the cave’s walls were very confusing. When I broke some dirt blocks, expecting to see the night sky, I just saw more dirt and darkness instead…

Night 1 – Part 3

Eventually, after trying to find a way out a few times, I broke open a dirt block, and saw stars, along with a tree trunk. It wasn’t the same way we came in, but I guess it would work. We would be turned around when we emerged, so we’d have to think fast!

“Okay, here we go. It’s not the same way we came in, but … you ready?”

“Yep,” quantum_steve said.

I jumped up the crude dirt staircase I made to get out, and was suddenly out in the open air again!

The night was almost over, and the sky was lightening a little. I quickly got my bearings, and ran between the trees, straight for the sand!

“The desert is to the right,” I said, hoping quantum_steve was right behind me. I was sure that there were enemies all around us, so I didn’t look back. As I sprinted out of the forest for the desert, I saw a creeper in my path, looking away, so I veered around him. His green body was silvery in the light of the setting moon.

“There’s a creeper!” I called out.

“Minecraft’s Grim reaper!” quantum_steve sang as he ran behind me.

As we ran into the desert, the moon was almost down. The sun would be coming up soon, but it would still take time for the daylight to kill the undead. I looked to my right as I ran, and saw two zombies at the edge of the forest turn their heads to look back at me.

“That’s probably what those weird footsteps were,” I said, thinking of the creeper. I slowed down, still heading out into the desert, but keeping my eye on the approaching zombies and waiting for quantum_steve.

No, that can’t be right, I thought, thinking back to the strange, spidery footsteps. Creepers don’t make any sound at all, right?

“A couple of zombies,” I warned.

I turned, and saw quantum_steve run up behind me. The zombies were trying to chase us, but we were much faster. Continuing into the desert, I looked around, back and forth, scanning the horizon. Saw more enemies—undead at the edge of the desert. There was a big, black spider in the sand ahead of us.

“Where’s the town?” I asked. “There’s a skeleton on the right!”

We ran further into the desert.

“All’s well over here,” Molly said suddenly.

“Very good, my dear!” I said.

There! I saw the hazy shadows of the village buildings in the twilight sky.

“There’s the village!” I exclaimed.

Quantum_steve and I continued running across the desert, turning this way and that, pausing to watch out for bad guys. In between two large cacti, I saw a cave opening in the sand extend deep into darkness underground.

“Oh, there’s a cave right here!” I said, looking back at quantum_steve.

He was chasing the wildlife.

“You trying to kill rabbits?” I paused, waited, looked around for bad guys, and saw a rabbit hiding in the shadow of a block of sand. When it saw me, it bolted! Curious, I ran after it, holding up my sword.

Quantum_steve laughed. “I was,” he said, “but it got away from me.”

I closed the distance to the large, tan bunny, and swung. Missed. Swung and missed again! It hopped all over the place! I tried to stay focused, and aimed carefully, running after it as it hopped away in a crazy pattern. My sword hit the rabbit once, and it let out a squeak! Wow—they were fast!

Turning to stay on the bunny’s tail, I swung again and again. Hit it once more, and it was still going! Quantum_steve ran up from the side to help, and he hit the rabbit, himself. The critter was still alive, hopping around wildly, trying to get away!

“Darn!” I said, swinging after it. I finally killed it with another blow, and picked up the meat. “That’s a tough rabbit!” We turned and continued running to the village.

“Yeah,” quantum_steve said. “Yes, it was.”

I paused, turned, and started running back to the forest.

“Hold on, actually,” I said, “If you want to get some more meat, there are cows over here.” I remembered the cow in our landing zone, and ran back to our original spawn point. There, I saw a brown and white cow immediately, and charged. The lumbering beast plodded along to the side, completely unaware that I was about to attack.

Quantum_steve came in suddenly ahead of me, and laid into the animal with his sword, collecting beef and leather.

Moo!

I looked for something else to kill, and found a chicken hanging out under a tree. When I approached, it looked at me passively with beady little black eyes. I swung my sword, and collected its meat and a feather.

Bawk!

Between the two of us, we killed several animals hanging around the area as the morning turned the sky blue and the grass green, and it was daytime again!

Day 2 – Morning

We killed more animals, running around in the morning sunshine, and collected more raw steaks, chicken meat, leather, eggs, and feathers.

The Skull Kids would be eating well today!

At one point, I chased a chicken down into a hole in the sand near the pool of water I saw yesterday, and saw that quantum_steve was already down there! I let him finish off the chicken, careful not to hit my friend with my sword.

Was he stuck down there?

After killing another chicken, I ran over and dropped down into the sandy pit to see quantum_steve exploring around in a natural underground cave of stone…

It wasn’t time yet to explore something like this cave, though. We didn’t even have any torches! Quantum_steve seemed to agree, because he immediately left the dark cave to dig his way back to the overworld through the falling sand.

As quantum_steve broke sand blocks to climb back up to the surface, we both laughed in surprise when he released a waterfall from the pool’s sandy shore, and the deep blue water pushed us back down into the cave. We laughed and swam up the waterslide, climbing back up onto firm ground under the sun.

A cow stood, looking at me.

“Hello, little cow…” I said, swapping my pickaxe for my sword.

We both attacked the animal, and collected more meat.

Moo!

We started running back across the bright desert to the village again.

“Alright,” quantum_steve said as we ran. “Now, we’ve got meat!”

I paused to look at my inventory.

“Let’s see, I’ve got one raw rabbit, two chickens, four steaks, some feathers … lots of potatoes and junk … some hide … still have the ten carrots…”

We ran on.

“You have a lot of potatoes?” quantum_steve asked, laughing.

“Yeah, I have a lot of potatoes. They’re not worth anything until you cook them.”

“Gotta cook ‘em … gotta cook ‘em,” quantum_steve sang and joked as we ran back to the village.

When we were close, and I passed the empty farm areas, I veered off course to chase a small rabbit. As I ran up to the little critter, swinging my sword, it expertly dodged and hopped up a sand hill, staying ahead of me as I chased it like a madman.

“Man, those rabbits!” I said, between jumping and dashing and swinging my sword, “They’re tough to catch!”

I hit the critter once, then chased the little rabbit away from the village, determined to kill it. It would not get away!

“I shouldn’t have been running,” quantum_steve said. “I wasted so much of my food…”

“Oh yeah,” I said. I was a little hungry myself! I jumped, spun around trying to stay on the rabbit, kept swinging my sword, but kept missing. “I totally forgot about that!” My stomach was rumbling already.

Quantum_steve appeared from the left suddenly, also swinging at the little rabbit, who was making us both look like noobs. We laughed. He managed to hit it once.

“It’s a baby rabbit,” I said. Maybe it was harder to catch because it was smaller and jumped higher.

My friend swung a few more times, then lost interest and ran off to the village, while I pursued the rabbit up a sand dune.

“We will kill you, baby rabbit!” I yelled, swinging and chasing. I had a new idea and tried to chase it without swinging my sword until the bunny paused to rest, then I hit it again!

But this was difficult.

Eventually, I cornered the tiny rabbit against a sand block, and hit it two more times until it squeaked a cute little death squeak.

“That’s why I didn’t get meat from the other one I killed,” quantum_steve said. “Because it was a baby.”

“Huh,” I replied, picking up some rabbit meat and a rabbit hide. “I got meat and hide from it…”

Quantum_steve was a short distance away from me, near the village, chasing another rabbit.

“It must have been a regular rabbit then,” he said.

“At least I think I got meat from it,” I said, checking my inventory.

Nope. Just a hide and a rabbit’s foot.

“Ah … nevermind. I got a rabbit’s foot.”

Done with killing rabbits for now, I ran back into the village. The buildings were all so bright and sunny, being built from sandstone. Running into town with a sword in one hand, and a pickaxe in the other, I hoped that the villagers wouldn’t freak out or anything!

“Okay, so let’s see now,” I said, looking around the town. “Molly? Are you here?”

“Yep, I’m here,” she said. “I’m back at the forest getting wood.”

Ugh. We crossed paths again!

I stepped back into the library, and saw two villagers conversing inside near the crafting table. They looked up at me, then resumed talking. For a moment, I examined the structure of the room, looking at the sandstone step-like benches, the two wooden tables, and the hanging shelves of books.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m setting up a forge in the library.”

Taking out my axe, I cut down the two wooden tables, then the wooden legs that held them up. I had to be careful not to hit the villagers, who stood, squawking at each other in their weird language, staring at me while I worked.

“Huh? Hurr…. Hurr?” they said.

Then, I broke down the sandstone benches with my pickaxe to make more floor space, clearing out the whole library to make room for our stuff.

“… after clearing out some of these useless seats, anyway,” I said to myself.

The room was nice and open, except for the hanging bookcases, the crafting table, which I may as well leave there for us to use, and the two villagers watching me with angry looks on their faces.

One of the villagers left. The other one looked at me disapprovingly, his hands together in his brown robes.

“Hurr…”

I didn’t like his tone…

“Get out of here, villager!” I said, and thwacked him with a carrot. He squawked and jumped back a bit, furrowing his brow.

“HRR!!”

He showed me that he was a farmer, and would trade me twenty wheat for an emerald.

“Get out, you farmer.” I said.

We all laughed over the comm.

The villager hung back, but stayed in the library, watching me.

“Huh. Hurr … Hurr…”

I placed my furnace next to the crafting table in the cleared out sandstone room. Looking inside the oven, I contemplated my inventory.

“Alright,” quantum_steve said. “I see which way Molly’s going…”

I stepped away from the forge, out the door, and into the village streets, then stood on the empty farming plot so that I could look out into the desert. Quantum_steve was standing on a sand dune a distance away, and I could barely see the pink shirt and blonde hair of Molly disappearing into the haze of the horizon as she ran away.

Quantum_steve continued. “You’re in the village, Renzor51, and I think Molly is going kinda toward the forest…”

“Yes, I’m getting a lot of wood,” Molly said.

Day 2 – Afternoon

I spent a little while watching quantum_steve run back to the village, then I looked out to the horizon all around us to figure out our directions.

The landing zone was to the east.

The village was due west directly from our spawn point, and I’d watched the sun and moon go down exactly in the direction of our little sandy town…

Looking down at my arm unit, I pulled up the coordinates screen.

I watched the coordinates and directionals change as I moved around and turned to face the forest, standing on the empty plot of farmland.

As I focused on the numbers on my arm unit, I tried to ignore the farmer villager standing next to me, watching me, bobbing up and down in the trench of water in between tilled dirt…

Villagers sure were weird.

Facing the forest again, I double-checked the directionals on my arm.

“So,” I said over the comm, “now I’m facing east. So the village is directly west of our spawning spot. Molly went north to get wood.”

“Getting wood…” quantum_steve said, dramatically.

We were quiet for a moment as I contemplated the coordinates.

Molly spoke up. “Does somebody want to come with me so I’m not scared?” She paused, then, “Ah! A zombie!”

“Sure,” I said, running back to the library. “Let me make a chest here first real quick to dump some stuff.”

Approaching the crafting table, I used the rest of quantum_steve’s oak planks to make a double-sized chest.

“I’ve gotta eat so I can keep up,” quantum_steve said.

“Oh yeah,” I said, picking up the chest. “We’ve got to cook some stuff!”

“I have no ability to run,” quantum_steve said in a silly way, “because I am really hungry.”

“Bummer,” I said, placing the double-chest down in a corner.

“There was a zombie in there,” Molly said suddenly, her voice wavering. She was joking, right? It couldn’t have been that scary…

I opened the chest. “Are you okay, Molly?”

“No,” she said, as I started dumping my non-essential items. “It’s still in the forest!”

“Well just go out into the open sky,” quantum_steve said, “until we get there, while we get some food so we can run.”

With my inventory reorganized, I noticed that we had plenty of meat, but not much fuel for the fire.

“Okay, so I have three planks of wood left,” I said, putting the four raw steaks on the furnace. Two oak planks, one dark oak. I put the dark oak in the fire first. The steaks started cooking.

“You have food?” quantum_steve asked. “There’s no time to waste!”

He entered the library and came up behind me.

“I have four raw beef, two chickens, and a rabbit … and a couple of eggs, so I will start cooking the beef.”

Molly’s voice came in over the comm again, a little garbled, then said, “Giant, scary cave…”

“Do you have any more wood, quantum_steve?”

“We need to cook something quick!” he said.

“I have tons of wood!” Molly said.

I pulled a cooked steak out of the furnace and tossed it to quantum_steve.

He laughed. “I will eat the steak, and I can give you some more wood.”

Waiting for the other three steaks, I added the regular oak planks, and impatiently watched the meat cook.

“Well I’m going to—” quantum_steve said, suddenly stopping. “Ah … which way did you run, Molly?”

“I’m not 100%,” she responded. “I ran toward the forest.”

“And, Renzor51, that’s to the east, right?” he said.

“Uh,” I responded, pulling out another cooked steak, “to the west. No, wait, yeah, to the east!”

The door opened and shut behind me. I turned around, and quantum_steve was gone. There was now a villager inside with me, watching me cook the steaks. He stared at me with his weird little green eyes. I looked back to the furnace.

“Hurr…”

“Hmm ….” I heard quantum_steve thinking over the comm as he looked out at the horizon, trying to figure out where Molly was.

“You know the farms in the village?” she said. “I passed all of the farms in the village on the way.”

The steaks were finally done, and I figured the rest of the meat would have to wait until later. I ran to the chest, and put all of the uncooked meat in there.

“Molly ran to the north I think,” I said. “The forest is to the east and it turns into dark oak as you continue north.”

I closed the chest and turned around, surprised to see three villagers staring back at me.

“Hurr…”

“What the heck is with these villagers?” I stopped and laughed. “I turned around and there are like three of them in here with me!”

“I’m right … here,” Molly said, “I see the village!”

“I can’t run,” quantum_steve said, “but I’m moving toward you.”

“It’s like,” I said, sprinting and jumping past the farmlands and running out into the desert, “I know this is your house and all, but it’s mine now!”

I paused to eat one of the cooked steaks, then booked it across the sand, not hungry anymore.

My Skull Kids friends chatted back and forth about running and jumping and getting hungry as I sprinted across the desert, the dark oak forest coming more and more into view. The canopy of the huge trees loomed, large and dark.

“Wow,” I said, getting closer, “big trees over there.” I made my way back to our little impromptu cave from last night. “That’s where I was getting some wood before and quantum_steve and I spent the night underground.”

This had to be where Molly was, right? I couldn’t see either of them, but they had to be around here somewhere…

I paused and scanned the dark forest, then saw quantum_steve’s bright-colored shirt in the shadows.

“There you guys are!” I said, continuing.

“Okay, so I need to make an axe,” quantum_steve said. I assumed they were together. Good. Would this be the first time we were all in the same place so far on this world? I thought so, yes.

As I sprinted across the sand, I looked up into the western sky, and saw the sun close to the horizon. It wouldn’t be long before the sun went down again.

Before stepping into the shadow of the dark oak forest, I pulled out my stone axe, then ran straight for the nearest huge tree.

“Alright!” I said. “Let’s get some wood!” I didn’t see Molly anywhere. “Where’s Molly?”

“Oh, she’s where we were,” quantum_steve said. “She’s next to me.”

Day 2 – Evening

I cut my way into the massive, dark oak tree, spiraling my way up the trunk, collecting piece by piece of wood until I was high above the ground.

There was a distant sound of chickens clucking.

As I focused on harvesting the large tree, I noticed a red glow in the distance.

“I see some lava over there,” I said, in between cuts of wood. “I wonder if there are many dungeons on this world…”

As I cut into the tree, the sky gradually became darker and darker. I made my way to the top of the main trunk of the dark oak, and started cutting up all of the thick branches that extended into the canopy of leaves. It was getting hard to see. I made sure that all of the branches were cut and gone before making my way back down to the ground.

“Now I’m heading over here,” Molly said, “to this giant, stone mountain, so that I can burrow inside of it safely and mine overnight.”

“Yeah, night’s falling,” I said. I was so focused on getting every last bit of wood from this tree before night began, that I wasn’t looking around me, and I had no idea where my friends were!

I focused intensely on the blocks of tree trunk remaining, cutting away with my axe, and hoped that I would be able to find them when I looked up again.

When the tree was totally cut down, I scrambled to find the blocks of wood that I dropped in the grass from up above, and noticed that the sky was a darkening pink.

Uh oh.

I hurried around trying to find the pieces of wood I still needed to collect.

“I can’t run, but I am walking toward you, Molly,” quantum_steve said in the comm.

Finding the last bit of wood, I stepped out into the sand so that I could see a little better. “We must all go together,” I said. “Where are you guys?”

The sunset was pink and orange, lighting up the clouds in front of a blackening sky. I could already see the stars. But I didn’t see my friends anywhere…

“And we’ll all … go down … together,” quantum_steve sang. “You don’t see me on the sand, over here?”

I approached a crafting table one of them left at the desert’s edge. Probably quantum_steve’s, from when he made an axe.

I looked around. No one. Nothing.

The moon was coming up, and the world was no longer bathed in the warm, fiery colors of sunset, but instead, was turning blue. I saw a single rabbit jumping in the sand far away.

“I’m at neg … negative twenty-six, negative twenty-nine, one … o’four,” quantum_steve said over the comm. His transmission was distorted.

Was that right? Did he break up a little bit?

I turned, and saw a trio of skeletons silhouetted by the colorful pink sky, then darted back into the trees before they saw me.

Hearing a footstep in the darkness, I turned to the shadows in the trees, now utterly dark, holding up my sword in one hand, and my axe in the other.

I didn’t have time to check my coordinates! I was being surrounded, and I was out in the open!

“I see lava…” Molly said over the comm.

“I dunno,” I said, then turned to the left and ran along the edge of the sand. Maybe they were around these trees? I saw the bright red of giant mushrooms peeking out from the thick darkness of the forest. “There’s … there’s skeletons, and…”

“OMG, zombies!” Molly suddenly cried over the comm.

“Oh man, I can’t find you guys!” I said, peering around in the dark, turning frequently to keep an eye on the group of skeletons.

“Where did you—you ran ahead of me way far…” quantum_steve said.

Was he talking to me or Molly? I didn’t run anywhere!

I scanned the forest, turned, and looked out into the desert. More bad guys. No Skull Kids…

“OMG, zombies!” Molly said again.

“Look at the coordinates, dude!” quantum_steve said in my earpiece. “Neg eight … I’m at negative eighty-eight, one four, one fifty-one.”

I took a second to look at my arm unit. Forty-eight, sixty-eight, twenty-nine. What?! That didn’t make any sense. They were in a completely different place? His transmission must have been garbled. They couldn’t be at fourteen! They’d be way deep underground! And the other coordinates were totally different than mine.

The twang of a bow sounded in the air, and an arrow hit the sand next to me. I jumped.

“Now negative one hundred, fifty-eight.”

This would take time for me to figure out, and time was something I didn’t have! I heard zombie footsteps. There was already at least one skeleton on me. It wouldn’t be long until I was surrounded. I was surprised the skeleton had missed!

“OMG,” Molly said, “There are freaking zombies everywhere!”

“I see them all,” quantum_steve said over the comm, “but I cannot run…”

The mobs were closing in on me, and I had to figure out what I was going to do…

CLICK HERE to continue to the next book in the series!

The Skull Kids build a cave home!

During a crazy night of being separated with no shelter, Renzor51 tries to survive in a sandy desert cave, while quantum_steve and Molly have baby zombie troubles! After a long trek through the forest, treetops, past a lava fall and lots of cave-riddled hills, Renzor51 reunites with the group just in time to help convert a tiny, mountain cave into the Skull Kids’ first real home on this new world!

Several days into trying to survive, will the trio of players finally find some sense of security in their new mountain home?

Love Minecraft adventure??

Read Book 2 of the Enderman Ninja now!

[+ CLICK HERE to find BOOK 2 NOW!+].

Want More Skull Kids?

When this book gets lots of reviews, it tells me that people love this story and want to see more of the same characters. Would you like this series to continue? Please say so in a review! Then, join my mailing list and get an email when the next book comes out!

Please take a minute to leave a simple review, it really helps! It doesn’t have to be long or complicated—just write a few words and click on the stars! It just takes one minute, and you can really make a difference and help me write more stories!

And I remember my reviewers! Look for your name under my ‘Amazing Readers’ section at the end of the book, where I list my all-star reviewers. Heck—maybe I’ll even use your name in a story if you want me to! (Let me know in the review!)

About the Author – Skeleton Steve

I am Skeleton Steve. I’ve been all over the Minecraft world of Diamodia (and others). As an adventurer and a writer at heart, I always chronicle my journeys, and I ask all of the friends I meet along the way to do the same.

Make sure to keep up with my books whenever I publish something new! If you want to know when new books come out, sign up for my mailing list and the Skeleton Steve Club:

Here’s my website: www.SkeletonSteve.com

You can also ‘like’ me on Facebook: Facebook.com/SkeletonSteveMinecraft

And ‘follow’ me on Twitter: Twitter.com/SkeletonSteveCo

And subscribe to me on Youtube: (Click here)

“Subscribe” to my Mailing List and Get Free Updates!

I love bringing my Minecraft stories to readers like you, and I hope to one day put out over 100 stories! If you have a cool idea for a Minecraft story, please send me an email at [email protected], and I might make your idea into a real book. I promise I’ll write back. :)

Other Books by Skeleton Steve

The “Noob Mob” Books

Books about individual mobs and their adventures becoming heroes of Diamodia

Diary of a Creeper King – Book 1

Diary of a Creeper King – Book 2

Diary of a Teenage Zombie Villager – Book 1

Diary of a Chicken Battle Steed – Book 1

Diary of a Lone Wolf – Book 1

Diary of an Enderman Ninja – Book 1

Diary of an Enderman Ninja – Book 2

Diary of an Enderman Ninja – Book 3

Diary of a Separated Slime – Book 1

Diary of an Iron Golem Guardian – Book 1

The “Skull Kids” Books

A Continuing Diary about the Skull Kids, a group of world-hopping players

Diary of a Zombie Hunter Player Team – The Skull Kids – Book 1

Diary of a Zombie Hunter Player Team – The Skull Kids – Book 2

Diary of a Zombie Hunter Player Team – The Skull Kids – Book 3

The “Fan Series” Books

Continuing Diary Series written by Skeleton Steve and his fans! Which one is your favorite?

Diary of Steve and the Wimpy Creeper – Book 1

Diary of Steve and the Wimpy Creeper – Book 2

Diary of Steve and the Wimpy Creeper – Book 3

Diary of Zombie Steve and Wimpy the Wolf – Book 1 COMING SOON

The “Tips and Tricks” Books

Handbooks for Serious Minecraft Players, revealing Secrets and Advice

Skeleton Steve’s Secret Tricks and Tips – Book 1

Skeleton Steve’s Top 10 List of Rare Tips – Book 1

Skeleton Steve’s Guide to the First 12 Things I Do in a New Game – Book 1

Get these books as a FREE GIFT!

Collections and Box Sets

Bundles of Skeleton Steve books from the Minecraft Universe

Great Values! Usually 3-4 Books for almost the price of one!

[+ Skeleton Steve and the Noob Mobs – Book 1 Collection+]

[+ Steve and the Wimpy Creeper – Box Set 1+]

[+ Diary of an Enderman NINJA – Box Set 1+]

MORE COMING SOON!

Check out the website SkeletonSteve.com for more!

Enjoy this Excerpt from…

“Diary Adventures of a Creeper King” Book 1

About the book:

Ever heard of the Creeper King, mighty Cth’ka?

Read the adventure diary of a young creeper who was looking for a way to protect himself without blowing up!

When Cth’ka the Creeper and Skeleton Steve leave the forest to ask the local witch for help, they are soon on a long and dangerous journey to find a secret artifact that will allow Cth’ka the power to move blocks with his mind! But will the difficulty of traveling across the Minecraft world, a village under attack, hiding from a fully-armored killer hero, and finding the way to a hidden stronghold be too much for a creeper and his skeleton companion to handle?

Love Minecraft adventure??

Read on for an Excerpt for the book!

 

Day 1

Let’s see … is this ‘Night 1’ or ‘Day 1’? I figure I’ll write these entries in terms of days, since I never sleep. I will try to ignore the fact that, since I don’t have hands that I can write with, I’m sitting under a tree right now dictating, saying my story out loud, to my good friend, Skeleton Steve.

He says that I should just tell the story like I’m writing it. I’ll give this a try.

My name is Cth’ka. I’m a creeper. I don’t know if that’s the real name of my race, but that’s what everyone calls us, so it works.

Other creepers would probably say that I’m a weird guy. An oddball.

But other creepers don’t say much.

That’s what’s different about me. I don’t know very much about where we came from. Heck, I don’t even remember much about a year or so ago.

How did I get here? As far as I know, I’ve always lived in this forest. Skeleton Steve calls it “Darkwood Forest”. He says that there are hundreds—thousands of other forests, so he likes to give names to places.

I do love this place.

The hills rise and fall, and the trees are thick, tall, and dark. Dark oak, Steve says. It’s a very large forest too. I’ve never felt much of an urge to leave.

On one side of the forest, where the hills slope down, there’s a thick jungle where the trees are different. On another side, the hills rise higher and higher until the trees stop, and snowy peaks reach into the sky.

I never go there, to the cold mountains. Hardly ever, really. I prefer to be in warmer places.

The jungle is nice and warm, but it’s also full of water and rivers, and I don’t care for water—not at all.

On the other sides of Darkwood forest, the hills continue for quite a ways with tall, dark oak trees, until they wind down into some grassy plains full of flowers and horses.

I love this forest, but I’m getting side-tracked.

Creepers are very solitary. I’ve seen many creatures in this world, living in and passing through my forest. Some creatures have moms and dads. Most of them are babies and then grow up. The zombies and skeletons don’t. I don’t know where they come from. Where Skeleton Steve came from. I think he was something else before he became who he is today.

I don’t know much about my past. Or where my race came from.

I don’t remember having a mom or dad. And I don’t remember being smaller, or growing up in any way. I hope to find out about these things in time.

Creepers don’t exactly have a library of their race’s past. There’s nothing to study. Nothing we can learn from our elders. I can’t even tell the difference between a young creeper and an old creeper! I assume that I’m young, but maybe we just don’t have very good memories. Who knows?

And the creepers I see while I walk around my forest don’t have much to say either.

Earlier today, I was in my favorite part of Darkwood. My clearing. Near the very middle of this forest is a large clearing, a place where the trees break, and a wide valley of grass stretches out a long way. Red and yellow flowers pepper the open expanse. I love to go there during the day and watch the flowers sway in the breeze, feel the sun on my skin, and watch the clouds roll by.

At the time, Skeleton Steve was back in the forest. He doesn’t sleep either, but he can’t explore with me during the day. If Skeleton Steve steps into the sunlight … foom! He’d catch on fire. I’ve only seen it happen once before—he’s pretty careful. But I guess that’s just part of being undead.

So Skeleton Steve was back in the thickest part of the forest, waiting out the day in the shadow of a large dark oak tree, and I was watching another creeper walk across the clearing.

Whenever I see another creeper, I always try to make conversation, to learn about them. It’s always my hope to learn more about my people, and to make friends who are like me.

“Hi there,” I said.

The other creeper noticed me, said nothing, then turned to continue moving away. I followed.

“My name is Cth’ka. What’s yoursss?”

The other creeper stopped, and turned to face me. “What you wantsss?”

“I don’t sssee othersss like me very often. Where did you come from? Where are you going?”

“What doesss it matter to you?” he said in a gravelly voice. He turned, and continued walking through the valley.

“I jussst want to be friendsss,” I said to his back. “Pleassse tell me about yourssself!”

I stopped.

The other creeper kept moving, without speaking again, and I stood in the sun and watched until he disappeared into the shadows of the dark oak trees.

Later that day, when the sun went down, I walked back to where I knew Skeleton Steve was waiting for me. In the shadows of the darkening forest, I could see the glowing red dots of his eyes, hovering in the middle of his empty black eye sockets, watching me approach.

“Why do you always try to talk to the other creepers?” Skeleton Steve asked after I told him about my day. “They always act the same way.”

We were walking along a ridge, watching the moon rise into the sky. Skeleton Steve’s face was silver in the fading light. I could see in the darkness just fine, but when the light faded away, the colors of the world disappeared too. I did love the daylight, when everything was bold and colorful. It was too bad that Skeleton Steve always had to hide in the dark.

“I’ve got to try,” I said. “There have to be more creepersss out there like me. I want to know more about why we’re here. How we creepersss get here.”

“So many creepers are just … grumpy, it seems,” Skeleton Steve said.

We walked in silence for a while.

“I wonder if we’re ssstuck like thisss, or if there will ever be sssomeone to bring usss together. If there are other creepersss, sssmart like me, I’m sure we can do great thingsss.”

“Why are you so interested in other creepers?” Skeleton Steve said.

“I think … it would be a good thing for usss to come together,” I said. I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting at, but I knew that I wanted creepers, as a people, to find strength together somehow. To have a real race, a real history. Something unique that we could pass down to whatever it meant to be the next generation. I didn’t even know if creepers had children, or how more creepers came to be. “We could maybe be—I don’t know—a real race. Develop ourssselvesss instead of jussst being like animalsss wandering around all alone.”

“You mean like creeper cities? A creeper nation?” Skeleton Steve said, smirking.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I jussst feel like, we could be … more.”

Day 2

I stayed with Skeleton Steve in the dark during the day. We were close to the jungle, and I thought it might be fun to walk along the border when the sun went down. We might even see some areas of the jungle that were dry enough to let us walk down into it for a while without having to cross any water.

It would be nice to feel the warmth of the tropical forest. I hadn’t visited the jungle in a long time.

Another creeper passed by, and I was at least able to get his name. Car’nuk. But we didn’t talk about much else. I tried to find out how old Car’nuk was, and where he lived, but, like all of the others, he scowled at me, and went on his way.

It was a little sad, how difficult it was to communicate with my people. It’s like we creepers were designed to never have anything to do with each other. And that was a pity. Creepers are natural-born explorers. We walk, all day and all night, and I’m sure there would be plenty to talk about if the others like me weren’t so grumpy about having conversations.

When the sun went down, Skeleton Steve and I walked to the next ridge over, where we could look down into the jungle. Even in the fading light, I was surprised at how green the area was.

Some of the trees were squat and so thick that it made it hard to see the ground beneath them, and they were covered with vines that descended like green, ropy sheets from the treetops. Other trees were massive and tall, popping out of the canopy with large clumps of leaves extending in multiple directions.

I bet it rained a lot here.

It was hard to see through the trees, but I could see water here and there, down below. There must be rivers and pools all over.

I could never live in the jungle. I don’t like the water. Never have. I’ve always had a hard time with the idea of floating in the water, even though I’ve seen other creepers swim before—I don’t know how to ssswim, and didn’t know if I’d ever be able to figure it out.

With my little legs, the idea of not being able to keep my head out of water, the idea of sssplashing and ssstruggling to get back to sssolid ground …. my lungsss filling up with water …. Ssssssssss … sssssssssplashing, ssssssstruggling …

No thanksss. Just the thought of being stuck in water gets me all … excited. I’ve always thought it would be better to avoid water altogether.

As Skeleton Steve and I walked along the ridge, we looked out over the expanse of trees into the dense jungle below. The ridge descended gently into an area of jungle that wasn’t as thick.

I hesitated.

“It’s okay,” Skeleton Steve said. “I don’t see anything bad in there. It’s just part jungle. Do you want to see what it looks like inside?”

I walked with him down into the tree-line. Darkwood Forest was behind us now, just on the other side of the ridge. There were no rivers or pools in the immediate area. No water.

We stood, peering into the depths of the jungle, and I was thinking about heading back to the forest when I saw movement! Green.

Another creeper!

I saw the distinct shape, its head turn, a face like mine looking back at us from the darkness for just a moment before it turned again.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Hello there!”

The creeper stood still, then turned to look at us again.

“Let’sss go in!” I said.

Skeleton Steve shrugged, and followed me deeper into the jungle.

We approached the creeper, and I called out to him again from a distance. “Hi there, fellow creeper! I’m Cth’ka! Do you live here in the jungle?”

As we continued making our way to my new friend through the heavy underbrush, I saw the creeper suddenly snap his attention to one side, then stagger back a few steps. I could hear him hiss, unsure at first, then again—intensely! The creeper fell back again, and I saw something on its chest—a blur of a creature, dim without color, but … spots?

The creeper was under attack?!

I was suddenly afraid, and faintly heard Skeleton Steve, at my side, pull out his bow and nock an arrow. The creeper hissed again, a continual, rising, sputtering sound! It was definitely an animal of some kind, a spotted creature, small, clawing and biting at my intended friend.

“Ocelot!” Skeleton Steve said.

Expanding and shaking, hissing even louder, the creeper suddenly exploded with a thunderous boom!

What?! How?

How did that …?

Shocked, I stood, staring at the spot where the creeper and the ocelot were fighting, now a crater of raw dirt and shredded plants, and I felt fear wash over me again when I saw two white and yellow forms darting through the bushes … straight at me.

Two more ocelots! Little greens eyes, focused on me.

“Run!” Skeleton Steve yelled, and I stumbled backwards as an arrow suddenly struck one of the cats. It turned and sprinted off to Steve.

As I focused on the ocelot about to attack me, trying to force my body turn and run away back up the hill, my hearing seemed to tighten around my heartbeat, my vision darkened around the edges, and Skeleton Steve’s shouted warnings suddenly seemed very far away…

The ocelot leapt through the air at me, and I felt its claws and teeth sink into my body. I tried to turn and run, but it was hanging onto me. My hearing, now weird and hollow like I was in a deep cave, was focusing more and more on a … hissing sound … I ssscrambled, tried to essscape, tried to call for Ssskeleton Sssteve … Ssssssssss …

“Sssteve! Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssave me!”

An arrow appeared out of nowhere sssticking out of the ocelot’sss ssside, and the cat fell. I turned and sssaw Ssskeleton Sssteve nocking another arrow, aiming past me.

I ran up the hill. Turned. Sssaw Ssskeleton Sssteve kill the ocelot. He ran to catch up to me, his bonesss rattling.

We ran back up the hill out of the jungle together, back up to the ridge.

“Are you okay?” Skeleton Steve said.

I could suddenly hear again, see again, like normal!

“Yesss,” I said. “What … ssssssssss …. What happened?”

Skeleton Steve sat on the ridge, looking out over the jungle, his bow still in his hand.

“Those were ocelots,” he said. “Mostly harmless animals. Strange that they attacked. Usually they mind their own business. I know they don’t like creepers, but I’ve never seen them attack one before.”

“What happened to the creeper?” I asked. “It blew up!”

Skeleton Steve looked at me. “You don’t know?” he asked.

I shook my head.

Skeleton Steve’s glowing red dots of eyes looked me over. “That—blowing up—that’s what creepers do. They explode. In self-defense, and also when they’re attacking a Steve.”

“When they’re attacking you?”

“No,” Skeleton Steve said. “A Steve.” He looked off at the moon. “My name is Steve, yes, but there is another creature on this world named ‘Steve’ as well. He’s different than us.”

“But why explode?” I said.

“That’s all that the creeper could do,” Skeleton Steve said. “When the ocelot attacked him, he exploded in self-defense, and killed it.”

I was so confused. Why would he defend himself … by killing himself?

“It doesn’t make sssenssse,” I said.

Skeleton Steve looked at me. “No one knows why creepers explode, Cth’ka. There’s no other way for them to defend themselves, really. And I’ve never seen a creeper really care. I’ve seen creepers launch themselves at Steve and happily blow up in his face!” He regarded me for a moment. “You were about to explode too, you know. When that ocelot attacked you? I’m surprised you didn’t, actually.”

I looked down at my body, at the wounds where the cat had ripped at me.

So that’s what that was—when I was losing concentration, when my vision and my hearing changed. Was I preparing to blow myself up?

“Why didn’t I explode?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Skeleton Steve said. “Maybe you’re a little different? Maybe with how smart you are, compared to other creepers I’ve seen, you’re able to control yourself better? We’ll have to look into that some more—so you can survive longer. I’d hate to lose you as my friend, if you ever get attacked again and blow up, or if we run into the Steve.”

What a twist to my pleasant little life, roaming around in my forest! I had never seen a creeper explode before. I didn’t even know it was possible. And now, there was a way that, if I was freaked out enough, I could lose control of my mind and blow myself up, too?

No way! That’s crazy. I had a life to live. I wanted to bring ‘creeperkind’ together and learn more about our race. To learn more about our past and our culture … if there was one. Surely there was more to the creeper race than random solitary creatures that avoid having friends and then eventually blow themselves up?

What could I do?

I was defenseless. If Skeleton Steve wasn’t with me, I would have been helpless, and killed by those ocelots. Or turned myself into a living bomb and ended up dead just the same.

“How can I defend myssself?” I muttered.

We sat quietly for a few moments. The tall grass swayed in the night breeze.

“I have an idea,” Skeleton Steve said. He was watching me as I sat, thinking. “You are special, Cth’ka. I’d like to see you learn to control your ‘defense mechanism’ and be able to defend yourself properly, but you can’t use weapons like me, and you can’t run very fast. We should go and talk to the witch! Maybe she’ll have an idea.”

“Witch?” I asked.

“Yes,” Steve said. “There’s a witch not too far from here, named Worla. I’ve dealt with her in the past, and she’s very clever. She might be able to figure out why you’re different. Maybe she’ll have an idea about how to make it easier for you to survive without blowing yourself up one day.”

For the rest of the night, Skeleton Steve and I traveled to the edge of the forest that was closest to the swamp. Before the sun came up, we found a small cave, and decided to wait out the day in there.

Day 3

When the sun went down, and undead could walk around outside safely again, we departed for the witch.

Standing at the edge of the forest, I could feel Darkwood behind me like a warm, safe hug, and the plains stretching out ahead of us, the empty rolling hills in the distance were … unknown.

We struck out, down from the shadows of the dark oak trees, into green and yellow fields. A group of horses of different colors stood quietly in the grass far off to the left, staying still in the night. A couple of zombies roamed aimlessly in the valley nearby.

“So, over those hills ahead,” Skeleton Steve said, “is a swamp where Worla lives.”

“A ssswamp?” I said. “Like, full of … water?”

Skeleton Steve laughed.

“Yes,” he said. “Swamps are full of water. But that’s where witches live.”

“Can’t we just have her come to usss?”

Skeleton Steve looked back at me while we walked. “Cth’ka, sometimes, to get good things, you have to take risks.”

We walked across the great, open valley, then up into some sparse hills, as the wind whistled across the plain and the moon slowly moved across the sky. The hills were mostly devoid of trees at first, then started sprouting white trees here and there. Skeleton Steve called them ‘Birch’ trees. The hills rolled on, with more and more trees, until we seemed to be heading downhill all the time, and the trees turned darker.

Eventually, vines started growing from the trees, then further on, thick sheets of vines cascaded down their sides, a lot like the trees we saw in the jungle. The ground flattened out, and we were suddenly standing at the edge of a huge swamp, with random dirt and mud and water alternating as far as I could see, full of weeping trees. The air was hot and wet, and large lily pads spotted the surface of the water.

“That’sss a lot of water,” I said.

“It’s okay,” Skeleton Steve said. “We’ll stay on land where we can, and you can use the lily pads when you need to.”

Lily pads? A sssaucer of plant stuff being the only thing keeping me from drowning in the murky water of this dreadful place?

“Where’sss the witch?” I said.

“Worla’s hut is a little ways past that outcropping of rock over there,” Skeleton Steve said, pointing to a spire of rock sticking out of a small hill, deep in the swamp.

Over the next few hours, we traveled across the bog. There was a lot of water, but Skeleton Steve was right! He was careful in planning where to walk, and planning ahead, and we stayed on dry ground most of the time. There were a few places where I had to cross water, but we were able to avoid swimming by finding areas where the land was close together, and joined with lily pads.

Once we reached the spire landmark, Skeleton Steve pointed deeper into the swamp, and I saw, in the fog, a small, dark dwelling standing on wooden stilts. The light of a fire inside made the hut stand out in the darkness.

“I’ve never ssseen a witch before,” I said.

“Just be respectful, and certainly stay calm!” Skeleton Steve said with a smile.

When we approached the little building, I was relieved to see that it was mostly on land. I was afraid that I would have to cross more lily pads or even try to cross open water to get there. A rickety wooden ladder was lashed to one of the stilts, and it led to the deck on the front of the little house, and standing on the deck…

“Who goes there?” a woman’s twisted and sharp-edged voice rang out in the quiet, dark night.

I saw a strange creature standing on the deck, just outside the doorway, her body wrapped in a dark purple robe, her hands hidden inside, and a black cowl hid most of her face. Her features were angry, and a hook-like nose curled down in front of a scowling mouth.

“Reveal your intentions,” she said, “or I’ll set you on fire!”

“Worla!” my bony friend said, “It is I, Skeleton Steve, and my companion, Cth’ka, come to consult your wisdom!”

She seemed to think for a moment.

“Skeleton Steve,” she said, her voice suddenly much more friendly. “You are welcome, but I cannot risk your creeper companion destroying my home! I’ll be down directly. Have a seat.” She disappeared back into her doorway.

Skeleton Steve smirked at me. He looked around the clearing where we stood, and walked over to a circle of fallen logs. He sat on a log.

I followed.

A few minutes later, the witch descended her ladder with ease, and approached us. She sat on a log opposite Skeleton Steve so that we could all speak. A torch stuck out of the ground in the middle of our circle, which I didn’t notice before, and it flared to life, casting fiery reflections and dancing shadows all around us.

“I am Worla,” she said to me, “the witch of Lurkmire Swamp.”

“I am Cth’ka,” I said, “creeper … of Darkwood Foressst?”

Skeleton Steve laughed. Worla laughed. I relaxed.

“What can my wisdom do for you tonight, Skeleton Steve?” she said.

“We’ve come because of my creeper friend here, Cth’ka,” he said. “He is on a quest to learn more about his race, and to bring his people together, but is in need of a way to defend himself without blowing himself up.”

Worla cackled. “A creeper trying to avoid blowing himself up?”

“Why isss that ssso funny?” I asked, my tone a little harsher than I intended. Skeleton Steve flinched a little.

“Because,” the witch said, “creepers are quite happy to blow themselves up. It’s their destiny. It’s how they make more creepers.”

What?

“Ssssss … More creepersss?” I said. That was absurd!

“Look into my eyes, young creeper. Let me look into your destiny.” She leaned forward toward me.

I looked at Skeleton Steve. He shrugged. Looking back at Worla the witch, I took a deep breath, steadied my fear, and held still, looking right into her beady, black eyes. In the flickering flames of the torchlight, I saw my frowning, green face reflected back at me in her eyes. Worla’s face was still and passive, then it transformed in surprise!

“Oh my,” she said, her black eyes unmoving but her face animating around them. “My, my. What an interesting path you have, mighty Cth’ka…”

Mighty?

She continued. “I can see what lies ahead for you, most interesting creeper. Interesting, indeed!”

“What isss?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Skeleton Steve said. “What’s so interesting?”

Worla laughed, breaking her eyes out of the dark and stony stare that held my own eyes in a tight grip. My attention to the swamp around me suddenly snapped back into focus.

“Cth’ka the creeper,” she said. “I will help you, yes. I will tell you the location of an … artifact of sorts, something that will allow you the ability to act with hands unseen, strong hands that will let you smash your enemies and defend yourself without using your … last resort. Is this idea to your liking?”

I had no idea what she meant by all of that. Hands unseen? Some kind of weird magic?

“What do you mean?” I said. “Handsss unssseen?”

“Yes,” she replied. “A magical item that will let you manipulate the world around you with your mind. The only possible defense for someone of your kind, assuming you don’t want to destroy yourself.”

She waved her hand, and the torch snuffed out like magic. A snap of her long, spindly fingers, and it flared to life again.

“I will give you items to assist in your journey as well. I only ask a small price in return…”

“What price?” I said.

“I am … building my interest here in Lurkmire still, and will require your assistance in the future. I ask for three favors upon your return with the artifact, and in exchange, I will give you the knowledge and ability to attain the power to fulfill your destiny and lead your people.”

Everything I wanted.

But at what price?

What could the witch possible ask of me that I wouldn’t be able to give her, especially once I had the power to manipulate the world with my mind and bring my people together in a nation of creeperkind?

I looked to Skeleton Steve. He returned my gaze without emotion.

He wasn’t going to help me with this decision.

Wasn’t this kind of idea what we traveled here for in the first place? Could I trust Worla the witch? If I asked Steve for his opinion, I would basically be asking him whether or not he thought I could trust the witch. I might offend her, and she might change her mind about the whole thing!

“Okay, I’ll do it!” I said. “I’ll get the artifact, then help you with your three favors.”

She instantly pulled her hands out of her robe, her fingers like white spider legs in the darkness, tipped with thin claws. “Say it again,” she commanded. “Repeat—I, Cth’ka the creeper, in exchange for assistance in finding the Crown of Ender, will perform three favors for Worla the Witch when she requires in the future.”

I repeated her words, and she traced patterns in the darkness with her fingertips as I did. When I completed the sentence, she lashed out with her index finger, and touched my forehead. I flinched in surprise, caught control of my hissssssss, and felt a warm sensation bloom between my eyes then disappear.

Some sort of magic?

“You are unique, creeper,” she said. “You will learn to control your last resort with your willpower. I can sense that already you can calm yourself back down. In time, you will be able to fight your enemies while keeping your mind calm, and not have to worry about exploding at all!”

Her hands disappeared back into her robes, then she produced three greenish-blue and yellow spheres. When she held out her palm to show us, the three spheres floated above her hand, throwing off purple motes of light. In the center of each sphere was a black slit of a pupil. They were eyes. Weird, magical eyeballs.

“These are eyes of Ender.” She looked to Skeleton Steve. “Use them wisely. They will show you the way to the underground stronghold where you will find the Crown of Ender. Use one at a time, and only when you need to find the way. They will burn out in time. Follow the eyes to the location of the stronghold.”

“Thank you,” he said. Skeleton Steve took the eyes and put them into his pack.

“Remember,” she said. “Only use them when you need to. Don’t squander them!” She stood, pulling her robes about her. “And take care crossing the desert, my skeleton friend!” Worla laughed, and pulled the black cowl over her face again. The torch went out. “Good luck, mighty Cth’ka. Return to me once you have obtained the crown.” She looked at the sky. “The night will soon be over…”

With that, Worla turned, and moved back to her hut with a speed and dangerous grace that I wouldn’t have imagined.

I looked at Skeleton Steve. “I guesss we’re ssstaying out of Darkwood Foressst for a while?”

He nodded, and we traveled back the way we came, stopping to spend the day under a large tree at the edge of the swamp.

[CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING
“Minecraft Diary of a] Creeper King[”
on Amazon!]

[]The Amazing Reader List

Thank you SO MUCH to these Readers and Reviewers!

Your help in leaving reviews and spreading the word about my books is SO appreciated!

Awesome Reviewers:

Habblie

Nirupam Bhagawati

Alyssa

MantisFang887 EpicDrago887

ScorpCraft SnailMMS WolfDFang

Ellesea & Ogmoe

Ryan Gallagher

K Mc

JenaLuv & Boogie

Danielle M

LegoWarrior70

Oomab

Liam Burroughs

---

---