“Is everybody ready?” asked Jodi. The kids were back in Minecraft, at the top of the mountain. The village was spread out below them.
“Absolutely,” said Morgan. “Let’s—” He stopped short. “Po, what are you wearing?”
Jodi turned around to look at Po—and she hopped in surprise! Ash actually screamed.
“What?” said Po. He was dressed as a clown, with brightly colored hair and a big red nose.
“Why are you dressed like that?” asked Ash.
“I want the villagers to like us. And everybody loves clowns.”
“Everybody does not love clowns,” said Harper–emphatically.
“I don’t know,” said Po, rubbing his colorful clown chin in thought. “I think maybe you’re wrong this time, Harper.”
Jodi giggled. Avatars couldn’t actually roll their eyes, but she was pretty sure that was what everyone was doing.
“Hey, what do you call a clown on a mountaintop?” asked Po.
Jodi had no idea. “I give up,” she said. “What do you call a clown on a mountaintop?”
“Impatient!” Po said. “Let’s just get down there already.”
Morgan sighed. “All right,” he said. “But if the villagers chase you off with torches and pitchforks, we are not with you.”
“I see,” said Po. “And what if they make me their king and shower me with presents?”
“Then I’ll eat my emerald,” said Morgan.
“Is that really an option?” asked Jodi. “Because I’m sick of apples. Apples, apples, apples. Ugh!”
“Let’s go,” Ash suggested with a nod of her cube head in the direction of the village. “Maybe they have some real food.”
* * *
The area was bustling. Villagers moved about, honking at one another. If it was a language, it wasn’t one Jodi had heard before.
“They don’t seem to even realize we’re here,” she said. She walked up to one in a brown robe. “Knock-knock.”
She got no response.
“Oh man,” she said. “They don’t even go along with knock-knock jokes.” She looked over at Po. “I think your outfit is wasted on them.”
Po made a sound like a deflating balloon.
“This is mostly what I expected,” said Morgan. “They’re acting like normal villagers, although they look a bit old-school. Doc clearly isn’t running the latest update.”
“Maybe her VR tech doesn’t work with newer versions of the game,” Harper suggested.
“Or maybe this belongs on our list of weird stuff.” Morgan lowered his voice. “Keep an eye out. It’s possible our thief is here somewhere.”
The brown-clad villager Jodi had approached threw produce toward another villager.
“Uh, is that the sort of thing we’re looking for?” she asked.
“Nope,” said Morgan. “The ones in brown are farmers. They share food sometimes.”
“Grab it!” said Ash. “We might need that food.”
“Hey, check it out,” Harper said. She was standing in front of another villager, who was wearing a black robe. “I blinked at this one and it opened up a trading menu!” They had learned on their first adventure that blinking their eyes worked like clicking a mouse in the real world. It could open pop-up windows and more. She squinted at some new menu that only she could see. “They’ll trade us an emerald for coal. Do we have extra coal?”
Jodi turned toward Ash. “Are you still keeping track?” she asked.
Ash nodded. “That seems like a good trade to me. Emeralds are currency here. We can trade our extra coal for an emerald, then use that emerald to buy something we need.”
“Gotcha,” said Po. “Emeralds for big red clown shoes.”
“You’re not spending the emerald I just got on clown shoes, Po,” said Harper. She held up her shiny new jewel.
“But money is for spending.” Jodi grinned at Morgan. “You know, it’s been ages since we’ve been to the mall.”
Morgan grinned back. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go shopping!”
* * *
Jodi lost track of time as she moved from one villager to the next. It was fun to see what each had to offer. They all agreed, however, that no one should actually buy anything without consulting the group first.
Buying food made the most sense. But Jodi had seen farmland on the way into town. Couldn’t they just take food from the fields for free?
Did it count as stealing if these weren’t real people? They were just bits of code, weren’t they?
But then, Morgan had said the same thing about the sheep, and Jodi hadn’t liked that.
She had just closed her trade window with a purple-robed priest. The priest wanted rotten flesh, for no good reason Jodi could imagine. She was about to make a joke about it when the priest suddenly turned and hurried toward a building.
The villagers were all heading indoors, and quickly. It took Jodi a moment to realize that nightfall had snuck up on them.
“Wow,” she said. “Bedtime sure is early around here.”
Harper looked worried. “We should have gone back by now. Our beds are on the other side of the mountain!”
“We have a little while before full dark,” said Ash. “If we hurry, we can make it back.”
Morgan hesitated a moment. “Okay,” he said at last. “But let’s go right now.”
They passed several buildings, and Jodi could see villagers through the windows.
Then they passed the fields, where Jodi could see pumpkins and potatoes ready for harvest. She’d ask about taking food once they were safe.
They were just at the foot of their mountain when the moon began to rise.
“We’re not going to make it,” said Morgan. “I have a bad feeling….”
Then Jodi heard a distant groan.
And the rattle of bones.
She looked up.
Atop the very mountain they’d begun to climb, she could just make out the silhouette of some shambling figure.
Two shambling figures.
Three.
“Oh no,” breathed Ash.
There were dozens of monsters on the mountain.
And they were headed toward town!
“Back to the houses!” Morgan said. “Quick!”
But the monsters were already closing the distance.
“We’ll never make it,” said Ash. “We have to fight.”
“You’re both right,” said Harper. She held her iron sword up. “Let’s fight our way back to the houses.”
They heard a familiar twang sound. Morgan knew what that meant. “They’re shooting arrows at us,” he said. “Run!”
They ran. Morgan didn’t run at top speed, though. He didn’t want to lose sight of Jodi. He didn’t want to leave anyone behind.
So he was the first one to have to fight. A zombie caught up to him, and he slashed it with his sword. It flared red, then turned its full attention on him. It reached for him with rotten hands. It groaned its eerie groan.
But it couldn’t touch him. He knew just how to time his attacks, and each swing of his sword knocked the monster back. He’d soon defeated it, reducing it to a puff of digital dust and a shred of rotten flesh.
Morgan felt a thrill of triumph, but it didn’t last long. In the time it had taken him to defeat one zombie, three more had caught up to him.
He was surrounded.
“Leave my brother alone!” Jodi shouted. She came up beside him and slashed at one of the zombies. Morgan was impressed. For someone who mostly played in Creative mode, his little sister was a natural with a sword.
The others were busy with their own fights, but everyone seemed to be holding up. They just might survive this.
“We’ll give you something to moan about,” said Ha
rper.
“I’m just glad we can’t smell anything here,” said Po. “Even with this huge red nose!”
“You came back for me,” Morgan said.
“We’re in this together,” said Ash. She worked quickly to take out a skeleton armed with a bow. She huffed. “So how do we get out of this together?”
“We can do it,” Morgan said. “We’re winning.”
Then he heard a new sound. A low, sibilant ssssss.
His eyes went wide. “Stop fighting!” he cried. “Everyone get back! Get back now!”
He could just barely see the creeper through the line of zombies. It was flashing white.
He couldn’t reach it in time. Couldn’t stop it from—
The creeper exploded. It made Morgan’s ears ring. And more than that…it hurt.
They could actually be hurt here.
“Are you okay?” asked Jodi.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think so. You?”
“We all got clear in time,” Ash said. “Thanks to your warning.”
“Our undead friends weren’t so lucky,” said Harper.
She was right. The creeper had been good for one thing. It had totally cleared out the remaining zombies and skeletons. There was a crater in the ground where they’d just been. There was also a lot of random loot left behind—flesh and bones and pieces of the landscape.
“We may as well grab this stuff,” said Morgan. “You never know—”
Po squeaked in alarm. He pointed off into the distance.
In the light of the moon, Morgan could see more mobs descending the mountain.
“This…this was just the first wave,” Ash said.
“We can make it back to the village,” said Harper. “We have to.”
“Okay, let’s go,” said Morgan. “Hurry!”
They ran down the village’s main thoroughfare. All the doors were closed.
“Do we just barge in somewhere?” asked Jodi. Morgan knew what his sister was getting at. It seemed different to push your way into someone’s home when the game felt so real. Being in the game made the villagers seem a lot more like people. But he’d be a little rude if it helped him and his friends get through the night.
Morgan saw a light in the darkness. One of the villagers had opened the door to their home.
“That way!” he said.
They all piled in, and Morgan shut the door behind them.
“Will that keep them out?” asked Jodi.
“Yeah,” said Morgan. As long as nothing else explodes, he thought. “Better to stay away from the doors and windows, though.”
It was then that Morgan noticed their surroundings. There were rows and rows of colorful books everywhere he looked.
“We’re in a library,” he said.
“That’s not all,” Ash said. “Look.”
In the back of the library, there was a gleaming table of obsidian and diamond. A closed book floated above it.
“That’s an enchanting table,” said Harper with awe. “The things we could make with that…”
Morgan took a step closer. The book opened magically at his approach. Strange symbols floated through the air, as if the book were pulling information from the bookshelves all around them.
Those symbols looked vaguely familiar to Morgan. He’d seen them elsewhere, and recently. “Wow,” he breathed.
Harper edged past him and started flipping through the book. “This would allow us to make better weapons…and powerful armor to keep us safe. But we don’t have the materials we need. Not yet.”
“One day,” said Ash. There was a loud moaning sound from outside. “If we survive the night!”
Morgan peered through the window. The mobs were moving through the village, walking down the main path and into the forest on the far side of the houses. There were dozens of them. “I guess we’re spending the night in here,” he said.
Morgan turned toward a white-clad villager, who watched them from across the room. He knew librarians wore white, but this one looked a little unusual. She had bright orange hair and a long nose. “You don’t mind, do you?” he asked her.
The librarian honked. She threw some food.
“I thought only farmers did that,” said Ash.
Morgan sighed. “At this point, I don’t know what’s a glitch and what isn’t. I’ve never seen so many zombies in one place.” He double-blinked so he was able to see his inventory…and his health. He was missing several hearts. “And I’m injured. So I could use the food.”
“Eat up, big brother,” said Jodi. Another groan sounded beyond the door. “But no rush. We’ve got all night.”
As the sun rose the next morning, no new zombies crested the mountain. The mobs that had entered the village had shambled quickly into the forest, lumbering away before the sun’s rays could touch them.
The five friends had been stuck indoors while an endless parade of monsters passed through town. But now the way back to their beds was finally clear. They returned to their cave, activated their beds, and disconnected to the real world.
It had been their longest gaming session yet. And Morgan had been hurt! Jodi was actually relieved to hang up her headset and go home for the night. Homework was going to be a piece of cake compared to fighting zombies.
* * *
The next day at school, the Minecraft team gathered in homeroom before the morning bell rang.
“We have to do something about those pests,” Morgan said.
Jodi knew he meant the hostile mobs that had assaulted the village and trapped them overnight. But Ms. Minerva overheard him, and she clearly misunderstood which pests he was talking about.
“I know the bats have been disruptive,” the teacher said, “but I’ve been informed that the school board finally has a plan to deal with them.”
“I love a clever plan,” said Ash. “What is it?”
Ms. Minerva frowned. “Unfortunately, it’s not what I would call a clever plan. They’ve decided to call in an exterminator. He’ll take care of the problem this weekend.”
Jodi gasped. Exterminator? Take care of the problem? She knew exactly what Ms. Minerva meant. “They can’t just exterminate the poor things!” she cried.
“I agree with Jodi,” said Harper. “The bats are acting according to their nature. They haven’t done anything wrong.”
“And they’re cute,” said Po. “They’re even cuter than Baron Sweetcheeks.”
Now Morgan gasped. “How dare you!” he said. “Nothing is cuter than Baron Sweetcheeks.”
Po made a kissy face at him.
Ms. Minerva held up a hand for silence. “I’m sympathetic,” she said. “I wish there was another solution. But we simply can’t continue as things have been.” She crossed her arms. “Cute as they may be, they are pests.”
Jodi bit her tongue. She’d been called a pest before. It didn’t feel very nice.
And she couldn’t help but think there was a better way to deal with this problem.
* * *
As soon as they were back in Minecraft, they got to work.
“Grab the beds,” Ash said. “We need our respawn point to be closer to the village. Otherwise we’ll lose too much time traveling back and forth.”
“Why go back at all?” asked Jodi.
“For one thing, I’d like to make use of that enchanting table,” said Harper. “It could be a while before we encounter another one. And even longer before we can craft our own.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” said Morgan. “Maybe the mobs won’t attack tonight.”
Jodi could tell by his voice that he didn’t believe that was likely.
The mood was tense as they descended the mountain.
“I can make armor and new weapons,” said Harper. “But we’ll need more iron.�
��
“I’m on it,” said Ash. “We’ll just have to dig and hope we get lucky.”
“Don’t throw anything out,” said Morgan. “If you end up with tons of stone and dirt, we can use that to build walls. With walls, we can force the mobs into a choke point.”
“Smart!” said Jodi. That would make it easier to fight a few mobs at a time. They wouldn’t be overwhelmed and surrounded as quickly as could sometimes happen in the game.
“We should dig trenches, too,” said Po. “That’ll get us plenty of dirt for walls.”
“Good call,” said Morgan. “There’s not a lot of time. Just do what you can, everyone.”
Jodi followed Morgan’s gaze to the lowering sun. She felt a thrill of dread run through her.
The dark and the monsters would be here soon.
* * *
Jodi watched anxiously as Harper crafted pieces of armor for them.
“This won’t win you any fashion awards,” Harper said. She handed Jodi an iron helmet. “But you’ll be better protected now.”
“It’s perfect, Harper,” said Jodi. “Thanks.”
“Don’t make any armor for me, Harper,” Morgan said.
Jodi snapped her head toward him. “Are you serious?” she asked. “You’re the one who got hurt yesterday.”
Morgan nodded solemnly. “I know. But there’s something I want to try…if Harper agrees it’s a good idea. And it’s going to require a lot of iron.”
Jodi and Harper watched as Morgan dashed into the nearby pumpkin patch. He took an axe to one of the pumpkins.
Harper grinned. “I think I know what you’re up to,” she said. “Let me help.” She put down four blocks of iron in a T-shape.
Night of the Bats! (Minecraft Woodsword Chronicles #2) Page 3