Into the Game! (Minecraft Woodsword Chronicles #1)

by Nick Eliopulos

  Harper, Morgan, and Po were very different. But they all liked Minecraft. That had been all the inspiration they needed.

  Po pulled the finishing touches from his backpack: a bottle of vinegar and a box of baking soda. A small amount of each would make their volcano erupt. That would prove to the teachers that they understood chemical reactions. And a dash of red food coloring would give it some flair!

  “What do you think their project is?” Morgan asked. Jodi and Ash were setting up their station nearby. Morgan couldn’t take his eyes off them.

  “Focus, Morgan,” Harper said in a singsong voice. “Do you have the food coloring?”

  “Yeah,” Morgan grumbled. He began rooting around in his backpack.

  Just then, Ash and Jodi pulled their sheet away with a flourish. Their project wasn’t a volcano. They had constructed a piñata. It looked just like a Minecraft creeper¸ with a green body and black eyes. It was as tall as Jodi.

  Kids oohed and aahed. Harper couldn’t blame them. The creeper looked amazing.

  Morgan went pale. “But…but…,” he said. “Minecraft is my thing.”

  Ash saw him looking. She smiled and waved.

  Morgan didn’t wave back.

  “You don’t own Minecraft,” Po reminded him.

  “But they copied our idea!” Morgan said.

  “It’s probably a coincidence,” Harper said.

  Ms. Minerva and Doc Culpepper looked the piñata over. They smiled and nodded and wrote notes on their clipboards. Then Ash directed the teachers and students to step back to a safe distance.

  Ash put on a pair of safety goggles. She attached a hose to the back of the piñata, and then she joined the other students.

  At the other end of the hose, Jodi stood beside a canister of gas. It was labeled CO2. Harper recognized that as the chemical formula for carbon dioxide. I wonder what they’re up to? she thought, her mind racing with possibilities.

  At a signal from Ash, Jodi turned a handle on the CO2 tank. The hose went taut as gas moved from the tank to the piñata.

  Harper held her breath, excited to see what would happen next.

  The creeper exploded! It was just like in Minecraft. Except when this creeper exploded, it sent candy flying across the floor.

  “Amazing,” Harper said. “They made a piñata that breaks itself.”

  All the other children cheered and laughed as they ran forward to grab fistfuls of candy. Doc Culpepper cheered, and Ms. Minerva gave Jodi and Ash a thumbs-up.

  “That does it,” Morgan said. “We need to go bigger.”

  “Bigger?” Po asked.

  “Our volcano is measly compared to that. We need a much bigger eruption!”

  Harper shook her head. “That’s a terrible idea, Morgan. Our volcano will work just fine if we stick to the plan.” She picked up her measuring spoons and poured out a tablespoon of vinegar.

  But Morgan took the bottle from her and the box of baking soda from Po. He held everything out over the mouth of the volcano.

  “Morgan, wait!” Po said.

  Harper added, “We don’t know what will happen if you—”

  But once more, Morgan wasn’t listening. He dumped everything into the volcano.

  At first, nothing happened. Then the volcano began to rumble. And shake. And then—

  A blast of red liquid burst forth, spraying the whole auditorium. Students screamed and scattered. They dropped their precious candy as they fled. Ms. Minerva stood frozen in shock as red foam dripped from her hair. Her clipboard was ruined.

  “Oops,” said Morgan.

  Harper slapped her forehead in disbelief.

  Po wasn’t used to getting into trouble. Of course, he also never drenched his entire class in foul-smelling red foam. Today was a day of firsts.

  Ms. Minerva had sent everyone to wash up. Only Harper, Morgan, and Po remained in the auditorium. Po hoped they wouldn’t be punished too severely. They’d made a big mess, but baking powder and vinegar wasn’t dangerous.

  Then Ms. Minerva said the words that Po most dreaded hearing: “I’m very disappointed in you,” she said. “All of you.”

  Those words cut Po deep. He didn’t like to disappoint anyone. Ever.

  He looked at Harper. Her eyes were ablaze. Those eyes seemed to say “It was all Morgan’s fault.” They also seemed to say “But I can’t say that without sounding like a snitch.” And finally, her eyes added “Morgan, now is where you speak up and take responsibility for your actions. Now. Right…now.”

  Harper had very expressive eyes.

  Morgan did speak up. But he didn’t confess. “Why are we in trouble?” he asked. “The volcano did what it was supposed to do. The eruption was just a little bigger than expected.”

  Ms. Minerva shook her head. Po squirmed in his wheelchair. There was a squelching sound from the “lava” beneath him.

  A voice sounded at their backs. “Don’t be too hard on them, Minerva.” Po pivoted to see that Doc Culpepper had joined them. “After all, no scientist ever achieved anything by being too cautious.”

  “That’s definitely not true,” Ms. Minerva said.

  Culpepper shrugged. “Anyway, I could use the help of a few daring researchers on a science project of my own.”

  Harper grinned from ear to ear. Po knew that she idolized Doc.

  “What are you all doing after school today?” Doc asked brightly.

  Ms. Minerva rolled her eyes and quickly replied, “They’re mopping the auditorium!”

  “Ah, right,” said Doc. “What about after that? Do you have time to come by the computer lab?”

  Harper and Morgan both agreed eagerly. Po hesitated for a moment. He was supposed to go to basketball practice. He could probably use it as an excuse to avoid whatever Doc Culpepper had in mind for them. He could probably even get out of mopping with Morgan and Harper. But that didn’t seem fair to his friends.

  “I’ll be there,” he said.

  * * *

  When Po arrived at the computer lab later that day, Harper and Morgan were already there. So was Morgan’s sister, Jodi.

  “Hey, Jodi,” Po said. “Nice job on the creeper. Why are you here with the detention club?”

  “I can’t walk home without my big brother,” Jodi said.

  “This isn’t detention,” Morgan corrected him.

  “Right,” Harper said. “Doc said she was impressed with us. She actually wants our help. I wonder what her project is.”

  Jodi grinned. “As long as it doesn’t involve evil robots from the twenty-third century.”

  “Don’t be so pessimistic, young lady,” said Doc as she entered the room. “We’ll have evil robots long before the twenty-third century.”

  Jodi’s eyes went wide. She looked around to see if anyone had caught how ominous that sounded.

  “I’ll get right to the point, kids,” said Doc. “As you know, I’m something of an amateur inventor.”

  Po did know that. He also knew that Doc’s inventions tended to cause more problems than they solved. After her so-called improvements to the school’s dance and drama club spotlights, the cast of The Nutcracker had seen spots for weeks. And the latte machine she’d installed in the teachers’ lounge had brewed coffee so strong it had kept all the teachers awake for three days and nights. Only Ms. Minerva had been unaffected.

  “This time,” Doc promised, “I’ve got something really special.” She held up a pair of goggles.

  Harper squinted. “Are those VR goggles?”

  Doc smiled. “That’s right! Virtual reality makes digital spaces seem real. Mostly it’s used for video games. But I think soon we’ll be doing our online shopping in virtual malls. Maybe even attending school virtually.”

  Po gasped. “But without school…there would be no Taco T
uesday!”

  Jodi patted him on the shoulder. “There could be virtual Taco Tuesdays.”

  “It wouldn’t be the same,” he said, pretending to wipe away a tear.

  Doc cleared her throat to get their attention. “I’ve made some improvements to the standard VR goggles. I think. But I need volunteers to test them out.”

  “Let me get this straight,” said Morgan. “You want us to stay after school to play video games? I’d say I must be dreaming, but I can still smell the vinegar on my clothes.”

  Doc gave them each a set of goggles. They were heavier than they looked. Wires stuck out of them. And they were covered in strange, glowing blue symbols.

  “What do the symbols mean?” Harper asked.

  “They’re just decoration,” Doc said.

  “Would these work on Minecraft?” Po asked.

  “I think that’s a great idea,” said Doc. “You’re all so familiar with that game, you’d know if something was different about it. You’d notice if the goggles changed the game somehow. Just give me a minute to set up a network so that you’re all playing on the same server.”

  Po watched in awe as Doc lifted a PC tower onto a central table. It looked as if it had been cobbled together from a dozen scrapped computers. Its internal workings were exposed here and there because the pieces didn’t fit together perfectly. Po could see a motherboard, an impossible tangle of wires, and more memory cards than he thought a computer could hold.

  “It’s the Frankenstein of computers,” said Po.

  “It’s beautiful,” Harper added. “What sort of processor are you running on that thing?”

  “I had to build my own,” Doc said with a wink. “Give me a hand?”

  While Harper flitted about the jigsaw computer, Po adjusted his goggles so that they sat on his forehead. He felt a thrill of anticipation.

  The computer booted up. Multiple fans began to whir. Doc typed some commands into a keyboard. “That should do it,” she said. Then, in a tone that Po found strangely serious, she said, “Good luck, kids.”

  Morgan turned to the others. “Survival mode or Creative?” he asked.

  Jodi said, “Creative,” but both Po and Harper voted for Survival.

  “Survival it is,” Morgan said. “Everybody get ready.”

  Po’s mouth had gone dry. He licked his lips, then slipped the goggles down over his eyes. Instead of the computer lab, he saw a familiar game menu. He’d seen it a hundred times before, but now it took up his entire field of vision.

  Morgan selected Survival mode.

  There was a bright flash of light. Po closed his eyes.

  And when he opened them again, what he saw took his breath away.

  Like Po, Morgan couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He shook his head. He blinked rapidly. He rubbed his eyes…with blocky brown hands.

  It wasn’t just his hands that were blocky. The trees were stacks of brown and green cubes. The sun was a yellow square in the bright blue sky.

  “We’re inside the game¸” he said. “We’re inside Minecraft.”

  It sounded impossible. But Harper said, “Yeah. I think we are.”

  Po said, “You’re right.”

  And Jodi said, “Wa-HOO!”

  Jodi bounded down a hill, whooping with delight all the way to the bottom.

  Morgan watched her go. She was definitely his sister. But she looked different. Like a video-game avatar of herself.

  He turned to look at the others. They looked like avatars, too. They were blocky and pixelated but still instantly recognizable. They wore clothes similar to what they’d been wearing back in the computer lab.

  “I’ve played some games in VR before,” Harper said. “This is different.”

  “It sure is¸” Po said. “I don’t hear Doc’s computer fans whirring, do you?” He touched his face. “I don’t feel the goggles. Or my wheelchair. But I can feel the ground and the sunlight.” He jumped up and down. He grinned. “We’re not just seeing this. It’s like we’re really here.”

  “Maybe,” Harper said. “The brain is a mysterious organ. Scientists don’t fully understand how it works. What if Doc’s goggles are tricking our brains and making us think we’re here? It could all be an elaborate illusion.”

  “Like a dream?” Morgan asked. “A dream that we’re all experiencing together?”

  “That’s as good a hypothesis as any,” Harper said. “Maybe we can come up with an experiment to test it.”

  “No¸ thank you!” Po said brightly. “If you remember¸ our last science experiment didn’t go so well. Why don’t we just enjoy ourselves?”

  With that, Po was off, speeding to the bottom of the hill, where Jodi was running around in circles.

  Harper walked over to a tree. She hit its trunk several times. Each time, little chips of wood flew into the air, until finally, a whole piece of the trunk broke off.

  Morgan flinched. In the real world, gravity would cause the tree to crash to the ground. But here, just as in the game, it remained standing even with a piece of its trunk missing.

  Harper picked up the chunk of wood that she’d hacked off the tree. At her touch, it disappeared with a popping sound.

  “Where’d it go?” said Morgan.

  “Good question¸” said Harper. She moved her hands around in the air. She made strange expressions with her face.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m trying to figure out— Aha!” she cried. “If you blink twice quickly—like double-clicking a computer mouse—your inventory comes up!”

  “That’s too weird¸” Morgan said. But he decided to give it a try. He double-clicked his eyes. Sure enough, an inventory menu popped up, blocking his view of Harper. It looked a little bit like an empty, floating bookshelf.

  Morgan also saw a row of hearts and a row of food. “We have health and hunger meters¸ too¸” he said. He double-clicked his eyes again, and the interface disappeared.

  “I want to try something¸” said Harper. Morgan watched as her eyes and fingers moved around. “I have a piece of oak¸” she said. “If I can use that to make four planks…”

  She closed her eyes. Suddenly, there was a clunk, and a table appeared in front of her.

  It was a crafting table.

  “Harper!” Morgan cried. “That’s incredible.”

  Harper grinned. “I’m not done yet.” She broke off more of the tree. “Now I have two pieces of oak. Each one makes four planks, so…” She closed her eyes. There was another clunk. “I have eight planks. I’ll use one of them to make a batch of sticks¸ and then¸ if I use the crafting table…”

  Morgan saw the moment it happened. Harper flexed her hand a little, and a wooden pickaxe appeared out of nowhere.

  Well, not exactly out of nowhere, Morgan realized. She had crafted it from the materials she’d taken from the tree.

  Now Morgan was really excited. Really being inside a video game was cool. And being inside a video game where he could make almost anything he could imagine was even cooler.

  He just hoped he remembered some recipes. He didn’t have his guidebooks here.

  Morgan started punching the environment to fill his inventory. He got oak, dirt, and some seeds from tall grass. It was all basic stuff. But he knew that it might come in handy.

  He looked over to see Harper marveling at the floating tree. “This just feels so real¸” she said.

  Po was chasing a flock of sheep. Jodi was building a sphinx-like statue out of dirt blocks.

  As the afternoon progressed, the sun sank lower in the sky. Morgan thought they should probably be getting home. “Hey¸” he said. “That inventory view didn’t have anything about disconnecting¸ did it?”

  Harper turned away from her tree. “No¸” she said. “I haven’t been able to find any sort of menu.
”

  Morgan touched his face. He still couldn’t feel the VR goggles. He couldn’t feel any part of his real body back in the real world.

  “How do we exit?” he asked.

  Harper thought about it for a moment. “That is an excellent question¸” she said at last.

  “We need to figure it out.” He looked again at the sky and the lowering sun. “But first¸ we should find shelter.”

  “Why?” she asked. “We just got here. We should explore!”

  “But it’s going to be night soon,” said Morgan. “And when we started the game…”

  “Oh. Right¸” said Harper. “We set it to Survival mode.”

  * * *

  Finding shelter was easy. Harper used her pickaxe to dig into the hill. She kept digging until she’d made a cavelike hole large enough for all of them to fit inside.

  Before they could close off the entrance with dirt, they would need a way to make light. No one wanted to be trapped underground in total darkness.

  “We could dig for coal¸” suggested Po.

  “That sounds risky,” Morgan said. “The more we dig¸ the more likely we are to find a mineshaft.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” asked Jodi.

  “It is if it’s full of hostile mobs¸” Morgan answered.

  Harper had an idea. “Morgan¸ I saw you picking up the cobblestone I dug through earlier. Do you have at least eight blocks?”

  Morgan closed his eyes. He saw everything he’d picked up so far in his inventory. He had twelve blocks of cobblestone.

  “Yes¸” he said.