Diary of an 8-Bit Warrior (Book 1 8-Bit Warrior series): An Unofficial Minecraft Adventure

by Cube Kid

  Soon, he would become our victim.

  Soon, Project All Eggs In One Basket would be unleashed upon a cranky old man who could barely see. I didn’t feel sorry for him, though. To me, he was just a tool that I was going to use to improve my grades. Besides, the teachers would reimburse him, after he got cheated.

  And oh, was he going to get cheated! I knew even then that our project couldn’t fail.

  It was just too good. Too crazy. I was glad to have a best friend like Stump. You see, we used that cactus to make “cactus green.” We sat by the furnace for hours, watching the cactus cook down into what is basically green dye.

  Then, the cactus green was combined with bone meal to make a brighter lime green dye.

  Now, maybe you’re wondering, “Why would someone want to make lime green dye?”

  Allow me to explain.

  As I’ve mentioned before, outsiders sometimes come into the village to cheat us. The most common scam is trying to pass off green seeds as emeralds. No villager has ever fallen for that, of course. It’s pretty easy to tell the difference.

  I’m sure you’ll agree.

  Here’s your typical noob trying that scam:

  Well, Stump thought of a similar scam,

  except better.

  Seems all that time he’s spent crafting cakes finally paid off.

  Here’s how it went down.

  I walked up to Leaf, and asked to trade.

  I offered an emerald for two iron ingots. I even held out an emerald to show the blacksmith I wasn’t fooling around. “See? Shiny emerald! Real!”

  Well, the blacksmith thought I was a total noob. One emerald for two iron ingots is a really good deal for the person getting the emerald. The poor blacksmith had no idea what he was actually about to get.

  Pro tip: it wasn’t an emerald. As soon as the blacksmith looked down at his iron ingots, I switched the emerald . . .

  Stump’s parents are bakers, so his house had a huge supply of eggs. The trick was pretty convincing. Especially to the blacksmith, who couldn’t see very well.

  Of course, I asked to trade more of my “emeralds” for more iron ingots, and the blacksmith smiled. He thought it was his lucky day.

  “How many more do you need, sonny?” Leaf asked.

  “How many do you have left?”

  “Ohhhhh, let me see here. About fifty, I’d say.”

  I smiled. “Then fifty it is!”

  The blacksmith peered at me suspiciously.

  “Say, where’d a kid like you get so many emeralds, anyway? Found the motherlode, did you? An emerald cave?”

  I shrugged. “If you don’t want to trade, I’ll just go somewhere else. Sorry for bothering y—”

  “N-no no,” the blacksmith said, not wanting to ruin his “good deal.”

  “Tell me what you need, and ol’ Leaf here will fix you right up.”

  And so a total of fifty iron ingots was traded for twenty-five green eggs.

  “Anything else you need?”

  “What else have you got?” I asked.

  “How about this fine bucket?”

  “Sure, I’ll take it.”

  “And how about some wool?”

  “Sounds good. What else?”

  “Hmm. How about this fine—

  “I’ll take it.”

  “You didn’t even let me finish speaking,” he said. “How do you know if you’ll want to trade for it?”

  “Listen,” I said, “just give me everything you have. Everything.”

  And so a mountain of items was purchased with tons of dyed eggs.

  Stump had to help me carry them all, because my inventory was overflowing. I figured the more items we cheated out of the old blacksmith, the more impressed the teachers would be.

  Then we ran out of the blacksmith’s place before he caught on and chased us with a stick or something.

  Two teachers soon rushed over to us.

  “Wow!”

  “Amazing work!”

  “How did you come up with that?!”

  “By the way, Runt, we discovered that the pickaxe wasn’t actually yours. We’ll get everything sorted out. Sorry. This has never happened before. Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

  “I have an idea,” I said, but I didn’t even care about the mining test anymore. Max wasn’t an issue anymore. My record book soon updated with an unbelievable sight.

  Boom

  Victory secured.

  But this incredible recovery doesn’t mean I’m a genius.

  This was all Stump.

  I’ve learned many things in the past few weeks, but what I learned today . . . it’s the most important.

  If you have a best friend who treats you really well—who never turns their back on you—well, never turn your back on them, no matter what. And if your best friend happens to be a creeper, I don’t know what to say. I can only imagine how awkward that must be at times.

  Is this really happening? We’re going to become warriors. It’s almost a certainty.

  Tomorrow, I’m going to tell my parents about this.

  I don’t know how they’re going to react.

  Wish me luck, huh?

  We built a cave near the school today.

  From a distance, it looks like a huge pile of cobblestone just sitting in some empty field. Nothing special. But pure awesomeness is contained within.

  It’s for combat training. We can practice how to fight in darkness, which warriors sometimes need to do. When you take away the torches, it’s pretty dark in here.

  It’s big enough to hold seventy-five students.

  Now, you’re probably thinking something like, “Why did Runt make a picture of a dark cave? It’s not like anyone needs a picture to imagine a cave.”

  I agree.

  The above picture is, without a doubt, the most boring picture I’ve ever made. Some cobblestone walls? Some dirt underneath? All of it barely visible due to the lack of light?

  Well, this is a diary about my life, and not everything in my life is exciting.

  Furthermore, this drawing of a simple cave illustrates what lengths we’re going to become better villagers. We built a cave in the middle of our village to train. That’s hardcore, huh?

  Beyond that, if you’re ever talking to your friends about boring pictures, well, just direct them to this picture. Maybe some day one of your friends might say something like, “Dude, I was reading this one book, right, and it had some boring pictures . . .” And you can be like, “Dude, I know of a book that has a way more boring picture than whatever book you’re talking about. Dude.”

  (By the way, am I overdoing the “dude”? I just want to sound like an Earth kid.)

  And your friend will be like, “Dude, no way. The book I just read was literally titled The Most Boring Book Ever Written.” And you can be like, “I’ll bet you five emeralds.” And he’ll be like, “Okay, you’re on.” And you’ll whip out this diary, show them my cave picture, and your friend will be like, “Okay. Wow. Wow. Just . . . wow. Now that is the most boring thing I’ve ever seen. I give up. You win. You win. Here. Take my emeralds. Please. Just take them. I feel so sorry for you, for reading that boring book . . . even if we HADN’T made a bet, I’d give you emeralds out of sheer pity.”

  (This is basically an easy way to get free emeralds.)

  (Unless you’re one of those Earth people. Steve said Earth people don’t use emeralds, but shiny metal things and pieces of paper and plastic cards. I find that really strange.)

  Anyway, today during combat class, in the secret combat cave, every student had to fight a zombie while everyone else watched.

  When it was my turn to fight, it was so dark.

 
All I could see was the zombie’s shadowy form.

  I filled in the details with my imagination.

  I imagined the zombie’s sunken black eyes.

  I imagined the zombie’s mottled green skin and old stinky clothes.

  An image of the zombie appeared in my mind . . .

  Actually, at first, I imagined a steak instead of the zombie.

  I was so hungry.

  I focused again, trying to picture the zombie before me . . .

  Urrrrrg!

  (When a villager forgets to make an “h” sound during a “hurrggg,” you know he’s annoyed.)

  I just couldn’t stop thinking about food!

  I hadn’t had breakfast or lunch, and all the hard work we did in class that morning made me really hungry. I mean, since eight this morning I’ve been running, jumping, and swinging a sword.

  That kind of stuff really drains your hunger bar, you know?

  Well, it didn’t stop there. After picturing big juicy steaks, my imagination really started to soar . . . I finally did picture a zombie. At least, it had a head, arms, a body . . . but something wasn’t quite right . . .

  I shook my head.

  Blinked.

  I had to snap out of it.

  My hunger was out of control.

  Surely you’ve imagined a cake zombie before, too, right?

  When you were really hungry? You have, right?

  Please tell me I’m not alone here.

  Okay, there we go. That’s more like it.

  So there I was in the secret combat cave, fighting a zombie.

  I felt so nervous, because one hundred forty-nine other students were watching me, and so was Steve, out teacher.

  Any little mistake I made, everyone would see, and laugh at me. I had to fight to the best of my ability. I couldn’t do that while imagining cake zombies, and if I kept thinking about that, who knows what I’d think of next. A cookie golem?

  I swung in the zombie’s general direction.

  Swish!

  The blade of my wooden sword cut through the air before hitting the mob. Clunk. I gripped my sword tighter and stepped back, thinking about the situation—I was in serious warrior mode.

  Now, a single zombie isn’t much of a threat. They’re slow—you can dance circles around them, if you’re brave enough. (I’m not.) They also stumble around like a pig on stilts. (I don’t know what stilts are. I’m just quoting Mike here.)

  And even if a zombie does hit you, the damage isn’t very high—probably about as bad as that old Urf guy hitting you with a stick or perhaps a carrot.

  Plus, they never try to protect themselves. Zombies just come at you in a straight line like noobs to signs that read “ZOMG DIAMONDS HERE.”

  Even so, it would be foolish to get careless when fighting a zombie. A single zombie can still be dangerous. Even if the damage they deal is pretty low, the attack will still knock you back.

  Imagine this: you could get knocked back by a zombie, into another zombie behind you, then the second zombie would knock you back AGAIN, this time off a cliff, and you’d land in a river . . . and you’d think, “Wow! I survived that! I didn’t take a scratch from that! I got knocked off a cliff, landed in a river, and didn’t take any falling damage at all, as if I were a cat! How lucky am I?!” And then you’d see that the river is actually flowing toward a waterfall. And a lava lake, down below . . .

  (If that ever happens to you, I’m really sorry. Please be careful when fighting zombies.)

  Plus, a zombie can “call” another zombie, spawning a new zombie nearby. (How zombies spawn other zombies is quite mysterious, but more than that, it’s highly annoying.) The new zombie that the first zombie calls can call its own zombies. A single zombie can quickly become a small army of zombies. The zombies will multiply, one zombie after another zombie, as each new zombie calls more zombies. At first, it will only be one zombie, but it will quickly become a zombie party with many zombies doing . . . whatever things zombies do. If the zombies are on top of a cake, they’ll start dancing around.

  Top secret info: I wasn’t joking about zombies dancing on cake. See for yourself. If zombies step on cake, they’ll begin bouncing around like crazy! Perhaps cake could be used to protect our village somehow. I’ll consult Stump on this, since he’s the baker.

  Anyway.

  These were just a few things I learned in combat class so far.

  I tore myself from my thoughts for a second, and studied the zombie’s movements.

  Hurrrrm.

  Actually, it wasn’t moving AT ALL.

  I swung my sword again.

  “Haaaa!!”

  And hit the zombie on top of the head.

  Bonk!

  I swung with such force the blade bounced off, and I staggered back.

  My mind was racing the whole time.

  Let’s go over some numbers, shall we?

  A wooden sword deals two and a half hearts worth of damage with a single strike. A zombie’s life force is equal to ten hearts.

  That means, four swings with a wooden sword should kill a zombie, because 10 divided by 2.5 equals 4.

  However, zombies have a small amount of natural armor. Two armor, if I recall correctly. So what is that? A total of 8% damage reduction? I can’t remember, but what I do know is that dropping one requires five hits with a wooden sword. (I’ve never killed a zombie before. I’m just a really good student who listens ALL THE TIME.)

  But, if you use a leap attack and swing while you’re moving downward, you’ll deal more damage with a critical hit—that’s big boy stuff. I decided to finish the zombie off with such an attack. I guess I just wanted to be cool. To show off. Everyone was watching me, right? So I had to do something flashy. It’d make Max jealous.

  I moved back then charged forward and jumped in the air, sword drawn . . .

  Oh, and I also made another ridiculous battle cry.

  “Hiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”

  I was going to make a perfect attack. This leap attack was going to be so cool, so powerful, it would be too hard to make a picture of. If someone ever tried making a picture of the leap attack I made, and put it into a diary, the picture’s awesomeness would simply make the diary explode. I don’t want to endanger you, so I’m not going to include the picture here.

  Just use your imagination. Imagine me, Runt, your favorite villager warrior kid, flying through a dark cave, sword held in both hands like a ninja, screaming louder than a poo screamer.

  Awesome, right?

  That zombie had no idea how much damage he was going to receive! I was going to show all the other kids who were watching me how cool I was. I was even going to impress Steve, our teacher—who, of course, was also watching me. I was—

  OOOF!!

  I smashed into the zombie before I even managed to swing my sword. I didn’t even swing my sword . . . I just slammed into the zombie like a bowling ball slamming into a pin. I bounced off the zombie’s body and flew into the air, and landed on my back. My sword flew in another direction, clattering on the ground. The whole cave erupted into laughter.

  How . . . annoying.

  I remained there on the cavern floor for a moment, just breathing.

  “Lights!” shouted Steve.

  Some girl whipped out a torch, then another kid did the same, until the whole cavern was lit up.

  “Can you tell me,” said Steve, gazing around at the students, “what Runt did wrong just now?”

  Max snickered. “Everything?”

  A few others laughed as well. Stump reached down and helped me up. “Runt just forgot to time his attack, that’s all,” he said.

  “That’s right,” said Steve. “In combat, timing is everything. Swinging or jumping at the wrong time can mean the difference between win
ning or losing a battle. You don’t want to bowl into a zombie, if you can help it!”

  More laughter.

  Not from me, though.

  The only thing that came out of my mouth

  was a big sigh.

  It seems like some things never change.

  Even if I’ve out-leveled almost everyone by now, I’m still not getting much respect, just laughter . . . There was, of course, a very good reason why everyone laughed so much. It turned out I wasn’t actually fighting a zombie.

  It was . . . ummm . . . Uhhh . . . Errrrr . . .

  First, before I tell you . . . please don’t laugh at me, okay?

  Everyone else laughed at me, and if you also laughed at me, I’d be the first villager to produce ghast tears. (Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing, though. I could sell them.)

  Okay, the zombie was . . . a practice dummy.

  It wasn’t even a good dummy. As everyone stared at the dummy, the dummy’s right arm—which was a piece of fencing—fell off.

  A poorly crafted dummy, with only one arm. I was defeated by this.

  How pathetic . . .

  “Steve? When will we fight real zombies?” asked Sara.

  “Yeah,” said a boy named Pebble. “Real zombies move, you know? And . . . don’t have arms that fall off.”

  Steve sighed.

  “I know,” he said. “I know. I’m . . . working on it. You guys need to fight real mobs, not . . . this,” he said, glancing at the dummy.